Entering darkness just before the light extends...

 
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Resting on a nearby boulder, I look up at the rock wall and
am drawn in by its dark crevices.

I feel as if I could be looking into myself......
an outer representation of an inner landscape. 

What if I climb slowly towards that darkness and step in?
- if I enter with a sense of curiosity and desire?

....and then wait in that darkness until my other-than-sight senses awaken. 
What could I discover?


Over that next week I entered into emotional landscapes,
crawled around in the darkness,
made small discoveries,
and arrived into my today needing rest.


After I rest, I return to the rock and its darkness, 

and this time I choose differently. 
 

join me? 

allow your gaze to soften,
and eyes settle deeper into your skull.
allow your breath to move easily, 
feeling the rise and fall of your chest.


Relaxing the edges of our human shape, we invite our surroundings to enter in....  


pores tune outwards, enlivening to the tip of each hair

jaws unhinge and flickering tongues probe darkness

nostrils flare and twitch searching air

ears open, catching ripples of sound

our animal-bodies slide, crawl, flutter, creep along the rock

our human bodies rest deep inside,
knowing that all of this is alive and with us at all times


Today I am both human and other-than-human.
My shape and weight shift, and I play in the newness of my discoveries until I am ready to rest again in the sunshine,
the long, slow sunshine of the summer solstice. 


From the darkness of the winter solstice into the darkness just before summer solstice light, I wonder about the shape and weight of who I am

photo: me; Shawangunks, NY. June 2018.