The Knowing Place. {poetry}
{source}
This is the place of knowing
it is timeless
Everything will slow down
Like honey yawning from a spoon
We will sink into that slowness
and we will know it
Make yourself comfortable
breathe with me
Ease more into the ground
you have brought that city place with you
Hush now, listen
Hear the way the easterly winds
Whip through the treetops
hear the musicality of it
Watch the fitful magpie larks
such chatterboxes
they call this place
the food in it
the danger in it
the beauty in it
watch the whistling kite
launch from a friendless branch
the magnificence spread
wingtip to wingtip
they belong to this thing
you are trying to understand
but you won’t get at it like that
you are trying too hard
stop now
we will drink tea
Do you like this tea?
Don’t just taste it on your tongue
feel the china cup absorb the heat
inhale the smell of it
the savory bitter flush
Drink with all of your senses
Now you are getting to it
I can see your bones
settling in your cage
we will finish this tea
slow down, there is no hurry
we will take off our shoes
let our feet settle into the earth
and breathe with the big mama
There is a skittishness in you
a small bird in your heart
a spooked colt in your soul
You came to us like this
but you will not leave this way
You will leave with the knowing
of this place, deep inside you
your eyes will be lit up by it
you will smile, not with your mouth
but with your whole being
As the sun bakes into the grass
releasing that lemony dusty scent
know that smell deep inside you
because that is the smell of your freedom
the longer you stay here
The more you understand
It is intuitive and overriding
You cannot get to it
with your monkey mind
let the chitta sink like the sun
so the great knowing
that is inherent within you
can rise like the moon
I see you getting it
Your body has stopped shielding you
There is no danger here
You are home
your body is no shield, no weapon
It is just a cage
It is a fine cage
and we sing sweetly from it
but we must know the truth of it
The divers would never toss the pearl
to treasure the shell
I feel you getting to the root
the source
the wellspring
of all that is sacred and pure
For it is all sacred and pure
until it is not
and we did that
we fouled the rivers
we raped the children
and then we said
I could not believe in a God that hurts children
as though God himself
spent the nations’ money on arms
raped the mothers
put an AK47 in the hands of a 10-year-old
These are the things we must know
there is only goodness
until there is not
You must not despair
there is no thing
so broken that it cannot be fixed
with love
even the earth
pulverized and polluted
like the cages of our souls
It is not too late for it
or for us
and you must never think that
Let the moon of your knowledge rise
and you will feel the truth of it
the whistling kite
the flowing river
the wind-whipped trees
and our freely floating souls
like lovely kites
unsinkable above our breathing cages
These are the knowing things
feel the connectedness of it
breathe with it
all that has gone before
all that is yet to come
distilled in a single moment
Let the cage of your body
finally rest
you are home
you are home
you are home.
***
Bell Harding is a Rumi-loving painter, late bloomer, and poet from Australia. Her home is a vintage caravan called Lou Lou, which likes to roam and is currently resting in a small coastal town in the Northwest. Bell has a degree in fine art, and loves to paint barefoot in the dirt. She seeks beauty, wisdom and adventure in the raw scraped-back landscape, preferring the edges of the continent and avoiding winter. Bell loves to paint, cook plant-based food, and write pretty poems with sharp little teeth. At 44, Bell is still wondering what she wants to be when she grows up. Until that time, she roams, paints and writes.
***
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