On the edge of the west
the sea’s many voices
sibilate across the waves
and through the Sitka spruce
It’s wide sound no one can hear
without also widening hearts
The moon poured herself down
on us pouring ourselves together for the first time
among the sands and hands
discovering some us,
that until autumn’s first moon
had been only a you and a me
In celebration, we became a wild coyote singing back to the sea
then returned to our selves
a wave or two wider
Yes, I had asked to try all the flavors and textures
But when she served up Full Moon Cinnamon Palo Santo Blackberry Italian Sorbet with Sage Coconut Chips
I didn’t quite know what to do with it.
It seemed dangerous.
Consulting the experts is futile
in situations like this because
there are no experts.
And so I do the only thing that seems reasonable—
take two heaping scoops worth
with whip cream and a Salah-berry on top
down to the beach
and gobble it up
And because ice cream likes being worshipped
and my tongue likes worshipping
I enjoy the hell out of it
as if it’s my first time
tasting this strange and exquisite flavor—-
because it is.
And also might be my last.
I’ll worry about the calories later.
I’m excited to announce that my book Re-Membering: Poems of Earth and Soul is now available.
Re-Membering has 75 earthy and soulful poems in it, an unabashed celebration of the sensuality and mystery of wild nature. Redwoods reach without apology towards the sky, rivers flow with unflagging energy towards the ocean, and souls add rings towards their biggest expression. This collection re-collects for all of us a time when our kinship and inter-connectedness with the natural world was self-evident, and invites us to fully re-inhabit and say “Yes!” to our sensual natures, our animal bodies, our playfulness and creativity, connection, mystery, and our instinctive love for this beautiful, sentient Earth. In turns evocative and playful and always vivid and soulful, the poems in Re-Membering are beautiful catalysts of remembering, little sparks in the dark of forgetting that make one gasp, “Oh, I remember that!”
Gratitude and much love to everybody who has been there all along and believed in me and found inspiration in the poetry (you know who you are, my inner redwood circle)!!! I have been equally inspired by your fierce and big wild nature hearts.
If you have enjoyed some of the flavors of my poetry here on Rumi and the Shadow, you’ll probably love the poems in Re-Membering. Or maybe you have a friend, lover, family member who loves nature and poetry–it makes an easy and affordable gift. Pick up a copy here–and if you like it, leave a review on Amazon-I’d really appreciate the love!
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Early Praise of Re-Membering:
“Bless Ryan Van Lenning for listening to the wild voices and bringing back the news for those who have lost their way. Bless him for reminding us of our original love affair with the earth and of what we know deep in our souls. His poems give wise counsel: let go of the debris, remember who you are, do not abandon your luminous thread.” —Lorraine Anderson, editor of Sisters of the Earth and Earth & Eros
“Grandfather knew to ‘Look out for rattlesnakes and rusted nails’ and he also knew what too many have forgotten, the primacy of the earth and our place with her. Ryan Van Lenning’s poems restore what’s been lost to our souls, knowledge and love that was once considered basic and obvious. Poems are the perfect form for this remembering— Van Lenning takes us back to mud, to fire, roots and leaves, restoring what our species will not get far without.”
-Patrice Vecchione, author of Step into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life
“Ryan’s poetry speaks deeply and clearly to the awakening to our true interconnected nature, which is the only way we can transform our world.”
-Molly Young Brown, Author of Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to the Work That Reconnects (co-authored with Joanna Macy), Editor of Deep Times: A Journal of the Work That Reconnects
“Ryan’s poetry sprouts out of him from moist, fertile soil – painting a lush landscape of sensual and philosophical magic. His poems transport you to a way of living in relationship with the earth that is lovingly intimate. Ryan integrates body, spirit, and social commentary into a vision of how to live a nature-inspired life amidst noise and overrun technology. ” -Ariana Candell, LMFT, Founder of The Earthbody Institute
“-Katie Baptist, LCSW, Co-Founder of Wild Nature Heart
We bemoaned becoming dumb
with GPS
how nobody has actual maps any more—
let alone how to use them.
But not following a map sometimes
is a good way to fall into things
Like a swamp, for instance
which is exactly how she likes it
She had committed
to baring her soles
to the rough earth
but was open to hitching a ride
should the path become difficult
Whether as a test
or as practice for the horse
she’s going to get
and ride to San Diego
I don’t know,
but regardless—she had a grip on me.
We were a couple of two-leggeds foraging the swamps
for life
in the form of scratches,
innuendos, and a playful pause.
But also for long blades of cattails
which she will dream into a basket—feminine, colorful, strong—
woven with healer’s hands
into which she will place
her love and wildness—and maybe some of mine
until the collateral beauty of her body
following its own path
drags her once again
through the swamp
to harvest the wild things.
Evidently, I posted my 400th poem yesterday on my website. Geez I’m wordy! 🙂 But more importantly, I’m excited to announce that my book Re-Membering: Poems of Earth and Soul is live and on the market!
It has 75 earthy soulful poems in it. The book is dedicated to the Big Play, the Sacred Ear, and Deep Memory. I’m very proud of the result–it’s beautiful and accessible–but also extremely humbled that Wild Nature and Muse have been my intimate partners in creation throughout the last year or so. It was neat to read a poem from it for the first time this morning at our Wild Nature Heart gathering in the redwoods.
A little about the title, Re-Membering:
The how and why and when of the Great Forgetting is open to debate and not the subject of my book, nor even something that poetry might excavate. But what poetry might do is spark a remembering, to catalyze a spark in the dark that makes one gasp, “Oh, I remember that!”
Wild nature has been my intimate partner in creation. Wild nature is always there to jog our memory– to whisper, to sing, or sometimes to yell, “Hey, remember your childhood curiosity? Remember your creativity and your gifts for others? Remember your senses and your animal sensuality? Remember your great love affair with the earth?”
The poems in Re-Membering are about evoking that gasp of memory. To re-member is not only to recall the treasures that have been lost to forgetfulness, but about re-integrating the body and soul, putting the members of our whole selves back together, and to re-belong ourselves to the vast and beautiful and endlessly fecund home we call earth, to become full members again in the great earth community.
Gratitude and much love to everybody who has been there all along and believed in me and found inspiration in the poetry (you know who you are, my inner redwood circle)!!! I have been equally inspired by your fierce and big wild nature hearts.
If you have enjoyed some of the flavors of my poetry here on Rumi and the Shadow, you’ll probably love the poems in Re-Membering. Or maybe you have a friend, lover, family member who loves nature and poetry, it makes an easy and affordable gift. Pick up a copy here–and if you like it, leave a review on Amazon-I’d really appreciate the love!
P.S. The e-book version will also be available in a week or so. And it will be in some local bookstores as well, I’m hand-shopping it around. I will also be selling versions on my own website, but I don’t have that set up yet.
Do you remember the old sounds?
Let’s put a paw up and funnel them in.
The silent prayer of a pebble.
The bright August bursts of Ha!
Abundance conquers all
in the shape of whistles and waves and even ants have families.
Do you hear it?
Teach me water, the sun is here–
paint me all the early joys
and meet me at the bottom of things,
where the door opens.
Who steps in? What door?
Does it wiggle?
Take your shoes off and step through–
I’ll caress your shapely wound.
Tell your pain, the owl has ears.
I’ll be your Duke of Willows, King of Mud.
Then, kiss me a blackberry
stain your lips
rich with desire around my…
a sweetlings gift.
Flow me your inscrutable peach
and dive me silver
deep like whale
I’m no pond to cross.
The wind forgives, a birdlet flies free.
Rumi and the Shadow 