“God is Change.”
Octavia Butler
As Solstice passes, I am reminded of the assertion in Octavia Butler’s prophetic novel Parable of the Sower (Earthseed series, Book 1) that “God is Change.” In this year of significant loss and all the shifts, energies, and emotions each entailed, I offer this:
Changes are cradles,
mangers of promise,
where what the womb contains
can through contraction and ache,
find new form,
become apparent,
met and known.
An intake of air becomes the pathway to self.
Vulnerability and amazement swim in our veins,
alert to what may feed and sustain us:
the covenant of balance,
to inhale AND exhale,
to digest AND expel,
to wake AND rest,
to witness AND be witnessed,
to hold AND to let go.
Longing builds muscle. So does release.
Dawn and twilight, noon and midnight,
offer cyclic provisions for the life of the soul,
available teachers in the sentient world,
their holy transience
threading through the cradle of change,
born of darkness and light.
