Receiving The Angel

                THE MESSENGER

tire tracks crisscross in the slushy snow
there's half a foot more still on the way
spring's too far off even to think about

yet for the first time this stormy winter
somewhere close among bare branches
the mourning dove    like a muted oracle
calls out over and over through sullen air

don't roll over and burrow back to sleep
or lay awake     haunted by aimless fear

the angel of a thousand guises has spoken

it doesn't care if you're tired of struggling
it doesn't believe in loneliness or self-pity

only that today is new  clean   open   free!

so don't turn over and cringe back to sleep
or lay awake  brooding on ancient wounds

you've been summoned by a primal voice
which cannot lie   stand up   breathe deep

take another shaky step into the unknown

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The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across

the doorsill where two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don't go back to sleep.

-- Rumi --

THE ANGEL OF A THOUSAND GUISES

     All are interconnected. Everything's charged with meaning. "Coincidence" is just a word for significance we don't understand yet--or once did but have forgotten. the ancients knew this: and the scattering of vanishing tribal peoples who remain still do.

     Which means unheralded messengers enter our lives each day, although mostly we don't even recognize them, never mind grasp what they're trying to tell us. Not to imply that such understanding is easy. Intuitive sensitivity and careful discernment are essential. We must be open, alert, balanced, receptive, humble.

     The message's meaning is identical to the messenger. In other words, there's no separation between inner and outer, self and other, knower and known. Psychological awareness fuses with sensory perception to dissolve the illusion of duality into one seamless whole.

     Every message, each messenger, is utterly unique, symbolizing a single, unrepeatable convergence of giver and receiver in space and time. Simultaneously, every message, each messenger, is forever the same, calling us back home to the infinite and eternal mystery of our own souls.

     By definition then, the language a messenger speaks is always paradox--this is an intrinsic part of the message itself. Every messenger transcends boundaries and demolishes categories. Our intellect's determination to compartmentalize reality into either/or dichotomies is flummoxed and derailed.

     We've been brainwashed by an onslaught of disenchanters, but we live in an enchanted universe nevertheless. Angels of wisdom, justice, mercy and freedom--Divine Messengers wearing a thousand guises--arrive daily at the portals of our consciousness. All we need do is recognize them and invite them in.

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