Gift to the Waking Mind

Gift to the Waking Mind [🌀 Verse 1] One night I found a ribbon where the midnight came undone A folded shard of morning in a thimble full of sun I held it like a secret that the daylight never keeps Then the room began to loosen at the edges of my sleep The curtains breathed in color, the floor hummed low and warm Like the house had grown a heartbeat in the center of the storm I felt a little doorway open somewhere past my name And the dark turned soft and holy when the silver water came ⸻ [☁️ Chorus] It was a gift to the waking mind A lantern in the leaves I was meant to find Smoke wrote psalms in the cedar air And the stars bent down like they’d always been there Little cups of twilight, little bells of blue Little signs in the silence sayin’ carry this through When the world gets heavy and the edges all blur I remember that garden and the language I heard ⸻ [🌌 Verse 2] Saw a staircase woven out of amber and of rain Every step a soft surrender, every breath a loosening chain There were saints inside the wallpaper, dancin’ slow and thin And a river full of laughter poured behind my skin I met an old-eyed woman made of marigold and pine She said, “The things you call your sorrows are just roots before they climb” Then she placed a tiny sunrise in the hollow of my palm And all the sharpest corners in me opened into calm ⸻ [🔥 Hook] A paper moon of honey tucked behind my eyes A matchbox full of halos and some unclaimed skies I don’t need to name it, I just know what it can do Turns the cracked parts golden when the light comes pouring through ⸻ [🌿 Verse 3] Then the little woodland lanterns gathered near my feet Wearing auburn hats of knowing and a patience strange and sweet They did not preach in thunder, they did not pull or pry They just tipped the night toward wonder and let the old self die Not in fear, not in sorrow, not in some violent flame Just a quiet kind of shedding of the coat I thought was name And the smoke came in behind them like a grandmotherly shawl Wrapped around the broken places, loved them one and all I could taste the mountain weather, hear the blue inside the black Feel the whole wide turning cosmos breathing through the cracks And for one unguarded moment every wound became a seam Where another world was stitching through the underside of dream ⸻ [🛌 Bridge / Dub Space] Was it in the paper? (Echo: “the paper…”) Was it in the tea? (Echo: “in the tea…”) Why the walls kept opening like they recognized me? (Echo: “recognized me…”) Was it in the smoke curl? (Echo: “the smoke curl…”) Was it in the flame? (Echo: “in the flame…”) Why the night kept holdin’ me more gently than my name? (Echo: “than my name…”) ⸻ [☁️ Chorus] It was a gift to the waking mind A lantern in the leaves I was meant to find Smoke wrote psalms in the cedar air And the stars bent down like they’d always been there Little cups of twilight, little bells of blue Little signs in the silence sayin’ carry this through When the world gets heavy and the edges all blur I remember that garden and the language I heard ⸻ [🌅 Outro] Now I keep a bit of dawn where the hard days hide And a hush full of weather on the back side of my mind If the road turns crooked and the future won’t stay still I follow those soft lanterns through the valley of the will Cause some gifts don’t glitter and some truths don’t shout They bloom in hidden colors from the inside out And the ones who’ve seen that country know exactly what I mean When I say the night once opened and it handed me a dream