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 

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.

Rain Dance

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.

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