I'll be your Huckleberry

V
Artiste avant
Adventurer
Atop, a humorous note.
Teakettle brass
And caramel
A sea without a boat.

Conceptual weaver
Reader of ways
High-hedged labyrinth.
Curiouser and curiouser
This place is hidden
Black velvet hyacinth.

Desert maiden
Her Heart a tree
Ever-breathing, layered knots.
Ahead, the red-rocked peaks
of fire and earth
Through speckled sun she walks.
                                       -Tessa

How beautiful is that when the first person to ever call me Auntie, gives me this for Christmas?

This is a prayer for the open hearted...

This prayer goes out in images, no words attached.  just an open heart and spirit, praying for the essence of the image.  The other day i sat down to blog and all i could add was the above pictures; not for some mechanical or formatting reason, but because it was all i had to say. i didn't even know what it meant.

So i've taken a few days to sit with and realize
there is often no reason to put words to expression,
no call for reason from form.
Sometimes simple expression is the meaning
and words just detract from what is being born.

what a stretch for the expresser in me, my medium is words;
how they sound together, or when juxtaposed against another.
the picture drawn from word's expression invites the mind,
the memory to launch the journey from which they're tethered.
and so the leap, with no words to support,
trusting that image will strengthen the cord.
when close in falling, almost touching the ground,
the vision that lifts us is what turns it around.

Gifts of the Desert

I feel quite certain Edward Abbey said something moving and brilliant about the gifts the desert freely gives; perhaps something like

how the sun and carrion scour our bones exposing a story our ivory is there to tell,

or maybe

the lavender hued shadows at dusk tempt us to look with the vision of owl, bat or mischievous coyote into the mystery where no sun's light casts our story into obvious relief. 

I invite you to seek out your favorite quote about these gifts(or write your own) and insert it here in your thoughts...(feel free to share if you are so inclined) for only you know exactly what mood and gift this moment asks to share with you.

this morning as i cleaned through a stack of papers in my room that clamor from somewhere deep within their pile "herein lies all the wisdom, all the answers, don't cast us away", but i'm never quite sure what to do with--i found the following birthday gift emerging to be heard and read and held, and it felt the perfect way to honor the turning of the season from birthday to autumn, from introspection to pruning and preparing for hibernation whence seeds germinated begin their coiling stretch in DNA code long since buried that ignites us all--and so i share it with you in joyful celebration of its expression.

from tessa at my birthday

Desert sun, radiant watch

the eye amidst the grass.

Stretching forth, the gnarled branch.

It holds the last rich seed.

An ancient crane, its song a sacred melody to the woman's bone.

The shadow of the red cliffs cradles,

ever holding, ever strength.

And high above, 

sent from the wind, 

a silhouette that calls you round.

A message from yourself.

You've seen its face and feel the stone.

The Place.

--in reaction,
a heart filled with tearful blessedness,
hearing the crane's cry, seeing the woman's bone
cradled deeply in red cliff's shadow
a message from self--this shadow stalks me,
warrior, shaman, sage
silhouette ever with me, silently willing and waiting to be heard
i am blessed and grateful indeed.

A little night Music, Poetry Monday and Summer Solstice

My mind seems to be a little bit full of the draw of this shortest night of the year and resists the slumber that has typically long since cajoled a dreamscape from my eyes.  Rather tonight it seems i am called to share a bit of my own poetry found on father's day while cleaning out all sorts of nooks and crannies from my own desk.  i came across these few verses scribbled hastily, in terrible handwriting and with no care for perfect meter or rhyme.  they were simply childhood moments, places romantically recalled from a girl's thoughts holding some magical draw for moments lost to all but memory.

and so on this all too magical midsummer's eve i cast my own magic into the cauldron, recalling the potent draw of childhood imagination and dream making, a treasure hunt of place and time out of time!!!

Tin Roof

Springtime's ripeness doesn't last long

One false step could do you wrong

a slippery shaky place to trod

for one who passes here unshod

Don't get no jam between your toes

a respite here will stain your soles.

(as children we would climb on top of the horse shed, just to the base of the mulberry tree and spend delighted hours coaxing  ripened purple berries to fall into our fingers, staining palms and lips and toes with their succulent juices--i wore these stains as a badge of honor rejoicing in the arrival of summertime)

Diving Board

Our childrens' game consisted oft

of flying high, propelled aloft

down pirate's path to murky brine

which now is stiff with broken spine.

(on long hot summer days, we children would spend hours in the swimming pool coming up with elaborate games to pass the time.  rarely did we leave the pool without some imagined game of walking the plank down the diving board whose spring is all but lost and board very near broken)

Treasure Chest

If pirates had been ladies gay

it is certain that with ribbons they would have liked to play

and bows and dresses and shoes and dolls

to masquerade at madmen's balls

(when summer storms threatened our fun, at least the sisters came indoors to continue our games, dress-ups were pulled from the best of piratey-looking treasure chests, where we spun yarns fit for children's tales and grand conjuring indeed)

Poetry Monday--just a day early, that's all

zero circle...

...be helpless, dumbfounded,

   unable to say yes or no.

   then a stretcher will come from grace

        to gather us up.

   we are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.

   if we say we can, we're lying.

   if we say No, we don't see it,

   that No will behead us

  and shut tight our window onto spirit.

   so let us rather not be sure of anything,

   beside ourselves, and only that, so

   miraculous beings come running to help.

   crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,

   we shall be saying finally,

   with tremendous eloquence, lead us.

   when we have totally surrendered to that beauty,

   we shall be a mighty kindness.
Rumi

Poetry Mondays--The Song of the Wandering Aengus

Following whimsy and subject to spontaneity like i am--i declare today  "POETRY MONDAY".  this yeats poem keeps turning up like shiny new dime to be reconsidered and examined. with gaze intrigued, i discover the power of a celtic and druidic return to mystic images unfolding and revealing itself to me in these words.  funny how we experience things on one level, and they become brand new when our eyes are opened on a new level of awareness.
i am grateful for a conscious look at all the symbols that are offering their wisdom to those who seek.


what images are revealed to you?

The Song of Wandering Aengus
By William Butler Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

To Consider: Love and its thousand transformations, and the pursuit of the Beloved, that holy one who calls me by my name. Over and over again.

I AM

This is my very first "guest blogger" --  if you will.  I couldn't not share these words with just a few more people. and in the same moment celebrate how we all express our own senses, connection, yearning and knowing.

This is a poem by one of my friend's children (pictured below) .  what hope and vision i see for a world inspired by the spirit of child like this.  

I AM
BY: Connor Martindale.

I am a wonderer seeking for my freedom.
I wonder about the animals in desperate need.
I hear roaches croaking at me.
I see the fireflies flying around me
I want to be a believer.
I am a wonderer seeking for my freedom.
I pretend I’m in world war 2.
I feel blood pouring out of me.
I touch the nurse as I’m in desperate need.
I worry that I’m going to die.
I cry as I see that I’m a survivor.
I am a wonderer seeking for my freedom.
I understand that I will die someday.
I say I’m happy.
I dream about my past life.
I try to be a good man.
I hope that I’m right.
I am a wonderer seeking for my freedom.

Introspection Loves Company

(author's note re: dramatic liscence...these are the combined words, thoughts, heartbeats of my mystic tribe. i ask full pardon and blessing for combining them to the beat of my own heart)

Oh Ram.....

When alone and introspective

I marvel at the creature and spirit that breathes its way into my awareness...

The drums are getting louder and my heart beats in time...

When the wind touches me in new ways

I feel the smell of the summer air for the first time

It weaves in and out of being in the world,

Consciously entering into and emerging from Presence.

delving deep within, and trusting fully

Jumping "off the cliff" empty handed

I hear this call out of the fog of forgetfulness.

Take the jump not because it is comfortable, but because comfort follows the jump.

Look forward to the splash as we take the leap together

Into this expansive void I free fall with gusto

From a high-ground view where my intent wavered,

and where I stopped to swallow stillness.

as promised, here's my voice again,

It flutters like a million Butterfly wings

Sounding out, a tone to follow....

Back to the well where we'll drink once more.

I feel your words now

Vibrating, jingling my bones, dancing under my skin...

In anticipation and Love for my tribe.....
I feel you all so very close, with every breath.....

The body as a temple is practice in answer to prayer

The balancing elixir of our systems

Headed for something Biblical or divine,

out of my awareness I do manage to find the switch

And love every minute of this wild ride;

Learning to stay grounded, in rhythm with earth.

I end up an alchemist making elixirs of rock, vortexes of manifest ease.

If the earth were not cracked open we would never have known

Never known the jewels, the great Earth medicines

Life goes on, important events "just happen".

No amount of preparation or lack thereof will change anything

Heartaches arrive on my doorstep

Accompanied with a freedom previously mistaken for loss.

A couple I welcome inside to get warm

They make themselves intimately known to the who I am today

I am "chomping at the bit"...

like the wind horse pulling on the reigns of our awareness;

The soul rearing to go, galloping into its remembrance of undifferentiated Self.

Sometimes I am unsure of what I might find;

others I am at rest in the Divine Mother's lap

Knowing that I knew nothing...

Hence the ground cracking open...blasting through my Pisces Sun,

The water of this swim burns at noonday and fills my gills

Come out to the desert one and all.

The Land waits

The Mystery is waiting

I am surrounded by a ring of fire.

Out of the circle of time and into the circle of love
only when I stopped to listen,

Was I able to hear?

Will we be chased through the desert by our captors?

Will the sea part, leading us to our freedom?

Shut the talking down,

Break through the gateway,

Guarding the mystery of heart

Balancing the daily company of death,

I am in awe of the power

I am very much at peace

It's important for us to feel each other gathering....

Emptied, enchanted, expanded, ecstatic and.... united as One.
Just to Re-member our Wholeness

with open arms and heart

And in the "unknowing", where all pictures turn

velvety darkness or pure potential,

the entire landscape transforms

At the still point, I wait with joyful anticipation of our reunion.

YOU HAVE ONLY TO BE STILL.

Messenger of messengers

Enough silence to truly hear.
I answer the call to return to our circle

and delve deeper into the water,

Divine Rebirth

Oh Ram…how curious your costume

petitelama, Deborah, Delora, Lisa, Don, David, Julie, Julia, Lola, Kim, Tracie, Mary, Wendy Sue, Ryan, Margaret, Dana, Anne lise, Sandy, Diana

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Now playing: peter gabriel Salisbury Hill
via FoxyTunes

That VALR, she's so HOT right now!!!

Mother earth, wide and deep
stirs the elemental cauldron of pure matter.
As the Queen holds dominion over hive life
inherent order's beauty is realized.

Balancing a timeless dance of earth
while waltzing gently in fluid birth.
Embracing both the ebb and flow
within your nurturing womb.

Spreading Limbs broad and true,
the energy of life revealed
in the heavens of Kether and dirt of Malkuuth.

Seeking long enough to find
that death comes to the ego
only when the conscious priestess lends her graceful gaze.
And when truly "singing out her flesh"
does the heart beat once again from this worthy praise.

Now challenged as only the lone HERMIT can express
How can the HERO brave the mighty Thorn
to reach the blessed Flower?

Up on the hill set that hedge ablaze
and breathe the initiate's fire.
It is in choice of Holy MOMENT that she lingers no more,
and leaps to enter the battle.

----------------
Now playing: Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - Good Times
via FoxyTunes

why you wanna fly?

tortion in your look, something has occurred
is it possible that in this judgment we have erred?
is there something gently disguised by the twinkle in your eyes,
and do we mispeak by asking clearly to hear about your week?

it's not a problem especially and we don't mean to pry,
but the clenching stress and twitch might yet reveal the lie.
don't be alarmed by this momentary aberration
it's just something to note while passing through the station.

something to note about the psyche or consciousness
in this child that walks so bravely and silently among us.
i don't have much to go on to identify the issue
that belies the remarkable softness as it yields its inner tissue.

a melting implies that we are finally letting go of shape
while holding the gentle infant within the visionary's scape.
honor comes with engineered development of presence
an opportunity for thoroughbred to open up to essence.


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Now playing: Nina Simone - Blackbird
via FoxyTunes

when the essence leaks right through

a little over a week ago i stood in a room of full grown adults; all of us looking sheepishly around at eachother as we began to breathe heavily through our noses...

and then ever so slowly some timidly began to dance. "was this the start to some strange erotic, orgy-like group ritual"--you may be asking yourself (well i suppose that remains to be seen)? but for the moment it was merely an experiment in "getting cooked"!!

"oh now she's gone off the deep end" you say, "i'm not reading any further", but lest you sign off this downright righteous tome without discovering my topic and going to your grave convinced that my soul will rot in purgatory i urge you to stick with me for a few more lines...there was a time in the history of the world that in addition to getting very still in prayer and meditation to invite a closeness with spirit, or indeed being bathed in spiritual guidance, people from wisdom traditions all around the world used to really get their spirit moving (cooking things up), breathe in and out as if their lives depended on it, and move their bodies like their souls had something to dance for.

"why in god's name would those crazy wisdom tradtionalists do such a thing"? you may be asking
i'm told and am now learning for myself that it was exactly that, in God's name--is why the Quakers did it, in Allah's for the Sufis, it is Brahma, Ganesh, Vishnu and Shiva (among many others) for the Hindus, and the "Big God" for the Kalahari Bushmen. and "what is it exactly everybody's doing?" you ask again. among the many traditions around the world it has been called
Chi/Qi—China Yesod--Kabbalism, Prana--India, N/Om--Kalahari, Tumpinyer Mooroop--Australian Aboriginies and Manitou--Ojibway and the list goes on and on and on

and it is ecstatic breathing, dancing, movement--what has been described by Bradford Keeny, author of Shaking Medicine as "sound poetry, and sound poetry then turns into singing. Shamans, whether they're in the Amazon or whether they're the Lakota medicine people or the Bushman healers, are all about "catching" the songs. Their belief is that the Big God who expresses the Big Love can only share love through the rhythm, the beauty of song."

for our crazy little band of experimenters it was just that, an experiment, a foray into the unknown(surely unknown to us) to see what there was to see. and what did we see there? well nobody fell to the floor overcome with the spirit, no one was immediately called upon to be saved, but what i like to think happened was that we were called upon to remember, remember and awaken to something our wise ancestors knew for generations, centuries and eons before we let our "big minds" get in the way. In the middle of feeling silly, breathing heavy and shaking our tailfeathers one of our number reminisced out loud about the best time he can ever remember being moved by the spirit when it came to music was listening to "in a gadda da vida" the long version. he and his friend danced like wild men for a full 17 minutes...two teenage boys unaware of space and time and self and self-consciousness for almost 20 minutes. As he painted the mental picture for us, for a few short minutes we all returned in space and time to the moments when music, dancing, breathing heavy have truly removed our attention from our physical space and put our attention on something entirely "otherworldly". these are the moments when our skin just doesn't matter anymore and true essence starts to leak right through.

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Now playing: Iron Butterfly - In a Gadda Da Vida
via FoxyTunes

alchemical baking or life changing breakfast

in daily life i am a chef for a constantly changing and always craving group of lovable folks in need of food that feeds the belly and the soul. a little "soul food" ensues...

--alchemical baking

"...is it only isaiah of old that held the key to the mystic's secret art of transmutation, revealing that only a refiner's fire might distinguish the silver from the dross? What if it were possible that the steam rising from a mother's homemade breakfast were enough to transport the day from ordinary to blessed? Perhaps "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips" was really meant as a soothsayer's caution, reminding us that only the truly wise know it is what we choose to speak and hold in our hearts which becomes the burden-- or light we each carry with us to guide the way. And so it is in knowing the power of words and strength of focus, that we are urged to bless the moments of our day, much as we would assemble the ingredients to the perfect breakfast. In both ways we start our day with a blessing, an honoring, a transmutation of daily practice into sacred ritual; welcoming that which is godlike into the tiny moments of our lives..."

--cinnamon raisin french toast

-6 medium eggs

-1/2 to 1 c. milk

- 1 tsp. vanilla

- 2 tsp. cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp. nutmeg

-pinch of salt

-3 to 5 whole wheat cinnamon raisin bagels(premade/store-bought)

-waffle iron

whisk together ingredients of egg mix until liquid is very light and airy. cut each bagel in half and soak the slices in the egg mix for 1-2 full minutes to allow it to soak up a lot of the eggs. place both halves of the bagel in the waffle maker and firmly close and cook until light turns to green. cooking in the waffle maker changes the shape of the bagel entirely and now your breakfast guests will think they are eating the world's most delicious and entirely from scratch french toast/waffles.

Topping

-2 to 4 cups fresh or frozen sliced peaches (depending on how many people you are serving)

-1 cup of your favorite granola ( i can provide you with a killer recipe if you request)

-2-4 Tbs. butter

bring all of these ingredients to a sizzle in a sauté pan with a little bit of butter and a pinch of sugar if you like, and serve on top of french toast with warm maple syrup.

Please enjoy this delicious meal and take a moment to envision your biggest manifestations...the steam from this meal is guaranteed to make at least 3 dreams come true for the day!!!!:)