SITTING WITH SPIRIT
Betty Luceigh, 6/2015

I sit this early summer morning,
sense heat on skin, sweat in socks.
I see wrinkles on a hand
telling a body-story of time.
But can I sense or see spirit
as my hand writes words of it?

Where is spirit? Who believes it is there?
Is it my brain that somehow
equates spirit with aliveness,
sends neuronal messages from spirit
to my human awareness
as it directs my heart to beat, feet to sweat?
Perhaps spirit cannot be confined
to a space called “me”
because it occupies all space,
a universal presence
of which my body is immersed
to sustain the life within
and to which my body will one day
return its components.

I sense it most, this spirit,
when other aspects of me,
perhaps emotions, plans, memories,
release attention, hold still,
so I can simply accept the gift of my aliveness
that embraces all of these.
So I sit now with spirit,
but must lift my pencil from this paper,
cease my questions and reflections,
discontinue this connection with your eyes,
that I may fully experience my coexistence with spirit
in the blankness remaining

.