Living Like A Mystic

Sometimes I don't blog because I have nothing to say.

Sometimes I don't blog because I have too much to say.

The past few days have been because of the latter.

Delighting in a whirlwind of life, I find myself both inspired and exhausted, bursting with things to share yet having no words to offer.

I've been delving into a now-favorite book, The Artist's Rule by Christine Valters Painter.  Today, I share with you a poem from that book - part as explanation for my absence,

part as invitation for your own exploration. 

I Am Going To Start Living Like A Mystic

Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater

and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall.

The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field,

each a station in a pilgrimage - silent, pondering.

Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies

are the ciphers of a secret, an occulation.

I will examine their leaves as pages in a text

and consider the bookish pigeons, students of winter.

I will kneel on the track of a vanquished squirrel

and stare into a blank pond for the figure of Sophia.

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs

as if my whole future were constellated upon it.

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,

a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.

-Edward Hirsch

Namaste.