Ceremony

The day before I left Vermont, I had a ceremony with the lake. I had done the same for the ocean, just before I left Maine. I wanted to thank them for calling me from the desert of the Southwest to their watery edge, from the way I thought things were, to the flow of the way things could also be.

I went to one of my very favorite places, the point at Button Bay, and brought my traveling Japanese tea ceremony set, two roses, and my grandmother's blue glass bowl. I made tea for the lake and it accepted in waves. It was early September, overcast, late summer turning into fall.

That night I dreamed the lake wrote me a thank you letter. It was written in Spanish, in black ink on shimmering water and air. I could read "El mar y yo" (The sea and I) and "Muchas gracias por el regalo" (Thank you for the gift).