Where do I go?

When I relax, I notice that the wildest, most "lost" parts of our garden are the most wonder-filled parts of the garden. So I could weed. Or I could just relax. :-)

This new poem Where do I go? stretches time. Co-creates with you some time for getting a bit off track, a bit lost. For any practical folks out there, that means that it might enjoy being read or spoken aloud across three chunks of time, such as one part every hour across three hours, and/or three days, three weeks, three months, etc. Once you've stretched time with it, it will make a different kind of sense– with you– as a whole. Please don't ask me to explain it further. I won't. Because on the lawn outside Healing Circles Langley today, I met a black rabbit who distinctly told me not to. In our family, we call black rabbits Bat Bunnies, after our late black cat Batman. They are special magic. What they show up to say is always honored. Always heard. Which is great practice for those of us still not listening deeply to every living being we meet and become. :-)

Where do I go?

A human walkabout, in three parts...

Part 1: Losing me

When
bullies show up
to mock/threaten/torture
me and those I love again–
this earth and
all her lings–
where do I go?

When
a friend or stranger
organization or government
unexpectedly
dumps their problems on me
when I'm barely holding on myself, today–
where do I go?

When
yet another horrifying, self-hating man rises
denies rights, disappears children, drains life
from people and planet–
all paid for with our taxes now–
where do we go?

When
I need to grieve
but nobody I know
has the time or energy, yet again, today
to grieve with me–
where do I go?

When
the jobs we need in the U.S.
for access to affordable healthcare
let us know,
they're letting us all go–
where, then, do we go?

When
our friends and their families in Gaza
scream, suffer, and die
trying to escape U.S.-funded
bullets, bombs, torture, intentional starvation
intentional disease
insatiable greed
racist fear and violence–
where do we all go?

When
nobody but me
can show up daily
for my elder parent–
in a country that raises us to see and believe
all imperfect beings (except billionaires & one fool trillionaire)
are disposable–
where do I go?

When
my coworker, then my friend and mentor, and then
the one woman
who always showed up for me no matter what
all die–
where do I go?

When
fascists fully take over your government(s)
corporations and billionaires/trillionaire warp
into doomsday bunker-building voles,
rapists, pedophiles, surveillance vampires
with private armies of the damned
all parroting the exact same thing:
"Nothing you can do,
just shut up and take it.
Nothing you can do,
just shut up and take it.
Nothing you can do,
just shut up and take it."
When their AI builds far better
health outcomes and resumes
for white men
than for anyone else.
When
all lies
about who protects us
shatter into dust–
now bloody and exposed–
where do we go?

When
even wonder-centered me
my dear love
is nowhere to be found some days–
trapped in a screen-darkened well somewhere–
where, then, do I go?

Where do we go? Where do I go?
Where do we go?

Part 2: Lost

We get lost.

We are lost. Adrift.

So lost.

At first, you can't even say it out loud.
Not more than a whisper of a thought...

Where the f*ck am I? And then.
What's happening? And then.
What am I doing? Who the f*ck am I? And then.
Who are we? Who are we?

Who are we now?

From one viewpoint
getting lost isn't so much an action as it is
a deeply necessary inaction.
The more I fight the lost, the deeper I sink.
The more
deeply necessary
being lost becomes.
While so many neighbors fight to stay busy or stay present
that's not me.
I am here to let go.
I'm here, to get good and lost. Truly lost. Collectively lost.
And to document the holy living shit out of it. And to
toss clues and questions into every wind that touches soft skin
or lifts us up.

Here–
in lost–
you don't know.
You just don't know.
In lost, you need help. Which means you need courage.
In lost, you must rest. You eventually lose having a choice in the matter.
In lost, you may thrash around a bit. Sometimes you hide. In lost
its only when we stop fighting where and who we are, that then, we notice.
Notice powerful words beneath surface words.
Truer feelings beneath feelings.
Notice non-obvious connections.
It's here, in lost
where we remember
re-learn to hear and speak
the true right now.
The TRN:
the true right now.
Where we live the turn:
we're not just imagining, thinking, or worrying about it.
We're it.

In lost, we may feel stagnant or stuck
until we notice our selves floating toward
who and what
truly helps
or until they float toward
us
and we're able to perceive and receive them, this time.

In lost, we receive.
Blissful matriarchy, oh how we've missed you.

And as we receive, again, we learn, again
to value wilderness and non-scheduling
the wild and the fog and the broken and the unbroken.
In lost, we may find humility, generosity, gratitude.
In lost, unlearning, then, learning
leaving clues, not answers.
In lost, we become living clues. Here
we're unclear, and disoriented, and floundering
and we're wonderful nonetheless
because certainty offers many things but he also offers
fewer voices, fewer choices
less freedom, less listening
shallower understanding
fewer connections
and eventually, stagnation.

In lost, our "enough" is far less
far more clearly felt and seen eventually, as we live our own enough.
In lost, we are footholds for each other
and we know it to our shared core.

Some days I think that lost
is what the earth/planets/stars/universe/gods/God/Allah/neighbors
all need from us
to be whole.
To be real. To be more free.

Why do we struggle so hard against being lost?
Why don't we woo them? Celebrate them?
Why don't we learn and speak their deep languages?

I may be lost but I know this:
I unlearn and learn more about myself, and us, when lost
then at any other time.
If you truly love to learn and grow
then lost is where you'll end up, repeatedly.
How lucky are we?
At a certain point we see it:
sometimes we choose lost. We choose lost to become
our most known, beloved, nold (new-old) selves again.
There can be a shocking amount of joy
in the tall weeds and great deepening
even sanctuary, in these cracks of lost and otherwise.
For example...

Part 3: Finding us

Into trying new things
and failing a lot, especially at first–
that's where I go.

Into believing I need this or I'll love this
then learning that, bleh, that's not me at all–
that's where I go.

Into believing old lies
watching them falter and fail then
stretching to learn, anew–
that's where I go.

Sometimes,
into isolation
into fatigue
dis-ease
depression (a heavy sludge of gloriously gentle non-avoidance)
and recently, into long Covid–where I'm truly not the boss of even this body–
that's where I go, sometimes, too.

Then into the woods and wild
to find the one tree, or plant, or being– or collection or series of them–
that unteaches my whole body
my family line, renewed–
that's where I go.

Into creation herself
into writing and drawing
into circles of healing others
into the global heart field (you feel this)
and collective imagination (you feel this too)–
that's where I float:
out among the stars
here among all of us
feeling who we really are–
like well-loved packs of doggos
and even people, naturally do.

Where quiet comfort is offered
and few words are spoken–
that's where I go.
Into sunsets and forests
libraries, plant nurseries, books and bookstores
ancestors including found-family ancestors,
fields, beaches, parks, and healing circle centers
then conversations and other
reimaginations
talking with plants and with trees– oh hey, bunny–
then protests, coffee shops, music, live theater, dancing,
community centers and elders–
together and alone–
that's where we go.

Where brave shaking people build community
from the broken open-hearted ground up–
that's where I go.

Where courageous people are trying the brand new
or starting over and struggling, alone–
that's where I go.

Where tender, always-emerging folks are speaking the truths
of who they are– again and again–
she/her, they/them, he/him, she/they, all combinations of we/us
with pronouns and unexplored parts of us always still emerging–
that's where I go.

Where people gift
barter, exchange
fix, and mend–
capitalism be damned–
that's where we go.

Where people stand with
the most vulnerable–
among us, and within– the front lines
of profound and glorious change–
at great risk to themselves–valuing
the living, breathing, remarkable whole of us–
that's where we go.

Wherever people sit in lion-hearted circles that hold
all of our laughter and all of our woes–
that's where we go.

Where friends have gathered to play
or to weep and share
exactly where they truly are today–
that's where I go.

Even when I'm too fatigued to leave the couch–
damn, we get around these days–
Into the heart field.
Into reimagination stations.
Into collective selves. Into wilderness and wild imaginings.
Into creation. Into play. Into curiosity and wonder.
Into foraging and gardening and home canning.
Into growing into loving the unlovable
becoming more ungovernable
again and again. And giddily divesting now
from countless once-hidden oppressions.
Into letting violent nonsense go
while celebrating
across fences
all other loves and glorious nonsenses.
That's where we go.
That's who we are.

No amount of individual thinking or worrying
or even talking, now, can convince me otherwise,
because I get good and lost. I let it all go for a while,
get lost, get full of grief or rage, get down, get sad, get lonely
get sick, and I've even stayed sick, too– noticing
what gifts that's brought us.
And this time, I mostly just waited and watched in the lost–
I watched where I go. Where we go.
I know exactly where I go when I have no energy at all.
I go back to wonder, to silly, to goofy, even. To being strange, curious,
wide eyed:
I return
to loving all of it.

I know where I float and where I struggle.
And in whose footsteps I follow.
I recognize who's here to float with me.
Following the ancient paths
of most acceptance
from within.