In These Winter Woods

In these Winter woods the deer are not waiting for Christmas; they are Christmas. And you, faithful pilgrim of the seasons, are you waiting for the birth of astonishment?

From beyond the fiery rim of the cup that drips worlds, rays of grace fall into your body. One question remains: will you hold your last breath, or offer it in gratitude? The answer is how you do it now, how you rehearse for that breath with this one.

Both are the same, the breath of life and death, one Being, tilted toward itself in perpetual solstice. Cherishing a Winter moon in the hollow between your ribs, bright seed in virgin darkness, give back the night. Give back the night to what has never been created, for this also is you.

The incandescent silence in your secret core bears pangs of music, binaural dissonance of love made flesh. Not the flesh of God, but your flesh; not the gasp of Mary, but your inhalation, trembling all the starry harmony of human form.

Again and again, rehearse the gift. For this beating, this pulsation, this rhythmic story of birth, has never been about anyone else.


Photo taken on a hike, Mt. Rainier