Prose - The Labyrinth

For the first time ever, I enter this place alone. The light is very low. No one else is around. It’s an enclosed labyrinth, so one is held, as if, in the womb.

It’s my birthday, I say a prayer and ask for a message. I put sliders on my feet over my socks. I stand at the entrance, ring the little bell on the table that sits next to the entry to the walk. I pause, waiting for the energy to shift. I begin, slowing my pace already, appreciating my aloneness. I keep walking, enveloping the silence, asking my mind gently, to join it.

I started noticing the way I was walking wasn’t feeling so good, or even natural. So, with the sliders on my feet, I start sliding. Not that my socks wouldn’t have done that, but the sliders seemed smoother.

I took advantage of having the place to myself and especially it being my birthday, I really got into it, sliding, I mean. It felt so good, a relief from the previous walk of before.

Within a few moments my body repositioned itself into a new walk. It was much more comfortable. As I settled into this new feeling in my body, the message came forth, (and I had not even gotten to center yet). ‘Lead with your heart’, which was what my body and whole being was easing into.

I’ve known this for years, but actually doing and living it can be another matter. It's sometimes too easy to hold back and protect our self. Letting our heart lead eases the control of the mind. It seemed now my body was getting it on a more cellular level. So many shifts and changes within, however small. My gift to me on this day; loving myself enough to take this time to be in slow still movement.

Patricia

Memoir - The Owl

Once upon a time my husband came home with a dead owl in the trunk of his car. He and my daughter were driving home from Oklahoma when Charlie saw this huge owl lying on the side of the road. He couldn’t just let it lie there- it seemed wrong – sacrilegious somehow. He believed that I’d know what to do with it.

It was amazingly beautiful - soft, white and silvery brown feathers, cloaking a large solid body—about the size of a six month old baby. Part of me wanted to keep it. I wanted to own the power and mystery of the owl by owning its feathers, its powerful claws. But I knew it was wrong.

I called a friend who attended sweat lodges with a Native shaman. I got his number...
“Hello Rob. You don’t know me but my good friend Susan gave me your name. She knows you from the sweat lodges.” Having established our kinship, I explained the situation.

“Yes, I will help you. I’m not part of the Owl Clan but can receive this owl from you and relay it to the people who will take proper care of her. Have a silk scarf to wrap the owl in. I will bring the other necessities. See you tomorrow.”

I’d thought we would just give him the owl. Now there were “necessities” involved. Mmmm.

When Rob arrives at our home we go out into the back yard. The early fall garden is declining but still green with comfrey and lemon balm under the clear blue Colorado sky.
Alana and I sit on the cool grass, facing Rob, as Charlie retrieves the owl from the shed. Rob had instructed Charlie to pick up the owl with the old gaudy yellow silk scarf between the owl and his hands before joining us.

Rob burns some sage on a coal, in a sooty sea shell. He prayerfully chants for a few minutes in his Native language. While he chants he smudges us, then the owl, then himself with the pungent smoke.

He hands us gifts in exchange for the owl – a silver thunderbird token from an Eagle headdress that had recently been decommissioned in a ritual fire; and a pouch of tobacco. As instructed, Charlie offers the owl to Rob’s hands then Rob returns it back to Charlie, repeating this movement three times Finally Rob keeps the owl and wraps it up in the silk and then places it carefully in a cloth duffel bag to carry her in, as he goes back to the mountains.

“I’ll be sure to follow the proper ceremony and bring her to the Owl people. Thank you for honoring her. This ceremony should protect you from any negative consequences of the owl,” Rob says as he leaves.

The owl body was gone now. The mysterious feminine medicine of the owl has continued to steadily wax and wane in my life, like the moon. I have seen her cousin, the small burrowing owl, hunting amongst the dessert brush at twilight. I still hear owl song through my bedroom window in the darkness. Today it was just at sunrise.
Terra

Poetry: I sit and wait

I sit and wait thoughtfully
wondering at the world
sometimes
and how people act
how they think
and what's important enough
to them
to do something about.
Jyoti

September Song

Suddenly sixty-five is looming large and you are unprepared.

In the back of your mind you’ve seen it coming for a while now.  Quietly but surely.  Like a dark force needing to be reckoned with… sometime.  Sometime may be arriving sooner rather than later. But you keep trying to ignore it.  Pretending it isn’t really happening.  But change is a’comin.

 

Your hairdresser and doctor are your new best friends.  Your doctor has been coaching you to resist the change. Exercise, vitamins, anti-oxidants, lots of fiber and ibuprofen.  Trips to the beauty solon are more frequent and frantic.  But the cold hard fact is that you have tipped into that last (gasp!) third of your life.

 

You spend time resisting, trying very hard to believe that your joints are stiff and sore when you rise up from the floor because you were over active yesterday.  Yeah, right.

 

You don’t care what the current pop hit tune is, what Brittany is up to, or Paris for that matter.  You haven’t seen a Hollywood movie in months. But the funny thing is; you are happy at home… moving slowly.  You might watch the debate tonight if you aren’t in bed first.

 

And you thought middle age wasn’t until you turned sixty, right?  Think again, sixty is when you stop pulling out the grey hairs because you need all that hair.   Sixty is not the new forty.  It means really weird hair, really deep wrinkles, rickety joints, pains in the ass and unplanned poops in the night.  BUT you are still alive, right?  And, you can still pretend, right?

 

I say, go for it.

Jesse

Feeding Time / Part 1

The railing that runs around the deck is where I place birdseed at least twice a day, ideally once in the morning and once in the afternoon. A beautiful wide rimmed copper basin sits on top of a three-legged stand and has it’s home in a corner. This provides access, from two sides of the rail, for the all-important drink-water. Its location makes it easier for the baby birds to hop from the rail onto the edge of the basin. It is truly amazing how many kinds of birds appear, their different behaviors and how they interact. I grow more enchanted with them everyday. There is a mountain chickadee that likes to take his seed and sit on the iron rail that runs under a bench and chip away as he holds it between his feet. I surmise he likes to eat in his own private space, though I’ve noticed lately another is starting to join him. There are three kinds of nuthatches that come; the white-breasted, red-breasted and pygmy. The pygmy, the smallest, took a little while to figure out he could stand on the side of the water basin and dip his beak in without sliding spread eagle to his tummy, which is hard not to laugh at. The white-breasted, largest of the three, have an entertaining feature I’ve never observed in a bird. They will attempt, quite bravely, by opening up their wings, batman style, to intimidate either another bird or chipmunk from moving in on their precious spot. It is something to see this four-inch bird, standing on the rail, opening his wings and rocking from side to side pretending to be big and I guess scary. It works for some birds but hasn’t stopped any chipmunks. The chipmunk takes pause, as he gazes on this absurd vision, probably thinking “what the heck?’ before running him off the rail and continuing on his way. Chipmunks are highly entertaining, particularly when they are babies out and about for the first time. We had a batch of three one summer that were born with little stubs instead of full fury tails for an unknown reason. At least one survived for four more years and I nicknamed him Stubby. Stellar jays are usually the first to arrive in the morning. They keep a lookout jay that lets all the others know, once I’ve put the food out, with loud squawking. There are much sweeter bird songs than this one to wake to. I’m always so impressed though, at their ability to step aside and let the smaller birds have their turn. A pecking order seems to exist that they all somehow know. Pine siskins come in groups and sometimes completely fill the length of the rail, two to three deep, up to seventy or eighty at a time. They also love to line up around the water basin and I’ve seen them do a see-saw motion, one coming up as one goes down for their drink. These are just a few of the visitors that come. They bring me their various antics, inherent beauty, and sweet selves. I provide some seed and fresh water. Seems like a good deal to me.

Mary

The Feminine American Pelvis

As I was busy painting my bedroom doors, I was playing Latin music on the radio. Before I knew it I was dancing. Here I was, attempting to shake my pelvis from side to side in the Latin way, doing the Macarena. Paint a little, shake a little, was the momentary theme. This side to side motion has always been a little difficult for me. Suddenly, I had a memory from about fifteen years ago. There were several of us at my house. I sometimes rented a room to students coming to Boulder to do the Rolf training. This is a form of deep tissue body work focusing on the fascia and realignment. One of the women was Brazilian. She was giving us dancing lessons, or to be more specific, how to move the pelvis. Let me tell you, this person was moving her pelvis so fast it was unbelievable. They all wanted to help me get the movement going faster. This was one time I felt truly Southern, no way my pelvis would move that fast.

Years ago, before my oldest daughter left home, I suggested we take African dance classes together. I loved the sound of the drumming. It was a challenge for both of us, but we had fun, got a good workout and so we continued. It became apparent to me that no young woman should leave home for good without knowing how to move her pelvis. It’s the main part of our body, so much depends on how flexible and how well it moves for our general good health and well-being. I have been a body worker and yoga instructor for many years. It seems for a lot of us American women there is a disconnect with the pelvis.

But now, the American fad is on movement and dance. So there’s hope the pelvis is gaining momentum here. It can only bring us more into integration, creating less attitude, filling us with joy in motion.

Dance anyone? I’ll paint later.

Patricia

Poetry - Wrestling with the Angel of Romance

I.
The Angel of Romance bright suddenly is here, between us.
Luckily, I have my sunglasses on, and ask
“What is the difference between an angel and a devil?”
It swiftly silently reaches for my sunglasses.
“Damn it, I don’t believe in devils or angels!”
My sunglasses are in its hand. I reach for them and I am pulled
into its unhuman form
& before my blinded eyes you are transformed into my dreams.
Now, you are not.
We relate only as phantoms.


II.
The Angel of Romance bright suddenly is here, between us.
“Do you see it?” I ask you hysterically.
Luckily we can talk about it.
We touch each other, you hold me, stroking my head to calm me.
Together we dismantle the angel’s wings
feather by feather
And donate its fading body to science.


III.
The Angel of Romance bright suddenly is here between us
Luckily, our relationship would have been only a passing fantasy anyways.
The angel becomes your real body,
its halo is yours,
soft wings wrapping us together in my tender passionate dreams.
Though I worship your image, I have complete control over the ritual.
When I see you, to keep from embarrassing us,
I pretend not to see the faint glow around you.


IV.
The Angel of Romance bright suddenly is here between us.
Together we climb on its broad back
& are swept up into the blue blue heavens.
Luckily we each have a parachute.
Before the air becomes too thin to sustain life,
we jump, plummet down,
then caught by the air in our parachutes,
we float safely to the ground.
We laugh & lay in the grass,
talking about how exciting it was.
--By Terra Rafael