Warrior Hearts

image from emoda.com

She was born
with a gentle nature
and a tenacious spirit,
which would
come in handy
down the road.

She and her mother
were born
of the Celtic mist,
the turbulent tide
and the
hope of the
morning star.
They came,
blood and bone,
from a long line
of Irish crones.

Stoicism
was bred
in their marrow.
This, too,
would prove
helpful.

They shared
hearts full of dreams,
lives of disappointment
and, fortunately,
a wicked cackle.

When she was
fourteen,
the worst thing
that can happen
to a girl-child
happened.

There followed
bad and
painful times,
and despair.
Somehow,
she hung on.

With the force
of her will,
her mother
kept her
tethered
to the planet,
and
would not
let go.

When she was
barely seventeen,
she had a girl-child,
one more elfin
Celtic woman-
in-the-making.
And for this child
she turned her life
towards hope.

More pain
would follow,
for more pain
always follows.

Like her mother's,
her marriage
was oppressive.
Like her mother,
her spirit 
rose from
that oppression
and cast
those bindings
definitively 
Off.

Oh, how
her spirit rose!
Like the sunrise
over a peaceful 
inlet mountain,
fiery red
and glowing,
so bright it hurt
one's eyes,
did it arise.

But life
as a single mother
is no picnic.
She had watched
her mother
do it.
She had lived it
as a child.
Now here
it was again,
all pain and struggle
and trying
so hard to
keep on
keeping on.

Times of despair,
of hopelessness,
the too-much-ness
of every single thing,
trying to find
a storybook ending,
finding instead
the Rocky Horror Show
of Real Life.

And then
this girl
got on
the healing path.

Courageously,
she went to
the scariest place:
within.
She peeled away
the layers
of muck and shame,
as her forebears
once dug
in the earth
to find the
potatoes
that kept
their souls alive
through
years
of famine.

In that deep earth,
she found treasures
that had lain
buried within
for decades,
gone all unnoticed.

She strung them out,
in wonder,
all pretty and twinkling
and feeling
just right
in the hand:
her heart's jewels,
her own worth,
the worth that was
always there,
belatedly discovered.

After so much pain,
it takes forty years,
give or take,
to finally believe.

Now she believes.

She has claimed
her voice
and uses it
to state her truths
respectfully.

She takes no shit
from any single body.
This is her time now.

She has arisen,
and, baby,
you better
keep your
sunglasses on,
that's just
how bright
things are
about
to get!

Instead of the
scarcity
in her
fridge
and wallet,
she chooses
to see
the abundance
of the All That Is.

She is grateful
to be alive
and on the planet.

She stopped
dreaming
of those misleading
fairy tales
and started living
her very own
Reality TV Show For One,
and what a show!

Her life is
far from easy,
but her
radiance
is dazzling.

Her mother
has watched
all this
with pride,
her daughter's
warrior heart
coming into
the light of day
and claiming
its passage.

This fellow warrior
was walking
in her footsteps,
following markers
she had herself
laid down
to point
the way.

They exchange nods
of deep respect
and recognition.
They are both
Warrior Women
on the path.

Now the girl
flings
a long scarf
round her neck
jauntily,
and pulls her
combat boots on.
She is heading
out the door,
looking for
the day's
fine adventure.

Her beauty
turns heads
wherever she goes.
But what stays
with you
is her kindness,
her respectful manner,
her compassionate heart
for the most broken
among us,
her seeing of
the downtrodden,
the bypassed,
and their worth
as human beings.
It is her
inner light
-that she has
always had-
that truly
shines.

Hope and a Little Sugar

image from compassionconnection.org

I just watched a touching movie called Hope and a Little Sugar, about a forbidden  love between a Muslim man and a Sikh woman in the days surrounding 9/11 in New York. It was apparently based on true life events and, as such, was real  and touching and very human.

I was most struck by a line a wise older man spoke during the film:

"This is the world we've got, my friend.
We make it what it is, one choice at a time."

So true.

A Little Message from Thich:

Image from Thich's Plum Village website

Here is a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, to help cheer us up,
after some downer posts :)

We never get good news.
We only hear bad news
from the media.
But the good news is:
You are still alive
and the linden tree
is still blooming
after the harsh snows
of winter.

Sleepy Morning

Miss Jasmine, who requested sleeping in this rainy morning :) Her operation date is set for Wednesday morning. The vet assures me it won't be as bad as I am dreading it will be. I hope it won't. Poor girl.

A Dog Called Pepsi

[image norman-doggie.blogspot.com]
Written in response to Poets United Think Tank Thursday:
write about something ugly
and find the beautiful in it.


He was a little mongrel,
living on  reserve
where life for dogs
is often harsh,
the people steeped
in poverty and pain.

He found my friend's door,
asked questioningly
if he might find
kindness there.
He did.
She already had two dogs,
and was feeding other strays.
She could feed one more.

She named him Pepsi,
for his bright spirit
shining out
through sad eyes
that loneliness
and hunger
had turned old.
He sheltered
on her porch
as the winter winds
turned cold.

One weekend
she had to be away.
When she returned,
no one in the village
would meet her eyes.
"Pepsi's gone," she knew
and she began to cry.

Turns out
one man's idea of
reducing the homeless
dog population
was to tie a rope
around their necks
and drag them
behind a truck
till they were dead.

Where is
the Beautiful
in this Ugly,
you may ask?
My friends,
there is more
yet
to be said.

My friend found
poor Pepsi's body,
rubbed raw like
butcher's meat
alongside the road.
And - amazingly -
his valiant little heart
still beat.

She gathered him up,
rushed him by boat
and car
to the nearest vet.
They tended him
and healed him.
He pulled through.

Now any of us,
abused like that,
would carry
a bitter heart,
a snarling face,
and we'd
lay blame.

Not Pepsi.
His stump of a tail
still wagged
when they called
his name.

He never went back
to the village.
Those days
were done.

They found him
a forever home
with a woman
in a wheelchair
 who'd lived
a loneliness
as vast as
Pepsi's heart,
and who had
all the time
and love
a heart
could abide
to lavish
on this
gallant little dog
who now
never leaves
her side.

After homelessness
and hunger
and the
worst human abuse,
Pepsi did not
seal away
his heart.
He learned
to trust again.
After all
he had been through,
he was brave enough
to give his heart
anew.

My friend had to
leave the village.
She could not
stay there
any longer
after that.
But before she left,
she spoke to
a gathering of 
the village elders
about treating dogs
with compassion,
about the message
given
to the children
by mistreating
and disposing
of animals,
about attachment disorders 
and
the numbing of emotions,
about health and wellness,
for children
and for  dogs.

She brought in
the SPCA
who promised
they would travel
to the village
to pick up
any unwanted animal,
at their own expense.
Not one more dog
in that one village
needed to
endure
what Pepsi
had.

I'd like to say
the end of suffering
has come
to all the dogs
on Planet Earth.
It kills me
when these
devoted, loving
selfless
creatures
are abused
and treated
as if they are
of little worth.

But this one time,
this little dog
called Pepsi
shone a light upon
the differences
in human
and doggy hearts.
I'd like to think
at least
some hearts
were changed.
I know
my own
was
forever
rearranged.

Wounded Healers

image from gotofino.com

Kakawis.
Its name means 'place of berries',
its bay shaped like a basket,
where First Nations
since the long ago
have come in their canoes
to gather blackberries
in season.

the  Christie Residential School image from voicesfromthesound.com

Later,
in the curving bay,
small brown children
were brought
to be schooled
and  abused
at the Christie Residential School.
Their terror and confusion
at being taken
from their homes
and dropped into
this alien landscape
among black robes,
a legacy of trauma
still haunting
their own children
through all
the generations.

When I worked
at Kakawis,
some of those children,
now grown and grieving,
returned
to do some healing.
Now it was
a treatment centre
for First Nations
in recovery,
from substance
and societal abuse.

A controversial
Calvary-sized cross,
left over from old times,
greeted their arrival
in the bay,
reawakening
memories of terror.

Nuu chah nulth leaders,
with respect,
asked that it be
removed.
The mumakli
(white people)
didnt listen.

One night
in cover of darkness
canoes arrived
stealthily
on the shore.
In the light of day
the cross was gone,
dragged and sunk
with finality
in the middle
of the bay.

The people
were growing stronger.
My heart rejoiced
in the simple
justice
of that moment.

I loved that place
so much,
my privilege
to work among
the people,
to win their trust,
to witness their arrival,
bent and broken,
and to watch,
over the weeks,
as their shoulders
straightened,
their heads came up,
the light
returning
to their eyes.
Their laughter
boomed out
often,
even as the tears
were flowing.
They had suffered
for
forever,
yet were always
ready to laugh.
(This is the passport
of a true survivor.
It is how we
recognize
each other.)

I believed
in the power
of the forest
and the sea,
the wind and rain,
the magic of
that ancient land,
and the Circle,
and the sage,
to heal them.
For the Circle
did its work,
no matter how
damaged and flawed
its wounded healers.

Once, in workshop,
we were to give
a "mission statement".
In groups, the mumakli
struggled
with too many words
and lofty sentiments-
all our good intentions.

Four Nuu chah nulth
warriors,
sons of chiefs, 
stood strong,
arms crossed,
eyes blazing
and delivered,
in unison,
in Nuu chah nulth
language,
a statement
so powerful,
a claiming of
their heritage 
so strong,
it needed
no translation.
It silenced us,
this power
from centuries
of chieftains,
us white people
dithering around
with our text books
and equations
could learn so much
wise Knowing
if we could
only
put down our books,
open our hearts
and Listen.

Kakawis,
beloved place
of my heart
and memory.
Its name meant
place of berries.
A lot of growing
and gathering
happened
in that place.
The scent of sage
wafted in
the morning air.
The drums beat
strong,
and true, broken
and cracked
and dented
survivor hearts
helped each other heal
from the unspeakable
pain
of living.

Every fifth week
there was a
Healing of Memories.
People would throw
into the fire
what they had written
of their pain
and let it go.
The tears would flow,
the sacred smoke would
carry pain away,
and always, without fail,
an eagle would come
and circle the air
above us.

My heart grew
seven sizes
in the years
that I was there,
so full of pain
and laughter,
the memories
now echoing
through
all the empty rooms.
The place stands vacant now.
The mumaklis are gone
with their bumbling
and their book-learning.
Kakawis is returned
to the people
to whom
its always has
belonged,
people of
the forest and the sea,
the ancient ways,
sons and daughters
of the living land,
and my heart,
that cried for justice
through those evolutionary years,
remembering the  tears
on every face
as they threw their memories,
so many of them caused
by mumaklis,
into the fire
while Brother Eagle
circled overhead-
my heart is now at peace
about that place.

Stars In Our Bones

This beautiful photo  of the Elaho River was taken by my son, Jon Merk.

I read something rather beautiful this morning - thought I'd share it with you.

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected

to stay forever
the same.
Earth changes,
and home
becomes different
places.

You took flesh
from clay
but the clay
did not come
from just one
place.

To feel alive,
important, and safe,
know your own waters
and hills, but know
more.

You have stars
in your bones
and oceans
in blood.

You have opposing
terrain in each eye.
You belong to the land
and sky of your first cry,
you belong to infinity.

Alla Renee Bozarth