Water flows,
unconcerned,
as winds,
and currents,
and tides,
and the pull of the Earth
guide it onward.

How simple
it would be
if we flowed
that effortlessly,
following awareness
where it leads.

After this body dies,
will “I” continue on?

Perhaps this consciousness
which sees through my eyes
is like a drop of water,
separated for a while
from its mother,
the sea.

When it returns,
dissolving back
into its original home,
will it retain
the thoughts and stories
that are “me”?

Or will it all melt away,
yielding its identity
to the universal?

This is my prayer:
if I am but a drop
in this ocean,
may I do what I can,
while I remain in this body,
to purify this bit of water
that is me,
this little piece of Everything,
which is my lasting gift.

I have been living in a dream
where I am always on the verge
of being right
or being wrong,
walking the razor’s edge
of triumph,
or disaster.

And then,
as I awaken,
it all blows away,
like so much smoke,
and I am resting,
comfortably,
in emptiness.

There will come a time
when I am dead and gone,
and all that will remain of me
are the memories I leave behind.

As I sit at this keyboard,
on the shore of a digital sea,
I pause, like a castaway,
as I toss my bits and bytes
into these streams and tides of data,
and consider:
is THIS how I would choose
to be remembered?

There’s a skeleton
inside each of our bodies,
and an angel
in each of our hearts.

With much gratitude
to Venerable Amy Miller

Life can feel
like an angry sea,
wave upon wave
throwing us onward,
across its roiling surface.

And what if we could meet each wave
as would a happy surfer,
greeting it as the perfect wave,
offering the ride of a lifetime?

What would we balance on,
on the surfboard of our dreams,
if not the openness of our hearts,
and the fearless intention
of our minds and spirits?

Empty and open,
I am nothing
I thought I was,
nothing I could be,
or should be.

I am nothing
but an empty canvas
for life’s brush
to paint on,
a blank slate
for its song
to be sung,
its dance
to be danced.

I am not the person
I may be expected to be.

Peeling away the layers
of who I am not,
the urge to please
and appease
slowly drop away.

I have tried
to smooth my edges
to fit the shapes
I thought
my world wanted.

I did not see
that my map of it
was of my own imagining,
that what truly fits
into its shifting tapestry
is itself constantly changing,
part of its flow.

There is a place
in this big world
for everything
to be what it is,
to find its own shape,
fluid and dynamic,
without trying
to be otherwise.

Looking back
with a clear and open mind,
I see the little flies of anger
that have buzzed around me
for most of this life.

I have been mad at the world,
frustrated by a million minutiae
that fell short of my expectations,
the little slights and omissions
that did not meet my standards.

How silly it now seems,
to have spent so much energy and time
on a thousand little battles with them,
when, from a place of truer seeing,
I know that they were merely imagined,
figments of a fevered ego,
a petulant dictator,
foiled at every turn.

How much more peaceful now,
how much more full of joy,
to be in this world as it is,
that old swarm of petty annoyances
fading into so much smoke.

I walked on the moon. What can’t you do?

We are rarely constrained
by what has happened,
as much as by
what we believe
is possible.