Of Lion and Light, Sun and Fire

Response to Prompt #33

What a journey this prompt has been.

When I first read it, I immediately had things writing themselves in my head. I loved how inspired I felt. Now, did I write those down even though I told myself to?  Nope.

Dope.

Then last weekend I tried to recover those thoughts, to no avail.  Instead, I decided to dissect Blanco's poem, looking at number of lines, blah blah, and pretty soon everything that was inspiring was gone.  I knew I just had to step away and let it come naturally, so I set it aside.

On Friday morning I took a walk and had several verses write themselves, all on theme of survival.  Fair enough.  I definitely wrote some of those ideas down, and figured I was good to go.

But something else interesting had happened along the way.  After the tragic week of violence that touched me way too closely, I realized I have got to move with more purpose in my life, to find how I can help beyond just being a teacher, which has been my fallback position all these years.  I just knew that there was more, so I put the question clearly in my morning pages: What can I do to be of service on a grander scale? How can my skills and everything I've learned by put to use?

Saturday morning I had some other ideas while I was getting acupuncture, but whatever it was seemed to drift away.  I don't recall what any of it was, as instead I went to the park afterwards and wrote a blog about that.

This morning I headed out to Bowman's Beach and brought along Thich Nhat Hahn's book Jesus and Buddha as Brothers.  I've been making my way through this book again section by section as the spirit moves me.  Today I read about Amita, the Buddha of Light, then walked in the sun, and it all started falling together more clearly. Ideas were just flooding at me, the way things connected together to the word "light."  I got down as much as I could before I left the beach, and even took additional notes while stuck in Art Show and Farmer's Market traffic on Sanibel.

Don't get excited. I have not found my ultimate purpose. But I have found a way to start.

So, here it is, my (much longer) version of the mentor poem.

Of Lions and Light, Sun and Fire

I’ve been writing this since

I heard Joni Mitchell sing about

the light in the kitchen on a Chelsea

morning, and on the album cover notes

she thanked her 7^th grade teacher

for igniting her to love words,

and I was drawn in to her passion.

I’ve been writing this since I knew

I was born in the sun sign of Leo,

tempered by the waters of Cancer,

and the name given to me that seemed

so cranky and old-fashioned means

“light.”  These elements seem to

be contained in me, wherever I look.

I’ve been writing this since

my senior year of high school

where a poem about a candle

burning down and one called

“Shine On” were published.

Even then, light was my guide,

my inspiration, my muse.

I’ve been writing this since

that day in October I stepped

off a plane onto the tarmac at

the Cancun airport, and was

greeted with a fire of sun more

intense than I had ever felt in

all my days. I feared that sun

at first, but then came to love

its healing presence in my life,

year after year, the way it made

the water turquoise, the sky bright,

and the sand startling white.

I’ve been writing this since

I watched The Lion King while

on vacation in North Carolina, and

I heard Mufasa say “Look to the stars,”

and “Remember who you are,” and

that evening a mountain lion resting

on a rock was seen within our headlights

as we drove the winding Blue Ridge

Parkway, and I knew it was a visitation,

a call to courage, a remembering.

I’ve been writing this since

I found myself walking out of

a workshop in Washington D.C.

to lie on the cool November

ground in Rock Creek Park, and

everything around me shimmered,

like energy come alive – the trees,

the bikers on the path – all

vibration and light and fire.

I’ve been writing this since

the light seemed to go away,

the blackness around me felt

all-enveloping. Yet even in

that dark night, I found the light

of teaching and my real purpose.

I found glimpses of light in

stories and healing words and

music, my constant companion.

I’ve been writing this since

I sat with a glass of white wine

at dusk in Northeast Ohio and

listened for the first time to

Miles Davis' Kind of Blue,

contemplating how my life

was changing by choice, and

not much longer would I sit

during twilight in my home

state, and never again could I

hear that album as the spiritual

experience it was.  A jazz light

slipped in as daylight slipped away.

I’ve been writing this since

I left the bleak winters to

live in Southwest Florida,

where the light continues

to be my muse, a delight, a

wonder every day: the way

it dances on the water, lights

up our faces, filters through

the swamp, gives us the

intense colors of sunrise

and sunset.  I came to live.

I stay for the light.

I’ve been writing this since

that August night I could have

died in my bed from a perforated

appendix, the August morning

I got married to my true love,

the August afternoon I hunkered

down during my first hurricane,

the fresh August mornings when

I’ve met my new students, that

hot August night with my friends,

caught in the passion and light

and sound of the Dixie Chicks.

I’ve been writing this since

I read about Amita, the Buddha

Of Light: “Light of mindfulness,

light of love, light of practice,”

a light that “touches countless

worlds without any obstacles,”

and I knew this universal light

is mine to give, through sun

and signs and names and the

river that runs and the sky that

changes every minute, but is

always there, clouds and stars.

And my way now is to be, as

Sun Bu-er wrote in the 12^th century,

“a single image of light” and

to light the world on fire with love.

I’ve been writing this since

my walk on the beach where

a lion’s paw shell called to me,

the sun warmed me, the sun I

no longer fear after being told

I must. The shell was left in the

remnant of a tree, graying and

weather-beaten, close to the

waves of the Gulf, where it will

stay and be my symbol of this

day and what I have come to

know about my purpose and passion.

I opened the moon roof in my Tucson,

and when I arrived on the peak of the

Sanibel Causeway, the “sun poured in

like butterscotch and stuck to all my

senses,” another visitation, another

calling to be Lion and Light, Sun and Fire.