Thursday, July 6, 2017

How We Do It, Part (Lost Count) in a series

photographer: Carl Jackson


When I was a small child, I lay in the grass or up in the cherry tree and stared up at clouds, floating. I did more than imagine shapes when I was a child, a rabbit, a snowman, a man shaking a stick. I called a tree, flower and a flower, tree. Cloud, sky and sky, cloud. I thought Smell and then pick that tree. Climb up into that flower. Words. What they meant when I said them, how I made them up. It was the same with God. How I made Him up. Or wondered if I was making Him up. I imagined Him like the clouds, floating, shaped. And what of it and what of Him? Were we His dream? Were We his dream? Had He made us up? I saw the world through God's eyes, made up, a ball, a sphere, a reflection. Trees, clouds, flowers, grass, me on my back, ground, perched on a branch, bark, cherries. I had a lover once when I was very young and when we left one another (we left one another, over and ever), I was certain that I'd made him up, yet I made another again. Another lover. God is now god and He is he or him. I made a baby that we named Sophie. I made her up. She has no words and yet is made.


When I sit in meditation, breathe in, breathe out, my thoughts are words. I make them up, I make them clouds. I watch them float. On by.

9 comments:

  1. Oh Elizabeth, this was so much how I thought of God in childhood, too, except you expressed it so much better than I ever could, and yet somehow, today, these thoughts were upon me, too, resulting in a much different post, but a post nevertheless about God, god, He, him, being everywhere, in the clouds, in the river, in the wind. This is just exquisite. And that photograph is exquisite too, the perfect image to amplify your words. I love this. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are Wonderful in your expression with Words, with Photographs... Sharing and baring your very Heart.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I still capitalize God and I'm not sure why. Habit, I suppose. I think your meditation-mind has the right approach to all our ephemeral ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is gorgeous and shot me straight up into wide awake dreamland. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a poem of a post. You are a true poetess. Yes, I still say "poetess". :-)

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Knocked breathless.
    Yes and yes and yes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You have a powerful way with words - wow!

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is one of the most extraordinary things I've ever read. And that photograph is truly amazing. I love you and I love your love of words. When I sit in meditation, I imagine my thoughts as fall leaves, floating down to a stream. I sit next to it and watch them slowly twist and turn as they make their way down out of my sight, to be followed by another and another.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...