Longing, we say, because desire is full
of endless distances.”

27 September 2013



 the kind of quiet that comes after some great struggle sets in


 i go about my business and read and knit and sit in front of a flick now and then
i try to heed my own advice, and am satisfied with the effect
listen to the songs your soul sings while youre sleeping
keeping open to all thats beautiful and unexpected
gentle with yourself, just sit there, a few sweet seeds in an open, outstretched hand,
and something will rise to its own brave occasion
and come to be called companion


 the nights are still full of chirps and whirring
i listened to a troika of some unfamiliar insect triangulated in the trees
each speaking in perfect turn of their Being
the stars are bright and of such a density it is as if they spilled
from some celestial silo across the fallow field of night
the thick river of The Holy Road and the rest in augured constellations
Orion rises now at dawn, and will appear
familiar and encouraging companion of winters long dark contemplations
  by the next Turning of the Wheel.


ladies in the waiting room
clucking out farm tales in hushed tones
grandfathers chased around the barn by freshly beheaded turkeys
hypoallergenic alpaca wool
the many virtues of barn cats and the problem of grandchildren
becoming attached to beef cattle
 its this, and the old men in greasy plastic gimme caps set high on sun-leathered heads
holding court at the feed store counter with their coffee and packets of crackers
discussing with the self assurance of men who have worked in slow, patient unison
with the very Earth herself for their somehow suddenly failing entireties
the price of corn, the quality of hay, the auction
the antics of grandchildren
the damnable exploits of livestock
its this, and the mist in the lowlands in the morning, the rolling luxury of true Earth
where every moment something is different and beautiful
a bird, a flower, a quality of light
everything a story of something it took a million years to make
that called me here
and keeps me, as close to Home as im likely to be.


23 September 2013


 Autumn comes to Middle Earth.
the pack and i follow our noses down new paths
the afternoon sun is strong, but dew beads a spiders web
slung across the low green grass of the path and i know
if i try to capture its jewelry with my camera
the dogs will sense my focus and trample the miraculous installation
in that wild abandon of impulse and curiosity
they seem to exhibit most in these threshold seasons
so i stand close while they snuffle the edge of the wood and whine at my dawdling
while i marvel at having intersected with such a
fleeting, fragile manifestation of the magick inherent
in the natural world.


 red Rosehips, purple Asters, Fir babies and Oaklings
all the glorious flora in a
chromatically harmonious, loosely knitted mass
singing Hosannas to the newborn Fall,
shining in sun and glowing in shadow.


 i have felt bereft of late, and knew the only cure was to realign
remember myself as a welcome member of the woods and hills
my face kissed by the low, strong Sun, the Wind running its fingers through my hair
the energy of the Earth rising up through my bootsoles
my blood full of oxygen and wonder
the pure joy of the Dogs, the flash and cry of a Jay
the smell of pinesap and crushed Juniper,
the Land and the Lake and the Sky
and as an omen find a scrap of Coyote fur, to assure me.


 i am so renewed even the Asters in their profusion are miraculous.
Dogwood with their ghostberries and red coral bronchioles
Virginia Creeper a sudden, marvelous scarlet against the yet unyielding green of Buckthorn and Foxgrape
the Sky above just an illusion of blue, that dims and fades after
dinner into apricot and lavender and the imperceptible procession of 
the Stars
from which ive come to bear witness.


22 September 2013


 Autumn.
threshold season, receding
i gave him away and the world received him gladly
hawk reunited with the sky
and to me my familiar internal obscurities returned
 paths edged in ivy and briar
lit only by what Lights inside me
the sight of a Turkey Buzzard brings me hope
the sound of the Crows gives me strength
and all the little birds that ease the ache just by their Being
last night i begged for dreams and got deep, blind rest instead


 did the Dump Wizard slip a tiny Wild Card into my change?

 

 some good advice i gave that i could really use myself, written here to remind me:

When we maintain a Vision it creates a space in the Field over time in that shape.  The more detailed the Vision, the more finely etched the shape whose outline resonates with an amplified frequency.  From the Chaos, from which springs the Ten Thousand Things, rises the External Manifestation of an intentional shift in Internal Reality, into a space made and waiting for it.


"And if the question were asked: What is more real, the mundane or the sublime? most would hesitate before they gave an answer. On the one side, details: say, the aftermath of a breakfast, dirty chipped plates in the sink, their rims encrusted with egg yolk. Against this, the unnameable: small aching heart with boasts, what can you know? Outside the cage of everything we ever heard or saw, beyond, outside, above, there lies the real, hiding as long as we shall live, there stretch and trail the millions of names of God burning across the eons. When all through this our end will come before we even know the names of us.

For many the egg yolk prevails." -L.M.

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."
-V.V.G.

"The perfection of the Absolute where all Becoming stops and pure Being, immutable, timeless, unchanging, hangs forever like a ripe peach upon the bough." -E.A.

"...and the whole incident was incredibly frazzling and angst-rod and filled almost a whole mead notebook and is here recounted in only its barest psycho-skeletal outline." -D.F.W.

"At the top of the mountain, we are all snow leopards." -H.S.T.

"Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live." -D.T.
"Cometh a voice: My children, hear; From the crowded street and the close-packed mart I call you back with my message clear, back to my lap and my loving heart. Long have ye left me, journeying on by range and river and grassy plain, to the teeming towns where the rest have gone - come back, come back to my arms again. So shall ye lose the foolish needs that gnaw your souls; and my touch shall serve to heal the fretted nerve. Treading the turf that ye once loved well, instead of the stones of the city's street, ye shall hear nor din nor drunken yell, but the wind that croons in the ripening wheat. I that am old have seen long since ruin of palaces made with hands for the soldier-king and the priest and prince whose cities crumble in desert sands. But still the furrow in many a clime yields softly under the ploughman's feet; still there is seeding and harvest time, and the wind still croons in the ripening wheat. The works of man are but little worth; for a time they stand, for a space endure; but turn once more to your mother - Earth, my gifts are gracious, my works are sure. Instead of the strife and pain I give you peace, with its blessing sweet. Come back, come back to my arms again, for the wind still croons in the ripening wheat."
-John Sandes, The Earth-Mother (excerpt, 1918)