Wanting to Mingle

Laurie Duesing has a line in a poem that reads: Now I am rapt and looking for the still point between earth and air.

There is also the line: I want to drive spirit into flesh, a desire often confused with sex.

To me, living at Windgrove is an excercise in doing what Duesing writes about. Whether working on the land or simply meditating on the Breakfast deck, there is a felt energy associated with being “amongst the trees” on a daily basis that aids in this endeavour. The land is infused with spirit. The sacred and the profane mingle easily here. My role is to open myself up to all that is present. Some days this is easy.

However, there are those days when engaging is hard. It was only a few days ago that I went for my first swim since returning three weeks earlier from China. Something held me back from even walking down to the beach and mingling my toes with the sand. (The wave photo of two weeks ago was taken from the cliff top while sitting at the Drop Stone bench.)

Considering I recently surfed at Roaring Beach everyday, rain or shine, for over three years, I’m certain Freud or Jung would have a word or two to say about this. For me, though, the timing just didn’t seem right and it wasn’t until after Sally had arrived and settled in that the desire to enter those sometimes languid, sometimes turbulent waters of Roaring Beach returned. Now I am rapt once again.

Roll on life, roll on.

*********************

Wild and Blue

I want to be lifted, to meet the air
halfway—two reasons I can’t forget
that gospel singer in her sassy
middle age. The way she mixed
everything up: black hair, bleached
red; tacky expensive dress; that muddle
of church and sex. But when the voice
of the Lord said, Throw yourself into it,
she did: jumped right into the air
and screamed. I didn’t think a heavy woman
could get so far off the ground.

I want to rise under my own power
but the closest I’ve come
is the afternoon I threw myself
down on the ground and wept.
The scene was the woods and a person I loved.
That day, that place, that man
were not repeatable. Why wait, I thought
and gave into grief.
The ground folded around me. I could not talk
but as I listened,
the earth began to stutter.

Perhaps direction does not matter
but before a woman can descend or rise,
before the universe can move her,
she must show she can pick up
the beat, the way people speaking
in tongues allow another voice to move
through their mouths while their lips
keep time. When I get the blues,
I am trying to show the earth I can reflect
her deepest colors, that I will take
whatever she sends through me.

I want to drive spirit into flesh,
a desire often confused with sex.
I once made love to a man
who had lost the woman he loved.
He sobbed and sobbed but I kept on
to show that when grieving stopped,
he would have something to look forward to.
If we are broken or forcefully
opened, it is only to get our attention.

Now I am rapt and looking for the still point
between earth and air. I am willing
to wait while the world turns red,
to watch while everything comes at me.

Laurie Duesing