The Hermit

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SPACE 26 February 2020

The space of my desk holds the card
The one that keeps appearing
The one nudging me to rest, burrow,
Go within
A small yet infinite space 

Earth has acquired
a brand new moon
that’s about the size of a car

Truth, a primary pilgrimage
Lit by the simplest of Light
Discernible in dark, no obvious borders
Small enough for a few steps at a time
A time for slowing, introspection 

Our new moon is probably between
1.9 and 3.5 metres across,
making it no match for Earth’s primary moon.

I am an elliptical orbit
Swooping unbalanced
Reaching for certainty
Knowing grace is in the unknowing
Resting and going
Coming back again

It circles our planet
about once every 47 days
on a wide, oval-shaped orbit
that mostly swoops
far outside the larger moon’s path.

I am not stable here planted
Tulips rise
There will be snow and ice
Rabbits delight in buds
Old growth hides snake
All within our orbits
Bumping into one another
Our right relation

The orbit isn’t stable,
so eventually 2020 CD3
will be flung away from Earth.

Will I gently step
When the veils opens
or be flung from this crust

I think I shall choose the flinging

 

Author’s Note:

This is Day Seven of the National Poetry Writing Month/Global Poetry Writing Month challenge of writing a new poem every day.

The Hermit continues to visit me. Often. I need to heed his advice. So melding the optional prompt and his presence gives me words to share today.

And I will have to use the iron rain story, too, sometime. That is just too good a prompt to pass up.

From the folks at NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo:

And speaking of news, today our prompt (optional, of course) is another oldie-but-goodie: a poem based on a news article. Frankly, I understand why you might be avoiding the news lately, but this is a good opportunity to find some “weird” and poetical news stories for inspiration. A few potential candidates:

Earth Has Acquired a Brand New Moon That’s About the Size of a Car,”

Ohio Man Seeks World Record with Beer-Only Lent Diet

Pablo Escobar’s ‘Cocaine Hippos’ May Be Restoring Colombia’s Ecosystem

Researchers Discover Faraway Planet Where the Rain is Made of Iron

Sister Starwalker

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Sister Starwalker

Do not worry if you seem not to dream.
                                                  It is an ominous place in time.

I am with you
         and your dreams will unfold
              and you will be safe
                   and you will know.

Under Moon or dark sky               Star Nations cradle you.
                       They sing your story,
and you hear.

Together we walk
                   and Ancestors come.
They show you the way and you go.

And
if you still do not seem to dream,
rest in me anyway          sweet one rest.

I am your Sister Starwalker
                   and
I will always be.

 

Author’s Note:

I have begun my journey as a Color of Woman In Training 2019 under the guide of Shiloh Sophia and other graduates and wise women from the Intentional Creativity Foundation. A group of Cosmic Cowgirls who ride their paths honoring the feminine in all walks of life.  I am so very full of gratitude to be a part of this group, this circle woven together by the Red Thread.

One of our first assignments in our training is to create our personal Legend-Archetype.

Her name is Sister Starwalker.

Her incarnation is not only to paint her, but to write her Chronicles. The first steps are to write MY incarnation story and begin painting employing the 13 steps of Intentional Creativity.

She is at a resting place right now. Time to listen. Time to write.

She Who Is began her naming process. She speaks who she is and what she does.

She Who Is

She Who is Wildwoman in the Wilderness of Being

She Who Carries the Night

She Who Stands Guard

She Who Honors Ancestral Wisdom

She Who Listens

She Who Illuminates

She Who is Sister Starwalker

And now that she is named and resting in her image and colors, I begin her Chronicles.

Chronicles of Sister Starwalker

One – Incarnation

She stood on her tippy toes, barefoot at the upper point of the crescent Moon. After a deep breath in, she released it, and slid down. If it was a good full release, she would end at the tip of the other side of Moon. It was just for a moment of ecstasy until she slid back to rest in the middle of Moon’s crescent smile.

Moon wasn’t really a crescent, although that is how most people described it in each orbit, thinking the rest of the Moon was gone. Paying little attention to what was really there.

Oh, they missed the most important part. Moon is always there, full and luscious, knowing when to shine brightest and when to dim. Moon is wise in all her years knowing that it takes dark to see stars.

As there she sat in the middle of the crescent, her voice opened into gratitude.

She was young.

It’s not what one on Earth would think of as young. She was sixty-two, and that made her barely a baby among the Star Nations. She had just begun her journey with them.

She felt blessed by the Ancestors to be honored to share her gift, the one who could look at dreams without fear, find their owners, and stand guard as dreams unfolded. But that wasn’t always true when she was on Earth.

But here they named her Sister Starwalker, an honoring of tremendous responsibility she accepted with humility and joy.

Sister Starwalker had other gifts, too. When walking on Earth, the place she chose to be, she was known as the Wildwoman who tramped through the city and found the open spaces and talked to Mother Tree and left gifts of sparkly stones in cracks and crevices for others to find, if they stood in silence long enough to see.

She would sing her own songs as she walked her familiar. Out loud! Yes! And people crossed the street  away from her or paused at the pavilion seeking shade as an excuse not to make eye contact. They were not escaping from the heat of the sun, but from Sister Starwalker’s brilliance.

Silence was her place of being. She learned to settle anywhere to call it to her. And she listened and taught others to do the same. A few understood, but most others were frightened of what they thought was a void.  

Oh, Sister Starwalker wanted to share what she heard in the silence. The whisper of Spirit’s love songs to her. The crows who really did watch and wanted to converse. All the chatterings that can only be deciphered and nuanced when all was still. You see, it wasn’t really silent at all.

Her heartbeat. Yes. In the silence she could hear it beat and as the reverberation spread from her center Light out, she could feel it, hear it entwine with other heartbeats, and together it became one gigantic beat.

Oh, she wanted to tell others what a gift of silence is to calming fears and weaving that red thread to others to finally discover. But most preferred the noise. She understood since it took her a very long time to find her silent place within, to drown out the noise that demanded her attention.

“Silly, little Ego,” she would tell it when it called to her demanding she give her all. “Go take a nap, I have silence to listen to.”

Sister Starwalker had much to learn and, now, had eternity to do it. It was her consecration, something she had searched for and didn’t find until she came to silence.

She had other gifts, too, that helped her in her new quest.

She carried the night with her.

She so loved the dark. When she learned to paint, she discovered it had colors that you couldn’t see until you were quiet and listened for them. There were all shades of blue and grey and green and magenta and oranges and yellows, too. Really! It surprised her the first time she saw them, heard them. And then she could not ever not see them again.

Now that she was at here in silence, she could sit and wait for illumination and then she could hear Ancestors tell their stories to their beloveds. She could shine Moon’s light just where it was needed, like a prism coming through her to others.

On Earth, she was afraid to dream. When she did, her sleep was fitful and she awoke exhausted and sad and angry and scared and, worst of all, unworthy. So she decided to stop dreaming. And she did.

But here, now, she could be brave and stand guard when others were afraid to dream. Sister Starwalker knew the dangers of dreaming. Some, like her Earthly self, were not willing to set aside their fear to hear their stories. But now she learned what she could do.

She grew as a warrior to that which no longer served. She knew how to do that. Now. And even a little bit when she was on Earth.

When she was summoned home, she stepped through the veil and was named. They didn’t even have to tell her. She heard it from deep within and she knew what she was to do.

And she began her night, just like every night…being with Moon, hearing the colors tell their stories, Ancestor whispers, crows sleeping, and listening in the silence to the music of the Universe to discover where she would be needed this night…

Equilibrium

 

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Author’s Note:

To my lovely followers I must apologize. I want to let you know why I haven’t posted in quite a while. I’ve been busy on this project.

Another apology. This post is loooooong. However, if you have the time, I would love for you to stick with it….

After two months of writing every day – Poetry Postcard Month and National/Global Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo/GloPoWriMo) – I finally feel comfortable sitting down and writing every day. As a matter of fact, I miss it when it doesn’t work out. I even get a bit grumpy. Not that all the work is good. That’s not the point. I am finding that the more I put down, the more I see. And that is good.

To continue to challenge myself, I am taking a class called Play It Forward sponsored by Tweetspeak Poetry. It is a twelve-week course to help shake me up a bit. I’ve been looking for new inspiration lately. I feel I’ve gotten too serious, or am on the edge of the nefarious “writer’s block.” And I thought this would plunge me into a deep cool pool where I can splash and play and see through some new lenses.

I was right about new lenses. We do play, but the work is deep.

We have weekly themes and an array of resources to experience. Also, taking an “Artist’s Date” weekly as described in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way is mandatory. This playtime has proven to be rich and fun.

A few weeks ago, our theme was “extremes” and after an Artist’s Date to the Denver Art Museum, I began this project. I plunged into the extreme of the Moon and her cycles – it was a full moon when I started – and my relationship to Spirit. I soon hope to have an Artist’s Statement to accompany the piece.

It combines my photography with my poetry, quotes and definitions. It combines science with Spirit and art. It is done in pencil, ink, and images are manipulated in PicMonkey. It is on recycled drawing paper sized 18’x24′. Framing TBD. I know what I want, but it is a bit larger than when I started out and I need to adjust.

It’s hard to explore the words from the photo. So I below are the images which my poetry encircles, and the definitions, quotes, and labels.

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Equilibrium

apogee/1

There are birds
at four thirty am
and I am beckoned
from my
deep colorless
silence
to join
in their raucous
anointing of
dawn.

apogee/2

Nil,
void. I
begin there and
I hear you.
From nothing, a
beat, infinite pulse,
our indissoluble
song.

equilibrium/3

In balance
I step hoop’s thin path
like a circus act
where there is no net
only balance
around I spiral
from center
to eternity
our parity

perigee/4

Coming near
closer with all I am
all I own
in the aloneness of being
in the amplitude of that
which enclaves me
I find you
where you’ve
always been
not out
but within

perigee/5

and we dance
to the rhythm
that hums and
chants our constancy
evergreen

 

Yahweh/YHWH
Breath of Life
When we are born,
YH, our first breath.
When we die,
WH, our final release.

 

Definitions

 plural noun: foci

  1. the center of interest or activity.
  2. the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition.
  3. one of the fixed points from which the distances to any point of a given curve, such as an ellipse or parabola, are connected by a linear relation.

An apsis is an extreme point in an object’s orbit.

An equilibrium point is a constant solution to a differential equation.

A differential equation is a mathematical equation that relates some function with its derivatives. In application, the functions usually represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, and the equation defines a relationship between the two.

For any satellite of Earth including the Moon the point of least distance is the perigee and greatest distance the apogee.

-gee Origin of the word: Gaia

Equilibrium, mental or emotional balance; equanimity

apsides, either of two points in an eccentric orbit, one farthest from the center of attraction, the other nearest to the center of attraction.

Quotes

They live in wisdom
Who see themselves in all and all in them,
Whose love for Spirit has consumed
Every selfish desire and sense craving
Tormenting the heart…
When you move amidst the world of sense
From both attachment and aversion freed,
There comes the peace in which all sorrows end.
And you live in the wisdom of Self…
The Bhagavad Gita

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. 
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. 
The world will not have it.”
Martha Graham

We each have a tone or note that combines with the notes and tones of the rest of life to create a universal song.
Sandra Ingerman

When we surrender the need to figure it all out and cultivate the ability to let it all in, then our Earth walk becomes a sacred dance of healing service on the planet. More than the world needs saving, it needs loving.
don Oscar Miro-Quesada

Labels
foci
Earth
Moon
apogee
perigee

 

Winter Geese, the Solstice

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If I hadn’t lifted up to see,
taken my eyes from my path,
you would have passed from sight
without a hint of your glory.

I was breaking new ground,
a new snow, new for me,
my feet to hold me firm,
but you startled me.

A path was there, other
imprints to follow, guide,
iced but sure, not my size but
there to lead.

I stepped abreast,
aside the clough and rents,
into fresh snow
where no road could be discerned,
and then your call.

I understand, fear no more to
stay me within rimy fissures. I feel
your soft earth beneath powdered
snow, my eyes above to see your sun.

.
.
.
Author’s Note:

We finally had a good snowfall. Good for how snow now comes. Not as much as it use to. Dryer winters. Less cold. Weather has changed.

Yet, there is much that doesn’t change. Winter Solstice comes again and new Light re-enters. But if I am too connected to the path, the path is all I see.

I must remember to look up, especially when I am called.

My doggie, Benny, gets me outside, a lot. He now has a coat and boots and we walk in all but the coldest weather. It’s good for me, not only physically but for my soul.

I look up more. I’m less afraid to step off the beaten path. I hear our Holy One’s voice that I once ignored, or maybe, couldn’t hear…

 

May you find Light within, and release yourself to allow it to shine out.
May you give Compassion as your gift in this holy season and beyond.
May you walk the new year softly upon this Earth honoring All…
creatures, plants, rocks and stars…
for we truly are One.

Happy Solstice.

Amen. Munay. Aho.
Lexanne

Simply…

 

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You are ordained by your creation
from our Holy Singularity,
cosmos infused with
each microscopic particle,
each microscopic particle
of You that is part of me
and you and you and you
and every…thing

Under sun’s brilliant rays,
heat warms, gives life,
we burn with passion

By moon’s radiant glow
we rest, we must rest without
fully knowing, releasing to all

With song of owl, wisdom
fills our empty space as
each sorrow is liberated

Along wolf’s path
patience learned,
faith in oneself
and strength in pack

On our bellies slide with
snake closest to Earth,
bendable, lithe to protuberance

Abreast of fox who plays in grasses
yet hears, knows one must be
aware of that which no longer serves

Crow glistens black
against crystalline blue,
we honor, hold one another deeply,
mourn our losses, never forget

Flowing with water
we make our way
silver threads encircle
Earth with life

Stand with preeminent tree,
together roots dig
into Earth entwined

And gaze above,
see our infinite selves,
stars, galaxies boundless,
yet bound to one another

We are ordained, simply by our Creation.

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.

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Author’s Note:

Full Moon blessings.

Munay,

Lexanne

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slip

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Spring awakens a childish impatience.
Cool moist soil calls for roots
to grow deeply, nourish
stem and vine.

My thoughts focus forward
on that first luscious bite,
a juicy veneer down my chin,
the cardinal tomato chaw.

I am revived each harvest
after officiating the seeding.
But it doesn’t start with seed
or harvest’s nosh.

It is not the action, movements
I repeat presupposing I create.
I step back, return within,
Earth issues the design.

Roots compelled to dig deeply,
take hold and fill themselves
to thicken stem to tenure leaves
to pop sweet buds where bloom
will ensue to offer fruit
to fill my belly.

It begins where I cannot see,
but where I yield.

The work is compulsory
not for product, but benevolence
for season of bird and insect,
tree and star – each morsel magnified
by one rooted slip.

I cannot propagate, help or heal
unless I have cultivated Me.

It is not what I do for the world to
see, ego pressing me on.
It is not bold and righteous
indignations, ego standing tall.

It is my small quivering voice
answering Your call that I
may fall in love with Me,
the one You created,
deeply and passionately.

In consummation ego will abandon
its lien and You will outbloom
my tender.

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.
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Author’s Note:

I am beginning to understand that it is not what I do but how deeply I love that will attend the shift. It does no good to step out armed with ego’s chatter to change the world. Too many are injured when ego is in control.

It is hard to quiet ego, keep it at bay. But when it can be wrangled into a bit of rest, leaving it aside, there is room for roots to take hold. Roots that will grow deeply and thrive in Love.

Even more difficult is where I have to start. That place can only be with learning to love myself. For if I am vessel for the Divine, there is only one way for me to honor that. I must love myself first, as I am loved. Then the Divine flows from me, not in my way, but in full compassion for all – even to those who are formidable. I must remember, they are containers, too.

Lexanne

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Today’s photos, the crow and the seashell, don’t seem kindred to the text. They are. My trip to Seattle a few weeks ago gave me a freedom to discover much in myself. Crow flew by me as I drove to beaches and along lush roadways, sat by me as I rested on driftwood, walked with me in small town harbors. I was alone for two days on this journey, yet crow was there at each turn.

The shell and tiny flowers sat at the edge of a forested area near a harbor on a handrail. It was a Sunday and the altar was set by someone, it seemed just for me and my ceremony.

There I confirmed my call to nature is the ocean, not mountain. Surprising since I am a Denver “native.” I will head the call.

Aho.

Today

There is weight in the word “carry”11216587_10206478118263683_3028741297045237260_n
exhaustion, a heaviness that heaves a sigh

Today I set down my garden
Oh, not completely, never completely

I will let beds unto themselves, allow a give
and take of seasons passing

I will empty pots, crumbled and
weathered over years of trusted work

I will carry simplicity and nurture
abundance only within my reach

Today I set down past hurt, yes,
no need to make room for such folly

I cannot amend ghosts who
ride beside me, whispering their call

I set down their reins, release the
tether, no longer will I carry

Today I set down my fear
a weighted bundle of nihility

I will preside in the here and now
in light of day, depth of night

I will smile of me and in gratitude
of grace sweetly poured

I will walk with you and with those
I am given, animal and insect, too

 

Today I will set down my titles
for I am sixty and begin anew

 

I will let wind name me
I will let rain purify me
I will let earth ordain me
I will let sun commission me

 

May I carry that which gives life
May I carry thanksgiving in my stride
May I carry Light for my path

 

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Extinction

I heard that poetry is going extinct,napofeature3
government data shows, a Friday
afternoon tweet to end the week.

But I wonder if they heard
the darling little bird outside my
window before dawn,
it’s featherweight held bravely
by budding branch, itself
tweeting an arrival that returns
without fail in creamsicle
goodness each day.

I wonder if they heard
my first graders who listen to
Dickinson and Guthrie,
Williams and Hughes
as they place their chewed pencils,
erasers gone for the use,
on lined paper almost too
narrow to hold their words.

            I have made a erath
            today. It looks pride qute.
            I wote wrds.

 I know what he means.

            I have made an earth
            today. It looks pretty quiet.
            I wrote words.

Or, I wonder if they heard her,

            owl owl come
            I love you you love
            me hoooooo said
            owl I am a girl said
            the owl I follow the
            forest I love the hooooo
            I follow the village and
            I follow my self I love
            the forest forest and
            I love my self the
            people say I am a
            gorgeous white owl
            I love when people
            say I am a gorgeous
            white owl I just follow
            my heart people follow my
            heart I say to the people
            hooooo they say
            I love owls they say
            I will follow your heart

I heard someone tweet today
that poetry is going extinct.

I wonder where they heard that.

.

.

.

Author’s Note:

NaPoWriMo Day 24. I did not use the prompt today. A tweet at the end of the school day caught my attention instead.

According to government data, as reported by the Washington Post, poetry is going extinct.

Not in my life. Sorry. Data, whether in standardized assessment in the schools or studies funded by who knows what, only tells a tip of a story.

There is more. There is always so much more.