How many flames quietly burn in our world?
In the past year I’ve wondered how it is that in the city, I
feel a literal connection to nature that I don’t in the country. How is it
running or walking city sidewalks, I feel circles of energy moving from the
trees to me and back again from me to the trees? How is it that I, an introvert, am fed by
this energy as traffic noisily passes; while in the country where I could run
and not be passed by cars, I stay inside or in my yard?
I love the trees in the country. They quietly stand, encircling me, but I seem
to take them for granted. Whereas the
trees in the city seem to call out and say, “Acknowledge us not just on Earth
Day but every day.” In the land of
concrete and asphalt where Nature is easily forgotten, they see me and I see
them seeing me.
New Year’s Day I decided to venture out
and run the country road I don’t often travel. I didn’t run to have an epiphany but as I ran
I felt a sense knowing in my body. The
wide open spaces of the country hold an expansiveness with which I’m unaccustomed.
I think of myself as being outside the box, yet running
along with the sky overhead unencumbered by noise and boundaries I felt the box
in which I live unknowingly. I felt viscerally constrained.
Arriving home I pondered the gift in this containment for
I’ve experienced the energetics of me, how the body can circulate energy
feeding and being fed. I now ask can I
open to the freedom of expansiveness wherever I am? Can my heart and being
encompass the all, the unknown or will I choose safety, living constricted and
small?
Then I hear: Light
constricted is flame.
I don’t know physics but I think of the atom and molecule
and the energy bound in very small things. I think of the seed and the child,
the ant and the bee, the lessons found in small mysteries. Can I be bound by a
body yet feel boundlessness at the same time? Can I open to something larger
than my city streets and engage with expansiveness all around me?
How I Learned Containment
I began the next day with a ritual honoring people past and
present on my family tree. I lit a
candle to honor the flame my father carried.
Wanting to ensure this light burned through the day and into the night,
I transferred the flame as the hours passed from candle to candle.
My father’s physical flame went out January 2nd six
years ago, yet I suspect through many kind deeds known and unknown his light
continues to burn. His acts from which I benefited most were related to his hard work. With me, he was more often harsh
than kind with words.
His parents feared the going out of his flame as a child for
in his baby book my grandmother noted her fears early on of his dying from
whooping cough.
Worried she and my grandfather hovered and smothered not
wanting to let go. This worry became control leading to irritation and
harshness between my father and his parents. Not knowing how to navigate
vulnerability and closeness, my father in turn visited a similar harshness upon
many of those who were close.
This generational dance of love and control is a piece to
the puzzle of how I learned containment.
I sat with the flame representing my father and pondered his
passing over several months time. Although there was much I said to him, there’s
always felt like one missing piece.
As I sat with the flame, the sun came through the blinds and
I felt compelled to take a photo. I wondered
if I was diverting from the moment by trying to capture it.
Yet when I looked at the photo I saw the presence of a light
being. Not only did I see a beautiful six pointed star, but a green and blue
orb sitting side by side with what looked like piano keys above the blue and
green and a wing above and below.
Since green and blue represent the heart and voice chakras, I immediately thought, ‘The voice of the heart holds the keys to flight.’
It was around this time that it came to me, the one thing I
didn’t say to my father, the one thing that was so obvious.
Twice while he was ill, I looked up to see him sitting in
bed looking at me. Our eyes locked and his face was the saddest I had ever seen
yet I looked away.
In a flash six years later, I knew what I wished I had said.
I wished I had simply said, “You look so sad.”
How is it I allowed fear to keep me from being personal,
from being me? What’s the worst thing
that could have happened? He could have
been sharp or dismissive, yet still that would have been his loss and I would
have gained me.
In that moment, I was afraid of expanding. Afraid of using my heart’s voice, I chose
containment.
So I consciously chose to use my voice later that day and
called a family member. I related the bittersweet realization to which she said
she never talked to him that way either because she assumed if he wanted to
talk about it (feelings) he would be the one to bring it up.
How much isolation’s been bred over time through not wanting
to be rude or cause distress and upset? How much constriction and containment has this
quiet, no talk rule bred? And if
light constricted is flame how many flames quietly burn in our world? How many hearts await flight?
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 9 January 2011
So on Wed. February 8th (that's only 12 days away) the winner will be chosen by the folks down the street with the heart in their tree and will receive a beautiful cherry pen (value $60) by local artist Brenda Stein.
This morning as I awoke I saw a hand, a dark hand with its palm facing me and its fingers upright. Then the hand became a tree much like the one I photographed in recent moonlight.
Over the entrance of the Colquitt, Georgia emergency services department hangs a sign reading: "When Called, We Respond."
I began the next day with a ritual honoring people past and
present on my family tree. I lit a
candle to honor the flame my father carried.
Wanting to ensure this light burned through the day and into the night,
I transferred the flame as the hours passed from candle to candle. 
Yet when I looked at the photo I saw the presence of a light
being. Not only did I see a beautiful six pointed star, but a green and blue
orb sitting side by side with what looked like piano keys above the blue and
green and a wing above and below. 
Memory takes me to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the joy I felt last summer seeing multitudes of yellow flowers, visible reminders of Sun's energy come to Earth, lining the mountain roads.
Today I am mindful Sun is a Faithful Gardener gently planting seed waves of energy into Earth's soil and our souls especially on this winter's day.
This morning in the shower, I saw a feather in the glass, a feather to my left and then snake or lizard skin to my right. I love both birds and reptiles and find it fascinating that these two creatures seemingly so different, earth and sky bound, are kin in creation's chain. 
