Darkening
I.
Put the light out,
go dark.
Retreat back to the humming earth,
her cloak opens to enfold you
as you will unfold your subtle body
into the filaments of the universe nocturnal.
II.
Rest your trauma-heart.
Let the Godmothers take care of these sufferings
while you burrow and dream,
be a white rabbit so still
only a quiver of whiskers reveals you, waiting
to dart unrestricted into open spaces,
through expansive meadow and yawning glade—
III.
But that is not yet.
Now is to repose, become invisible,
though not in a deficient, aching way.
Be unseen in softness,
the way a black velvet scarf brushes
along your soulskin, touched
by mystery so vast in its sentience
that all you can do is listen
IV.
and if you are diligent, you will catch one note
of cosmic music echoing like whale song
with no words legible
yet every cell recognizes
that sorrow, that longing for pod,
that joy in swimming
full and large and unapologetic
in the elements—
free in the fleeting
Witness(ed)
a healing story unfolds like
the inner curve of shell,
lined with a smoothness
that comes from allowing
the heart to be observed
vulnerable,
the risk of contact,
the bind of shame,
the need to be seen
and the push away from need
a dry river stone narrative
cautiously quarried from exile,
once recognized and considered
is a dull grey weight in the hand
now, submerged in the gaze of another
or in water-under-ice-flowing-yet-in-winter,
unexpected hidden colours are revealed—
sage, umber, amethyst, gold,
hues that fold fragments of self
back into an abiding
unbound
whole
tender in the mending
Allowing
There was no way to clear
this ancient oak grove
without adding
one more grief to the world.
So just let it exist
in its own natural intelligence—
teaching us to be
wild and tangled and uncertain.
All of the leaves are on the branches
or have fallen to soil,
except the one
pressed on this page of my journal.
The Self-Caring Sea
The smell of salt air will heal the ache in your soul.
The whales will sing your bones alive again.
You will leave behind the person you thought you were—
the scared one wrapped in a familiar scarf of smallness,
as you step into the mystery of the dreamtime,
in the powerful company of sisters.
You will return with joy like a Raven
fluttering in your heart,
soaring within the spaciousness
that appears by caring for your own suffering—
by tending to your own deep wounds.
You will carry home a basket of shells, songs and images
washed up from the depths of the Great Mother Sea—
she will carry you back to the ones you love,
and always, patiently, she awaits your return.
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