Soul of A Gypsy

Sister Ikilezi sent this to me and I had to share. I know that part of me holds the Soul of a Gypsy. Not completely, but all of us from different countries, especially those who come from countries with some type of nomadic culture have someone like this in our spirits! I realize this may be subject to Romanticism but there is something to it whether one calls it gypsy or not.

the soul of a gypsy

~ Rev. Crystal Yarlott

A gypsy who crows when she laughs lives with me. She's older and sassier than I am, and prefers to sleep in the back yard where she can hear the hydrangea bloom in the morning. She loves anything she can eat with her hands, like roasted chicken legs, bulky unsliced loaves of bread and sweets. When I get frustrated things aren't going the way I want them to, she circles 'round me singing, "Ooohhh lllaa, crimson, oohhhlaaaaa blue, take a chance and find what's true." Then something settles within me and I can laugh at my critical nature, driving it like the swine of Jesus' day into the water to be cleansed.

One of her more magnificent qualities is she trusts life. She allows herself to be led rather than trying to make something happen. This is why she likes flowers because "you don't make them grow, you let them grow." She relishes in the moments when the grass looks like wet jade and the moon dances on the dark waters. For her, passion is a sacred, not dirty word. She is drawn to people who aren't afraid, and plays tricks on those who gossip or complain about the price of gas and broken fingernails. I have heard her pray a battered prayer for peace for those who burn churches or blow up buildings by invoking her God, "Mother, forgive them for they know not what they do." I find myself wanting to be in her presence more and more because I feel she knows something I desperately need to learn.

She is who I turn to as I find it increasingly difficult to fit into a world crazed by knowledge, upgrade mania, and polyurethane protection. In my desire to discover if there is a purpose to what I feel, she helps me love rather than avoid the mystery of not knowing how, when or where. From the beginning she has unapologetically shamed human arrogance, because "darling, I have little time to waste being nice." But she, of all people I know, believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that humankind can do better. It is her voice, not fear's, that assures me there is a great potential in all living things, and that a richness of heart is often birthed by the unfamiliar.

It wasn't until a few weeks ago, that after all this time together, she told me her name is Soul. I should have known...for her voice that tumbles and plays with sound has on many occasions comforted me by whispering, "Peace, peace be still, my dear one, peace. Perhaps tomorrow is the day all people will fall in love with their Creator again." So together we pray for peace in all our hearts, and we sit quietly under the green thatch dogwood. In reverence, we listen to the blue white hydrangea stretch and grow.