Journal/Day 1 Switzerland Via Alpina

THIS day I begin the sharing of my Journal as I traversed the landscape of Switzerland’s Alps in 2022.
Enjoy the walk in the upcoming Thursdays of 2023…pray you’ll ‘fall’ in love with the scenery that has
planted its ‘wild’ flowers in my being.

Switzerland 2022

July 1- July 22^nd, 2022

   The Via Alpina
Praying

 It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

 a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

 into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak. 

                                 ~~~Mary Oliver
                                                                                                  July 1/Day 1 

A silence hovers
so still, calm and fluid is its movement.

A new dawn rose this morning—
a solitary feathered being settled itself
in the long, thin arms of the tree’s
naked branches…

The song being played through a parted
beak~~~timeless…the refrain, lifting
the dewy grasses rising to the pastel
sky, awaits the flame of life to
usher in DAY.

The tiny bird cares not who hears
—creating what is ‘inside’ itself
cannot/will not wait.  No audience
needed.

The One hovering in the Silence
pauses, breathes and sends a ripple
through my hair~~~ no other breeze
in the air.

A great heron holds a perch…
beckoning, breaching, until the pond
opens the doorway to a doe and two
soft white speckled fawns prance
at her side.

The Heron ushers in its becoming One
with the presiding unknown
presence.

Who, who is it joining me here
now~~~
It has been years since I’ve boarded
the silver falcon with a million
frosted feathers.
Across the ‘pond,’ I will be carried.
Beside me, a host of others
find their way to who knows
where.

I’m in a womb.
The silent presence has become
a mid-wife.  She’s been beside me
before I was conceived.
She does not pull me or push me.
Never has she prodded or tugged.
She hears me when I do not hear
or understand myself
and, she says, ‘This is Good.’

You, she speaks to my Soul, “You
have come upon a new doorway.
I’m going to show you things you have
never seen and, yes, reveal things you
have bore witness to.  Yet, your gaze
Shall be made new.”

“It is only hours away…
You will be birthed in the mountains. 
The Swiss Alps…
Hidden and revealed, you must wait.”
The latch on the door lifted.

Streams of water will be heard…do I hear them now?
Winds and thunder, creatures will speak.
Winged angels shall appear,
and ancestors past and present
shall speak…LISTEN.

My heart is beating like a harp
whose strings ring out, ‘play me,
play me, play me.’
Don’t worry about the sound.
Like this morning’s songbird
the dew’s grasses rise,
like the flame illuminating this day.
‘We’ are not burned by such wondrous
Light.  Like the Heroin perched on its
pulpit letting the congregation know
new life has joined the community
—small fawns, like children leap
and experience everything a first time.

She hovers…
She whispers.  This is a first time
and, your ending will bring you back to
face the NEWNESS for the child in you
to be reborn and begin again.