The plants say

{A poem}

Image by fszalai from Pixabay

I talk too much

Offer too many potential solutions

CBT, narrative, somatic, psychoanalytic

Christian, Vedic, Shamanic

I read too much

Kindle, Audible, Little Free Library books

Can’t even remember the names of the authors

I write too much

Medium, Al Jazeera, Dwell, Wall Street Journal, the lit rags, CNN, another blog

Hoping to live forever through black on white

I place too much faith in data and knowledge

In clever and impressive talk

Not enough in kindness or dreams

We live in a bullshit world…you know it and I know it

But we play the game…awards, certificates, publication, funding, CSR, investments, reviews, house, car, offspring

Please world, believe in me

Because if you don’t, maybe I won’t exist

We play the game, pretending this life, this stage, this name, this body

Is reality

I forget…Visibility is not presence

To be seen, heard and acknowledged is a survival skill

Presence is the heart’s response to suffering

Cut the bullshit say the shrooms, mama aya, huachuma, santa maria

Be quiet, shhh…

Stop sharing what’s in your head

Come join the tribe of silence

Be still and open your heart

If you don’t, life will rip it open…as it should be — so open…

Fully, more fully, more fully open, ouch

The plants say:

Understand the economy of suffering and joy

Hold your suffering just a moment longer to lighten the load for your dying brother

Hold your joy just a moment longer to uplift your crying sister

But hold only your own suffering

Your job is not to hold their suffering (though sometimes it may be)

Your job is just to hold the space

The plants say:

There is no right medicine or wrong medicine

No your medicine or my medicine

Only medicine

And good people serve good medicine

The plants say:

Stay awake

If you can’t, then just stay (in your body, on this planet, don’t leave yet)

And make yourself as comfortable and as useful as your cage will let you

If you feel good enough, why chase feeling better?

Enough is enough is enough

At initiation, I saw so much — razzle dazzle, a phantasmagoric lightshow

Guides, healers, magicians, ancestors, spirit animals, ghosts

A few more ceremonies later, I saw them not

“Where are you all? Why can’t I see you now?”

“Because” I hear, “We are in your heart and in your bones”

When you are terrified, choose love

When you are losing, choose love

When you are dying, choose love

Always choose love

Trust us and we’ll bring you home