Below the Timberline…

Sydney Lynn Haupert-LokLeave a comment

by John Roedel

The timberline is the point
on a mountain where
trees and vegetation
can no longer grow
due to the inhospitable terrain
and the lack of oxygen
The higher your climb
~ the lower the chance there is
for life to exist 
The better the view
~ the worse the conditions
are for growth
That is how my journey
to understand
God has worked for me
The more I have sought “higher” enlightenment
the less I have ever found
The higher I have climbed
the harder it is to breathe
I have followed the trails
I have scaled the face of the mountain
I have clung by my fingers on a clifftop
I have climbed
and I have climbed
to get to the place where I believed
God had set a home for me
but when I got there
~ when I reached the peak
~when I finished climbing the mountain
I found nothing but small rocks
and snow up here
what a fool I have been
I have been chasing God
up this steep mountain
for all the wrong reasons
I wanted to dangle my fat
toes off the edge of everything
and then tear into the lingering clouds
like they were birthday presents
filled with the answers to every
question I’ve ever had about
my existence and my place
in the cosmos
I wanted to look down below
at the sprawling world underneath
me and feel like I’ve graduated
into some sort of exclusive club
of self-righteous understanding
I think I wanted to climb the mountain
in order to feel like I accomplished
one thing in my life
I outclimbed any thunderstorm
or predator that wanted to destroy me
I climbed to a place
where nothing could touch me
I spent the last two decades
plodding my way up this peak
only to run into the timberline
of my faith
nothing is growing up here
I can’t catch my breath up here
I don’t feel connected to life up here
turns out that the answers aren’t up here
enlightenment
is down there
in the valley
where I was
if God exists in the way
that I want God to exist
then it isn’t up among the
chapel I carved out of
granite and boulders
God is down among the
rivers, dandelions, predators, cheap wine,
hate crimes, thunderstorms and sweet midnight
kisses that I abandoned on
my pursuit to join the angels
that I thought lived among
these jagged mile-high peaks
I believed that enlightenment
was about climbing a mountain
where nothing could hurt me again
it turns out that true
enlightenment I sought
exists below the timberline
in the dirt of the
earth I was trying
so desperately to escape
it was always down there
down there
where the paths
become over-grown
with the vines of
both good and evil
down there
where the earth
grows both rose bushes
and brambles that
cut my skin
down there
where there is a
kingdom of people
who are both
bitter and sweet
down there
where life is
both heart filling
and heartbreaking
down there
in the land mines and the
golden corn fields
I was never going to find
God above the timberline
of where anything can grow
I was never going to find
God where nothing could
cut me
in order to find enlightenment
I needed to be where I could
be hurt
in order to breathe again
I need to lay among the
cottonwoods and the
roaming wolves
what was I thinking?
it is so lonely up here
it is so cold
I have not heard a bird song in months
fine
start the coffee
scramble the eggs
get my comfy shirt out of storage
I am coming down
I will meet you under
the timberline
where God
exists in the
mud and the
wildflowers in
equal measure
I cannot wait
to see what comes
next
I cannot wait
to dance with
you in the valley
again
~ john roedel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Conversation

Sydney Lynn Haupert-LokLeave a comment

( a poem by John Roedel: God, I love this dude.)

“Why haven’t you quit yet?” My Depression asked me as I sat fully clothed in my empty bathtub.
I didn’t answer.
Instead I just stared at the janky image of myself that was being reflected back to me from the porcelain of the tub.
My Depression knelt down beside me and ran it’s thin fingers through my hair.
“Why are you resisting me?” It asked with a bit of a hiss. “I’m just here to help you feel safe.”
I shook my head ever so slightly.
Subtle gestures like this were how the two of us usually communicate with each other.
However, today my Depression was being a bit more overt. Today it was motivated to destroy me. It smelled blood in the water. My Depression could see the weakness in my eyes. It knew it has a chance. If it tried hard enough – Depression thought it could finally bury me today.
With it’s icy breath blowing in my ear Depression spoke again with a sing-songy voice:
“It’s okay, my sweets. You’ve already made it so much farther than anybody would have ever expected. You’ve endured so much suffering. It’s okay to give up. Just for today try giving up. You’ll feel so much better. The pain will go away. The lava in your veins will cool. The knife in your stomach will stop being twisted. The rat chewing through your heart will fall asleep. If you just give surrender you will stop feeling these holes being put in you. If you just lay with me for a bit you’ll go numb. Imagine how wonderful that will be? To just be cauterized to it all? Don’t you want to be done with this world? Dont you want to become an empty page? Don’t you want to be safe from people who do nothing but hurt you. I can give you all of that. Stop resisting me and everything will be okay.”
I shook my head again – this time a bit more forcefully. I curled up my legs tighter up against my body. I felt like a turtle hiding inside if it’s shell.
My Depression’s long pencil-like fingers stopped moving through my hair. It pressed it’s face up against mine. I could feel the worms move under it’s clammy cheek.
“Don’t you want to know the peace that comes from giving up?” My Depression asked me.
I broke my silence.
“Numbness and peace aren’t the same thing,” I replied.
With that my Depression’s tone with me quickly changed. I could feel it grip my hair and try to pull it out from my roots.
“Listen to me you little failure.,” it wheezed. “You are nothing. You are broken. You are sick. You are only a disappointment to people. There is nothing you can do to get away from me. I will own you someday. You can’t stop me. This is a battle you that you will never win. You will never be rid of me. You are stuck with me!”
As a fat daddy tear grooved it’s way down the bridge of my nose and I said with a trembling voice:
“I’m stuck with you?”
Depression lips formed a frown that nearly touched the bathroom floor.
“Yes…” it said.
“If that’s the case then maybe we should go get some tacos…I’m starving.”
My Depression let go of my scalp and slumped down on the floor next to me and sighed loudly.
After a few minutes of silence between us it spoke again.
“Chicken tacos?” Depression asked.
“Sure,” I said as I stood up. “I know how you love them.”
My depression and I went for an awkward lunch together. We didn’t say much to each other but at one point toward the end of our meal it asked me one last question for the day:
“Why won’t you just give up?”
I took a long sip from my straw and I replied with:
“I guess I’m just too curious about what comes next,” I replied.
My Depression nodded ever so slightly.
Subtle gestures like this were how the two of us usually communicate with each other.
~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)
 
 
 
Photo by Gustavo Almeida on Pexels.com

Whose Turn Is It?

Sydney Lynn Haupert-Lok1 Comment
Is it your turn to forgive me
or
is it my turn to forgive you?
I can’t remember either.
To be safe we better just forgive
each other at the exact same time.
Here’s how:
We will hold hands
so that your wrist
presses right up
against mine.
And now we wait
until our pulses
match each other.
And now we close our
eyes and pretend
that our veins are
rivers of empathy
and now the seasons are changing
and now the mountains are melting
and now the water is rising
and now the rivers are growing together
and now the barren
space we let grow
between us is being
flooded with stretching
vineyards of clemency
and now exotic wildflowers
are growing everywhere
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere
and now all we know is an ocean
and now we are swimming
in the same tides of understanding
and now the two of us are endless again
and now we are the
newborn children of forgiveness
open your eyes
look down at our wrists
wrapped around each other
and now I forgive you
and now you forgive me
and now I see you
and now you see me
and now can’t you feel it?
~ this rising river
~ this rolling ocean
~ this endless us
this rushing mercy
~ john roedel

Hey God

Sydney Lynn Haupert-LokLeave a comment

by John Roedel

 
Me: Hey God.
God: Hey John.
Me: I’m about to break.
God: Why do you think that is?
Me: Because life just keeps getting harder.
God: Then you need to become softer.
Me: Huh?
God: Here is the thing:
glass is hard
but it can shatter
easily when dropped
rock is hard
but it can be broken
quickly with a drill
gold is hard
but it can be melted
in a blazing fire
don’t be so hard
that you break down so easily.
be soft
like wet clay
in the hands of a potter
be soft like
river water
in the summer
be soft like
the breeze through
a row of tall pines
all of those things
survive no matter what
happens to them
they endure because
they haven’t built their
existence out of hard
materials
be soft with other people
don’t break them
with your words
and don’t let them
break you with theirs
be soft with yourself
your heart is more cotton
than iron
your soul is wrapped
in the softest of fabrics
for a reason
the softer you become
the more you understand
how precious all life is
be more of cotton
than you are of concrete
~ love isn’t cold granite
love is shapeless
love is like ocean water
gently passing through your toes
in a world where the hardness of diamonds
helps determine its worth
don’t become one yourself
become so soft
that nothing can
break you
~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

A Poem from John Roedel

Sydney Lynn Haupert-LokLeave a comment
Photo by Jonathan Borba on Pexels.com
people will deny
anything these days
so, I have decided to join
the practice of dismissing things
that we’ve been told are true
 
I have decided to quit believing in death
~ it just doesn’t exist for me anymore
 
I have a new theory
I’m working on~
when our dear ones
depart their bodies and
turn back into air and light
they don’t disappear
behind a brick wall
that separates us
~there are no bricks
there is no wall
~there are no barriers
 
there is only a grand
window between us
and those whom we
have stitched ourselves
to with the most divine
of angel hair threads
 
we can see our beloveds in
the heart shape clouds
and they can see us
as we kiss their picture
goodnight ever so softly
 
death doesn’t exist
it’s a debunked
flat-earth theology
where we are told that
the people we love spill off the
edge of the world and
fall away from us into
the endless unknown
that’s not my experience
 
what I have seen is that when
a dear one leaves me I don’t
feel the space grow between us
I feel us grow closer together
~ our entanglement becomes tighter
they travel with me to the
store to buy garlic
 
they brush my hair out of my eyes while
I cry in my car in an empty parking lot
they join me on my daily
walk around a lake
 
they sit on the board of my conscious
and offer me advice
they float above me while
I write a poem
they laugh when I trip over the same
chair damn every day
 
they catch my prayers and
courier them to God
they write love notes to me with steam
on my bathroom mirror
they play the right songs on the radio
at just the right time
they have made a cottage
in my heart
 
they have turned my eyes
into miracle telescopes
they converted my lungs
into a retreat center
they dance in the eyes
of my children
 
my loved ones haven’t gone anywhere
and neither have yours
they are just on the other side of the window
waiting for you to see them
waving at you
in their sundresses made out of stars
and their tuxedos stitched by time
 
and someday I will be on the
other side of the glass
acting so obnoxious that you
won’t be able to ignore me
and someday I will be writing
you love notes on the petals
of sunflowers for you to find
just when you need to read them
 
and someday I will help paint a
sunset in the exact color of the
way I felt whenever I was wrapped
up tightly in your arms
 
I’m not scientist but
my research tells me that
death doesn’t exist
 
however, love does
and it has no end
and neither do we
~ john roedel
Photo by Designecologist on Pexels.com

Watch “Jayne Smith’s Profound NDE – Near Death Experience” on YouTube

Sydney Lynn Haupert-Lok1 Comment

When Jayne talks about the flowers, the light emerging from them, it sparks a memory in me about how everything is lit from the inside out. I see all of us as Source Orbs lit from within, this light emerging from our crowns as if we were lanterns creating the writings on the walls of creation. What are we writing on the walls with lit fingers? When Jayne asked her last question, she is told the answer and that she won’t remember it when she comes back to her body. We are writing that answer on the walls of creation. Will we ever decipher it while in body? I think we are…

A clue? The joy is found in the treasure hunt of discovering in creation what you always knew in Spirit~

Ambrosia

Sydney Lynn Haupert-Lok1 Comment
See the source image
tasting love

What is this gift of creation to the Spirit-lands? What is this tasting that ingests, then alchemizes experience into a love fully realized? What is this love that dribbles down the chin, pooling deeply in the crevices of collarbones where it dries in the sun, a sticky, felt love that shows Love itself what it is…

Love tasting itself.