Sunday, August 8, 2010

Leader

I could see as he swept his broad hand from left to right and back an expanse- a capacity to hold the intangible as if it were tattooed in spirit ink in the bones and tendons of his fingers and palm - And more still - that he knew me and stood not only in front of me but also inside of me. He knew the city and state and nation that I knew – black, white, brown, man, woman, child. He had in his bones the mountains that I had, strong rivers, sweet clouds. These were not his to keep or mine, nor ours to own and clench – but ours to acknowledge .

In that same sweeping gesture I knew, I felt the thousands he had touched when he traveled the states. I knew that he stood before me and all of the rest gathered on feet that had walked in the same dust I knew. I felt a lifting in my being that said to me I could trust him to understand and carry at least a piece of my wishes and battered dreaming. This king, magician, warrior, healer – could he be a man who would walk great and not from his talk and his entourage, but from his connection and his grounding to the moment that we occupied together.

I looked as he spoke and I could see myself, and more than myself flickering behind his skin and his brown eyes – as if I lived in his body, thought his thoughts, dreamed through his arms into an unfolding, resolute action that I hadn’t the power to attain for myself. I heard my thoughts shift from the why-can’t-he to the when-will-we. When will we stop our frenzied stuffing of our faces, or rushing, our ripping down the ancient, our chasing of the get-what-we-want endless road to unhappy empty buckets. No I knew that he know what I know that it was never about the getting and the grabbing or the pressing of buttons and the clicking of icons to change the subject to something that scared us less.

I saw in him that he could stand with me in this time. Time of consequence, realization, time to contend and confront the impact of thousands-of-years delusions that had brought us to this place. Could he see with me beyond this dream born of fear? With him I saw a way to walk a different path To become whole, brilliant, calm, grounded, linked in the work ahead and the implicit energy of now.

In that moment, I understand that I had always had what I needed and that we could find a way.