Birthing Pool

Back in the desert, I used to dream of a place green all year, where I could not imagine drought except as an abstract concept. Awake now, the dream has granted me a grove where ocean meets the rain; persistent, subtle mists, and sprays and spates in sideways walls of wet. I wrap myself in plastic, to no avail, for a determined hike on muffled trails, skirting tiny bogs in open spaces, earth seeping back what moss and ferns have given. Every dissolving leaf or twig, every springing fungus exhales an ancient, ancient perfume of sharp, quick decay mixed with new, spring babyhood. After a while, my face runs with rainy sea, sweat or tears. I hear only my own heartbeat in this womb. Today, at the end of my labored swim up the hill, stripped of everything but love, light spears the end of the fir tunnel and opens the ocean cloud canopy with diamonds.

Motion Sickness

To overcome the dizziness of the world, first understand that you are a whirlpool of a raging river, a cyclone of an endless sky, a spiral of the code of being. Lie flat on the ground, the solid, still earth while you contemplate the fact that you’re spinning rapidly in space in a galaxy that swirls your helpless self into who-knows-what, in a universe expanding who-knows-where. Not only that! From tick to tock, the swing of the pendulum you make time with can make you very ill, indeed. So let go. You’ll only float in the center while you fly around your edge.