Sipping Tea with Buddha and Christ : Thirty-Three

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

Thirty-Three

As I breathe in Belize I relinquish the impetus to cling to familiar. Drifting here - thirty-three shades of green staring back at me through the bus window. The humidity reminding me I am alive. I can't say with any definitive certainty where I come from nor where I will arrive. The river bends around my fingers. The banana leaves and palm trees stand still against the sky, shouting 'Gracias A Dios".

All I can think of is a softer world; one where suffering fades like the stars into a cloudy night; where equality and integrity drive the social engine. And that's all crazy, that's crazy right?

Today, on this 16-hour journey from here to there, sitting beside strangers who feel familiar, holding familiarities that now somehow feel strange - I think I'll choose this dream for awhile. We are more than a collection of staggering minutes in the same hour. Today if never again, let time be witness to change, even if only for the revolution in my mind.

I offer this prayer to the Caribbean sea...

"Might we all have days when we lose ourselves so completely that we find ourselves anew, awake and alive; willing to offer love and grace to all those who cross our paths."

A. Leigh

A Bit about Me

For all the times when words seem the only way to share the matters of my heart, I have this blog. Mostly I'm a humanitarian, just a writer from time-to-time, a hopeless romantic too. I'm newly married to the most amazing woman, hence the shared title of "mother" of 3 dogs, 2 cats, triplet Nigerian goats, a duck called Walter, and enough hens not to name. My first work of creative non-fiction, Sipping Tea with Buddha and Christ was published in July, 2013. I contribute monthly to Upgraded Living Magazine and when the muse arrives, to this blog. You can catch me on KZFR 90.1 on certain Thursdays. I teach at CSUC and spend the rest of my time running a sweet little Foundation called North Valley Community Foundation (www.nvcf.org) whose mission is kindred to my own - to do the good we can while we can, when grace allows it. I'd love to hear from you. Contact me through Facebook anytime.
With love.

Mother's Womb

On The Shores of Lago De Atitlan

And so this journey began
a million sunrises before
my mother's womb,
when paved roads were dust
and cities - mudhuts.
Centuries before 'This',
and before 'That' too.
But please don't think for a moment
not even the lesser of a second,
that I might dress up words
and speak on such a matter

"Gracias a Dios" I know the better.
So, let me return to the beginning
for that's how this story begins.
It was a million sunrises before my mother's womb,
and I can say one thing for certain-
something, somewhere was born,
and it birthed another.
And another.
And somewhere on this path towards forever,
sometime between
(perhaps during spring)
we each appeared.
Here.
Where this collective dream took form.

[Resting on the shores of Lago De Atitlan. '03]