It's Not Too Late

When I was thirty-eight years old I made a business plan for my life. I found this beautiful work of vision in a mouldering box in our back barn today. I opened the spiral bound pages to find art and scrawling prayers and accountant like time lines. This tablet of specific goals and ideas was written by one with less experience and more raw idealism than the one holding it today.

I read the words and thought how lucky I was that I did not follow that path of combining massage, shamanic healing and artistic creation directly. I ended up meandering through lessons and experiences that have shocked me with deepening. Sometimes I also feel like I cheated myself out of a life I have always yearned for.

A lot of those experiences are recounted in my old blog dreamingavalon. I think about how much of my life I have spent dreaming and healing myself. Now it feels hard to grow up even more.

I often find myself haunted by the things left undone. I find myself listening to a voice from outside my bedroom window in the early morning when the house is cold and still. The voice is my own voice saying "I'm still here and I am ready to come home from my wandering."

I never completed that business plan. I barely even started it. I stayed under-employed for another ten years while I worked on building myself into a more solid person through counseling, art and and a rich spiritual mentoring.

I'm not employed now. Life has turned again and again. And there is the business plan showing up again.

"It's not too late."
I hear my elder self say to me from the future.
"It's never too late."

Today I think of how the compassionate spirits know about our lives from a perspective that is outside of the illusion of time. I consider how the Creator has placed yearnings within all of us that rise and fall like the tides. I think about how visions propel someone into a purpose they never even considered before they flew into a new life.

It's not too late.

It's never too late.

Peace to you in your dynamic living visions.

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(c) Rick Sievers, 2010

Did You See?

Did you see
the crescent moon
pouring Her dreams
from a silver cup?

I am free!

Did you see
how small I am?

Held
for a moment
in the darkness,
then flooding
the vast web of space
with a song.

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(c) Rick Sievers. 2010

Song for the Trees

Out across the quiet field,

the wild cherry remembers

the song she sprouted from.

She wears the happiness of winter

with her white robe folded

around her wrinkled body.

What joy when clothed

like the swirling stars.

What joy when vestments

are shed, flooding

the meadow with

pedals of manna.

Two robins bring moss

to the crook of your canopy,

building a nest, and

a hope upon a limb

into summer.

They weave dreams

of their children

through your branches.

Holy, the benediction

of procreation.

Holy, the baptism

of shedding any hindrance

to the summer light.

The blooms are

already leaning into

release of their brilliance,

trading their treasure

for the dappled gathering

of buds of soft summer breezes.

Spirit Wind,

blow your light

into new galaxies.

Mother Earth,

pull down the sunlight

onto your stretching loam.

Brother Star,

shine within the secret

rings of the heartwood.

Sister Rain,

remember our thirst

for any news of the sea.

May The Creator's Promise of Spring be Yours.

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(C) Rick Sievers, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Swallows

The sun is stretching his wide
warm hands through
the dew of meadow grass.
The light is welcoming
the swallows back
for their first morning
back home.
The gold-green birds
arc and dive, performing
pirouettes in mid air.

I wonder what they have seen in their travels?
Where did they sleep for their six months away?

The Good Book says that God cares for even the most humble sparrow and that we are infinitely loved and cared for. Seeing the wild flights of these free beings brings me closer to peace.

I want to have Creator's eyes and heart as I witness these creatures hurtling above the yawning garden. I want to play a small role of comfort by providing bright colored yarn for their nests and bird houses with the perfect sized entrance for their shelter.

I write this while sitting high above the field in my own little house, full of books and brightly colored words. I'm grateful for the sustenance given to me so freely. I hope that my flights of fancy, the nesting, the travels of the heart, bring joy to the One watching me.

May you know the gaze of adoration today.

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Proselytizing a Star Gazer

Santa Barbara Mission

March, 2010

A recollection of an Encounter at Starbucks last week:

I could feel the woman’s gaze upon me. Her yearning came toward me. It felt like I was her mark at a bar. I sipped coffee, intrigued and nervous, as she read her Bible. She sat beside me like a lover yearning to connect with God. She turned to me and spoke from mid thought. Her voice chimed and lilted. She was so upbeat, talking of God’s grace, His love for us, His awesome breadth and depth.

After the words of glory she said this: “Jesus paid the ransom for our sins with his death upon the cross. Now the world is but a dirty bubble.” Then she forged further ahead with her thoughts on divine love.

I had been reading St. Thomas Aquinas just before she began explaining that the world is going to be destroyed and that we are all flawed.

St. Thomas, help me! There in my hand were his words:

“I have come to learn that God’s compassion and light can never be limited; thus any God who could condemn is not god at all but some disturbing image in the mind of a child we best ignore, until we can cure the dark.” *

The woman called herself Grace. Her eyes shined as bright as her silver hair. I saw her light and fear wrapped up together. I liked her. I liked myself as we spoke.

I know I am a sinner in the sense that I do not reach my potential outwardly. But am I flawed? Are you? I say "No". And Grace is not flawed either.

So I replied to her in halting words, afraid at first of her scrutiny.

“Last night the moon

was a sickle scything

the silver of our field.

How small I was

beneath singing stars

that shimmered.”

She sat without breath for a moment, seemingly stunned by my enigmatic reply.

So I continued!

“The stars looked so small to me.

"Yet they (the stars) are really suns

and galaxies and huge planets!

They are magnificent!

Creations!

Everything is reflecting light

everywhere in the dark of space.”

She smiled thinly. Our eyes met. Then she averted her gaze. Then she reengaged with a long sigh. She used my name like we were long time friends. “Rick, have you accepted Christ as your personal savior?”

I did not tell her about the time I knelt at the altar and prayed in a church as open as the sky. That is too personal to be scrutinized.

Instead I replied. “I am supremely loved. God lay beside me in the field as we admired the creation together.”

Her lips pursed. She withdrew from me, said her farewell and walked out the coffee shop’s door. She stepped into the shimmering danger of the morning, smiling and clutching the sacred text.

I fell back into the sun warmed back of my chair. I opened myself like a window. I remembered how life was spread wide and glorious across the twilight sky. Then I heard a song float down from the coffee shop's speakers. The tune was sweet and innocent like the sound of a lover calling me back home.

May we find grace in our everyday life together.


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* From Love Poems From God, A wonderful book by Daniel Ladinsky p.148

(c) Rick Sievers, All Rights Reserved

I See You...I Am Here.

You've heard the standard American greeting: "How are you?" many times a day. Lately I have avoided making this my form of greeting unless I really want to know how a person is.

I heard a greeting at Shanti Yoga Studio the other day which I find intriguing.

It is a South African greeting:

I see you.

I am here.

I wonder how often I really am here when other people are around? I wonder how often I really do see other people?

There is a waning custom of greeting other motorcyclists while riding which we jokingly call the wave. One rider waves to another oncoming rider while on the open road. It's a greeting. I see you. I am here.

What I notice about myself is that I wave but I do not look for a return wave. I find myself afraid that the other person won't wave back, or s/he will think me foolish. So I turn my gaze away after I make my initial contact. I notice this occurs in other interactions too. Putting on the cover of contacting other people with a hello but not looking them in the eye, or even really seeing them.

I am curious about what kind of gifts and lessons might be shared if I made more effort to contact others during the greeting process.

Are we just passing each other on the way to somewhere else?

Is it worth the of safety from rejection to turn inward when I greet other people?


What are we missing by asking how someone is while moving away at 60 miles per hour?

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Going In, Rising Up

Meditative Video of the shoreline on Burrows Bay
February 2010

Sometimes I feel like my pole star has fallen from the sky now that the island land is being sold. Like there is no center point of inspiration that I can imagine or touch. For a decade I have used my sanctuary land as a support to find a heart opening in my personal life. I could always rely on the idea and solidity of the land being there for me. Through deaths and soul flights I have come back to that land time and time again for replenishment.

Now Avalon is slipping into the mists like holy islands are prone to do. And I must dig deeper into the resources that are already a part of me. I must do this not only to thrive but to survive.

How many people, and even civilizations, get the developmental chance to go beyond their icons and firm beliefs? This letting go of treasure is a chance to go further and be more present.

Yesterday I sat with my mentor and prayed. I sat in an ordinary office. But inside myself I also stood on a dark warm shoreline where waves gently wrapped their hands around my feet. All around were the vibrations of infinite voices singing. I felt at ease there. I felt at home in that amniotic experience.

It's so often hard for dreamers to be in the world and be present... to be seen. But those are the exact developmental tasks Spirit is calling us to fulfill:

To live and be free.
To be at home.
To love and be loved.

In these times where the stony edifices and beautiful props are disappearing I remember to call upon The Beloved Creator and Spirits for my sustenance and well being.

I pray that you can experience the warm and gentle seas.
I pray that you can be at peace in these times of letting go and rising up.

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(c) Copyright, 2010, Rick Sievers, All Rights Reserved

Bridge of Dreams

Deception Pass Bridge
Between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands

On my 49th birthday the island land on Burrows Bay was contracted to sell. The night before the offer I had a dream where the wind hovering above the ocean said:

"You don't make a profit on holy land.
You gain your life in the heart of (a) prophet."

When I bought the island land in December of 2001 I had a dream of Burrows Island connected with the mainland by a bridge full of wonderful houses. At the time I "knew" I would live on this bay and steward the island for the rest of my life. I wondered why the houses were suspended on the bridge as if in transit.

Life has many surprises. One was how the island of my forever is going into the care of another person. One thing leads to another in such mysterious ways.

The island awakened the fire of poetry inside me. It purchase led to building in Anacortes. The loss of the Anacortes sanctuary led to this farmland. Now the concretized dream of knowing the future has morphed into a more mature flexibility.

What a heart rending cycle of life this has been on the way to surprise and insight.

I am more alive to the fluidity of fate now.

Only Creator knows where the path leads next.
All I have to do is proceed.

What do we really know?
What are we open to?

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(c) Rick Sievers, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Exuberant Wisdom

"Matter receives a signal from the sea it floats in."
Rumi *

I write to you from a coffee shop in Battle Ground, WA. Beside me now is a mature man and woman sitting at a table. They are talking with a loud conviction. So I eavesdrop. They are verbally tearing apart the people they read about in their shared newspaper.

I recall this morning

We went to a middle school assembly about the follow up of the kid's contributions to a Haiti medical relief fund. We passed through an early morning throng of young people in the hallways. We passed through an overwhelming exuberance full of kid's laughing and wrestling hormones. The physical intensity of the hallway was nearly trivial compared with the atmosphere of youthful hopes that the world will be fair and that life will be prosperous. Their was an infectious positivity.

The couple beside me frown. A snippet of their conversation floats by: "The world is nothing..." Then I hear another tidbit about how the bleeding hearts give too much of their hard earned money away in taxes and handouts.

I recall the entire student body sitting in silence as the slides of Haiti's heartbreak quaked on the screen.

The couple beside me turn the page to the Opinion section when they see a picture of the Haitians lined up for water and rice.

The kids gave nearly seven thousand dollars to help these same strangers.

What lives between the innocent age and an aging cynicism except for time?

When did we learn that adults are heavy while the young can be novice poets and artists?

Why do so many people fall from their wildness and become resigned to life?

I try to stick with the happy memory of the laughing bloom of youth parading down the polished hallway.

And adults beside me drone on.

I am an adult too. The weight of the years has been trying to bury the young heart inside. There can be a wider view inside the privilege of adulthood. This view provides more freedom of choice and more responsibility than I knew as a kid.

The elder person has both lived in Eden and seen the hard scrap of being an outcast in the desert.

I am full of questions:

Is there any lasting need for a black and white fundamentalism like the couple next to me?

Is there any way back to Eden now that we've imagined both the benevolent and stern faces of God?

Why were the desperately poor on the screen dancing and praying and singing in such a desperate situation after the great earthquake?

And when did the frowns arrive for the well heeled newspaper scrutinizers and coffee sippers?

Perhaps youth and wisdom can live in a compassionate place together within the adult, coming together for the sake of the world.

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* From Coleman Bark's translations: Rumi, Bridge to the Soul. Harper One, 2007, p.103

(c) Rick Sievers, 2010, All Rights Reserved

Floating Out the Window

Out the Cabin Window

A jet plane is wheeling
through the high
cloud bank like a leaf
bouncing down
a great grey river. The engine
pulses its way northward.

The pilot already sees
the ocean I can only feel.

At my window,
set in it's crooked
frame, here
above the field
where the robins play,
here is the earth.

I am wheeling
in spirals and floating
out the window.

I am...
I am of the earth.

I am in wonder
about the pilots
at the plane's controls,
imagining them
as they gaze out the portholes
from that fragile craft.

Their windows cover
such a wide trajectory of sight,
yet they hold no more
beauty than this cabin's pane.

Flying high or falling
in love with the ordinary,
it's all the same.

How good it is to live!
How good it is
to witness what is right
here close to the dewy
grass, bent with the lucky
burden of growth.

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(c) Rick Sievers, 2010, All Rights Reserved