How To Get In

You know it when you feel it.

Maybe your way in is through sitting still on a zafu or on a flat rock at the edge of a mesa.

Maybe your way in is through the scripture of the Bible, a prophet’s holy language meant to help you get inside with the spirit.

Maybe your way in is surfing big waves off the coast of Vietnam or through handling the ladle at the soup kitchen at the mission.

Maybe your way in is when the bark cuts into the soles of your feet as your toes search for something they can trust.

Maybe you get in through a writing prompt, the shamanic beat of a drum, by falling softly into the dreamworld.

Maybe your way in is through the paintbrush, the clay, the molten silver.

Maybe it’s in the way you swing your saddle up onto your pony’s back at dawn and put your feet in the stirrups.

Maybe it is through the river of milk which flows from your breast or the lifeblood pouring into the Earth.

Maybe your way in is in the way you knead the dough, stir the porridge  or change the bedding of your elder parent, in a filial way if not a personal one.

Maybe your way in is carved by the kindness on your tongue for your lover.

Maybe you slide into connection with that magnificent something that cradles (perhaps greater than the imagination can conjure except maybe in patterns of constellations) by seeing it reflected back at you in the children’s sparkling laughter, the long new flower on a squash plant, the twinkle of mica on a stretch of sand, your exhale after years of holding.