Recipe For Grounding

Reminders for the Living

I have cleaned any residue of harm
through this honest love and planted it
into the deepest place inside me. Bloom.

Fruit for breakfast, peppered eggs boil
on the stove, crisp celery, water, a bit
of lime and cayenne’s bite, fuel.

Smoke is gone, lungs do sing, rain don’t bother.
Bottom of the feet brushed. Shake the soil.

Floods, oh thirsty earth, a body wants its cycle back.
A body wants to feel the heat on its fine brow and
hip bone, wants sweat down its back.

Body wants a little burn.

And can you blame it?

Sleep comes early.
Moon, we’ve have left you
for morning sun.

Today, we are peace pale sky.

Singing helps the balance.
Dancing feeds the limbs.
Breathe steady and deep.
Alive is beauty.
Being alive is beautiful.

My latest mantra:

When the world splits open
and pours down rain, pull out
your pen, write your blessings.

Lean hard into what you love.
Pinch a little trust into morning
coffee, stir and sip.

Get that love into your blood.

Let your mourning happen loud
or as softly as it needs to.
Same with your morning.

Be around the young
and the old, and often.

Breathe before responding.
Breathe for a whole three days.
Think of kindness.

Stop saying sorry
for things you don’t need to.

Empathy is the inroad to change.
Spend time thinking in character,
putting your humanity into different
costumes.

Never confuse a mask
for the experience of a body.
Skin is not shed like jewelry,
it is a full being tattoo.

Clean your body like it’s a temple.
Clean your body like it’s a land mine.
Clean your body like it’s a goddess wrapped in gold.
Clean your body as if it’s the body of a lover.

Wake up.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Steve Garry/Flickr