Breezy kindness

lightly lilting falling

into delicate pain

traces the edges

and succulent passages

of leaf vein

behind my eyes.

Warm air

cool flow

gratitude as I go.

Humanity thick

stuck as a stick

in mud.

Gray outlines and laugh lines

buildings and faces

angles, bricks,

fences and branches

lush green

woods and expanses

s t r e a m s

signs

leading to home.

Mark Twain said, "I have never let my schooling get in the way of my education."  Valuable words to live by.

In like spirit, I would add, "I have never let my religion get in the way of my relationship with God."

The last batchelor buttons of the season. 

I cut down the many overgrown, spent, and prolific stands of batchelor buttons today.  Every year when I have to do this, I look at each plant, and I smile, and I tell it, "Thank you.  Thanks for being here all Spring, dressed in your electric blue.  Thank you for growing and making me smile.  You did a good job.  I'm sorry I have to say good-bye now.  I'll see you next year!  Thank you so much for being here.  I'll miss you."

And I will.

"Be happy!
For you are joy, unbounded joy.

You are awareness itself.

Just as a coil of rope
Is mistaken for a snake,
So you are mistaken for the world."

-Ashtavakra Gita 1:10

We may be mistaken for the world, but that does not change Who we really are.  I pray that my own eyes will be increasingly surrendered to God's eyes, and God's vision, so I can look on my self, and those around me, and see us clearly, the way God sees us.