Touch glides under my skin to caress the gentle stream flowing down the mountainside into the depths of my heart. My step too is touch, fond of the accumulated water, fond of moving on worn out soles in this very lifetime. Each toe takes to the whisp of winter grazing the manifold branches within me. A pulsating open and close like flaps pressed to my muted words, expanding their reach to the sun.

On the windowsill the angel looks on, dives deep, lays the strands of me across mountain face and lake, tilts my head towards the hold of the sun just as the duck’s beak shatters the surface. Ripples cover vast space.

Die letzte Leine, die mich wie eine Nabelschnur mit dem Hafen verbindet, löse ich. Wind und Strömung umgarnen mein Schiff, legen sich wie ein durchsichtiges Band um meine Seele und ziehen mich hinaus; immer fort. Das Ruder fest in meinem Griff, folge ich dem Ruf des Meeres und drehe den Bug in den Wind. Frei laufen nun die Leinen. Segel hissen, den Wind einfangen, Kurs setzen – die Freiheit steigt in mir auf. Kraftvoll dieser Akt, der mich durchdringt, zugleich sanft, die Seite dreht, mich erinnern lässt. Gekonnt, wie Grossvaters Finger die Mandarinen schälte, die einzelnen Stücke Geschichten erzählen liess. Genau hier auf der vernarbten Platte des Küchentisch rauschte das Meer heran, die Piratenflagge hochgezogen, die Schätze suchend: ein Abenteuer begann.

Als ich meinen Blick aufrichte, treffen wir uns lächelnd. Hier und jetzt. Ich hebe meinen Finger leicht an und kippe die Mandarine auf ihre Seite, schön die feinen Venen im verborgenen Inneren. Du hast sie mir gezeigt. Die Freiheit liegt vor mir, in mir. Ich schiebe Dir die Frucht entgegen, süss. Ja, süss, der zu sein der empfängt, wie Du mein Denken und Fühlen auf die Seite kippst und ich von neuem erwache. Tiefer dieses Erwachen als die Furchen der Weltmeere, die unter meinem Schiff vorbeiziehen, tiefer als jenes Blau, welches den Glanz des Wassers in meinen Augen zum Tanze bittet, mich rüttelt und schüttelt bis ich mich erhebe.

„Woher kommst du, mein lieber Pirat?“, flüstert die Nacht. Ich seufze tief – ein stiller, durchdringender Atem in die weite Welt hinaus. Wie die Sterne an mir vorbeziehen, sich das Meer vor mir öffnet, der Horizont in sich ruht, navigiert der Gesang meines Herzens die mich wiegenden Wellen, die aufsteigen und fallen. Ich unternehme nichts, lasse mich leiten, höre Deine Stimme wie ich mit meinem Schiff die Achse der Erde umrunde, immer wieder, und bin nie allein. Die Ausdehnung des Lebens zerrt mich in ferne Gefilde, weckt mich, ruft mich, reckt sich in mir, zieht mich jenseits des Tals und der Berge, zeichnet ein Stück von mir auf die Leinwand des Himmels, wo die Sterne wie Krieger und Fabelwesen meine Odysee inszenieren, meinen verborgenen Schatz nicht aus ihrem funkelnden Schein verlieren. Hier bin ich sichtbar.

In meiner schaukelnden Kabine, auf meinem alten Schreibtisch, lebt das Licht in einem geschlossenen Gefäss, durchdringt seine durchsichtigen Mauern und schnürt Schatten um meine müden Hände, zieht Öl durch den Docht und entfacht die Liebe in mir. Wie ich dem Schein des Lichts mich öffne, hast Du mir gelehrt mich der Liebe zu öffnen. Die Liebe, die sich sich durch mein Innerstes tastet und auch dieses selbst, dass ich in mir trage, füllt.

Nun lege ich mich auf der Sänfte eines in mir wachsenden Vertrauens nieder, welches mich aufhorchen lässt, sehen lässt, sodann die Wellen ruft, nach dem Winde giert, das Beben der Weltmeere bemächtigt mich in sich zu empfangen, zu tragen, zu halten. Ich werde auf dem Meer sterben und mich hingabevoll ergeben im Vertrauen so geliebt zu sein wie ich bin.

Das Licht grenzt den Schatten aus, spielt mit ihm, zeichnet einen Kreis auf meinen Tisch. Ich ziehe meinen Zeigfinger über seine Naht, hell, dunkel, hell, dunkel, tippe auf das Holz, fasse mein Herz und lass meinen Atem Dich finden, Dich berühren. Wo Du bist, weiss ich Heimat – verschmelzen Licht und Schatten, zerfliessen meine Gedanken und mit ihnen meine Zweifel, sammeln sich die Ausgüsse aller Flüsse und Seen in versteckten Rinnen, streicheln sanft meine Sinne, flechten eine Sonne aus meinem Herzen, die aus mir herausstrahlt, zärtlich Deine Wange küsst, sich zutiefst verneigt und lächelt – Danke.

Acting candles in the quiet of the room. I watch them still and dancing, much like the hurry and halt of my heart. Here rests this body and mind. I attend both with awareness. It truly is a flicker of attention, of time, easily overlooked.

Space walks me to the candles. A threshold I dare cross with love I cannot speak, nor hold, nor shape beyond my lips.  I trust the light to wake color in the dark, I trust the morning to wake my body, it has not missed a day. I follow light into dark, the candles gaze at me, shadows cast on my face…where lies the trust that beckons life into every moving cell in every moment?

I know it.

I slow it. Feel. The passing of the snow yields the meadows lush and green. I follow. A ray inside a candle’s glow, the warmth of my heart beating, a rush I lay myself into like light flowing rivers, not once stopping to look for purpose, no distress in forging through earth and rock, and only the sky above. No hurry bending time or needing, wanting, chasing. Just the onset of life, ripples on the path, kind and soft like skin and muscle holding trusted sleep with eyes shut. A babe in the light, in the dark, remains when the candles dissapear, remains when breath loses its composure, remains in the outflow of past and present – is, truly.

Almost there. Almost face to face. Almost a word spoken. Almost. Radiant longing, burning from the inside, painting dark shadows across open nerve endings, extending far into the universe. Lined by the last glimpse of a late day’s sunlight, rays bathe in the falling drops as the curtain closes. That face drops, the scented body twists through the mind, fever races up toes and circles fingers, grazes shoulders and painted skin, maps contours unique to one only – a once home held by another human. Attention sinks and rises to match eyelids at their open and their close to reveal colors beyond, begging the yearning to stop. Or the pain begs, tired now.

I understand – scant and hungry – a thirst to be. To see. To stand on a rock – firm – and translate every atom into the universal gaze, which meets my own as I stop. To be, to see, to stand still. The accumulation of my physical being prespiring, conspiring in beads of sweat, beads running like improbable men on transparent threads: an incessant flow, and whirl, and wind, disarranging me.

What life is this, lived on the back of time? Hijacked by minutes and hours, until I slow and fall apart – a fracture in time. The scent of a lemon teases nostrils, ants scramble underneath feet. I blinked too often and failed my watch. To see as I wake up out of my trance delivers fresh life.

Restless drop out of a conceptualized life. I mindfully place the heavy grocery bags on the ground. To stand on a rock – unstable and vulnerable – yielding life; I will take it. To stand, to see, to be. My legs tremble, so I sit. My eyes tire, I close my lids. My breath grows shallow, I surrender.

So time is time and passes in whatever course time passes. I slide my palm between the hands of mere seconds and pause to regard the world inside and out. There; in both you settle, and I caress your hair, graze your lips. Still hungry, still thirsty, but no longer shy to live. I govern the sole of my thumb to trace the edge of your nail, glide along the root of your finger, hold tight your hand. What skin is mine? I step out of one world and into another. I consider attention a servant as I experience the breadth of emotion.

You – yes, you – crossed my path, sank into my heart, left footprints, restored lost rhythms, tickled my flesh and coaxed love out of invisible cells. The sky’s intriguing dance embraces your laughter, painting its joy across the glow of the sun. Sunshine – you – rays of gratitude pour from me. I am content that we met in this lifetime. It may well have been different.

I keenly watched the plates spin and spin and with them my house of emotion. The winds swept up my porch and broke into my home. Windows burst and walls cracked. Down the stairs crept a stray, feasting on the obscure, searching the pipes for warmth, chasing after any notion of life. As the roof lifted off its moorings I sat and watched. As the shutters tore off their hinges I leaned forward and surveyed the flowers. Turbulent times had plucked leaves from their stems, had wrenched pain from my heart. Still – outside the steady walls of a hidden chamber the winds subsided, withdrew at the muffled cry of a babe, so delicate and fresh, unblemished and whole, upending all movement, pausing, resting. The plates for one instance halted their cryptic grind. And nothing happened.

Still – I stood and observed the frozen scene, a landscape of my innermost: A house shattering, the walls peeling off, revealing the hidden chamber, the unseen child. Here I paint the flowers delicately, they remind me of my grandmother. She whispers in my ear, consoles me, as I cradle the child. All ruptures and expels outwards, and yet this heart of hearts remains untouched, is not breached, cannot die.

Child, the universe sends for you, gives rise to you. Life inside your infant body thumps. I hear it through the concrete walls, through the cracks, up the stairs, soaring, then tenderly brushing against my heart, speaking softly, providing solace. Should all plates break I will continue my watch. The winds will pick up again, the same play repeating. I know it. I trust it, though I do not like it. Eventually the winds descend, crawl back into a quiet space, lay down their lashes like the wrappings of a shawl in which I drape your tiny frame for warmth and rest. Sleep, little one, you are safe.

On the cold ground I rest. I rest my breath from having spent inhaling life so deeply. My cells break open and in creeps the sun to fill me. The emptiness provides a space for the warmth I crave. My muscles chase a deep ache around the confines of my heart. I am rattled.

I am here now, there is no denying it – and watch the sky playout before me, an inaudible act, a quiet shift in time. I know it passes, so does the cold. Stacks of ice and my body splayed on top. What shelf parks my love, which beats within? I have lost track, not of the clouds passing over me. I grab one with my soul and cling to its vapor as if for direction. In turbulent times I park my limbs right here and stretch out of myself.

Fibers across the shell I house day in day out seep through the ice and wrap themselves around love, caressing the light, dim and shaken, but in its entirety never disturbed.

An unknown finger traces the spine of my back, moves across my neck and tickles my ear. I do not know it. I relax in its presence like a child in the arms of its mother. Breath returns to me. A beat stirs my heart. In cracks I feel water release from ice, though I cannot see, I know the sun shines. I slowly stand on my feet, then leap. The trust I lost pulls every raindrop back into the cloud reversing pain into love. I am still here.

On the roof I sat and watched the sun step aside for the night, the cooling air nestling against my body. My limited view of the world before me. My care stretched beyond the expression of my gathered thoughts. Much further did the rays carry me than words could ever admit. My fingers soared higher, laced to my heart, exposing me to the light. I braced my life for the impact of a tomorrow I couldn’t fathom and held tight to every ripple my chambers emitted. I sang the melody of a boy turned man, through the shades slowly turning on day, leaning into the dark of nightfall. Then I closed my eyes and held the image of the sun inside of the womb of my soul. And held, and held, and held.

When I returned, I had not moved, not an inch. In my stillness, I felt the pulse of the world below. Its quiet hum calling me into attendance. With the approaching dark I watched humans bring light to their homes. I smiled and reached out my heart to their locked doors and knocked. Silently I entered every household and listened to life at the dinner table. I whispered their prayers in a universal echo, muttered their dreams and sorrows like they were my own, then slipped out of their proof of life, leaving their display untouched, yet profoundly witnessed.

I am not them. And yet in ways curious to myself, I love them. I embrace their fleeting mark on earth. Here sun meets seed, warms the soil, and beckons life to summon the minerals needed to extend toward the light. As I sit and watch: seeds sprout, seeds die. I am a sentinel on a roof, in a time, heartbeats gathered in my chest, simply watching the sunset.

We are lonely at times. In streaks of color and fading fabric we devote our selves to stillness. We run our innermost along the smooth spine of ribbons, hanging over doorways. They beckon us to enter. In slip our souls, deep into forgotten passages like roots dwelling in dark spaces, where we commemorate our ancestors, and where only the heart affords light.

I fall off a leaf.

On and on – rowan and walnut – I lift the heavy blanket from my shoulders and lay it across the table – cherry. There loneliness meets light, finds rest, finds recognition, stumbles towards a young child’s pointed finger; „look“. Then, evaporates: all seen is freed. Unmasked and spilled into the embracing forest. Of seed rises tree, and branch, and leaf…mother, father, brother, sister. Their roots run in my veins. What love, what source of life entwined inside of me. I am at peace.

In aging, my body dwindles and with promising certainty parts from lessons painstakingly learned. My efforts to conserve the body  surrender to the imminent decay, always present and in equal measure denied, in its plain form acknowledeged, later accepted. I pain in swollen knees. An aching back sends shivers through my arm. Every mention consumes energy ruthlessly and senselessly. I am learning to pay attention to my dissolving form, to discover I cannot avoid. I am beginning to think that transcending the body is an idea to escape this life experience. I find treating my pains and not creating more is a feasible stance to take. Age weiterlesen →