While leafing through a local art publication the other day, I read the most beautiful poem. I was lusting over a decaf lavender oat latte when the words slipped into me unexpectedly. A beautiful composition of words that danced between the beams of my soul, making light and love. Sarah Rodriguez's poem resonated within me on my long drive back from Denver. She wrote:
"We plant marigolds in our collarbones and call every moon a bonfire."
Words that ushered in my mantra of gratitude. For every day, every moment. The wise Einstein said,
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is though everything is a miracle."
Why not look at every moon as a bonfire, as a celebration of the night sky and of distant planets and galaxies?
"We plant marigolds in our collarbones" struck a familiar curiosity as if I knew exactly what the author meant by these words. Yet this exotic curiosity begged for an explanation of my truth within these words. Where had I seen marigolds planted in collarbones?
The other night I was skimming through some old pictures of India and I came across a portrait that my sister had taken of me one beautiful morning in Varanasi, India. Varanasi is the only place that I've visited in my life where spirituality was so palpable it was carried in the soot filled air. You could feel it on your cheeks and in your scratchy throat. Around my neck in the portrait, hanging from my collarbone, fucking marigolds.
The marigold is thought to be the herb of the sun. Some say it symbolizes both passion and creativity. The garland adorns temples, and gods, and brides, and me. My sister had greeted me at the airport with a garland made of marigold heads. This moment only to be recalled because of the beautiful words a poem that I leafed across while drinking a decaf lavender oat latte.
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