Tag Archives: Ryan Taylor

Quickening

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Quickening

You reveal Yourself as a quickening,
a precious sign of promised life.

When I lay down my addiction
to kings, whether sky-high bound
or earthly enthroned,

When I take off my masks
and place them down
no longer willing to shade
my treasure,

I know You,
the gift of radiance
born in the shape of me.

I taste Your sweetness
and see Your gentleness
born in the shape of all.

I give up my addiction
to kings, put on my soul,
and run with You,
my Holy One.

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Author’s Note:

Wisdom filtered into my life this week, a welcomed visitor. Quietly, yet persistently, demanding I take notice as one by one each piece unfolded and intertwined with one another.

I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes by Martha Graham to Agnes deMille:

There is a vitality, a life-force, an energy, 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 will be lost.

Then a post by a wise and rather tall friend, Ryan Taylor, spoke about the “treasure of you” and Mary the Mother of Jesus and gifts and surrender and all those things I forget in rushed days of worry and fret and political insanity. Take a look at Tall Monastic Guy. And the photograph above found at MuseTouch Visual Arts Magazine on Face Book, speaks to me of Mary always depicted in blue, the pose of complete surrender, and the absolute trust in a body that can faithfully balance in toe shoes.

And finally, Psalm 34 opened up in the lectionary for this Fourth Sunday of Lent and tied the ribbons of the point shoes around my ankles so that I may rise upon them in dance celebration of peace within.

First, I must discover the Divine within. Again I bring myself back where our Holy One resides and holds me tight and waits for me to yield and become what I have been made to be.

Honor yourself this week with a bit of time and silence to hear the gentle lullaby that will ease and soothe, and help you fall, once again, deeply into love.

Peace,
Lexanne

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Integer of Creation

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I.Moon

The moon hung, a bittersweet glow
cupped against midnight blue behind
boney arms of our grande dame maple,
whose leaves never turn red in fall,
only yellow then brown on fallow grass.

As I watched,
just past a new day’s first hour,
I could almost see her luminous
crescent rock back and forth drawing
my eye upward, higher, a need to tilt
my head back and forth to discern
Your gift through lacy silhouette
branches standing guard between
me and Eternity.

But she pointed me to it,
to a god always present,
maybe in a conflicting place
from one night to the next,
but always there, Jupiter,
a thunderbolt-bright comfort
knowing once and again
he would meet me.

I am created no more
or less perfect than these.
I hold within myself the same
wonder of stars and moon
and trees rooted deeply into earth.
I grow and change, not staying
in one place, although I have lived
in this same place all my life.

II.

When the world groans
under sorrow made
by hands of stone…

Not stone that changes
the course of rivers.
Not stone that greets
a wanderer along her craggy pass.
These stones are as Spirit filled
as every heart that beats…

But when the world groans
from counterfeit hands
made of false stone that cannot see
within themselves the utter sweetness
of the Beloved, nor the Beloved’s
consummate sweetness in souls
they stone, I feel pieces explode until
all that is left is blackness, a dark hole
so profound not even Jupiter
could spark a flame.

From where I stand
I must be what I am first made,
gentle light, devoted lover,
precious consecration of You.

My hands, made of Your passion,
must open
to each integer of Creation.

I cry out like thunder in the desert,
groan and writhe,
but know You will hear my prayer
and open our eyes
to our manmade
stone hands of annihilation.

May our prayers transfigure
our false hands
back into cupped hands
ready to receive Your timber.

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If you would like more on this poem, please join my weekly reflection at Journey/lex. It is a weekly newsletter that arrives in your e-mail in-box usually on Saturdays.

Thank you,
Lexanne

Rules

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I watch snow begin its fall,bunnyprintsinsnow
lay down this day of chill
on crisp golden locust leaves,
it clutters my path. I know
the price I will pay if
I don’t follow the rules.

I surely must move those
leaves to their proper rest
before flakes, surely not allow
them to stay where footsteps
will grind together snow and
leaves to become a musty cake
making an impossible run.

There are rules I must follow
to keep my path clear, ready
for its pilgrim to walk safe
and true.

Yet, I ask if rules are a good
matter to seek my attention,
give over my time. Rules beget
more rules until rules are all
that cover what was once a
simple way, now made less clear.

Instead I listen, start inside
with a whisper, learn who I am
from the Source. And I see a path,
simple and true, still covered with
leaves and snow. Only then
can my hand stretch to yours.
Together we will divine our way.

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Author’s note:

If you would like more on this poem, please visit my page Journey/lex.

 

This week I thank Ryan Taylor of Access Denver for his reflection, in Street Psalms’ Word From Below, on the reading from The Revised Common Lectionary. And a sincere thanks to Fr. Scott Jenkins from a Church of the Holy Family for his prayers and the Beatitudes that will be read in the Celtic Celebration of All Saints this coming Saturday. All are welcome to join us in our celebration.

 

Some Storms

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The 2nd Day of Christmas10520526_10204476131015253_31300232393359936_n

Some storms blow in
make their presence known
cover ground and fill sky so
completely with their fury
white and cold suffocate
all under siege

Today a snowy mist
put down minimal icing
quiet enough to hear your
breathing on earth
a whispered I am

I hear your presence in the
gentle fall of flakes sitting
on black asphalt, a deep
call within to listen
then see, and feel

I should stand just once
sans coat and shoes
palms open to the sky
bare feet against the ground
allow your wintery rime to
cover me the same as I
assent to summer sun

I only see stars when
dark night shades the sky

I understand your warmth
only after I have known cold

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Author’s Note:

A reflection on becoming quiet, learning to listen, and Ferguson MO. Thank you Ryan Taylor, Tall Monastic Guy, and those with you who are learning to listen and helping me to do the same.

Breath/3

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I see the hawk take flight. She soars
into the ether as the life source thins,
twirls and swirls and raises her head
to the infinite.

I walk, heel meets concrete, gravity’s pull.
Foot rolls to toe lifting. Heel down and leads me
along a cobbled path to the door whose key rests
in my palm.

I watch the beta. Tail and fins a fine ball gown,
flutters iridescent. The sun’s finger grazes
the water in the small bulbous bowl perched
high on its shelf.

My lips part and his breath enters, I live.
An aromatic elixir surrounds my heart.
Exhale and I exit into the world.
Yahweh.

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Author’s Note:

Our homilist today during mass at the Church of the Holy Family, ECC, was a young man named Ryan Taylor. He works with Mile High Ministries in Denver and is the director of Access and the Network Coffeehouse, “…a place where the middle-class can interact and build genuine friendships with those who dwell on our streets.” It is amazing work he does with the homeless and it was a passionate homily.

Ryan spoke to us about our names, street names of the homeless, God’s names for us, and ours for God. I was struck by his telling of the name Yahweh. Breathing in we can feel the natural breath of God as we say “Yah” and breathing out He leaves naturally in the “weh.” I will never utter His name again without holding this in my heart.

Along my journey of discovering the Gospel of Thomas, Yahweh’s breath wove itself through Logion 3 and, hence, the above poem.

Thank you, Ryan Taylor.

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About the Gospel of Thomas:

Digging deeper into the Gnostic Society Library and two other translations they offer, I am now drawn more strongly to the translation by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson:

(3) Jesus says:

(1) “If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’
then the birds of the sky will precede you.
(2) If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fishes will precede you.
(3) Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you.”
(4) “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known,
and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father.
(5) But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty.”