Insomnia by Elizabeth Bishop

The moon in the bureau mirror

looks out a million miles

(and perhaps with pride, at herself,

but she never, never smiles)

far and away beyond sleep, or

perhaps she's a daytime sleeper.

By the Universe deserted,

she'd tell it to go to hell,

and she'd find a body of water,

or a mirror, on which to dwell.

So wrap up care in a cobweb

and drop it down the well

into that world inverted

where left is always right,

where the shadows are really the body,

where we stay awake all night,

where the heavens are shallow as the sea

is now deep, and you love me.

Listen **Maya Luna**

When it smells off Listen This is a feral siddhi Primal intuition No you’re not “in resistance to what is” No you’re not “blocked” No this isn’t your attachment disorder Or your core wound Or your trauma Or your spiritual immaturity Or your growth edge No this is not a projection This is your innate bodily wisdom The feminine knowing Deeper than the mind If it smells off You’re right You can trust yourself Maybe words can’t explain it That doesn’t mean it’s not real It’s real It. Is. Real You are the harvester of wisdom Buried deep in the black of earth Down down down down Way way down You know You feel it You smell it It’s simple It’s undeniable Feminine Knowing You are an animal Hunting Truth That has no name When it smells right Eat it When it smells off Don’t These are the feral siddhis The intelligence of womb and belly She is speaking to you Listen Don’t be pulled off track By the brilliant webs of mind By the hierarchy of logic By the labyrinth of stories By the theories bought and sold The mind can turn anything into truth Anything Anything So who is to trust? When you don’t know where to step Turn to the feral one The wolf in your bones The dragon in your belly The one who knows Without hesitation Like a tiger in the brush Knows when to pounce Primal intuition Trust yourself Smell from the depths of Crazy knowing Listen Receive Hear what you knew Long before you knew You knew

Poem with two endings by Jane Hirschfield

Say “death” and the whole room freezes–
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at. Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip. Continue saying it, hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle. Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.
The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.
(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)

A Blessing for Presence

May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses. May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon. May you respond to the call of your gift and find courage to follow its path. May the flame of anger free you from falsity. May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame and anxiety never linger about you. May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul. May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul. May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. - John O'Donohue (Eternal Echoes)

The Seed Market - Mevlanna Jalaluddin Rumi

Can you find another market like this? Where, with your one rose you can buy hundreds of rose gardens? Where, for one seed get a whole wilderness? For one weak breath, a divine wind? You've been fearful of being absorbed in the ground, or drawn up by the air. Now, your waterbead lets go and drops into the ocean, where it came from. It no longer has the form it had, but it's still water The essence is the same. This giving up is not a repenting. It's a deep honoring of yourself. When the ocean comes to you as a lover, marry at once, quickly, for God's sake! Don't postpone it! Existence has no better gift. No amount of searching will find this. A perfect falcon, for no reason has landed on your shoulder, and become yours.

Pushing Through by Rainer Maria Rilke (trans- Robert Bly)

It is possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;
I am such a long way in I see no way through,
and no space: everything is close to my face
and everything close to my face is stone.

I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief-
so this massive darkness makes me small.
YOU be the master: make yourself fierce,break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me
and my great grief cry will happen to you.

Into The Fire lyrics Sarah Machlachlan

Mother teach me to walk again
Milk and honey, so intoxicating

I'm reunited
Into the fire
I am the spark
Into the night
I yearn for comfort

Open the doors that lead on into Eden
Don't want no cheap disguise
I follow the signs marked "back to the beginning"
No more compromise

And into the fire
I'm reunited
Into the fire
I am the spark
Into the night
I yearn for comfort

Free the water that carries me to the sea
You, I see as my security

And into the fire
I'm reunited
Into the fire
I am the spark

Into the night
I yearn for comfort

I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me
I will walk into the fire 'til its heat doesn't burn me
And I will feed the fire

Into the fire
I'm reunited
Into the fire
I am the spark
Into the night
I yearn for comfort
Into the night, Into the fire

Into the fire
I'm reunited
Into the fire
Oh, I am the spark
Into the night
I yearn for comfort
Into the fire, Into the fire

into the fire
I'm reunited
Into the fire
I am the spark fade