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…

Word Incarnate

 

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You are not words placed in books
secured by men.
We were afraid to lose you,
so they locked you on pages,
hid you from perception.
Only they with the key
to dole you out, reveal
you through our penance.

But You came to declare
we are enough,
our Light never abandons
if only we lift the veil,
remove the rock,
feed the flicker,
listen.

Our Elemental Story lives
through our rooted Bard,
your Word Incarnate
swelling within,
Divine Revelation
directly placed into
each of us.

On this day of Light
break open your heart,
see that you are enough,
listen deeply where
Truth attends.

.
.
.

Author Notes:

Happy Solstice! Merry Christmas! Joyous Yule!

May the Light of our direct Divine Revelation shine in you.
May the Light of our rooted Bard shine out from you.
May the Light of our Truth be.

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ ,
Lexanne

Little by Little

If I don’t still myself I can’t welcome the birds. It is
against the backdrop of silence I hear them. Little by

little their being unfurls. First the loudest, closet to
my ear. When I release into you, relax in your arms,

beauty erupts. Flap of wing, flash and whirr, a trill
between two lovers. I hear. I don’t need to see. But

I must welcome silence first. Little by little
I become One with your Incarnation.

.

.

.

Author’s Note:

Sorry, but this note is a bit long.

I go to a retreat house several times a year. Sacred Heart Jesuit Retreat House is a silent house, unless there is a group retreat where the participants are encouraged to share in their workshop. However, they are still required to keep silent in the rest of the house, as well as on the grounds outside. Being that this is new for most, whispered conversations, stolen giggles or phone calls home can ring through the house without the suspects suspecting anything. One does not realize how expertly silence carries sound. I don’t mind. I understand.

But this weekend there are no groups. There are only ten of us and the silence is luscious.

Except for the birds. Oh, the birds.

I have never heard such a choir in my life. It has continued through day, except for an occasional pause allowing them to listen, along with us, to the thunderstorms.

My poem came from my wide reading so far this weekend.

Nadia Bolz Weber‘s homily at the 2015 Festival of Homiletics regarding Jesus instructing his disciples to become-child like is refreshing. Also, I so welcome her choice of referring to God as God, not Him or even Her. Thank you.

Also, informing this poem is a group that is new to me. Street Psalms makes a home in Denver and my pastor, Scott Jenkins, works with them. This quote from their e-mail scripture lesson spoke volumes to me. It is adapted from their book, Geography of Grace: Doing Theology from Below, Chapter 4, by Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke

“The Apostle Paul uses another metaphor to unpack the incarnation in  Ephesians 2:10. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do.” The Greek word here for workmanship is poiema. For Paul, the incarnation means that “we are God’s poetry” to the world. God is speaking poetry to us and through us to the world.

It is our distinct privilege to be in community with people in hard places who live as God’s poetry in this world enfleshed in human form. Raising up poets to incarnate God’s gospel song to lost, disenfranchised, and marginalized people is a vital enterprise.”

I cannot live my spiritual life without my home base. This weekend I am reading Eknath Eswaran‘s A More Ardent Fire, bringing me back to the basics of passage meditation and discovering the path to the Way of Love and the Way of Knowing. Thanks to my meditation partner, Kathleen Gorman, for this brilliant suggestion.

Finally, I am memorizing a new passage for mediation. Who would think that this would tie everything together – even using some of the same terminology spread throughout my reading – as it was chosen first before the other readings came to me.

Ah, yes. Synchronicity.

St. Teresa of Avila:

Her heart if full of joy in love
for in the Lord her mind is still
She has renounced all selfish attachments
and draws abiding joy and strength
from the One Within.
She lives not for herself, but lives
to serve the Lord of Love in all,
and swims the sea of life
breasting its rough waves joyfully.

Here are some photos of birdies I snapped on my walks.

I don't know birds, but this one was lovely.

I don’t know birds, but this one was lovely.

Look closely. Little green hummingbird walking with me.

Look closely. Little green hummingbird walking with me.

This tiny little one was so precious, not bold in color But the song was glorious.

This tiny little one was so precious, not bold in color. But the song was glorious.

 

At first I thought he was imagining himself a bird. Then I noticed he was just looking t himself in the clouds.

At first I thought he was imagining himself a bird. Then I noticed he was just looking at himself in the clouds. His little paw is balancing himself on the tree limb. 

 

Incarnation

Winter bright sun
throws itself reckless
across my wall
playing creator of shadows
not the real thing
but distorted views
of absolute

I hold my hand
to block its light
provoke a dialogue
become intertwined
in confusion
unable to distinguish
truth from forgery

Winter night enters quickly
more quickly than invited
blends shadow and matter
deeply into measureless space
solitude and emptiness
the same

When you come to me
Promised Light
not to reshape my tenement
not to quarrel over ordinance or creed
you come as first gleam
diamonding icicles
held in precious purchase

When you come to me
you stand in my light
bearing my shadow
I see the brilliance of
me in you
singular
not plural
incarnate both