Join with this,
Your day of days.
I walk along the beach and I notice the many brown stalks of marsh grass sticking up six or seven inches from the sand,
Absolutely straight.
Like the winter morning sticks out in the harbor,
They hold places all winter,
Waiting until the spring blooming.
All the sticks stand erect and silent in the cold morning air,
Sentinels of stillness.
Sit straight yourself so that you call the silence to you.
Let the stillness wrap itself around your figure sitting here,
Like so many other people around the world.
Your body is like a reed coming up from the earth itself into the thin air of the day,
A physical presence breaking into the vast sky.
Feel your form existing in the soup of the universe,
All of you,
Your legs and arms,
Your middle and chest,
Your head and face.
Ask yourself what feelings stand waiting patiently.
Perhaps they hibernate until a warmer wind bids them welcome and it is safe for them to bloom.
Can they?
Will they really wait?
Breathe your own warm wind of acceptance onto your waiting feelings.
And holding everything,
Informing everything is spirit,
Breath of life.
Lord of both hibernation and blooming,
Spirit is everywhere all at once.
Sleeping or waking,
Your spirit is uniquely you.
Even in this short day,
May you find moments of rest.
Your gift today is hibernation.