From Which It All Began – Bernadette Miller

Tell me, what
would you do today
if you knew your life
to be a celebration
of this world?

Would you stop
to gather sunlight
dropping soundlessly
upon pines
beyond your window pane?

Would you court
dreams too wide
for the container
of consciousness?

Would you linger
in the terrible beauty
of uncertainty
as if the fullness of the world
depended upon your presence?

Would you cast your hopes
upon possibilities that abide
only in departure?

Would you become the motion
of your song,
losing itself in overtones
of delight
or despair
and returning, finally,
to the stillness
from which it all began?

From Which It All Began

Oh I do love the questions, most especially the ones that cannot really be answered but cause my mind to reflect and ponder. Tell me, what / would you do today / if you knew your life / to be a celebration / of this world? My life as a celebration of this world – what an extraordinary concept and yet, is this not true for each and every one of us? Knowing that, what will I do today? When I can hold this understanding in my heart, moving forward is eased, even when life feels difficult.

Would you stop / to gather sunlight / dropping soundlessly / upon pines / beyond your window pane? Gathering sunlight (I had never stopped to consider its soundlessness), especially these brief bursts today, is necessary and important whether literal or the sunlight of connection with those around us.

Would you court / dreams too wide / for the container / of consciousness? To court, to appeal to our dreams, to invite their expansiveness which our mere consciousness cannot hold – is this not an alluring invitation to accept? What might these dreams, nighttime or waking, reveal?

Would you linger / in the terrible beauty / of uncertainty / as if the fullness of the world / depended upon your presence? Ah yes, the terror and the beauty of uncertainty, the invitation to stay longer rather than draw back from this imperfect and unpredictable world. To linger, as if the fullness of the world / depended upon your presence! What if that were true, that your presence increases the fullness of this world? How could it not?

Would you cast your hopes / upon possibilities that abide / only in departure? How are we really living if we are always drawing back, fearing the unknown as well as the known, if we are moving away from, rather than toward, what life is offering?

Would you become the motion / of your song, / losing itself in overtones / of delight / or despair / and returning, finally, / to the stillness / from which it all began? What is the motion, the movement, of your song, the one containing both notes of delight and of despair? And finally we return to the stillness from which it all began, the still point within which we can find ourselves when our motion rests.

Tell me, what / would you do today / if you knew your life / to be a celebration / of this world?