31 March 2011

Awake

You woke up
A part of me
That I had put
neatly to bed...

All milk and cookies
fuzzy feet pjs
brush your teeth
say your prayers
one last drink of water
downy pillow feather bed
patchwork quilt
of a bed time story

put

to

bed

Only to wake
Up to you
finding me
in that dream state
all bleary eyed
messy bed head

And I can't believe
It's already morning

But the cock is crowing
the dawn has broken and
I am awake
once more.

(c) 2011

27 March 2011

The Universe is playing with me and I’m letting it.

Today was a magical day for finding hidden treasures.

Every morning for the past year or so it has been my habit upon waking to do my prayers and mediation, then I check Facebook and eMails and then do some yoga. If it’s not too stormy and my hip bursitis is not giving me grief I take about a two to three mile walk past the duck pond where I feed the old goose and the other ducks, and the crows and seagulls if they’re around, whatever bread crumbs we had in the house. The last part of my walk takes me through the graveyard and into the Luther Burbank Experimental Farm. I was feeling a bit nostalgic in the orchard today, as I have spent many cathartic hours there over the past year and a half. And since I may be having less time for that in the next few months, I wasn’t eager for my time to end there today. After walking the trails I sat down under one of the bigger oak trees that stand sentinel in the orchard. I sat for about twenty minutes just counting my blessings and marveling at the changes I’ve seen myself through during this “season of timelessness”. When I rose I looked into the bowl of the tree I had been sitting under, where the branches all meet the trunk, just about eye level. There among the dried leaves and sticks and rotting acorns was some camoflage duck tape and I saw that it was covering a plastic container. My first thought was that I’d discovered someone’s secret drug stash…hmmm, curious.


I poked at the container with a stick.




Here, I had a flash of the state of our sad society incumbent with indoctrinated fears and then laughed at myself for thinking any terrorist would leave a bomb to detonate in an old oak tree in the middle of nowhere and even if it were I was so happy at the day I was having that it didn’t matter to me if it all ended right then. Nothing happened when I poked it. I rolled it over I could see a little writing through the plastic bottom which had no tape. Still, I thought maybe it was someone’s private letter to God or something and it wasn’t any of my business.

Still.

Curious.

I thought about Pandora and her box that contained all the evils in the world. And just what would I be letting into my life by opening it.

(Pandora's Box by Marta Dahlig)

Still.

Curious.

I open it and see that it contains a tiny book and something else wrapped in a paper napkin.


Experimental Persimmon Letterbox handmade rubber stamp.



The book is decorated with various stamps.




























A website address was written on the inside of the container www.letterboxing.org


After I get home and I look up the website a most amazing phenomena unfolds. It is a truly an art form that I was not aware of. According to the website letterboxing began in Dartmoor, England and the practice is over 150 years old. After an article about letterboxing appeared in America individuals began hiding letterboxes on this side of the pond! In fact, there are currently no less than seven in my hometown. The idea is to create a secret logbook and a personal rubber stamp. The book and stamp are stashed in a remote, interesting or beautiful spot and clues are left (for example on the website, which begs the question how the clues were shared before the advent of the internet). The treasure hunters then search out the letterboxes and when they find one they place their own homemade rubber stamp on the next page and date and if they choose they can put the letterbox rubberstamp in their own log book like a record of all the letterboxes found.

I am so amazed that I found this secret treasure quite by accident. Even though it was not a homemade rubber stamp I placed a rubber stamp impression from one that I’d had at home and dated and signed the little book and placed an extra Ziploc around the contents and replaced it back in the tree where it was discovered.



Finding the letterbox today was a affirmation to me that this dark night of the soul during which I have been richly blessed in many hidden ways but struggled in many ways too, that perhaps maybe it is a sign that the hardness of winter is indeed melting into a warm caress of possibility. And I am eager to start the next season of my life and look for ever new treasures in secret places.





18 March 2011

Timeless passion seeks its Source
To fuel the drive and plot its course
And so she hung on every word
Amusing, silly little bird.

A lot of words he strung together
Like pearls upon a thread
She fell for every one of them and
Filled her pretty little head.

Bereft in her own Undoing
In her Truth, she stood alone
His words, just words, meanderings
Became her sticks and stones.

Every poet needs romance
If even in her own head but
Honeyed words that passed between
Were better left unsaid.

For she held her heart out to him
Advances politely declined
Now leave her quietly wondering
Had it all been a trick of the mind?

(c) 2011

16 March 2011

There is no urgency
There is no emergency
There is only emergence.

Without a Trace

I am just amazed at the play of life before my eyes and in my heart.

The lives that have been not just lost but obliterated. The untold mini-dramas going on inside each of those hearts and homes - all washed out to sea with nothing save a moment's notice,

Nothing left to remember those lives by. No records. No word-vomit journals. No lovely artwork. No labours of love left to remember the dead. No gardens. No jewelry. No baby toy. No shamisen.

It's probably not exactly a slow death, nor a quick one. To be shaken out of your self so violently and then upon that realisation only the dawning of an additional impending doom to finally consider your options for survival against the greatest opponent there is - Forces of Nature. At that point I might consider surrender, but it might be that a survival instinct kicks in and I start running for higher ground. Or I might just accept my fate and invite death into my front door screaming its welcome.

I imagine all those scenarios happened and even more that I can't imagine. Reactions could very well have been determined by how one woke from their dreams of the night before. But I'd like to think that when death comes to me I will not surrender in defeat nor run from it afraid, but humbly welcome it in. Even if it takes everything away along with me; leaving not a trace.
Artwork: The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai

15 March 2011

Res - Tsunami




I feel so nice just when you're here
The reason why is not so clear
I knew the first time when you told me
I'd fall in love just as you'd hold me

And now I want to stay at your side tonight
I want to watch you as the sun lights up your eyes
I want to know when you wake first thing you see is me
You're all the things I prayed that I'd meet

Ride, ride this wave of mine
There're brighter things out on the other side
Ride, ride this wave of mine
I know that things are going to be alright

Moments they come and then they go
You'll feel so high and then before you know
I could of sworn our future was set in stone
But I guess some things it's just as well for God to know

So now I concentrate on turning wrong to right
I'm going to let go things I held inside so tight
I'm going to live and let forgive things said in spite
Clear out the smoke and usher in the light

06 March 2011

She

She can't be captured in a photograph
Can't even be captured in a poem
You might catch her in a butterfly net
But before long she'd have to roam.

She is a mystical spirit
An untamed, alchemical child
A daughter of Hieros Gamos
Passion and crisis reconciled.

An ineffable, mercurial being
She glides among the mists of Neptune
In dreams you might chance to see her
In the night quiet of the dark moon.

Treat her well and earn her trust
She'll tell you what you want to know
Remember her with kindly words
When she has to go.

(c) 2011


Artwork: Sprit of Flight by Josephine Wall