Now I understand that there are two melodies playing,
one below the other, one easier to hear, the other

lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less heard
yet always present.

When all other things seem lively and real,
this one fades. Yet the notes of it

touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
of the names laid over each child at birth.

I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,

the telling is so soft
that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,

becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again
to hear the second music.
​
I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a heart.

​    - Annie Lighthart

And we know, when Moses was told
    in the way he was told,
"Take off your shoes", he grew pale from that simple

reminder of fire in the dusty earth.
    He never recovered
his complicated way of loving again

and was free to love in the same way
    the fire licking at his heels loved him.
As if the lion earth could roar

and take him in one movement.
    Every step he took
from there was carefully placed.

Everything he said mattered as if he knew
    the constant witness of the ground
and remembered his own face in the dust

the moment before revelation.
    Since then thousands have felt
the same immobile tongue with which he tried to speak.

Like the moment you too saw, for the first time,
    your own house turned to ashes.
Everything consumed so the road could open again.

Your entire presence in your eyes
    and the world turning slowly
into a single branch of flame.

    - David Whyte

I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by.  Or how strangers still say "bless you"
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague.  "Don't die," we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up.  Mostly, we don't want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it.  To smile
at them and for them to smile back.  For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now.  So far
from tribe and fire.  Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
have my seat,"  "Go ahead--you first,"  "I like your hat."

​    - Danusha Lameris

​We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced

WE HAVE COME

    - Jewel Mathieson

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