Divine Source

Consider...

2012-01-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

Consider my whispers…

there are words within

and pleas and visions

of God and you.

Quiet does not diminish

the bigness or the urgency

of my reaching breath,

seeking a heart to hold my hand.

Consider my whispers…

for as you turn your ear to hear,

you will find a gentle breeze

that moves across your face

drying any tears

like a warmly blown kiss

that you would otherwise

miss.

Surrender Prayer

2012-01-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

Please God,

if I must surrender,

let it be to bliss.

Let me fall into the madness of your love

and the insanity of your desire.

Please God,

may I be received by the light,

my weapons and armour stripped from me.

Detain me in the wilds of your living Earth.

Let there be no escape.

If it be your angels who are to be my captors,

then willingly do I wave my flag and raise my hands.

If I am to be bound once again Lord,

let it be by a golden thread

to your throne.

I Build a Bridge

2011-12-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

The Divine is surely alive in each one of us, where there is a beating heart so too there is the Divine. Earth, water, air and fire are the body that carries the soul – all of us are made from the holiness of Nature.

The one we judge, whom we gossip about and slander with our words, the one who causes us to weep, are creations of the Divine, all are expressions of God.

The wolf that takes down your cattle is also a Masterpiece of God.

How is it that I withhold my compassion from my brother and my sister who cause me grief when I know we both come from the same Mother and carry the same light within?

Is my soul of any more value than another’s, is my journey to wholeness any more perfect?

In my enemy’s voice I hear my own and I shrink from this. In my enemy’s actions I see my own works and I rage against myself. When I extend my compassion solely to those I deem worthy then I extend no compassion at all. There is no sacrifice in loving only those that I already love. To them my love flows freely. But to love my enemy means that I sacrifice my ego and my pride, then I overcome the wall I have erected between us and build a bridge.

How often have I heard the wisdom of this? Yet still I find myself retreating and cowering behind the walls I have built, but blessedly less so now. Gratefully, as I sit more and more in silence and empty myself of the noise of the world, my most wonderful soul rises up, filling me so that I breathe the wisdom of compassion.

I am so blessed by this body that stumbles and by the wisdom of my soul that rises. I am so blessed by those whose presence allows me to know what true compassion is, those who are my greatest teachers.

Any wrong I have known I have done to others. Any judgement I have made I have made of myself. Any separation from life that I have established has come from my own self-loathing.

The man who is filling our Oceans with oil does so so that I can drive my car. I am not a servant to the man but a servant to my need for comfort and convenience, my true master and oppressor.

My search for justice must spring from my fountain of compassion or no justice will be served. Justice that does not arise from compassion is revenge. Revenge comes from our need for comfort requiring no emptying of the mind.

Revenge never satisfies us because it keeps our minds busy with our enemy’s actions but does not move me to examine my own. Therefore, I will continually seek revenge for the multitude of wrongs I witness and deny justice for my own.

I have been the cause of great suffering to others. Who can say the suffering I have caused is less than any other? There is no hierarchy to suffering unless I create it to vindicate myself.

True justice requires self-reflection and forgiveness.

I build my bridge so that it connects foundation to foundation, the essence of me to the essence of you. As I cross this bridge I am mindful of the weakest beams lest I fall through and never get to you. My desire for a just and compassionate world moves me to strengthen these places. My soul is the carpenter.

It's all coming.

2011-12-01T13:20:00.000-08:00

I am in love with this past
that has so long defined me.
So I am bringing it with me.

Even that voice which frets
we might return to darkness
is coming.

Congruence is over-rated.

It may even be a conspiracy;
causing me to believe
that it must be achieved
before I can wear the badge of
Wholeness.

I am imperfect.

But my wisdom is profound.
When I try to share it, I stutter.
So I write my wise words instead.

I write badly and sometimes I don’t.

These days I can sit in peace,
more or less,
while I dance like an ass
on this imperfect journey.

God chuckles and I laugh at myself.
Whoever promised me congruence?

My love stretches

2011-11-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

“Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.” Isaiah 5:8

Our obsessive need to build and to own is the very activity that creates loneliness and separation. As our cities grow and our boundaries are stretched we build our homes closer and closer, our fences containing the small piece of Earth we call ‘ours’. And despite this closeness we grow more and more separate. We can never be anything but lonely when we endeavour to own that which can never be ours. Chaining our lover to us will never make us feel more loved but only more alone in our desperate need for love.

I stand alone in the vast prairie of my God and my love stretches beyond where the eye can see, higher than the never-ending sky, deeper than the roots of the growing tree. In my aloneness with my God I am surrounded by multitudes, embraced in God’s vast space by mighty arms that warm me body and soul. I am connected and my web stretches around this Earth, weaving me to you. There are no fences that impede this growth and expansion of this web, no signpost that can restrain me from entering into what is my God’s domain.

Ramblings of a Crazy Woman

2011-11-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

Are mine the ramblings of a crazy woman? Am I going down in a blaze of madness believing God speaks to me? When and if my words are ever read will the reader roll her eyes, will he smirk and snicker; will there be a shaking of the head in sympathy?

Yet in my heart of hearts I know God is alive and Nature thrives and that together they are fullness. I know that as sure as I can hear the call of the wren and the fall of the rain I can hear the voice of God speaking to me and the songs of Nature that are the choir.

It is only fear that has me question the stability of my sanity, for I live in a world and at a time that makes every effort to silence the Voice and attribute God’s wisdom to fools who clutch to riches and the puppets who dance as the fools pull their strings.

Who hears the wisdom on the wind and in the river? Who hears laughter in the croaking of the toad? Who can hear the sobbing of God in the mewl of the fading child?

To hear this great Voice while still clutching to trinkets causes madness. For one cannot reckon the fear of clutching with the freedom of God. These two lives cannot be lived in the same body.

And so it is those that have let go of the trinkets, have fallen and found soft Earth beneath them, been blanketed by the sky and sheltered by the trees that hear God’s voice. When the brave leave chaos behind and return to the wilds, when they bathe themselves in the waters of their Mother’s womb and are warmed by the fire of the sun, then are they made ready to hear the Voice which is at once enormous and silent. The body must be freed to embrace the simplicity of the Voice; otherwise the Voice is confused with the noise of the machinery of human chaos.

So fall. Fall and know the Earth is soft. Fall and trust your descent will be graceful. Fall from the grime we have manufactured and be received into the green living body of God.

I have fallen many times but it was only when I stopped clawing my way up again that I could rest. Resting allowed me to dream. Dreaming set free my soul. My soul embraced the living Earth and the enormity of God and then I could never leave.

In this time in our human history when our greatest institutions of learning produce marionettes for the trickster, when the art of the devout is locked in the cathedrals basement, when freedom is confined to democracy, then we must search for wisdom under the rock and under the bridges of our cities.

I will wholly trust this voice of God, this whispering Earth, and plunge eagerly to her yielding body.

The Wild Garden

2011-11-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

Beauty is solely Divine Light and Divine Light is present in all of life. There is nothing that is without beauty, no one who is less than beautiful. Splendour radiates from the grandest and the smallest of creatures. Beauty shines from the rotting tree and from the blooming flower.

As we methodically destroy the natural beauty around us is it any wonder that we have produced such a narrow margin of what we endure as beautiful?

How can it be up to us to decide what is beautiful; is it not our task, instead, to discover the beauty present in everything around us?

A flower can be no more beautiful for our attempts to make the colour of its petals more vibrant. When we try to make the natural more beautiful we constrain the very thing we seek to expand upon. We don’t extinguish the Divine Light of beauty within, that is not possible. We do, however, throw a synthetic cloak over the splendour of this radiance. What we manufacture is not real and holds no truth.

We have constructed a society of falsehoods; replacing forests with skyscrapers, rivers with pipelines, mountains with roads. We place no value on beauty that we believe we cannot profit from. We do the same with our bodies; replacing breasts with silicone, muscles with implants, desire with medication.

The very things that make a woman beautiful; the silver lines on her belly that are testimony to the life she carried, the girth of her hips that sway erotically when she dances, the softness of her lap where you lay your head and slept – all these we replace, erase and shrink from.

What is it we fear?

Corporate culture fears that if we are not obsessing over various parts of our bodies, maintaining a weed-free lawn, driving a shinier car, we might turn our attention to the establishment and dismantle the machine.

However, Corporations could not exist if we weren’t willing participants in our own domination.

What is it we fear?

We fear our own authority and vulnerability. If we begin to see the beauty in all things, we begin to see the beauty within ourselves. With this INsight we become the true Master-piece. If I acknowledge the innate beauty in all my relations, then I acknowledge the beauty in you and we become – equal – each the authority of our own nature.

We join with all of nature; not separate, not distinct, vulnerable to the moods of this Earth and the seasons of our life. We come to understand that we need each other; must be at once the giver and the receiver, the healer and the wounded. We must surrender and have faith that there will be soft places and warm bodies to nurture us and we must be this for others.

Authority and vulnerability are fearless positions we place ourselves in so that we may thrive in the garden of our Spirit and be free, throwing off the manufactured cloak that seeks to snuff out our Divine Light. We come to remember the blessing of beauty and can no longer destroy that which we love, that which we exalt.

When we remember the Light of the Divine within us, we will know the miracle of our humanity. We will behold the growth of our forests, taste the purity of our waters, and respect the boundaries of our wild sisters and brothers.

We will clean up our own mess.

Such is this love

2011-11-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

I went out into the rain; my arms and shoulders bare, no shoes on my feet. It poured down hard and cold, immediately my skin responded; a thousand shocked and tiny hairs bristled protectively.

Crouching on the lawn, I imagined I was a tiny creature; folded in upon myself, hunkered down on the forest floor patiently waiting for the downpour to ease.

Every natural instinct within me wanted to contract against the cold; constrict my body to its smallest form, shielding myself from the relentless rain.

Then slowly I began to focus on my breath; inhaling submission and exhaling acceptance. Relaxing each muscle; unclenching my hands, my belly, softening my jaw, I unfolded and my body blossomed into the wet and the cold.

I prayed, “Thank you for this rain. Thank you for this Earth. Thank you for this life.” over and over, water dripping from my eyelashes and trailing down my neck. I was filled with ecstasy; drunk with love for all Creation. And the activity of my ecstasy was still but for my swelling heart.

Succumbing to the rain I lifted my face in adoration, threw open my arms, exposed my naked soul to the tears running from my Divine Lovers eyes. Sacred vulnerability demands no rational thought. I heard my Lover laugh with joy that I should abandon all measure of sanity to receive this passion, and eagerly offer my body in return.

Such is this love.

The Shadow of God

2011-11-02T10:33:00.000-07:00

Why should Go be any less complex than we are? Why do we cling to foolish duality?

It is God who created the rock and placed it in our path so that we stumble. It is God who moves the clouds over the sun so that the light is blocked from us. The wolf that takes down your cattle is also a masterpiece of God.

We desperately seek to manoeuvre around the obstacles that trip us, bring darkness upon us and threaten our livelihood. In our scramble for safe ground we become the destruction we run from. When we try to climb a mountain without falling backward we rip from its roots the bush we grasp for to pull us onward one more step.

The bush weeps too as it dies and never realizes its fullness.

Just as God created the crystal clear waters that surge down the winding river, so too did God create the pool of stagnate mud in which your foot becomes mired.

All of creation is a blessing and always comes from love. It is us who divides creation into good and evil, worthy and unworthy, loved and hated. God is the totality, the fullness and the sum of what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch on this Earth, of that comes from and lives in Nature.

Yet we rush to the warmth and shrink from the cold.

We welcome the dog into our homes and slaughter the cow.

What is worthy and unworthy is judged in the mind, not in the heart. Worthiness is always what pleases us, as though we are simply baby birds in the nest, requiring our sustenance to be placed by Mother in our gaping mouths. But we will eventually starve if we resist taking flight.

I have found God in the darkness. I have found God in the shadows, in my shadow; the darkness of my soul. I have felt God’s touch in the pain from my scrapped knee and the sting of salt upon my wound.

Indeed God did not become real to me until I found God in my darkest nights. A God that awaits me in the light could not be conceived of in my heart because my heart also beat in my most wretched moments.

If I could still breathe while sobbing then God must also be there. The breath behind my song is the same breath behind my wailing. We do no justice to God when we assign God solely to that which brings us pleasure and causes us happiness.

I retreated into the closet of my bedroom, shut the door and lay on the tiny expanse of floor. I curled up into myself and hugged my knees to my body. I sought the safety of darkness and confinement and embraced the blackness within my heart.

All hurts and wrongs, all injury and assault, that had been done to me and that I had done to others, visited me there. They were relentless in their mockery and cruel in their accusations.

And for 100 nights I endured them, the closet both my haven and my prison, until they became familiar to me, less demonic and more tiresome. Then in my slumber another voice was heard, barely a whisper that my ears reached for.

The voice that came to me in the night had arms that embraced me and eyes that wept with mine and a heart brave enough to withstand my rage and misery.

This Divine Lover did not wait for me in the light, nor did my Lover shine a light for me to see. My God’s voice was carried on the stale air in the closet, my God’s arms the very blackness that enfolded me, and my God’s tears the sweat from my own brow.

I did not need to kneel and bow my head at an altar to honour this God, for it was honour enough to strip myself of all adornment and lay naked and exposed.

Had I died in that closet God would have held me while I did and then carried me heart and soul to paradise. Had I never seen the Sun my Lover would have wept with me all those long nights and into eternity.

This is the true miracle of God. The blessing of life is passionately embraced when we bow to the complexity of God and our own souls.

How magnificent it all becomes; the rock, the mud and the predator when we endure the closet, submit to darkness, not because we are brave but because we have not the strength to go on.

When we open to the cold that is also our Lovers breath and hearken to the lullaby that sings to us in the darkness then we truly embrace the complexity of our glorious Soul and discover within us the enormity of God.

The Business of Co-Dependency

2011-10-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Love expands the Soul. I am created from love, nurtured in love. How is it that I can be anything but love?

How can I “fall in love” when love is all that I am? I love you before I know you.

Love is not a process. We are already that which we seek to grow into. Turn our eyes inward and we will find, at our core; love, simply love.

Why do we rally against our own nature, fight with the instinctual reflex to adore one another? Why must we focus on drudgery when there is so much magic around us – all the time?

What has created a collective self-esteem so low that we deny the power of our true nature?

All of those trivial pastimes that keep us from ourselves; greed, lust, anger, wretchedness, are the result of an industry – a Corporation – designed to ensure its own survival no matter the cost. And it is wed to the secondary industry – kinder at first glance – and smaller, which is the business of healing those working within the larger corporation.

Funny, really how these two need each other so desperately to survive…one produces the product for the other – who then mends the product well enough to feed back to the manufacturer. The relationship between the two is profoundly co-dependent and truly in need of healing if we are to ever remember our Souls of Love.

Co-dependence: of or pertaining to a relationship in which one “person” is physically or psychologically addicted, as to alcohol or gambling, and the other “person” is psychologically dependent on the first in an unhealthy way. (From dictionary.com – quotation marks mine.)

What is it that our corporations are addicted to? Greed – simply put – greed that creates the secondary addictions to lust, fear and sickness.

It is the Corporations mandate to make a profit, to shield those who run them from risk, and to establish hierarchy within human relationships.

And what is our Health Industry’s mandate in relationship to the Corporations? To label, heal, and return to sender.

It is the Healthy Industry’s job to validate the Corporate mandate by creating labels for those unable to function within the structures of a corporate society, to then heal (or at the very least, medicate) those carrying a label, and finally to feed them back to the Corporation so that its purpose can be upheld and realized.

You who can’t cope with a world where misery is sanctioned and consumerism is applauded, who can’t keep up with your neighbours, your debt and for whom consuming more and more has become an empty reflex that no longer calms you, see no real alternative to this pursuit – indeed even looking for one results in the wrath and worry of those still running-in-place.

And so you fall behind, or drop-out, opt-out; become ‘depressed’, without hope, small.

Then along comes the ‘helpers’ to fix you – each with a label for what’s wrong with you:

You aren’t positive enough.
You don’t have a strong enough faith.
You aren’t physically fit enough.
You have poverty-mentality, low self-esteem, anger issues, self-loathing, depression, stress-adjustment-bipolar disorder, paranoia, and even co-dependency.

All of which can be fixed with enough money so you can access therapy, medication, retreat centres, self-help books, workshops, positive thinking seminars, indulge in abundance weekends, beauty and health spas, your own personal trainer/coach, endless ways to be fixed.

And then you can function again, believing you write the script of your own life, in the Corporation that made you sick in the first place.

To you who cannot cope, compete, consume…those who can’t stay upbeat, positive and optimistic…those of you who can’t turn lemons into lemonade or awaken each morning with a motivational mantra on your lips…THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.

There is something very right – you are the evolution and can be the revolution as humankind remembers our true nature. You are the touchstones of this awakening – between the drudgery and the ecstasy.

The only darkness you are engulfed in is cast by the shadows of the looming bodies of the helpers and the walls of the corporate society they work within. Those who mean to do only good works to uphold a system that means to keep us all safe from the tyranny of love.

However, the real truth…in this very moment of our human story…is that you are perfect, you are evolution, you are the awakening.

And when we know we are not broken we will begin the task of loving our Earth back to health through radical inter-dependence; weaving the web that connects us all, remembering our Soul of Love.

Radical Acts of the Silent Non-Conformist

2011-10-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

In our “evolution” as a human species we have forgotten two profound urges that exist within the human soul; humility and sacrifice.

To be humble is to embrace the laughter and the ridicule of others as you act upon the voice of Spirit that guides you along your path.

Sacrifice is to give freely that which another needs. To live in the mystery that lay between the have and the have-not, and to be grateful for the blessing of love you can shower upon others.

Humility and sacrifice are the soul’s truest expression of the instincts that make us human and lead to the fullness of living and enacting the purpose of our existence – to be stewards to all of our relations.

Conformity is our greatest enemy at this time because conformity demands that we live within the constructs of a materially driven world. To conform requires that we abandon our true nature – the wild act of flourishing in the natural world – and instead seek approval of the masses designed to make us smaller than we were ever meant to be. We rein in our passions and channel our energy into being the tamed consumer for the insignificant, controlling business of banal pleasure.

We shun sacrifice but fail to see the profound sacrifices made by our relations in the natural world to support our lust for conformity.

Consider what is required for the creature whose massive life is restricted to the cold metallic counter of the scientist, the beauty-engineer, testing agonizing chemicals upon innocent eyes so that we might mask our faces.

Consider the tree that existed long before we were even aware of the forest, that falls so we can live in houses so large that we lose our Spirits in the many empty rooms supported by walls that separate us.

Consider the bloating body of the child lying under the hot sun weakly grasping for the shrunken breast of its mother.

This is what conformity demands of us; that we pay the price of turning from our own souls, ignore the whisper of compassion, and glorify our lust and greed. Glorify these through entertainment we call “Reality”, through uselessly stuffing our face with riches that never fill the void within us, through denying the yearning of our strong hands to hold the hand of one who is reaching.

We deny the need for sacrifice yet demand it of every other living creature on our Mother Earth.

Can you throw away the trappings of servitude and seek the peace that awaits you in the soft weeping of a world we are recklessly and perversely violating? Can you sacrifice your material desires and replace these with the truest desire of your own soul – to be at one with our perfect Earth and with yourself by silently singing the poetry of your soothing love?

Can you make these sacrifices and then forget them, requiring not even your own praise?

Humility is the gift given to us; a simple shining pebble nestled within our heart, which fosters the expression of our greatest love in the most hidden of places, away from the eyes and the approval of others. Humility breaks free from conformity so that we might live a life of “rightness” with God. Humility allows us to walk upon the body of our Mother gently and with reverence unashamed but without pride.

I know pride, have been ruled by it and selfishly indulged the lies of my ego by contorting my body into misshapen poses most pleasing to the world. I have withheld that which I know another requires because of false esteem that seduced me into believing I was more worthy and that giving made me weak.

In remembering humility I am being freed to return to the grace of my soul and to use my body as the landscape through which my nature is liberated.

The humility I am remembering challenges all modern notions of freedom of expression, beauty, or reward. Freed expression is the song of love, beauty is the pebble and not the cut diamond and reward is living in oneness with my God and my Mother Earth.

I bow my head to acknowledge the greatness of All My Relations. I am remembering that each act of kindness I perform is as natural as breathing. Requiring reward for breathing would result in physical death; requiring reward for kindness results in death of the spirit. Natural instincts need only the blessing of life in order to thrive.

Walking this path which is placed before me is no great act and requires no self-aggrandisement, just as a wolf requires no applause for the giving of its song to the moon.

When we are humbled by each sacrifice we make we are freed from the shallow waters of conformity and dive, instead, into the depth of our tremendous soul.

Sacrifice and humility cannot exist along-side the mediocrity of fortune, material abundance and socially constructed ideals of perfection. Sacrifice and humility require the tremendous act of silence and of fierce submission to the ancient and primal call of our Soul.

Restrain the Insane Lest Chaos Reign

2011-10-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

The controlling, “power-over”, dominance of man-made religions permeates all areas of our society. We recreate this religion in all constructs of our lives – in the hierarchies we adhere to, in the worship of trinkets – money being yet another external source of power, in our institutions and corporations. Although we do not call it religion and we have all but erased any reference to God, we replicate the essence of its dogma at every turn. We seek to control and dominate through instilling fear of the wrath of poverty, illness and loneliness. Through fear we are led to uphold a system into which we are indoctrinated, cursed with never being enough; never pretty, rich or thin enough. We pray for perfection and purification with our wallets and seek to escape the evil of our true nature. We deny our bodies with our obsessive need to sculpt them.

And this permeates our mental health systems as well. Any behaviour deemed as “out of control” must be controlled with medications, therapies and, if need be, restraints.

We seek to dwarf and eradicate “illusions” of grandeur and delusional creativity. These make us uncomfortable and threaten our fragile structures. These people, these “mentally ill”, do not conform to, nor do they reflect, our collective external reality.

Those who are marked as mentally ill rally against the norm; they hear voices others cannot hear, see images others cannot see. They are messengers whom we shoot with mind-numbing drugs so that we might kill the message.

The mentally ill must be restrained lest chaos reigns; chaos that results in unbridled expression.

The dull comfort of an orderly world; one in which we can count on wars, corporate greed, earth-destroying machinery, famine and soul wrenching cruelty is chosen because of its predictability. We can rely on those activities of materialism and say we are against them while we continue to sculpt our bodies, silence our minds with entertainment that relishes that which we say appals us, and bend our knees to the will of the economy and the affluent that hold its reins.

And so I wonder; would the “depressed” contemplate and plot their own escape from overwhelming sadness if they could be held and validated – assured that their tears make sense in a world where inflicting pain on a massive scale is sanctioned?

Would the “bi-polar” require medications that feed the gluttony of the pharmaceuticals if space was cleared for the expression of immense joy and expansive energy; if they had partners that freed themselves from the chains of equilibrium and danced with them in the bedlam?

Would the “schizophrenic” need to scream so loudly if they were heard?

What if the mentally ill are the barometer of a world that is truly ill, sick to the point of collapse, deaf to the collective soul that whispers to us but is unheard through the reckless din we have created?

What if God is truly among us now and those that know this, feel this presence are overcome with God’s sorrow, joy and anger? And so they give voice to God in a hundred ways that threaten to break through the haze we so desperately need in order to maintain this religion we adhere to and the idols we have constructed to worship at.

I walk among the mentally ill, know the power of a label that seeks to invalidate each thought I have, each vision I share.

Yet it is amidst the chaos of my own mind where I hear the voice of my soul, taste the tears of truth and sing the madness of compassion – none of which are mine, but are expressions of Divine Love; the insanity of God.

I stand with those who cannot live within the house of conformity and so exist outside of it looking in. Yet I have also made my home within that house and collapsed into the seductive breast of compliance. And I have learned that within it, I cannot breathe and colours are dull and food is tasteless.

As madness weaves around me and my brothers and sisters, I must embrace that which God gives me. Not ‘must’ as in commands but ‘must’ as in my organic nature. Just as I ‘must’ eat in order to live, I must live in the untamed world so that I might know life.

This religion and the lunacy of its’ materially-driven clergy is rotting, just as the walls of the insane asylums that once held the wild ones have collapsed, and the shiny falsehoods preached to the masses are beginning to be revealed for what they are.

And it is on the breath, in the sorrow and through the ecstasy of those irrational ones; those that live on the streets, in the darkness of their homes, and in the prisons of the terrified dictator, that God’s love and desire can be found – wrapped in the skin of the wounded.

The Gift of Birth

2011-09-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

Thank God you were born;
at the perfect time, in the perfect form.
You brought the sunshine into our family,
you were the warm spot in the heart of our tribe.

Thank God you were born;
so much beauty in your tiny face.
Looking into your innocent depths,
I wanted to be
a better me.

Thank Goddess for you;
landing in amongst this small circle of souls,
each of us made more bright
by your arrival.

Thank Spirit for your Spirit,
joining me on this journey,
in this life,
to be lost together and to find each other.

There is more to us then this blood we share,
more then common memories and missing pieces.
There are the thousand shared yesterdays,
on pieces of this earth
that we have yet to revisit today.

Pebbles; A Mighty Life

2011-08-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a year since Pebbles died. At times I miss her as though it was yesterday. The pain is gone – or nearly so – but the space she left hasn’t filled yet.

Perhaps it never will.

I’m okay with that.

She was my best friend and we knew each other without limitations on love. There were no expectations, no conditions – every time we were together there was only play, tenderness and deep familiarity; an irreplaceable bond.

I remember holding her those last days. She was so tiny and fragile. She seemed confused much of the time. Embracing her close to my heart was like holding a tiny bird. I knew it was time for her to go. The knowing crept up on me like a soft shadow; I felt it coming long before it enveloped me. The last time I took her to the beach she didn’t struggle to be released from my arms, from the blanket I wrapped her in. She just cuddled close to me and stared out at the water, breathing deeply the salt air.

She knew it was time to go.

The day she died I spent seeing clients; one after the other while she rested in the house. The Vet came to check in on her and when she saw her, stumbling as she walked, she told me it was time. Strangely I was in a small way relieved, both Pebbles and I having been released from enduring a long goodbye, one where I would hold on more fiercely than she.

She lay in my arms while the sedative was given. Her sleep came fast and deepened as I lay her on her pillows. I stroked her and whispered to her words that only she and I will ever know.

Then she was gone; her mighty life on this earth over, her tasks here complete. I placed a wren’s wing between her tiny paws and kissed her a final time.

I cried softly as I stroked her, reluctant to allow the Vet to wrap her and take her away.

I cried more loudly when she did.

I still sense Pebbles’ presence at times. She romps through grass too tall for her to see over; running to me, ears perked and eye’s bright. She always fades away before she reaches me.

My heart always aches a little at these times.

I’m okay with that.

Elation

2011-07-23T09:19:00.001-07:00

In this moment there could be a no more perfect place
for me to be, just be.
Sun rising warm on my face,
eagle perched in a nearby tree,
water in constant motion, now retreating from the shore.

In this moment there could be a no more perfect me;
gentle heart and calm mind,
listening to the whispers of this Earth,
hopeful, daring,
daring to hope.

How do I gather these moments within me?
Store them in my Soul
so that they arise, like this sun,
when I cannot see the Light?

Ravens surround me and Morrigan calls,
I hear her voice in the tide.
She is not angry, she does not scream,
even as she opens her cloak to me.

O Goddess of this Earth, of this Universe
O Goddess of this heart, of this breath;
Rise up from this sacred place
where all your treasures await.

Rise up fierce and gentle Mother;
sing to me the Eagles song,
lift me up on wings of gold.
Carry me, carry me.

Sitting on this beach in this moment
I could believe that God constructed this place
just for me.
I could believe that this was God’s way
of celebrating my birth.

That when I plunged head first
into this life; grasping for light,
strong heart in plump body,
God was so moved that this place
sprung up from His own elation,
knowing I would sit here one day
and appreciate His gift to me.

I believe that for all of us;
each new life an elated creation.
Like the seal that peaks its head from the waters,
we come from deep places.
But always we surface, always arise
to be carried most gently to shore.

Forever

2011-07-06T10:03:00.000-07:00

I went to the river and the river was dry.
I walked the forest and the forest was brittle.
I hiked the earth and the earth was hard.
I shrieked for the end of all things.

I came to a snake; she had shed her skin.
She was near death, under the hot sun.
The earth cracked and split; within was a small baby.
I held her and she started to cry.

Her tears fell onto the earth and spread
to the rivers and forests; everything became soft.
My blood began to run again; I was growing young again
and old at the same time.

The Scream

2011-06-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

In the forest dark and deep
live the wild women of the Sidhe
with hair of black and eyes of blue
and shining skin of silver hue.

Beneath a hill they gather there;
Hag and Mother, the Maiden fair,
‘round a table of ancient oak
breathing in the sagebrush smoke.

Secrets whispered from lips to ears;
hushed so only the feral hear.
Learn they do of impending death.
Destiny carried on rancid breath.

Joylessly their eyes ignite,
fire sparks cut through the night.
The truth within the belly burns,
heavy with what has been learned.

The tale of fate begins to rise,
and on the wind of maddened cries,
finds a way into your dreams;
Best listen up when the Banshee screams.

Blessings for Summer Solstice

2011-06-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

The Sun rises miraculously over the Ocean every morning
- whether you sit in peace or in strife -
the Sun still rises and lights the Earth.

May the Sun restore FULLNESS to you
as the Divine masculine and feminine
come into harmony.

Blessings of the Summer Solstice...
Let your perfect light shine!

Our hips continue to grow...

2011-06-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

A recent study has discovered that our hips continue to grow/expand as we age. This is distressing to many women, the doctor reporting said, and science is investigating ways to stop this growth.

Hmmmm...I wonder who these distressed women are? I don't know about the rest of you but the women I know are concerned about matters like:

- how to contribute their sacred creativity to the communities they are part of,
- how to love and honour their bodies,
- how to be role models to young women and girls so they do not become trapped in the stupidity of todays culture, and
- how to unleash their Spirit on a world in need.

These may be trivial, I know, but to the women I know the fact that NATURE decided to let our hips grow even more beautiful as we age is of little consequence to them - or to anyone who is blessed with loving them.

Shaman as Bridge

2011-05-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Gaps, fissures, openings are best connected by bridges. The bridge spans the empty space between two solid connecting points; be that cliff to cliff, mind to body, earth to universe. The Shaman’s role is to be the bridge in the healing experience; existing on both sides of reality – ordinary and non-ordinary, connecting this state of consciousness and the deeper levels of consciousness.

The Shaman as Bridge exists on both sides of the fissure, is both weak and strong at once and is always under tension, always visible. There is vulnerability in this role that requires the Shaman to be fully aware of both her/his weakest and strongest points. Imagine crossing a bridge, not knowing where the weak point may be; one would feel less then sure crossing such a bridge, never knowing when they may take a wrong step and plummet to the hard earth below them. A Shaman who is unaware of her/his weakest points creates just such an uncertainty in their work. In knowing the weakest point on the bridge, there are no surprises. One can cross with certainty that the journey will be a safe one.

The bridge that we are moves in all ways; from side to side and from above to below. The Shaman is the bridge that rests in the centre of the Divine, connecting the Higher Self to the Self, the “I” to the “Thou”. As we are both the bridge and the bridge keeper, the Shaman decides who crosses over, who walks upon the bridge in order to aid in the healing process. Balance is essential in this role for a bridge unbalanced will soon collapse. Balance between masculine/feminine, light/dark, wild/tamed will result in a fearless reverence for the experience in Spirit world.

We are not attached to the form we may take in Otherworld and allow for the guidance of Spirit as we span the distance between here and there, present and past.

In offering (and being called) to be the bridge, the Shaman, I accept that there is a point in the spanning of the distance where there is the Unknown. I ensure that I am able to be present in this place and to hold the energy as all is revealed to me. It is my responsibility to ensure that my vision is clear, my energy is open and my heart is expansive in order that I hold the space between this experience and the next. Every bridge leads somewhere, and for the Shaman as bridge, we lead others to wholeness, to healing and to peace. Yet the journey across may be tumultuous, we manage this process, like the bridge keeper, helping others find their way.

Beltane Blessings

2011-04-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

The fires of Beltane blaze fierce in the night
filling the darkness with warmth and with light
The veil is parting and whispers are heard
"Submit to desire as your passion returns..."

Blessings of Beltane - May the flames leap high in your heart and may your Spirit burn bright and strong!

Blessings,
Deborah

Gifts of Invisibility

2011-04-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Dreams of my youth; of being back at F.E. Osborne Junior High, only this time I am me now around the children that were so important to me then. I am fascinated by the ease in which they relate to the teachers, the ease in themselves. I sit alone among them, there but not, certainly not seen.

I remember my teachers; one in particular, Mrs. Rose, the most beautiful woman in the world, or so I thought at the time. Her earrings always matched her outfit; a black dress with pink polka dots called for pink earrings with black polka dots. Her name fit her perfectly for she always smelled like flowers; I breathed deeply when she leaned over me, pointing out something in my Language Arts text, her breasts looking soft and inviting. She floated on her high heels and exuded an aloofness to all of us youth, even the popular ones, as though she didn’t really belong here with us, was misplaced and simply tolerating the classroom until she found her way to the place she really belonged – a grand and magnificent place. Aloof with all except for one, Kim Kowalski, who was much like her. Kim dressed older than she was but classy, coordinated. She, too, was distant, very much alone but seemingly comfortable with that, in her own skin. You could tell Mrs. Rose looked fondly upon her. I envied that look.

When Mrs. Rose looked at me I shrank, aware of my ugliness and my inability to please her. I desperately wanted to please her and it was her class I did the best in – the best meaning I didn’t fail. It was as though her delicate nature pulled at something in me. I didn’t want to hurt the softness that she was. I wanted the cool aloofness to gather me up and see in me what she saw in Kim.

Those days, the days of the sinking stomach when the sound of the buzzer told me it was time to go to class. Those days of dread knowing my homework wasn’t done. I didn’t understand the words of my teachers – they may well have been speaking Chinese. I couldn’t manage concepts and theories and keep these organized in my head. I sat apart from everything and everyone – my inadequacies like a vacuum threatening to suck me into darkness.

Teachers stopped asking for my homework after a while, made little jokes about it that had the other students snickering, rolled their eyes at my feeble excuses.

Oddly enough these memories don’t pain me, as I sit sipping coffee in my warm bed. These memories are like the colourful patches on an old quilt. It was these times that opened a new sight in me – that sharpened the vision of a girl looking through windows at the lives unfolding on the other side. The isolation driving me to become my own best friend; a relationship that 35 years later has become the gentle place I can fall, the smell of roses on my own soft breasts.

Eagle Spirit

2011-03-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

I saw a bald eagle perched high in a tree,
surrounded by tiny boisterous birds
making quite a fuss;
chirping and squeaking, darting and diving,
madly flapping their wings.

Appearing amused by all the kerfuffle,
the eagle calmly sat;
simply tilting his head
this way and that.

I thought to myself,
This must be how Spirit sits among us
as we run around,
tweeting and twirling and flapping our wings...
as if we have something better to do
then to rest in the majesty of Spirit.

Spring is here

2011-03-18T08:35:00.001-07:00

Awakening, the Maiden returns
Rising in splendor and awe.
At this time of year
She sprouts as She thaws
And we hear, we hear Her once more.

Blessings of Ostara - As you awaken from your slumber and the Sun burns long, may all seeds you plant grow strong and fruitful!

Blessings,
Deborah

Bring Back the Snakes

2011-03-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

Today is St. Patrick’s day, a day that marks the triumph of St. Patrick over the Pagans of Ireland; a day of mourning, not celebration. Not for me. Today marks the day an Irish Saint crowned a man-god, suppressing our Mother, driving Her to dark places and silencing Her voice. Those who knew the truth of Her were made to suffer; to convert to a faith that forced them from the groves into brick and mortar and wood – the very wood they worshiped among for eons. They were forced from the truth and knowing of their instinct to the pages of a book they could not read. The snake that represented the sacred; transformation, our closeness to Earth, was put into a tree and made responsible for the ‘sin’ of seeking knowledge. And my Mother was silenced, her beauty supplanted with buildings that required her destruction. She was silenced by the Saints of this god who rules, not loves and by the currency and greed of the day.

But now She stirs as her children return
And she awakens in splendor and awe.
At this time of year
She sprouts as She thaws
And we hear, we hear Her once more.