and one way to manage
to preserve Their urbane marriage
was to vow to make me vanish
from Him – my face, my voice, my poems, banished
“fo-cus!!!
We’re off to Berlin — and Paris!”
but here i Am—- still
full of wild
&
full of warning:
that no matter how far They may travel
She knows He dreamt me in Her stead
so, i live inside Her head,
beyond Her dark and vacant eyes
inside Their stale and fresh, new lies
shadowing Their past and future skies
Continue reading “vow”in the rearview mirror
i see it was a gift
an impromptu roadside picnic
a rendezvous along a fast-flowing river
we slip into a raft, built for two, gently floating,
taking turns describing what we see, feel/who we are/
entering rapids, our hearts racing, ceaseless throbbing/
then paddling furiously, having to steer/
and suddenly, the fear
nearsighted, you caught a life ring, rescuing yourself on a familiar and safe shore/
i stayed aboard and roared toward the falls
alone,
extending the ride, the adventure, the hope of it, all/
forcefully plummeting and suddenly submerged into dark and powerful waters
because
i know that true alchemy is in the almost-drowning, in the delirium of breathing in only love and pain and rage, in the near-death/ i’d done it before, feeling it, all/
i know that nothing feels like those first breaths
after struggling to the surface, those gasps of air, birth-like/
i know that nothing smells like the first scent of raw earth, facedown, crawling onto shore/
i know that nothing soothes like the heat from warm, round beach stones on my my body with every slow inch back into sunlight/
this is a different kind of racing of the heart
a new foothold on land/
treasures in my matted and tangled crown that can’t be extricated or explained by anyone but me/ gold nuggets from my solo, deep-dive still clenched in my hand/
the liquidity of lust, love and loss coughed up from my lungs into my favorite cup for me to draw from again and again
— or spit down the drain
“Do you realize – we’re floating in space?”
Our ancestors were born on a spaceship that never needed refueling, repair, redesign or course correction.
Earthlings have all uniquely adapted to their respective natural, geographical habitats and migration routes — except for the warring and dominant human regimes and cultures — that decided for all Earthlings that they should geo-engineer artificial environments and extract the blood and bodies of the ancient ones — for one species’ sole benefit — until Earth no longer feels or looks like Earth – and has become unrecognizable, unsafe or uninhabitable to most other species.
There are PCBs in the Atacama Trench and microplastics in fetal tissue of mammals – of humans.
Despite all the wonderful river and beach clean-up and tree planting projects on Earth Day, for me, it’s always a contemplative and sobering day.
We all have a stake—equally. Because if we do not save the environment and save the Earth, then whatever we do in civil rights or in a war against poverty will be of no meaning, because then we will have the equality of extinction and the brotherhood of the grave.
James L. Farmer,
at the very first Earth Day,
April 22, 1970
“one thing about Forsythia / she comes around and I get lost / against her yellow, I’m no longer me”
“Forsythia” ~ Veruca Salt
proof of life,
because sometimes I forget and hold my own true Self hostage
Ageing is no accident. It is necessary to the human condition, intended by the soul. We become more characteristic of who we are simply by lasting into later years; the older we become, the more our true natures emerge. Thus the final years have a very important purpose:
the fulfilment and confirmation of one’s character.
- James Hillman
“Life is a farce if a person does not serve truth.”
- Hilma af Klint
“A crone is a woman who has found her voice. She knows that silence is consent. This is a quality that makes older women feared. It is not the innocent voice of a child who says, “the emperor has no clothes,” but the fierce truthfulness of the crone that is the voice of reality. Both the innocent child and the crone are seeing through the illusions, denials, or “spin” to the truth. But the crone knows about the deception and its consequences, and it angers her. Her fierceness springs from the heart, gives her courage, makes her a force to be reckoned with."
— Jean Shinoda Bolen
"Women's most feared power over men is the power to say no. To refuse to take care of men. To refuse to service them sexually. To refuse to buy their products. To refuse to worship their God. To refuse to love them. Every therapist knows that sex can be forced, but no power in the world can force love from any woman who wishes to withhold it."
- Barbara Walker
“The Crone has been missing from our culture for so long that many women, particularly young girls, know nothing of her tutelage. Young girls in our society are not initiated by older women into womanhood with its accompanying dignity and power.
Without the Crone, the task of belonging to oneself, of being a whole person, is virtually impossible.”
- Marion Woodman
"[S]he said that a [hu]man had to escape to the country to see the world whole and that [s]he wished [s]he lived in a desolate place like this where [s]he could see the [S]un go down every evening like [the] [g]od[head] made it to do."
~ Flannery O’Connor
am i seeded
or buried
forest or headstones around me
the daffodils
at the edges
offer no answer
germination and decomposition
indistinguishable, at start
in Spring’s cold soil
shaded by canopy or cloud
a defiant trickster/ an anarchist – exposing and destroying The System and its systems/ a beautiful, laughing Christos
The CruX: historically, continually, and invisibly stationed by, and on the crosses of, men
women, womxn, womqn, womyn and girls have been both the cross-bearers and the crucified – ever since the unnatural and unholy “conception” of the Roman Catholic Church and all its subsequent patriarchal, misogynist Christian derivatives.
mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos
As I sat on the maple floor of my kitchen in Chicago on a Thursday evening in 2017, voluntarily polishing my son’s chukka boots for the weekend — it became a meditation on my own father, who would offer to polish or freshen up my scuffed, dirty shoes – usually white Keds knock-offs from Zayre, Venture or Jupiter – the canvas stiffened bright white – like brand new /the scent of the liquid polish and sponge instantly conjured/ – me smiling /did i remember to say thank you/ did I know how to/ ; later in high school, he would polish my beloved and preciously expensive pair of Stan Smith’s leather Adidas /or were they Tretorns? even when I was in college and always pressed for time or conversation, I began expectantly asking if he would please polish my black heels or boots for work – but more importantly for the weekend, and he always obliged me.
Every act —
a favorite meal endlessly repeated/ a packed lunch *with a quartered pomegranate* - never ending juice stains on countertops, dish towels and school shirts/ a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies shipped overnight to the dorm in Nebraska or studio in Albuquerque/ a homemade pot of soup with sixteen kinds of vegetables/ a shirt or dress pressed or steamed in the wee hours for work or an event the next day/ a favorite pair of jeans or baseball uniform washed and dried overnight and waiting there in the morning - for the hundredth time/ a relentless search for a favorite discontinued aftershave or a pair of rare Nike Dunks - low tops/ making tacos at 10:00 PM after she finally came in from playing on a summer night/ sloughing an awkwardly unreachable callous for him/ a ride to or from the “L” - but particularly, “from” - after he fell asleep and missed his stop for the dozenth time/ a drive to 5:30 AM strength-training from Portage Park to the West Loop for three months straight in winter, when she didn’t have to be to work til 8:00 AM/ filling an ipod shuffle with a deep song curation the night before the class bus trip to D.C. or Springfield/ gently combing the tangles out of her hair when she ran out of conditioner/ rubbing his back/ a home pedicure on the patio on the first day fit for sandals — or shoes polished again and again — and again
— every task, every errand, every attendance, every ease that was bequeathed — were all always proxies for foot-washing — all these seemingly simple and humble acts to the recipient were performed out of enduring love, at times, adoration, even.
“And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.”
The Gospel of Luke,
Chapter 7, Verse 44
I did it, I do it, in remembrance of him and Him, of her and Her, of them and Them, all, and their tasks, favors and time – so much unrecognized or unacknowledged tenderness and work.
Let them lodge eternally in my memory and theirs.
thank you, thank you, thank you
amen, amen, amen.
“I wish I could do whatever liked behind the curtain of "madness". Then: I'd arrange flowers, all day long, I'd paint; pain, love and tenderness, I would laugh as much as I feel like at the stupidity of others, and they would all say: "Poor thing, she's crazy!" (Above all I would laugh at my own stupidity.) I would build my world which while I lived, would be in agreement with all the worlds. The day, or the hour, or the minute that I lived would be mine and everyone else's - my madness would not be an escape from "reality."
- Frida Kahlo
“I paint myself because I am so often alone, and because I am the subject I know best.”
- Frida Kahlo
“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”
- Frida Kahlo
sometimes i touch my own face
with my palm
to remember
that i am also soft
Hosanna in the highest, truest Light of Self.
"The triumph of the Light before its obscuration is an expression of the divine, royal Selfhood within each one of us, that is so powerfully obscured by mundane and conventional reality. There are times when we want so badly for that light to shine out of us, for it to be recognized by the world. When the only vehicle for expression is the ego-personality our strivings to be seen are usually in vain. Personality actually comes from the Greek “persona” meaning “mask.” While in this terrestrial incarnation, we are like the Count of Monte Cristo in The Man in the Iron Mask; our behavioral gyrations and efforts to have others recognize our light only serve to convince them that we are egotists, madmen or charlatans. Often we create a false glamour that is not our true Self; we put on an entertaining song and dance act; we live a lie and shine forth a false light: or we simply forget about our light and live our lives as if it had never been.
When we are not anxiously attempting to show forth our light, we are often acting in fear of the consequences of letting our light shine. We either turn down our light or turn it off completely, so that we might pass unseen through this world. Yet, “Within a man of light, there is light, and he lighteth up the whole word. If he does not shine, he is darkness.” This is the sham, the cover up, that we are either parading a false light or hiding our light beneath a bushel. The issues are not safety or creative self-expression, the core issues are authenticity and consciousness. We must be conscious of who we really are as spiritual beings and not let either fear or love of the world pervert or hide the authenticity of our own true Self.”
- excerpted from the Homily for Palm Sunday
by Reverend Steven Marshall,
Ecclesia Gnostica, Gnosis.org
and regarding charity, saviorism, law, justice and martyrs:
Continue reading “palm sunday : hosanna in the highest””As a symbol, the Crone had to be suppressed by patriarchal religions because her power ‘overruled the will even of Heavenly Father Zeus.’ She controlled the cycles of life and death. She was the Mother of God, the Nurturer of God, and, as a Crone, the Slayer of God. While Christianity retained the feminine as Virgin and Mother, it eliminated her role as Crone.”
-Marion Woodman, Dancing in the Flames, The Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness
the limineen | poet & crone 