The Magic Seed -

Today I am in my garden. I have a lovely garden, it is a resting place for me. I feel safe here, hidden away from all that is. I lock the front door and open the back. My plants are always happy to see me. Birds come here and sing. They do not demand.

I have not told anyone, ever, that I have a magic seed. I don’t want to hear others’ opinion about my life, what I should and shouldn’t do. I want to plant my seed secretly. I am re-thinking about friendships and acquaintances. I think I will tell my friends. But everyone else doesn’t need to know.

I will tell you, my dear friends, that my magic seed is very old. A beautiful woman gave it to me as a youth. She placed it in my hand, this brown stone-like seed. When I touched it if felt like a butterfly in flight, so fragile, not at all like its wooden appearance. It had the scent of old books, musty and delicious; a scent that made me remember libraries and lofts and rainy days of reading. I even put my tongue onto it, just to see if there was a taste. But when I tasted it, I felt I was falling down a very long tunnel. Further and deeper down I went and, I confess, at that age of 15 I was not as ornery as I am now so I become a bit fearful and did not want to taste the seed anymore. The falling ceased and I stood there, in night, with a seed in my hand. I put it away; I meant to put it away only for a bit of time. But the days and months turned into seasons and then I forgot about this gift; at least, that is, until yesterday. Something rustled within…. don’t I have a magic seed somewhere? And, like looking for any other lost item, I became quiet and called out. A distant voice answered back, “Here I am.” I opened my heart and there, after all these years, was the magic seed.

In my backyard is a very big and deep hole. It’s off to the side; you can’t really see it unless you know where to stand. I dug it about a month ago when I thought my sweet dog was getting ready to die. She didn’t die, however…she only slept for days uninterrupted and then, one day, she got up and ate her dinner. Ever since then she has been very old but very well. And so the hole, still deep and big, as she is a very big dog, remains.

Tonight I walked to the hole and placed my magic seed way down at the bottom. Slowly I began to fill in all the dirt and sand, six feet of it. I worked for a long time, shoveling and thinking about planting something magic into what was meant to be a grave a for a very dear friend. I stand back after all the soil had been placed within the hole, standing back to think about long tunnels and old books. I stand here, gazing upon the ground, and the sky turns from day to dusk. I sense a deep peace as evening settles her sigh of welcome and the night birds begin to sing a song of waiting. They wait for the day to change, wait for the stars to arrive, they wait for the night blooming flowers to open their hearts.

I sense a softness fall upon me. I look around to discover that the trees are singing in green ease. I feel that the changes I have made, the moves that cause some to say, “But you used to be so nice” are now open gates and I realize, looking into the softness, that I have gathered up a deeper power.

I have laid down the ways I thought I was supposed to be, the ways of working to always serve others by giving them their way. I realize that the softness that is upon me is a very strong understanding that where I stand in sacred ground.

The whirling whine of star song calls me deeper in. I do not feel afraid this time and the tunnel, instead of falling down, is now falling upwards. For a brief moment, when one would wonder, how can it be that I can pass through a wall? I too wonder, how is it that I can fall upwards? And yet I do. It is quite lovely, this non-gravity flow. I am quite free from all the patterns of my previous life. All the tractor-pulling chains are broken and I am not bound by any old unconscious ways. I watch as I continue flowing upwards, my being filled with endless possibilities that surround me. I no longer worry about the things that have concerned me: making enough money to live on, what will I do when I am old, wondering if people will accept me how I am, will I become all that I am meant to be…instead I watch the color swirling run past me and before me, realizing that I am indeed a part of this all. The beauty of this upward path includes me; I am as much of this journey as the stars, the night breeze….

I am met by the scent of roses.

I have been here before.

Once, years ago, having been burned very badly and required to lie in a dark room with bandages on my face, I was aware of the scent of roses. “What’s that?” I had inquired. My eyes were covered and I supposed someone had brought flowers. “What’s what?” my mother asked. Are you imaging things again?

And so, once again, the scent of roses is upon me. I breathe deeply and am filled with a blissful and almost overwhelming feel. In my earth body I can only describe this as a sexual sensation, and yet it perhaps exceeds that. Even my toes are sensitive to the smell of roses and the call of night. I wait and time runs by, waving with laughter. I wait, and the breezes continue to fill me. My being is still and I know that I am safe. Changed. That I will never go back to those small places again.

My eyes adjust to the night. Somehow I have returned to the earth, standing on recently turned earth where I buried an old seed. The ground is now covered in glittering leaves. They have no trunk, no stems, only leaves. I gather a few up into my hands; they are solid yet they feel like the softest water. I put one to my mouth and it is a poem, sweetly eaten. And I eat yet another, and another, feeling like I cannot get enough, that I am starved for this moment and I sink to my knees, drinking these leaves of forgotten poetry.

They are my poems, and I taste their words after all these years. They are beautiful poems, I muse, in the wonder of discovering something long forgotten. Oh, they are delicious. And I eat until I am full, and decide, just then, to never think that I must eat three meals a day at specific times. I decide that my words will flow forth from silver leaves and not bound paper… that dancing on a would-be grave is a powerful night song that is worthy of the time it took to dig, to plant, to fill in.

I decide, in this moment that I must never forsake the river of poetry that runs deep within. It is my lifeblood. I watch as the leaves cover the surface of this grave, glistening in the night.