Category Archives: Faith

Radical Gratitude

stained-glass-hearts-whimsy

What if we gave everything we received,

More notice than a checkout clerk gives

To your weekly grocery order that happens

To click, beep, clack, whir, and push its way

Birthing into the cocoon of recycled Christmas trees

Or reduced trees that once held dominion over Oregon.

What if we examined every aspect of our day

Giving more attention to the opportunities

Written on billboards, bumper stickers, back alleys,

Cardboard box fragments held by sunburned bits

Of human scattered at the exit ramps like accident debris.

But, there are no accidents. Life doesn’t live itself.

It must be championed, battled, chewed up,

Swallowed whole-heartedly with passion to fire it up

To the blazing hot necessity of burning away

The unnecessary baggage that we all carry.

Let us practice enthusiastic radical gratitude

For laughter

For joy

For peace

For balance

For opportunity to try again tomorrow

Radical gratitude for being able to witness this moment

This creation that we’ve all been gifted

That we all share with beating hearts filled with awe

Peppered with wonder, wondering why we’re here.

Wisdom Seeker

 

The ancient wilds have reached into her spirit

elevated her to endless horizon

Baltered in rhythm with the tides

shrieked, pranced, dashed, danced

Arms raised in worship to the Dark moon

Skyclad but for the whimpered light

of that which compeled and sent her breathless

willingly swathed in the darkness

re-birthed from the warrior to the Wisdom Seeker

the preparation transitions from mother to crone

Be At Peace

 

lighthouse

Be at peace, my brothers and sisters,

shine your beacon where you roam

Know your power, my bloodkin,

Let love call you home.

Be at peace, my beloved friends,

Bring our spirits passions kept

Be at peace my loved ones

Be at peace with your deepest depths.

Retreated being

I put on my running shoes
only to find they force retreat
Bluntly I discover by accident
The consistent measure of defeat
Savaged from a life’s cloak torn
Returned to earth from whence born
Finding little comfort from the scorn
Stripped of skin a soul’s been shorn
With little shelter from the storm

I share the flight of winter fowl
Bundled up beneath my cowl
Staring gray in noon time glare
Rejection of my humblest prayer
Reduced, returned, retaliated
Longing for my spirit sated
But that dream has dissipated
Was what I dreamed through joy
A beloved story of girl and boy?
Wake me up so I can breathe
Love and laughter, soothing peace

Misplaced Gate

The trees do not whisper my name in the voice of a billion stars.
The sun shadows my upturned face denying my gate
My cries of desperation, clinging to the echoing melody fall away
Dripping in autumnal colors, released from the iced earth;
A presence not present, to my dismay, but somewhere waiting to be unpacked
Unearthed from the cardboard grave where its been held hostage
By my unreasonable, childish demands, that I should not change.
The place my spirit abides is dark to me because I’ve become unplugged
I’m looking. I’m searching. I must find my outlet so my spirit can remember
So I can remember the laughter of water, the chatter of dust, my place in the Universe.

A Real Boy

Oak

I want to be a real boy, I don’t want to be a stump

My joints articulating better than my knotty lump

My heart a pumping sap filled core,

with arms outstretched to shelter more

I wait for the carver to create me anew

From my snazzy top hat to my hard wooden shoes.

Direct me, show me, guide life to this oak

Allow me a life, my leaves are all spoke.

Queen in Passing

grave

Solemnity spoke

The night I prayed would never come

has whispered hallowed night

a reclamation of eternal earth

the kiss of chilled winds blight

The hands I loved have now succumbed

The fiery pyre take flesh from sight

a resolution to embrace rebirth

your angelic spirit take flight

Moon Mother

Of our spirit comes forth a light that cannot be denied

A token of our birthright, our power her wedded bride

Raise our hands up to the moon to draw her down to see

Sing in sky-clad voices, to the tune played three times three

Hark! Hail! We greet you with our bodies meet your night

Hark! Hail! We honor you with this our hearth-fire light.

Hark! Hail! We beckon you to join our ecstasy

Hark! Hail! We dance for you, dear Mother, Blessed Be!

Do not be afraid

As you are an ocean of tears, so are you a world of forgiveness. A haven of justice filtered through human imperfections that allows opportunity for love with each challenge to your comfort.

You possess free will enough to elect whether you embrace change or if you allow fear to petrify your heart into jaded segments. How can you gaze upon a child’s pain with no desire to make the world innocent for them; for yourself?

It is inevitable that your faithful trust in your brethren will be accosted with confusion or anger towards your generosity. But, the price you pay now, will be small compared to the cost of refusal should you deny your righteous compass.

Turn to your true north, even being different than your friends, to find what makes your spirit, your very essence scream with the ecstasy of rapturous delight. Give permission to yourself to be extraordinarily outstanding in a world that only allows what is nurtured to bloom and grow.

If you find yourself in the forest of darkness with bruised, bloodied, or damaged limbs falling from your own family tree, notice where they’re planted. See how shallow or how deeply those roots linger in the earth by releasing your primal self to its care.

Drink from the knowledge of the river bend that granted your ancestors life to flood your own flesh. Sing in the voice of your grandmother, your grandfather, and those back to the beginning of time’s pacing.

Decree your path without word because what you say can be erased, what you do is how you progress through your life unhindered; calling like-minded to your shores. The shores of the ocean of tears that surrounds your world of forgiveness are yours for the sake of personal redemption.

Setting down the son

I wanted to love you beyond reason

to tuck you under warm blankets

inhale the scent of your freshly bathed skin

pressing my lips to your cool forehead

stroking your hair back from your face

so I could memorize it until dawn.

I wanted to embrace you with hugs

to protect you from the angry, vengeful world

to be your advocate for justice until you spoke

your first words in defense of your right to exist

that I could offer you a vocabulary for peace

that would last throughout your lifetime

I wanted family intimacy to gestate organically

with inside jokes created with one another

stories built upon our common history

beliefs based on a mutual understanding

goals set and met together in blood-line unity

Cherished memories transmogrified into legends

BUT

I stand here holding a bin full of dusty artifacts

every imagining I’d dreamed about abandoned

discarded into a tornadic swipe of desolation

Emptied of sacredness into the seasonal winds

My love, hugs, and hope for a family with you

have perished due to your intentional self-destruction

I mourn for you as if you had passed the veil

I see evidence of you in portraits lying happily

with smiles that don’t eat your eyes with joy

except for mine which shine with implicit trust

passionate encouragement radiates towards you

so brightly that you cringed away, scalded by love

that didn’t hurt but should have flayed your skin

because that’s what you were taught by my blood

I wish you peace.

I wish you love.

I wish you happiness.

I wish you a life worth living.

I wish you to know that I’d do it all again.