A Collective Poem-Prayer

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I woke in the night,
my menopausing body sweating.
Sometimes I think my whole body is crying
heat releasing the love words could never speak.
As I burn with the world,
I find myself pleading with the ancient Crones
to show me a way.
Their cackles bounce off the darkness,
poking at my tender bellied naïveté.
And as if cooing over a newborn, they say
“Silly creature… you are a way.”
But, how much is too much for one body to hold?
In moments like these
I remember I’m not alone.
That the world is connected
and the medicine is collective.
Words from someones Grandmother:
“It ain’t medicine if it ain’t bitter.”
May we allow this discomfort to become conscious
so that the responsibility no longer feels like a weight
but a blessing.
May our prayers be heard
so that we become the living portals designed
to host the gift we came to reveal.
The dance we came to embody.
The song we came to declare.
The love we came to profess.
The secret codes we came to disclose.
Let us live into our future selves, waiting to be born.
It is there that love and power become magic.
Here, my body dreams and speaks in reverence
that I have yet learned to translate.
But the barred owl draped in dawn blue
saw both the night and what might emerge as well.
One glance from Owl’s stance
exited my distress
like missed blood across floors
of time remembering who I one day could become
into someday I’m still here
with you
with all of us
During waiting for a moment to turn into the day I may never know
But I choose to love, anyway.
Because even in war and peace
the wrens still make their nest.
And underneath all the noise,
we are carried,
implored,
and with the ears of innocence,
we listen again
for the way,
the one we can’t forget,
no matter what comes.
So may the timekeepers bend backwards,
just this once,
to touch the eggs on their backs,
to remember us into presence
to bind some thread
similar as hope
as love…
Love, love, love…
Love, blink for a moment as you turn your gaze.
Imbibe the gold seascape of the light of the sky.
Somehow I must impart this to the remnants of your bones—
not to close your eyes as you gently close the gap
For, the unrelenting persistence
of oblivion is absolutely exhausting;
Have you never suspected
just how much such
permanence weighs?
And when it is too heavy, seek the moons pranayama.
Waxing, breathe in deep,
I reflect in my fullness,
Waning, I am new.
For, my body dreams and speaks in reverence
that I have yet learned to translate,
and the pinecone of our lives must tumble
from tree to crack open, and seed.
A seed from which
the Dakini sky dancer rose
and swiveled her hips…
sending a plum line
down the core of the Earth
feeling anchored and knowing
we came for this time
despite the death and destruction
and deplorable activities of some of our brothers and sisters
I can hear the soft gentle love-rumblings
starting to emerge.
You see, first there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is again.
The fruit of your life may not bear for many generations.
So may the breath of those before me
mingle with the wind I carry.
May my hands remember their making,
and my feet echo their path.
I light a candle at the veil—
not to mourn,
but to welcome
what still ives in flame and whisper.
And the ancestors whisper back
“How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”
by The World