WET

Imagine the curiosity of a raindrop
at the start of their beloved journey
from inside a dark pregnant cloud

the ecstasy of being alive
and trying on new shapes

as
experiments

in
wet-ness

the eagerness of growing down
but also the hidden terror

of

the

free

fall….

not knowing where
they might end up
or what their wet purpose is

Imagine them sharing
in the erotic wrestling of it

Or the play of that sweet surrender
to a trajectory of feeding life

with gratuitous beauty
and a soft melody or driven rhythm

Imagine finally arriving
on a distant shore

so different than the house
they were born into

or the path they’ve been on
their entire life

Only to learn that the destiny
towards which gravity has flung them

is just the launching dock
of a new path

among the silent,
be-soiled ones

inward into textures so strange
to the touch

it draws them not just close to one other
but inside one another

encountering species of aliveness
about which they’ve only heard rumors

and wild intimacies with wiggly beasts
reaching out in the dark humus of it all—

What a delicious dark thriving
there must be
in all this deep lostness

What a delicious deep lostness
there must be
in all this dark thriving

All the Way Down

The other day, I was at the river inside a gorgeous winter sigh, just sitting around circulating my blood and producing hormones and what not and came across this very curious collection of fragments of my self. They were silently dancing just under a thin blanket of frozen teardrops. It was just Stones and stones all the way down and the further down the more twirly they got. Except at a certain point they stopped being stones and took on the appearance of stars, but not the kind you see in the sky, but rather the kind you see as faeries when you have kidney stones or orgasms. At the very bottom, inside of a particularly bright and magenta star a beautiful giant eye emerged, looking at me from the ridge above and I could make out the back of my head and my hand spinning a tiny Osprey in the palm of the other. I could hear the sound of the river rushing towards the sea, without any guilt or shame, not regard for safety or its own self-depreciation. Now I don’t speak River like a native Rivevever, but I try. It’s okay to bumble your way into conversation, it’s how connection is made and they appreciate the effort. The words I knew were clear and the words I didn’t know required no translation, being more song than meaning, more prayer than sense. Now you can imagine my surprise when that Osprey swooped out of my hand and scooped up those rocks in its talons, turned around and soared right into my chest and disappeared. It gave me a bit of gas so I farted for a good long while. Damn I love being the universe. Mondays are weird.

THE GIFT

The gift is a delicious deformity,
not a recognizable shape

It is an absurd gesture,
not an obligatory posture

It shall not contort
for the comfortable gaze

It will not bend the knee
for daylight praise

Its sacred script is scrawled on dungeon walls
not legible to sun-soaked eyes

It may look clumsy,
waltzing with all the big and little deaths

It may sound like silence or a siren,
Being intimate with well-traveled wind

or feel harsh to the touch
having followed great granitic ways

The taste is acquired,
having caught mulch and midnight in its beak

Committed to that deepest root,
it surrenders all easy prizes

Like all good dark allies,
it was born in the basement of things

its chthonic love holding the flame
in its luscious lap

Robust in its caress,
skilled with its talons

It risks the universe
to create the universe

The gift is a delicious deformity,
not a recognizable shape.

SOLSTICE QUAKE

Sometimes earth comes alive
in such a way

that the very ground beneath you
is not the answer

but a question
rumbling through you

quaking through everything
that confuses the lulling familiarity

of how things are
with how things must be

You awake with a jolt
searching in night’s womb for clues

about where you really are
about 𝘸𝘩𝘰 you really are

in this vast house
of deep belonging

The water spills
the vases break

or is it the water breaks
and the vases spill?

You stub your toe
on the same stale habits

as symbols on the walls
become memories on the floor

and false foundations crack
with each aftershock

Your tried and true avenues buckle
as old bridges collapse

—it’s clear new paths
are being born

with all the clumsy pangs
of long pregnant nights

asking you to sit in the fruitful darkness
awaiting the new song to emerge

What it sounds like is known
only when it escapes your body

once your throat is clear of debris
and it takes its first beautiful breath

at the dawn of tremendous things
when even the birds awake in awe

What it sounds like
is as much incantation as invitation

What it sounds like
is earth coming alive

in such a way
that the very ground 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 you

is created anew
beyond both the questions 𝘢𝘯𝘥 the answers

as a new third thing
rising as promised pull and pulse
with the sacred solstice star

THE BIG RHYTHM HOLDS IT ALL

Winter Solstice blessings!

May we relish deep rest and be nourished by the slow gift of fruitful darkness, wooing and embracing the dark parts of us into the circle of Self ⭕️. May we nurture the inner fire on our darkest nights. May we honor the returning light and bless the gifts we hope to embody in our next season, greeting Sun with a smile and song.

I. Sip the Season Darkly

Darkness has arrived
wrapping its inky cloak
across the season of our lives

long shadows and owls
stand tall and salute
the arc of autumn’s slow song
becoming winter’s long march

asking us not skip too quickly
over the hour

with an eager eye grasping
towards cherry blossoms
awaiting on the other side

Drink deeply from the season,
they say

Drink from the cup overflowing
with the sweet & fruitful darkness

Sip the season darkly
in its slow embrace

Wisdom hidden from summer’s glare
may yet pass our lips
should we have the thirst for it

The bright and busy world goes under:

We go to the cave, the secret one
in the mountain of ourselves
seeking stillness

and listen for it—
the true voices amidst

The Silence.

Can you hear them?

II. Within the Cave Something Pulses

We’ve been here before.

Many times—as far back
as it will be forever forth.

The Big Rhythm holds it all.

Within the cave something pulses.

We hear it, feel it, even now

that which deepest dark cannot smother
and even winter’s hands cannot touch

tender tendrils of a luscious vine
bearing the wine of our heart

Some secret vial
distilled for this very hour
to sip the season brightly

A Remembering—Aha!

Sun too misses its lover earth
and cannot too long stay away.

Like you, Sun was meant for this: to shine.

To not share that big love is a wounding.

So in this darkest hour
the sun knocks on the nearest horizon
and announces The Return with a steady beat:

“Dear Love, I’m Here.”

Which is exactly what we find
written on the walls of our cave:

“Dear Love, I’m Here”

As we open new eyes
like the first breath after coma

and though it’s just a whisper now
it is enough to start it all again
and again…again….again…

WALKING CEREMONIOUSLY TOWARDS WHAT WE FEAR

“A dark and foreboding place becomes a doorway to our true home. We are irrevocably altered by Walking ceremoniously towards what we fear” —Bill Plotkin

“It’s an amazing thing to be educated by your aversions, is it not? Anybody can learn from the stuff they are attracted to, but to really engage your suspicion, or your sense of ill-at-easeed-ness, and decide to befriend that instead, is the mark of some real maturity.” – Stephen Jenkinson

Fear can be good—it directs us to take action away from what may harm us. But there is a type of fear that lives within, that raises its hackles when we approach the edge of our psycho-spiritual growth. That type is an ego-fear and while it may mean to protect us/itself, it can keep us smaller or less vibrant than what our soul is calling for.

That voice of fear is the one that leans over our shoulders, whispering an invitation to form a conspiracy with us, so that “everything will be ok” or the “bad thing doesn’t happen.” Often that is the ego/inner guard’s way of trying to protect us from expected exile or shame. 

And so we accept the invitation. We don’t do the thing. We don’t look at the thing. Feel the thing.

OR: We lean in.

By cultivating a keen awareness of those fears (often in the form of stories and body sensations and linked to memories), and being present and compassionate with them, we can walk ceremoniously towards them and expand our heart and vision of what is possible.

A molting commences.

No one said that’s an easy task, and we may be shaking or swearing or sweating the whole time. But when looking back after the fear has been transmuted to trusted ally, our psyche/soul will be well-pleased, having deepened into home and healing, into passion and purpose, and may even stand up to dance ecstatically like the western wind through the fir trees.