SoulTending.com

By Petra Prensky

There is an abandoned rose bush on the land.
It is overgrown by Tahitian Spinach.
The tree, which shaded it, got cut down.
Logs fell on its branches, they stayed there.

Yet the rose bush sent out new shoots.
And after years produced the first rose.
My husband found it and put it in a vase on my dresser.
It was red with jagged edges, its fragrance sweet and gentle.

I enjoyed it for a week, before it left my room.
Yesterday, my husband cut a second rose for me.
The Chinese rose beetles ate holes in its leaves,
I close my eyes, inhale its scent; it is beautiful to me.

Thank you rose bush for living and blossoming.
Those two red roses touched me through their unexpected presence.
Their existence surprised, inspired and moved me.
They are real roses: jagged, wild and smelling deliciously.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

By Petra Prensky

Movement, sweat, I sweat out of every pore. Why don’t I dance every single moment of my life? Achy shoulder, boulder that I have carried with me. Dance it off, dance, dance, dance. A smile on my face, my vertebras hurt, stuck energy, fear in my neck. I am here, I made it. What tremendous work to have arrived here in this space with these bodies. Open and close, open and close, am I shy, am I open? Do I dare to be ecstatic? What will that mean? Nothing, absolutely nothing. I am here to stay. This room is much bigger, it can hold all that is inside of me. Space, space, ecstasy, fully letting go of all the old patterns. ‘Who am I?’, doesn’t even matter anymore. I have become whirling energy, spinning in a room of bodies.

By Petra Prensky

Leaves are rustling,

The sun is setting.

Nature is withstanding the noises and

Dealings of us humans.

The palm tree is swaying in the wind,

Bearing a bounty of coconuts,

Not caring, what will happen to them.

It must be nice not to think.

Not being able to worry about your offspring.

Just standing tall, taking in the sunshine,

The rain, the nutrients from the earth.

Looking closer, I see life teaming on its trunk,

Highways of ants, bugs, critters.

Rats love to make their nests in the crown.

The palm tree keeps on growing,

Shedding palm fronds and coconut bunches.

Letting the wind unite the sounds of the rustling fronds

With the music of the universe.

By Petra Prensky

The sweetness of your fluid embrace is lingering on my skin. Your scent is mingled with mine. I can still smell you. You gracious, strong, tender being you. Moving in unison, not being afraid of my own body’s reaction. Instead marveling at it, creating stillness, inwardness, so I can feel the reaction to your touch in my body. We are like lovers dancing in harmony, sometimes stepping on each others toes, getting thrown off balance.

What if I told you that I loved you. Would that spoil everything? Would it make the magic stop? Please God, don’t stop it, never stop this. This careful dance of two souls softening. I am melting, melting into my being, my uninhibited self. What if I told you that I wasn’t afraid anymore? What if I told you that it is alright now? What if I told you that God’s love is so abundant and always ready to be tasted? Would you bring your cup, emptied by everything, and let it be poured over by the divine love in each and every moment?

“….The masculine evokes a response and I, as a woman, in dark stillness, silently attentive, await the call, which initiates the dance, which spirals deeper and deeper into love, in all its myriad forms and expressions.”
“For many women, romantic love is often our first taste of divine intoxication. But this is a great paradox – that a man offers us a taste of divine love, and yet he is just a man! Can you hold that paradox? That through this person you touch some deep core of the Mystery and yet he doesn’t change his socks! Can you stay with those conflicts and still stay true to love? And not just today, but day after day, year after year?”
“Loving another human being is such a magnificent test and trial. For even as you love him completely, you will never be fulfilled! Because there is always the emptiness inside that belongs only to God, that only God can enter. So time after time we are drawn into love only to be left with nothing!”
“If you stand in this paradox you put yourself into the fire, the fire that burns away this lower nature. For every time you feel that human impulse to reach out for what you want – what every cell of you wants – what you find is the emptiness that has always been there. Then you are tested. You are confronted with your own desires and all your attachments to this world. You want, want, want, and yet the reality is that you will not get what you want. Not from a man on whom you project your desires. And so you can be angry, you can be hurt, you can be rejected, you can stay in all that still binds you and keeps you from His embrace, He who is the King of Love. Or, you can give in, and let go, and love without wanting anything, and in doing so wait patiently for what He wants you to have!”
“If you stay in the fire, true to Love, true to the deepest longing of your heart, a strange alchemy happens. Your expressions of love deepen and become more inclusive; an unfettered love starts to permeate all your relationships; your love becomes more and more selfless. This is mature love, love that wants nothing for yourself, love that is not confined to you and your lover. It is the real love that burns away the ‘you’ so that love can move through you into the world.”
“The ‘Yes!’ in your heart consents to this process, to everything this process includes. And the suffering can be tremendous, the ‘not getting’ sometimes more than you think you can bear. But this ‘Yes!’ will suffer anything in the name of love, all for His sake! And one day you understand that there is really only one relationship. And it is nearer when it is truly absent.”
“Eventually this storming of love, the agony and torment, becomes your most precious possession, the sweetest thing that you would never wish to relinquish. The hunger is somehow like being present at a great feast, the pain full of baffling tenderness. His absence becomes full of His presence, the longing His ‘HERE I AM!’”

“We worry over the past,
we anticipate the future,
and we barely perceive
a shred of the passing moment.”

The Dalai Lama

By Petra Prensky

Afraid, I am afraid to let the touch happen,

The sweetness of your fluid embrace is lingering on my skin.

Make the magic stop; no, never stop it.

Careful dance of two souls softening,

What if I told you that I wasn’t afraid anymore?

By Petra Prensky

Let me be known
As the belly hugger
Who leaves you satisfied
More deeply, than the best
Gourmet meal ever would.

Let me be known
As the dancer
Who shares in the
Deepness of soul
And leaves, herself speechless.

Let me be known
As the beloved friend
Free as a butterfly
Yet solid and present
As a rock.

Let me be known
As your mirror
Who reflects and absorbs
Your deepest heart’s desires,
and keeps them safe.

By Petra Prensky

What arrogance of mine
to think, that
what has been,
is the way it will be in the future.

When the brilliance of your palette
has only left
one small dot of color
on the page of my life.