Inspirations: Poetry

All Things Bright & Beautiful

Before word, was breath Before breath-light  Numinous sound clouds Carried spirit’s  delight.   As it was in heaven, Gathered hand to hand, Song and chant steadied soul’s Descent upon the land.   Sharing who we are We celebrate on earth First, light, next-breath Then word – gives us birth.   Astrology & Yoga of Transformation The old fashioned-rhymed poem reflects the energies of the New Moon we are moving into this week…..perfect for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, (as well as Sunday’s Salon.)  The Sagittarius lunation of December 2nd, asks us to re-frame perception, to see –as well as sing- the invisible threads moving in us, and through, and to re-consider what parameters create our reality. Jupiter, ruling Sagittarius, is the planet of ‘more.’  Jupiter expands not only appetites, but understanding, awareness and vision, and where it makes planetary connection, we broaden into possibilities of shift.  Because Jupiter is moving retrograde through watery Cancer, we are more aware of emotional nurturing, what we need and what we offer.  Jupiter here may also make it easier to move from conditioned childhood reactions and the unconscious programming of family patterns, to a reality of our own making.  The old assumption of, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” becomes, “I’ll see it when I believe it.”   This could be a Sagittarian mantra, and with luck-this week it might become ours. Another underlay to this expanded vision is Chiron squaring the New Moon.  Chiron, an asteroid, represents our wounding, it also teaches us how we can heal.  Chiron in square to the New Moon asks,  “What is the reality that keeps me suffering?”  What ideas prevent me from wholeness? Chiron was a mythological centaur, half human, half beast, half matter, and half spirit . The Chironic journey links the sacred to the mundane to nurture… Read more »

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Summer Sound Bites

The hawk, spiraling on thermals.  Swoops in, black wings spread, Warning screes piercing somnolence. The rabbit, its own size, Object of desire- squeals terror, Song birds silenced, perch hostage in shadow. The day, drenched in its heat, The round light consuming slow hours, Stopped for a small death. The stillness disturbed long enough for Time to turn against the light Pausing Cicada’s thrum, and Summer’s headlong extravagance.

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Solstice Reverie

  Solstice Reverie   The sky arcs up and out as earth lifts herself Awaiting the long-night. The Sun God moves to stand-still  Leaving seductive seed. We guess this secret dance Abandon life to it And await the lover’s descent, The earth’s quivering brace  Feet dancing the belly of the beloved Who offers warm milk-teats, The breast of God Lifted from rolling fields of hay. Winding roses wrap bare thighs Seducing The Sun long past his hour. Now spent, they whisper Late, late into the longest light.

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Born From The Dark

Like the Moon, I am new Again- shimmering, lifting, A scythe cutting Across purpled black skies Reborn from my dark self. Sweetness in life after life Re-cycled and worn, wearing Memories as musk Scenting light Night by night Expanding babe-slit of silver, becoming Vast roundness, wisdom and folly.

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Bartering Love

In every hour, Do we come to the table To barter love? Is the journey Parsifal’s tale, Seeking Self In all the wrong places? Do we head for the shelf With first kiss? Seeds of passion sculpting countenance Velveteen Rabbits with luck, Damaged beyond repair Replete with love. Is pain the cradle of compassion? Is love the mother that rocks it? What counsel for risking all When bartering life with death? What hope without it?

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Grace

    Green pears rolled on gold cloth Warm pecans startled against cold marble Julienned ginger scenting the room. God is in the details Never more so than now. Absorb everything.         Stand Your Mat/Listen to Heaven There is a saying: ‘Fill your eyes- fill your heart.’  It is the Yogi repeating, ‘be present.’  In this season of gratitude, let your eye seek the one needing love, then love them for no other reason than they are as beautiful as the green pears.  The gift of the witness is to bear witness.  The gift received is being seen.   Astrological Notes Remember we are between eclipses, so not only is it a shake-up, shifting time, but eclipses move us to clearing old closets, of every sort, and re-aligning our ideas about projects and relationships. This energy, along with a Mercury still retrograde until the end of the month, offers a Thanksgiving week serving inner journeys, especially if we are once again with family…that old hunting ground of turbulence and chaos. Sun & Moon enter the first quarter square, putting the focus on Venus, again- relationships, value, and money…another abundant area ripe for review.  Venus is about to move into Scorpio, where Saturn has been holding sway.  This will take us more personally into the deeper, read hidden waters of old wounds. With luck, Venus may show us another way through difficult, transformative emotion toward bigger, better understanding of who we can be.  

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Serious Sedition

Anymore, our days ask for the rational, the analytical, and heavy time management. To create balance, we must return to poetry and Yoga, dance, and song.  What we need most is mystery, and intimacy, nurturing and magic.  As technology takes over, and we are more and more indoctrinated into literalness, and linear thinking, parsing each hour into multitudinous tasks that are less and less satisfying, we turn with gratitude to any Practice that nurtures the inner life. We lift our voice in secret songs, and tread the light fantastic across the kitchen floor.  Return to Rumi: We are the mirror as well as the face in it. We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. Great poetry, great anything, does not have to ‘make sense.’ It speaks via symbolic power, not intellect. What gets fed is an abiding sense of wonder that has nothing to do with rational life. This is sedition of the highest order. That wow of recognition and response travels directly into layered mandalas of bone, muscle, mucous, mind, emotion, and spirit where soul waits. This spiral into the unknown is where heavenly, inexplicable treasures lead toward the imaginative act, where we ache to express more of who we are.  This scary vulnerability requires a touch of madness and willingness for chaos. It asks for time to be set aside when we are not producing, not being ‘excellent,’ when we are messy and incoherent.  When was the last time you allowed that? Technology tends to honor the fast lane and the literal, the linear and the tidy where language, and whatever other tools are used, gets the job done tout suite.  Not a bad thing.  But like anything,… Read more »

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