Sarah Habib shares a poem as a meditation on the deep teachings of the earth regarding reverence for life and interbeing transmitted from the occupied lands of Lipan Apache and Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nations, appropriated as an international border between Mexico and the US.
There is no beginning or end to this labor, to caretake life.
“All life is labor.”
We must gather together to gather strength.
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Sarah Habib shares a poem as a meditation on the deep teachings of the earth regarding reverence for life and interbeing transmitted from the occupied lands of Lipan Apache and Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nations, appropriated as an international border between Mexico and the US.
There is no beginning or end to this labor, to caretake life.
“All life is labor.”
We must gather together to gather strength.
Remember the sharp edges you feel
in being with another’s pain,
is a teacher, is a mirror.
It’s all impermanent, and there is something there to hold;
to practice what compassion actually means, moment to moment.
As the Big Bend holds us, with all their faces on the rocks:
small mouth, big mouth, shouting, reaching, and torn mouth.
The way the rio-tongue makes double dutch, string lights
on the red rock wall: more faces:
How a duck walks on water. The dead cow and otter.
The descending polychromatic tune of this muck.
.اثق بنفسك
.تنفس
You have things, curiosities, lifetimes that must be shared,
precisely because they feel hard to share.
They will require effort, love, compassion, risk, loss, growth,
relinquishing the conditioning of “alienation.”
No one and no story is alien in this vast family and
in the family of my spirit body.
They hold all that is sought and all that must be given.
Pray with your responsibility. Pray with your giving.
Pray with your receiving.
Don’t be afraid of your need, vulnerability, humanity;
The need for skin to regulate with sun and skin.
Seek communion with sound and silence.
There is prophecy in the valley and stillness where
horses and cougars allow us to share and be a guest in their dwelling.
Our ancestors see us in a collapsed time.
.اذكر الله
.اذكر الاحلام والاجداد والاجيال
So many dreams in this canyon. It ran down the line of relation:
Spirit and chosen family, lovers, Capricorn matriarchs,
the canyon land beings:
“We are here. We are you.”
