slipping, sipping … wondering into eternity. something passes, enters, is inside of me and i am quite certain of its importance, but it is inside and i am not very precise with a scalpel. on all sides are dancing turkeys with silly aprons, i in the middle sitting or kneeling but in all moments trying to keep my eyes on the little hole far above me…

somedays i feel like stumbling drunkenly into the private rooms of Heaven, putting on a display of foolishness that even those angels who have been around since the start of this all could not forget, and then coming back here to earth and doing the same.

i love that for every moment of silliness that takes place in my life God has seen it and perhaps even gave a laugh and applause. everywhere we have an audience, how beautiful is that!?

as always happens on thursday evenings following a moment of melancholy, a glass of cheap red wine and the muttering of some deep prayers, the foolishness and real worminess of oneself is revealed by Her precious wisdom and things change to a different shade. that all doors open to the same is not because the One has yet to be discovered, but rather that the doors, and walls for that matter, are toys of fiction and so the youngest of children would understand the world outside each door should be the same through every passage. that it turns grey is not at all the case, but i am looking through a filter which is myself, which am not at all myself, if i would really take to thinking about it.that is how it seems now, not that i am seeing colours, though i would much like to take such a trip at the present moment, but that i see myself in the way of what is real, and as such need think more towards an erasing of i for everything and everyone else in this whole spinning universe…

The kind of work we do does not make us holy but we make it holy – Meister Eckhart

I am remembering a conversation I had with one of my grammar teachers a month or so back, about her experience of the Garden as a child. Her father is a gardener, yet for him it is not simply a job, it is an experience of Life. An experience of Life, yes in that he is working at giving life to and maintaining the lives of plants, but an experience more profound that is now a part of my teacher’s awareness – that we are in living relationship with all Life. As a child, my teacher was encouraged by her father to speak with the plants, and how she admired the closeness of heart he had with his green and patient friends.At the university I attended there was a section of untouched land know as “the back 40”. I remember walking in the day through its only trail, or walking in the night around the large pond in front of the university, hearing the sounds and inhaling the freshness of the wet earth. These were moments of a different type of prayer, prayer that could last for hours without any uttered words, and yet prayer the rejuvenated the spirit while giving peace to the mind.

Living in a house that is completely surrounded by walls causes at times the feeling of being in a prison. I suppose in many aspects we are, not uniquely, but as a part of a world whose societies in the majority are built more with bricks than Love. In such a situation, we are trying to bring in green, bring in flowers and smells and all the wonderful insects and birds that come with them. It is artificial really, purchasing a plant and then deciding where it would look best, but that said the process thus far has been a beautiful experience of closeness with the soil, learning about the various needs of differing plants, of those that are delicate and those that are hearty, and learning how they are so much more than decorations, but companions that will be there as you grow, and whom you will have the joy of watching grow, and the sorrow of watching suffer.

Having had a little community garden in Waterloo, and now being able to finally grow and love our own herbs and flowers in our very own yard (a thought we never really imagined would happen so quickly), I am realizing the greatness of gardening. Everyone that can really should get there hands dirty. I remember how at the community garden the majority of the plots were cared for by the elderly. The elderly are the wisest and most patient of our societies, and we really should take their advice, not just in what they say, but in what they do. Perhaps it is a natural thing, that after a life of business, or work and family, when alas there is “time”, we return to the wonderful task of Adam. I just don’t know why we choose so often to wait so long.

There are things, comfortably written and comfortably hidden, that are presently causing a bout of melancholy in my spirit. I have pondered such moods in the past, both during them and after their passing, and have often seen them somewhat negatively. However, while not wanting in the least to crave saddness, I am no longer desiring to rid myself of these sentiments until they have performed the work they have come for. Today I wrote an reflection on the poem of San Juan de la Cruz, ¡O llama de amor viva!, and it reached deep within and shed light on many emotions that otherwise were being hushed silent by some misguided sense of propriety and maturity.Now, there is simply the reality that I am full of pensiveness, and consumed by a lack of much motive to aught save floating on my back upon these heavy waters. I am amplifying the mood, I am sure, with iTunes quietly playing Drone Zone, however often it is the dark and quiet and lonely moments in life that allow us to see ourselves most closely, and for me, to weaken my will which so often withholds emotion that is screaming inside to be let out. To escape vagueness, I am not a crier, however my eyes are heavy tonight.

It is a wonder to me that people, no matter the place on earth, the amount of wealth, the years of age, have these feelings. We are a feeling species. It is really a glorious experience … to feel … I wonder why we are so poor at communicating when we have so much in common. I remember sitting outside a Subway one evening back in 1996 discussing the notion of a common thread strung between us all. This was before I knew or talked of the image of God, and yet despite not being aware of God’s presence in any particular sense, I was still recognizing the invisible sameness in each of us. It tears me that despite this we live so much like we are not the same. Certainly some see this connection with our friends and families, but perhaps we are to love our neighbours, not only as we love ourselves, but perhaps because we love ourselves and in order to love ourselves. And we love ourselves in order to love our neighbours.

I wonder why when I walk to school tomorrow I will pass by so many neighbours and we will exchange superficially what we could be exchanging at the deepest level of our soul.

I wonder why when we are really all one we leave beautiful little children in large old buildings with little love and care? Don’t we realize we are hurting ourselves?

I wonder why so often I choose to live as something other than human?