Standing in the Gap

copyright suzanna leigh 2009

The ducks are gone. In December --and for years-- there have been 200 or more at Tramp Harbor where I
do Qi Gung in the mornings. For months now there have been only about 35, although it is the season when the ducks come in their highest numbers.

The shellfish are dwindling. Clams and oysters, once so abundant in the Puget Sound, are not reproducing.

Where is the heron that once fished at the tide's edge?

I feel grief for a world unraveling. For the innocent dying, innocent people victims of war, innocent birds, victims of a changing climate.

and yet

copyright suzanna leigh 2013

I am happy--Joyous even--in my personal life. I create beauty in my studio. I breathe good clean air at the beach and in my own back yard. I dance with friends. I swim with my grand daughter.

copyright suzanna leigh 2013

And I am in Love.

Grief and Joy in the same cup.

Hiding in this cage--poem by Kabir

I took time this morning to enter the silence deeply, inspired by the Woodcarver story (Feb 21 post). That is the place I want my art to come from, that deep place of Silence. The place beyond judgement, beyond concern for gain or success.

From this place I remembered the name Hazrat Inyat Khan and checked him out on line, finding much that resonates with me. And then I found Kabir: 

hiding in this cage

by Kabir

English version by Sushil Rao
Original Language Hindi

hiding in this cage
of visible matter

is the invisible
lifebird

pay attention
to her

she is singing
your song