Goodbye 06

January
lingered on in the death
of a bad thing
February
martyred self
to find the days
of March
open with brotherly
love
April came and went
the lion and the lamb
content
as May brought
courage in a heiniken
marking 1/3 of my life lived
June was unusual
Schools ending 'round the bend
and July saw its passing
love found and lap dancing
August and September
nights of squander
and much laughter
while October
caused my blind eyes to see
November was really
just about me
as I let newness in
tastes of lovely "sin"
giving life to the seeds
of Decembers
blooming
with uncanny warmth
and discovery of self
worth, devotion
ending a year of a
rollercoaster of emotion
to see the new year
ushered in
this 06 to end
and chances for
a changed me
a wiser, more fullfilled we
to see
another year
of adventure.

Goodbye 06
may your lessons learned
and memories burn
long and true in my nights
may your mornings
and mournings
ups and down rumblings
fumblings
tossing turns and tumblings
always
stay forever a reminder
that life
is

actually

very

beautiful

Tears

nimble slivers
of silver
tracing the canyons of my soul
seeping down the mountains of dreams
dancing in songs
moments of extraordinary
kindnesses
on the edge
shaking down my voice
hanging onto memory
unexpectedly waiting
to fall
into your hands

Tears

Blogged with Flock

Dissident Daughter - my own personal awakening

Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes

I have been staring at this phrase spelled out on a bumper sticker Erad pointed out to me and subsequently I bought for months now. It rests on the underside of my sun visor in my car, patiently waiting for me to put it on the bumper... but I can't seem to bring myself to do it. Perhaps, for the moment it is suppose to be exactly where it is, a constant reminder at least twice a day, to let the voice of my soul speak out.

Dance of the Dissident Daughter - Sue Monk Kidd

Which brings me to the book I am now reading. This lovely book is about one woman's struggle to speak her mind and let her voice out. It is about her journey from the Christian tradition to the Sacred Feminine (as the cover says). It is about the the sleep of women, thier awakening, thier initiation and eventual realization of the Divine Feminine as a real and vital part of thier lives.

"I was listening to National Public Radio the other day when someone asked the question: 'Once you wake up, can you wake up any more?'. Yes, I thought. In a way my whole life as been about waking up adn then waking up some more. This book is about waking up some more." - from the indroduction of her book.

I think I am waking up. I am well into the book now and I feel a strong connection to the journey Kidd is writing about. For many years now my voice has been small. It has been a whisper. It has been a mumble as if I was sleeping. Things bother me or rubbed me the wrong way - and I have quietly either taken it, let it slide or mumbled my discontent. But let me say this again. I think I am waking up.

Sleep from my eyes

Between the bumper sticker and this book, I am becoming aware of just how very wounded the feminine side of my world has become. Part of it has been wounded because of the society we live in, part of it because I was unable to and for much of my life been afraid to question the status quo. I was raised Christian. I have lived much of my life in the Christian tradition. And for many years now I have struggled with its dogma.

I have always believed God could not just be male. I have always believed there had to be something in the spiritual world for me... a girl. A girl, who for all the things I am good at and can offer the world, have been considered the bringer of sin... the weaker sex.... and importantly - not a boy. But my voice is getting louder and my soul is realizing there is joy in being exactly what I was born. A woman. A mother to my creations and a daughter to the divine.

You don't need the shoe Cinderella

There is one particular story in the book that has touched me deeply. Please forgive me but I am going to retype it here in order to better share with you why it touches me. The story she retells is of a film called Shirley Valentine.

"The recurring question in the film is: What happened to Shirley Valentine? Shirley Valentine was her maiden name, the name she had when she lived from her own center, when she was daring and stuffed full of passion for life. Her quest is to recover her essential self, her Shirley Valentine self. With her children grown and her marriage settled into deep, deadening ruts, her existance is like modeling clay, stretching and molding itself to her husband's life...Shirley gets a chance to go to Greece with a friend, she seizes the trip as part of her quest, though her husband forbids her to leave. One night sitteing beside the Greek shore, Shirley thinks to herself, 'I've allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there is so much more... That's where Shirley Valentine disappeared to. She got lost in all this unused life.' ... When the vacation is over, Shirley stays...She blossoms, ignoring all her husband's angry orders to come home...[Kidd's] favorite scene is when her husband arrives in Greece in order to try to reconcile their lives. She waits for him at a table by the sea, watching him trudge up the hill. He passes her, then turns back. 'I didn't recognize you,' he said. 'I know,' she tells him. 'I use to be the mother. I use to be the wife. But now I'm Shirley Valentine" (Kidd pg 53).

Great Day for Up

So this is kind of where I am at I think. I have been many things. But finally I am looking in the mirror and seeing me. I am in the midst of what Kidd calls an awakening. It has been going on for some time now, but I have not had a name for it. Envisioning myself dancing amongst a circle of trees, or around a fire blazing, lifting my hands up towards Heaven, I am beginning to become aware of the Divine Feminine. And importantly it is not about defining myself by the will of others, but by the will of myself. By the strength of my voice.

Still shaky

Though it is still a small voice. Though it shakes when I speaks and the sentences don't always come out just right.

I am waking up and I am speaking my mind.

I am a woman. I am Divine. I am a interconnected with the world and others. I am woman. I am Divine.

I am Seren Blueskye... and I like her.

Most Beautiful Women

I saw an ad on the internet
Worlds Most Beautiful Women
and I paused
because you and I were not pictured there
Not shocked I suppose
but saddened in a way
that is hard to explain
or comprehend
or even perhaps articulate,
though I will try.
Skin and bones
dried up and alone
drug induced fancy
nicknamed romance
on the cover of a magazine
these are the most beautiful?
I disagree
they didn't ask me
but I would have told you
the most beautiful women in the world
are the ones with curves
and curls
mosaic lives
and gifted eyes
in multiple shapes and size
red ones and blue ones
orange and pink
brown, orange, and chartruse
if that is the way you spell it...
but they don't sell that.
I saw an ad on the internet
Worlds Most Beautiful Women
and I paused
because you and I were not pictured there

Cycle of our times

Ghosts walk here

The light fades to dusk subtly
night taking its place amongst time and turning
smoke filled memories, burning
from the day entwined with life.
ghosts walk here.

Amongs the metal trees

Footsteps fall heavily towards home
leading souls to find thier place with length and loving
shimmer painted resolution, moving
from the noise embraced with thought,
amongs the metal trees.

We are all soon to embrace

If shadows greet us when we sigh
or hands draw us in with thanks and longing
bitter sweetened revolutions, forming
inbetween the needs and wants of a tomorrow
we are all soon to embrace.

...

the cycle of our times

This is real life

So this is real life
Three dogs, a cat and breathe right
staying up all night
to find
the only thing wanted
is the thing you have
This is real life
Bills and stretching
ends meeting
and coloring new be-
ginnings
waking in the morning
watching sleep hovering
over love
and being filled with sighs of too much
comfort
This is real life
dreading monday morning
realizing paychecks
and making it to the 15th
are temporary transportations
to a better place
which seems hardly possible
with the smiles already
This is real life
tears and frustration
midnight snacks and tie-offstration
motivation backsliding
and courage solidifying
watching 40, 50, 60 and beyond
linger at the edge of together
and this
this is real life
and I could not wish for a better
place to be.

My Never Never Land

Indecisive about age,
the moment of dreams escaping
and realities of old-ness
stealing my color,
I wrestle with forward movement.
But in the end, far be it from me
to expedite the transition
from my fair and girlish ways
Insouciant of all the cares
and woes of adult prys and mournings.
I steal my hearts skin
the emotional epidermis of lonely
and replace it with the care of
childish wishes
and will not aim my soul
magnanimously towards
the inevitable winding path
of death.
No here, I will retain
remain
and refrain from falling into fear
and nurture the place
in me
I call brilliantly
youthful.

Darkness' embrace

the dark covers me

I sit here in the dark. Music ushering out over the skin of my soul like a warm blanket. Here in this darkness, wrapped in this comfort, I see. I see brilliant color. It moves and sways like the frame of the trance dancer enraptured by the drum and seduced by song. Full of hue and inuendo, the darkness beckons, and I am helpless to resist its temtation of dreams and longing, of vision and answer.

fear is fleeing

Though frightened by the shadows, I am filled with the hope of a reality I know only darkness brings. The dark is a patient and merciful lover, letting the mind shape what is there to see. So unlike the light, which harshly reveals its truths.

nothing but her arms

Darkness and her song - attentive lover, softly slipping between breath and heartbeat to fill me until exhaustion takes me shakingly into sleep.

Just like disgracing the crucifix

Sunshine and Rain...

I had the opportunity to go to the Harvest Faire with Jera and Erad this weekend. Actually, they practically lived there (volunteering) and I went for the day on Saturday and again on Sunday to help clean up. As a side note - I will also be volunteering next year... I felt horrible by the amount of people who didn't keep thier word and come to help as they said they would. To me it is a show of the kind of person you are not to mention pagan.

Matter of pride...

Anyway - part of the reason I am writing today is to thank everyone who helped out, who took time out of thier weekend to work 80% of the faire and enjoy only 20% of it as visitors. Here is to those who kept thier word. Not only was I as a person humbled by the fact my friends worked long hours, I can only imagine the rest of the crew and all they did to make the faire such a success.

Getting dirty...

This humility hit me when Jera and I went around the faire grounds picking up trash - and believe me there was plenty of it. From cigerette butts to mouth pieces, game pieces and bandaids, paper so obviously dropped out of inconsideratness it made me want to cringe. Here Jera and I were, in the rain, picking up after those who had left bits of them behind. Now, for some things, it was surely by accident. Perhaps even some of the things we found were not from the weekends event, but much of it was.

Like pissing on a crucifix...

Jera said it so well... that littering for pagans was really like pissing on a crucifix. I could not agree with her more, but unfortunately I fear there are many people who just see it as thier right to throw thier crap on the ground. Or perhaps they are just so inconsiderate they don't even think about the people who have to come around and pick up afterwards - they just think the earth will absorb it, the wind will take it, and animal will eat... etc.

Just as guilty...

I am just as guilty... of littering. But after spending an hour or more of my day, in the rain, picking up the things I would rather not have or watching Jera pick up things I would have rather she not have, I can say I will have a lot more respect for where I throw my unwanted items.

A day in thier shoes...

So next time you are going to toss a cigerette out the window or in the gutter, or spit gum out in the grass, or throw whatever it is that is unwanted out - remember - all of the people who have to pick up after you, remember animals don't need your gum for nutrience and really folks..., disrespecting the earth for pagans really is like pissing on the crucifix is for christians.

It's wrong.

period.

Getting it together

The apartment is a mess.

I have been in my apartment since July and still it is a disaster! Finally, I have the will to move stuff around and get things up on the wall, but until today - it was white walls, boxes and an assortment of piles: bill pile, junk pile, photo pile, to do pile, forget / forgot to do pile, return a book to Jera pile ((will bring that up soon btw)), and dog pile ((which moves on a daily basis)).

After revolutions there is peace, or so sayeth the Nick Machi!

Not sure if there is any way to get the masses of dust bunnies to submit to my rule, though I do try with the broom to keep them in line. My dog is aiding them and this little civil revolution is driving me nuts. I sweep one generation of bunnies out the door and whamo they have returned AND multiplied.


Sighs are all you get when the books just don't fit.

And finally - the books. boxes and boxes of books. Some read, some not, some waiting to be reread, some waiting to be returned ((see note above about book pile)).

Ok back to assessing the damage and once again moving stuff around.

Seren

second haunting - visitations

A normal childhood?

It is hard to explain the extraordinary things which have happened in my life. For the most part I had a normal childhood; friends, pets, tree houses, and porch swing conversations watching the older kids cruise up and down the boulevard. That is where normal stayed.

Behind closed doors

The ghosts often came at night; jingling thier angry chains and yelling from the livingroom as to reach my little t-shaped roof room at the top of the stairs. It wasn't loud. It was muffled, a slithering sound, often shaped with jagged teeth and showering me with mental images I did not understand.

Nature speaks

For a long while I ignored these things, save when my grandmother looked me square in the eye and said I had the gift of sight, and I said my parents were going to divorce. I was nine. I never forgot her look. I never lost the sight. In the summer of my 13th year, my words came true. I remember wondering if the trees knew before I did. Looking up they nodded, and whispered I was like them. I cried.

The Death Card

It was the death of my childhood. It was the death of being a girl in a t shaped room with ghosts in the closets and sharp teethed shadows. Now I would be haunted by a much different thing, my own sense of the world as portrayed through the failures of others. In the beginning it would be the tears of my father. Then it would be visitation rights performed sequentially and faithfully on holidays and summers. And the ghosts rattling thier chains would follow me... for nearly a 1/4 of a century. Only then would death give up its grip and release me to yet another haunting. This one no fool but full of lovers.

The first haunting

Fortune Telling.

I was eight, when I found a chinese fortune telling game on the bookshelf. I don't remember where it came from and I am not quite sure exactly how it got to the shelf. What I do know is it captivated me. It called out of me curiosity and scoffed at the idea any such thing would hurt a cat. So, without hesitation, my hands found its edges and pulled it off of its safe ledge. I sat down on the floor to further examine this new found treasure. The images were slick, colored black and red, and the back spoke of the future if the cards were laid just so. The future. As an eight year old - the future was tomorrow and what concerned me most was if Sister Mildred was going to let us get out of math by telling us one of her ghost stories or if she was going to find the cheat sheet under Robert’s desk and make us do spelling for 2 hours.

Dealing Cards.

I shuffled. I mixed. With careful movements ushered chaos into the order of things. Then I lay out the plastic board and set the cards upon them in the order I was suppose to. Each card I flipped offered new adventure and hope. All except the last one. The last one was Death.

Death, Be not Proud.

I vaguely remember it saying I was going to witness death in an accident of some kind or be in an accident of some kind, or die in an accident. Nevertheless, at 8, that was a big deal. No longer the innocent of 10 minutes prior. Now I knew... death was going to find me. It was going to catch me by surprise. It was going to loom around me until I wasn't looking. It was going to find

Me.

But I was eight. Weeks passed and Death did not grace my world. Soon I was nine, then ten... and before long the crazy chinese fortune telling cards were sold or lost or both. Death, had died.

Speaking of Death.

Or had it. Now at 33 I have seen Death's masks. I have smelled it. I have tasted it. I have witnessed its hunger.... and it's passion. I have seen its jealous hand maliciously move me towards hope only to reveal the object of my affection - in its sights.

and of Praying.

I do pray. I do hope.

and silently, when the night air is thick with water so my tears cannot be so nearly felt, I ask for Death to meet me and discuss the terms of my affection's release.

But he never comes.

and I awake - with only sweat to remind me of the words that fell silently unheard or ignored.

Damn chinese fortunetelling cards.