Winter Wind howls bitterly beyond
the glass barrier, separating me
from nature.
She threatens, she taunts,
“Spring will never find
her way here again.”
She lies. I know that.
Soon I will rake my hands through
clear water, scoop up tiny snails
and marvel at their form
before returning them to
tranquility.
Soon, Brother Sun will kiss
my dark head, even if Winter Wind
throws a tornadic fit, she is
always doomed to give way
to the turning, the forever
turning.
Never am I more myself
than when surrounded by sky
by water, by greens, browns and blues
when wind touches my skin
burns my cheeks and sun warmth
bathes my hair, dark hair
like forest earth
and when I stand atop
this sacred mountain
I see–I see.
*an older poem [from around 2006-2007) about exploitation.
Eternal melodies
swell from spirit places,
future and far away places
where no blood turns
to stone.
Singing does not belong only
to those conceived on stage
with applause filled lungs,
neon lights dying
them green.
Bastard performances
given by star makers
unleash two-headed rabbits,
which hop over life,
diverting aim,
painting
with muted colors
that miss targets
and abort genius,
giving birth to gray men
and hollow women.
A few years ago, a woman attempted to cost me my job. She held a magnifying glass over my professional life and constantly pointed out all of my flaws, which were, and still are, many. She nitpicked at my inadequacies, pointing them out to my boss and to the people I worked with. She repeatedly brought up the “sins of my past” and made me feel so small. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. My stomach churned. My heart ached and I grew bitter, at her, at those around me. Every time I saw her, I ached. I seethed with self-loathing. Why couldn’t I be good enough? My body was under control. I had sold myself to the cause, to the mission and had sacrificed a well-paying job to be where I was and now, on a daily basis, I was being raked over the coals for little things that didn’t even matter in the grand scheme of things, but these little things were monstrous to her and pretty soon, I started to doubt my self-worth. I have a tendency to look at the overall plot of life and I may not get hung up on the typos of life. She was the type of person who zeroed in on the typos of life and overlooked the plot or the effect that constantly pointing out the typos was having on the characters. In fact, to her, the typos of life were life itself. They mattered most or so it seemed to me.
She was puffed up with pride over my downfalls, or that’s what I thought. And though I apologized a million times, nothing I said redeemed me in her eyes. Then one day, during my vacation time, I was hoeing my vegetable garden, trying to pray, trying to find peace within myself, tears sliding down my cheeks. Why did it matter so much that this woman was condescending to me? Yet, I could not find the peace I sought. Then a knowing, like a whisper from a far shore, came to me, “Forgive her.”
“What?” I said. “Forgive her? She’s the one who has found flaws with me and she won’t forgive me for not being perfect. She will say that I’m forgiven because she wants to look spiritual, but in her mind I’m still not good enough. What she really wants is for me to be fired or to just be totally broken as a person.”
The soul-whisper came again, “You can’t make another person forgive you. You can’t make her like you,” came the knowing in my knower. “You can only release the pain that her unwillingness to accept you for who you are has caused you and you must forgive her for making you dislike who you are, for picking your life apart, for fault-finding, for trying to get you fired.” I dropped my hoe and held my hands up in surrender, speaking to my maker. “I forgive her,” I said. “I don’t understand her, but I do forgive her.” A sense of peace swept over me and I when I went back to work, she had no power over me. I was free from her hold and strangely enough, I think she knew it.
Not long after that I learned that the woman was severely OCD, that she had such strong perfectionistic tendencies that she drove even herself crazy and it had come because nothing she did had ever been good enough for her mother and suddenly, I felt sad for her, that she had lived her entire life, trying to perform, to work her way into God’s grace and into social acceptance. I was glad for my “freedom”, the freedom to be imperfect, the freedom to just be me. The truth about her was that she had low self-esteem and made herself feel better by belittling those she deemed as “less perfect” and by that I mean that she obsessed over which way the canned food labels were turned and that when any little thing was out of order, she became an emotional basket-case and barged into the supervisor’s office in tears, that she called the board and insisted on getting what she wanted. Within two years she was gone and I kept my job until I was ready to leave on good terms.
My point in telling this is that there will always be those people’s whose expectations we can’t live up to, but we aren’t meant to live up to someone else’s expectations. We aren’t meant to be molded into someone else’s idea of perfection, but we are meant to forgive and until we forgive, we are letting someone else control our lives. Unforgiveness will make a person bitter and sick.
Too many voices full
of empty wisdom
modern knowledge
useless theories
concieved in Mom’s
basement amidst
Xbox victories
and Game Boy ideologies,
no sweat, no blood,
no real life lived,
only contemporary vampire
philosophy and animae
spirituality.
Life is more.
Feel the Earth.
Hear her heatbeat.
Dance, to her rains.
Touch the sky
and relish the sun.
Speak with the Spirit
and walk with the Father.
Life is more.
I’m not sure what propels some people to feel like they must control others and I’m not sure what causes others to feel like the person controlling them knows more than they do, but my experiences in life have taught me that no matter where I go, whether it’s to a church of any demonination, to a pow-wow, on the job, to a writer’s convention or even to work, there will always be someone who feels the need to “control”, or to be in power. A friend of mine used to call it the Moses Complex. He said that some people feel the need to lead. They love the rush they get from seeming important or making others think they have more knowledge. The ironic thing is that most often these people are not the most qualified to be in a position of power, but they are good at intimidating and bluffing others. Sometimes they do have knowledge and qualifications but they are so domineering that they would gladly suck the life energy right out of their followers. They are like spiritual vampires. They manipulate and intimidate others into subjection. They do not want members of the clan, congregation or group to know more than they do. I once heard such a leader say that nobody in his congregation could surpass him in knowledge. He really needed to just get over himself and face the fact that he wasn’t the only one who could read or pray or sing or listen to the Spirit.
I’m just rambling a bit here, but yesterday I met two men. One was a “leader” because he was in position. He was the chief of a band. He enjoyed having others recognize him as important and defer to him before making decisions. He knew more than those in his group and wanted to make sure that everyone who aligned themselves with him knew that he knew more. I do not know how he got to be a chief, because he obiviously had not taken lessons from the greats who taught and believed that a chief must be willing to do more than he asks of his people. He did not possess a spirit of humility but of “look at me…I’m in charge. I’m the spiritual one. I know the secrets of the elders and you do not, so I am better than you are and if you do not do what I say, then I will get angry and walk away from you to show that you are not worthy to be in my presence.” Well, I guess I’m not. I cannot align myself with such a person. The other was a “leader” because he had walked a long, hard road and had found both peace and victory in his life. People just automatically gravitated toward him and looked up to him. When he spoke, humble, humorous, soft and full of wisdom, everyone listened.His hope was to share with others and make their journeys better. He had a sense of humor and was not “self-important”. Rather, he saw himself as a fellow traveler, hoping to learn as he mentored. I found myself really listening to him, even asking him questions so that I might learn more. He was a joy to meet. The beautiful thing is that there are others like him, diamonds in a box of rocks, and these people walk among us daily.
I write this because it’s too easy to let the debris and dust from the rocks cover the diamonds. The rocks are so many and the diamonds so few that we often overlook the diamonds because of a big rock, boasting self-importance. But the diamonds are out there. So, I make this note to myself and I share it with you: Don’t let some power hungry mongrel dictate who you are, whether they be a minister, a chief, a bossy neighbor, a local politician, etc. Do what you have to do to survive if they are in charge of you, but when you get away from them, stay away. Don’t bring them home with you by talking about them over and over and dwelling on their “jerkiness.” Realize that they are have something missing within themselves and are over compenstating.
I leave my blog today with these 7 little snippets:
1. Not everyone who is bossy is truly a boss.
2. Not everyone who is in charge can really take charge.
3. Not everyone the masses vote for is worthy of the office they are given.
4. Never follow a leader who cannot follow.
5. Seek what is true, believe what is true, act on what is true and you will discover yourself and it is to yourself that you must ultimately be true.
6. It is better to be a wandering drifter than to be controlled by another’s whims.
7. God never intended for you to live your life by someone else’s blueprints.
a ni ge ya da na i
v gi li si
v gi tsi
a ni ge ya da na i
tsa la gi a ni ge ya
English: Papilio machaon caterpillar en face. Français : Chenille de machaon (Papilio machaon), vue de face. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
No matter how this house appears
I will always be looking for swallowtails
by the road, nestled in Queen Ann’s arms
watching dragonflies hover over water
and listening to wind in the pines.
I am eternal in fields of dry oats
along the path ancestors walked
where acorns roll beneath my feet
and ivy embraces ancient oaks
touched by juniper scent.
This surge within does not diminish
from years of earth time, nor fade
like fabric left in long-time window light.
Forever I stroll toward youthful sunsets
over that western hill
walking with a child’s hand in mine
first singing, “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,”
then “Baa Baa Black Sheep, have you any wool?”
meandering past wild sugar cane toward
orange, and red and yellow blazing glory.
This dwelling’s luster shall not vanish
from eyes of those who care to see her shine
despite weathered boards and broken panes
for I have tasted stars and touched rainbows
with these immortal hands.
When I was a kid, a girl walked passed me in the isle of a school bus and said something unkind to me, called me a name I think. I can’t remember what she said, only how I felt afterwards. A kid in the seat beside me quickly recited in my defense, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” “Yeah,” I said, “That’s right.” But now, all these years later, I realize that it wasn’t right. Words can hurt. In fact, they can kill, and if you let them, people will talk you to death—literally.
Words operate on a spiritual principle. Therefore, I am going to be building my position on a spiritual book, the New Testament. It is the book I know best, therefore it is the one I am using. For those not familiar, the New Testament was originally written in Greek and is an account of the life, works, words, acts and letters of Jesus and those who followed him during the first few centuries A.D. The New Testament is a collection of books, kind of like a library, written by some of the followers of Jesus during this time period.
Here is the familiar English passage from the Book of John in the King James version of the New Testament:
“In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the WORD was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things which were made were made by him; and without him was not anything was made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:1-5
Now here are the lines translated from the Greek Bible. While I’ll admit that I’m no expert, I am capable of looking up words in a Greek dictionary and of breaking words apart to find roots and meanings.
At the commencement of, the onset of, the start of, the beginning of, time and all the physical universe was the thought, intent, reasoning, purpose, motive, design and plan.
And the thought, intent, reasoning, purpose, motivation, design and plan was with the Supreme Divinity, the Supreme Magistrate and Supreme Authority—the Ultimate Ruler, Lord of the Universe.
And the thought, intent, reasoning, purpose, motivation, design and plan was God, the Supreme Divinity, the Supreme Magistrate and Supreme Authority—the Ultimate Ruler, Lord of the Universe.
***Personal note: the Supreme Authority is his WORD and his WORD is the Supreme Authority and his WORD is more than a spoken sound. It is a deliberate intent, purpose, design, plan. In Genesis the story of creation tells us that God SPOKE and that his WORD created all the universe. In Colossians we are told that all things are held together by the power of his WORD. He willed it to be and that thought, will, intent, purpose, WORD is still holding it all together.
The next part of this passage in John says, “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.”
All things—I was surprised to discover that the word things here is actually the Greek word—RHEMA, which means an utterance, but even more, it means a LIVING WORD! Let’s go on with the rest of this verse…were made, generated, caused to become by him, the WORD, the thought, intent, purpose, mind and plan of the Supreme Divinity.
In the thought, intent, purpose, will, WORD of the Supreme Divinity, was vitality and the vitality was the luminosity of humanity. And the luminosity was seen, appeared, in the dimness, obscurity; and the dimness, the obscurity could not….”
The next few words of that verse are “comprehended it not” but the term for “comprehended” in the King James Version did not match the term in my Greek version of the Bible and I could not find the Greek version’s term in a dictionary, so I wanted to say up front that it is only the term used by the King James scholars that I am translating here, but oh, what a great word it is!
The King James scholars used a word that sounds like katalambano, which would make the passage read something like this… In the thought, intent, purpose, will, WORD of the Supreme Divinity, was vitality and the vitality was the luminosity of humanity. And the luminosity was seen, appeared, in the dimness, darkness, obscurity; and the dimness, darkness, the obscurity could not overtake, control, seize, lay hold on, find, possess, obtain, apprehend or perceive the thought, intent, purpose, plan, design, the vitality.”
So, this passage tells us that God’s WORD is alive, that it is a living entity and as a living entity, it holds together the entire universe .
Now, if we know we are created in God’s image and that his word framed the universe, then it stands to reason that our words also contain power. Let’s see what Jesus said about it, “For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall SAY unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he SAITH shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he SAITH.” Mark 11:23
Spiritual things are created by words, and not just spoken ones but the ones that live in our hearts. Physical things are also created by words. For example, I recently said to myself, just thought it very strongly really, “I wish I had some of those nice paint markers, but the things cost more than I’m willing to pay at Wal-mart.” That very DAY I was in Peddler’s Mall and there was a set of the exact markers I wanted at a third of the cost! Wow…call it coincidence. I don’t think so. I don’t know how many times I’ve wished for something only to have it manifest. On the flip side, I once heard a woman speak her daughter right into the grave and many times I’ve heard people speak themselves sick.
King Solomon once said that life and death are in the power of the tongue. In another place Jesus said, “By thy words thou shall be justified and by thy words thou shall be condemned.” Matt. 12:37
A negative mouth creates a negative environment. A fearful mouth creates a fearful environment. A positive mouth creates good things. So, my point….your words contain creative power. Oh, and back to the people who talk you to death…people who never say anything good about you or positive to you, realize that the mouth that has the most power in your life is yours! There will always be someone there to tell you that you can’t do something or that you’ll never succeed. They are what the late Joseph Campbell called dreamkillers. Ignore them and speak your own reality, the reality of the WORD.
time, a ship to carry me
through this space,
finite place
encasing immortality
as myself, real self,
sees that yonder plane
through ethereal windows
thoughts, flesh-weighted,
do not veil reality
dampen power
or hinder flight.
Every now and then I suffer from a philosophical moment. Okay, I admit it. It’s more than every now and then. It’s just about every day at least a couple of times a day, unless I’m too busy to think and have to run on auto-pilot (which sometimes happens when you work in an elementary school). Today, I thought I’d share two questions that keep picking at my brain.
What if everyone in the world were capable of and suddenly decided to— think for themselves?
And what if greed and the need to dominate others were wiped from existence over night?
There’s a lot of noise in the world. Tons of people all screaming to be noticed, to be heard, to have ten minutes of fame, but for what? What happens after the ten minutes are up? There is a lot of complaining, too. There are the leftist and the rightist and the I’ll-vote -for -whoever -gives -me- something-ists. It can get overwhelming. It can get confusing. I think about a story I read about Ghandi one time, about how he often would return from palaces and the luxuirous surroundings of world leaders and go to his home, sit on the floor and use a spinning wheel, a common tool in humble surroundings. This wheel had a center and the center held the rest of the wheel together. Ghandi did not forget who he was at his core. When he engaged in the humble act of spinning, he resisted the forces of the outside world to mold him and make him into something other than who he was. Heaven knows there are lots of voices and forces out there today trying to mold us, shape us, intimidate us, trick us and beat us into being somebody other than who we are. We must maintain our focus, never forget who we are at the core. In order to do this, we must truly know ourselves. Most people live and die without ever truly knowing themselves. We are more than flesh bodies, more than minds. We are spirit. Like Ghandi’s spinning wheel, we each have a core and if we choose to ignore that core then the darkness of this world will capture it and silence its voice. However, all it takes to free the core is to acknowledge it is there, to return to it. Our core, our spirits, are either walking in freedom and light or else they are enslaved and captured.
Symptoms of a free spirit are:
Love, peace, joy[not a momentary thrill like results from a joke, but a life-long attitude], contentment, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, self-control [reining in of physical appetites], unselfishness, empathy, generousity, gratitude, desire to see justice, honesty, integrity, morality.
Symptoms of an enslaved spirit:
Begrudgment, fear, hate, envy, deceit, greed, dishonesty, uncontrolled physical appetites, sexual perversion, disregard for rights of others, bullying, selfishness, complaining, strife, bitterness, anger, jealousy, unforgiveness, lack of mercy, unthankful, self-serving, self-centered, boastful, self-important.
Mud settles at pond’s bottom.
I can see it. Mid-calf deep
a turtle’s hiding place
beneath sunlight patches
that flicker and play
shadow tricks.
Locust tree is the culprit
half-shading, half-sunning
still, clear water,
encircled by summer
lilies, daisies, mossy grasses,
and dark ivy vines.
Here is my soul, green
blue as nature herself
brown as earth, fluid
as water and intangible
like dancing light and
windblown shadows.
Many years ago, when I was very young, my daddy knew how I loved birds, so he built me a birdhouse. It was a two story house for the purple martins, but they never came. I put the house in the backyard by the willow tree where the brown bats would hang late in the evening. The blue jays came and lived in the house. Then I moved. I took my birdhouse with me and put in on the trellis next to the grapevines, but still no purple martins came. A family of wrens occupied the house for several generations. Wasps occupied it, too. Then about two years ago a storm blue my beloved white birdhouse off its perch and broke the top story beyond repair. The wood was old, rotten, but I couldn’t part with my birdhouse. My daddy had built it for me because I liked birds. So, I did what any country girl would do. I downsized. That’s right. I ditched the damaged top story, put a new roof on it, painted it mustard brown, made a tin satelite and mounted it right next to the toy mailbox (Barbie didn’t need it anymore). Then I took black paint and made a sign that read, “Home of Bubba Bird.” Ironcially, a chickadee took up residence and hence Bubba became a real bird. The one-story purple martin house was now a trailer, a mobile home.
Well, I came home from work one day this past spring and there was Bubba Bird’s house. Broken and on the ground. The nest spilled out and scattered. No bird would ever live in that house again. So I piled the broken remnants beside my outbuilding, thinking that the house had finally seen its last days. But not so. Today I was looking for a piece of barn wood to paint on, to make a plaque to sell. I saw Bubba’s house and picked it up. Then I realized that the back wall was in perfect condition. I could paint on it, but alas, I could not sell it. The birdhouse that my dad made me so long ago is now a sign hanging on the porch which reads, “Come sit on my porch.” It was once a safe haven for jays, wasps and wrens. Now, it is a sign to beckon all the peace-loving souls who wander my way to sit and rest for a spell.
I have learned a lesson from the birdhouse. In a way we are like that birdhouse. No matter how damaged, how broken, we become in life, in the hands of a master artist, we will still have purpose. We will still be useful. Failure isn’t final and our lives are not over until they’re over. We shouldn’t let anyone judge us or count us out, and it looks like the birdhouse will go on being useful as a new creation for many years to come.
I’ve been pretty busy lately, but somehow I’ve accumulated several books to read. I’ve been trying to dig my way through Rachel Varble’s, A Biography of Jane Clemens, Mother of Mark Twain. It’s an interesting read, and I’m learning a lot of history. I just need several uninterrupted hours to complete it. It’s the type of book that feels like I’m “wading through” at times, due to overly romantized descriptive paragraphs and awkward phrasings. The entire book is exposition with no dialogue, so it’s like reading a textbook, laced with the author’s bias. But I’m reading it, despite her writing style, because it is about my home area. However, I often find myself frustrated at the prevailing accepted thought of the times. I suppose that in itself is a lesson in history, it’s depiction changes from one generation to the next. Mrs. Varble wrote her book back in the 1960s and her bias of race and ethnicity fill the book in a million subtle ways. So, I like the history lesson, but I’m not overly fond of her writing style. I will always feel that plain talk is easily understood and too many writers, both past and present, “put on the dog” when they write and spit about a bunch of stuff that nobody ever says in real life. And on that note…
A book I’m LOVING is Stephen King‘s On Writing. While I am not a fan of King’s fictional stories, mostly because I don’t like horror due to the fact that I have an overactive imagination that I can’t shut off and scary images keep me awake at night, I DO like his practical no non-sense look at writing and identify with so much of what he has to say in this book. I’m glad I took the time to pick it up.
Next on the pile is a book called Ill Wind, by Doug Beason and Kevin J. Anders, then comes All Together Dead by Charlane Harris, Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel, And She Was by Cindy Dyson and finally Brandon Mull‘s Fable Haven.
In June, I plan to read Sandra Kring’s latest, A Life of Bright Ideas.
brown leaves crunch
and scattered under your boots
my sandals
as we search for morels
dry-land fish
near black pond’s rim
where a faded sign reads
“no fishing”
twenty year-old jar
lies half leaf covered
no mushrooms peep
through, only bomb shell rocks
and brilliant violent
woodland irises
still
we walk, brother and sister
talking of yesterday
remembering parental wisdom
stories, prophecies of long ago years,
breathing in sweet locust
for the moment
and forgetting
tomorrow.
I am so thrilled and excited about this. I love poetry and now poetry is loving me in return.
http://caseyshaypress.blogspot.com/2012/03/almost-release-day-for-our-poetry-prize.html
my mother calls to me
…stand, daughter
my father calls to me
…sing, child
my relatives say to me
…paint, young’in
rhythms of all ages
…drive me
to dance, to breathe,
…to soar
their lives compel me
…to write.
Aniwayah
amber eyes, like fire
warm me with
intelligence.
Aniwayah
a song in the night
to sisters and brothers
not a romantic song
of freedom or such notions
but rather a song of
being.
He Wo Ni Tsa La Gi
I am from a long line of free spirits
of Oo go yo s ti
and of Moses Black Fox
of Qua tsi te li co
and Woman of Wolf Clan.
I am of Sallly Rogers
who taught my dad to track
and of Granny Mag
whose medicine healed his head wound.
I am of Wi hi ma
who refused to forget
he was “Indian”
even when his uncles
punished him for fear
–of discovery.
He remembered and
his mother remembered
and her father remembered, until
there was no longer a need to fear
Oklahoma. We stayed in Kentucky
in the hills and the hollers
in the nooks and crannies, taking on
White names until it was safe to be
Indian again.
I am she who walks with light,
a whispering wind
who touches the Earth
I am child of these rivers
daughter of these hills.