What inspires you now?

One of my Muses asked me this highly stimulating question yesterday. As winter approaches and coldness seeps into my house on a Saturday morning, I find that my wood-burning stove inspires me.

Creating heat in my bedroom by crumbling paper, stacking kindling and logs, torching it all and then sitting back to watch the flames (blessed moment!) comforts me.

My cats, assuming double-decker placement on my lap and thighs (what my husband calls my kitty lap-dance) inspire me to sit on my cushion, and eventually, meditate.

Watching Pearl Grey neatly wash Minnie's face as they're curled together on the wool blanket at the foot of my bed, soothes me. As does their abundant sisterly attention for each other and the way they look at me when I interrupt them with a kiss, one on top of each furry head.

The stack of unread spiritual books below and above my bed whisper to me to be still, and to finally read them in the coming month(s), thoughtfully, with my orange highlighter pen, over many cups of tea. Or coffee. Coffee inspires me, warm, sweet, hot and forcing me to recognize yet again the hamster wheel that is my brain.

Sheepskin beneath my toes under the covers of my bed makes me dream of ancient tribal royalty traveling via caravan across Mongolia. Bells tinkling around my ankles, wrapped in colorful fabric, I dance beneath the enormous skies of the steppes, or on top of Partington Ridge, in the sharp winter morning light.

Sapphire blue ocean, tranquil, so deep, reaching to where it meets the sky, topped by a wave of cumulus clouds across the horizon. Emerald green grass swoops downhill from my door, each blade illuminated from the east. Wind-chimes bouncing from the Datura branch, singing an almost bird-like song. Hummingbirds appear, and perch at their feeder, what I think of as their "table for six", inhaling nectar.

The Datura blooms outside my bedroom door inspire me. Miraculously, four or five blooms are opening even now, in mid-November. At night I stand on the deck and lift the most open golden blossom to my face, drinking in the amazing delicate scent. Datura perfume and winter skies filled with crisp stars, Milky Way flooding my soul.

The fascinating contents of my fridge call me to cook up something tasty on a cold winter morning. My happy dog rolls on his back in the grass and stretches, arching his tummy up to the sun. The laughter in my little sister's voice on the phone brings me home to myself and who I really am, or was, back in the beginnings of my life. But now is better. Now is always better.

The landscape before me breathes and vibrates with sacred life, more vivid to me than ever before, perhaps because I am simply receiving this vision. The holy work of genuinely accepting the moment, other souls (and myself) just as we are, right now, constantly inspires me and, when I have succeeded in savoring a tiny taste of this, contented tears flow from my heart.

Photo by Linda Sonrisa