High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘grace’

Morning raised her curtain to a stage filled with rippling waves of green.  A lark sang, and as the sun rose slowly over the eastern hills, the young ferns began their gentle ballet.

It’s a long dance.  It will stretch into the summer and beyond.  These are but their first steps, filled with the grace and joy of their youth.

They arch their fronds, and hold their heads high, practicing their balance, gaining strength

Theirs is a message of abundance and peace.  To gaze on them brings a soft smile to the face, and comfort to the soul.

(And on top of that, they provide shelter to chipmunks and giggling elves.  I know; I heard both this morning.)

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Yes, passages of pain run through some our days.  We are no strangers to sorrow, loss, and confusion.

We see the butting up of opinions, one against the other, the eruption of violence and rage.

We put up walls and defend our separation.

We forget who we are.

Nevertheless, the sun still shines; the morning air wraps birdsong all around us.

Signs of grace abound for the taking.

To live in a world where tulips bloom is proof that we are loved.

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Now comes the lovely Queen, Magnolia, oldest of all flowers, who blossomed when dinosaurs roamed.

With sweet nobility, she greets us, unfurling her pink robes.

“I bring you springtime, my children.” she sings, “I have come through the mists of time to bring you joy.   Be of good cheer and let your hearts ring with gladness, for we are all children of the Great Yes, whose love is ceaseless and without end.”

Her song rises into the high blue sky, carried by  the voices of a thousand birds.

And we who stand beneath her branches are helpless in the face of her splendor and grace, and can only bow.

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Even the prickly things are loved.  Stones, thorns, scales, shells and shards receive their share of grace.

The light of the Great Yes light flows to all, regardless of our judgments.

It is heedless of form. With freedom and joy,  it gives itself to all.

It penetrates the depths and all the hidden places.  Shadows are nothing to it.  It knows no walls.

The lonely, the fearful, the despised and despairing are wrapped in its mercy.  Its tenderness knows no end.

Be at peace then.  Nothing is lost.  All things are known.

And even the prickly things are loved.

Eden’s no more than a wishful dream.  The garden of perfection is lost now to a distant time.

Yet even here, grace falls.

Here, where the darkness appears as real as the light, where danger dances with beauty, where fear and sorrow share equal time with hope and joy.

Even here, grace falls.

Nothing escapes the heart of the Great Yes.  Nothing can loose itself from its joy and compassion.

It sings its song ceaselessly, and its melodies extend to the breadth and depth of all creation.

Never doubt, my child. Whatever may befall you, you are seen, and known, and infinitely loved.

Let you heart be open and your mind be free.  Goodness and beauty surround you.

And always and everywhere, grace falls.

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Even when the world is windless and drained of color, your beauty takes my breath away.

I know you give no thought to it, to the way you stand apart from the crowd, to the simplicity and balance of your life.

You think of yourself as ordinary, passing from season to season, doing what’s before you to be done.

And yet you do it all so well, with such harmony and grace.

I know that you would laugh to hear me say so, but you hold more beauty than my words could ever say.

And even in the darkness, you take my breath away.

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Until the sun no longer shines in the sky and the earth no longer spins, grace will fall.

It will usher the last leaf from the last tree, wash the last wave to the last shore, and kiss the last eyelid as it closes.

Endings are not its business.  To grace, they are nothing more than turnings in time.  They carry neither the sadness nor that finality that accompanies them in human dreams.

Grace falls, wrapping all things in its tenderness, simply because it is the outer edge of love’s constant whisper.   It welcomes all things into being.  It carries them beyond time’s end.

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“There is an eloquence in enthusiasm.” ~Edgar Allen Poe

Even though, compared to others, she may seem quite plain, November has a certain grace.  Her creations are subtle, but possessed of such attention to detail that, when you stop and study them, they make you catch your breath.

She thinks nothing of it.  To her, it’s all a work of joy, a service of thanksgiving.

She she moves through the hours with quiet splendor, riding wherever the Great Yes leads.

It is all she wants; it is the very reason for her being.

And as we watch her pass, we are awed.

All the way from the core of the infinite Yes it comes, up through the swirling pathways of starlight and atoms, curving, bending, pushing outward and outward into the form of these particular petals and leaves.

Here, beneath the autumn sky of this particular planet, on this particular day, it sings itself into expression, tenderly unfolding breath after breath after soft golden breath.

How amazing that this pattern of light, this long dance of the Yes, can leap synapses inside our brains to create in our minds a perception of beauty, in our hearts a response of joy.  How amazing that we can walk by and not even see it at all, and still it breathes its grace and dances golden in the sun.

The drum beat of the Great Cosmic Heart throbs out to the furthermost places.  It sets whole nebulae in motion and swirls space with its oscillating stars.

Nothing escapes its tenderness.  It penetrates everything with the force of its desire.

It quivers on iridescent wings and pulses through delicate petals.  And all things ache with the beauty of its sound and long to follow it home.

So we dance wearing gowns of electrons to the beat of its resonant call, alive with its power, surrendered to its passion, drowned in the grace of its love.