Sacred Space | To Create...

Grotto, acrylic and ink on watercolor paper, 18″X24″, Lex Leonard

In the beginning
a cavern gestation
dark, warm, fluid
underwater quiet
a den in which to grow
without worry
a place to become
what I am

Then I emerged
all new and shiny
ready to become more
still me, but more

There is no need for me to fear
This dark
This hollow
This stillness
This solitary space
Imposed

The other time, in three days
here was something new
and shiny
still the same
yet more
not in ways of musts and rules
but a knowing…there is more
and it doesn’t matter what that is
just a reminder
to be me, here and now

I, too, will emerge from this antre
shaking off many things
having been exiled to
dark, still, quiet in
sacred space
knowing there is more

Author’s Note:

This is day eleven of the National Poetry Writing Month/Global Writing Month. I didn’t post yesterday’s poem. It is at the bottom of this post. And today I am not writing to the prompt.

I began this painting yesterday. I am several years removed from celebrating the traditions of Holy Week and Easter. I celebrate in another way taking with me a life of of what serves me.

I have no specific religion, but I do believe in Source.

I do believe in holy and wise people who came here to help us realize what gifts we are. To help us realize that we are wonderfully and perfectly and beautifully made. This is our personal gift as well as a gift to all beings. And it is our purpose to share our beautiful selves. Flaws, if you must, and all.

As I painted this on Good Friday, I was in a place in my fear. In darkness. And I knew there was a message for me. I used only bone black and titanium white to begin after having blessed the canvas with the elements and opened the directions. This is my holy practice with my art.

As I sat with this, faces began to emerge from the strokes. Many faces, even a figure. I thought I might just darken a few lines of all the faces, but I stopped at the one that was most obvious. I knew I was going to add the quinacridone crimson. So this face emerge d surround by red, fire, hair. Me. So she stays. I’m posting below several image points along the way as I painted.

I am a certified Intentional Creativity instructor, Red Thread Guide, and poet. Using Intentional Creativity as a spiritual practice is a powerful addition to my other practices – Passage Meditation with the Blue Mountain Center for Meditation and my shamanic practice.

Life, for me, is about weaving together that which serves and sharing the gifts I have been given to help all beings realize their beauty within.

My Process: 1. Blessing the canvas with the elements. 2. Writing the intention. 3. Opening the directions. 4. Faces emerge.

NaPoWriMo Day 10

Today’s prompt (optional, as always) is another one from the archives, first suggested to us by long-time Na/GloPoWriMo participant Vince Gotera. It’s the hay(na)ku). Created by the poet Eileen Tabios and named by Vince, the hay(na)ku is a variant on the haiku. A hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words, and the third line has three words. You can write just one, or chain several together into a longer poem. For example, you could write a hay(na)ku sonnet, like the one that Vince himself wrote back during NaPoWriMo 2012!

Evolution

Paramecium
Swimming obedience
Survival in tedium

Prometheus
Clayed resilience
Sparked life abundance

Bohemian
Soaring avian
Extant not oblivion

Microscopic
Story mythical
Consummate zenithal marrow

It is a bit of a walk up to the tower
above green-green grass,
past the high school, past
the firehouse, next to the pool.
It’s worth the trip.

Along the way stop signs post
for those who might not see,
those who need to slow down,
those who can’t do it on their own.
Those who probably won’t stop anyway.

Open space along the artery shelters
strays who in daylight hours rest,
under muted twilight hunt,
in sealed darkness feast.
All on the way to the invincible tower.

I course my tack, not straight and flat,
not always on steady pavement –
the approach my father instructed.
I feel curves and hidden wounded.
I leave before sun or wait until dusk.
I cede bright light to those whose
wrinkles tell of their own journey.

It is not the tower itself that tenures
the answer, high above, vista of the whole.
It is disruption of orange cones pushing
me aside, upheaval of sidewalk
buckling under pressure of rooted
tree, sudden movement within
stogie-spiked cattails.

It is revelation along the measure,
epiphany bursting open
as I somehow make my way
to the tower.

.
.
.
Author’s Note:

My sacred space.

Here I walk with Benny before sun rises. I never thought I could experience sacred space in such a simple way. It seems now the only way.

Here I walk at sunset, again with a dog who is my soul companion taking me into our open space where fox greeted me unseen by Benny. It is where dragon flies flew so thick in spring I stood in awe. They still great me only less in numbers as the season wanes. Snake sprawls across the sidewalk warming itself in sun. I am told there is a bob cat. There are cicadas and crickets and katydids as my choir. And then there are the skies. A glorious backdrop with stars sprinkled across midnight blue and Moon in all her moods.

It is the simplicity of this sacred space, a tower that draws me.

A year ago I discovered another Tower – Magdalene and the root command that drives her – love one another. With that my life changed.

I learned through the simplicity of this command, I must start with myself because I am loved and am Love. It was in stepping back and discovering the infinity of this love that I now understand that I am worthy and I can, no, must give the same.

I learned that Divine revelation is not given only to a few men who hand it to the rest of us if we prove ourselves worthy. Divine revelation comes to each and every one of us directly. We don’t need interpreters.

I learned I am not only fully capable to bless, but must bless. As our Holy One flows from me and from you and from all – this our blessing. We are ordained simply by our creation.

May the simple joy of sky and earth bless you.
May the simple song of night insects bless your journey.
May you bless all those around you each moment,
for you are Love and Light and Joy given for all.

Munay,
Lexanne