Ruah Bull - Spiritual Director

Sitting legs open wide on the black ground, she cradles the burned llama against the fullness of her body. An officer with a shotgun approaches from the lower left, to perform the final, brutal mercy. She waits. Her eyes are lowered. I imagine she is rocking, crooning.

Stand Still. The trees ahead of you and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, and you must trust it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or bush does is lost to you, you are surely lost. Stand Still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart and in eye, clear, what we need is here.