Page 128 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

shelter) and gratitude (the reciprocal urge to offer back, to acknowledge that we depend upon each

other to live and grow).

Carl Jung once said that the meaning of his existence was that life had addressed a question to him,

and that he must answer it or risk having it answered for him. In the forest that day, the question of

my life began to be formed: how to become such a self, generous of body and heart, grateful of being

and action? How to live with the rest of the non-­‐human world as kin?

The question is always with me now. Like the name I was given, it is a path. It echoes like a prayer. In

my very holding of this question, there lives an answering call. I see the generosity of the bee in my

garden, spreading pollen which keeps the plants flowering–which is also the bee’s own feeding, its

communion, and its need. The currencies are a cycle, like alternating currents. Generosity becomes

gratitude, hunger becomes offering, taking can simultaneously become giving. Such is the hum at the

center of our world.

Somewhere, someone named Grandmother Squirrel nods and smiles. Deep within, a small girl turns.

She is lying in the grass, talking to bees. She thinks the name I was given is simply a very good name. I

go outside and touch the earth. I reach into the soil and plant seeds. Some of these seeds the birds will

eat. Some will become my dinner. I bow my head. I say Thank you.

Carolyn Brigit Flynn was born in Washington, D.C. in 1958. Her book of

poems Communion: In Praise of the Sacred Earth was published in 2014

by White Cloud Press. She is the editor of the anthology Sisters Singing:

Blessings, Prayers, Art, Songs, Poetry and Sacred Stories by

Women, and The New Story: Creation Myths for Our Times. Her poetry and

essays have appeared in magazines and anthologies nationwide. She is a

writing teacher, offering ongoing writing groups and retreats in Santa

Cruz, CA and in Ireland. www.carolynbrigitflynn.com