Starfire When We Pass

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Step into the circle, sister mine,
and feel our bond
through all the years of time
that brought us through
times beautiful and dire,
to this moment when
we step into
blue fire.

I lived a love
that became mine alone.
He knew not how to
for his past atone,
returned the gift,
and went on on his own,
so I carried it
through all the years:
a poem.

In the circle,
we return where we belong,
where all the loves we lost
are worth the cost.
We are finite.
We are also infinite,
each one note
in the universal song.
Our lives create
sweet memories
that will last.
As the veil lifts,
we step through
the looking-glass.
We transform into starfire
when we pass.


Hmmm.......not sure if this is what Toni is looking for. Her prompt at Real Toads is about the Void, the circle, and one, two and three-dimensional states. I thought my one-sided love might be one- dimensional, since it became mine alone. And throwing infinity into the poem seemed like a good idea. Smiles.

WOLFSONG

 Photo: Colleen Gara/Audubon Photography Awards 

follow a raven

and find a wolf

hear her gobble-cry,

his soft whuff

up on the ridge

where wild grasses grow

they tarry to listen

while the west wind blows

the wolf sings out

when the full moon beams

hear his howl

threading through your dreams

out on the desert

before the dawn

you can look for his tracks

but he'll be gone

at the end of the trail

near the Joshua Tree

a big black wolf

waits for only me

howlingforjustice.org photo

One from 2012, my friends, to be shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

Rise for Mother Earth

Last night, I headed to our small theatre (72 seats!) to listen to presenters talking about climate change, an evening titled Rise for Climate: Realities and Solutions. Needless to say everyone's concern is the rapid pace of climate change. But each speaker had stories of success in their efforts to help Mother Earth.

The evening was hosted by Jeh Custerra, campaigner for the Friends of Clayoquot Sound. Thanks so much, Jeh, for bringing us this hopeful and affirming evening. And thank you to the sponsors, the Friends, the Clayoquot Salmon Festival and 350.org.

The film crew of Directly Affected was filming the event and we were told we, as audience, will be part of their upcoming film.  Directly Affected  is about the effects of climate change – and who, on this planet, is not now or will not in the near future be impacted?

Nuu chah nulth carver Joe Martin and his daughter Gisele sang a paddling song.

It is always wonderful when like-minded people come together and share wisdom. Local Nuu chah nulth carver Joe David spoke about indigenous ways and laws; he told how his ancestors, going back to pre-contact, held such wisdom. He sang a welcoming song and told us about a song that one of his forebears was given – in the forest, by a white wolf.

I was enchanted. (White wolves wander often through my dreams.)

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Gisele Martin, Nuu chah nulth language activist, artist and educator, explained that, in the Nuu chah nulth language, there is no word for wilderness. The closest word that comes to it is “Home”.

The oil sands  - northern Alberta

Devastation as far as the eye can see -

even in a plane.

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Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a member of the Lubicon Cree nation, (David Suzuki Foundation Fellow/Lubicon Solar), told how the tar sands are devastating areas as huge as Washington in northern Alberta, and how the impact affects the indigenous people who live near there. She said that her community only got running water five years ago! 

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In response to the land around them being destroyed, her people erected solar installations to provide clean energy. She also talked about the tiny houses that are being erected along the path of the Kinder Morgan pipeline by indigenous people.

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Clarissa Antone, of the Squamish Nation, the woman who tended the fire on Burnaby Mountain outside the gates of Kinder Morgan, to protect Mother Earth from the pipeline, spoke from the heart about how Mother Earth is dying and how much this planet needs us. Her brother Mike Anton talked about the totem pole he carved and cemented into the ground near the gates of the Kinder Morgan site on Burnaby Mountain, where the Antons and others have been camped, not as protestors, Mike told us, but as protectors.

Jason Sam, Pacific Rim Chair of Surfrider, spoke of Surfrider's massive efforts to clean beaches, gathering and hauling out for recycling what they find, (TONS of refuse that wash up on the shores), with the aim of zero waste management. They worked hard with local businesses to reduce the use of plastic. Our local CoOps don’t use plastic bags any more, and businesses have stopped using plastic straws. This may sound small, he pointed out, but with a million tourists passing through our village, it amounts to a lot of plastic waste.

So there were lots of positives, along with the awareness that we are running out of time to save salmon, whales…….and ourselves.

On Friday afternoon a totem pole carved by Joe David in honour of the hereditary chiefs of this hahoulthee (territory), which is being gifted to the District of Tofino, will be erected at the small park overlooking the harbour. It is a historical moment and I will be there.

It is events like this, as much as the beauty of the place, that make me so fulfilled living here. People here are conscious, aware, informed, and very willing to do what they can to protect the planet.

Walking home, through the darkened village, I was heartened that so many are doing so much in the places where they are.

Sometimes a Smile

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Sometimes

all we have to give

is a friendly smile

and a hello.

In the heart of the discouraged,

the depressed,

the hopeless,

the downtrodden,

sometimes a smile

that lifts the heart

for a moment

and says "I see you"

is enough.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Charity / Giving

WALKING ON THE WINDS OF MORNING

Beautiful photo made for me by

The Unknown Gnome

Traveler walks

on the winds of morning,

gentled by the soft mist,

attuned to the music

of the spheres.

Tiny birds alight

on her shoulders,

then lift off, twittering,

to follow her passage,

branch to branch,

through the sleepy forest.

She is Sky-Woman.

Though her feet are planted

on the earth,

her eyes never leave

the sky.

There are footsteps

softly padding along

behind her.

She does not turn

to see who comes.

She knows.

He is invisible,

but she knows those perked ears,

that arching tail,

that long black snout.

Walking on 

the winds of the morning,

their two spirits touch

through the veil of mist.

Their two hearts

are never

apart.

One from 2011, my friends, which I reposted last year, but which I felt like revisiting today, and sharing with the Tuesday Platform at Real Toads.

Fibonacci

Shell

Edward Weston (1927)

Fair Use

you
are
light/dark
beautiful
hide from predators
I borrow your innate wisdom

I borrow your innate wisdom
hide from predators
my spirit
light / dark
like
you


for Kerry's Camera Flash prompt at Real Toads: a Fibonacci

I learned that the chambered nautilus is  light on the bottom, dark on the top, to hide from predators. Seen from above, it blends with the dark sea; seen from below, it blends with light from above. Cool.

INGWAVUMA: Lion King

INGWAVUMA~The Lion King

source: the Global White Lion Protection Trust website

The White Lions of Timbavati
are wandering through my dreams.
Enlightenment bearers,
beings as old as time's moonbeams,
born under an ancient star that fell to earth,
they carry a choice for humankind:
eternal darkness or rebirth.

The shaman says:
"At the end of the world, a white lion
will roar for the last time.
The sun will disappear forever from the sky.
If white lions vanish from the land,
we all will cease to be,"
too late, by then, to start to wonder why.

Ingwavuma,
Sun God, captive,
backed against the rock,
trapped, he turned and stared 

his hunters down.
He offered humankind a choice:
the Light, or stay forever in the dark,
our fate determined by the bullets' arc.

He walked towards them proudly, unafraid.
They chose, for they had paid;
they raised their guns.
He walked to meet his fate, his eyes old fire,
and, as he fell, his last roar dimmed the sun.

Ingwavuma died aligned with his heart star,
in the Leo constellation from which he came,
marking the proud death of a Lion King -
(they tell me Ingwavuma was his name.)
The human psyche will forever
bear the scar.

Their shots rang out.
Ingwavuma, spirit undefeated, fell.
The hunters chose our fate.
There is little more to tell.

source: the Global White Lion Protection Trust site

This story is told in The Mystery of the White Lions, Children of the Sun God, by Linda Tucker, who is in love with the white lions. She formed the Global White Lion Protection Trust, and protects the lions she has been able to rescue in a wild sanctuary in their ancestral home of Timbavati, in an effort to keep them from being hunted to extinction. There they roam free, hunt and raise their cubs wild, but in protected territory.

The only other known white lions are kept in captivity, some in a compound in the USA, the others in a compound in Africa for Great White Hunters to shoot, in an enclosure where there is no escape, for a fee of $25,000, and a piece of their souls.

The courageous Ingwavuma, whom Linda knew and loved, was not himself a white lion but was believed to carry the gene, so he would have sired white lion cubs. He was cornered in a "hunting" enclosure. When he saw there was no escape, he did not cower. He met his fate bravely and, thereby, those hunters perhaps cursed mankind to eternal darkness. Certainly their hearts were dark.

Shaman Credo Mutwa told Linda that, long ago, a star fell to earth, after which all animals in the area where it fell bore white offspring, the few remaining white lions descending from that time. The shaman says the white lions, who have blue eyes, guard a secret that can save humankind: to turn towards enlightenment, or remain forever in darkness. He says when the last white lion is gone, the sun will disappear. It is, perhaps, the most fascinating and stirring book I have ever read.

shared with the Poetry Pantry at Poets United. I have shared this before, but felt like posting it again today, with so many ecosystems disintegrating. It seems timely. The trump nightmare invaded my dream last night. I was saying: "I can't do it. Don't make me. Make him stop." LOL.