Regrowth and succession

It's time to bid farewell to some of my traveling companions- favorite books which I found in boxes in my attic.  This seems unfulfilling somehow for such great friends.   It's time I release them into the world to do good again.  I wish to remember them so I am creating a bibliography on my art blog's Help and Healing page.  I've got a call in to my old counselor to see if she'd like dibs on any of these faithful works for her lending library.  I've also got a call into my church's library about books on Islam which I'm hoping inspire understanding. I've read from these libraries and was changed.  I'd like to give back.

I've been afraid of forgetting, afraid of losing something vital.  I've felt that I have to remember everything, hold everything, make sense and meaning of everything.  Recently on several long walks under a winter sun, I have heard God offering to remember me and my story and to make sense and meaning of my life.  I said yes.  The reality that nothing will be lost has eased my heart.

I have walked down my path and I can turn back and see it behind me.  I am about to go around a corner and over a rise.  I can't see what's there ahead and once I walk on, I won't be able to see clearly what lies behind anymore either.

This used to terrify me.  If couldn't see my story, touch everything, recall every pain, then I would be lost.

I can walk back and pick things up if I need to.
Nothing I need will be lost.
I will receive what I need when I need it.
Songs of my story will be sung in God's halls.
I will not be forgotten.
What was laid waste is covered in new growth.
I have lived this.
I know this in my bones.


Last month, I went to Banning State Park, site of an old quarry and took a walk around the 1.8 mile path which changed my heart.  The place is absolutely beautiful- pine and aspen, a gurgling river, striking rock faces, diffuse winter sun through clouds.  I saw not another soul for my whole 2 hours there.  Here's a quote from the brochure:

All vegetation you see here is a study in regrowth and succession, 

since the bustling quarry operations had kept the area completely barren.

All this beauty had been completely barren.  All this stillness had been a noisy, busy, sledge hammer operation.  And thus it has been with my life, too- a study of regrowth and succession.

Rock faces
formed by the slam and twist of hand-held drills
and black powder explosions
whole hills of pink sandstone are gone
leaving exposed
drill lines
fault lines
crack and crash to the ground lines
thunder of destruction lines
down these lines
across these once barren faces
a waterfall
of ice and flow
a gentle drip
a gentle sun
a gentle eye
I stand
in awe
at the foot
of one of the most
beautiful things I've ever seen
here
now