Nikki Giovanni - Badass

I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile

I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes

I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three

I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day

I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north

I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended
except by my permission

I mean . . . I . . . can fly
like a bird in the sky . . .

- Nikki Giovanni -

A Thousand Years of Healing

A thousand years of healing

From whence my hope, I cannot say,
Except it grows in the cells of my skin,
In my envelope of mysteries it hums.
In this sheath so akin to the surface of the earth
it whispers. Beneath
the wail and dissonance in the world,
hope’s song grows.
Until I know
that with this turning
we put a broken age to rest.
We who are alive at such a cusp
Now usher in
One thousand years of healing!

Winged ones and four leggeds,
Grasses and mountains and each tree,
All swimming creatures,
Even we, wary two leggeds
Hum, and call and create
The changing song. We remake
all our relations. We convert
our minds to the earth. In this turning time
we finally learn to chime and blend,
attune our voices; sing the vision
of the Great Magic we move within.
We begin
the new habit, getting up glad
for a thousand years of healing.

Susa Silvermarie

Joy

Joy like the spring feels
   as if she is untouchable
far away over the hill.
I know she's there,
   we want to meet again.
Her smile gives me hope.
   Allows me to take faint steps forward,
Another day passes,
     and she seems lost to me.
I hear her heartfelt voice calling me on
 over and over again.
She claims me back into the parts of me
that need quenching,
    like a slow warm Sunday walk
along the banks of the Dart
  No destination
Always home
   where I am meant to be
Spring returns once more
 and winter ebbs away

Kissing the Earth

An aspiration and intention setting for this coming first week of February 2020. 

Inshallah it may come to pass.

As it was

As it is

As it shall be

Lost Words Blessing for Imbolc

The Lost Words Blessing

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water

Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling, find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home

Fierce Aloneness

Fierce aloneness freezes my eyes shut,
         darkness pervades like a dampened heavy cloak
My shoulders fall forward
   the void of all voids
beckons me into her deep embrace
  This cannot be my fate
       Not now
         Not today

I fear falling and falling forever
Gripped by this place
I shout for HELP reaching my hands into the nothing

hands meet mine
   the most tender loving hands
that guide me, I know not how

I begin to place delicate tremulous steps before me
  the fear ebbing away
    my body unfurls like a flower in the spring sun.

Every Year With Out Fail

... why?

JOMO

I found a new word today - Jomo - and I love it. More and more I am switching off from the hustle and bustle of life. Resisting the need to have a smart phone. No kindle. No fast food. Maybe it is a response too winter tickling the back of my legs. It is not here yet although it's tendrils are reaching out. It is the time of year when winter teachers begin to arrive. A deep slowing calls. Warmth and sunshine become that bit more precious and appreciated. The cave and the desire to hibernate call loudly. And Jomo is the watch word of the season.

Narrative Theology

And I said to him
Are there answers to all of this?
And she said
The answer is in a story
and the story is being told.

And I said
But there is so much pain
And he answered
Pain will happen.

Then I said
Will I ever find meaning?
And she said
You will find meaning
Where you give meaning.

The answer is in story
And the story isn’t finished.

The question is not where but now
there question’s never finished
or exhausted
and the answers in the asking
not the answer
the answer’s in the breathing of the question
in the love of holding onto
what was never whispered never seen
but what we dreamed of in the morning
then forgot while venus hid

the answer’s in the living not the knowing
the answer’s in the telling of the story
in half forgotten memory
and all unfinished stories

the answer’s in the showing time of senses
the answer’s in the question
in the learning
in the fading page of writing
in the letter sent to lovers
in the paying for the other
the answer is the generous

is the truthing

the absolutely truthful anger

and forgiving is the giving of what you don’t deserve
it’s what I’ll serve because you’re hungry
even though you may not know it

the answer’s in the living and the dying
in the trying for redemption on an empty hill of crosses
it’s the shoring up of hope and the gathering of losses
it’s the looking for companions in the hills and in the glens
it’s the waking up and walking up and starting up again
the answer’s in the living
and the trying.

And I said to the wise one,
what is the answer to all this
And they said the answer’s in the story
and the story’s just unfolding.

- Padraig O'Tuama -

from hymns to swear by, released March 17, 2010
I changed the gender in a few places to bring balance.

I am clearing a space

I am clearing a space
here, where the trees stand back.
I am making a circle so open
the moon will fall in love
and stroke these grasses with her silver. 

I am setting stones in the four directions,
stones that have called my name
from mountaintops and riverbeds, canyons and mesas.
Here I will stand with my hands empty,
mind gaping under the moon. 

I know there is another way to live.
When I find it, the angels
will cry out in rapture,
each cell of my body
will be a rose, a star. 

If something seized my life tonight,
if a sudden wind swept through me,
changing everything,
I would not resist.

I am ready for whatever comes. But I think it will be
something small, an animal
padding out from the shadows,
or a word spoken so softly
I hear it inside. 

It is dark out here, and cold.
The moon is stone.
I am alone with my longing.
Nothing is happening
but the next breath. 

Morgan Farley

Things Always Change

We travel at different speeds
I'm slow
You are laughter and burning energy
I listen deeply seeing shadows
You sleep long into the night
We meet each other in moments
Filled with expectation and yearning
We part with unmet needs
Hopeful of a future together
Filled with sunshine and flowers blooming
In brilliant colours
The shadows remain
And yet they to fade
As the days unfold and familiarity gently
Leans into the small corners of out lives
Music fills the air carrying lilting
Tones of resonant vibration

Fellow Traveller

Trees are Tree-mendous

I came across this imagine this morning. It visualises ways to work spiritually and energetically with trees. I love trees. And now I have more ways to communicate and connected with our one-legged friends.