This work with animal totems was one of the highlights (there were many) of this weekend for me. I will likely blog more about this aspect soon. Here is a director’s perspective.
The Saturday of any workshop is always busy. No matter how much free time you try and build in, there never is any spare time. The morning began by greeting the dawn and a reading on the hillside o…
Source: Leaf and Flame – Sharing Life
How does one condense a journey that is not over, but that began before a magical weekend where I played the role of Queen Guinevere at the annual workshop for the Silent Eye School of Consciousness? I am not sure, but here is what has come out of it so far.
I walked the familiar path of day
to meet Snake stretching the light, illuminating
what was ready to be shed, and
what was waiting to be seen
Later, in the land of Avalon
under a full moon, old blood began its release
and I gave way to the hunt
running with the breath of Boar
into a landscape once veiled
Here, you waited with your offer
and I bowed to receive the golden crown
but the habits of the false self
are a tight wrap and I held fear
in an unsettled heart and fell
once again, into sleep
only to be awakened by light
White Phantom of the night, you pulled the shroud
of comfort with a power that unsettles dreams
and I returned to classrooms to unlearn
structure, direction and time. Lessons
from childhood asking to be forgotten
Oh Guinevere, you, now I
break the threads that bind to reveal
the fertile land within. Avalon beckons
with her green heart, waiting
for the return of her queen
Photo: Copyright Jan Malique It’s been a week since my return from a workshop in Derbyshire, a deeply profound experience. How dramatic this statement sounds, but there is great truth buried …
Source: The Foliate Man: A Knight’s Tale
Once again I’m inspired by Sue Vincent’s photography and have participated in her #writephoto prompt writing challenge. This time I decided to do a poem in the shape of an hourglass, but one could also look at as a chalice mirrored.
A Love Story Captured
Only the stones know the true love story
how his fire softens as he falls into her body
to welcome the full beauty of her night
they chart the cycle of life
as a way to keep time
what you see
is but a mirror of what
you cannot see, below grass
life grows in darkness using the memory
of his light like a divine beacon in her heart
they birth green in the hour of spring
It seems I failed to notice the word count restrictions for Sue Vincent’s photo challenge, so I’ve whittled down the The Stairway, unabbreviated to 92 words. Definitely a bit more challenging.
The Green Man called beyond the door, “Come child, we are waiting.”
Nora was no child. She was old enough to be a grandmother twice over. Ah, but the words sparked deep inside of her and she felt young again. The last time she walked down those stairs was sixty years ago, but Nora would never forget what was beyond the archway. She pulled her hooded cloak from the knob and sunk her feet into heavy boots.
“I’d marry him again,” she muttered, sounding addled to the man in the living room.
Well I’ve never done a blog writing challenge, but this photo had a haunting quality I couldn’t resist. Besides, the past photo prompt responses that Sue Vincent has posted in the past have been utterly delightful. So, why not. Here is the story that came to me from this photo that she provided, called “The Stairway.”
The Green Man called to her beyond the door, “Come child, we are waiting.”
Nora was no child. She was eighty years old, old enough to be a grandmother twice over. Ah, but the words sparked a joy deep inside of her and suddenly she felt young again. The last time she had walked through that door was sixty years ago, but Nora would never forget what was beyond the archway.
Slippers were useless in the snow, but she would keep the dress, yes, she would keep the dress. Nora pulled her hooded cloak down from the knob beside the door and sunk her feet into her heavy boots.
“I’d marry him again,” she muttered, sounding addled to the man in the living room sitting in the rocking chair.
“Nora, you best come and rest your bones beside the fire with me,” he called out, but Nora was already gone.
Hours passed, and the old man beside the fire dozed and woke to the hunger in his belly. He sniffed the air and frowned. “Nora, is dinner ready?”
Silence filled the darkened room, and the man began to worry. He stepped into the front room and saw the kitchen empty. No lights had been turned on. The front door was slightly ajar, and an icy air blew through the crack and sent a shiver up the man’s spine.
“Nora, you out there?” he called through the twilight. A pair of feet had left their trail through the day’s snowfall, and the old man followed their path with his eyes, down the granite steps where they ended in a pool of violet light.
“She always said they would come back for her,” the old man shook his head and closed the door.
Perhaps it is because I live here, but I feel as though the drugging effect of fear is acutely present in the U.S., perhaps more so than the rest of the world at this time. I can see the Lady of Justice holding her scales, and they tip precariously downward. Fear holds a heavy weight. Recall the feather of Truth is weightless. The heart filled with Love holds no gravity. Yet, we are wavering on the brink of awakening to our true selves, so many of us holding onto the numbing effects of fear. I say numbing, because I see fear like a drug. I wonder if Caroline Myss would agree with me?
Recently, I felt called to re-read her book Anatomy of the Spirit, and was struck by her observations about the power of our collective energy. She speaks about the words we use to ourselves, and as a collective nation, and how these words and the energy they carry with them, create our reality. Many of us are familiar with the idea of manifestation and the Law of Attraction. The idea that what we send out, we create.
In her book, Myss uses as an example for this how the Great Depression coincided with the polio epidemic and the election of a crippled president. The Nation was literally crippled by the economic devastation at the same time a crippling disease crippled the health of its people. When the economy turned around, she noted, a vaccine for polio was discovered.
Few would argue that the U.S. is in the midst, or rather mist, of a drug crisis that threatens to spiral out of control. So many of us have elected to “drug” our minds. For many, it seems beyond our person control. We are in the midst of a new election for the leader of our country, and the choices, in some ways could not be more polarizing. When you look at the choices closely, and the rhetoric used, it is almost impossible to ignore that fear plays a heavy hand with many of them. Fear, my friends, is a drug. It numbs the powerful energy of love. True power is not control over another, it is not subjugation, it is the blossoming of the power within. The knowledge and allowing of the true self, which is governed by Love and Truth, to shine forth. True power does not erect walls, it disassembles them piece by piece, and discovers as it does so that love resides within. And with that love, is unity.
Why do we fear? It’s a puzzling thought on many levels. Is it not our natural state to Love? We fear, quite simply, because we are taught to. False power, and those who strive to have it, perpetuate this fear. They shine fear though the glare of the news and thousands of horrific photos (which feed our fears), they write the word fear in its myriad forms in our newspapers, least you forget who is really governing you (or so they like to think). And so many, I believe, who don’t know what else to do, who are so mired in the muck of this plague of fear, succumb to it. Some choose drugs (more than some), in an attempt to numb the effects perhaps, but the result is loss of self-control. Loss of the true self. Loss of the belief that we are, in essence, Love.
The good news, though, is that the true self can always be recovered. Love is an energy, it cannot be destroyed, only manipulated and morphed into another form, but not forever. Love is the absence of resistance. Love is the absence of fear. Love is the knowing that the person beside us, and the person four thousand miles away, is a mirror of our self. It is up to us to see what we choose to in the mirror. It is up to us, individually, and collectively, to decide to perpetuate the struggle for separation. This false belief of hierarchy and “power.”
If you doubt this. Close your eyes. Dive, or walk gently with however many steps it takes to get there, into your heart.Therein you will find the answer. Therein you will find the Peace, Love and Joy that is you, and the knowing that this essence resides in all life. In each and every one of us, even if it is being temporarily drugged by fear. The choice is yours. The choice is ours.
I had been contemplating going inside when the hawk flew by. It was so close, it could have grazed the branches of my apple tree. It also could have been an eagle, or a vulture, it was that big. Later, it circled the sky while I watched in wonder.
Instead of brining my writing inside, where it was warmer, I let my head fall against the edge of the couch, my eyes blurring into reverie as I wondered where the former inhabitants of the fallen forest had gone. You can come here, the thought passed through my heart and I let it go before I held onto it.
The truth is, I have been riddled with the guilt of what ifs. Yet, in that quiet moment of surrender, the unexpected occurred. As I gazed out the window, Noah’s Ark in feathered form arrived, along with more than a few squirrels. For the next half hour I watched in wonderment as my backyard filled with winged life. There are no pictures to tell the tale, as I watched transfixed and filled with gratitude. Peace replaced anger and the pervading sense of futility I had so long been feeling.
Most of them are gone now, perhaps because I don’t have feeders to keep them around for too long. But, in that glorious half hour or so, I was graced with the presence of several woodpeckers, flickers, nuthatches, chickadees, blue jays, mourning doves and more, while the hawk flew sentinel through the skies, which parted their clouds to the sun.
To me it’s like entering a war zone. A complete annihilation of life at a heart-stopping speed. Part of me wants to rage. To point fingers. To blame. To say to the collective masses, “This is what you cheered for, as though it is a victory.” I cannot help but be angry. I have only entered the second stage of grief.
For some this is a victory, but I can’t help thinking about squirrels running down the supporting structures of their homes as they fall like dominoes, wondering if they made it to safety in time. Birds, flying the nest. Chipmunks hiding beneath the ground, unable to hold their ears against the maddening roar of destruction.
There were coyotes and deer and this forest. There were countless insects and the life that lives beneath the ground, and only sometimes comes to the surface. Not to mention the hundreds of trees and plants, razed in one day.
Should we be proud of this?
I want to believe that we can make peace with this land, that we did before it was destroyed, but the truth is, we haven’t. There was no collective ceremony. No giving thanks and asking for forgiveness, only a righteous justification in a belief that it was ours to dispose of as we wished.
In 30 years a forest of life grew and flourished. In 3 days it was gone.
My heart bleeds sorrow.
The Light Behind the Story 