9.11.11 gratitude

i am grateful for:

i am grateful for the cycles of sun and moon that wax on and wax off, blurring the hard edges of pain, if not the hot centers. like rocks softening in eons of weather.

i am grateful for the bodhisattvas who gave their lives in service that day, knowingly, or not.

i am grateful for the souls who left that day, together, and pray, still, that grace filled them at the most essential moments, that some balm was there for the suffering, that though it looked inexplicably horrible, there was some sort of sweetness mixed in the horror and agony and grief. i want to know that they saw light right in the middle of darkness; i want to believe god is merciful in that one small big way.

i am grateful for all the kindness, however fleeting, in the moments that followed in our big beautiful crazy city. in offering rides and water and places of refuge. in offering words. in offering food. in tending. in listening. in hearing the stories of the unspeakable sadness. in love. in all the fear, i am grateful for the mad pulse of love, compassion, and grace that came from so many. i want to bottle that and spray it over the island right now with a mist of healing.

i am grateful for those who have actively healed the still-hallowed ground. who have prayed and sent light and imagined roses scattered everywhere–beings divine and human alike.

i am grateful for our toughness, not our hardness. our resilience and willingness to stay open even though we now know it happens here, anywhere.

i am grateful for the thoughtful media coverage in the midst of the trumpets. the re-reporting, the following up, the taking care to not just re-blast open wounds, but to revisit in ways we are maybe better prepared for, to honor, to name.

i am grateful to michael arad for what looks like a lovely memorial.

i am grateful, always, to lizie, michele, denise, and paula. the beautiful women i knew who died that day. i am so grateful for the accidental blessings from knowing and losing, from every moment in retrospect being incredibly precious.

i am grateful for june, who hired me to be there that day. i am grateful to have taken in some of the last sips–and my first–of that mad crazy view, the summit-junkie’s paradise of urban beauty. caverns, crevasses, peaks, deep, long valleys. green water, silver glass and steel mountains. it was stunning up there.

i am grateful for the mta, for the e train that was late. i am grateful that when i emerged from the subway i had no clue why the building was on fire. i am grateful that i missed by short minutes the next one being hit. hearing the noise, but not stopping to know more. i am grateful for the voice in my head that said RUN. i am grateful that i did. i am grateful that i told a man with a toddler to turn around, NOW. i hope he did. i am grateful for the church, the garden, and the sanctuary.

i am grateful for visions of emergency light healing i saw when i closed my eyes. i am grateful i was somewhere safe when i heard the screaming, when they came down, when they just came all the way down in dust.

i am grateful for friends who sheltered me. i am grateful for friends who went down there to help. i am grateful for the swelling of heart that sent so many people down there to make offerings, to serve, to do something.

i am grateful to those who tended at home, who cared for kids with scared questions.

i am grateful to giuliani for being so lucid and brave and real that night.

i am grateful for the dream i had, of hot air balloons leaving the city.

i am grateful for finally being able to breathe down there, for the people who believed me when i said i could not, properly, for years. i am grateful for being well from my own possibly 9/11-related illness: blood cancer occurrence surged in downtown residents and rescuers. i was diagnosed with blood cancer three years later. some say this is not related; i know it is. it connects me to this day in ways my mind is only beginning to grok. it connects me to this city and its EPA lies and my foolish trust in ways i am only beginning to understand. it connects me to my rage–at myself for staying and at them for lying–in ways i can only glimpse. i am grateful for being all-the-way well.

i am grateful to those who passed; i am grateful to those who survived. i am grateful to those who have used love as their true anchor these ten years. those who have sought understanding, unity, knowing it is the best protection.

thank you to you for reading this. thank you to the sky for containing us, to the moon and the sun and axis for wheeling us past, yet not far at all, from the hottest center of our small enormous tragedy. may we all be blessed and safe and whole and loved. may we all serve and give love. may all beings everywhere be happy, safe, and free from suffering and the causes of suffering. may all beings know true joy. may all beings be free. may all beings know true divine love in this lifetime. may all souls who passed on 9/11 be safely in the light, well into their flowing journey, wherever it goes. may we treat all beings with conscious kindness, even, and especially, when hate creeps in. may we return to love, again and again, sweet and true and real.

thank you, thank you, thank you. god bless all beings. goddess bless all beings. love.