Tuesday Poetry Blogging

The Truly Great

~Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious, is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Picture found here

What Are the Needs of the Beaver, the Bear, the Salmon?

We know what the animals do, what are the needs of the beaver, the bear, the salmon, and other creatures, because long ago men married them and acquired this knowledge from their animal wives. Today the priests say we lie, but we know better. The white man has been only a short time in this country and knows very little about the animals; we have lived here thousands of years and were taught long ago by the animals themselves. The white man writes everything down in a book so that it will not be forgotten; but our ancestors married animals, learned all their ways, and passed on this knowledge from one generation to another.

- A Carrier Indian, from the Bulkley River, in British Columbia

~quoted in The Spell of the Sensuous by David Abram.

I think that this notion of "marrying," -- which produces, over time, as good marriages will, an understanding of what, for example, an animal or a plant or a river or a landbase or a watershed does and needs -- is a lovely one. It's an experiential marriage, one that proceeds and undergirds and finally makes possible a "marriage of true minds." I think that it's true, as well, for our relationship with ourselves, especially as Witches. It's one reason why I find daily practice so important. It's an opportunity to really get to know myself, my deities, my mission. It's not something I can get just from reading down what someone else has written in a book, any more than the Carrier Indian could really know about beavers by reading about them. And it is from that slowly-developed relationship with myself, born of daily practice, that I am able to begin to reach out and marry my bit of Earth, the plants and animals in my garden, my beautiful Potomac River, Columbia's landbase.

Well, we're all polyamorous in our own way.

Picture found here.

Synchronicity: You're Soaking in It

Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki:

People often say to me, "You're 81 years old; where do you get the energy from?" and I say, "I get it from that wholeness." I move out in my mind into that immensity of space and there is that, that warmth, that sense of welcoming. And I imagine myself there. I place myself there and I say to this wholeness, "I'm part of you. I came out of you. I'm going to go back into you. And I love you. I really do love you, in the deepest sense of that word, because I'm part of you. And at this moment, I could do with a little bit of you, a little bit more of you. I need some of your energy." And Thorn, I can feel it filling me up, and then, when I come back, it's there for me to use.

~Talking to T. Thorn Coyle in a podcast dated September 13, 2010.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

For the more sensitive the soul of the observer, the greater the ecstasy aroused in him by this harmony. At such times his senses are possessed by a deep and delightful reverie, and in a state of blissful self-abandomentent he loses himself in the immensity of this beautiful order, which which he feels himself at one. All individual objects escape him, he sees and feels nothing but the unity of all things. His ideas have to be restricted and his imagination limited by some particular circumstances for him to observe the separate parts of this universe which he was striving to embrace in its entirety.

~quoted in Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future by Bron Taylor. (Listen to Anne Hill interview Taylor here.)

Picture found here.

The Fifth Sacred Thing

Poem (the spirit likes to dress up)

The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning

in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather

plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body's world,
instinct

and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,

to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is --

so it enters us --
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;

and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.

~Mary Oliver

Picture found here.

Sacrament

Sacrament: 1 : a religious act that is a sign or symbol of a spiritual existence


The evening air along the banks of my beautiful Potomac River is thick with the scent of honeysuckle. Which I finally realize is part honey, part rose, part wild bergamot. I've been trying almost all my life to identify its components.

Driving home along the river this evening, I was reminded of what they say about those who experienced the Eleusian Mysteries: that those who had experienced them no longer feared death. Honestly, if, just a few times in your life, you get to inhale this scent, why should you ever fear death?

And that is how I take the sacraments.

Picture found here.

Sunday Poetry Blogging

I’m the slave of the Moon; talk of nothing but moon.
Or brightness and sweetness. Other than that, say nothing.

Don’t tell of suffering, talk of nothing but blessings.
If you know nothing about them, no matter. Say nothing.

Last night I went wild. Love saw me and said:
I’m here. Don’t shout, don’t rip your shirt, say nothing.

I said: O Love, what I fear is something else.
There’s nothing there. Say nothing.

I’ll whisper secret words in your ears. Just nod yes.
Except for that nod of your head, say nothing.

A moon pure as spirit rose on the heart’s pathway.
What a joy, to travel the way of the heart. Say nothing.

I said: O Heart, what is this moon? Heart beckoned:
For now, it’s not for you to know. Say nothing.

I said: Is this face angel or human?
Neither angel nor human. It is other, say nothing.

I said: What’s this? I’ll lose my mind if you don’t tell me.
It said: Then lose your mind, and stay that way. Say nothing.

You who sit in this house filled with images and illusions,
get up, walk out the door. Go, and say nothing.

I said: O Heart, tell me kindly: Isn’t this about God?
It said: Yes it is, but kindly say nothing.

~Rumi

Translation found here.

Picture found here.

Wind, Sun, Shade

It's a sign of just how simple I am, and, in the days of my youth, it would have been a sign that I needed drugs and shock therapy and "care," but I simply cannot describe the spiritual joy that wind in the leaves gives to me, especially when there's shadow and sun. I am literally in love with the sound and the sights, indeed, with the smells. Dappled shade is, and long has been, one of the greatest joys of my life. Today was predicted to be all rainy. Instead, it's been rainy, misty, sunny, windy, changing -- liminal. I am really happier than I know how to express.