The painting blesses me through the night.  It knows me.  It doesn’t say much but it breathes everything.

I rest on my back … feeling the sky.  The arms are limp, the hands open.  The fingers are unfurled, revealing a palm that welcomes everything.  All the “good” stuff and all the “bad”.  Please come here, precious life.

I am buoyed up from below.  So many hands from all my years are lifting me.  I am asked to see the vista that is given.

The yellow shines through.  It brightens my bones and invites my skin to glow.  Every fiber of Bruce is massaged by an artist’s loving hands.

There is nothing to do in this world of night.  In my sighing I breathe in and out through the wee hours.  And then I’m greeted by the first light of morning.

The woman I have fallen in love with doesn’t want to walk that path with me.  (Sigh)

She has been with men who have tried to control her, and she lost the essence of herself with them.  And she’s afraid that she might hurt my soul if we were together.

It’s so quiet as I let these words wash over me.  There is something sacred hanging in the air, far broader than the journeys of two human beings.  There is an opening to the mystery that is love.

Right now I do not know.  The tomorrows will probably be as uncertain … and I smile at the thought.  I am being taken aloft by the wings of tenderness, tossed and turned in a dark sky.

Sarah McLachlan, in her song Angel, nuzzled my life this morning – the loss of touch, of looking into, of sighing together:

There's always some reason
To feel not good enough 
And it's hard at the end of the day

Oh, this human life is so often hard!  We do our best to be happy and sometimes demons come knocking on our door.  All of us.

Sarah again:

In the arms of the angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear

What if it’s all like this, forever and ever?  Reaching out to touch the sublime, and the fingertips just falling short.  We want to be warmed and to have marvelous paintings adorning our walls.  What if that never comes to pass?

And yet there is this:

Oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

***

Life is so big

There is so much we don’t know

Bring on all the Tuesdays, all the Fridays … all that will unfold

There is a loss today.  The truth will emerge in these posts in the days to come but now is the time to be with something that is leaving.

It’s quiet and sad here.  And still.  I’m abiding with what is so, like sitting on a park bench together, saying a few things but mostly passing popcorn back and forth in silence.

Life is sagging now, with no scaffolding to keep me erect and solid.  And so I fall …

It’s a falling backwards, eyes closed, with somehow a tiny smile on my face.  As I drift down, some presence is there to catch me, cushioning me to the ground.

Something precious is lingering, in no hurry to go anywhere.  There’s a stretching outwards and a gentle return, being held within a shining oval ring.

Now I’m stepping, without a skip or a dance, but still in the flow of rolling somewhere.  I wonder what’s beyond the sweet clouds.

I just figured it out!  The sun is resting serenely behind the whiteness.  And it’s happy to stay.

When it’s close, what I behold is large.  I can see the brushstrokes, feel the artist.  I’m there with the creation … cheek-to-cheek, feeling their breath.

Let’s go for the front row seat, right in the middle.  The cellist and pianist are only steps away, sharing glances and smiles and the runs of the melody.  Beads of sweat lie within reach.

Brick walls ask to be touched.  “Please come here so I can show you my secrets.”  No standing back, observing, evaluating.

Twenty people at a concert, not twenty thousand.  Shoulder to shoulder with lovers of tunes and songs.  The glass of wine just a reach away.  The walls hugging us as they cradle the sound.

Let’s feel the train from Ghent rather than the plane from Brussels.  Paris two hours away, Amsterdam three, London four.

***

Having it all be here

Letting go of there

I was showering just now when the voice came through: “There is something small in Ghent that wants to be shared.  Find it.”

Okay.

***

Now it’s hours later.  An image came into my head of a statue inset into a brick wall – Mother Mary and Jesus.  I’ve wandered there many times and felt my eyes lift to the love.

Mother and child are on Karmelietenstraat in the Patershol, only two minutes from me.  They watch over us – locals and tourists – as we pass by.  I expect most of us don’t feel the blessing.  Perhaps the beauty of the cobblestones takes us, or the daily grind is grinding us down.

Mary and baby Jesus don’t analyze the quality of the visitors.  All are loved … languages, personalities, ages, clothing choices, sexual orientations.  “Come close everyone.”

Karmelietenstraat is also small.  One could say “ordinary” but I think not.  What are those cobbles saying?  Who is the woman walking away?  Does she bleed like me?  Does she cry and laugh and fall to sleep in the wee hours?  Yes.

Distances dissolve.  The world of solid things crumbles at the edges.  The lines of separation disappear as the Karmelietenstraat glows.

“It’s just a wall,” someone says.  No … that’s not true.  There are secrets inside.  Sometimes small.  Always vivid.

***

And now it’s time again to go out and see what’s there

Look at the colours in the sun.  So bright and delicious.  This is what I want.  Even the whiteness of the bowl speaks of purity.  Surely this is home.

So elegant.  So festive.  So sweet.

Consider as well the vessel of yogurt and granola.  This one is made of glass and allows us to peer inside … a bit.  It holds vanilla and flakes and berries.  It too has its beauty.  It has its place in the centre of things.

Which one will enter my mouth?

Which one will I roll on my tongue?

***

I choose the second

I choose the unknown beauty that takes time to be revealed

I choose the diving in, the swimming around

The treasure at the bottom of the ocean

***

There is a wideness and a fullness that calls me

I know not why

I must obey