Thursday this week as I rode home on the bus, it was 4:45 p.m. and the sun was still shining.  This is very different from the dark days of winter when the sun would be low in the sky at this hour, and by the time I got home it would be dark, dark, dark.  I thrilled to the light all around me, and looked up from my Sudoku to gaze out my window into the woods rushing by.  I saw a stream that disappeared into a stone culvert in the midst of barren woods with their carpet of white ice and snow.  I couldn't tear myself away from the views outside my window and I wondered, not for the first time, what it is that is so compelling.  What draws me into the landscape and holds me there, captive, with that fullness in my heart?  A fullness that feels like... recognition.

This is what I heard in answer to that question:

Rivers, streams and hollows
trees standing and fallen
strewn and straight,
clustered together and strong in the wind,
buffeted and strained from traffic exhaust.
Roads in ribbons striped from here to there,
traveled, traveled.
Pot holes, cracks.
Sign posts naming what and where.
Banners waving, whipped and shredded by raucous winds.

All this is humanity inside out.
We manifest what we are inside.
We manifest what we are inside.
Today, in our signs and ribbons and banners.
Since forever in the rivers and trees.

Never, never doubt the power of mercy, forgiveness, compassion,
coming from a clear heart and a clear mind.
Because we manifest what we are inside.

How is this me inside-out?  The trees are the many rooted, growing, resilient parts of my self.  They are like the pillars of my personality.  Some trees have many "age rings," have broad, strong trunks, and graceful branches that reach up and out, sheltering those I love.  I like to think "mother" is one such tree within me.

How many of us have parts of us that have grown strong, however mis-shapen and gnarly?  And the branches are so easy to climb and sit in day after day?  There are parts of me that are still tender young saplings and they will grow strong depending on where they got planted - do they have enough to sustain them, or will they be starved?  My desire to speak Spanish is one such tree.  I may need to transplant it so it doesn't have to compete for resources if I want it to grow.

There are parts of us that we plant and re-seed repeatedly like a row of evergreens, to grow dense and strong and protect us from the prevailing winds of the place we have chosen to put down roots and live.   My ability to start over again...  and again and again represents such a line of growth. 

I very much recognize the fallen trees, that lay there on the wooded floor at odd angles, disrupting the symmetry, causing me to trip, and, eventually, decomposing, returning invaluable food and strength to the life around them.  Those would represent parts of us that we either willingly or unwillingly let die.  Sometimes it is something that we just outgrew, and so it fell over and died.  Things like addictions, or bad habits or immaturity.

The streams I see are like the wells and the waters of emotion I carry within myself.  I have deep waters as well as placid lakes.  I have puddles that appear after a particularly emotional experience.  When I was a kid, walking home from LaSalle High School one day, I remember seeing a puddle, and reflected in it were bright blue sky, clouds, and a passing seagull.  At that moment I remember God telling me, "Always keep a clear space in your soul so that you may reflect beauty like this."  Yeah, so I like to think that my children can look in my eyes and see a reflection of themselves that is surprising, and beautiful and clear.  I think there are waters that feed the trees - compassion feeds "mother;" hope and curiosity feed "love for learning;" emotions like anger and envy would feed growth of bigotry and intolerance.  I don't like those.  Those would be the kind of trees I'd chop down, and I'd drain those pools.

And do I have to explain the ribbons of road that run through us?  These are the pathways into me, and through me, the venues of communication I build and maintain.  I have highways, for sure.  My writing is one such highway.  It is a primary road into and through and out of me.  It's how I make my living, how I maintain relationships, how I change the world .   It is a well-traveled road.  Some roads into me are known only to a few people.  Some people, who love me very much and are not uncomfortable with the effort, will actually wear a path into me where there wasn't one before.  My roads experience the stress of extremes in life, like the potholes in Western New York after the hard winter.  Some roads are private and gated, and only some have the key.

We do have signs and banners (flags) that tell others who we are and what we believe.  I know my family is familiar with the sign that lights up once a month, "warning; PMS in progress."  It helps them navigate their way through the roads they must traverse if they want to interact with me.  Other signs might be, oh, my e-mail tag ending: "Hope is Patience with the lamp lit."  What does that sign say?  Only that you are dealing with a person who believes in both hope and patience, and so it may be safe to travel this road.

Somehow, I think, these are not poetic coincidences but rather that humanity creates and manifests on the outside what we are on the inside.  We are responsible for what we create in our lives, either personally responsible, or collectively responsible with the rest of our fellow humans. 

There is a reason it feels like looking in a mirror when I gaze out my bus window.  Thich Nhat Hanh says that we contain the same stuff that made the stars, that the iron in our bodies is in part made from the exact same iron molecules that emmanated from "the Big Bang."  This is science, he says, not faith or poetry.  We breathe and exhale the same stuff that the life around us does.  My tears are in next week's rain, or the snow in the woods.  

Humanity holds conscious, purposeful, creative Energy.  We do manifest outside what we are inside.  This is why I will never feel like I don't matter.  Or that my thoughts are not "heard."  My thoughts create.  It is up to me to pay attention to what I create, and do it responsibly.... and ...lavishly, and joyfully, and compassionately, and completely, without holding back or counting the cost!

Copyright (c) 2007