The Unquiet Awakening

Of what avail is an open eye,
if the heart is blind?

For more context: Daniel Kendall's blog

the ashes came in clouds -
they fell like snow
all about this infant planet
filled with illuminated creatures
searching for a light
that would meet it
at its fervent intensity

The cold of the stream took over my body's flow; I was washed over, rising with its swelling, sinking as it pulled itself closer to its pebbly underbelly. When the body of water and mine became in sync, I woke up to the amazement of feeling: it was as if I had returned to the familiarity of the womb of my mother's, of my own! The beauty of the surrounding energy greeted as I flowed downstream. The earthy dirt, and fair-faced trees, and aged stones all spoke, and tears began forming at my heart, curdling at something close to Awe. When my heart felt full of this - this nurtured knowing that I no longer fear Loving as fully as I want to love and a capability to be without expectation or resentment, I became open - and the tears released into the Mother-body that holds me. I no longer had control, I no longer expected self-worth - only this soft knowing of universal connectedness leading me to a love of all persons, beings, fantasies, words. It lead me to my tenderness, the child-like grief; she resides gently in me. And within that, a joy of all heaviness, lightness, unfeeling, explosions of want, jealousy, anger, sweetness - my heart felt it all, and I felt the radiance of my Being achieving this incredible spectrum of simple humanity. I sobbed loudly from the depths of my heart, and from that place, I laughed vibrantly into the canopy highs of our trees, and maybe further than that, maybe I reached the heavens. The earth breathe from my pores, and the roots of the fauna is my hair, and the water was my menstrual flow. When this subsided, the glow of feeling everything tucked underneath my skin, and I rose out of the stream, like a goddess sampling a fine universe.

I felt others grasping onto trees, watching my explosions of feeling, appreciating me, and I loved them. My big brother was walking by as I rose from the stream. I beckoned him towards me and holding his hands I felt him feel me and I laughed, because it tickled everywhere. I loved him as he continued.

I felt my lover's eyes gaze heavily down at me from his tree. Eagerly, I approached him, and feeling his heavy heart, I wrapped my arms around his backside.

My love,
our breath was hot
your cheek felt bark
and I felt the roughness
that is your cheek -
and we wonder at all the hurt -

My body trembled on yours -
the foundation of your support
was this gosling tree
mine is the hope of your carcass,
filled with the light of your spirit
that will never be wholly
accessible to my vibrant love

I cried,
I love you, I love you

and we trembled
and cried at this breathtaking hurt

Reborn
into a world
in which
I am Seen
I am Felt
I am Loved
We are children born of fire