Taking our bearings

“To find out where we are, we gaze at the sunset,
Then the moon and stars.
We bring their images down to touch the sea,
And there we are: there,
At a certain time where straight lines intersect
On a chart––that’s you and I
In all this emptiness, the only two
In the world existing
Our way in this place. We can put our fingers
Surely on our uniqueness,
Call where-we-are what-we-are, letting it go
Finally that simply,
Saying again it’s only the beginning
Again, it’s only
The beginning of everything we always wanted
To do and know and be.
Bracing uncertain sea-legs, we breathe the salt
Of our own blood,
Pitching, heeling, and yawing with the unbreakable
Rules of this road,
And steer by constellations we needn’t measure,
Name, or number.
One must keep watch now while the other sleeps,
Each dreaming of sharing
Dreams like our food or, through a dreamless night,
Sleeplessly waiting
For daybreak, sharing the naked love of dreaming.
It will mean we’re becoming
Each other, replacing our dying mothers and fathers
And our own children,
Rocked in this wooden cradle of the deep,
By good dead reckoning
Leaving behind our streaming, luminous wake,
Sailing toward morning.”

~ David Wagoner

sailing toward morning

The loss of a great person . . .

Maya Angelou was the indigent child who reached the White House, the mute little girl whose indelible voice will echo through the centuries. The 86-year-old renaissance woman, an award-winning writer, poet, actress and witness to history, died quietly Wednesday morning at her home on the North Carolina campus of Wake Forest University.  An irreplaceable loss.

I know why the caged bird sings

“The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.”
Maya Angelou~

caged-bird

Power

You don’t have to save your country, your economic system, your house, your stuff, your religion, even your beliefs. You may wish to, but quite honestly these things are not eternal and the light within is where all of your power lies. It is where all if anyone ‘s power lies .

That’s what you protect in your children, in yourself, in your spiritually-minded circle of friends.

Through that inner divinity we will determine what is needed on the other side not only for human survival, but for the evolutionary leap that we are undertaking … – Ida Lawrence in The Warriors Way to Heaven on Earth

Dune-Walkway-to-Beach