Air (read at CWC Open Mic)

I've decided to start posting whatever I read at the CWC Open Mic here on the blog. I read this one last night and someone asked me for a copy. I gave them my reading copy with last minute edits. That's OK, but I'd rather have pointed them to my blog and kept the last minute edits. Also, it's easy to forget exactly what I've read where, so this might help in that regard as well. So ...

Air

In the Initiation of Air,
there is no external reference for up, down or sideways.

You find yourself in a limitlessness space where
eternity stretches out before you on all sides.

Desire, movement and direction must come
from deep inside, from some still, small voice,
hidden behind the best intentions of parents,
community, teachers, best friends and religious leaders.

The soul expands outward, seeking new experiences
and inward, in search of stability and certainty.

It seems like forever, 

but distant shores at last
are made visible and then

touched with the new-grown tendrils 

of an immeasurably powerful star being, 

planted and rooted from 

within that interior dimension that
each one of us can have access to.

I just have to be still, and feel
how fast I am already moving;

my cells, my neurons, my body,
the entire solar system--

And I find, in that breakneck galactic pace,
the stillness that rides on its back—
serene, confident and joyfully aware
of its own eternal purpose.

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