if god is listening...12-9-19

Sometimes we’re in practice magic. A realization lands and, in the space of one moment,  everything appears different than it was, fresh, brimming with truth.  Like there was then but now it is now.  Like recognizing someone you haven’t seen in ages, someone who has always been there, but just not visible.  I had one of those moments on the dance floor November 20.  I haven’t felt the same since.  It landed like this:

A decade?  How audacious.  How presumptuous.  If god is listening, this might anger her.  But if I don’t ask for ten more years, who will?  After so much time residing in the land of not knowing, of surrendering to the big whatever, of making peace with utter mystery…how could there possibly be space for this request? After settling sedately into release, of enough, of I’m ready…how could I lean into maybe or possibility or hope?

And right now is dead winter for guarding this shiny bauble.  For remaining in the land of not knowing.  For being still.  For listening.  For broadening my perspective.  For sacred indolence.  As this barely recognizable fantasy decade beckons me forward, this weird and wonderful expanse un-littered with agenda, I feel baptized clean, barely surfacing for the next breath.  But alive.  So alive.  So willing to be here.  So ready for another chapter to unfold. There is still so much work to do in the world and I remain an ardent servant to the cause, in whatever form it arises.  If god is listening, this might please her.

And there is pleasure and beauty and joy and love and who am I to ask for these treasures as well?  It is me.  I.  And I have this gutsy request.  Ten more years.  It will be enough.  And if it is not to be, well, I’ve already done the hard work of discovering that is enough as well. 

So each day dawns as an empty page.  I wake to revel in the wonder of nothing, spellbound by spaciousness.  The 1,000 things that must be done have lost their ancient grip.  I am a woman released from shackles.  I breathe in and fill up beyond my skin.  I take up too much space, just the right amount of space, space with no borders.

The decades line up into place behind me, marching their way right up to this moment.  Nothing in my potent imagination prepared me for this view where I am precipice poised, ready to take the tumble, astonishingly confident that finding my footing will follow.  If god is listening, maybe she’ll hear me.

Two more times for us to meet on the dance floor this year.  Wishing for us all the spell bound cozy cocoon that this seasonal darkness offers.  And as the light begins to beckon, as the days begin to stretch their wings, may we lift into the new year nourished by this hibernation. 

Love, bella