Divine Play

Delightful surprises await us when we surrender our own notions of creativity and allow our creative spirit to play with us and through us. This poem reflects one such spontaneous experiment …

Divine Play

This perfect place
This golden jungle
Of laughing waters
Of raucous parrots,
Of extravagant blooms
This place of perfect freedom
To be
To create.

I relax in Your laughing arms
Your tender love
Your giggling tummy
Releasing all fears of failure
All perfectionism
All need to capture thought perfectly.

Instead, I paint with words
And allow them to tell their own stories.
Each one holds a world
And beyond that more worlds.
Then, laughing, You blow them all away,
Like so much dandelion fluff,
My carefully constructed worlds.

“Live them!” You say,
“Sense them, taste them, smell them
And as you do that
New worlds will form to the dance of your pen.
Let your pen dance you instead of the other way round.
It really is quite easy,” You smile.

Captivated, I try again.
“No,” You say, “Don’t try.
Simply be it.
Allow it to form
And allow it to dissolve, too, when I blow on it.
For it is all just Divine play.
And the blowing of dandelion fluff is just as sacred
As the construction of the perfect dandelion globe.

“Remember, each piece of fluff carries a seed
Allow those seeds to take flight
And see where they land.”

© Copyright 2003 by Gail Christel Behrend — All Rights Reserved

Hummingbird

In preparation for a client session, I was setting up my healing room (a glassed-in porch with a glorious view over water and mountains), when suddenly I had an unexpected encounter with a tiny winged visitor. This poem evokes my experience…

Hummingbird

A hummingbird flutters into the open window
And enters my healing room
Buzzing and beating against the glass ceiling
Looking for a way out.

Who is this tiny messenger
Who dares to enter this sacred precinct?
Risking its life in the unknown
Eyed by three hungry cats.

It only seems to understand “up”
And beats uncomprehendingly upon the glass roof,
While inches below lies the open window and freedom,
Ignored in its instinctive flight.

I gently cup it in my hands.
It stops fluttering for a moment
And rests as I transport it
Down the short distance to its release.

Holding my hands outside
I barely open them and it is off,
Zooming southwards towards the trees.
And I am blessed by the memory of its lightness.

© Copyright 2002 by Gail Christel Behrend — All Rights Reserved