13

What would I tell you if you would listen?

What do I wish I had known?

Slow is better than fast

in nearly all things.

In love especially…and growing.

Slow to know, not so eager to be held,

details reveal who you are becoming.

Life is short but time is endless,

there is enough to savour each smile and tear.

Think about hot days lazing under the sun,

that small bead of sweat that inches down your neck…

life is better lived like that.

Slow is better than fast; a journey made on foot,

each step more delicately placed under our own steam.

Burdens we carry chosen more wisely

when there is time to choose.

You know how sluggish time is when you are anticipating Christmas?

That’s good – that anticipation flourishing in the slow hand of time.

It’s giving your body time to know how intuition feels,

giving your heart time to know how love feels,

for you… to you… in you.

Slow is better than fast when welcoming another body

to dance with yours;

the space slowly closing filled with electricity 

(which travels fast so we don’t have to),

time to say ‘no’ and time to say ‘yes’.

Wisdom can catch up with you, so can heartache…

and come together in uncomfortable alliance,

both so vital to the refining of your spirit.

Slow is better than fast – I wish I knew this like I know it now

but I’m glad I finally do.

So I can tell you,

before you rush into life like I know you will,

before you trip, before you fly, forgetting all of this

like I know you should.

Happy Birthday precious one.

Sanitized Woman

Women have become sanitized in a culture that fears the wild and the natural.

How did it begin; the systematic refining of our nature?

Who first sought to bind our spirits by binding our bodies?

And why?

To what end the sale of the maiden,
the vilification of the mother,
the taming of the crone?

Was she slowly and methodically enticed from the forests;
the moist, rich home of her foremothers?
With sweet music, entrancing songs and vows of everlasting love,
was she seduced to follow the call
of those who would domesticate her?

Or was she hunted; ripped from her home,
her nails breaking as she was torn from the tree?
Did she scream at and curse her stalkers?
Then was she bound by chains until
her scream went silent and her rage was spent?

It is the howling wind or the eagles cry that stirs her memory within me.
She walks with smouldering strength within her wild domain,
she tends to the gardens and the fire,
and easily she takes up her charge.

I see through her eyes when I look upon the sunrise
and my body stirs,
my skin awakens and aches
for the heat to caress me.
She reminds me of a power that rests nestled in my hips
and I find myself swaying with the rhythm of desire.

I lament when I think upon her submission
and the cost of such an act.
I struggle with the insanity that such an act demands,
the relinquishing of her body and the shunning of her intuition;
the sources of all the wisdom in the world.

And I ask of all my sisters, as I ask of myself;
to what end this sanitization?

Through seduction or rape we surrendered our home;
when will we take it back?

Remember, we once were warriors
and sentries of our Mother.
We knew the feel of power in our hands
and the grit of earth on our feet.

What has submission cost you, my sister?

No matter the method of her abduction
they did not consider
all the times she sat on the earth
under the fullness of the moon,
her blood enriching the soil.
So that even when they placed her in the castle,
the bedroom, the kitchen,
she continued to cultivate under the tree.

I could not write these words if it was not so.
The sunrise and the eagle’s call would not stir a rich and bloody scent,
not cause my hairs to bristle.
I would not hear her footfalls,
twigs breaking under her sure step,
as I walk about the cultured hallways
and tread upon polished floors.

Consider...

Consider my whispers…

there are words within

and pleas and visions

of God and you.

Quiet does not diminish

the bigness or the urgency

of my reaching breath,

seeking a heart to hold my hand.

Consider my whispers…

for as you turn your ear to hear,

you will find a gentle breeze

that moves across your face

drying any tears

like a warmly blown kiss

that you would otherwise

miss.

Surrender Prayer

Please God,

if I must surrender,

let it be to bliss.

Let me fall into the madness of your love

and the insanity of your desire.

Please God,

may I be received by the light,

my weapons and armour stripped from me.

Detain me in the wilds of your living Earth.

Let there be no escape.

If it be your angels who are to be my captors,

then willingly do I wave my flag and raise my hands.

If I am to be bound once again Lord,

let it be by a golden thread

to your throne.

I Build a Bridge

The Divine is surely alive in each one of us, where there is a beating heart so too there is the Divine. Earth, water, air and fire are the body that carries the soul – all of us are made from the holiness of Nature.

The one we judge, whom we gossip about and slander with our words, the one who causes us to weep, are creations of the Divine, all are expressions of God.

The wolf that takes down your cattle is also a Masterpiece of God.

How is it that I withhold my compassion from my brother and my sister who cause me grief when I know we both come from the same Mother and carry the same light within?

Is my soul of any more value than another’s, is my journey to wholeness any more perfect?

In my enemy’s voice I hear my own and I shrink from this. In my enemy’s actions I see my own works and I rage against myself. When I extend my compassion solely to those I deem worthy then I extend no compassion at all. There is no sacrifice in loving only those that I already love. To them my love flows freely. But to love my enemy means that I sacrifice my ego and my pride, then I overcome the wall I have erected between us and build a bridge.

How often have I heard the wisdom of this? Yet still I find myself retreating and cowering behind the walls I have built, but blessedly less so now. Gratefully, as I sit more and more in silence and empty myself of the noise of the world, my most wonderful soul rises up, filling me so that I breathe the wisdom of compassion.

I am so blessed by this body that stumbles and by the wisdom of my soul that rises. I am so blessed by those whose presence allows me to know what true compassion is, those who are my greatest teachers.

Any wrong I have known I have done to others. Any judgement I have made I have made of myself. Any separation from life that I have established has come from my own self-loathing.

The man who is filling our Oceans with oil does so so that I can drive my car. I am not a servant to the man but a servant to my need for comfort and convenience, my true master and oppressor.

My search for justice must spring from my fountain of compassion or no justice will be served. Justice that does not arise from compassion is revenge. Revenge comes from our need for comfort requiring no emptying of the mind.

Revenge never satisfies us because it keeps our minds busy with our enemy’s actions but does not move me to examine my own. Therefore, I will continually seek revenge for the multitude of wrongs I witness and deny justice for my own.

I have been the cause of great suffering to others. Who can say the suffering I have caused is less than any other? There is no hierarchy to suffering unless I create it to vindicate myself.

True justice requires self-reflection and forgiveness.

I build my bridge so that it connects foundation to foundation, the essence of me to the essence of you. As I cross this bridge I am mindful of the weakest beams lest I fall through and never get to you. My desire for a just and compassionate world moves me to strengthen these places. My soul is the carpenter.

It's all coming.

I am in love with this past
that has so long defined me.
So I am bringing it with me.

Even that voice which frets
we might return to darkness
is coming.

Congruence is over-rated.

It may even be a conspiracy;
causing me to believe
that it must be achieved
before I can wear the badge of
Wholeness.

I am imperfect.

But my wisdom is profound.
When I try to share it, I stutter.
So I write my wise words instead.

I write badly and sometimes I don’t.

These days I can sit in peace,
more or less,
while I dance like an ass
on this imperfect journey.

God chuckles and I laugh at myself.
Whoever promised me congruence?

My love stretches

“Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land.” Isaiah 5:8

Our obsessive need to build and to own is the very activity that creates loneliness and separation. As our cities grow and our boundaries are stretched we build our homes closer and closer, our fences containing the small piece of Earth we call ‘ours’. And despite this closeness we grow more and more separate. We can never be anything but lonely when we endeavour to own that which can never be ours. Chaining our lover to us will never make us feel more loved but only more alone in our desperate need for love.

I stand alone in the vast prairie of my God and my love stretches beyond where the eye can see, higher than the never-ending sky, deeper than the roots of the growing tree. In my aloneness with my God I am surrounded by multitudes, embraced in God’s vast space by mighty arms that warm me body and soul. I am connected and my web stretches around this Earth, weaving me to you. There are no fences that impede this growth and expansion of this web, no signpost that can restrain me from entering into what is my God’s domain.