Gambling everything for Love

 
Lately I’ve been blue. I am loathe to admit it, for the same reasons I “never” get sick. I like to be as able as possible to choose joy… but the last few weeks have proven to me that there is something beyond choice going on here and while many may have their opinions about it, which I, like all freedom-seeking thinkers value or disvalue at my leisure (tongue in BOTH cheeks), I smell something else brewing…

Now, part of it might be the cycling of patterns and time. I had a birthday recently, and for the first time ever, I put it up on Facebook. Why? Usually I hide from my birthday. I run for the hills and pray no one notices and then feel bad no one noticed. (Oh, this is public. Should I not be admitting a flaw of such magnitude! Again, tongue in cheek….. but the point of this is that I think the more we see glimpses of ourselves in others, the more we can return to health and balance for our selves and then for our world… so if I choose to share something dumb about me, maybe you’ll  find a reason to laugh in the mirror of recognition, too!)

Maybe I’ve been blue because I’ve been changing my whole life over the last few years- changing my career path, changing my lifestyle. And it is all brand new or recently new and scary.

And maybe, it’s just time for the next adventure in love. And I don’t mean just romantic love, although that is possible, too. I mean in LOVE love, the kind that led me to Santa Fe and to Prophecy Rock, to India, to Venice to write an album. The kind that brought me to singing and to massage. The kind that I felt, inexplicably, early mornings in my hometown in Minnesota, when I would wake naturally with the sun rise, and have such a great and deep desire to be the very first to run out into that morning dew, and laugh with delight as my feet were wading in the tall wet grass out into the woods that were my playground, the birds singing as the world bloomed itself open once again- that kind of glory, THAT kind of love.

And so, sometimes, these peaces and pieces come in small lovely moments.
For example, I rescue a puppy, but it’s like those bumper stickers- who rescued whom?

Every morning I walk Henry past the Zen Center that is a building neighborly to mine, and sometimes we stop to run around their yard. Well, Henry runs. I watch. LOL. This morning, as Henry ran and played in the front gardens there, I watched and listened as a group of beautiful golden breasted birds sang and sang.

Then, a little wren began playing the funniest game during their singing: he would flit from a high tree near the roof of the Zen Center and fly onto the rooftop, barely touching down before circling back round to the same exact perch on his tree, appearing as though to have jumped from the roof to the tree…. Then he would do the same flit, barely touch down on the roof on a spot just a bit further from the tree, and leap back to the exact same branch. Soon he was doing this in rapid succession, each time getting further and further! Finally, Henry caught wind and starting running back and forth beneath the birdie. The bird stopped, hiding high up in the rustling leaves of the tree. No more tempting a small white dog toward potential snacks… Henry and I walked toward the flower garden where a sweet little hummingbird popped into say hello. Oh! Such delight in the morning.

Now, I’m a hard working, realistic young woman. And I’m an urban girl right now. I wear high heels and lots of makeup and read Vogue. I listen to NPR and get the paper. (See!? I’m a grown up.) (hahahahahhahahahahahha.) I have debt, and I have dreams. I have heartbreaks, and I have schemes. I’m well educated about things like literature and music and art and of course I am also very dumb about a lot of things. But one thing I know in my HEART is that I am as connected to these beautiful patterns in nature as I am to the idea that my name is Erin. In fact, I am more connected to these birds, these flowers, that childhood morning dew…. Than my name, than my position. In modern parlance, that sounds a bit…. I don’t know how it sounds, actually. The world is changing and some have always recognized themselves in nature (even in the middle of a great city like Los Angeles) and some have never connected the dots between their hearts and the golden breasted warblers.

But these adventures, seemingly small, make every morning worth rising for, and actually, make me realize that the thought of rising for any reason other than joy is just an idea that has nothing to do with the reality of this moment.

And it was at that thought, as Henry and I were returning to our apartment, that I looked down and found a four leaf clover….. why do I see them all the time? I prefer it if you tell me.

Today, my four leaf clover went into the Rumi book where I put all the clovers I keep, and it went tucked inside the pages of THIS poem:

Gamble everything for love.
If you are a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.
Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty.
You set out to find God, but then you keep
stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.
Don't wait any longer.  Dive in the ocean, leave and let the
sea be you.  Silent, absent, walking an empty road, all praise.