What wants to be born in you? musings and a poem

Photo: Jennifer Boire

What Wants to Be Born in You? by Hollie Holden

I have become grateful for the moments
When I remember to stop
In order to listen
To what the earth has to tell me.

This morning it was a flower
Who took me by surprise
And shared her secrets with me.

She told me of her journey.
How it began in darkness,
In the quiet, cool embrace
Of the quiet, generous earth.

She told me how the light called to her,
And how, slowly but solidly,
She began to unfold towards
The simple inevitability of her calling.

She told me of the exquisite cracking-open
Of all she knew herself to be;
The opening that felt like death
Until she realized it was her birth.

And then, with her open petals,
She asked me in the way
Only a full-bloomed flower can ask,
'What wants to be born in you, beloved?
What does the light want to call into being
From the quiet, generous earth
That waits patiently
In the cave
Of your heart?' 

Dear gentle reader,

This question has been on my mind for months now. Since my mother passed in April and I began seeing an art therapist, I've been actively writing, journaling and processing so much. The following is an excerpt from my journal notes, because I feel that this work of recovery in the cave of the heart is the most vital work I have ever done. It's not over yet, but here are some musings on the process.

In my reading and writing of family stories, I have discovered what is possibly the mythos or motto of origin for my ancestors. My parents were both brought up during the Great Depression and WWII. Their underlying motto, like many in the same period, seems to have been: strive, push ahead, work hard to succeed and rise above; and at the same time, the underlying message was to ignore those pesky emotions that show weakness, too much feeling is dangerous. This combo led to generations passing down anxiety, depression, harsh self-criticism, and a low level of loving kindness to self and others. Toughness was valued. There was also a playful side, thank goodness, in their younger selves, manifest in their love of storytelling, theatre and music. But it was regulated overall by the authority of the Father figure, who gave permission for it if there was good behavior, and shut it down if it got too loud or out of control. In my family, with eight kids, the latter was very likely.

Their motto worked in times of adversity, something like being in the army - the expectation is you keep soldiering on; and my father was a lieutenant during WWII and a captain in the reserves after the war. As children growing up, even though we received the needed care if we were sick, as soon it was deemed feasible, it was up and at at’em! enough whining. Time to get out of bed, get back to school or work. That was my father’s attitude at least. Whereas my mother more and more began to drag and resist this military model; no longer the sub-lieutenant or sergeant - she showed her resistance by passive-aggressive behavior, always late for church and with eight of us that was a lot of organization, pulling back, or letting the housework slide into abandon. Drinking to feel her ‘spirit’. As the eldest, the yoke of responsible one was placed on my shoulders (along with my second eldest sister). Overarching boss of everyone comes naturally to me. My psychological profile said I would make a good army sergant! 

Last fall I came up against all of that programming and not for the first time. But now, it made me feel stuck, frozen, unsure of how to move ahead with my work.  I began to see a therapist to talk it out. Then COVID-19 happened in March,  my mother died, my dog died, and I began to withdraw to tend to my grief, and also to all the other small griefs - the endings of things that hadn’t come to pass, the two miscarriages, the death of beloved pets, the books not published or feted, I began to create space for honouring these ‘slivers’ of pain with slivers of time. Mostly, I read books, poems, made SoulCollage(R) cards and wrote in my journal.

This whole season of Covid has been a descent to the Death Café, (gently) allowing the grieving process to be felt, allowed, ritualized, veiling myself in a subtle shawl of sorrow. Swimming into the deep DNA of ancestral wounds, reverberating with echoes that go all the way back to a great grandmother's story of time a mental breakdown and time in a sanitorium. A grandmother who lost both her parents at a young age and was brought up by an aunt. My mother’s own depressive tendencies and time spent in detox and recovery. 

Oh Goddess of Never Not Broken – I am feeling broken, not whole, but am willing to abide, and befriend all the mixed feelings. Feeling and dealing is healing.

SoulCollage(R) card: Hiding, Not Knowing

And still the question comes up - What is calling me? What wants to be born in me? Constant listening for that, constant questioning. Never feeling ready or sure of a complete answer – little bits and drabs of a vision still float in the haze around me.

I wish I could learn how to say no to all that distracts me from my artist’s vow and know in my bones that I am worthy and deserving of taking time for creative loafing, dreaming, reading, soul-tending, writing or collaging. It gets easier, because during this time of pandemic, there are fewer outer distractions (aside from the US election, gawd what an awful mess).

I want to learn how to say Yes to what my soul is calling me to; I do say yes to daily meditation, and journaling time; to weekly yoga, walks outdoors. I am still asking, What is mine to do in this world?

In the meantime, while I’m musing on this and wondering if I should spend money and redo my website, and what do I want to put on it anyway about who I am and what I have to offer…. I had a therapy session that shed new light on matters. The big aha moment came when I heard - it’s ok to hang out in the swamp of not knowing. What if I am simply not ready yet to hang up my shingle and announce anything new to the world at large? What if the box I have imagined I fit in is just too small and I can open my imagination wider to include all the parts of me? The writer, the poet, the singer? not just the facilitator, trainer and workshop leader.

What if I need to feel safe, secure and connected to my solidity, to anchor my inner child who feels overwhelmed and unsupported in the Center of my own presence? What if safety and belonging are the secret keys to my well-being and also a clue to what I offer in the Mothering Ourselves and other workshops.

What if I widened the portal and let in the music, the love of singing, the visualizations with soothing voice to calm and reconnect the soul to the heart to the body to the mind? This new thought entered my mind and allowed me to stop pushing myself to find a definite answer.

What if I didn’t rush rush rush like a mad hatter or the hare, and paced myself to the pace of my body, of my tortoise breath (really, I have been saying this for years, but only now that the body feels safe enough, am I beginning to take care of my Little Jenn).

There’s also the Vision of a Sanctuary – a retreat center that we can share with other wellness practitioners occasionally. A drum circle, a fire pit, a center for a circle of wild women to howl at the full moon…the possibilities are endless.

women's circle on retreat 

What do I love is part of the question, and what would I do if I removed all the limitations and false beliefs about myself? From the book Finding The Deep River Within, came these questions.

What would I love to do if it weren’t so selfish?

Get a weekly massage. Take long drives in the country just to explore the landscape. Spend a whole afternoon chatting with a small group of women friends (oh for the days before Covid prevented us gathering in circles!). Read a book all day long and sip soothing chai. Dance to great 70s music and twirl around the room. Stay in bed and have coffee and toast brought to me!

What would I do if I didn’t care what people thought?

Dye my hair with blue streaks, wear long skirts and lacey gypsy shawls. Create big colourful murals on the walls. Enclose myself in a small cabin with a roaring fire and talk out loud, record visualizations, make up myths and stories for women…Once upon a time there lived a woman…

“That which you seek is seeking you.” says Rumi.

How to relax and surrender into the longing of your heart?

That, my friends is where I begin.  Stay tuned.

 

Fall Launch of Collected Poems with French Translation

Happy News! 

A poetry project long kept on hold  is now published on Amazon.ca and .com, in Canada, UK, USA and France.

Malheureusement nous pouvons pas celebrer en personne! Unfortunately, due to the pandemic we cannot celebrate the launch in person. 

https://www.amazon.ca/Collected-Poems-2018-French-translation/dp/1794669663

I welcome visitors to my blog to click on the link above to order the book. 

Si vous parlez français, voila les versions transformés par André Jérôme, un ami de longue date qui a commence à traduire mes poèmes il y a belle lurette.

Je suis très contente que ce livre voit le jour!

Thanks for checking it out and taking a peek.

bonne journée,

Jennifer

www.jenniferboire.com

p.s. artwork for the cover was done by Suzanne Marier, a long time friend of my in-laws who lives and paints in France.

To the Sensitive Ones, poem for Poetry Month

TO THE SENSITIVE ONES... 

By Jeff Foster

Do not be ashamed of your sensitivity!
It has brought you many riches.

You see what others cannot see,
Feel what others are ashamed to feel.
You are more open, less numb.

You find it harder to turn a blind eye.

You have not closed your heart,
in spite of everything. 

You are able to hold 
the most intense highs
and the darkest lows 
in your loving embrace.
(You know that neither defines you.
Everything passes through.
You are a cosmic vessel.) 

Celebrate your sensitivity!
It has kept you flexible and open.
You have remained close to wonder. 
And awareness burns brightly in you. 

Don't compare yourself with others.
Don't expect them to understand.
But teach them:

It’s okay to feel, deeply.
It’s okay to not know. 
It’s okay to play 
on the raw edge of life.

Life may seem ‘harder’ for you at times,
And often you are close to overwhelm. 
But it’s harder still 
to repress your overwhelming gifts.

Sensitive ones, 
Bring some gentleness into this weary world! 
Shine on with courageous sensitivity!
You are the light bearers!

April is Poetry Month: Peace

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of why my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

MENOPAUSE POEMS: Rose Hips

Rose hips

In yoga class, surrounded by three walls of mirrors

I cannot avoid seeing my hips

49-year-old bulging handles

their wideness sinks at the wrong spot.

The truth about my hips: I find them

sturdy looking, square front on

but sideways they spread like sponges, abundant

woman fat, spread thickly like butter on sliced bread

or a baguette bulging in the oven.

Bone on bone cracks,

when I raise my legs, lying flat.

Soak those achy, creaky, un-oiled hinges

in salt foam waves,

And let my rose hips rise

like Aphrodite out of the sea.

@JenniferBoire

Menopausal Poetry Series

Because I love poetry, and there are so few poems about menopause out there, I have dug deep into my computer files and pulled out a series from over ten years ago when I was in the throes of it.

Here's one:

Three little pills and a Pomegranate

Muse on the table

are you food or drink?

Three little pills on my yellow placemat:

One clever red clover

renders me immune to restlessness,

cures insomnia.

Vitamin B mitigates “the change”,

Calcium Citrate coats the nerves,

protects the children from swinging

moods, banged doors.

Biting into a shiny red orb allowed

Persephone to see her mother half the year.

My prying fingers reveal a messy beehive

of oblong kernels.

Mouth puckers as crystal blobs,

nutty & tart, stain my fingers rouge.

Will it make me mortal to eat these seeds?

Already I have become human

in my daughter’s eyes.

I told Katie that her cat died.

Rocking in darkness

comforted us both.

Where is Beauty, A Poem for April, National Poetry Month

WHERE IS BEAUTY?

in the eye
or somewhere inside
the body

HUMMING

on its wheel

Bask

in sunlight

Study the humility
of grass

the steadfast
trees

Hold on to this breath-thread

reins
to calm my
restless

heart

Jennifer Boire

Creative Soulful Woman

What does it mean to be a Creative Soulful Woman?

Creative:

Your playful child-spirit is alive and well

You get excited when you're in discovery mode
You have an openness to new ways of seeing

Flow is your optimal condition, where you lose track of time

You are unafraid to try new things

If you are afraid, you gently push past fear

You are willing to learn

You are not rigid, not pinned down, you go with the flow

Making & sharing your art makes you happy!
Expressive arts feed and nourish your Joy.

Soulful:

Your child-like heart sees the wonder in the world

You feel things deeply, intensely

You are gifted with a big heart and a way of being 
   that respects others

Intuitive, you listen to the deeper, inner call

You are highly sensitive and open to receive

You seek the light while allowing the shadows to be

    illuminated: growing in self-acceptance

You are drawn to mystery like a sunflower to the sun

You are learning to be comfortable with not knowing, uncertainty

You allow your senses to be activated in creative ways

You want to learn to practice self-nurturing
You allow time for pleasure in little things: blue sky, red cardinals, green moss, the natural beauty of the world
Music, poetry, art, dance: feed your soul

Soulfulness means coming from a place of balance and harmony – an equilibrium or alignment between what we think, fell, say and do. And taking an inner approach to prioritizing our life – work life, family life, personal life – in the pursuit of activities that nourish and enrich every aspect of our life.” – Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D., www.truenorthpartnering.com

You are a creative soulful woman!

Poetry for Hard Times

Have you ever noticed that in times of need, or celebration of a life, people turn to poetry? We don't think of poetry often, most of us, (myself not included), or read it, but when it's time for a funeral, a baptism, a wedding or something momentous occurs, we need the intensity and beauty of powerful words sculpted into deeper meaning.

Reading the paper this morning, I saw this poem in a notice about a young girl's short life:


“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.” 
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Beauty,  isn't it?

So here's something beautiful you can do right now - look online for poems about things that matter. You'll find a ton of them. Do a google search by theme. For example, I have a bunch of middle aged poems on my other blog - wisdom for women, and poems for lots of occasions.

My other favourite source is Garrison Keillor's great selection: Good Poems. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/garrison-keillor


Here's one by Denise Levertov, a poet I discovered in a creative writing program:

Living

The fire in leaf and grass
so green it seems
each summer the last summer.
The wind blowing, the leaves
shivering in the sun,
each day the last day.

A red salamander
so cold and so
easy to catch, dreamily

moves his delicate feet
and long tail. I hold
my hand open for him to go.

Each minute the last minute.

enjoy every minute of this lush, green summer!

Musemother

April is Poetry Month

In honour of the Laurentians, where spring melt is glorious, and comes a few weeks later.

Spring melt

Everywhere a fine mist

a million drops rising

into spring air.

Freezing rain iced the roads last night,

layered trees in thin lace.

Now, morning sun tilts the snowwoman,

       head tilts onto ground

arms stuck in the leaning boulders.

Melting snow reveals a rock.

Geese wing northward
in small gaggles.

Spring runoff

from the roof races

my pulse erratic.

last night’s dream moving

up and up

a staircase

looking for You.

I wrote this poem back when the kids were little, and I had broken my leg skiing, so confined to the chalet while they hit the hills. I loved the sunroom in the chalet we rented then, near Ste-Adele and my alone time, writing, reading, lying in the sun stretching the wounded leg, healing and hanging out with the dog.

I later rewrote it, shortened it, took the Samurai Sword and it became:

Spring melt

Geese wing northward
in small gaggles.

Everywhere a fine mist

rises, million drops

lift into air.

Through the windows,

light erratic,

roof runoff spills

from the gutters.

Last night’s dream

moving up & up

a mobile staircase

looking for      

                    You.

and was published in For the Birds, my last collection of poems.

Happy spring all

Musemother

Creatrixes and Poetry on the Laundry Line

Interview with Suzi Baum Part 2

Musemother: We believe in promoting rest and creative loafing to coax the muse from out of hiding. What do you do to call the Muse?

I am my own Muse. When I take really good care of myself, my Muse, my creative voice, is rich, fertile and brimming with life. Taking really good care of myself means I am well rested. That I let myself end my day at a decent hour, sip tea and read for a while then fall asleep so I can get 8 hours. I love getting up early and have often fantasized about getting up, like Harriet Beecher Stowe would, and write in the hours when my kids are asleep. I just don’t operate that way. I need sleep.

I love to be outside. I garden. I hang my wash on a cloth rope out in my yard. I get my self outdoors every single day to let nature make her mark on me because that fuels me.

I meditate. I believe to be true what my friend Judith Prest says in her poem “When I am Quiet”:

When I am quiet,

I hold and am held

in holy silence.

Stillness magnifies

my capacity for wonder.

I read poetry. I memorize poems so I can bring them out to suck on like root beer barrels when I need some rapturous sweetness.

I do a daily writing practice, what Julia Cameron calls ‘daily pages’. I did them long before I read “The Artist’s Way” and I still do them. It keeps my writing voice warm and ready to speak.

I clear things with my husband. I take time to nurture this relationship. I am fortunate to have married a man who chooses to work at home in our attic. This means we have a pocket of time together after the kids have gone to school when we can talk over our thoughts, plans for the day, concerns, dreams or whatever is on our minds before we enter our work days. I am fortunate in many other ways to have married Jonathan, but this simple fact makes the space for us to support and love each other in very current fresh ways.

I doodle. I make small collages in my collage-a-day books. I make mail art and for over five years have collaborated making mail art with my art partner Karen Arp-Sandel. This is another long chapter about my creative life which I can tell you another time, but, no matter where I am in the world, I can always make a piece of mail art that captures where I am and mail it off to her. This collaboration keeps my Muse very very happy.

I have fun. I have a group of women I meet with every month of the full Moon. We have been gathering monthly for over 13 years. Through very thick and very thin, we maintain our connections by meeting, eating, sitting around fires, and always having fun.

Lastly, I say yes to life. When an opportunity to do something I know will be a huge honking time suck and sap me of my energy, I say yes to me by saying no to them. When someone asks me to write a guest blog about a topic that I love to delve in to, I say yes. When my son asks me to snuggle him in the morning, when I could be in the kitchen stirring the oatmeal, I say yes to him because as that big 17 year old head wedges under my ribcage to burrow in to my belly for a few minutes before he engages in his busy, SAT, college prep peppered day, I know that I am and always will be certain love for him. The creation of my son opened for me this whole way of being. I will nurture our connection till the day I die. Saying yes to opportunities that bring me pleasure, that nourish and sustain me, that thrill me and excite me, that stretch me, teach me, dazzle me, shake loose my barnacled thinking- these all make my Muse happy to be in residence.

Musemother: Is there a different kind of art/poetry being made by women and mothers?  What is that difference?

Do you mean feminist art? Or art by women? Isn’t all art made by women, feminist art? If you look at how women have been silenced and are still kept from many public displays of art, the very fact that any woman would pick up her pen and tell her story- isn’t the voice of a woman unique simply by it’s rarity?

There are many many men who are awake to the splendor of the creations of women. But, our culture, here in the sunny land of North America, where we are all free and endorsed to speak our minds, our culture is only beginning to value the work of women. Art by women is different. Our experience of aliveness is different from a man’s. Thank God! Oh how boring life would be without the balancing affect of men’s voices. Doesn’t your ear yearn for the bass line? And, don’t you yearn to see in the hallowed galleries of our nations art institutions, art made by women? This is a big topic. I recommend Pamela Tanner Boll’s documentary “Who Does She Think She Is?” as a discussion tool for groups of women willing to discuss this thorny, painful aspect of being a female artist today.

I do keep this in perspective by remembering always the women in the world who have no voice. I know there are women who have to walk miles upon miles to mail a poem secretly so they will not be found to be expressing themselves publicly. I do know I am fortunate to live where and when I live today. And, being me, I want more. I want to be valued as an expert in my field. I want to know that my expressions are equally important to the world, as are those of a person who choose another path.

We talk in writing about finding our Voice. When did you find yours? Or is it an on-going process?

I think I have spoken to this already.

But, way back when? I found my voice by journaling. And by steady dedicated practice of skills that increased the likelihood of me having a voice- like taking an art class, or a singing lesson or a poetry workshop. All the work I have done to untangle the messy places in my self have helped me find my Voice. It is hard to access your Voice when you are colored by historic anger or pain. These experiences fuel your Voice, but they must not be what compel you to speak. We speak our stories because we know them to be true. We share our anger and our joy. But, to have inner lives clouded by unfinished emotional business will trip you up until you deal with it.

Musemother: What has the collaboration with the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers brought you?  

My collaboration with BFWW has woven me in closely with Dr. Jenny Browdy de Hernandez and her committee of intelligent and inspired women who create the Festival at Simon’s Rock College of Bard here in Great Barrington, MA. The Festival gave me a venue and publicity to mount my first production of ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’. It has helped me step on to center stage with the discussion of mothering and creativity. The feedback and community I have found as a result of sharing this work in the world urges me to press on, with my passion blazing. Also, the Festival has exposed me to so many local women like author Alison Larkin and women out in the world, like Sister Fa who are passionately engaged in developing their work through engaging with others. The sense of community here in the Berkshires has increased exponentially as a result of BFWW. I am filled with gratitude.

Musemother: Risk of burnout seems higher for mothers who want to have a creative life. How do you avoid burning the candle at both ends? In other words, how do you make time for your creative life without staying up until 2 a.m. to get the laundry done.

I don’t get to do all I want every day. I have to get enough sleep; otherwise I am useless to my self, to my family and to my work. I keep good lists. I keep track of thoughts and inspirations; I have a tiny journal in my purse all the time so I don’t miss a thought. I just don’t work well exhausted. And I let things go. I don’t fold every sock, every day. There is a guest bed full of neatly piled by person laundry right now. Would I rather be folding that than writing to you? Uhuh. That wash can wait.

Musemother: The value we put on art and mothering in society may make us feel marginal, as if we can only practice “part time” at any kind of “real work”. What do you say to that? Ie poetry doesn’t make money per se, and is not seen as producing anything towards a GNP.

For this reason alone, I live to create. I want my daughter to grow up with a mother who had faith enough for many to stand in my authority as a woman of Value. When I attach to every email, have written on my business cards, sign any form anywhere with the words “Suzi Banks Baum Author, Artist, Blogger and Full Time Mom” I own with pride and joy the blessing it is to be me today.

Whether or not I get paid for this? What can I do? Who will pay me to make lunches and wash clothes and mend breaks? The world does not give me a check. And my artwork does pay me by making me incredibly happy and by leading me towards ways that one day will pay me something.

If I was not supported by my husband, if it was only me, here wiping and scrubbing and bussing and holding down a full time job to make it all possible, I would be writing a very different thing here. But having made the choice to be a full time parent with a working partner and to explore the regions of my soul made clear by mothering and creativity, I create a currency of joy. I humbly offer these words as comfort and inspiration. May they warm you when those singleton socks don’t have matches and lines of poetry keep you awake till you get them down on paper. I say yes. Someday, I hope the world nods back.

Musemother: Please talk about the joy of being in creative flow, that energy that feeds the soul.

SB:

Hmmm.

Limitless.

Connective.

Curious.

Intelligent.

Naturally wonderful.

You can sit me down with a ball of yarn and pattern and keep me very happy for a long time.

You can give me an empty scrap of paper and I will doodle myself to a new place.

You can take me for a walk under blooming lilacs and I will fashion you a story scented by this heady perfume of spring.

I know no other joy more saturated with bliss, where problems reveal solutions that take me to new levels of understanding that I never anticipated grasping, where I feel connected to a lineage of women going back to the beginning of time where Eve needed a little something to protect Cain or Abel from the direct sun on his little noggin so she took a palm leaf and folded it in to a little hat, thus creating the first hat. Eve- the first milliner. Eve- the first couturier. Eve- the first sculptor. Eve….all about Eve and a woman in need of a solution applying her copious inspiration with the materials she had at hand to satisfy, protect and sustain her children. I never considered this till right now, but it makes sense to me. I am part of a lineage of creatrixes, called the lineage of women.

Ó Suzi Banks Baum  May 2, 2012

Suzi Banks Baum’s favorite roles in her 53-year career as a woman have been mother and rat.  She took up the former 17 years ago, upon the birth of her son, and the latter in 1965 at Potawatomie Park in Chicago, in the after-school theatre program.  Suzi actively blogs at laundrylinedivine.com where she writes about seeing and celebrating the sacred in everyday life. Her upcoming book, “Laundry Line Divine: A Wild Soul Book for Mothers” recounts the wild tale of her adventures raising herself while raising her children. Her standing room only event for the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes: An Evening of Mothers Reading to Others’ premiered her work on mothering and creativity. Suzi is an actress, artist, gardener and good friend. Suzi lives with her husband and two teenagers in Great Barrington, MA.

Suzi Banks Baum, Artist, Author, Blogger and Full Time Mom

Favorite Frames of 'Out of the Mouths of Babes' at  www.laundrylinedivine.com

Mothering and Creativity blog series at  www.outofthemouthsofbabes.org

FeMail fun at www.femailart.com

Follow Suzi at: facebook.com/LaundryLineDivine or facebook.com/femailart@laundrylinediv

You have not danced so badly

Hafiz

"You have not danced so badly, my dear, trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One. You have waltzed with great style, my sweet, crushed angel, to have ever neared God's Heart at all.

Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow, and even his best musicians are not always easy to hear.

So what if the music has stopped for a while. So what if the price of admission to the Divine is out of our reach tonight. So what, my dear, if you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.

The mind and the body are famous for holding the heart ransom, but Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.

Have patience, for he will not be able to resist your longing for long.
You have not danced so badly, my dear, trying to kiss the Beautiful One. You have actually waltzed with tremendous style, Oh my sweet, Oh my sweet, crushed angel."

I Heard God Laughing, by Daniel Ladinsky.

image from www.farjamcollection.com/.../02/about-hafiz.jpg

Light & Dark poem

caffeine itch in my veins tonight
I try to scratch out the wildness
my dark sister, can’t tame her
so I will her away
back to the lump
in my throat where she festers
tosses and turns me over

when I wake at night, my son
hears my thoughts, wakes & worries
my spirit might not take him
with me as I flit through
a slit in the walls, float up, away
he fights sleep, says
I’m a boy
I’m awake
I don’ wanna sleep
don’ wanna sleep

I pick him up, put him where I want him
he moves somewhere else, we change beds
three times, from his new big bed
to baby’s crib
to momma’s bed
ah back to mommy, safety, womb
he would crawl back into, little tyrant
with a suce in his mouth
jealous of Caitie’s spot at my breast

she is my love my all-sight
my moon in the sleepless night
he is wild but I’m setting him straight
fighting his 2 year old will

time to give up this battle
find a small space for my wild self
between them, space to breathe in

then I can be here for them
my beautiful son and moon

from Little Mother, published 1997

This is it, right here right now

Always we hope someone else has the answer.

Some other place will be better.

Some other time, it will all turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer.

No other place will be better.

And it has already turned out.

At the center of your being you have the answer;

you know who you are and you know what you want.

There is no need to run outside for better seeing.

Nor to peer from a window.

Rather abide at the center of your being;

For the more you leave it, the less you learn.

~ Lao-tsu

NEW GOLD MOON a poem

blood used to mark her territory
like a wolf pissing circles round its den
sniff too close, bares her teeth
new gold moon stay inside my skin

once called a curse Eve blamed so
misses the colour so she paints red
on her lips

permission it gave her
to strip the world off her
stand like an oak
remote
as a decorative cherry

deciding where to plant
her healing in the world
drinking from the roots of her feet
what she needed
until the next orb

used to bleach it out of her
now staying in her sacrum
snaking
like a rope on fire
re-circuiting
rewire
new gold moon
stay inside my skin

a new and graceful girl
period
paused
inside my skin

(c) 2007 by Patti Sinclair
http://poet-at-large.blogspirit.com/
http://rednettlepress.ca

...author of "Motherhood As A Spiritual Practice",
"out of the witch's mouth", and runs the "red earthwomen
presents" reading series in pei.

Laundry and Writing

Canadian hero folds laundry

Today, CBC radio listeners have nominated Terry Fox as
an outstanding Canadian hero. May 10, 2004

Folding laundry, with quiet
determination
I understand that chaos
and its theory need to be folded and put
in its place.
That the poet and artist’s role
is to fold chaos and put order
into words is a given,
that the housewife’s role is
to fold laundry and put
order into her house
is a given,
that the poet/housewife has a role
and that both of these roles
are equally essential to the universe
for they promote order
over chaos
is equally true, thus

as long as there are housewives and poets,
the laundry of the world
will never be left in dirty piles
and the dirty chaos lying await
in the basements of the world
will be neatly cleaned and folded
one more day.

Poem for Saturday because it's still snowing here

Drop down into my spider self,
Where the thin tenuous thread
of attention’s tension uncoils, returns.
Let down the rope, thud--
Creak – into a round stone well, damp smell of water
Lower my seeing sense and soften the hearing
(listening, listening)
into silence - under breath, sometimes awake in the night
no sound
but a shrill, cricket-like noise in my ear,
no, more like Mira described: bracelets tinkling
on the ankles of an ant.
That fine-tuned.
Isn’t it my impatience fences me out?

And what of spiders, their delicate legs and slow
descent from the ceiling to where I live, down here?
Why does it frighten me so, to live at the core of this
listening presence?

Or am I just being clever with metaphor – that impulse
keeps me on the surface, when the water I am thirsty for,
lies deeper…Shh, quiet –

Thoughts slow down, I pay attention,
So careful now not to miss a thing – it’s not
what I tell myself in words – the thing is smaller,
finer that that – I am without sleep, and guidance
comes walking in the door,
I read – ‘poetry as being there’--
Ping! Quest, isn’t it?
Hmm, a life puzzle or maze
unsolved day-by-day, turning corners, sniffing my way
by intuition, even if the mouse doesn’t see the cheese, another sense
tells her it is there – close your eyes, feeling will guide you,
trust the spider sense,
in the tea kettle voice of your alarm
Or the softened touch, pillow soft tears –

Love of words has taken me this far – can I let them go, now?
Who speaks, who listens? No, feels.
Ego crunches underfoot --mask fallen, paper mache facsimile of me
Stepped on! Ouch, then smiles under tears.

Broken.
Open.

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Poem for Earth Day April 22

I was in a wonderful 'awakening feminine energies' workshop so missed posting this for Earth Day. One day late, here it is, a poem that was read aloud to a gathering on Earth Day a few years ago, in Angell Woods.

Angell Woods Poem, Or Finding our Roots

“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.”
From Inversnaid, Gerard Manley Hopkins

I
Branches groan & crack like ship’s planks
in wind swell. These woods we crawled out of
one diluvial day, abandoning
the forked branch for a dry cave, eager
for a house that stood still. Here, in these
woods, a new development, larger than large
homes on smaller than small lots, tidy,
tucked in, no wild or wet to blow in.

II
Once lush maple & hickory forest:
tree forts, secret kisses, unmapped unpaved
and wild, a place of wonder for a child
where rabbits lurk, a Cooper’s hawk, a fox,
a marshy bog, or labyrinth for dogs.
While winter drags on in ice & slush,
in these quiet woods, we halt the rush
to stand with trees in mountain pose or
leap into ecstatic spring!

III
To find common ground with a tree, sit
at its root, let cool air ripple your hair.
Know that this maple exhaled so that you
may inhale.
Elders, we listen to their
counsel: longevity, flexibility.
Their casual loss is our casualty.
(Trees, like fairies, must be seen
to be believed.)

Now that the whole world is going green, and we are no longer just 'tree huggers' advocating caring for the planet, our earth mother, let us watch the tight buds unfurl with wonder, and praise the songbirds that make the trees their home and bring us such delight.

jenn

Poem for Today

April is Poetry Month. I have a great book of poems that any poetry lover should own: Good Poems, selected by Garrison Kellor of national radio fame.

Here is one I re-read a lot and love:

Lost
by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.


So as you walk outside today, perhaps to work or walking the dog or just going to the mail box to mail a letter, let the Hereness and Nowness of where you are be with you. Today there is sunshine after stormy weather in Montreal. Hearts are glad about this!

I am still lost sometimes in the forest of childhood, but an etching by my sister Sue of a shadowy girl leaving the forest and the house on the hill reminds me that I can move on, not stay stuck in that sadness of being lost.

Today, I am trying to stay still, not rush, not panic with the busyness my list of things to do causes.

I find stillness in the smallest places, doing laundry, cutting onions, making tea.

Listen, the world is singing in your ear, the way home.

luv
jenn