Birch Island Books

Last night’s rain drips still from the living roof onto the front step.
Sgiobalta is woofing in her sleep.
Max dozes between my feet.
Coffee drips.
Sky lightens.

Val rustles,
Grace gets up briefly and stumbles back to bed.

The heat comes on briefly, and the fridge, and now the coffee maker is hissing its way to life.

The fog is thick enough to hold the colors of leaves as daylight seeps its way in.
Soon enough.
Soon enough.

I am grateful for this time of stillness and isolation.
I am grateful for peace and plenty.
I am grateful for the companionship of good dogs.

I am grateful to the Great Spirit of Love and Mystery
and the gods of my ancestors.

All woods are One Wood
from the first.

Do you do this as well?
Focus on a sensation in the moment and then after the moment and then after the day to try to set the memory?

Good luck to both of us.

Good morning, friends.

I meander on traditional Koas Abenaki lands.

In the hermitage, every hour is the right hour for prayer,
every hour has its miracle
every hour has its peace.

Autumn has properly settled in
with its miracle
and its peace.

So, so quiet that the ringing has even slowed.
Wondrous.

They wore long, blowing dresses (linen?) like Edwardian ladies and their picnic blanket was spread just so.

There were two baskets, large, brought full of good things like pies and wine. The grass was soft. There were other people, but they were secondary, no matter how I tried to make them equal.

They picnicked in their sunny meadow beside a small brook. The sparkling water traveled from there down to stream and river and finally to the sea, but in a leisurely manner.

Across the brook, a woods and a cabin. I have no idea why the door was red. The cabin, however, was my hermitage. Still and perfect and unmarred by the worldly though it was very much of the world in the woods.

I wore purple and carried my own basket to share, about to step onto the bridge of stones across the brook. Or not to. The plan was set, but the footstep had not yet been taken.

I like carrying out a few things at a time to burn. Little fires daily seem to be much more my style than letting things accumulate.

Now I believe.

Prayers and patience and practice
and talking in images
and words
and deeds
and heart and mind.

Keep preparing the ground with stories and good works
and music for singing
and music for dancing.

Let the storm come,
hold tight to the companions,
hold tight to Freedom.

And today, with every fiber of my being,
I believe.

She is alive.

Right there.

In the mirror.

I had not seen Perseus before,
but tonight is cloudless and free of human light-clutter:
I see him, stalking the Camelopard, reaching for Andromeda.

I can see by his reaching
and by Pegasus’ leap
where she falls.

More stories, please.

Just a little at a time.
My words changing just a little at a time.
The rhythm of day and night changing just a little at a time.

And yet by trades the size of these, we men and women die.

(hat tip to Emily Dickinson)

I can imagine a hundred acts of courage which might have been the seed of your story.
I will keep trying to tell them.

For now, we beg you to fill your agents on Earth with Justice, Mercy, Lovingkindness, Strength. Heal this rift between the ideal and the terrible acts and the fear and frustration. Remind each of our officers of peace who they can be.

And bring them safely home.