Wildness

by Laurie Lyter Bright

Deep relaxation really stresses the hell out of me.  

In a space that is meant to be open, airy, possible.

I feel worse than stuck.  

I am meant to release to the un-condition,

on one condition,

that I feel held by the floor, by the chair, by the vast landscape of the universe

                        beyond conception.

But I try too hard and suddenly there it is again –

the muscles are tense and I fight the rising tide of knees and shoulders,

rising up up up in answer to my clear clinical orders to

RELAX!

I am dumping water over in thimblefuls of meditative practice,

but it is nothing to the storming seas-worth of memory embodied in a tight internal sense of protection,

why I feel unmoored walking on the streets

                        and feel so strangely seasick when riding public transport.

It feels mysterious to me, and I pine,

wistful for relaxation alone

(at least that is definitely a piece of it - this peace I can’t see no matter how furrowed my brow gets, the clouds don’t clear).  

I long for what seems to be on the other side of peace -- wildness.  

A great, grey ghostly god, who sits like mist on the forest, who rests in the silence, snapped by a twig broken under foot, who perceives aviary lightness and a proper avalanche just the same, considers each, and allows them to pass with equal appreciation that this

                        - all of this –

            has a home here in the wild.