The Mystery

This last week has been a little strange for me, perhaps because I'm not touring, which always keeps me sane, perhaps because I'm truly alone, but mostly not lonely, perhaps because this is what happens when the course of one's life has altered so dramatically.

Whatever it is, I feel as though I'm being born backwards, that everything is upside down...forever changed. I have no map but instinct and the centering, precious work I've known for so long...the constant in my changing horizon. I am dwelling in Honesty these days and nights, and sometimes it is brutal, sometimes just refreshing.

Honesty is what it is...that's why it's called that and not Fiesta! Honesty is certainly one way of easing pain and making it believable. Speaking my heart, singing about this Change, I wander the frontier of honesty, beyond the comfortable boundaries I'd established, beyond the pale. But you have to be so vigilant about it, fearless, really. I am truly leading the Examined Life these days and nights, trying to learn about myself, trying to be my own mirror. I see that it is important to be a more compassionate person, so that I might foster myself and others. There are still so many places within my own landscape filled with thickets of thorns, places hard to navigate, hard to get through. Some of these places are just who I am, but some need pruning back to allow for clear passage. Therefore, I am honestly wading through my life, planting new seeds, harvesting the old...I've lost my beloved, my mirror for 20 years. All I have left is this hand mirror where I can partially see the truth that is there, and the mirrors of these reflective lives around me, surrounding me these days...old and dear friends, and the people who come to hear my music -- these are also my mirrors, and they seem to reveal (by all accounts), a small bird who is struggling against the cage of her own making, struggling to recall what it is like to fly freely, to sing for joy, to find her true flock, her birds -of-a-feather.

If pain is believable, a thing felt deeply and honestly, it appears to truly help others in their struggle to be free. I am my own mirror, and also a mirror for others, trying to show them that love can prevail, and courage can be funded by facing the Change squarely on. I polish the face of this mirror, my own face, by leaning into the Wheel of Life. It is often such a dark place wherein I wander...how not to lose my Way. This is new Territory for me, and I make my Way, day by day, as life really, honestly is. i don't know where I'm bound, but I feel protected by love and the force of my Destiny. What a Mystery!