Baby Breyl

Baby Breyl

I treasure her….

 My first grand love…

She is soft and new and whole and good.

                                                   Her lips lap her mother’s nipple

Drinking of milk and sustenance and the very essence of life

 But also

Tender love.  Holy Love.  A mother’s love.

They are both innocent as they start this journey together…

Tiny fingers pull up into large hands

Hands weathered by time,

Weathered by experience,

.Old Dan tucker… melodically rings through the air

 She glides through

My husband’s well worn knees and bounces up again.

An ancient ritual her mother has known her whole life…..  now circles back.

I hug her closely to my breast

Dancing with her as I sing.

Hearts pounding in sync.

Souls entwining.

My little lamb and I 

Float across the floor together

Gliding, circling, celebrating....

Euphoria in full bloom......

Dana Mc Daniel Seale

Manhattan, NY

October 2012

Two Become One

Becoming One

I inhale the breeze as it blows through me…

Sipping, cleansing, renewing my soul.

Drinking in the raw joy of simplicity

Life slips past me as I study the waves----

Tumbling, rolling, harvesting

Sea glass, sand dollars,

Fragments of conch

And delicate china from the sea.

I am lost

in the wind

and the water

and sand

and sun…..

Healing seeps into the core of me, the soul of me, the timeless spirit of me.

I stumble upon

The skeletons of two trees that have rolled ashore together at high tide.

Their long skinny torsos are welded together at the roots.

They tell a story….

even in their death…

of a life so tightly woven at the foundation

That even now, though they breathe no more,

The winds, the waves, and the storms have not been able to separate them.

Two unique trees united by their need

To survive,

To draw from the soil they shared

To dig deep

And to hold tight when the winds of life threatened them.

So woven are the roots into one enormous ball that the tale of their lives

Is an easy one to decipher.

Every spring was celebrated together.

Every storm was fought as one.

Winters were survived at each other’s side

Wind breaks and shades were gifts they gave to one other.

So unified

So separate

So interwoven

So independent

Large roots, skinny roots, curly roots, straight roots, long roots, short roots…

A thousand stories weave together…

To become one.

Dana McDaniel Seale

Path to Life

Path to Life

There is a way that is filled with glory and fame

Paved with shine and glitz

Glamour...

But I say to you

Choose

The alley of humility…

Filled

With the stench of poverty

The hopelessness of cravings that never go away

The isolation of loneliness

The fear of rejection

Lean in.

Hear the stories.

Tell  your own….

Walk with them,

Heart to heart

Shoulder to shoulder

Hold the light high for their paths

Love them.

Serve them. 

And then gently, ever so gently,

Lead them

Out of their prisons.

Out of their desperations

Out of their dead end paths.

Welcome them

Into a kingdom of love

Into a family that cares

Into eternal hope.

And then know that you have done

What you have come to do

For

This is the everlasting path

That leads to life.

This is the road back home.

Dana McDaniel Seale

September 15, 2015

Avondale on Hudson....A Sacred Passage

Avondale on Hudson

A Sacred Passage

Light filters silently around me

Sifting through

Spindly branches

Leaves bright with chartreuse

And marigolds that golden the air with soft velvet ruffles.

Softest beams weave in and out of long trailing tree limbs and dapple dalmation onto the slatted gray table before me.

Roughened by time and weathered by rain and snow and winds the table made of timber is aged yet solid.

With it linger a fragrant essence of memories

of gathered laughter,

Restful moments of contemplation

and joyful circles of friends

It is late May and these upper New York woods are rebounding from the harsh trauma of snowy winter

They surround me with resilience….

Green with vigor….

Lush with  families of hopeful younger saplings

A pot of fresh basil, a planter of pink geraniums and a large lemon on a small tree Gift this cottage hidden in the woods with wholeness and a wafting fragrance of Fresh beginnings and newness of life and

The stunning grace of raw beauty.

Below me a brook washes through the crevices of rocks and moss and roots clinging to banks and trunks and shifting silt.

It sings as it runs…..and in the softest of ways…..peace seeps into my spirit and soul.

Life lives here in this cottage in the woods.

I study the hope that surrounds me in this sanctuary of life.

Despite the snow, the winds, the floods,

These sacred elders of the plant kingdom resurrect each spring with life

And breath and arms wide open…..

They have been created to stand tall

Hosting families of birds and a thousand other creatures too hidden to see.

They have come before me, these trees of old

And they will remain to tell their story long after mine is over.

I am honored to share this space at

60 Near Road with them.

This moment of eternity,

This celebration of graduation

This merging of two families who share the goodness of the one they both love….dearly

Katrina.

A soul full of light and goodness and sensitivity

A soul who fears the darkness

But

Courageously treads it anyway.

Intentionally reaching ever reaching deeply into her spirit,

God’s spirit,

And the spirit of others.

Ever reaching for the hands of those she loves

Asking them to go with her.

To help her to see what she cannot see.

To help her to be brave

And to press ever forward,

She was created with roots that run deep,

That drink from streams of living water and cling to good soil.

She was created to stand tall

With a strong will

For the tearing down of strongholds of injustice.

And she will….

Use that will to pierce the darkness with great light.

This is a sacred passage, at a sacred moment, in a sacred place.

She has weathered the winter and spring has come again.

Dana Seale

Avondale on Hudson

May 29, 2016

Fairness

Is measured not by weights or scales
Or numbers we can see,
But rather by subjective hearts
And wishes just to be
A little better than the rest
Of others who seem far more blessed.

Herald of Spring

Metaphors are written into the wind, the forests, the seasons, the oceans, the sunsets, the rivers, the stars...... What a gift to be able to capture them, contemplate them, and celebrate them!


From my frost covered window
I watch a lonesome bird contemplate
His reflection in an icy puddle.
Thin feathers, hardly a heavy jacket for this biting day,
Shield his naked soul from the death of winter.
Why has he lingered?
Gone are his fellow choir members.
Gone is the summer symphony.
He solos forgotten melodies into the silence of a snowy day
He chants carols from a spindly branch that wheezes as it bows..
I study this solitary bugler in awe.
He is a fighter
Not a comfort lover.
An independent thinker.
Not a follower.
He is one who chooses the path of most resistance,
One made strong by his very choices.
Undaunted by stormy threats and the howling mockery of the wind,
He announces life in the midst of death.
An unrelenting watchman on a wall,
He is the herald of spring time.

Spell Breaker

Some truths are timeless, I find that this is one of them.

SPELL BREAKER

An abyss of eternal span
Is centered in the dark of man.
It haunts his soul and echoes through
The wall-less wall and view-less view.

It taunts the very core of him
Until he fills the pit with sin
And then, it echoes louder still
Appealing to his heart and will.

But nothing of a mortal span
Can fill the dark that lurks in man.
For man can not so break the spell
That’s bound his soul down into hell.

And yet a blade that rips the night
Is wielded by the prince of light
Who knows no fear of mortal chains
Nor cowers from the dark domains.

For he has written life on death
And placed in man eternal breath
And in the hollow of the span
Has spoken truth back into man.