"The Silent Hills"

candles line around the parameters
of the newly stretched
quilted center of my life,
place of home;
I remembered fondly of my great granny
of distanced planets ago.
she always sung with chants and a unique lullaby that I always could feel
within my soul…
walking towards her father’s center,
and she spoke of her dog Carie.
she called her a prairie collie-

upon Seaman’s Hill,
my family who had gathered to create a Ceilidh…who would stand
silently
and try to envision their life of simplicity,
their life of service to their earth.

prayed.
greatest power on earth.

and they would then play their own made
musical instruments,

they simply stated:
caressed my Mother,
and kissed her with their
deeply felt love of chanting,
their deeply believed belief in
the vision of the next dimension.

love.
God.
every spring,
my family along with the walking neighbors,
walking,
chanting,
their bare feet
touching their mother’s skin,
would gather around seven well-lit
candles where,
they all could share in the Carmina
of their past,
of the heartbeat that carried on the beating
rhythm of their led chanting,
of their led dancing
and inner
vision,
wisdom,
and knowledge.
of their life.
of their world.

“Spirituality that listens for the heartbeat
of God has largely been ignored.”

the seven candles of my great granny were:
Simplicity,
Holism,
Mystery,
Immanence,
Environment,
Equality;
Hope.

seven, to look for the good in all things first.

six, to regard all people as equal and erases
the separation as we all feel within us.
five, to honor God by encouraging earth-keeping.
four, to believe that God is present with his creation.
three, to speak of the mystical unity,
that arises from understanding the limitations
of human knowledge.
two, to believe that life itself,
should not divide it into the spiritual and material,
the hearts and head,
sacred days and
work days-
one.
they simply,
choose to live simply.

children play. then again,
they believed that they all were children of God.
they believed that they were voyagers
within this living dimension.

my great granny would gather with the
rest of the clan,
and listen to the Seanachaidh
speak upon the tales from yesteryear.

and they all believed that they were married,
to those hills for all those years.
those relatively small hills-
were silent with contemplation,
silent with,
melting back into the earth,
who they see as their own,
who they fell beneath their feet.

and they dance; chant to the heavens above.
underneath their feet,
and within their whole bodies.