what radiance i’ve possessed in your eyes has naturally dimmed after these 30years; and so has yours — in mine, these last five, if i am being truthful, which you know me to be, guttingly
once the solar star, now, a mere lighthouse on the other’s shore,
do you still wonder what you are?
you, my sonlight, are still golden, burning hot and bright,
but these blue lenses of ours,
and these blue talks of ours,
reveal we are animal, elemental,
sometimes too human, and fragile.
only, you fail to acknowledge another possibility, another cosmic continuum.
the author and her son in the Great Room of the Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, June 2004
a lucky reservation for one night of lodging and a late dinner — made by telephone months earlier, but just barely early enough,
choosing sweaters to wear to dinner as the June Sun finally sets / you and i match in black cotton ramie, always and still, my favorite
hungrily watching the clock, in the Great Room, nestled in the same chair by the colossal fireplace
we’d been camping the previous night, in a thunderstorm and downpour at Bridge Bay, where we awoke to a bison’s grunting, and their immense shadow upon our tent; we shared our griddled french toast breakfast and percolated coffee with a couple in a VW camper, who were no doubt younger than you are today in June, 2024
with our “Wildlife of Yellowstone” booklet, we identify an osprey perched above our heads in a pine tree as we pack up our camp — a first, for each of us
mudpots, fumaroles, bison herds, bison “jams”, pelicans, waterfalls, canyons, elk, towering basalt columns, sulfur, a wild river, geysers, marmots, hot springs — and Morning Glory Pool.
so many firsts, for me and you.
your shining, smiling face[s] around that table by candlelight
what a gift, what a day, what a dream to share this exquisite meal with you, two, in such a truly wild place
is this real life?
the clink of silverware voices and laughter centered — and from every direction,
“We are not talking about any political solution. We are not talking about politics at all. We are talking about survival. Our survival will be guaranteed by we, the human people, accepting our responsibilities and honoring the Earth and the natural world of which we are a part will guarantee our survival. There are natural laws that we must honor and that we must obey. This is the only way in which can show the rightful honor to The Earth. We must remember that The Earth is the source of all of our life. The Earth takes care of us while we are alive in this form and The Earth takes us back when we have departed to the spirit world. We must remember The Earth. We must remember our spiritual, real power connection to The Earth. We are an extension of The Mother Earth. This is our source of power, not the economics, not the politics, not repressive government, not liberal government. Our source of power is us and our spiritual connection to The Earth and our recognition of that.”
-John Trudell
“Freedom... We’re born into a reality where you have to pay to be born, you have pay to die, and you gotta have money to live. Now where is the free?”
-John Trudell
“Our obligations and our loyalty have to be to the earth, and they have to be to our sense of community and to our people and to our relations. Our obligations and loyalty should not be to a government that will not take care of our needs. Our obligations and loyalty should not be to a government that has proven time and time again that it is the enemy of the people unless the people are rich in dollars. That has been the consistent history of Western civilization and the American Corporate State Government – that’s reality. They are not our friends, they do not care about us. We have to face the reality that we have an enemy.”
-John Trudell
“600 years ago, that word ‘Indian,’ that sound was never made in this hemisphere. That sound, that noise was never ever made … ever. And we’re trying to protect that — the Indian as an identity. … we’re starting not to recognize ourselves as human beings. We’re too busy trying to protect the idea of a Native American or an Indian, but we’re not Indians and we’re not Native Americans. We’re older than both concepts. We’re the people. We’re the human beings.”
-John Trudell
"There is no old way, no new way, there is a way of life. We must live in balance with the earth. We MUST do it. We have no choice....The Earth gives us life, not the American government. The earth gives us life, not the multi-national corporate government. The Earth gives us life, we need to have the Earth. We must have it, otherwise our life will be no more. So we must resist what they do."
-John Trudell
It’s our spiritual responsibility to protect the earth.
A mother rabbit birthed at least three bunnies in a niche of the house – enclosed on three sides with only a northern mossy exposure – mostly safe and hidden from owls, hawks and coyotes. They nibble on young dandelion and clover leaves. They are joy.
My one and only baby’s very first Easter and Spring. A surprise of daffodils under a white oak tree at our first house and home on Grace Street in Chicago. Mother, son, full of grace.
I don’t know where the stuffed white rabbit with pink, acrylic eyes and pink, satin ears came from — exactly. But I’ve had it forever, before memory, so I pretend that it was presented to the baby girl born in late October, just before Halloween. Or gifted to the baby girl on her first Easter. Or won for the toddler girl at her first carnival.
Before I was a mother to a boy, I — an only child — was a teenaged auntie to a beautiful boy named +Tony+ [Giovanni Anthony Martinez] born in Spring 1986. I learned from him that I might become a mother to a son one day even though I was sure I was meant only to be a mother to a daughter. And that, was a wonderful revelation.
fetal cells remain in a mother’s body for decades they know this particularly because of mothers of sons
son cells discovered co-mingling in their mother’s blood and marrow long after their first breaths of atmosphere and for far too many mothers, long after their child’s last
we mothers, in-secret chimeras 29, 50, years after birthing /
no wonder
he breathes 1,191.582 miles away from me
as the crow flies, as the monarch flies as the hummingbird flies
“We are all called to be mothers of God, for God is always waiting to be born.”
— Meister Eckhart, 13th century German mystic
madonna & child stained glass 2013, Portage Park, Chicago
The Christmas narrative speaks to us beyond a phenomenal story about Mary and the Baby Jesus. It tells us about an inbreak of God's consciousness into the world. Inbreaks of the Divine require a flexible mind capable of letting go of every acquired concept of God. God gnosis is quite different from religious, historical, and any other kind of knowledge. The first emerges from within, throwing open our inner gates; the latter comes from without.
Today, on the feast day of La Virgen de Guadalupe, from the valley and river of the wolves,
who is and always was Tonantzin, the Nahuas’ Universal Mother of Earth, they being one and the same parthenogenetic Creatrix-entity of Life —and of Death, here on Earth:
art by @lala_wera
In the name of Tonantzin, I rebuke the State of Israel and the United States
— both nations stand defiantly in their ongoing slaughter of 18,000 human beings so far — nearly all of those killed — are Palestinian civilians and more than half of them are children — hundreds of thousands more are injured, maimed — in tremendous pain, suffering from unfathomable loss, from hunger, thirst, and disease — and dispossessed of and displaced from their mothers, families, beds, kitchens, homes, pets, art, schools, toys, lifework — and land,
and the Western and Eastern global capitalist powers — in their protracted genocide, mass exploitation, enslavement and dispossession of the People of Congo,
I call to and incant unto Tonantzin for the downfall of these two seated governments, and of the despots and oligarchs, that are a scourge on this good Earth and all Lifeupon it.
Tonantzin Tlalli Coatlicue
May these demons be stricken by Her snakes and devoured by Her wolves and may their bones be cast into the eternal infernowith not one cinder or ash remaining. Forgotten Forever.
foremost Earthling, crone, and mother to a golden boy; nightly traveler into liminality; mostly obeisant to intuition & premonition; poet, writer; heart-sleeved, bleeding heart pessimist; devoted friend of crows (at last), meadow-restorer/tender, & long-lost sister to snakes, bats and coyotes, deer & bluebird whisperer, seed saver, food grower, an admirer and propagator of lilacs, hydrangeas, sycamores, mulberries, pawpaws and oaks; dna-tested kin to goldenrod, milkweed, bison, cottonwoods, thistle and monarchs; wader into ephemeral and glacial lakes and deep snow; Moon’s luminous, loyal daughter & Sun’s prodigal, ever-questioning shadow equally; devout, ecstatic desert, forest and river worshipper; reverent of and humbly deferent to bear, wolf, moose, elk & bighorn sheep and hummingbirds; a mountain, canyon, valley, prairie and beach walker;
i had a baby — i kept forgetting to completely nurse him he would latch and suckle, but because i was distracted, i would never fully feed him, and he was malnourished, but this sweet baby never cried / nor complained he was happy and content with what i gave him, smiling always at me but then i lost/misplaced him somewhere they/all assumed he had been taken/abducted but i felt sure i had just misplaced him / it seemed we looked everywhere in and around our home and the second time searching the house, i found him in the refrigerator on the top shelf in the back his white skin and pastel clothing blending in with the milk and pale juice jugs he was there on that shelf all along
i had apparently placed him in there with the milk — perhaps so he could eat/
he had died in there from asphyxiation it was an accident, and i understood that i was unwell, forgetful, incompetent and losing my mind [although in my dream i don’t know the exact concepts of postpartum or postpartum psychosis]
everyone else does not understand that it was absolutely an innocent act, a tragic accident they are disgusted with me, violently angry with me and want me to be punished, arrested, sentenced to prison or maybe put to death for accidentally forgetting my baby, for misplacing and inadvertently killing my baby — in the refrigerator
Muhammad Ali diptych marker, paint, glue and chunky gold glitter on 12”x12” square gold metallic cardstock
These two gorgeous, requested works by the most gorgeous and extraordinary artist and person Mz. Lajuana Lampkins of Chicago.
You might find her making her art in the late night scene of her favorite spots in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhoods of Chicago — or reach out to her on Instagram at Lajuana.Lampkins1 and peruse her art, her process and her community.
She is also a sister, aunt, friend, poet, community member and activist, writer, rapper, historian, archivist, fashionista, paralegal, social commentarian and modern philosopher — but most proudly, a mother, grandmother and great grandmother
Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.
Muhammad Ali
Mz. Lampkins works may be exhibited again in autumn 2023 in a community art show that she is hoping to create and develop —-and she aspires to publish her next non-fiction book in the nearer future.
She is also the subject of the forthcoming documentary “My Mother is An Artist” which follows Mz. Lampkins’s journey from 2019, eight years post-release from a 30 year incarceration as a wrongfully prosecuted and convicted young woman and mother —to 2023, as a working, locally-renown and yet-still-struggling artist living in these American systems of modern oppression and exploitation.
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
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 