Moses at the burning bush
and me, practicing yoga
both of us stepping into barefoot prayer.
Barefoot - stepping onto holy ground, coming innocent and carefree as a child, nothing between me and the holy place, wherever that is, whatever it looks like. I've always enjoyed going barefoot, but for a number of years, due to some issues with my feet, I wasn't able to walk with no shoes. Thanks to time and yoga, I'm tentatively back to my favorite mode of walking, and so grateful.
Coming to prayer - writing poetry or practicing yoga - with no shoes on...that's what I think of. Nothing between the Beloved and me, and all around me is Divine. I can't go barefoot and pretend. Going barefoot requires me to be "real", child like, innocent, sincere.
Last night Richard encouraged us to "put flesh" on our poems - stay out of the abstract big thoughts and "sing to the quick of our nails*" as we write. And he encouraged us to look for clues in our poems: where are we going, what are we thinking, what is life bringing us, what are we bringing to life? What does what I write tell me about who I am?
And I woke up this morning at 5:30 with this poem waiting to be written:
Standing at the doorway,
looking across another threshold,
I pause and remove my shoes
before crossing barefoot
into this new chapter.
Life isn’t a contest.
Neither is writing poetry or breathing prayer.
I tend to be an abstract thinker - to think big and broad. It's also the way I tend to see. It has its advantages, but I also tend to miss the little things. So I look forward to putting skin on my words, to "singing with my throat full of earth*", and to writing barefoot over the next few days. Just a little aside: I also tend to get wordy, so I really like this idea of a 7-line poem. Simple, short, concise, down and dirty.
*lines taken from "A New Song" by Michael Symmons Roberts
1 comment:
What a lovely image, standing on the porch and walking barefoot into the next chapter. :-)
Onward one barefoot step at a time!
Susan
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