Dreaming of Stones

In the world before waking
I meet a winged one,
feathered, untethered,
who presses in my palm
three precious stones,
like St. Ita in her dream,
but similarities end there,
her with saintliness and certainty,
me asking questions in the dark.

All I know is
I am not crafted from
patience of rock or gravity of earth,
nor flow of river,
I am not otter with
her hours devoted to play.
I am none of these.
At least not yet.

The stones will still be singing
centuries from now,
made smooth by
all kinds of weather.
If I strike them together,
they spark and kindle.
Do I store them as treasures
to secretly admire
on storm-soaked days?
Or wear them as an amulet
around my neck?

When the angel returns to me
in the harsh truth of last morning,
will she ask
what have I endured,
treasured, and sparked?
Will she ask what have I hidden away
and what made visible?

~Christine Valters Paintner

harsh remnants of disbelief and judgments scatter like marbles when we ring in truth…..

inquiry for today~    our old ways can be revisited with a fresh incarnation through tattered memories……

winsome exile

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,

who could cross
a shimmering
bed of leaves
without a sound,

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop
what you are doing
right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

~David Whyte