"...say things to the world that are true."
- Pablo Casals
I went to bed at 2am this morning after having stayed up unexpectedly going through journals. The most recent one, a Christmas gift from Jerry, had just been filled with scribblings from my yard, random wanderings and my unending lists of things to do.
In an unusual reluctance to choose a fresh journal, I began to read from the stack labeled 2012.
Surprisingly I sat with regret and confusion as I read page after page of notes as to visions I've been given and things I've heard. Most of these things are still quietly still tucked in the pages I scanned.
Finally I placed them aside and went outside to lie under the nearly full moon.
I awoke this morning not wanting write in any journal. Why clutter yet another book with notations with which I don't do anything?
Then a journal I had forgotten from an impromptu post-Christmas trip to downtown Dickson caught my eye. I had forgotten I even had it. The cover read "...say things to the world that are true."
In that moment, I knew my truth as I heard so clearly within me, "World, I love you."
World, I love you. That sounds so simple, doesn't it? Thousands if not millions of other souls today have Instagrammed, Tumbled, Flickred and Snapchatted, "World, I love you" logos, poems and pieces as I write this.
Yet, World, here's my truth. I have not always loved you. It is because of you that I have felt such pain, pain from times I don't even cognitively recall, yet I have felt so deeply I am sure of my truth. Like when I cried my way off and on through France knowing in my body that I had walked there so many times and had seen what man inflicted upon man and woman during the burning times as the church tried to wipe out those perceived as threatening.
I can easily write, "Earth, I love you."
Earth has saved me repeatedly. I felt it in France and I feel it even now when I lay face down outside at night with my heart to Mother Earth's heart. (I keep a sheet and quilt near my back door for this very thing.) I feel her presence and know she feels mine. She has taken my weariness so many times and I have also taken hers. It is easy for me to love Earth, her birds, bugs, animals wild and tame, her trees, plants, rocks, oceans and rain.
Many times I have felt and known my love for Earth. It is my home.
But World, I love you? I have honestly wanted to destroy you at times. I have wanted Mother Earth to rid herself of the masses and the messes that humans have made.
This is why I was at first surprised by what I heard when I saw, 'say things to the world that are true.' It came out of nowhere but I felt its Truth. Tears of joy streamed down my face because World, I do love you.
You are how I have come to find, feel and experience Me.
You have broken my heart repeatedly. And in this lifetime of feeling a heart of stone inside of me, you have broken my heart again and again but this time I have found healing among my human kin.
I have found healing through Richard Geer whose masterful weaving of community stories heal and rebirth small towns. I still feel joy from remembering what you mid-wifed in Colquitt, GA and Jonesborough, TN !!
I have felt healing through Giancarlo Guerrero the vibrant, funny, history-teaching, symphony leading conductor for the Nashville Symphony. I wish I could turn all of Nashville on to our symphony!!!
I have felt healing though Alan LeQuire's work. Alan is the sculptor most known for Athena and Musica but I remember the time he took to share his Dream Forest trees with friends and me as we made an impromptu visit to his studio gallery.
I have felt healing through Aldo Leopold, the conservationist, forester, educator, prolific writer who was forever changed when he saw the Green Fire in the mother wolf's eyes that he had just killed.
I have found healing through the Frist Museum. I have been to museums in other countries and the U.S. but it has only been later in my life that I have felt art and most of that has been at the Frist. I thank the Frist family for this.
I have felt healing through the songs of Steve Conn, Kenny Mullins and Ross Falzone, men whose songs marry compassion and social justice.
I found healing through Bill Murray who arrived in my life at one of my lowest times and continued to show up in ways he was unaware. You only quit showing up when I quit showing up for myself.
I LOVE THE WORLD and the fact that women and men showed up, stood up and spoke up this the day of One Billion Rising. I want to shout from Earth's roof top that I love Derri Smith and Yvonne Williams and those with whom they team while saving women and girls from sex trafficking.
I love that as I started this piece a dove cooed as a Angel Radiance candle burned. That candle made with responsibly harvested palm oil still burns to honor One Billion Rising.
In the past I have railed about corporations making money off holidays. Today I love the fact that millions of people sent roses, candy, cards, notes, offered a smile, extended a hand. Your gifts came from big box stores as well as local shops springing up everywhere! LOCAL shops have healed me.
I love that mothers, fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, nurses, doctors, mid-wives will hold cooing, crying, fussy, messy, delightful, adorable precious babies today.
I love the fact that a new generation of souls have arrived on Mother Earth and they keep agreeing to be born, a generation whose vocabulary doesn't contain struggle !
I love the fact that thanks to quantum physics lonely elder souls sitting in nursing homes will feel my gratitude as I send them love for their having come decades ago into a time in which struggle was the norm. Bless these courageous, beautiful souls.
I love the fact that women I know like Sara Sharpe and Amanda Cantrell Roche invest their time and skills creatively to wake up Nashville to the challenges faced by immigrants in our community, those imprisoned who have no voice and women here and abroad.
And I can even say I love that men in our state government proposed a bill allowing business owners to turn away gay customers. Though they're unaware of it, this is their way of saying they are afraid. And I can love these frightened men trying to maintain control and not feel vulnerable.
And I love the man in my life of infinite compassion and patience who only wants joy for me and has lived with how heart living can be for me.
*******
Which takes me back to last night. He was long asleep as I perused pages from Spring 2012 around the time of April's Full Pink Moon. I read simple sentences I had written but didn't grasp at the time. Sentences like "The rose is opening. The heart of the Universe is opening."
I didn't have a clue really what this meant so I wrote it down each time it crossed my mind. I think I even had a vision of a rose unfolding in the stars but I've been unable to find where I wrote of it.
Then one day while running down Natchez Trace in the rain the Universe offered up assurance. In the street wet from the drizzle that fell, lay this rose painted on black canvas. I didn't question even for a second what to do. I immediately picked it up, tucked it as best I could beneath my raincoat and ran home.
There were no identifying marks. I looked for "Lost Rose" messages on the neighborhood list serve in case someone was looking for it. I brought it home and kept it above my computer for months before placing it on my altar.
For the longest I looked at it and wondered what it meant.
It wasn't until last night that I more fully got it.
Love, Love, Love, Love, Love, Love is opening in the Universe.
Scientists may try to measure it but I know as sure as I'm sitting here The Shift to Love is occurring OUT THERE and it is occurring IN HERE.
On this Valentine's I share with the World and you what is true for me. World, I love you and I know it's because The Rose of Love has opened in the stars and I feel it has opened in me. I hope you can feel its opening in YOU!
On this Valentine's I share with the World and you what is true for me. World, I love you and I know it's because The Rose of Love has opened in the stars and I feel it has opened in me. I hope you can feel its opening in YOU!
Boundless Love on this day and always!
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 14 February 2014
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