Collectors of Life
Beacons of energy
Earthen antennas of
Spirit and personality
Ancient mysteries
And hidden wisdom
A gathering of relatives
A soulful congregation
Collectors of Life
Beacons of energy
Earthen antennas of
Spirit and personality
Ancient mysteries
And hidden wisdom
A gathering of relatives
A soulful congregation
Come with me.
Let’s circle around the man, our corporate captor, and show him our true numbers.
Let’s barricade him in with our art, blast music in his face, and dance around him with fire spinning from our fingers like stars orbiting the center of the galaxy.
He’ll try, but he can’t stop us. He’ll scream, “I’m too big to fall!”
And with a fireball to his ankles, we’ll ignite him.
The violet flames will rise — like the wild feminine within us — flicking heat tornados off his neck.
We’ll cheer as his ash floats over us.
We’ll howl to the moon as she watches his destruction, our preservation, the fireworks of our celebration.
And when, at last, our fire brings him crashing down —
Our World will finally be free.
Give me tall trees instead of tall buildings,
Unruly undergrowth instead of urban sprawl —
Let me get lost in the forest,
And I’ll find my way to the center of my soul.
I am in love
with salt and petals
gravel and clouds.
A galaxy of miracles
Brings us together.
Gravity pulls like rip tides in my veins
To swirl amongst your forests and fish —
A child of your mist.
Growing along barbed wire,
Her petals
Hold scratches, cuts, and tears.
Still — she continues
To expand
To seed
To live her Truth.
And for that —
She is beautiful.
To honor Earth Day, this year I am sharing two poems to show the beautiful and devastating reality of being a human on this planet right now. Both of these poems are remixed excerpts from my book Varanasi Sage.
“She Comes to Me”
I am soft and humble, yet unafraid
To share space with Titans,
Entities Unfathomable,
Spirits born from the depths.
I am a guest in their great hall.
Quietude surrenders me,
Dissolving me into the air,
The empty space.
Here
She comes to me,
The truest part of me, for
I am made of Her living body.
My heart turns over to Hers,
And our sacred Oneness,
Endlessly present in time.
“Where a Temple Once Lived”
Ghosts stand visible with
Charred, barren limbs
Naked arms reach for mercy
Bodies no longer breathing
No longer creating clouds
Nor home for animals and insects
Burned alive
Electrical wires cross the hills
Like music lines forming
Measures of a strange and deadly song
A transmission tower’s guilty buzz
Plays the melody composed by
Corporate greed
Man wasn’t exiled from the Garden
He chose his depraved separation
As the reclining sun made dense fog glow, I walked the path I had walked like a thread through my years. Memories returned a child, in these same feet, on this same path to the bus stop, imitating the red-winged black bird’s melody with her newly-developed whistle.
With my first steps, I realized my pocket computer remained on the nightstand. Breathing the mist that merged land and sky, I didn’t miss a step. I didn’t need it — that taker of presence — I knew this path by heart.
Along the creek, where we made movies with my father’s camcorder, and across the highway that never was this busy, I entered the forest. Owls lived in those trees, but now, only morning birds sang. Their notes brushed past the silver, camphor-scented leaves. Our mother accompanied them from a quarter mile away. Her watery voice now hushed; her soul now quiet.
A narrow trail of sand through sap spikes took me from the forest to the cliff’s edge. The sun, unable to break the clouds, allowed the sky to hug me beside the Pacific’s expanse. Water and heaven: indistinguishable at the horizon. Ferocity made soft.
Nothing between us, no dark window in my palm to disconnect my heart, nothing to take me away. In the salt air, I slowed to enjoy my solitary humanness and my awareness of each now.
My eyes embraced the world.
I stopped for a sparkle. With dew in diamond beads set symmetrically along each finger, a lupin leaf extended its palm to touch the day. Color called out and my eyes drifted to magenta muffin cup petals. Inside, on the yellow puff pillow, a bumble bee dozed.
I reached for my pocket to document the sight, immortalize the memory, grasp and clasp at this now. To share it with my friends and receive heart-eyed emojis — each one a chemical thrill. I shook my head at the addict within and her insistence to go back and fetch the screen.
Instead, with nothing between us, I sat and observed the bee’s bottom rise and fall as it napped in its flower bed. Royal palms stretched to me, asking me to stay beside the ocean, held, as mist strung glittering beads in my hair.
Give me the faith of seeds in winter
Lend me the strength of the earth’s molten core
Help me to trust that your good rains down
And fills my spirit with a deep reservoir
I’ll follow you
into the forest of mist
Where our imaginations
will inhale low-hanging clouds
And become full
with life-giving dew.