Into Afternoon and Beyond

At noon pockets of Watts Brook emerge from beneath tuffets of snow and I make notes for later. Fionnghuala points out a hawk and only after watching a few moments do I say - both in joy and amazement - "that's a golden eagle, honey." We track its broad arc not speaking until it's swallowed up, of view.

In my dream, Emily Dickinson's headstone radiates a thousand times a thousand shades of blue and gold, and I sit quietly crying in the luminous benison. Roadside maples age faster because of salt. We pause at the crab apple tree - take note of deer tracks in punky snow near its roots - and I resist the urge to kick down the realtor's sign fifty yards away. Fuck all commodification.

An abundance of prayer (broadly defined) heals many wounds, including the one that prohibits our acceptance of Love. We slip down the forest hill to get closer to the old stone walls in search of chipmunk tracks but it's too icy - the snow too crumbly - to find any. Ascending a woman's voice home. Not for the last time do I walk these trails wishing you - yes, you - walked beside me.

Mornings given now to choiceless awareness, the Gift expanding naturally into afternoon and beyond. Yesterday I watched a deer watch me across the river and felt again the related engines of hunger and fear. Always question survival.

More sunlight confuses dinner preparation and I find myself rushing to bake sweet potato fries, dress a chicken, roll out naan. Once we figure out - and, critically, accept - that nothing is happening to us that is not happening to everyone else, our separation from God is ended. How enticing - still! - the Heaven below.

Body as bluet, body as prism is just another method. C's note - unexpected and thus intimate - rendered the morning an old if familiar joy. We went all the way to M's farm - watched Herefords plod patiently through not-quite-mud-yet - and came home with our coats off, watched over by Turtle and his old effulgent shell.