Tag Archives: otherwhere

Thirty Something

Okay, so I’ve been working diligently to amass my work for the first display of my art on June 20th. When I was asked to do this, I’d painted this and that, but focused on writing. Having compiled a book of essays, poems, and commentary, I felt satiated enough to move into another genre. I picked up a paintbrush, charcoal, pens, pencils and sheets of fantastica.

From the Unitarian Universalist song, "You got to do when the Spirit says do!"

From the Unitarian Universalist song, “You got to do when the Spirit says do!”

Thirty-One Two pieces later I’m thinking, oh crap! Is this enough? Is this how I’m wishing to be marketed? Is it good enough? Will they like it? Love it? Hate it? Feel ambivalent towards it? Will my art, the creation of my brain from the inspirations that walk over it (like a Jamie Lopez styled painting that just drew itself while I wrote this) satisfy anyone?

You know what? I refuse to care. I wash my hands of the anxieties that are cropping up as the witching hour approaches. This means I’m doing something my mind and body consider to be questionable, dangerous, and that is why I need to do it. Even if I fail (and these thoughts are occurring to me) I’m going to do so with a collective work that glistens with the sweat of my effort. That reflect my love and light into the world in such a way that I feel nearly a sexual satisfaction of bringing these colors to life.

I have to keep reminding myself that I’m doing this for me. Yeah, it’s great if other people take a shine to what I do and even more spectacular when they want to give me money to do what I love. I mean, really. Who wouldn’t want to follow a dream, a hope, an idea all the way down the rabbit hole to see how far it goes? I suppose that’s what makes others comment my oddities to me as if I don’t exist because they’re right. I don’t.

I exist when I allow myself to be consumed by the world where art and breathing are synonymous. I am when I am so engulfed in what I’m doing I forget that I’m human. I become another entity. I love that feeling more as I embrace the whirlwind affair that is dragging me into deeper fields of challenge. But then, I come up for air in this physical world to find people doing what people do.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the people I know. I mean, I REALLY love them. They fill my heart with Rod Stewart songs (“Have I told you lately”) and promises of Moulin Rouge (“Come what may”). My head dances with inspiration from their very existence and I touch the promises of their truth with such delicate breaths that it makes me blush with the intimacy they allow me. It’s not even sexual. It’s like hanging out at someone’s house and everything they do, say, or ask is exactly the most perfect thing they could do, say, or ask of you. And with that, it’s a reciprocation of undulating commentary that ebbs, flows, waxes, wanes, drifts, waves, and hurricanes around in mystical walkways. Each word, phrase, or nothing is vibrant with understanding, love, compassion, and sometimes anger, disappointment, intolerance. Human stuff.

What I describe is not always how it is, it’s just what it’s felt like since I heard the words utter from my lips, “I am an artist.” And so I am.

Tuatha Dea inspired, "Blessed Be, Y'all"

Tuatha Dea inspired, “Blessed Be, Y’all”

Between the Worlds

A Snow Owl

A Snow Owl

I wander along in blues of sparkling seas

I witness a sail in the distance waving at me

I place hand over eyes in familiar stance

I wave back with my hips, a shift of my dance.

The forest closes in with a crackle of leaves

I’m not afraid, it’s welcoming me

The music turns up with bird songs and buzzies

The brook tells a joke that gives me warm fuzzies.

In a blink of an eye, my feet hit the sand

the painted desert that smells like Christmas is where I am

A solar flare singes my skin hot and prickly

but pain is small price when one lives this richly

A single leap, a precarious bound

I’m traveling highways, heeding the sound

of the zephyrs of change as they dervish round

Should I see you as I move, ever by the winds tug

You may not know my face, but you’ll know me by hug.

NaPoWriMo: Flying Out of this World

The Owl and the Jamie Lopez

I was walking through the Otherwhere, picking dreams to put in my pocket

Like a deer in the headlights I stopped frozen in my tracks for there you were.

I’d seen others before in this place I travel to, but never as intensely as that moment.

You smiled, your blue eye flashing a secret code of knowledge to my spirit

I tilted my head perplexed because I’d never tried to talk to the people I found

I usually just witnessed their activities but didn’t interrupt their travels.

But you, you blinked again, your golden eye flashing beneath sunset pink hair.

You gestured gently to pick up what you were trying to share. I couldn’t

You frowned, your sapphire hair obscuring your lemony eyes. Your heart smiled

THEN

You pulled the stitching around the edges of your heart and allowed me to dive

It was mystical and cosmic as you showed me your walking place. I wept, you smiled.

You took my hand and helped me over the threshold, panting with wildness

I could see the owl. The golden dance of blacks, oranges, browns, and wisdom

Refreshed, invigorated with passion. This time I smiled my rainbow smile at you.

Your aqua hair flashed silver fins of water splashing brightly as you disappeared

That moment was exactly when I knew, I could enter different paths. You showed me.

With permission from myself and the others I meet, I can go anywhere I need.

Only in the Otherwhere can I hear the Divine voice of creativity that calls my name intimately.

magalyguerrero.com/napowrimo-with-magaly-guerrero-2015 NaPoWriMo

magalyguerrero.com/napowrimo-with-magaly-guerrero-2015
NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo: Thirteen Weeks

Give, Receive, Love

With open heart and willing hands I give to you my gifts

I lay them on the blooming altar to do with as you wish

For when I walk in faith and trust I take such grand adventures

But they never seem to work quite right unless I allow surrender

With open mind and willing heart I will receive your blessings

I wrap them up with loving arms the joys of not repressing

For when I walk in grace and trust, I gain such grand adventures

They always flow as smooth as water, these my greatest treasures

With sacred heart and open mind I’m willing to offer love

As I give so shall I receive from all Watchtowers, below and above.

For when I shine in spirit love, I find a peaceful center

With conscious thought and mindfulness the Otherwhere I enter.

Blind-sighted

I see you every once in a while in the Otherwhere.
The place that isn’t here or there or somewhere or anywhere.
It’s just Other.

Soul pictures

Soul pictures

It has the pres(c)ents of Christmas trees and home cooked feasts.
It smells of beloved familial hugs, pas-s-s-sionately presented embraces
It laughs a babbling brook of foolish happiness punctuated with excitement marks!!!!
It offers kaleidoscopic shows of  vernacular laced paragraphs with buntings of (these)
Still, sometimes, I know (though I don’t know), I see both you and me.
Not in the way that makes you triple check your doors; throwing the deadbolt
Not in the way that keeps you window to window pacing floors; with naked paranoia
but in the way that allows the meditation of the forest to seep into the spirit of indulging ideas
reaping benefits of beauty as only gypsy tribe of poets can explore it.
I see you every once in a while in the Otherwhere.

(inspired by: http://urbanpoetrees.com/2014/12/31/disciple-less-prophets/ )

A meal with friends

If you're a vegetarian or vegan, that steak is metaphorical.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, that steak is metaphorical.

My dear friends,

I invite you to my table where you may not like everything set in front of you, but if you nibble just a bit, perhaps you’ll discover that we like the same things but not spiced quite the same way. I want us to walk away from the table with heavy sighs of satisfaction, not frustration or the silence of an empty plate. I need you to rub your belly then your hands together and eagerly anticipate the next course to come. But first I need to establish some ground rules for this conversation so that we can see each other in a new light, candlelight perhaps with the soft glowing edges and the warmth of good natured humor served like gravy.

My friends, I gather you today to first offer you my hands. I offer you my hands in service because you’ve offered yours to me or to others. I’ve seen the example you set and I wish to embrace your hand with my own. I wish to mimic that which I have learned at your knee. I wish to give to those who have less than I do. I wish to hug those who need comfort. I wish to press my hands against the faces of those I love, you and my neighbors (even when this is far too difficult to do) with gentle caresses of: “I’ve been there too.” “I can help you.” “Let’s do this together.” I will share my hands.

My dear ones, I bring you with me to give a part of my spirit to each of you. I offer you my spirit so that you know you’re not alone. I offer you that place you can put your woes and troubles without having someone try to fix you or the situation. Even though I may try, I know, as you do, that I can only offer support while you learn how to live your life. We all do this. We all try on things our spirit can’t handle and mine has worn many hats. I will shine for you when the night in your heart is so dark and you feel you’ve lost your way. I can be your lighthouse. I can because you’ve asked. I can be your champion because you require it of me. And when you’ve used what you need and what I can give to you, we will continue on our paths, better for the adventure we’ve shared spirit to spirit, step by step. I will give you parts of my spirit.

My beloved ones, I am delighted that you join me at the table of love. I offer you my friendship wearing the face of devotion that love gives me. I do, however, need to remind you that I am, like you, human. I will do my best to give to you the love my heart has for you. Even if I don’t understand, if you come to me with troubled heart, my arms will open to shower you with encouragement because love, to me, does that. It shows me that I am beautiful. It shows me that I am worthy. It shows me that I have more strength than I imagined. It shows me that even with all my lumpy bumpy bits, I am destined to become the best version of me just as you are to become the best version of you. There isn’t a linear timeline to dictate when you will be this mythical you or the fantasy me. Sometimes we are everything we’re meant to be, other times we are striving to gain our footing. I will love you through it because I need/want/have to and I may/may not have regrets about it, but that’s my battle, not yours. I will give you love.

My sisters and brothers, this sounds like a zombie idea, and maybe it is, but I will gift you my intellect. My ideas, ideals, thoughts, knowledge, and wisdom are yours to rifle through like a high-end second-hand sale. My ideas because they may help you stride forward in your world and people don’t forget that. My ideals because Utopia can only occur if we continue to strive for an unobtainable perfection that I see with my Spirit Eyes from the Otherwhere. My thoughts because sometimes they share with me a place that seems wacky, outrageous, and naked as a jay-bird but filled with mischief and delightful daring that presses forward into the mundane world with colorful prances of pretty playgrounds the world is renowned for owning. My knowledge because I read less than I should but more than others. I try hard not to just scratch the surface on things that interest me because it’s when you’ve dug down through the facts and seen both sides of the story that you can figure out the truth in your own mind. You can make your own decisions. I will try to help by maintaining as accurate of a log in my mind to share with you. If I don’t know, I will find the answer or we can seek it together. We can learn from/with one another. My wisdom I also offer because I’ve made a lot of bad decisions that gave me perspective on so many of the defined nouns and yet they are but a drop in the bucket of what this world has available. I query everything and everyone to discover the secrets it/they hold(s) and I’m rarely disappointed. I invite you to share your intellect with me. I will gift you with what treasures my vessel has accumulated so we can fill one another with knowledge.

And if, as I intended at the beginning of our “meal” together, we push back with a burp and smile at one another with a peaceful parting of ways, then that we’ve broken bread together makes my heart happy. I wish for you peace, blessings, and the pursuit of your own bliss, for when we are together in whichever capacity we are kind enough to share, then I know we will both and all be better for it. Please pass on the bread of life sugared and spiced exactly right for you and for me. Peace and light to you my dear friends. I wish you a fond good life.