my world

i embrace my world

feeling is such a challenge

my open heart weeps

Justice. 🕊

too few

 

the world is ablaze
my beloved gaia mourns 
too few seem to care

Justice. 🕊

mia madre... random musings for her day of birth...

My mother would have been 105 years old today. I think of her every day, like today. She was tough as fuck, with a heart more loyal and tender than I ever knew during her life. We shared a rough relationship. We shared a hard love with roots sunk deep into infinity. I used to say, “she’s so hard to love.” And at times, sweet goddess help me, she was. Now I say, “I’m so hard to love.” And, at times, I am. Assuredly so. There were some 4o years between us. This June will mark 11 years since her passing into the Big Mystery. I never (a word I rarely use) imagined that I would miss her as much as I do.

She could drive me to utter distraction. She knew my buttons and would press them relentlessly. And it didn’t bring out the best in me. And where I might have once blamed her for this, I now own it. But that’s another story for another day. I used to quip that we were like fine olive oil ‘n’ good wine vinegar: Hard to blend, but when we did, we were delicious.

She would likely have benefited from therapy ‘n’ medication. And the Work. As we aged together, we did some of the Work together… and it softened some of the edges, and enabled us to emulsify the best in both of us. And I’m so grateful for that.

I understand, now, that most - if not all - of her mental ‘n’ emotional peculiarities were born of her past, her herstory, the familial trauma born of the “meanness” that my uncle Chuck, her beloved baby brother, mentioned in ol’ school, typed correspondence to her. I recognize, too, that she had a singular tormentor throughout her adult life. A tormentor I knew, and still do - from a distance. A tormentor I recognized some 45 years ago when I placed distance between us. As much distance as I was able. It was a purely intuitive choice at that time, a decision born without conscious awareness. Conscious awareness I now claim. And I’m so grateful for that. And that’s yet another story for yet another day.

My mother, little Rita, as I called her in her later years, was a loyal keeper of a sacred contract. A covenant taken with her into that Big Mystery. And I love her more now for knowing that. Her tormentor is now my tormentor. Or so it seems. This tormentor is not a loyal keeper of anything sacred.

My mother could be so challenging to me that I would often say, “All I can do is love her.” And I did. I still do. And sadly, I now echo those words toward the tormentor; hers and mine. I don’t need to like the tormentor. I don’t need to forgive the tormentor. I don’t need to be around the tormentor. And I will not enable the tormentor. All I can do… is love her. From where I am. Reluctantly so.

My mother had an easy life. And a hard life. That’s often life. I’m grateful, in this moment, that she came to be mia madre, a loyal keeper of a sacred contract. A sacred contract that is my story. Was my story. Will be my story again. A sacred contract embezzled by the tormentor. A sacred story shattered to bits by the tormentor. A sacred agreement that I, with the support of the spirit of little Rita, will reclaim, repair, and make whole and holy once again.

Buon compleanno, mia madre. Ti voglio bene.

---

When I first started blogging back in 2004, the writing was for me, myself and I. I may need to reclaim some of that.

Peace. 🕊

An Imbolc Blessing

A February bloom.
An Imbolc blessing.
A spark of blush.
A silent splash.
A glimpse of life to come.
A promise of Spring.

Peace. 🕊

Buzzin' Haiku

My little systers.
Honey, Carpenter, Bumble.
Doing the good work.

Peace. 🕊

A Colorful Hello Spring!

It's been a long time since I've engaged an art journal (or any art) challenge with my online community of creatives. Yet yesterday offered a gift of shared herART journaling in the studio with some creative folk, and I managed to complete this colorful spread to welcome spring with a wee bit of my own bad poetry, as I lovingly call it.

And in doing that, I combined two challenges. One from Art Journal Journey, where the challenge is "Welcome Springtime," and Moo Mania, where the challenge is Colorful!

My hope is to reengage this practice, if not every month, then whenever I am able. I've been away from it too long. It's a fun 'n freeing experience, even with the structure of theme, to ponder a collective topic, tap into the collective creativity, create in the collective verve, and share the love with the collective community. Maybe you'd like to join the fun!

Peace. 🕊

a bird

there is a bird
a giant bird
a transient bird
near the oft flowing waters
of the little acre wood

her south facing gaze
follows the flow
of the sometimes stream
of the slope of the land
and the portal of passion

she invites me
to join her
as she fades away
into the trunks and branches
that give her form

there is a bird
a giant bird
a transient bird
who chides me

to spread my wings

to soar with the mystery
to bring it back
to the land
to the life
that weeps for the gift

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Bad poetry in honor of the moment, and of the uncontaminatable essence of life; past, present, and future.

Peace. ☮️

Familiar Spiraling Cycle

Yesterday, on the final full day of autumn, as the rains that fall today began, this small layered piece that I started some five years ago emerged from a stack of this 'n' that that I was sorting through. It served, in the moment, as an odd yet comforting reminder of the nature of life, and how nothing is ever, as us two-leggeds cling to believing, completed. A reminder, too, of the transient nature of all things.

Just as gravity invites this odd, solstice rain into its familiar spiraling cycle, it invites us all, one by one, each in our own time.

Peace.

A Savory Sage Stew

March roared in like a lion, not in terms of our ordinary, external weather, rather in terms of my own inner environment.

I discovered myself feeling feelings I had not felt in quite a while. Feelings I recognized. Feelings that demanded my attention, and begged for greater intimacy. Feelings that, in those days of memory, had become mindless and mechanical ... routine, and thereby unripe for exploration and excavation for no other reason than: Who had the time and energy for such a daily effort?

That was then. This is Now.

"Now," March roared, through the voice of Nona E, "you will make the time and invest the energy."

The feelings came to me in flavors of darkness and discomfort... anger and angst... sorrow and satire. And I recognized them as favored flavors that I seek to savor.

all you can do is love

i stewed
i sipped
i savored
i saw old in new shimmer
and new in old glimmer
and the roar hushed
and the cauldron foamed
and steamed to a simmer
i skimmed the scum
i seasoned the soup
i sipped and supped
i sensed the sage
and settled

Peace.

another chain of words that spoke to me

"... and now for something completely different ..."

the arrival cycle

we wake in deep shadow

we wake from a dream
a space of murky foolishness

where the worst of all we share

converge

where we devolve

and erode

and abandon free will

independent thought 

and action

where homogeny hungers

for all of it

for all of us

with fearless fear

and insatiable avarice

where we meet 

the dark consequences for failing to standardize the Self

the dark consequences for wearing the mantle of the Misfit
the dark consequences for speaking a Truth

the dark consequences of Compassion

anyone

anywhere

Shadow Dream exhales

and leaves us in The Long View

witnessing the small things

flecks of personal concern

dust specks on The Bigger Picture

we scold ourselves for feeding the trite
for inviting distraction that derails

for mirroring and mimicking the verve we loathe 

oh, to be human

oh, to forgive

and we pull the verve back
back to our core
to the heartflame
where the remedy resides
flickers and waits

wip20150310

Peace.