It would seem that my expectation of spiritual nudity is met with skepticism or anger
Put trust in this vision (which is your own, undiscovered), you’re in no danger
Who you are without labels or signs arranges itself with the setting in your mind blurred
Protecting yourself with the clothing of shame, guilt, and fears of the unkind word.
Set them down. Remove them. Take them off. Unlock the shackles of expectations
Release your shame. Discard your guilt. Turn away from fears; your lamentations.
The ugly words displayed, rescinded of power, like rejected clothes on a clearance rack
The ones returned without receipts, the embracing of personal worth, you get full money back.
Turn your heart on full blast, your eyes gleaming with anticipation like kids on Christmas
Get up off your knees where you’ve been held in fervent prayer to be esteemed as religious
Align your eyes with who you are created to be without excuse, with your modesty lifted
Rip open your shirt like Superman, bare your “S” to declare and expose everything you’re gifted
It’s only then, for those who seek, that you will find a secret world steeped in personal happiness
It’s not for the weak or blundering who hide behind their timid veils of charity waiting for their bliss
It’s for the holy warriors that take on social norms with scratches, bruises and courage as their battle swords
Unexpected actions from injury
Last night I went walking through my neighborhood in an effort to exercise. The night was cool, punctuated by firecrackers and painted with darkness where the streetlights don’t quite reach. The route I’d chosen has a medium grade hill which I wanted to take advantage of so my thighs would tune more to my personal music. I was having a text conversation with my mother-in-law and walking fast enough to hear the groans of protest in my muscles.
When I got to the corner of my street, within eye-shot of my home, my ankle decided to throw me forward onto the asphalt tearing a nickel sized dime deep chunk off my knee, slicing my thumb, and wrenching my back. As I rolled over to sit up, I held my knee and breathed a Peter Griffin for a good while as tears rolled down my face.
A car pulled up in the intersection and two young men asked me if I was okay. Through my tears I explained that I needed to get to my husband. They asked if I could stand. I wasn’t sure since I hadn’t attempted it yet. I was still trying to get my breath. Then they got out of their car and as if approaching an untamed animal they said, “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to help you up.” One on my right side, one on my left, and they lifted me rather easily to standing. A few test steps and I thanked them as they walked back to their car and left.
Other than a nasty gash and a wobbly ankle, I was okay enough to walk to my house and get doctored up by my husband and neighbor. I’m no worse for wear but, in my world, walking and chewing gum are not recommended.
The only thing that really bothered me of all that was their approach of me. They were non-threatening Samaritans reassuring me as I sat in the dark on the street huddled with injury but that they had to even identify themselves as such felt wrong. It felt like they shouldn’t have to introduce themselves as if at a job interview just to help an injured female party.
Yes, I understand why they did it. Yes, I understand society’s rules about approaching another human when you intend to touch them. Yes, I see all of that, but they were reacting appropriately to a fellow human. They weren’t invasive, just cautious. I hate that it were necessary.
I’ve struggled a lot with Love Thy Neighbor on a personal level lately. I’ve written, spoken, and thought less than stellar horrible reviews of where I live. With snipers on my birthday descending on a gun wielding neighbor in the next building and bandy rooster posturing about who is the biggest and strongest among the children and the adults, while adding in a sprinkle of drug addicted/using/dealing people and the imagery is stark.
But.
The young men who stopped to help me get on my feet, my young neighbor who saw me crying and immediately called for his mom to help me, his mom who came jumping over the wall when she saw my injury and her subsequent doctoring, with the assistance of my husband, of my body demonstrates to me that Love Thy Neighbor isn’t just a phrase. It’s a purposeful direction of a human’s attention that creates a supportive network of kind hearts helping one another in times of need.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there is hope hidden in my neighborhood, I just haven’t unlocked that door yet. I’ll just have to keep trying.
Pass it onward!
Did you hear the one about…?
Let me coax your lips a bit to peak interest at an amusing anecdote.
Let me tease your cheeks higher without using a comb (unless you have a beard).
Let me crinkle the corners of your eyes like cellophane gels colored with humor.
Let me witness your laughter rolling around on your tongue,
snorting a bit up the back of your nose, peppered with a touch of “NO WAY!”
Let me tickle your giggler with half-assed ideas
baked into our conversations with all the sprinkled puns and frosting
we can stuff into our groaning bellies and leaking eyeballs
that drown in our gasps for air, revived by our knee slapping.
Pass it onward!
Deepest loss
In my experience there has not been a greater loss felt than that of a child.
I’ve loved you since before you were born
When I saw your face pressed
Like a violet captured
In an ultrasound I no longer have
But cherish as a vivid revered memory
As in fairy tales of old
Many lies were told
And you were stolen and kept far from your home,
from my active loving heart.
And I wept.
I’ve loved you since the papers crumpled
Unused, only to be recycled,
When the death of hope is heard
In the confetti shaped heart
That is irreparable, devoid of cohesion
Bleeding the tears of mourning
That burn with the lies told
The familial curse stood as firmly as a parapet.
And still I wept.
I’ve loved you since I witnessed your slavery
Removed with greed, falsehoods,
Shifting legends of half-truths expressed
Under the guise of protection
Under the threat of theft called the improper noun
Rebuked with abandonment
Suffered the neglect of compassion
A soul reviled, refused encouragement
Violated in every way possible.
I still wept.
I’ve loved you since before I strapped on my armor
To storm the cotton fields wrought with personal terror
With machete drawn high in the air,
Shackles of truth for the liars to wear
Jangling on my hip with keys nowhere to be found.
The hovel proclaimed as his kingdom rotted
From the inside out with starving zombies
Clawing at the doors and windows trying to escape
I saw your fetal position and spirited you away
And we wept.
I’ve loved you since I became your Harriet Tubman,
Your underground railroad to freedom
I sheltered you in loving arms with my heart repaired
Embracing the Old to reject the new wave
At the same time embracing the New and rejecting the old
Hearing your pain mocked, examining trauma
After trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma
And feeling the rebuke of your fears whipped at me
The refusal of your champion for lack of worth
The loss of faith in hope and healing
And I weep.
I loved who I became because of your life
My superhero cape dancing in the wind
As I advocated for the better world that you deserve
As I championed a life with choices once denied you
As I believed in your potential, indulgent of possibilities
Lifting your chin so your eyes could see success
Found with the wings of encouragement
With every required tool available
At the beckoning of your unwilling fingers,
Your imprisoned mind,
Your blinded foresight,
Your despised, abused, and hated body.
You have removed my necessity, discarded my gifts
Refused your glory for the sake of self-loathing
And I weep, but always I will love you.
Pass it onward!
These Are My People: Louis A. Coleman Jr.
Louis A. Coleman Jr. aka Bapa
I once knew a man as powerful as God who stood as tall as a mountain.
When he laughed, and he loved to laughed, the mirth poured like a fountain.
He fought great wars single handedly, always coming out the winner
Then he’d traipse the seas with single bounds and was never late for dinner.
In winter time he’d grow a beard as traveled as any road is long
but when the chill of air subsided he’d return to youthful song.
His strength was legendary, more than Hercules or Babe and Paul,
He knew the moment I was born a legend once and for all
was told to me in lore and stories for this yarn to the next
at campfires round and blazing hot, I was not perplexed
by the history that flowed through me from his bones to my blood
my only wish is to honor him by shining light and doing good.
Pass it onward!
The Hokey Pokey
Benjamin James, as per our agreement. 1,000 pokes gets the hokey pokey done Mare Martell style!
If you like it or love it, please share. If you don’t like it, share it anyways so you can take turns mocking me. However, be it known, that a week ago, I couldn’t have danced this due to just having had foot surgery. WOOT!
#becauseisaidiwould
Pass it onward!
I’m getting a divorce
http://fav-store.info/blog.wp/tear-the-nicotine-shackles/I met ‘em when I was 18 years old. I was in the backseat of Paul’s car laughing and drinking Jack Daniels chased by Southern Comfort. When you were offered to me, it just felt like the right thing to do. I mean, my friends and I were all sharing while singing out loud to songs promised at the concert we were heading down to Kalamazoo to witness up close and personal. I thought, “What the heck?”
I didn’t like you much, to be honest, but you kept pushing towards me with a tenacity that only lover’s know. I embraced you and for a while, we loved each other passionately, fully, and without remorse or thought of consequence.
We’ve been together for over half of my life. Twenty-eight years collectively where you have stood beside me as my pal, my buddy, my emotional rock, my shame and guilt. For twenty-eight years I’ve allowed myself to return to you time and again despite your abuse. Despite the way you take my breath away, and I don’t mean in a good way. I cling to you as a drowning man to a life raft. I run to you, no matter the occasion.
I know exactly how you’ll touch my body, move my emotions, and comfort me when I’m upset. I am hyper-aware of your indifference to my wandering eye because you know you’re my Master. You know I’m your slave. You know that I will give up everything I have if it meant being in your presence for just a little bit longer.
When we are in the honeymoon phase of our relationship, I can enjoy your company like an old friend being reunited with me. We laugh and joke. We carry on stories of “Do you remember when…?” And I love you for those. My emotional attachment to you soothes my body and my brain. You tell me everything is going to be all right as long as you’re with me. I let you stay far too long because I depend on your gratuitous being to cope with daily life.
But we have a problem. I’m no longer in love with you. I’m embarrassed that you show up at social events. I’m embarrassed that you dominate me into humiliating positions where I have to hide my shameful love/hate for you in public. I find myself apologizing for you before we’re even together.
We’ve been married longer than all four of my recognized wedded times. I realize, however, that perhaps, it’s time for us to go our separate ways for good. You see, I’m stealing love from my life with our relationship. My loving husband said, “I wish there was something I could say that would make you give up this relationship like there was when I asked you to wear your seat belt. I’m getting robbed of time with you because of that.” He’s right and I feel ashamed.
My husband sees me cheat on him every day and because of my long-term relationship with you, I’ve not had an interest in changing anything. Which isn’t entirely true, I’m a slave to a master that calls me when I’m uncomfortable, bored, upset, or need a break. But my love for my legally wedded husband is stronger than my relationship with you.
I want a divorce. I want you to leave and never return. You are not valued, you devalue. You are not comfort, you are shame. You are not a stress reliever, you’re an abuser, like me. You are not special, you’re the butt of every joke. You’re not welcome any more to go with me to restaurants, clubs, cars, homes, or anywhere else. You’re just not okay and I am not going to give in to the lies you tell me about how much you love me. You hurt me and I let you. You control me and I don’t like that. I don’t want you ruining any more of my life than I’ve allowed you to already.
I’m not 18 or immortal anymore and you need to understand that. I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of damage I’ve allowed you to do to me. I, truthfully, hope the only thing you leave with me is the memory of my own allowed self-inflicted version of a slow suicide that I’m aware of in my life.
I am sending you packing, cigarettes. Butt out of my life. You can’t blow your smoke screen around me anymore. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust get ye out of my life you must! You must!
P.S. June 7th is the birthday of the friend that introduced me to my own self destruction. I was no coerced, but it seems poetic to choose that day as the day I officially divorce myself from that habit.
Pass it onward!
The Keeper of My Haven
I am the duality embodied in singularity.
The High Priestess and the acolyte.
The washer-woman and the dirty clothes.
The chef and the enthusiastic diner.
The adventurer and the hearth-keeper.
The activist and the apathy.
The zany jester and the serious scholar.
The student and the teacher.
I am the spirit that soars and the feet on the earth.
The divinity and the faulted.
The believer and the doubter.
The questioner and the answer.
The dreamer and the dream.
The acceptor and the challenger.
The debtor and the owed.
I am the courageous and the coward.
The healer and the injured.
The betrayed and the betrayer.
The loyalist and the sneak-thief.
The promise and the impossibility.
I am the locker of doors and the opener of windows.
I am the Keeper of my haven.
Pass it onward!
The un-Magic wand
I’d use my magic wand to wipe away your tears and I wouldn’t poke you in the eye either.
I wish I could ease your suffering, your pain, your mourning,
Your torment, your misery, your carnage, your still-borning
Your aches, your troubles, your sorrows, your grief,
Your concerns, your tragedies, your anger, your disbelief,
Your frustrations, your mistrust, your anguish, your maledictions,
Your depression, your illness, your sorrows, your rejections,
Your distress, your worries, your hardship, your fears
Your losses, your injuries, your silence, your tears.
But I can’t.
I could offer you platitudes end upon end
“I understand.”
“I’ve been there.”
“It’ll be all right, man.”
But I won’t and it won’t. Not now.
I could hug you tightly and stroke your hair.
“It’s okay.”
“You’ll get through it.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
But I’d be a liar, not your emotional crutch
You’re contagious to me when you hurt that much.
I can only be me holding true to the end
“Do you need a lift up?”
“Need to talk?”
“I’m your friend.”
And that is what it is
As a matter of fact
“I’m here.” I say
And I won’t change that.
Pass it onward!
Oak Ridge BackYard Chickens (ORBY)
My friend Yarrow is an urban homesteader whom discovered to her dismay that the City of Oak Ridge, TN doesn’t allow hens within city limits. Although I don’t have an interest in raising chickens for food or otherwise, I love her so I’ve been helping her to make changes to the antiquated ordinances that make food sources illegal.
Her goal is to promote the legalization of urban chickens in Oak Ridge while educating the community about backyard chickens, urban agriculture, and local and homegrown food production. Self sufficiency shouldn’t be held as a illegal act.
Here are some of the posters that I designed and created for her to help inform the public of why they should support ORBY and the raising of hens for eggs within the city limits of Oak Ridge, TN.
Oak Ridge Backyard Chickens (ORBY)
Oak Ridge Backyard Chickens (ORBY)
Oak Ridge Backyard Chickens (ORBY)
Oak Ridge Backyard Chickens (ORBY)
You can buy shirts to support ORBY at: http://www.zazzle.com/orby_t_shirts-235221616256326199
Or you can: https://www.facebook.com/groups/409715552490322/
Mare Martell 