Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
​so He also loves the bow that is stable.

    - Kahlil Gibran

​If I began the story in the middle
you might be able to smell the nixtamal, the earthy lime
of corn masa, and the tortillas rising on the comal, warm
hands flipping them into being. You might be able to feel
the spot where my long golden ribbon pierces the crust
of the Earth, thrust down through oceans and tectonic plates
even before they were dreamed into existence, looped
and woven into the shape that holds it all into place. You might hear
the rushing of feathers slicing air as thousands of angels fall
through the gap in space that birthed it all into view, each one
bringing a thread to the weaving of life, the matrix of this new world.
You might smell the smoke of the tlecuil, the oven in which life
is cooked into living, matter kneaded into feeling, formed
and pressed with fingers, breathed upon, gazed upon, made
to be something new, something transformed
from nothing to this. And here we live now, in the whole
of creation, remembering, forgetting,
and remembering again, nestling into the weft
of the fibers, yearning to be touched
by her hands again.

​ - Emily Grieves

I commend my Spirit unto the Grace of the Great Way
Whether consciously or not,
this has always been the doorway to liberation.

All you lovers of truth
And all you true lovers
I tell you, now is the time to be done with it
Wash your battle-scarred hands in this Presence among us

Cast off your warrior clothing, and slip into your night slippers
Untie your hair or cut it off
The Holy One is present
And doesn’t care where you’ve been
Or what you’ve done
Or what you are doing now

Commend all of yourself - body, mind and spirit - to this Grace
And then, slip out into the night air, into the
waiting
quivering
birth
of this Golden Heart

Lean down now, like wet green grass
and kiss the bottoms of your feet.

​    - Adyashanti

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

    -Joy Harjo

if music is the sound of fingertips 
hitting a jug 
in which someone once 
carried water

mother 
what purpose 
in my growing beyond
your dream of my birth?

many times i’ve watched you 
have it, the dream in the garden 
where i emerge:

an old wooden clothespin 
with cornsilk hair

you clip me to your breast then, 
as if to jumpstart it

and after    throw me away 
for a reason i have not yet figured out

mother i was born with a body 
thickly settled, dense 
as a pomegranate

not a fruit steeped in the syrup 
it will taste of

i was already hard 
with the things 
i had selected for myself

inside you i was 
choosing and discarding
without lifting
a finger, i was 

like the girl
in the department 
store, deciding what 
to steal
​
    - Francesca Preston