Angel DNA

No, says the angel, and Shhhhh... There is no need for tears, though they are beautiful and can be loved. Drops of glass refracting light. You teach yourself the lesson again: "Everything not fully suffered, not fully resolved [comes] again: the same sorrows [are] suffered over and over." 

Ask yourself, she says, Ask yourself the question. So I do. And in doing so, I have beckoned it. The answer rises like a wave--a wave nearly identical to the ones that have been dragging their bellies over this reef for a lifetime, before standing up and bowing to the sand. To the stone.

It is as clear as day, as clear as night: There is no roof under which I need to station myself, no shelter I should seek from the beauty and worth of stars. Easy is not best--why should I begin to believe otherwise now? I choose the way that speaks to me of a well-chosen journey, of the kind of independence I have always garnered, and of the million names I might give to a single shape on the horizon.

The angel settles herself among feathers and tulle, lets a smile curl the edges of her lips, where she wears her approval. Where she reflects the heredity I carry in my genes. Where she looks exactly like me.

Emergency Flotation...

Three doors open, two click shut again before her heart has even absorbed the joy that was building around it. Collection of sighs and affirmations become homeless in the space of two emails. Such a fine line between what the heart imagines and what it can actually contain.

Left to swim in uncertainty again, she puts a hand on a nearby piece of driftwood and extends her arms and legs as she knows to do in a swiftly (or slowly) moving current. She fills her lungs with air and believes in her own buoyancy. Lets the water kiss an oval frame around her face as she lifts her eyes skyward again, always on the lookout for the truth that might spell itself against the clouds overhead.

She thinks of Ophelia, singing her snatches of old tunes, but only as a passing expression of despair--Ophelia sinks in the fidelity of the story, but not she--she rises, her garments fanning around her like pale wings. There is gratitude here. She immerses herself in it again, lets the thoughts of her love, her boys, her friends, her family swirl into the negative spaces of her body against this mottled blue. She surrenders to it.

Lungs fill with air, push sternum to the surface. Ribs are a sweet little cage for the pulsing aspirations of a seeker. A lover. A writer. A teacher. This soul straining heavenward, asking the question again and again--how? Not why--That is the wrong question, says the angel. But how? Yes, how to be the thing it is in her to be? How to believe. Her willingness is all, and she does know. Knows it will take shape in time. Knows that the softness of her heart is all. Is all.

Angel Card: Synthesis

Yes. Synthesis. And harmony. Together we can. I never worked well in groups. I was "bossy," my mom told me. And a little controlling. I preferred to work independently. Choose each color, each word, even the arrangement on the page or in the air. And spirituality as a group effort? Never. But now. But now...

Sisterhood, I see, is all. Not just the synthesis of souls, intentions, efforts, but of my own experience, my own gifts and offerings. There is a way to give it all and be left to overflowing. Be a fountain, Kim. Be a fountain.