30 Days + of Gratitude ~ Day 25/26

1. I am grateful for the New Year's Eve Full Moon...and all the ways the Moon continues to teach me about mirrors...to see everything as able to reflect where I am at within myself.
2. I am grateful for the positive flow of energy that moves through creative expression...it's one of the best uses for the immense energy that gathers and collects, putting it to good use.  When I do not, I draw in situations that are not fun to engage with, tipped off by anger, fear, or sadness.  All energies worked with consciously can be fuel for creation.
3. I am grateful for all the people in my world mirroring infinite varieties of my own expressions.
4. I am grateful for all those who have come before me, lighting the way.
5. I am grateful for all those who have come before me and have felt stuck.  You are palpably cheerleading my walk.  I feel you.  I am grateful for the support.
6. I am grateful for the energy of Fire.  You are one of my closest teachers.  You continue to show me how to work with You in creative ways for expansion and upliftment.  You teach me about the power of respect and consciously approaching in humility.
7. I am grateful for the energy of Water.  You teach me how to be fluid, flexible, and trusting conduit.  You show me the strength in softness.
8. I am grateful for the energy of Air.  You teach me about clarity, effective movement, and release.  You show me ways of communicating that are full of power and free of aggression.
9. I am grateful for the energy of Earth.  You teach me about rooting deeply to expand into greater freedom.  You hold all of the elements in your balancing womb.  When I approach you with love in my heart, you show me that I can garden any seeds into bountiful harvest.
10. I am grateful to the muscles and connective tissues of my body.  You continue to grow and adapt to the needs of my spirit, and have put up gracefully with the demands of my ego.  I will nourish you more in the coming minutes, hours, days, months, and years ahead.  

Oh Mother, my Mother
Sweet, Dark Mother
Your scent fills my nose
like bouquets
that intoxicate lovers
knitting them in and through
each other for an evening
a whisper
as long as the scent lasts....

But Yours oh Mother
Your flower
never dampens
with the churning of time
through fields of wheat
green to yellow...
Your elixir
in so many cozy grains
of richer than auburn
deeper than brown
soil.

I am beginning to smell
your perfume through
nearly everything that
lives on your sun-kissed
surface.

Oh Divine Mother
Great whirling Dervish,
whipping my Heart
into an ignited
windy
blaze...

I can no
other way
bring You inside of me
than to toss away
this dream called me
this fiction called we
and anything other than
this
just this.

But when,
when oh sweet One
when it is
just this
I cannot revel
in the joy
of worshipping all of
Your forms
on the alter of
your sweet dark Earth.

Scott Patrick Schwenk 5/11/09