Blaspberries

wisdom for Lovers of creation

In the backyard is a tangle of berries. On one end there are glistening blackberries, which are anything and everything but black, and on the other end are soft little raspberry bodies.

In the middle however is a mystery berry. It blossomed early to get my attention before its well known, and well loved neighbors, stole the show. It wanted to be heard.

My landmate, and owner of the property, couldn’t figure out what they were. She didn’t plant them.

My morning routine is chi gong in the sun and then a treat for my inner child as she scavenges for which berries ripened over night. As I was shoveling mystery berry in my mouth I simply asked who are you?

“I am Blaspberry- duh”. Well, of course you are

“I am what happens when blackberries and raspberries kiss- and whoops little Blaspberry babies.”

As I stood giggling, Blaspberry began sharing with me their (as I don’t know if Blaspberry has a gender) wisdom on Love and creation.

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“The hardest thing is to risk setting down all the knowing, and all of the patterns repeated by hands hanging onto ideas of love, and a “good and reputable life”. The hardest thing is to allow the life force that lives between you and a glorious other steer the ship toward a foreign land that only the two of you will be able to traverse because no foot has ever stepped there in the way the two of you will.

Dump out the old formulas as they are poison to new life. Sure the flower and the bee have been canoodling since Love birthed the scent of the rose to attract Her honey makers, but the taste of honey will change each time it hits a new tongue. It will change each time it hits your tongue, but you miss the dance trying to take your hand by already believing you know honey’s moves.

Let go of what you think you are creating and follow the rhythm under your feet in each step. Do not ever plant your feet too firmly and risk pinning one another in identities that bring illusions of safety, or you imprison your own flesh held heart by trying to pin another for your own guarantees.

You and glorious other may find a steady rhythm, but know it is a moving target and that rhythm does not belong to you. Bless your mouths on each other’s mouths for being graced to sing it and taste it in each other every time you get another moment to make new honey, for it will change.

Passion is essential or it would not exist in you. Revel in it like a sunny day. For it is an experience that will pass, just like the pain you will birth together. There is no for better or worse. There is only and forever THIS and it is also and always LOVE.

To stick together through that change is a holy act that requires all armor be handed over upon entry to the temple. Lay the armor down and know who your consort really is and release all need to cling to another hand to hold along your Life’s endless spiral.

No clinging. Choosing, embracing, supporting, but no clinging.

You can seek advice from trusted sources- as along the pathless path there are ways to step that illuminate rather than degrade the terrain of your coupling. But above all else, cultivate a trusted intimacy that allows the one voice that made you to speak and move this sacred collision with each other down the tracks. Protect this intimacy from scrutinizing eyes that may naively try to sway your rhythm to their liking. There is a reason many cultures don’t let strangers gaze upon their newborn children.

Cultivate this listening through an ear that ceases looking for safety and identities that satisfy the old longing to belong to a rhythm that silenced that Whale song long ago.

Within every moment of your life there is a glorious other. Be it a lover, the wind, the ground beneath your feet. Every moment is a chance to wake up the new expression waiting to be born of you. Never again will this unique moment exist- whoops gone. Never again will that wind sound like it just did, or carry the message you missed waving it away because it’s just “another” windy day.

Say hello to the old crow you call your wife, or husband, in a new way and the Love with all of life, and within your intimate dwellings, will flourish.

Wake up and realize that creation is not so much about doing or making something to show the world -as it is how you engage with the new life beckoning you in each day’s encounters. Each choice, each response, each turn toward silence, toward another voice. This awareness is the creative mastery that you seek. You are always creating. You are creation and cannot ever not be creating. Your awareness of the grace of each breath influences more new life than some “thing” you make for a temporary inspiration.

And make beauty from it all. It’s all welcome. Shout from the roof tops but don’t forget to sing in the basement.

Remember, beauty is already complete. She isn’t the one reaching out from inside the ache of you for another light to make your eyes shine. It is the hungry beast that was told it could only feast on another heart to be fed when yours is full of the sustenance that led Jesus to make a 5000 person feast from 5 loaves of bread.

Learn about God through each others bodies. Where else would that classroom be? Throw your heads back in lustful laughter as you stare at the thing you are- staring back at the thing it is- and has always been. Oh to birth more and more from something that is already whole is a mysterious game. And one you and glorious other came to play.

Let the touch of your lover’s finger, fully felt, be enough. Let it be everything- just this. Just this. And learn about true connection, romance, receptivity and penetration.

Listen deep to the silence. Cultivate a deep trust in the silence within you, and you will trust the silence in between you and any and all glorious others, curb the obsession and quiet the anxious mind. Be willing to usher the wisest words- “I don’t know” as your mantra -while you plant your staff in the field between right and wrong- and hold that all wise and all knowing paradoxical position.

Say -yes and I don’t know what I will become.

Say -Let’s do THIS and I don’t know where we will go.

Say -yes THIS is what I want and I don’t get to know its name yet.

Say -I love you in the forever that is now -and I don’t know tomorrow.

Water and Earth. Fire and air. Formlessness and form. Movement and rest. A full YES that lives in the I DON’T KNOW- that is what makes a ripe, juicy, jeweled colored, sourly sweet, tantalizing, imagination provoking, wisdom weaving Blaspberry. Have fun.”

~ As I change, as the Earth changes and society changes and everything that we hung our identities and illusions of safety and goodness upon- I wonder if you the reader, you the community member, you the lover, you the life long friend, you the family of my bloodlines, can meet me in a space free of projections? Can I meet myself with new wonder free of knowing and full of allowing -because the temple is either right here or it is nowhere? It’s a wobbly bit of Earth to stand upon but the only bit that gives us sturdy feet for the Dance of unconditional love.

Thank you.

Blessed Be, Shira Starfire