#workshop poetry

[hidden-leaven]

I tend to be timid. I don’t speak up out of politeness. That’s why I’m not grounded. I never learned to stand my ground or stand up for myself. It never seemed worth the trouble to get someone stirred up or act counter to someone’s wishes. But as they say, “use it or lose it.” One day I woke up and saw my feet walking out the door. They said they were going to find someone who appreciated them and would let them bear the weight they were meant to bear.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

Is there a road between the sober and the vulnerable? Can't you see it? No, the sunrise is in the way. Besides, it's not a road; it's not a world. It's what's left after each layer is peeled away. It's not even what's left, it's what fills you when nothing's left. It fills you to overflowing, leaking out onto everything. And even though you can't see it, everyone else can see because of what you let flow through you. If they come up to you and say "thank you," don't claim ignorance. You are, but saying so will come across as humility, and then they'll try to make you into a saint. Just acknowledge them and let their gratitude become a part of the flow. To do otherwise is to feign a perspective you cannot have, as if you really knew what you had a part in and what you didn't. There is nothing in which you have not played a part. So, trust the gratitude you are given comes from deep within the giver, the source of the way between that you made space for. If your acknowledgement comes from your depths, the circle will be complete and what has become empty will become full again. If you don't take the good will coming your way, may you always be thirsty.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

Once my hand moved on its own and touched the chin of my mother. I had never touched her that way before. And it wasn’t me who was touching her then. More than ten years later, at an infinite distance away, I felt my mother’s touch. Not on my body, but in the knowing that all was forgiven. And with that touch, she came into my life for the first time. There are other people who I do not see even when they are standing in front of me. Instead I see my fears, my angers, my wanting. And only when I am away from them in time do I come to know what I was not seeing and what I could not hear. The echo across the valley continues until it finds the vibrating hammer that moves at the same rate as the echo’s vibration. And then I know that the voice inside me is not really inside me. But I am inside of it. I am the resonance that matches its thunder.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

There is freedom in not knowing, in not being able to see more than two steps ahead of yourself. There is freedom in not knowing where you are going. If you don’t know where you are going, you can’t get lost. If the destination is not important, you will be led to surprise. And when I find myself wandering into a cul-de-sac, I find I have even more choices. The way out is not the way back, but through one of the doors of the houses in front of me. No matter which one I go in I will be surprised. And no matter which one I go in those inside will be surprised. If they welcome me, I will stay for a while and learn what I can learn. Maybe we can walk a little bit inside each other. If they do not welcome me there are four other doors and many other roads. So I just keep going until the knowing finds me.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

Yes. The only word life speaks is Yes.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

There was a place in the desert that was not hot or dry to one person because she came for something else. This was the place of all listening. She could only come open, taking in what she was given. She let it go through her, remaining empty until she heard a click. At the sound of the click she knew it was time to go. She knew not to ask for more. She took the traces with her and they became the water that sustained her until her next trip to that desert place. Sometime we know when it is enough. And sometimes we let ourselves be hungry. In that hunger there is a thread. If we follow it, we are led to the nothing that knows everything. Hungry as we are, we do not eat. But wait. We do not pluck the fruit from the tree, but allow ourselves to be served. And like a gracious guest we notice the cues that tell us our host is tired. And so we take our leave.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

There was a time when everything came my way. Whatever I wanted was there before I asked. Then came the time when all was taken away, and still everything I wanted was there before I asked. Deep within the ground of me runs a spring of joy. The time when I had nothing it gushed into the open. No matter what I did not have there was always this joy. When everything was returned there was no way not to trust. Some things you know because you don’t know. You trust. You trust and go on, letting whatever happens be what it is. If it tells you its name, you may feel blessed. If it leaves you in the dark, you are still blessed.

Gigi Ross

[hidden-leaven]

Pure Hidden

Between the mists Unseen only felt The dark spark that knows and imparts the unknown the lived where whatever it is meets whatever it is not The gesture that welcomes all lets it all go through and be changed in the unchanging. The loving that comes with joining deeper than the ocean not even felt but trusting it is there. It’s all about the real you that can never be completely known but, let alone, is what you are. Not the inside out being who thinks it is living.

Sometimes I think I’m here to not be here. To get to where I’m going is to walk on nothing. Let myself be felt without putting on what others want to make of me Like walking around in pure dark It feels like something is there You can’t just walk through it, you have to feel your way, touch what is not there that has invaded your being and turned into this lump in your throat. Swallow. Hold out your hands. Shuffle your feet. Let the dark—whatever it is you feel but can’t see— touch you. Let yourself shiver. Maybe it will end, maybe it will not. Pray that you don’t come to the light, that you don’t notice nothing is holding you up even as you are being held and guided, or maybe prodded. It’s ok to resist. That’s part of the mix. Struggling is safe here because you are being held and, without a ground, there is nowhere to fall. And somehow you are.

An image of snow on a mountain with a rounded belly called Sopris seen from one angle day after day after day Rocking and staring at the green leaves on a tree above a row of cars Conversations about doing nothing, having no plans, seeing what unfolds. How close to experience? Until the experience is all there is? It’s the experience that unfolds from moment to moment, nothing is known until it happens. Moses asks God, “How do I know it’s you asking me to do this?” “You’ll know when you get to where I told you to go.” God to Abram, “Go to a land I will show you. Leave now.” Flow. Moving. A river on a bed of rocks. Always in motion and so are the rocks. In a few thousand years they will be but will not look like rocks, just the motion of the river. The snow never leaves the belly. Maybe it’s just the round frozen in memory. The belly has already disappeared. With each drop of melting snow.

There is no method that can save you. No way of living that will keep you safe. If you’re falling off a cliff, dive. The chameleon moves from the desert floor as the desert floor and climbs a tree as tree. No separation from what is now, whatever it is. And no need to know what it is. Only the letting. Letting it be what it is. Letting yourself be what you are without trying to understand. A crane is hungry and still it waits. Looking beneath the waters it sees a fish approach and nabs it. One fish is not satisfying. It looks and waits. Here comes another fish. Yum. The crane stays in one spot, satisfied. It looks beneath the waters at the fish swimming by. There is nothing to do. Let it be done. There is no way to be. The being just happens. Beyond wishing, beyond saving, beyond healing. Life happens, sometimes we call it death. It just happens and so do we, and so does our wishing, and so does our grabbing when we can’t be satisfied. So, standing in the still water, moving in the great round. There is no difference. There is nothing to do. There is no way to be.

It’s not me. It’s the click, the sense of harmony. Ok. This is what’s to be done. This is what this means now. This next step taken in trust. In the willing to be in harmony with the more than me that is who I am. There is no choice, or rather, resistance means death. The death of being out of sync, of losing the sense of the whatever it is that can only be known in the trusting that somehow it is and in the opening to the love ever there. Life is only knowing, if you’re lucky, the next step. And it’s not even knowing. It’s going with the foggy notion that this seems right without knowing why or how you know. After the step is taken, maybe you get to know what’s next, maybe you wait, or maybe you regret what you’ve been asked to turn away from. But there’s no movement until the “yes” arises from within or until you get pushed or pulled or led from the spot. Leaping.

Here I am, but only because of you. Light so close that sometimes shines through me. So strong it blinds me. I open my arms to gather all the words at my feet. Which ones are yours. Which of yours can be said so that only the inner ear hears. What falls through my embrace. What do I hold on to. What spills on the page only to be crossed out because the music is off, the rhythm limping. I hear you in the song, but you are neither the song nor the singer. But for you there would be no music. But for me no one would hear this song. So, keep me open. Use my ear. Use my hand to let what wants to be expressed have its say, especially in the silences where it all comes down to one voiceless word. The word from which you chose the words to give me. The word without which all I’ve ever written would be nonsense. I wish I could say the word was you. But it is not and yet it is, as I am not yet I am you.

– Gigi Ross