Monday Missive: Alter Ego

Let my ego shatter into a thousand shards of light.

My altar is the newly scrubbed out hummingbird feeder, half a cup of sugar to two cups of water, the cross-breeze in this sun porch with all of the sliders open, my ego tucked away from the glare of the world in this secluded spot shielded from view, cardinals and chickadees and bursting azaleas altering my insides, carrying away anxiety and spinning it into something useful like string and twigs the birds can use.

Oh summer, come and stay forever yet I would miss the seasons, my alter ego surely a forest dweller of some kind, an ornithologist, a recluse, a monk, a ritual watcher of skies and moons, a leaf diviner, a dowser, a doorman who greets you coming and going, a handwriting analyst, a diplomat, a jet-setting travel writer, a light catcher, a sun catcher, a beach bum, topless, surely in Italy or somewhere less filled with shame, a genealogist, a French baker, a butter churner, a cow milker, a flour sifter, a fire walker, a moss lover, a pond swimmer, a desert wanderer, a star counter, a palm reader, a chime maker, a charmed lover on a shaded veranda high above the sea, a cliff walker.

Let my ego shatter into a thousand shards of light, let my alter egos all have their day in the sun, let the sun shine on my face, bless my existence, bring rushes of unexpected goodness and riches in all forms to my shore so that I might share it all, fling this abundance back to the world, keeping what I need and living with the generosity the rain shows the earth, the earth that sustains us, the us that eclipses our tiny notions of ego, like tufts of pollen, floating past.  

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