Excavation Part 2

Start at the End

A wonderful way to rise into gratitude is to write an epitaph of your life. What would you say today, at this moment, if you could write one page about your particular sacred life? I'll share what I wrote this morning. There a a thousand books that could be written about each life on earth. But what is the core story in the midst of it all?

Epitaph

I’ve had a charmed life.

Though I did not know it at the time,

I did just what I wanted to do.

Found an island and staked my claim.

Found that the paradise was in me all along.

Found a great love and lost her.

Then found my beloved wife as a surprise of joy.

Discovered that the Beloved swam in my veins all along.

Lived in the city bright, a village by a river and on a hill in the suburbs.

Landed on this farm and planted myself in a community of many braids.

Wrote a million words and some of them were wrenchingly beautiful.

Rode the wind on a horse, a scooter, on the thrum thrum of a holy drum.

Knelt to The Christ, worshipped on the light of a mountain when I had nowhere else to go.

Was loved by three compassionate spirits and sat in a silence that was pungent with honey.

Rescued an old cat and sheltered two kids.

Married in a happy meadow and sang while crying beside a grave stone.

Planted a container of seeds and harvested a whole valley.

Paddled a pumpkin hued kayak under meteor storms, sewed a path through roaring canyons.

Walked for days on end and fell into oblivion of wounds for a month of rain.

Swirls of color poured off my fingers on a paper filled with wings and rainbows.

And I lay awake in a fog so grey that is pulled the fire directly from my heart.

Buried my uncle above a Hawaiian valley and I was uninvited to my soul mate’s funeral.

Made love quietly with my shining young wife while an owl sang for his mate outside.

Broke promises to save my own life and then bound myself to the joy of integrity.

Always teared up when the Celtic whistle would moan.

Then found that the whole universe sings a reflection of all the souls alive and dead.

Cut my own flesh just to feel alive and laughed just for the sake of laughter.

Drank heady wine with friends at a table I made from a ship left in the desert.

Held my father’s hand while walking in the fog of Laguna’s beach.

Sat with my mother on the top of a mountain in a horizon of granite and pine.

Heard my brother’s secrets like a confessor and become a man when he became my angel.

Traveled to the arctic on a salmon barge and cruised the blazing equator on a shining ship.

Died three times, twice by the drum, once in a lava sea named the Blue Dragon Flow.

At the end I was resurrected in words that flowed from the prayer of my life.

Met my ancestors in a field of grasses many years after we said goodbye.

Then I lay down within shimmering blades of scarlet green rye and found God and peace.

I became the world of memories and songs within the shining of everything that is alive.

This beautiful Earth, my home forever.

I take you all in and make you into eternity one moment at a time.

I had a charmed life, both sweet and sad.

I was tough and tender, broke but not broken.

Bound by my fears and boundless,

carried by the love that sings everywhere when you listen.

Listen, dear friend, listen.

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(c) Rick Sievers 2010