Embracing Life

Embracing Life

Today, this day, I can embrace 

every abundance 

large and small

thanks to the things

I've shed.

Like leaves falling one at a time

from an autumn tree, 

I have walked through 

this life shedding,

as each season desired,

what no longer made sense

for me to carry.

My burdens growing lighter 

with each passing year.

Why carry hurts 

and if-onlies?

Who needs 

 to strap bitterness

to her back and carry it around

until she is crushed 

from the weight of it?

Not the me, 

 I am in this moment.

I no longer keep walking 

into the same wall,

receiving the same wounds. 

I no longer loop around and around

until I'm dizzy from

getting nowhere.

I can walk with my back straight,

my neck craned to get a glimpse

of what adventure is around

the next corner.

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

Rock My World

Stone is the face of patience.       

Mary Oliver 

Even rocks have stories to tell,

deep old stories of time passing through eons, 

slow and fast moving water 

shape the stones over millennia. 

I have such a stone, ancient, from a creek bed in the Colorado Rockies. 

It fills my whole hand with its weightiness. 

Hefty. It feels hefty.

The color of dusky charcoal with white threadlike veins running around it,

tracing the paths of its life, telling the earth's story. But my stone has another story; the story of how it came into my life in the summer of 1982 during a family vacation through the west. 

My husband, our ten-year-old son and I had climbed an easy sloping mountain where we sat, all three of us, hushed by the beauty of it all, the vastness from on high. The only sound, the flapping of a bird's wings. We sat in awed silence for a while, we three, with our own thoughts before we made our way back down the mountain. Our son, always fearless, made it down way ahead of us. It seemed like we all were craving continued silence as we went our separate ways to explore the creek bed, remaining within sight of each other, but feeling no need to talk. 

The creek was lively, yet easy to navigate. As I waded the shallow waters, the rock caught my eye. It was sitting there alone, glistening, serene, tempting. I moved to pick it up, but hesitated for a second, not wanting to disturb it in its ancient bed. In the silence it seemed to call me; a connection on a cellular level that has stayed with us for 32 years.  

She's a good traveler. (I think of her as female.) There is always room for her in my suitcase. She went to Scotland with me where I picked up a couple of traveling companions, two pieces of green marble from Iona. On a tour of the Isle of Coll, we saw formations of gneiss, some of  the oldest rock on earth. I think she felt at home there. 

I look at her every day. I hold her every day. She  has been a silent witness to my journey. She's seen every emotion it's possible for a human to have. Sometimes I look to her for answers. She never has any. What she does have when I hold her in my hand is solidity. She takes me right back to that ancient silence, which gives me the space to be calm and focused. It's her never-ending gift to me. One that I never take for granted. 

The few steady influences in my life are very precious to me. She has been a most steadfast presence. She doesn't judge. She abides. 

Rebekah for the Poplar Grove Muse

Brand New Day

This Van Morrison song has long been an inspiration to me…

Brand New Day

Songwriter:  Van Morrison

When all the dark clouds roll away

And the sun begins to shine

I see my freedom from across the way

And it comes right in on time

Well it shines so bright and it gives so much light

And it comes from the sky above

Makes me feel so free makes me feel like me

And lights my life with love

Chorus:

And it seems like and it feels like

And it seems like yes it feels like

A brand new day, yeah

A brand new day oh

I was lost and double crossed

With my hands behind my back

I was longtime hurt and thrown in the dirt

Shoved out on the railroad track

I’ve been used, abused and so confused

And I had nowhere to run

But I stood and looked

And my eyes got hooked

On that beautiful morning sun

Chorus

And the sun shines down all on the ground

Yeah and the grass is oh so green

And my heart is still and I’ve got the will

And I don't really feel so mean

Here it comes, here it comes

0 here it comes right now

And it comes right in on time

Well it eases me and it pleases me

And it satisfies my mind

Here it comes right in time, the ferry to the Isle of Mull. Bringing a brand new day into my life. And when I step on that ferry, I know it is taking me home, to where I’m meant to be, maybe where I’ve always been.

As I stand on the upper deck in the misty rain, all the past abuse, hurt and confusion is blown off me. Washing me clean. Then, literally all the dark clouds roll away and the sun comes shining through. And I can see across the way. The gulls are hovering over the deck railing, their raucous calls seem to say, “Come on, come on. This is the right way!”

Everything seems so clear for the first time in my life. I am doing what I need to do; I am going where I need to be. I am showing up for MY life. My life, not someone else’s version of what they think my life should be. I’m writing my script now. Clean slate writing. It’s an adventure. Just show up and see what happens. How will I fit in here working at the Isle of Mull Hotel? Quite well. Will I make friends? Lifetime.

It feels good to be awake and not sleepwalking through life. There is a rhythm to the ferry’s engines. They are playing my tune. My spine is aligning to the pulse in the heart of the ferry.

I stand straighter, ready to meet what may come my way during my three months on Mull. I have had a two-week sojourn in Scotland as I traveled around looking for a job. And it feels like every step along the way has been guided to get md where a job would be waiting for me. The Scots are a mystical people and they appear when you need them the most to help you along your way. They never failed me. And then there were the crows that were always there, cawing when some synchronicity was about to happen.

The ferry is nearing the dock in Craignure where the manageress of the hotel is meeting me to introduce me to the staff and get me settled in my quarters. Outside my window is a rhododendron bush as tall as a house. I will keep a jar of its lush purple blossoms in my room for as long as they bloom in May, the first step to making this room my own.

On this brand new day I’m 49 years old and for the first time in my life I don’t feel like I need to be somewhere else. My gypsy soul has found its home.

Rebekah for The Poplar Grove Muse