January is stock show season in Denver

Bulls with blackened hooves

ready to tap dance….

their curly hair blown back by a hair dryer,

Such care.

The bull is the beloved!

An oiled Nundi!

The warm smell of animals has a settling effect.

Can I just stay here until spring?

It’s not an easy time of year.

I have to be careful not to slip on the ice

and then there is so much to feel.

In my childhood friend’s Christmas letter

along with the photos of her family

she told me of her intense health struggle

and I am brought to my knees.

In the Tibetan book of the dead

It says that, when we have passed through

the different forms of light and then dark

with it’s fullness( tricky going here)

“We get to a place where we know

that our willingness to include it all

with arms open, heart let go-

matters more then we can imagine

and at that same moment…

We know

that all the suffering was Bliss.”

We were always in Nirvana, in Bliss.

( with Nundi)