In these angry, heady and stressful days of Bushworld and Bushspeak, it is good to chill, and to remember that he too, shall pass, and that there remain other worlds and words full of light and hope and perception that anchor us to substance, to issues and to our better selves--and not merely the hollow imagery of politics in America as usual.

The word namaste in India means, "I bow down to the spirit (or God) in you." Such bowing down, either physically or mentally, is a gesture of surrender and of letting go. There's a proverb in India that declares that each time one bows down, one receives a blessing from the universe, and is metaphor for surrendering one's separative ego to the unity of Spirit. To bow down means one has emptied his or her cup enough to be filled again, only with something of  a  higher order. In other words, we bow down to other Selves to gain our own.

The following are some personal namahas that I preserve like a magic amulet with which to shake at an increasingly mad world. Or like a mantric chant with which to counter the tidal wave of degraded language crashing across the country. Namahas, then:

I bow down to swallows crackling on telephone wires

I bow down to windows propped up by a stick

I bow down to paying attention to the fine print

I bow down to the underbellies of pillows

I bow down to the dance of golden wasps

I bow down to trying not to discuss the faults of others

I bow down to St. Francis begging for stones for a church

I bow down to the Lapus Lazuli Healing Buddha

I bow down to the Eight Noble Truths

I bow down to the red fox walking through the flames of itself

I bow down to the adandoned blue trailer of the sky

I bow down to garments worn inside out

I bow down to the mycologist's only mistake

I bow down to the applause of wings

I bow down to the seasons of vineyards, to uncorking the wine

I bow down to the ricochets of dreams

I bow down to dying quietly in your sleep

I bow down to Martha the last passenger pigeon

I bow down to road kills and their kin

I bow down to places where no one knows you

I bow down to the altars of the Rockies

I bow down to the holy waters of tears shed for loved ones

I bow down to great bones

I bow down to scuffed floors

I bow down to the storms on Jupiter

I bow down to the long fuses of nerves

I bow down to stays of execution

I bow down to work for joy, not for green

I bow down to the past pressed by geologic rock

I bow down to Eolithic minds

I bow down to the fossils of the future

I bow down to Rumi and Basho

I bow down to ruins on Mars

I bow down to firefly festivals in Japan

I bow down to a butterfly dreaming it's a human

I bow down to weight scales suddenly going zero

I bow down to dove ethnology

I bow down to raptures and revelations

I bow down to glitter and lode

I bow down to crawling  under barbed wire

I bow down to deer herds huddled under rivers of shade

I bow down to John Muir, Edward Abbey, Loren Eiseley, Terry Tempest Williams

I bow down to the wizard in the heart

I bow down to squinting with imagination's eyes

I bow down to sliding down glaciers

I bow down to blood preserving salt

I bow down to gnomic excursions of speech

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