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

WE HAVE COME. by Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME.

--Audre Lorde

I

Is the total black, being spoken

From the earth's inside.

There are many kinds of open.

How a diamond comes into a knot of flame

How a sound comes into a word, coloured

By who pays what for speaking.





Some words are open

Like a diamond on glass windows

Singing out within the crash of passing sun

Then there are words like stapled wagers

In a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart—

And come whatever wills all chances

The stub remains

An ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.

Some words live in my throat

Breeding like adders. Others know sun

Seeking like gypsies over my tongue

To explode through my lips

Like young sparrows bursting from shell.

Some words

Bedevil me.





Love is a word another kind of open—

As a diamond comes into a knot of flame

I am black because I come from the earth's inside

Take my word for jewel in your open light.

- Immanuel Suttner

I have tried on

and slipped out of

many identities

like a woman

in a changing room

trying to find

the clothes that

will make

everything alright

but nothing fits completely

tho bits and pieces stick to me

perhaps I am

a kind of hollow

resonant

identity mannequin

and somewhere beneath

my latest face

lies an infinite

open

unafraid

space