Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

 Everyone assumes That the perfumes of August Are the work of springtime's buds Ageing into blooms. But the fading rose, In her dying, knows, It is the joy of ceasing That distills perfume.

 It was still easy for her in the beginning, only when climbing she would be aware of her heavy womb, - and then she stood, breathing, on the Jewish mountains. But not the land spread about her, but her fullness; and while walking she knew: nowhere was there such fullness as hers. And she felt compelled to feel with her hand the womb of hers who was further along. Toward each other they swayingly stepped and caressed the dress and hair. Each woman was filled with sacred life and safe and at ease with the relative. And though the savior was hardly in bloom, the Baptist in the cousin's womb already jumped for joy,

 To get to you, I travelled light years Through cosmic storms and dust, Only to find you sleeping on your simple cot. Stepping back, I folded, Quietly, My gray ragged wings. I could see why he chose you,  The glow of your pure breath.... I didn't mean to frighten you, Just wanted to keep looking.... I wanted to breathe in your innocent air, look at your soft, Surrendered hands.... Another second.... Before I told you the news,

 Fortunate is the hour when you stumbled and fell down into this. Never stand again. On your knees remain where the earth is, where the fire is ever-ready and the air ever-clear, water, and the stones of God. For the Woods Of Error are the wood of the real, chosen for us as the color of your soul. Lie where forgiveness lies, make love to that. For there is nothing else but gratitude-which is what all your longing was for.

 There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground, The only  safety lies in letting it all in- the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your  vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.

What if I could make a list the purpose of which was not the willful joy of crossing things off? What if I made a list of noticings, say: flowering blue sage my husbands work-rough hands the turned off radio red tail on a telephone pole loneliness What if every list,  or some, broke this pencil and released the scent of clean grey lead

 Though the air is full of singing my head is loud with the labor of words. Though the season is rich with fruit, my tongue hungers for the sweet of speech. Though the beech is golden I cannot stand beside it mute, but must say "It is golden," while the leaves stir and fall with a sound that is not a name. It is in the silence that my help is, my aim. A song whose line I cannot make or sing sounds men's silence like a root. Let me say and not mourn: the world lives in the death of speech and sings there.

  What if we enter each day so silently, so seamlessly the birds don't sound alarms and dart away, our minds so well released from fits of thought we are kin to all that breathes, like grazing deer  hidden in dapples of green. O how we would walk then light hoofed and elfin eyed, even on crowded days, each trembling leaf a welcome Silky beating wings would cool our errant fevers of mind would keep us filled with awe and kind

    Old Spirit, in and beyond me,     Keep and extend me. Amid strangers,   Friends, great trees and big seas breaking, Let love move me. Let me hear the whole music, See clear, reach deep, Open me to find due words, That I may shape them to the ploughshares of my own making. After such luck, however late, give me to give to the oldest dance....then to good sleep, and - if it happens - good waking.                  

  Day ends, and before sleep when the sky dies down, consider your altered state: has this day changed you? Are the corners sharper or rounded off? Did you live with death? Make decisions that quieted? Find one clear word that fit? At the sun's midpoint did you notice a pitch of absence, bewilderment that invites the possible? What did you learn from things you dropped and picked up and dropped again? Did you set a straw parallel to the river, let the flow carry you downstream?

  Hope stains my heart with the very face of Love tending to this world

  What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from Ourselves?

  I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea, Borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes; I would empty my soul of the  dreams that have gathered  in me, I would beat with your heart as it beats, I would follow your soul as it leads

 My way is in the sand flowing between the shingle and the dune The summer rain rains on my life on me my life harrying fleeing to its beginning to its end My peace is in the residing mist when I may cease from treading these long shifting thresholds and live in the space of a door that opens and shuts

  All's in this flower- Times, seasons, losses, all the fruits of woe, Beauty's fragility and death's bare gain, Plucked in passing by, five minutes ago. All's in this flower, the war of life and death, God's character and purpose written down, The force of love, the proof and power of faith. All's here, and all unknown.

 The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don't flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing, though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

 Effortlessly love flows from God into man Like a bird who rivers the air Without moving her wings. Thus we move in the divine world. One in body and soul Though outwardly different in form. As the source strikes the note, Humanity sings. The holy spirit is the harpist, And all strings Touched in love Must sound.

  At lunch today it was the purple of the olive pits against my cobalt plate that stunned me. At tea, the gold of a peach bloodstained by its stone. I do not know where the greater part of the miracle lies: that I should pause  to notice this, or that I, a woman of such great hungers, should be so well satisfied by such small things.

  The mystics warn that you are bound to be nicked by the barbs of existence.  The soul's well-being is not dependent on safety, but meaning... Hold the mystical crumbs in your mouth. Taste Beauty in every step. Stay awake... Sing songs of mercy along the way... The pangs of loneliness will be piercing... With practice a fierce compassion Swells from this barefoot vulnerability. Embrace each kindred traveler you meet, for only the walking and wordling souls abide and enlarge in the midst of such relentless change.

  As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain free fall, and float into Creator Spirit's deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace.