What Can We Do? Gulf of Mexico Prayer

I re-awoke again last week to the unimaginable devastation happening in the Gulf, leaving me in tear-soaked bouts of inconsolable grief. I was led to write and share a poem from this place and initially sent it by email to some friends and family. I asked them to pass it on, it it felt right.

May this poem break your heart and mine, and then break it again. As retired Unitarian Universalist minister, Marilyn Sewell, says (I’ve probably mangled it) in her film memoir, Raw Faith, “the cracks in our heart are where our love shines through.”

Rupture
4.9 million barrels
205 million gallons
greatest “accidental spill” ever
makes my skin hurt
my eyes water
my chest burn
my throat constrict
they can’t breath
they can’t escape
they have no recourse
but to suffer
die shocked and betrayed
our hubris
our greed
our ignorance
our soul-less playground of madness
heinous
oil
black blood
innocently
suffocating Earth’s womb
who am I to blame

8/3/2010

Who Is Your Hummingbird?

Why jump into this crowded blog pond? For unpredictably meaningful conversation when it comes too infrequently in day-to-day life. For greasing my wheel and, hopefully, greasing yours. For the thrill of connecting in the dark with love unexpected, with the rawness of our humanity in the endless ways it twists and turns.

I’ve recently begun stewarding a hummingbird feeder outside my Pacific Northwest office window. Anna’s Hummingbirds mostly, occasionally a Rufous. One at a time, they brrrrrr up to the bar for several long draws. Again and again, I’m thrilled.

Six years ago, they swarmed, chattering about the house minutes after my mother died in her bed. This spring they began coming to me in shamanic journeys, claiming to be my helping spirit in living my passion, my soul’s purpose. I have danced in the night masked as hummingbird, darting, stopping, starting, diving, being hummingbird. What strong, full hearts they have. May mine be so strong and full.

In the foothills of Mt. Hood, I was given a song especially for them. Since then, more times than not when I sing it, one comes seemingly from nowhere. Yes, she says. We hear you, he says. Connection, worlds merge. Sacredness unfurls.

And flits away.

Who is your hummingbird?