#MicroPoetry|February ’22 Reflections

Anointing is a sacred act. It marks a liminal moment. It connects the present with both the past and the future. The act reminds us of the very real significance of the choices me make right now regarding that which we create and the stories we choose to tell.

This aspect of the spiritual journey is humbling and inviting. It recognises both the insignificance of a life of complacency and the powerful implication if we choose to be agents who begin to seed tomorrow today.

The interesting thing about the spiritual journey is the reality that often it is not the goal or destination that propels wonder and learning. It is in the passage of the in-between time where much is revealed to us. Whether that is learnings hard fought or teachers who appear for a moment of a lifetime.

How we trace the journey, whether through milestones or mile markers, we are invited to be present each moment upon the path. To recognise the unexpected and savour the everyday. This is a blessed pursuit that I hope brings us joy.

There are many ways in which we learn. Whether through mentors, teacher and elders. Through the seasons and rhythms of life led with intention. Or natures barriers and passages, each of these offer us paths toward awakening and enlightenment.

One of those natural teachers are the waterways we traverse. Whether the creek in the back 40, the lake where a Loon sings, or coursing rivers and bellowing seas, water speaks directly to our very being.

As you consider water as an elder in your own journey, about which lessons are you reminded?

I am always grateful for the younger people in my life. Their creativity is often in conversation with their doing. Whether that’s an emergent idea that finds itself drawn, built or knitted, they are in the constant act of creating.

We all would do well to recall and reclaim this capacity. Without the doing, the acting, dreams that are left unfulfilled too often lead to cynicism and apathy.

As you consider that which is inviting you to create, what is one initial step you will take to begin that act today?

On day of the writing of this Verse, Russia began an illegal and horrendous invasion of Ukraine. I do not know what the future looks like with this rending of the stability that we have all enjoyed since the end of the Second World War.

What I do know is that we have choice and agency in the midst of that which we cannot control. We can let that go and simply be caught up in change’s sometimes turbulent emergence. Or we can be reminded that we can model the calm centre of peace amid a maelstrom in which there is hurt and harm.

The human capacity to not only endure, but resiliently thrive amid difficulty never fails to inspire. Whether such fortitude is nurtured or a product of nature, it requires, nonetheless, us to make a choice.

This choice, as with any that arises from intention, can lead to not only ‘staying afloat’ in the tempest, but recognising wonder and joy. This may be just one of many paradoxes that are revealed upon the spiritual journey. In caring for ourselves, in challenging times, therefore, it is also possible for us to see beauty. In the act of that recognition, we begin stepping toward a centred calmness during the storm.

In our individualised western culture, we often isolate ourselves from one another. This can lead to a perception that knowing oneself is an individual task and that awakening and wisdom are contained only within and by us.

It has been my experience, however, that meaning and wisdom require dialogue, not a monologue. Though we each have inner work to do and explore to live into the blessing we each are, that cannot be done in isolation. Nurturing relationships with others and Creation is central to the Bard’s adage ‘to thine own self be true.’

In the midst of gratitude and despair, joy is always present. If we are not open to this, we must recommit to never letting the simple act of happiness leave us. This central characteristic to the spiritual journal is key to recognising the awe that beauty reveals. In the place of awe, our sense of self enters the paradox of being both small and interconnected to infinity. In the moment of laughter, smiling, joy opens us to this central truth that all is light and we are a part of the Universe’s illumination.