Ray’s Rays Number 14
Get Dirty as Fuck
By
Radiance Angelina Petro
I live in a state where Springtime is pretty damn amazing.
All my trips around the sun thus far haven’t diminished
the wonder I feel/sense/know whenever I witness
Spring’s magic. All that tiresome stuff written
about how Springtime is a time of new beginnings,
awakenings, rebirths, and all manner of blossoming–
is true. Sure, the seasons change. It doesn’t stay
Springtime all year (at least not in Pennsylvania),
yet that doesn’t mean one can’t revel in the beauty
of seeds muscling their way through dark soil and bones
and rocks, to open their palms to the everywhere sky,
of the sound of Spring Peepers, of bees shaking off their sleep
and lifting into the breeze, of trees budding leaves
and birds suddenly appearing—seemingly out of nowhere,
and the frozen creeks coming alive again, and the flowers–
the wondrous, magical flowers. And the mud! The glorious,
mud—the delightful mud! If, in this moment—the one
in which you’re reading this right now—you’re having a spell
of not liking yourself in anyway—perhaps try and imagine
you are a breath of the cosmos, and that you are a becoming
that is the very heart of Spring. Imagine you can start again
and again, and that the open, everywhere sky is there for/with you.
Perhaps go outside and play in the mud—get dirty as fuck.
Perhaps breathe in the beauty of a flower with your whole body.
Perhaps, even for a moment, remember you are sacred–
sacred as the night, as the moon, as the spirits in the dark,
as the sun, and the ground, and the stars. Feel ugly if you do,
but you and I both know, the truth beneath that feeling
is that it’s a lie. The real truth is that you are a divine breath of the universe.
You are the ever-Spring of hope and beauty. You are worthy, enough,
and beautiful as fuck. That’s the eternal truth.
Ask the flower, it will whisper back the truth.
Splash in the mud, and it will cheer it back to you.