Life is a Canvas

Poetry by The Irrational Sage

I really needed a nap, but this overwhelming nudge told me to go to the mailbox, so I did. 

Usually those intuitive nudges are more along the lines of go feed the dog, go do that chore, get up and do that thing I’ve been procrastinating on, move the body, call that person on your mind…responsibilities mixed in with Divine inspiration plagues my imagination…balance between free will and some aetheric navigation.

Going through the motions of this daily task, I was left in awe with the most magnificent rainbow arching right over my homestead….one I would not have seen had I not gone to the mailbox, because it was literally overhead.

After going through quite a few tower moments the past few years and reaching my wits end, it was this rainbow that felt like a reprieve….as long as I stared at it, my breath was, both taken away, and renewed by the beauty of what felt like a transmission from heaven beamed down into my soul.

Sometimes there are no words to describe something, be it a feeling, a knowing, a familiar connection with someone you’ve never met in person or only just met in passing, something deeper…. it’s illogical and there is no need to try to make sense of it.

It reminded me that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is more like a golden elixir of light flooding the plane temporarily with energy…and beauty…and wonder… an activation of the imagination. It’s the Universe reminding us of the magic ever present…and our part in it.

Every day my heart fills up with love by the bounty in nature around me, the sounds, the visions, the personalities of the animals, the glorious views (minus the days chemicals are painted in the sky…but even then I try to find the good by counting clouds of x’s and o’s).

The earth holds steady…her skin is a canvas always changing, always being painted by our living…rough days paint scars, even on good days we gut her with shovels making burrowed jars, because, first, we must discard…for this sacrificial art which we all take part…and she still shines like a forest covered star.

Sometimes, I imagine that when I mow the yard, I’m really shaving the armpit of mother earth…now, listen, I know some people prefer au-natural but the bugs, yo, the bugs are too much (I’m glad this doesn’t actually translate to humans).  I’m not saying my property (or nature) is like an armpit, it’s beautiful and I love it…nor am I suggesting yards shouldn’t be food forests or fields of flower beds, but also……ticks ( I live in the country, once I picked 20 off my dog in one day)….the jokester is always lurking. I’m sticking with both…for now.

Our ancestors were not fools…I think they understood the balance between man and machine.  To keep things in harmony there must be pruning, shedding, shaving, pulling, shearing, clearing, transmuting…death. It is part of the cycle of life, whether you consciously are participating in it or not (and eventually we all will, in the literal sense). 

I’m planting more trees and I’ve added clover to the lawn to lessen the time between mowing, but still, there is a necessity to it.  In all honesty, there is something incredibly meditative about the process of mowing. I try to avoid killing critters, I shout out a prayer, a warning, and I weave a lot (really, butterfly, you are just going to sit there and not fly away…ok, you win, I’ll wait).

Plant a tree and watch it grow, how fast or slow, will it sway, what does it know? How deep will its roots go? The landscape keeps changing…change is forever clanking…even in hollowed pockets of nuts and piles of leaves.

I planted two tiny trees last year and asked the trees around them to watch over them…and I know they did. Never discount the wisdom that surrounds you, your plants, your home want you to interact and build a relationship with them. (it’s true and I’ll talk more on this in the future, so follow along). It’s wonderful to see them taking claim in the landscape, watching them grown up being supported by the giants that surround them.

Life is not just a string of memories, but a picture you are painting with every movement, every decision, every experience…. if you had to map that out in a song, how would it sound? If you had to fill a canvas with the colors of your life, what view would it portray, what senses would it invigorate?

Sunsets happen every day but paint a different picture, some more memorable than others, just like the seasons.

We get to choose how we interact with the energy that is around us.

We get to choose to let the same patterns play on or do something different than yesterday.

Time keeps on ticking either way.

Ordinary days are anything but ordinary, if you’re open to noticing.

If I hadn’t followed that nudge, I would have missed something magnificent…an illuminated landscape…right “above” my nose.

What nudge are you hearing but not heeding? (even if it’s just to go to the mailbox at a certain time)

What if something extraordinary is waiting for you to get up, look up, step up?

What needs pruning?
What needs viewing?
What is brewing?
What needs undoing?
What is renewing?

Sunrise, sunset
in between
did you forget?
sun up, sun down
did you build bridges
or burn them down?
sun came, sun went
where’d it go
how was it spent?

Life is a canvas
filled with happenstance
You are a color
Painting your own dance
a magical being
I hope you know that
a wand of your words
here to earn your cape
a vessel capable of deep love
a living breathing shape
moving across the landscape
you get to set your own pace
give it a little fire, a little grace
give it a little flow, a little chase
wrap your arms around it
all the parts await your embrace