I feel a long line stretching out before me that runs through my navel. It includes my ancestors. It wraps around the Earth.

I want to gnaw on protein and maybe some kale, yet chocolate keeps finding its way to my mouth as though from a deep gravitational yearning. I try to add some almonds to keep it sane.

I’m pouring, pouring liquid water and washing my hair in the river in the sunshine and hoping I can submerge and resurface clean in heart, body, and mind.

Purify me, my beloved nature and spirit. I hug you in warm sunlight and with trust. Allow me to soften into this life despite all the odds. Humanity surprises us all the time, never seems to allow time to catch our breath. I

Catch

My breath.

And then I let it go.

I love myself despite all the imperfect choices. And in this new warm acceptance holy water trickles into all the desert cracks. Maybe I’ll soften into Earth fecund enough to grow something.

I watch the chocolate chips enter my field. Before I know it, chomping fills my mouth and ears and nose. Chocolate wafts everywhere beyond repair. Oh, no, no, no, keep the wolves at bay, please. I’m not ready. Or, I’m utterly ready but my timing knows I need a day to think, feel, trace and begin to deepen. I want my actions to come from the deepest place of knowing I’m worthy I’ve ever dwelt in. Just last night, I healed a large belief that there was something wrong with me and that I wasn’t worthy. I’m surprised it was in there. For the first time in ages, I realize I don’t need to rush around, that I can be and do, and that the being is enough, and that when it mixes in my round cement mixer with the doing, it will come out stronger and mightier than before. Truth and love meet. Being and doing converge.

I know it doesn’t make any sense and I’m so embarrassed. Yet I have no choice but to keep trying, keep typing, keep pouring out my words onto the embarrassed pages that weep from the shame. Writing is the dream where you’ve gone to school naked. Writing is picking up your pencil and doing the problems anyway. I’ve come this far: I might as well learn something.

I nudge right up against where it feels the most intense. Tears and sweat drench me. I’m laughing in fear as the sweat pours down my pits.

Every muscle I’d planned to control spasms uncontrollably. I pee and poop and sweat and fall down for all the world to see.

The rebels and the refugees have gone to Standing Rock. I’ve taken the turn and am at Falling Rock instead somehow. I watch the sky. I notice I’m alone again under the sun on the Colorado Prairie, that all my dreams have come true. I always meant to wind up alone. It’s all of solace. Here the shame becomes a sweet small fire to covet and protect and trust and let save me from all the hell that night threatens. I am safety. I write by the giant boulder and my best friend, my heart, will protect me from all the howling wolves that are my fellow humans. I long to love them, but quite honestly, you cannot trust them, not as a pack. They are always wild and unpredictable—always, no exceptions. Not the sweetest nun or the holiest of devotees can be trusted to stay calm and peaceful. No! They will rain on your parade, piss on your charade, make you challenge and question and grow. They will refine you to the point.

I cry all over the rain-starved prairie. My beloved’s texted me back. My heart leaps for joy while a sneer to the writus-interruptus who starts a dialogue while writing: What were you thinking?

I know better, but still. Still I move forward with my fear and my flesh and my soft skin and I find the shade of the giant boulder and I curl up and I wait. I wait for the hunter to fill the sky, for here I feel safest: Where the hawk and I are one. I will always trust raw nature in all her fury over the slightest of people with the meekest intentions. Holy shit, holy furies. The skies intend to rain people. So I take my solace while I can and pray for a garden to grow from the rain.