ALL I'VE LEARNED TO SAY — The Mustard Seed Conspiracy

i did it.
i quit that job,
mumbled through
an explanation
of the thread exiting my chest,
pulling me somewhere else,
thrusting me forward.
toward what?
all I could say about it
at the time
was
“i just feel like there’s something
inside me chanting steadily:
create.
create.
make something.”

and to find out who and what and why
i have to obey, to try
to make something beautiful
to say something worth saying.”

so far i think
all i’ve really learned to say is
“pay attention!”
in one hundred and forty three
different ways.
but I think even that
does bear repeating
until we do it
until we look
until we see what’s around us
and sing
and fall to our knees.

Pouring my tea in near dark, I pour blindly, waiting for the glint of light on water which means I’ve filled my cup to the brim. This is how the dark pours into the winter day, until it’s full to the brim at the end of a long twilight. The stars dance, and the world turns its shadowed face around to meet the next day’s sun. Both are experiences best lived paying close attention. Yet it’s also one of the hardest times to pay attention, these glimpses of sun buried in long nights. The sun is in no hurry at this time of year, the beginning of January, the cycle rolled back round toward lengthening, but still brief, days. We lull and luxuriate in these long nights, sleepy and slow to rise. It’s easy to let our eyelids droop when it seems not much is happening in the world outside. Paying attention is hard in the dark; we are forced to turn inward.

Open eyes, internal or external, always get you far; but to stay awake during this season we must stoke the imagination, which is needed for hope to keep alive. We must imagine: seeds resting underground, their fertility preserved and preparing for spring -- animal friends going torpid, living off of stockpiled food and fat -- burrows in the snow and fluffed feathers -- and finally we must imagine the year ahead, arcing forward with all its joys and woes, our mental image frayed at the edges, where inevitably the unimaginable will occur.

As we pour blindly into the cup of 2019, let us live the experience of this year paying close attention, watching for the glint on the water. May we let ourselves rest in the cradle of the long nights, while staying internally aware, feeding our imaginations from our stockpile, living alive in each moment and also dreaming for what is to come.