Wishing You Love and Peace this New Year’s Day and All Year Long!

Embrace grace
when it appears as an unexpected guest
on your doorstep.
Welcome whatever softens your armor
helping you to remember the promise of redemption
from a thousand failings to love.

Oh that friend in disguise.
That sudden storm
lashing your roses,
rattling the windowpanes,
the one that brought you
to your knees
finally scraped raw
to your layer of tenderness.

You just can’t go back.
No longer are you able
to ignore the call
to worship the ordinary.

All your prayer mats and lit candles
in domestic and foreign
sanctuaries
seamlessly shape shifted
into the sing song voices of your grandchildren
the call of the lone loon over the lake
the soaring shooting stars in moonless skies
and in that deep well of silence
like the hush
of evening snowfall.

You thought it was complicated.
Had to slog through muck and mire
cup your hands around rough edged begging bowls
walk through the dusty streets in your tattered rags…

No.

Listen.
The crickets have started up
creating your stairway to the Gods….
The bellowing bullfrogs are inviting you
to the water’s edge
to see into your very own reflection.
Can you recognize the majesty
that has been there all along
lying in wait for you?

A small brass statue of Quan Yin
the goddess of compassion found in many Asian spiritual traditions
sits on the countertop on a wooden tray
with nine other identical figures

I wonder what it might be like
to be her helper
dispatched with invitations
to sit still
open
and allow the perceived confines of the heart
to expand
embrace the dissolution
from being shattered
by the 10,000 sorrows
and still rise
holding on to
nothing
able to dispense calming winds that cover the earth
reach into dark corners and still
carry the world
tenderly.

“Don’t just strike the bowl,” the teacher says.
“Invite the bowl to sing.”

I pick up the striker and offer a silent
invitation.

hand
wood
metal

The sound rings out
vibrations floating through the air.
Will it signal my entrance
into the inner world?
Will it herald a new era
free from illusion?
Will it help me remember
I am made from light?