Hello, Imagination

Beloveds,

I am scheduling to send this out a week before you are receiving it; I will be off-grid in the desert for a while, but am keen to keep my post-every-Tuesday commitment to myself. If things have gone even astoundingly more off the rails than they have this past month and my sending this out seems trite, forgive me. You can picture me deep in some canyon right now, earnestly rattling and dancing, songs stitching between the worlds of our modern moment and the eons of time that stretch out on either side.

But, assuming the horizon of our earth collective still burns tenuous but bright, and assuming there is still an imperative to focus on art in this mighty sea of things to put our attention to, I present to you a poem that has been perhaps THE poem in my life, that I have loved hard on many a mountain top and in many a circle.

I don’t even remember where I encountered this poem. Perhaps Tumblr (good times) or a random Facebook post about 10 years ago. I’ve never been able to find it online anywhere, but then I realized I could order the book, and encounter many other poems by the author! Which I did! But, this poem remains the best. In the past 10 years, I have consistently returned to it and thought,“This. This is the poem for me.”

I love its straightforward declaration of being. I love its wonder, the ever-expansion of learning how to greet things, how to truly interface with life as it is. I love how it invites me into a conversation with a world that is constantly saying hello to me, even when I may not have eyes to see. I love how the imagination opens us to portals of untold possibility when there seems no where, at least externally, to turn. In so doing, we birth worlds we might all truly play free in.

The Most Incredible Thing
By Blueberry Morningsnow
I learned how to say hello:
Hello, Mississippi river! Hello, silver silver silver gray!
Hello, dog! You are barking wildly at me. Hello!
I felt like Santa Claus or God—a jolly God,
that is. A pale yellow flower
growing on top of a mountain, or at least at the highest place
possible for things to grow.
I felt like the dry socket of some old moon or river
gradually filling up with water, water, water.
Water, hello. Hello, cool, clear, bitter movement.
Humility—yes humility is the strength of creation,
not knowledge or boredom or shape.
Hello, humility. Hello, being full of being.
Hello, imagination, you tiny horse. Hello,
gallop and gallop and gallop!

I also put forth Pilgrim’s Progress by Kris Kristofferson as good medicine for the moment. No matter the context, this one always holds some simple yet wide wisdom for me.

Am I young enough to believe in revolution
Am I strong enough to get down on my knees and pray
Am I high enough on the chain of evolution
To respect myself, and my brother and my sister
And perfect myself in my own peculiar way

Rattle on,

Hannah