​Opening the mouth is an act of power.
With one word, worlds are born, while others die.

The soil of the heart
is a good bed
for this power
to be seeded.

The soil of the belly
makes it real,
and draws deep waters
up to feed it.

The sun of the eye
focuses the stroke

and the spaciousness
all around
invites the sprouting

as relaxed excitement

the natural way of growth
and flow.

The mouth 
is a sword
and the mouth
is a megaphone
and the mouth
is a carpet
laid out
for Great Feet
and the mouth
is a shaper
a moulder
a maker
and the mouth is a
note
in a chorus
of notes.

The mouth is a mouth,
fleshy gummy and warm.

​The mouth is a tool
used for good
or for harm.

And how can we know?
What is best
in each breath?

Trust the mouth
when it's tied
to the heart
and the death
of the grasping
at having
and the piercing
to get.

Let the mouth
stand its ground
and cast its 
honeycomb nets
for the sake
of the One
for the sake
of the All
for the sake of the I
that holds me
in its Home.

May this mouth be unhindered
may this mouth be free
from that which would make it believe
it is me,
and may this mouth serve
in each moment
the Love
of this heart
and the Great Heart
in the same
cosmic
flow.

​May this mouth
be a prayer
whether awkward and raw
or graceful, refined
whether loud, fast
or slow,
let the rhythm
come forth,
from the uncertain depths
to find its niche
in the Rhythm
of the Hive's Living Breath.

Today my spirit spoke to me through the stone beings.
As they gazed over my life,
the question they asked was not “What did you do?”
but “Were you fully present?”
When each moment, small or large, was born and died,
were you there, breathing,
heart-beating, eyes open,
listening, and receiving
the fullness of what existed to be experienced?
 
Because if you were present, you cannot not have participated.
you cannot not have influenced,
as a stone who knows who she is
creates a space around her that the plants and creatures nestle up against,
and slide and move around.
 
Worms build whole kingdoms beneath the weight of stones.
Lizards and snakes cool themselves in the sweet shade of stones.
Fish find refuge beneath the thirsty lips of boulders,
and a young girl skinny dipping in the rocky canyon
while her father fishes upriver
suns herself on the faces of stones.
The ones huddled in the wet willow womb of the sweat lodge
make their prayers in the heat of stones.
Whole mountains are composed of stones,
and the mineral kingdom stretches out like a deep cup
to hold the energy of all places on this earth in its multi-layered matrix ,
even as forests are cut and animals flee the cities…
 
The stones are the oldest ones.
The stones are the bones of this planet.
The bones make it possible for all to rest, and to shift, to move and gurgle and churn
within their solid embrace.
 
While I am here, I want to be like the stones.
I want to stand firmly in place, in this moment, in each moment in which I find myself.
May I stand upon the platform of Infinite Presence
and may all my actions arise from here,
from the steadiness and sturdiness of stone.
Even as I am cooked in the cosmic, evolutionary oven, and am purified by Light,
may this up-shift be anchored, as clear, sharp, crystalline, diamond,
the Diamond of Ancient, Ageless, Essential Nature,
which is the Home in which all selves of myself dwell...

...And, resting, here, now, in this moment,
in the Home of this Diamond that I am,
steadily wiping clean my foggy lenses and peering out with Eyes beyond Time,
may I touch the world from this place, with this gaze,
knowing the power of my very Be-ing, my very See-ing,
like the quantum physicists who altered reality
simply by providing their undivided attention
to the tiny beings—particles—who, feeling the Eye of God upon their backs,
jumped gleefully into a state of graceful organization.
 
May my Presence on this Earth
be a force of Harmony, Healing, and Grace.
May the knowing of who I am
and where I stand
permeate this body of flesh and blood and nerve.
 
May the salt of my body glow like tiny diamonds of stars.
tuned to the resonance of the  Queen of Diamonds,
who lives
in my Heart of hearts.