Beginnings

There are those times in each of our lives, pivotal moments, when, if we are very still, listening with our whole being, pressing an ear down to the heart of the sacred, we can hear the shift of our lives. Some might refer to this as a paradigm shift, an "aha" moment. Whatever name we put to it, it is a call and can be a moment of awakening if we so choose.

Such a time for me began on an ordinary evening. It was a warm muggy night in late spring in the rolling hills of central Virginia. The mauve hue of the evening sky caught my attention as I passed the open window, returning from my bath. I stayed there, transfixed, watching the colors change from soft pinks and purples to shades of gray as evening moved silently across the vast expanse of the isolated land which was our farm. Evening became, for me, an ethereal entity spreading an illusory veil as it moved. I watched as, in its movement, the clear energy of sunlight was diluted by heather tones and gray areas quietening down the day, moving the earth's energy into night.

I sensed the sacredness of the scene unfolding before me, like witnessing the newly dead moving solemnly on to God. It was as though I had stumbled upon another world within this one, a timeless world. I felt at one with that energy, joined in a most primitive way to this mysterious force unfolding before me, pulled by a deep longing into its flow. Silent wonder was the only offering of worship I could add to the scene.

I don't know when the awareness came to me that the longing I was feeling was mine, but not mine. It was life's longing for itself, seeking expression through me, I realized. It was then I sensed a subtle shift of energy I knew intuitively as a question. But, asked of me by whom? Spirit? Creator? I know not. I know only that, in that moment, my entire being responded in the affirmative and I understood.

The longing I felt was life itself pulling me back into its flow. It struck me that it had been calling to me a long time, asking. I just hadn't been still long enough to listen. It was that vague restlessness which nagged at the edges of my busy days and pursued me through the dreams of my nights. Until this particular moment on this particular night I had dismissed these feelings and dreams as unimportant because they had no place in the world to which I had become accustomed, this world of mother and wife and to do lists.

It now had my complete attention and I was listening, raptly. This night was my moment of awakening. Awakened from what, you asked. I was being awakened from a dream, and it wasn't a bad dream. It just wasn't mine.


in this
house made of night
i stand,
daughter of this place.
spirit spreads
nebulous wings
enfolding me,
slipping upon
my consciousness
like new silk
gliding
softly down
over
the quiet curves
of my thoughts,
moving
within this darkness,
opening wide
shimmering eyes,
shedding truth
like
luminous tears
trickling down
across my thoughts,
saturating them
with its essence. spirit daughter