Heart Happy (cathy_edgett) wrote,
Heart Happy
cathy_edgett

Touch-

I learned last night at Toastmasters that because of fear of a spread of germs, we are no longer supposed to shake hands.  Instead, when greeting another, we do a fist bump.  People seem to find it fun.  I have always enjoyed what can be learned from a hand shake, the firmness or limpness, attention, or lack thereof, the power grab, or not.

I am reminded in this shift from open hand to fist of this poem.  For me, an open hand can hold something, is welcoming, requires a  shift of the arm that goes directly to the heart, the earth, moves the shoulder blades, the wings.


Birdwings by Rumi


Your grief to what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as birdwings.
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