The Chance To Love Everything

So, more than I believe almost anything else, I believe that the entire purpose of being alive -- the entire point to the amazing gift of having been in-car-nated (made into meat) in this charming and mad little node of the space/time continuum -- is to be aware, in every single moment, of the way that Divinity permeates through and shines through and breaks through and illuminates and connects everything.

I think that the real point of being given the gift of existing at this time (still eagles, still oaks, still jack-in-the-pulpit, still wheat, still citrus-and-other-bee-dependent-sex-organs-cum-fruit, still air, still water, still glaciers) on Gaia's surface is to be AWARE every single minute, with every single breathe that you draw, that you live infused with divinity, carried on the pregnant stomach of Mother Earth, interconnected to everything -- everything, everything, everything -- from Coyote Trickser to orchids to viruses to molten lava at the Mother's very core. If you were truly aware, with every breath you take, that this is what you were living, you could never waste what Mary Oliver calls your one wild and precious life. You'd use it for your higher self, for the greater good, for your highest purpose.

And, for some reason, today, of all days, I wake up aware that the fur and claws pawing at me is Goddess, and that the roses and gardenias outside my breakfast porch are Goddess, and that the cold-brewed gift of the first drug of my day -- coffee -- is Goddess, and that the river -- Potomac -- that I drive along on my way to work, all pearly pink and gold, is Goddess, and that the trees and vines and mad green growth on Roosevelt Island are Goddess, and that the music that I hear on the way to work, both Wynton Marsalis on the trupmet and T. Thorn Coyle singing about Seven Evening Stars, is Goddess, and that the chance to explain to young lawyers how to write pleadings is Goddess, and that the chance to read blogs is Goddess, and that my by-now-dear-old-friend Robert, who does my hair, is Goddess, and that Clydes' crabcakes and a martini are Goddess, and the that e-mail from my idiot co-counsel trying to fuck up my petition is Goddess, and that my chance to go back to my office and do what I do best in all the world -- write and edit -- is Goddess, and that my ability to mange everyone's emotions is Goddess, and that getting to read a perfect ritual proposed by my brilliant friend E. for my genius friend B. is Goddess and that a half an hour -- a whole half an hour -- alone in the car with the gorgeous man-Son-Scorpio lawyer that I bore and raised all by myself -- a whole half an hour with Son -- is Goddess, and that his beautiful, kick-ass, wonderful mother of a wife is Goddess, and that, more than anything else that has happened to me all week in a week of living with witches and brilliant litigators and my garden and interesting policy issues and all of my own spiritual issues, more than anything else in the world, getting to hold my Grandson IS Goddess --

well, that is simply an amazing day.

I am more blessed than I deserve to be. I am more blessed than I expected to be. i can work hard night after night at my altar, pursuing a spiritual practice, working hard to become my Better Self. And then, out of nowhere, as pure Grace, comes the realization that, every moment that I am alive is like walking at the edge of the surging surf, feeling my ankles washed and bathed in foamy water, bathed unexpectedly in grace. Grace is a gift. Grace isn't earned, or worked for, or deserved. Grace just happens. Grace is the giant sting ray that doesn't eat Son's finger. Grace is the priestesses who surround you and call you to your Better Self, with gifts of chants about bread and roses, green stones for Lilith, chicken and eggplant, mad Tarot. Grace is the gift that guides a gorgeous, brilliant woman into your family. Grace is a Grandson that you never deserved, all alive, and all Id, and all smooth blushing skin, and all brave-beyond-brave toddling, and all new. Grace is the chance to work at fun and interesting and important work that you know in your core that you can do. Grace is, in Mary Oliver's words, the chance to love everything. Grace is what happens when you are expecting other things.

May it be so for you. May Grace break through the clouds, and ceilings, and hard slate rooves and flood into your lives. May Grace be the crack in everything that is how the light gets in. May Grace show up as unexpectedly in your life as does your Shadow and may Grace fill your every waking and dreaming moment with the realization that it's all real, it's all metaphor, there's always more.

This is my will. So mote it be.