Write Me

"Write me," I say pen to paper as I reflect on who I am not but once thought myself to be.  As in, life cycles, experience and new patterns change us all.

I was found by an Apache teacher who told me she had been dreaming about me since a child. She took me to the grandfathers in Hopi land who made me believe I had a special purpose.

Raised a Christian minister from 11-20, working as a youth advocate and teacher from 20-30, ceremonialist from 30-40, for the last four I’ve grown quiet and, in my silence, have wondered if I forgot to stand in or up for something that passed me by when the masses joined the elements to create a prayerful movement to all directions.

I ask Creator, who am I?  I did not grow up on reservation or with picture language to describe what I feel in my left hand are my grandmothers, my unborn daughter.  I have only my life and the many stories of family heart that have shaped me.

Tribal brothers and sisters come to me and I remember my sister Magnolia telling me, “Zonia, what do you fear? That you aren’t nativey enough to do the work that has chosen you? You are more nativey than my friends who grew up on the reservation.”

Not true anymore as the nations unite stand on their feet and recite meanings and words in fields of earth's rhythm to explain what people feel in their hearts but can’t say.

Quietly I realized I did fear that but even more so, I began to feel that if I wasn’t asked I didn’t need to remember. True for me in all spiritual groups, even yoga. So many memory keepers and scholars are there and me?   I fall silent into the private recesses of my painting, journaling world and ask again,  "Creator who am I?"  

Show me.  I will listen and learn from the beginning as one who knows nothing. Watch and perhaps remember the part of me that went away when I cut my hair and did my last ceremony.

"Zonia? Don’t you care?"

I used to care...so much about everything. Every wing, every feather, every tree and water drop used to call me to them to witness them drop.  Root down into the earth that holds all the memories my family told me in my heart I cried and amber spilled from my eyes over injustices I felt in my modern body who knew only the quiet personal retreat of a grandmother hiding from her heritage in bathrooms she prayed to the mother for the life of her family and the power of her hands she layed on bodies like my great grandmother did before her and and her great grandmother before that. For her, it was in the name of Catholicism calling upon Jesus and spirit to heal what we could no longer name in native tongue.  I stumble to find words to describe what I am told, feel and know.

Irrelevant. Redundant. Faded into shadow. Returning to light.

I have said so much and now have little to say because I shrank love when I should have increased.  Watched the courageous speak, sing, write and dance while I held quiet heart close and stayed little nestled with the seed. Appreciation for brothers and sisters. Sacred heart burst.

Facing my own imperfect inclination to the end of nothing left to lose. No one but also some one in a million life path towards origen of species evolution built in thorough learning mistakes are gifts worth holding onto each other no matter what else is lost can be found again. Redemption is grace is reborn in the present facing future development of story lines unknown.

Pray to the stars in me and the waves lapping shoreline for words that aren’t already speeches rerunning ideas we all know the mantras what is beyond words is knowing and beyond knowing is forgetting remembering forgetting again and turning to the quietest ceremony of all.

The ceremony of heart and radical forgiveness of self for the insanity of isolation and perception of fault imperfect human denying self and others backslide to modern world from grounds upon which I slept and feet that walked visions for days until I reached the end of roads taken towards now uninvited guest.

A guest in my own home where I used to pray upon soils and sing the opening in my heart.

Closed.

Out the front door step into the larger reality of beyond the structures even the domes save one overhead the sky no teachers but the rising sun and stars.  No elders or officers of church just wind blowing breath on skin that touches skin of all colors.  Beliefs divine communion soul to soul. Natural medicine.

Morningstar when sun rises life eternally walk the path of faith in future. Let past fall away from mind into heart follow golden cords of ancestry to the unborns living in and around us is the human entity forever beyond time we are all here togethe, God intelligence in cells like star canvas nations constellations spirithorse caught in the bear hibernation slow way down to stop.

Be prayer. Infinite unknown one step at a time in the dark god invited to light the way to witness together the truth of love in every living thing pulsing spirals of light imprinted by stars mapping the universal plan is unfolding and destiny leads the way rivers and swimmers make their way to eggs that create the next generation living testaments to miracles transformation through lineage of human to human child to child born from mother father unending genetic chain Earth sky water beings being.

"Zonia, what do you care about?"

Life. I care about life thriving and people learning.

Learning what?

The mysterious ways of creation calling to our hearts mind falling out of head to the ground we fall humble beginnings no matter the role, knowledge or path we return to dust remembered in talk story names of grandmothers and grandfather little ones young elders side by side the last generation takes the remaining experience of living with and not against or in spite of all the forces seeking domination even within circle a cylinder rises like a pyramid of pharaoh and rulers take charge of medicines that heal everyone if and when everything but truth drops away we are healed. Open dialogue.

Cancer is lie. Radiance is innocence.

Like child I sit. Wipe me clean. No more stories to tell. Not my story or my grandmothers but I hold her hand close to my heart when I I hold my heart with my hand. Like Russian dolls we nestle together. Hold close.

The only thing that matters to me?

Dropping roles and chests until love drips over my head like flower petals from the rainbow sky and all I can remember is thank you that somehow we are all still here rotating planets and watching moon cycle to the songs sung long before words could ever explain a spring opens bubbling love to the surface like lava from my blood and all the nations past and present silently become one again.  Womban.

Nothing left to share but this:

God exists in the spaces between thought speech and feeling, presence is wholeness undefined by dogma language or birth. Singular cell source intelligence created you I and time space continuum all things on into eternity.