Sunday, October 27, 2019
Not This––poem by Dorothy
Not This
What I wish to tell you
is that it is not a course,
nor an exercise
of how to breathe your way
happiness
nor an object you wear
around your neck.
It is not a shirt
with a slogan on it,
nor the ability to name
each center with an
ancient foreign word,
nor a method to turn your body
into a pretzel
or a notion you read
in some bestselling book
with an invitation to ascend.
It is instead an altar with an invitation
to climb up
and let yourself be
dismembered,
every part and particle,
taken and transformed,
sacred fires burning,
sacred hymns chanted,
you the small pile of ashes
left behind,
the ember waiting to be
transformed
into the nothingness
that you are,
awareness at last.
Dorothy Walters
October 27, 2019
