Paying some attention to what I take for granted

Lie Down

Lie down with your belly to the ground,

like an old dog in the sun.  Smell

the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp

earth through your clothes, let an ant

wander the uncharted territory

of your skin.  Lie down

with your belly to the ground.  Melt into

the earth's contours like a harmless snake.

All else is mere bravado.

Let your mind resolve itself

in a tangle of grass.

Lie down with your belly

to the ground, flat out, on ground level.

Prostrate yourself before the soil

you will someday enter.

Stop doing.

Stop judging, fearing, trying.

This is not dying, but the way to live

in a world of change and gravity.

Let go.  Let your burdens drop.

Let your grief-charge bleed off

into the ground.

Lie down with your belly to the ground

and then rise up

with the earth still in you.

~ by Nancy Paddock, from Trust the Wild Heart ~

: : :

I've put a pot on the boil today, some cloth filled with leaves & twigs

and handfuls of weeds.  As I yanked those weeds from the spots they didn't belong

[didn't belong only because I said so ... they were quite happy]

the intense smell of damp earth surrounded me;  that dark brown smell,

the one that comes after a long hibernation

and for me only belongs to spring.

I thought about belonging.

I thought about what it means to get up every time.

How I first have to lie down before I can get up.

And then

I rolled all those thoughts into the cloth

with the leaves

the twigs

and the weeds.