Slipping Away

She slips away
Following the path of lunar light
Into the unknown
Because once in a blue moon 
She needs to break routines
Create empty space 
And welcome what comes in the stillness

Wise grandmothers and shining figures of slender light
Come to her in night dreams
Moving along the dark forest floor like mist 
They ask her to step through the door
Into magic and mystery
They tell her to write 
They tell her to trust the story

So she slips away by the light of the full moon

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Image from Wendy at https://www.flickr.com/photos/smkybear/

I will be off line for most of August, turning my attention to writing. Many blessings, Oriah

Asking Permission

We do not need permission
To live our life guided by that which lives within us.
And yet, too often, some part of our heart
Waits for someone else to give the go-ahead
Before we fully embody our wisdom and our silliness,
Our joy and our sorrow.

This is what it means to give our power away:
To court the approval of others
To silently ask for permission that is not another's to give
To spend our lives waiting
For that which was within us all along.

~Oriah House "Permission" (c) 2015 (Gratitude for the photo from Karen Davis Open Door Dreaming​)

The Burning

I am thinking about burning

About letting a passion for life-

Not my life or your life- but Life itself

Burn away my hesitation to taste this breath

Filled with the sweet greening of summer

This breath, laden with longing and confusion.

I am thinking about burning

About the flame of desire

That insists that how I move through this day

Be more about love-making

Than about the achievement of things

Too thin to nourish my soul.

I am thinking about burning.

I am lighting a match.

I am making of myself

Kindling for the fires

Of living awake to this moment

Of letting Love have its way with me.

~Oriah House (c) 2015

(Photo from Karen Davis at Open Door Dreaming)

Receiving

Is there anything sweeter
than that moment when pain stops?
Like a ladle of clear, cold water
soothing the parched throat;
or the moment of infinite spaciousness
when my neighbour's leaf-blower is silenced.

And. . . .this too shall pass.

That thought makes me laugh out loud,
helps me check the impulse
to hold on to the sweetness,
knowing there is nothing
that needs to be grabbed
nothing that can be gripped by wanting,
only that which can be received.

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer (c) 2015

Deep gratitude to Paul Bardis for this photo.