Things don’t happen for a reason

 by Maya Luna

Things don’t happen for a reason

Sweet child

No

Life doesn’t need a reason

For happening

It simply blooms forth

With breathtaking chaos

Rains down on you

With senseless beauty

And immeasurable heartache

You can make up stories

If you like

About why things happen

The way that they happened

You can close one eye and squint

To make up patterns

You can tell stories of

Tragedy

Or perfection

Curses

Or blessings

Or you can simply stand naked in

The rain

You can realize nothing

Will ever really make sense

Not if you’re really honest

Not if you’re truly listening

Nothing happens for a reason

Yes, this is the truth

This is it

There is nothing else

But your own heart

Plunging

Into reality

Your own heart

Drinking down

The eruption of stars

That is this radical emergence

Of soul in body

Of breath meeting Sky

Maybe

There is nothing else to look for

Maybe it didn’t work out for the best

Maybe it isn’t an unfortunate mess

Maybe no great spirit is helping

Anything go your way

Maybe

Just maybe

Life unfolds

Relentlessly

With no holy plan

Maybe

It is sacred

Just as it is

It’s power and innocence

Requires no justification

It’s perfection requires no meaning

Maybe nothing

Means anything

Other than what the Rose

Means

When it blooms

It means

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am

Here I am

“To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”

―Eckhart Tolle

Surrender to This Life

Give up the fight

For some other moment

Some other life

Than here, and now

Give up the longing

for some other world

The wishing

for other choices to make

other songs to sing

other bodies, other ages,

other countries, other stakes

Purge the past; forgive the future—

for each come too soon.

Surrender only to this life,

this day, this hour,

not because it does not

constantly break your heart

but because it also beckons

with beauty

startles with delight

if only we keep

waking up

This is the gift

we have been given:

these “body-clothes,”

this heart-break, this pulse

this breath,

this light,

these friends,

this hope.

By Gretchen Haley (https://www.uua.org/offices/people/gretchen-haley)

Credit: Gloria Shamblin for the poem

Eagle Poem 

BY JOY HARJO

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.

“Eagle Poem” from In Mad Love and War.

“Shake free the stories that live in your skin…”

Let Your Body Tell the Truth

Come now across platforms and practices

To declare with joy our resilience

To proclaim on purpose:

we have survived

the pandemics of our time.

We have survived,

We are surviving.

We have pivoted,

And we have planned,

and then re-planned,

And then thrown all plans

To the wind.

In this circle we will say

without shame:

Some days

we lost our way,

and our passwords,

And we have not always been our best selves We are learning and not always quickly, To regroup and remember perfection Was never the point.

We are here

because we long to try again.

To promise with people to be partners

In this long-haul work of loving

and becoming

Even while we grieve also the cost

Which is not small and lingers in our hearts And turns only sometimes to rage.

Here let your body

tell the truth.

Shake free the stories that

Live in your skin,

breathe in your

Beauty, and breathe out your burdens

Breathe in our beauty, breathe out

Our burdens.

Be here with it all, with all of us

In the freedom of this new day

The storm is passing over,

the sun is breaking through

This new day dawns for us all.

               —Gretchen Haley

piece of fire

by ullie-Kaye

i have no new expectations for the year ahead. just let me live the way that i know best. let me feel the earth on my feet and rejoice that i am still standing. let me listen to the waves of the sea and find peace in knowing that the tides always return to wash over me. let me dream about sunsets that are not promised and skies that are not always blue. let me make love to conversations that bring me closer to knowing myself and closer to believing in something much bigger than the four square walls of my own chest. and let me rest. oh lord, let me rest. and should i be so blessed to have this place where i can grow, let me remember to give more than i receive. to listen more than i speak. and to understand that everyone is searching for a little piece of fire. may i take part in building that.

Why the World Doesn't End

by Michael Meade

“Something deep in the human soul awakens as things fall apart. Something in the soul knows that everything in this world can become lost. And something in the soul knows how to survive periods of devastation, disorientation and loss. Descent and falling is the way of the soul from its beginning. We each fell from the womb of life when the waters of the inner sea broke and it came time for us to breathe on our own.”
― Michael Meade from Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver, from Dream Work

If you pray, pray. If you meditate,

meditate. If you walk, walk. If you sit,

sit. Do all of this with presence. Move

your own fear through your body so you

can process the shadow that’s hanging in

the collective. Move your own fear

through your body so you can sit with

friends who are scared and unable to

process this themselves. Be kind in the

world: Kind comes from kin. We are in

this together. Hold the vibration as high

as you can. Rest. Find ways to be with

other people, to make each other laugh.

Take long breaks from social media and

the news. Shake your body.

- Hope Henley Global

The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac

Click below to hear Mary Oliver reading her poem The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac