Tag: risk

My feet

My feet are sore,

Too long standing,

Too long waiting for change,

For direction, for a road.

Heel scoring thin grooves,

Shifting loose grit,

Exposing the ancient solid,

Chasing the hard cracks,

To unexpected places,

Long time baked brittle,

resistant to gentle softening,

But friable, daring a stamp to shatter.

Still waiting, not risking the blow,

Not sure what lies beneath,

What might be revealed,

Wrapped in roots of whatever grows,

Whatever we allow to grow.

My feet are sore,

Too long standing.

Too long balancing the options,

Foot to foot, toe to toe.

Feeling the blow, the punch, the slap.

Facing the challenge,

uncomfortable on my soles.

Curling, rolling, bending,

in anticipation, in waiting,

To stand un-moveable in my place.

As the air moves around me singing,

Pushing and provoking.

My feet are sore,

Too long standing.

I’m still waiting, waiting for myself.

Waiting.

I know I should be moving,

Stirring the earth into new ways,

Painting fresh paths with my momentum.

But I fear the cracking ground,

I fear the hardness and it’s brittle future.

I fear the roots that rise and twist and catch,

Me.

I fear me.

My feet are sore,

Too long standing.

Finding…

Finding is only the end,

It’s the aching arrival,

The ceasing exhale,

The stretching of never.

Feeling the blood pool,

The earth creep up tired limb,

Sit they say, sit.

But there is peace in the in-between,

In the swing between planting,

Foot after foot.

Peace in the movement,

Peace in the progress,

Peace in the stretch.

There is peace in not knowing what comes next,

Only that next is inevitable,

Next is coming.

Next is yours.

Peace is in the search not only the finding.

Stand in the gap

Stand in the gap,

When they want to force you to take up an extreme, refuse.

When they want to you to be polarised, refuse.

When they want you to ignore the complexities and conundrums of life, refuse.

Instead stand in the gap where the real people stand.

Where the people who do not want to be pushed or defined by others insecurities and obsessions stand.

Stand where the subtle colours shift and shine, where the deep and generous patterns flow.

Stand with the thinkers and dreamers, the survivors and strugglers, the lovers and yearners, the busy and distracted, the confused and the searching, the poets and the prophets.

Plant your feet in the shifting sand and stand with the ordinary and extraordinary.

Stand while the edges shout their insults and slogans, their extremism and their intransigence.

Stand whilst they shout themselves to a deafened standstill in their fear and their anger.

Stand in the place of humility and love,

Stand in the place of unknown adventure,

Stand in the place of wonder and expectation,

Stand in the place of the God of desert and river, of exile and pilgrimage, of birth and rebirth, of love and sacrifice.

Stand as an invitation to others to stand there too.

Friends

Through the pleated folded shroud,

My personal projection,

I look upon the polished crowd.

Souls with a connection.

To seek a ricochet of me,

See an image bouncing back,

to paint my picture primary,

In contrast to the black.

More richly saturated,

Not my tired and beaten frame,

No more worn or torn or faded,

By doubts I chose to name.

A dream that flutters, spins, wheels,

Blown by the mornings cast,

Try to catch it, grasp the real,

hold on and make it fast.

And if I look at them I see,

If I can only dare,

The best of who I’m made to be,

A future me we share.

(Nb. Rhyme is really not my strong point!)

Unplanned dreaming

An opportunity embraced as we sat on the hill with cigar and cognac. This was the beginning of a conversation. It was a gift we didn’t expect. A street table ringed by dreamers, sketching possibilities and parties. The steps and avenues coming to life around us as we sat under the sacred heart. A gathering of misfits merging from cheap hotel rooms and packed cars. The plans had been lost somewhere along rural rail tracks and we were free. Free to share stories and find common energies amongst the night life of Paris. So many years ago now, but such an important time. Troubadours and story tellers, God speakers and pioneers, partners and priests forming new worlds, moving in the neon shadows and giving birth to something still growing. As the trains stood still paths were woven together momentarily and then off in new directions, setting sail across oceans spiritual and physical, reshaping institutions and sending others on pilgrimages of their own. The drinkers and smokers, the prophets and poets that sat together that evening became friends and collaborators. We’ve sung and celebrated together, we’ve painted and written, we’ve changed laws and reimagined the future, we’ve dreamt of heaven and seen it on earth. For all of that and moments shared I thank you.

Picture : https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosz/

New year prayer

I don’t make new year resolutions, I don’t believe in saving up change for one day a year…

So my prayer is that whenever the need for change happens in your life you will find the courage and the confidence to make it! May you be surrounded by people who love you for who you are not what you give to them or what you might become. May you have friends who want to journey with you and who allow you to journey with them. May you know when to jump in and take risks and go on adventures. May you know when to be still and to be in the stillness. May you know what to give up because it drains you and what to pick up because it gives you energy. I pray that the next four seasons will flow with blessing, learning, grace and love for you and those you love.

The year of the poets and the prophets

This could be the year of the poets and the prophets.

Why not?

The politicians and profiteers have failed us, the powerful have had their way.

We’ve bowed down to the fear-mongers and fat-cats, who’ve divided us and made it pay.

This could be the year of the poets and the prophets, the artists and the authors, the makers and the movers, the strange and the sublime.

Through them old songs can be reborn and new storylines be told.

Through them there’ll be a place for poetry to fill and shift the soul.

They could paint the future rich in colours still not mixed,

and speak the whispered love language of heaven in our midst.

Could they teach us to abandon the desperate greed for power,

And seek a simple beauty in the patterns of a flower.

To stand and watch the sea breathe deep against the broken land,

And the whitening of the knuckles as we hold another’s hand.

Could this be a year of art, of story, verse and song,

Of the dreams in colourful compassion we’ve painted for so long.

A year of risk and possibility, of creativity and love.

Of tales and tunes that tell of hope and launch us high above.

To look upon this world we walk with eyes that see the new.

So let the poets weave their spells and the prophets speak of you.

Icarus

Icarus was a fool,

Who would not learn or listen.

They tried to teach him properly,

To never fly too high,

to play within the lines,

To keep to the boundaries,

know where the danger lies.

To stay in the safety zone,

and not exceed his limits.

“Don’t reach too high,

or push beyond the edge”, they cried.

But Icarus the fool refused

He flew on wings of wax,

And sought the sun.

He risked the greatest fall of all.

To fly so high and then to die.

Does that make Icarus a fool?