29 September 2012

Medicine Wheel




The Medicine Wheel is becoming.
Dreaming indigenous form
Creative directional aid
Blind inner act of power
Gathering stones in the midday sun
I’m sure I look crazy to some
To the few who even notice
I hear their howls of laughter
I feel the biting cynicism
Perhaps I am crazy
I know I am dizzy
If only from desert heat and dehydration
I break from this circle to replenish
Still it calls me back
Seeking those closest to me
In my own backyard
Standing my ground
Searching for meaning and purpose
Assembling a semblance of truth
Some of the rocks sing to me
“Pick me. Pick me. I want to play.”
Some are too stubborn to move
Others hold their angry heat
And burn the palms of my hands
The circle widens
My own search ripples outward
Gathering from the front yard
And the abandoned lot next door
Leaving no stone unturned
A datura flower wilts in the sun
Trumpeting hallucination of tears
Trailing my own footsteps
Mirroring my altered vision
Buried treasure, an old coin or two
A piece of purpled glass
A bit of bleached bone
They’re buried there.

The Medicine Wheel is becoming
Showing the beauty way
To who knows where
No one sees the inward progress
Searching for a way back
A way out and forward
Returning to Self.



(c) 2012 

14 September 2012

My stories are like children to me, I'd rather not let go of them. I'd rather keep them close to the breast, nurturing, refining, bringing out the best in them, and showing them off in their Sunday finery. I just want to protect them from the scrapes and bruises of meeting their own destiny and if I let them go too soon, I may think of something later that I could have done better. I prefer to tuck them in at night secure in the self-satisfied knowing that they'll be there for me in the morning.

But, like me, they're getting older and soon I will have no choice but to let them try their wings and leave the nest of my good intentions. Ready or not... because sometimes we do our best work on Wednesdays.

13 September 2012

10 September 2012

Just things...

Tomorrow is "9-11" an anniversary that everyone is familiar with by now. But one that many are not aware of is that it is also the three year anniversary of my having been "laid off". I won't get into all of the circumstances that led my losing a job that I'd had for 13 and 1/2 years, other than to say my life has not been the same since. I have been ignored and shunned by some of my closest blood relatives and suffered some of the worst indignities of my 50 years on this planet.

One of the most insulting comments that sticks in my craw came from a well-meaning but totally clueless friend of a friend. Upon learning that we were selling many, MANY personal items on eBay just to survive and eat, this person glibly commented that, "It's just things."

For those of you who may not get it it, let me explain. Saying "It's just things" is something one says to oneself when having to endure such ignominies in order to try to be philosophical and circumspect, if one can. But for one to say this to someone else who is going through such an ordeal, when one is not going through a similar ordeal, when one has a home, plus two vacation homes, when one has a movie screening room and large flat screen televisions in nearly every room in these homes, it comes across as a cruel and lacking of all compassion and down right RUDE.

I just share this so that the next time someone says they are going through a life challenging ordeal, sometimes the best thing to do is to just listen and NOT offer empty platitudes in an effort to sound spiritual and metaphysical. It does not help.


03 September 2012

Sorrow



"O, what spirit this ....?
That taketh hold of my tendon’d wrist, arthritic hand
To maketh written prose, in shades borne black and white
The colours of my wretched soul’s, exquisite torment?

SO, is this doubt .... ?
So long without, joy long lost by none, but I, who sees
Labours by which, fruit-bearing toils, and nectar flow in bounty
Though choose to run, through fingered hourglass, into life’s dry creek bed?

THOU, you asketh I .... !
“Share not the wealth of sorrow unto the fold, and let shame unto the river
But taketh solace in the winter of your madness, and folly
Fore change ever blows its wind, upon the desert shores of love!”

ALIVE, she cries .... !
As wind, the very winds of Hell rush through her fair, glowing curls
She pleads to the sky, “God’s forsaken I, and those whom I love!”
A feast of friends, moonlit skies and ancient spirits hear her wail!

ALAS, be told .... !
Here now unfold, these truths of strength and struggle
Against Hell’s wrath, its wind and furnace, we face our treacherous ‘morrow
It will be with, our head’s held high, without self-serving sorrow!"

     ~ words and image by Lew Campbell (c) 2012