I remember my fathers work trousers as an extention of the flesh of him. Cloth shaped into the movement of him well oiled and black from the manual work requiring lift and turn and weight and strength. The dance held there in the knees and the turn up freyed at the back. A buildup of movement held over time that no washing could entirely remove. Soft enduring fabric held his shape with thankfulness when folded overthe chair ready for morn. Likewise his shirt and his skin and his hair. Bronzed hair, all shock from the toil. When he returned from work and as the light faded all seemed to blend to earth save the eyes tierd but bright. Save his hair gold with the sun.

His boots heavy with dirt and worn to the path of his life held his breath and his wish and carried with them every step of the way his simple wish to find a way to what he aready held in his breath and in his heart as he worked it with care for the love of life. Steel toe caps, brown laces soft enduring leather given from the last life to hold his so that in turn his life held mine and held those he loved. The shape of every tiny movement and detail given from and to skin.

When my dad died it was as we washed his feet. He was in the shirt i had bought and he liked so was given it to wear. It was as we washed his feet that his breathing changed and that kindness and thankfulness and blessings came to greet each of us from inside and out. At that moment the spaces between whats called life and death all fire not seperate not consuming or consumed. A quietness that held all there was to be held and beheld us to know that what we wanted had been with us all along and long ago before we were born. And right then all notions of seperation met and fused beyon limit and gone beyond time yet here with this presence that knows no frontier. My father turned sideways into the light.

So wearing his shoes became my way of taking off mine. And always a delight big as they were, to grow into them and find myself a long time later brought to leaving them. I placed them on the red earth all gold with the sun. The laces tatty and the leather melded over time to a shape that had met his. I had worked in them and they had held me and helped to remind me to start close in. Take the first step the one i dont want to take. As the light faded all turned to earth palms turned upwards to the sky. I bow hands to head and bend to the earth. Kneel on the earth and kiss the boots before turning sideways as i glimpse the hearts light.

Inside my heart there is honey prepared for me long ago from the time before i began. Made by and from my mum and dad and granny who died long ago now offering me honey to nourish my life and meet my longing in my offering myself as honey like the bees. In the living of my life.

Co-created from the past, in the present we are future. Breathing in never before,breathing out never again a naked kingfisher blue horizon
Rags of love burning bright like liquid honey not consumed and not consuming all given in, nothing left still bright and now my hands turned upwards to meet blessings and thankfulness held with the breath as gratitude without limit or seperation.

May i turn sideways into the light. i dont look or feel that well this morning. Skin scrunched up body bones aching. Headache. To the right of my bed are boxes of paired down photos still in categories but with previous filing altered gone along with the linear narratives of what they are and are about. Or so i seem to be telling myself. I used to have over 15 neatly packed well ordered large fruit/vegetable box sized crates full to brimming. Sorting through, leaving this and keeping that and checking how many left, find i have 3/4 crates plus a few smaller boxes. The smaller boxes include empty small photo albums waiting for the first real confinement of photograph records of skins shed and not quite shed some remembered and some forgotten. Some kept because i dont want to forget. Maybe my brain is muggy today with my reluctance for the harvest that i know has already happened. A collection of photos of shed and unshed skins of me as a child, with someone, alone, together and endless myriad ways images that hold my simple wish to find a way to something with me all along. In all the simple details and events but in my confusion Often confuse myself. In that simple wish an alert heart is emerging. So much not to say.
The photograph i want to keep was taken of me by my (then) partner on my (new)camera. Searching for memory We were in derry or was it dingle and the colours like rust and the light like gold. Bright, clear, confident. wistful. I wanted a picture of me as i stepped out from the bracken and head high grasses into the clear pathway before me. The camera was new and i set it in ways i thought would help. But the shutter speed clearly too slow to still movement or to record the bright clear heart earth and sky light my mind could see. So that the image with someone deffinitely moving was almost merged into its surrowndings and the soft edges through lack of focus spread the light, meant that a mellow image with someone deffinitely moving but in what direction was unclear. I still think and ask am i moving into the image or out of it. A thread that remains is how much i love that whilst there is an edge and a clear sense of movement it not clear where to or how or who. Head slightly bent but still in relationship with the movement and to whoever is looking at the photo. Its unclear on so many levels and still true that the thing about the photo is that all this softens bounderies and with the edges of things softened my notions of being seperate and distinct fade. I become, i enter the converation without limit, without being consumed and without consuming. Alert i sense stopping what i am doing and what i am becoming whilst i do it. May i turn sideways into the light like the old ones did. May i remember not to ask questions that cannot be answered but to live them without question turning sideways into every detail of my life.

on waking realising that everything, everything is waiting for me and this is only possible by my conscious full heart engagement in my own demise. This only possible by bringing myself in fully as i am and realising that theres less of me there and that somehow this being so brings my realationship with love and all life to life. only ever in the moment where life and death fuse and meet where no seperation abides and waits in its fullness. like fire like the burning bush but not consumed always in the conversation of meeting and parting. both like wings to enable flight through the kingfisher blue horizon of life. alertness the unhidden discipline and key that (in my confusion) this reluctance seeks to cloud a way to. on waking having been where all shadows go. in waking from shadow finding myself go forward not because i had given up. not because i had given up but being more marvelous in a simple wish to find a way the lark song touched my heart. now everything, no matter what, is, can be found, found and realised with grace. with blessings. how amazing. even the kettle is singing for us. thankfulness. the invitation for the heart to realise in this body, not entirely of it, that which can hold everything, everything with thankfulness. As i walk in my rags of love to flight. earth and sky fuse and meet. in this moment all reluctance gone. And im getting up now to enter the conversation and have tea knowing that whatever we are doing and wherever we are doing it, right there is the place where breathing in never before and breathing out never again sacred ground. My shoes off, holy ground is met.

One of the habits of my mind id like to see and let go of is thinking that someone else is living my life or trying to get me to live mine. Rationally i know its not true and yet lurking almost out of sight is a belief that on some level my choices are not my own and on some level choice is controlled elsewhere. Add to this my confusion that to live my life i have to be in charge of it and implicit in this is that I can and must control it. Rationally i know i cant control everything but confusion drives me to act as if i believe it because on a deeper level every cell of my being knows i cant. I cant control it all. Tricky. Especialy tricky when i think that this solo voice is all there is thats real and if its to survive it mustnt be vulnerable or get too close to itself let alone anyone else. Even trickier. My body knows no difference between earth and sky. When im Alert to whats happening this helps me to stop what i am doing right now and to glimpse what its like to stop what i am becoming whilst i do it. No way forward but to put an end to the way i had come and to remember that in this life i was meant to be free.

The clear revelation that there is no place, situation or person or other life that can offer or provide safety. The invitation to let others be as they are and me be just as i am. The revelation in the body that life is brief, this unique human form miraculous. The invitation to joy, connection and compassionate action. The clear revelation that without impermanence life is not possible. The invitation to embody this vulnerability and live at the frontier where labels like life and labels like death melt and meet. To enjoy breathing in and breathing out and to enjoy whats gone whilst its here. Everything, everything seeing through my aloneness.

Attentive to the request to stop what i am doing right now and to stop what i am becoming whilst i do it i realise that i was never born to feel at home with just one thing, never meant to choose between things or people, never meant to align with earth or with sky but that flight and song and presence come through conversation at the frontier where what is past, what is present and what is future meet. Where non seperation abides. Nothing lost. Nothing gained. That in this life i was meant to be free. To live life like the rarest of music with each note allowed to float beyond itself to a world with no approaching end. Present and attentive to the inescapable nature of vulnerability, i see and feel the kingfisher blue horizon of the heart gift me a wish that whatever i do with this precious life spontaneously arise and a felt confidence of that happening right now. Heart in the sparkle jar starting close in with the next step, not the past step or the future step but close in to this step happening right now. My heart beats, what is that. To move carefully without a sound through this shimmering heart beat of dry leaves, as i arrive touching my disappearance to live the questions that have no right to go away and in doing this to stop what i am doing right now and to stop what i am becoming whilst i do it. Breathing like the old ones, this form shaping itself like a bubble blown to the elements with thankfulness. With kindness may i realise notions of seperation as masks. May i never fail to see how we are each more marvelous in our simple wish to find a way and may i support the courageous steps that taken alone ease us into limitless conversation with others.

Written on waking and hearing mixed up references lines from david whyte poems in my head and putting them here with thanks. Includes stuff from david whyte but mixed with my own mind wanderings. as will become clear. No confusion or ‘theft’ intended.

I have heard from the skylark

that I am more
more marvelous in my simple wish to find a way
than the gilded roofs of any destination i could reach

The mountain airs whisper to me that

The way forward is always in the end the way that Ive followed and no matter, that it sometimes takes my promise from me, no matter that it had to break my heart along the way

I heard the song at the still point where rivers meet.

Standing there in my rags of love i realised that what i wanted had already happened long ago and in the dwelling place i had lived in before i began. Every step along the way my hearts promise in mind. Carried with me.

With me then. With me now. With me all along.

knowing we are more marvelous in our simple wish to find a way than the gilded roofs of any destination we could reach something like a broad field of freedom arrives with its pilgrims each with a sense of journey and knowing that the name we share (Pilgrim) is the road we all follow

I accept the invitation over the rain filled pass. Heart light and face wet

Many years ago now but this ‘memory’ suddenly bright. I was driving back to my parents. My first vist after my granny had died. My head was full of what had and might happen. Anxiety. My journey from london to yorkshire always held (whatever the weather) a felt sense of relief. Forgetful, as i turned the corner that marked leaving bricks and mortar and moving into the wide expanse of northern hills and sky what was suddenly revealed to me was a deep love felt for my granny which on seeing those hills, earth and wide expanse of sky also knew beyond reason she had died. I was met with what i can only describe as thankfulness, as blessing. My granny encouraged me to the hills and the sky, loved them was bourne of and returned to them. I loved my granny and she loved me unconditionally. In that moment of turning brought to know something of the grief in imagined seperation between things as well as the unique opportunity of this very body. Face wet with tears and heart open, blessed. Whatever that is about, may my life continue to experience, be open to it and my actions with more continuity arise from it. Breathing in, never before. Breathing out never again. Enjoying whats gone, whilst its here and, the heart open with love. Thankful as well as blessed.