Tuesday, June 5th, 2006

I know how it goes. Some days you are on top of the clouds and everyone understands you. The Universe is reading your mind and you know all that your heart desires will be provided. You just “know” that you will be blessed and that you will always have kindred spirits by your side.

But that isn’t every day for all of us. For many of us, if not all, there are other days. The days when every eye is empty, when it seems that there isn’t someone who could read your mind even if it were written across your forehead. On those days a cloud passes over the sun and casts a shade on even the brightest things in your life. And even if you have learned to weather the storms by lighting a candle, planting a rose, having a cup of deeply nurturing tea by the window…there are still the moments it gets to you. You wonder if you will ever be understood and if anyone ever means a thing they say. You wonder if you ever do find the ultimate port in the storm, will it be just you there? Are you the only one who knows?…

On those days it seems that the beings and the angels have other things to do, that they can’t hear you through the glass of your doubt. I can’t quantify what I am about to tell you, and I will only be able to prove it to you when we meet in heaven, but you are not the only one…and you will not end up alone. Right now, while you don’t know it, the beings and the universe of love are conspiring together in secret meetings to get you more love, more passion, more joy. They are trying to figure out how to put you in the path of the showers of blessings that rain goodness everywhere…they are trying to put you in front of the love of your life, or your next best friend, or keep you there if you are already. They are conspiring over how to get you some more money so that you can fulfill your dreams and live a creatively free life.

They are finding ways to drop signs in your path to remind you of how fantastically brilliant and beautiful you are. They are trying to make the colors brighter and the tastes sweeter, and if you have been in the darkest of places they are trying to give you warm blankets and hot soup to get you back on your feet. We may not understand the pain until it is gone, but there is only one remedy in the meantime and it is faith. It is all that helps a broken heart when new reasons to love haven’t come yet. And even when our hearts are not broken, just heavy and lonely in this often-alien human world, faith is something that grows between the cracks in the concrete. It isn’t something that we can force, it is something that forces its way through those hard places and gives us oxygen when we are just about to give up.

There are so many things in this world that ask us to harden. They sing the same song over and over again, telling us to close down and never open up again…but we have a stronger song within us…more ancient and more true, that is always begging us to fly, to try, to risk, to rise. Sometimes we have to tell ourselves a little white lie, until it isn’t one anymore, and everything really is going to be alright. Better, in fact. Everything is going to be grand, by nature, and sooner or later, whatever hurts or loneliness you’ve experienced, life is going to find just the right thing to sweep you off your feet again. There are others. Keep walking forward, they are already coming toward you now.

Saturday, May 27th, 2006

Goddess, give me the strength of a wild rose,
to be free with my elegance in any place,
not to need perfect conditions,
simply to extend my fragrance to all who meet me,
without fear.

Jennifer Luna Posada

I have a ritual every spring. I don’t force it. The best rituals come out of desire. I pick and string wild rose buds. They stick to my fingers and leave a heavenly smell that won’t wash away. They fill me with joy without room for anything else. The other things which might have snagged my thoughts for the day have to bow and take leave when I am picking rose buds.

Once I wo-manned a booth at an expo and brought with me an entire brown bag full and just sat there stringing them, this bounty in the folds of my skirt. People kept smelling the air, looking in all directions to find out where that amazing fragrance came from. Because it doesn’t quite come from a bottle. Just like the deepest essence of our beauty can not be recreated. It must be revealed authentically from within us.

Sometimes with think we must reserve it for only special occasions. The problem with that is that life is a special occasion, and even the most special parts are not something we should wait for, bottling up our beauty, but something we create by allowing it.

A few weeks ago I opened my car door by a wild rose bush, and, seeing the rose hips, had a moment of panic that perhaps the rose season had passed while I was so busy doing other things. I thought that I had lost track of those precious weeks when they bloomed and missed my chance because of it. I felt so sad, but only for a moment. Then I realized that I was looking at last year’s rose hips, and that the new roses hadn’t even begun to show themselves yet.

If you are looking at your life and seeing last year’s rose hips, just remember a few things. One is that the rose hip represents the rose’s most evolved state, rich with vitamins and minerals. Maybe brew yourself some rose hip tea. Then remember that the rose hips just signify part of a cycle and that the blossoms will always come again. No matter what part of the cycle you are in, celebrate it and know in your heart that you are preparing for a new spring and a new frangrance in your life. Await the buds with expectant hope. It is never too late.