Seven Breaths for Beltane

I follow the Rx of Dr. Robin, who sings: "Take seven inhalations of Spring, then see how you feel." This is not a poem but a practice.

After the gray months now the sky's a meadow; unfathomable cobalt pools, melting patches of snow cloud, diamond streams of the day star for my frolicking.

There all above myself I Am, grounded in the good sky; spread these arms to the East and West, unravel the horizon.

Lean back and drink long body breaths of the Beyond, until it is Within;  call it Qi, Prana, Holy Spirit, Ruh: I call it Myself.

I am the sun's hollow path: the inside of my forehead is emblazoned with Creator's face;

I swill from that sweet well of terrible fire, and expire through my mud-soles into stinging wet kisses of moss.

Because small flowers already quiver in the loam of my body, sprouts swell and flame in the wetland, green nipples stiffen in the wheat. 

The respiration of my lungs uncurls the larvae under sleeping rocks; even boulders breathe, yet slowly, so slowly I think one stone's breath is a human lifespan. 

I awaken infinitesimal creatures, they awaken me: transcendence is causation.

They colonize my bones; I am here to serve the microbiome. 

I am not of Earth, Air, Fire, or Water, yet they are of me: I am the fifth element.

Yea though my empty places shudder with the hum of distant stars, I shall fear no darkness, nor the shadow of the rainbow at the core of all suns.

For the panther and the quail are inside me, a portion of my marrow is coyote scat, there is a glimmer of my Great Aunt Molly's DNA in the stained glass dragonfly's wing.

Benevolent bacteria make glad the stomach of the underworld.

Wriggling through composted moons, swimming light-years of blackness to the heart of the Milky Way, they glisten: therefore I Am. 

Is not the belly of hell my belly too, beatific and glad, the cauldron of the Goddess? 

Once forsythia were yellow waves of yearning in the zeal of a seed, sown in the furrow between my thoughts.

The bursting peony proves that God is nothing less than the ultra-violet pollen of desire, my heart a rhododendron bellows full of rain, pouring out and receiving.

Its chambers are chalices of wanting, where breath turns to wine; I am both full and hollow.

My body is a Eucharist of fungi, a praise-song of carbon silence, phosphorus and magnesium music; what Word has not already been made flesh? 

If sutras are required, let the mantra be: "I am the garden, you are the Spring."

I worship Shakti, the energy primeval; I whirl with the first Dancer, who takes all forms, and none, the sod, my skin, and the noble worm.


Hear this poem as a guided meditation at this LINK.