Wachet Auf

Breathe with me now and then awaken

(...)

Repeat:

There are no gods, there are only metaphors

(There are no gods, there are only metaphors)

Stories of adventures of gods on earth are metaphors

(Stories of adventures of gods on earth are metaphors)

Fairy Tales are metaphors

(Fairy Tales are metaphors)

There are no soul mates, there are only compatible or incompatible significant others

(There are no soul mates, there are only compatible or incompatible significant others)

The soul mate idea is a Fairy Tale

(The soul mate idea is a Fairy Tale)

True love is an earned state after a long period of trial and interaction

(True love is an earned state after a long period of trial and interaction)

Riding off into the sunset is a Fairy Tale

(Riding off into the sunset is a Fairy Tale)

No one will save you except you

(No one will save me except me)

Compassion and kindness are human qualities to nurture

(Compassion and kindness are human qualities to nurture)

Established personal boundaries are to be respected

(Established personal boundaries are to be respected)

Listen and observe rather than push forward an agenda

(Listen and observe rather than push forward an agenda)

It is not kind or compassionate to disrespect established personal boundaries

(But…)

No buts, you simply can not force love, friendship, religion or belief upon anyone

(But then I’ll be spiritually bereft and will have nothing to hang on to)

Belief in Fairy Tales and Illusions tends to end badly

(But it’s all I have to sustain me!)

Try this, fall in love with Earth, seasons, the mystery of coincidence, earn romantic love with another through long periods of trial and interactions, listen, connect face to face with neighbors, witness whatever you can witness and without judgement, all this is happening now with no illusions, breathe and tap into that, reality is enough, now breathe and awaken.

(…)

Gaze of Fire Woman

Gaze of Fire Woman
From Headless Buddha Series
Digitally Altered Watercolor

She stares at the stillness as her dreams fall away into the clouds of desert sand and pools of darkness somehow connect the colors of its countries rendering death and forever into a complex tapestry that she lives purging all perceived self definitions into the fire of wholly sacrificing every scrap from past destinations and stepping off the cliffs of nothing into love invisible and omnipresent reality.

Note: Nod to ee cummings; 'the colors of its countries rendering death and forever' borrowed from Somewhere I have Never Traveled

You Never Returned

It's been a long time since I posted in this blog...however, I'll be returning to the place that inspired this prose-poem next week, the land of the Cherokee, the rivers of the Tuckaseegee and Natahala. It made me think of this prose poem I wrote a couple of years ago and so I thought I'd bring it up to the top.

It was there in the misty mountains where my life began and ended. You left me at dawn, promising return by nightfall. I waited for years in the meadow of songs where we had built our love on pledges of golden sun and milky starlight.

You never returned.

Only the music of the storm was my solace. Shattered by the force of time and weather, I became blind. On my knees and with fingers numb from cold, I tried to find the path before me and stumbled into the dark echoes of the woods to seek shelter. Finding comfort on a bed of hemlock, I slept next to the gray wolf who consoled me as I wailed, holding me in his paws and licking my brow.

You never returned.

Only the laughing crows and battle cries of raptors could be heard in the forest. Songbirds fled to sing their cheerful melodies in less mournful places. My tears became the creek that flowed from the great mountains into the Tuckaseegee. Beyond an eternity of hope, shards of my crystalline heart can still be found.

You never returned.

__


Dedicated to those left behind on the Trail of Tears.