Wild Woman Knows What She Knows

 

It is time, Wild Woman,

to bring forth all your gifts,

for the seasons now are quickening,

and swift.

Sing out your songs,

sing loud and strong and clear.

Write all your poems,

to say that you were here.

A Wild Woman creates her own way.

She runs with her inner wolves,

and she has a lot to say.

She speaks what truth she knows,

avoiding angst or wrath.

She follows her intuition,

along the unmarked path.

(Truth:

Wild Woman knows what she knows,

and she'll share her wisdom well

before she goes.)

Follow these pawprints into the forest,

Sister mine.

They will lead you to a home

Grandfather Cedar makes so fine.

An owl with piercing yellow eyes,

a cat with Cheshire grin,

will be on the doorstep watching,

waiting to let you in.

There is a conjuring old woman

living there,

her spirit fixed between

the sky and earth.

She has lived apart from others

since her birth,

doesn't care at all what people think.

Listen well to every incantation,

for all of them

are linked.

Wild Woman has fallen bewitched

by the beauty of the earth.

Before the fire,

she is singing over the bones.

When she finishes her song,

(and it won't take very long),

she will welcome you

to the Sisterhood of Crones.

An old poem shared with earthweal's open link.

Labyrinth

One foot, another foot,

breathing peace, we walk

the labyrinth.

We have strayed from the Old Ways

of the People. Meditating

on the lip of the precipice,

what pathway will lead us

from the anthropocene maze?

At Fairy Creek, the elder speaks

of healing Mother Earth,

so all may live. 

He points his eagle feather;

I follow where he leads.

One step, a leafy breath.

Another step, a human sigh.

Look up! Rainbows and eagles

are painting hope

across the sky.

for Ingrid at earthweal: The Anthropocene Labyrinth.

Wings and Feathers

 

You are braided through my life

with wings and feathers -

always flying off to

Somewhere Else,

where I cannot follow.

We grew up together,

journeyed together,

souls in transit,

me learning too late

what I needed to know

back then,
alas and alack.

Slowly, my hair turned
the colour of

silvery ash. I am wiser,

now, but the thing about life is,

there is no
going back.

for the Sunday Muse

Thinking of my children, fellow voyagers, and how young I was, in my 30's, trying to raise four kids on my own. 

Cry Like a Coyote

 

cbc.ca photo

In Stanley Park, jewel of the city of Vancouver,
acres of forest trails are the delight
of the West End - home to coyotes,
who kept out of sight for years,
till we became too many
and their habitat too small,
till they grew hungry
and emerged from their dens
to be fed by humans.

This was not a kindness.

Some bites on the ankles
of people along the seawall
when they didn't produce food
other walkers had given,
and now they will be "humanely 
euthanized" for the crime
of existing near the margins
we have etched into
the forest that once was theirs.

On the news today, the "cull" (killing)
has begun - not humanely -
as they are caught in leg-hold traps,
suffering till they are "liberated"
from their pain by the "humane" shot.

I could cry like a coyote
for the shortcomings
of humankind,
for the loss of the wild ones' home,
for the destroyer species we are,

for our lack of understanding
of how to live with our wild neighbours.
I cry with the coyotes
who will be "culled" (killed) for the crime
of existing on land that has become
dangerous for every non-human being

and will one day be as unsafe
for those of us who believe ourselves
immune to the inhumanity
gaining ascendance
on the planet.

for earthweal - hard to find a positive note of hope these days. Innocent coyotes, whose habitat has been diminished and encroached - fed by humans, when they are hungry and lacking natural food sources - dying, because we are so many, and we have the power. 

Today the police and industry goons used heavy equipment to CRUSH the cars of three protestors at Fairy Creek, one belonging to  a media rep. Three CARS. How are they allowed to behave like this? Injuring protestors (daily!), crushing property - and no consequences at all. (I worry especially as my friend is a media rep and he is up there right now.)

I cry - like a coyote, like a wild wolf, like a conscious human who cant believe what we are doing to this planet, so unconscious that what we do to the coyote will eventually, karmically, inevitably, happen to us.

Please, Would a Shambhala Warrior Borrow My Pen?

                                
                                                                    source

I.

When all of life is threatened,
and barbarians are strutting through
the halls of power,
when our future survival hangs by a thread,
it is said that is when the Shambhala warriors
will arrive.

They are bodhisattvas, beings of peace.
You may not recognize them -
(or you might: check out Joe Kennedy III
and Barack Obama. Look for eyes that shine
with empathy and compassion).
The Shambhala Warriors
will walk the corridors of power
armed with two weapons
- compassion and insight.
With courage and integrity,
they will dismantle the ways of death,
and lead us on a new path,
for the time has come
for a great Turning.

II.

When you feel this earth grief we carry
is too much to bear, take heart.
It is because you care
that you are alive at just this moment,
to assist the transformation
from the patriarchal to the divine feminine.
Women are rising up everywhere,
planting trees and gardens,
cleaning streams and beaches,
standing guard to protect the sacred waters.

Women are wise in the ways
of growing things: food, animals, children.
Women understand that all things
are connected, each of us
a strand in the web of life.

Mother Earth is speaking to us, now,
with all of her voices.
Let us hear her, add our voices to hers,
and heal this world back together again.

Bodhisattva Warriors come in all shapes and sizes.
You will recognize them
by their peaceful countenance,
and their ready smile. They are kind.
One may offer you a seat on the bus,
when it is packed and you are tired.

They are gentle. In the midst of discord,
shouting, crisis and panic,
watch for the one who is still,
who observes, then tries to help,
if he can.

You can tell a bodhisattva by the way they see
the good in human nature. They are peaceful warriors,
who spread compassion, rather than further conflict.
They will give the little they have
to those who need it more,
and be grateful for the giving.

III.

Bodhisattvas believe that, with kindness and love,
the crooked way can be made straight,
and the rough road made smooth*.

The best thing about a bodhisattva
is he doesn't know he is a bodhisattva.
He is humble, kind and serene, and,
when his out-stretched hand
is dealt a blow, he forgives
and quietly moves on.

This planet is peopled
with undiscovered bodhisattvas.
Their prayers keep us floating through space,
balance the toppling poles,
and bridge the distance between heaven and earth.

Their message is to turn from violence to virtue
before the Kingdom of Shambhala arrives.

 (* from Ecclesiastes)

IV.

Under the bodhi tree, the Buddha woke up.
May this whole world awaken.
Gandhi spoke of "the uplift of all".
In Sri Lanka, Buddhists speak of
everyone "waking up by working together".

The man-made ills of this world, they tell us,
can be mind-solved.

My friends, what world
shall we dream into being together?
Let us all become Shambhala warriors.
Let us write a new path into tomorrow
with our Shambhala pens,

open our eyes, our dreams, our vision
to the web of life to which we all belong.
With all of the sorrow, and hope and
love in our hearts, let us help our planet heal.

We have never felt so far from peace,
yet, somewhere up ahead, perhaps on the other side
of cataclysm, calamity and immense suffering,
I dream of a new world, shining and green,
dotted with buffalo, and trees,
and peaceful folk who have learned how to live
with respect for the land and its creatures.

In those times, whales will no longer starve.
The living waters will run clean, and wolves and bears 
will once again have forests in which to live.

We are alive in the times
of which the ancestors spoke.
I am waiting for the Shambhala warriors
to arrive. One lived in my pen
for a bit this afternoon. We dreamed
sweet dreams together
of the world that Could Be.

Some day, I dream, there will be
the thousand years of peace
we have been promised.
Not in my time, not in yours,
but I hold that vision in my heart,
to comfort me through these times
when it seems the whole wide world
has finally gone mad.


Many great Buddhist masters have prophesied that, when the forces of aggression amass on earth and no reason can turn them back, the kingdom of Shambhala will open its gates and its enlightened warriors will come forth into battle. Whoever they encounter will be given a choice -- turn from non-virtue to virtue or, by direct, wrathful intervention, be liberated into a pure land beyond suffering. 

It seems, now, given the right-wing, corporate-funded powers in many countries, that we will not make the conscious shift we need in time, but only after passing through terrible times of hardship, in response to cataclysmic events. But Mother Earth will heal. One day she will begin again.

for my prompt at earthweal: Consciousness Raising During the Apocalyplse. Hope and reality make strange bedfellows, but it's all we've got.

ROAD TRIP

                                       
                                                                           1976

Wild Woman, before she knew

she was Wild Woman,

once packed up a little yellow Pinto with:

a ten day old baby, two small sons,

a St. Bernard puppy (who grew!),

an English pram, an Underwood typewriter,

and assorted cereals, breads and cold cuts.

That's the Before shot.
(Note the high-water jeans!)

Behind the wheel was

an alcoholic con man,

temporarily disguised as

My Baby's Daddy,

with his calculating eye

and a beer never far

from his right hand.

Down Highway 101 we rolled,

past the glorious ocean

at which he refused to stop,

past the Monarch butterfly migration,

which we flew through,

because he was always rushing

to get Somewhere Else.

My baby daughter smiled

her first smile at me,

on that long drive.

We lived in and out of the car,

our own Hotel California,

for two months, give or take.

He had promised to get a job

and "look after you for a change"

but that didn't happen.

My kids grew lean and hungry

and once I wrote

the only bad cheque of my life

to get them some food.

(I repaid all of what
this entire aberration cost,

for years.

But it was all worth it,

to have my sunny little daughter.)

It was an adventure.

There were high moments, laughter,

the feeling of being young, and alive,

along with the worry
of living on the absolute edge
of desperation;

there was the coming to see

exactly how impossible

my life had come to be.

Late fall, we pointed
the nose of the car north,

and made our way back up the coast.

I looked out at all the little houses,

the small yards, men washing cars,

kids playing,

moms hanging their wash out on the line,

and Normal had never looked

so good to me.

Note: on return, he hit the road, and I was able to start my life over again from scratch, not for the first time, and not for the last. There is more to this story, but I'll save it for my memoir, LOL.

for The Muse

Hope and Survival During the Apocalypse

The jays chatter on my balcony,
squawking over seed, as if this life will go on forever,
and the seed will always be there.
This is hope during the apocalypse.

Somewhere wildfires are burning;
animals fleeing in wild distress.
Those fighting the flames
can hear their screams.

I walk into the forest: coolness, peace,
sunlight slanting through the branches,
everything green, green, green:
leafy breath and human sigh.
This is relief and comfort 
during the apocalypse.

The anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers
are protesting outside the  hospital.
Uttering profanities,
they block an ambulance from
delivering its patient.
They spit at a nurse going to work
(to save the unvaccinated 
dying of covid inside.)
This is entitlement and disrespect
        - to the max -
during the apocalypse.

At the CoOp, we catch each other's glance
above our masks; we nod;
our eyes smile. We do not speak,
our words too muffled. But there is not one person
without a mask. This is solidarity, this is a community
caring for each other, during the apocalypse.

It feels like a large segment of the population
is experiencing a psychotic break, convinced
by fake news that reality is fake
and fake news is real.
"Communist news!" they jeer
at the free press. My mind boggles
at the depth of the rabbit hole
we have fallen into.
If the Mad Hatter pours me some tea,
it will be no stranger than what
is on my tv screen.

The sandy beach stretches ahead
as it always has; the waves surge to and fro,
they ebb and flow, in their eternal dance.
This is my moment out of time,
my walking meditation, like
Thay in Plum Village:
with this step, I breathe in calmness,
with this step, I breathe out peace.
"I kiss the earth with my foot."
This is survival. This is
trust in the Big Picture, and in
Mother Earth's ability to survive.
This is me, trying to survive, myself,
to stay steady, to withstand. This is me,
holding onto hope,
dreaming in green
during the apocalypse.

Inspired by the amazing poem "Surviving the Apocalypse", written by 15 year old Nina Evans, a prompt for Wild Writing by Laurie Wagner. Sharing with earthweal's open link.