recuerda mi corazon

the perfect scent of pine

this year.....

i want the "little" back in Christmas....

little crystal white lights strung together

 like a chain of softly uttered prayers 

offered humbly

over the top of this cluttered world. 

 just a simple white rosary of lights, 

that no one puts away when the holidays are over.

little.......like the moment 

when all the crowded cost co isles slipped from view, 

as I heard an older couple 

singing a familiar Christmas carol on a karaoke machine. 

soft and reverent, their paper thin voices rained over the sound system 

as gently and fragile as an unexpected snow. 

suddenly i was five, sitting in church between my brother and parents,

as the voices of the elders broke my heart

in the way you want your heart to be broken.

I want those long ago little footsteps of my son 

sneaking down the stairs way too early on Christmas morning, 

when the sheer delight of possibilities 

was enough to take his breath away. 

and that little note he left for Santa

beside a generous plate of just baked gingerbread cookies.

Dear Santa, 

Please share the cookies with your reindeer. And could you please find

the missing key to my treasure chest and leave it under our Christmas 

tree so I know you are real?

Love,

Adrian

i remember

when a tiny silver key 

hardly the size of the first snow flakes of winter 

could keep the magic of believing alive. 

i spent most of that night

desperately searching 

for a key that would open his treasure chest. 

and as fate would have it......i did!

i left it on the plate 

with a few less gingerbread cookies.

in the morning it was adrian's first destination.

he gripped that tiny key in relief and wonder.

i don't remember how many years past

until i knelt before that old trunk 

my grandmother had given to me

 when i was a child....

and so many years later,

i to him. 

S l o w l y

i placed the familiar key in the old lock

and gave it a careful turn. 

it was a hot summer day

and what met me was the faint,  

perfect smell of Christmas. 

stacked to the top... 

silently waited

 a humble collection of frail little branches 

retrieved from each hallowed pine

 of all our holidays together. 

always the last vestige of Christmas

 to be taken down and

adrian's most difficult to release....

carefully 

without notice

he had kept a remnant of each beloved tree.

may the smallest most tender

memories of Christmas 

tie our hearts to both seen and unseen miracles. 

may all the disparate shards of life knit themselves together 

under a pure silent blanket of snow. 

and just for a few white hours, 

before scads of new sleds and brightly bundled kids 

weave their spirited footsteps 

across the soft horizon 

let our world be transformed.

as my husband and countless others 

clammer for a little more time, 

as our grown son longs for different "little" things 

and announced just today...

a baby hedgehog, yes, a hedgehog!

i hear that older couple singing....

have yourself a merry little christmas, 

let your heart be light..........

i smell the perfect scent of pine.

and send this simple hope...

that a soft snow will fall 

forgiving all our short comings 

and deliver us pure white

to the waiting new year.   

......that some small forgotten memory 

will fill each heart

with a surge of love and wonder, 

that no one puts away when the holidays are over.

gathering heaven

  

winter's clouds have stacked themselves so close. So dark in their enormous pillars of expectation. Humanity scurries below. Some, head down and too preoccupied to notice.  While so many others, faces turned upward to the sky, in wonder, wait.  Such a mixture of thoughts gathering in the chill. Swirling like so many crystals of possibilities. A memory of maple syrup on the first bowl of snow collects on Adrian's eager tongue. His mother reels in sudden terror and delight remembering years ago, a speeding sled ride behind her now grown son.  Her husband groans under his breath, already shoveling Mount Everest in his mind, from winters sidewalks.  Our memories swirl and rise in the gathering cathedral of winter. Higher, higher they lift the very ceiling off the sky. I look at all the gathering darkness and marvel at how the quality and intensity of light grows as the sky swallows all visibility. The more darkness, the more brilliant our small diminishing light.

Here in the northern hemisphere it is time to hunker down. Our cat has his winter coat on and is found most days curled in a spotted circle of his own sweet warmth. Children, I am convinced, wrapped in utter expectation cause our world to spin faster on it's axis. The days are flying off the calendar and I want to lasso the moon, sun and stars to slow down the pace. Yet life, as life will, moves ever onward like a giant graceful wheel. The short days and long nights of winter give us pause. A time to gather hope, renew our spirits, realign goals and count our blessings.

 

 Finally the snow is falling. Like a soft, pure tap on the shoulders of life to remember. To face each moment, all days, every season with faces turned upward in childlike wonder. This year more than any other I have been longing for the arrival of snow. My heart craves the purity of a white covered landscape relieving us from all the disparities in this complex world. I rely more than ever on the promise of bulbs gathering strength beneath the frozen ground. I look towards the smallest patches of light and find comfort. I gather heaven in each simple moment shared with family and friends. 

  
 

Here in the gathering cathedral of December, may your New Year be blessed with deeper meaning. It waits for us untouched and as pure as today's welcome snow. May we all spin gracefully through the seasons. Live straight from our hearts. Cherish the gift of family, friends and neighbors. Revel in life's simple pleasures.  Cultivate understanding and extend  kindness. Look for the common decent thread that ties our hearts to each moment, to each other, to the profound realization that we are all inextricably bound to one another. And like the most revered light in the overwhelming dark of winter, may we all manage to shine.

  
 

 

 

recuerda mi corazon

 

night claimed us. my mother beside me on the rock hard bed. i moistened the soft rose petal from the sanctuary of juan diego and pressed it directly to my heart. lying on my back towards the night sky, i wondered how many prayers lay imprinted like constellations of devotion in the thick adobe ceiling above us, counting them, following them like endless strands of rosary beads i fell from all references of soul navigation into a deep deep sleep.

somewhere in that dark night she came to me. she walked, no....glided from the far corner of the room towards... me. there was no sound, just a perfect awareness of light. a beautiful calm and heart stirring light. that is what reached me first, her radiant light glowing from ever pore as if she had swallowed the moon, and somehow i was now moving towards her. she beckoned me without words, just that pure light and immediate comfort that radiated from her eyes, heart, hands. yes, we glided toward each other, seamlessly, our eyes drinking each other in until our hands met.  i was completely eclipsed in her radiant light. my hands in her hands, opened palmed, we stood drinking each other in. the deeper i fell into her eyes peace grew. compassion slipped from her continence into mine. we stood there filling the dark cell with so much perfect light, i was sure we would wake my mother.

there were no words, yet perfect understanding. i closed my eyes to humbly take her in. she filled me, awakened me, cell by cell. like a blooming, each flush of love stirred and filled one cell then the next. heated with a great loving warmth that grew slowly into my hands, wrists, up my arms...traveling with a resounding urgency to flood my heart. 

and in this healing embrace she nurtured every particle of my being assuring me that she would fill my every need, lift my every care, take me in, all of me, the perfect and frail, the whole and the broken, the transcended and the trespassed. transported to a place of complete and utter acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, union. and for this passing of time i was complete and holy in her lovelight. i did not know where my heart ended and hers began. when i opened my eyes, her love had entered me so completely that my hands, arms, the trail to my heart, had turned a lovely cinnamon brown, the colour of mexico, her people, her warm nurturing earth brown skin.

i had brown skin, a rose petal on my heart, was holding hands and looking into the eyes of pure compassion when i heard her say, without speaking, recuerda mi corazon....remember my heart.

 

VivA La Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe!

 

 it has been a joy searching for just the right image of our lady to celebrate the days of december leading up to her feast day. for many of us the sight of Her in any landscape transforms our hearts. todays photograph is so dear to mine. taken in oaxaca by laurie beth zuckerman and shared so generously with me. trust me, i have a story to tell and wish i could unravel the long tender threads of it right now. but i am rushing off to help a friend, and i am honored to take my leave and return to you all when the call to make a difference for another is achieved.

in lieu of my tale please visit laurie.  her ability to capture grace, compassion and devotion knows no boundaries. 

the virgin of guadalupe will serve you

 

 the virgin of guadalupe will serve you

lynne Mcllvride evans

reina de mejico

 

 

apparition in juarez parque, san miguel de allende