all at once, fearful and bold

The trees against the night seem to form a wall around a nest, like spires atop a castle wall, and I am sure we are not the first to lie near each other as we fly;
to sleep, and to wake, on the wind. You are downy and, all at once, in mind and in flame, I am fearful and I am bold.

I would like to treat every day as if it were a vision quest. The people who cross my path will have wisdom for me, if I a can be careful enough to listen. There will be wisdom found within myself, if I can stop and look around long enough to find it. And there will be beauty all around me if I do not try to shape it with my own hands and if I let it approach me like a rainstorm. The ideas and people and notions and adventures that will enter my life will do so if I let them, and if I am open enough to the world around me, they will become a part of me.

That which is honest is beautiful, and that which is inspiring is simultaneously new and familiar.

I'm sitting in my room at this stolen hour - one that should belong to my sleeping self but which I am hijacking so that I might us it as time for meditation - and I'm thinking about the images of the seasons, and the unstoppable energy of life, and I'm listening to Bonnie "Prince" Billy and recognizing that some of the most beautiful music comes with the juxtaposition of utter sadness and utter joy. And are they really so different? I think perhaps not. And this is beautiful.