Saturday, January 3, 2015

Give a gift of eloquence to the New Year

When I was attending Bolad's Kitchen, the school of Martin Prechtel, he taught us that the Holy in all things wants us to give it the gift of eloquence as a way of feeding its spirit. Here is a way I have learned to give this gift.

First I let my attention rest on something that catches my attention. Just the first thing that comes without my analyzing or trying to control what I see.  For this blog I closed my eyes and I drew a card from the Journey Oracle deck to be the source of my eloquence.  This Oracle card represents Path. What a beautiful beginning for a gift to the New Year.


Next I describe what I see using simple, direct language without trying to be "eloquent". Instead I try to both really see what is before me, and free-associate from my close attention without awkwardness or editing. When I begin, I always start with the phrase, "when I see you...".  This makes me speak directly to what I am seeing.


When I see you, I see you are a beautiful spiral partially buried in dark and partially emerging into light.  I see your buried face is tattooed with a delicate mystery of meandering pathways. 


When I see you, I see your emerging face is made of shiny gold steps and soft turquoise water, not yet marked with traces and trails. 


 I pass back and forth along your buried and your emerging faces to come to the center of you. When I see you, I see your center is an embryo, a seed, a curled beginning. 

Although this sounds very beautiful to me, but it is not yet giving the gift.  Now I find a presence of the Holy in the elements, the forces, the Nature around me.  On this dark rainy evening, the Holy that is already at my back is Fire. I speak my eloquence to Fire without changing any of the words...and I am struck by the beauty of the good fit of my gift of eloquence, and by the mystery of Fire having gold steps and soft water.  And yet I see Fire in these words, and everything I see is true.


Try it.  Give a gift of eloquence to the Holy in this New Year.  The beauty of your good effort will be food to the other-than-human-world.