A Crone Is Fashioned
Some journeys are internal
introspective and deep.
For some journeys there are no pictures,
postcards or travel brochures.
I imagine the other side of the river,
but no bridge or boat to take me across
yet I think, it must be just around the bend.
Sometimes it seems I am on an island with only rare
glimpses of the mainland, when the sunlight and atmosphere
conspire in alchemical revelation.
Like the day I saw Maui from the North Kohala coast,
Emerging from the mists.
A survivor still, I have stood on this shore,
imagining the crossing.
Doubting.
Yet finding my passage.
On the death of a loved one
How will I go on without...
Leaving my home to strike out on my own
I am so scared. I want to go home, but I'm too stubborn to admit defeat.
Moments of poverty and lack when I didn't know where the money would come from
What am I going to do now?
In childbirth,when only my body, but not my mind, knew how to deliver
When will it be over? I can't take any more pain...I want IT OUT.
When my newborn child was taken to the NICU and no one knew if he'd survive
After all that, please, please don't let him die.
When my child survived, but later my friend's does not
Why, why, why? And all I could do was hug her. And it was never enough.
At the end of a marriage that I thought would last a lifetime
I never meant it to end this way, but somehow I must move on. Alone.
Following hysterectomy
Stripped of my womanhood, hormones in crisis, pain overwhelming.
What does it mean to be a woman now? Who? What am I?
Loss of a lover
Will I ever love again? How can I trust another?
Raging cultural shock
9-11, Columbine, tsunami, Newtown, and many, many more. What is the message? Why?
Other passages, losses, triumphs, initiations, injuries, crying jags.
Many nights of tears.
The silent prayer of surrender
Comes only stubbornly to me,
After the reassurance of defeat.
Contains within it a flicker of hope
With mind or body screaming,
No! Not me! Not now! I can't! Why?!
Surely, there must be another way!
Or not.
The mind parries and dodges
While the body spits out tears and renders pain
And I feel alone
Whether I am or not.
And if I'm lucky, I haven't died
Yet I know I am bound to, someday,
and others I know do, and will continue to.
Ultimately no one escapes alive.
That's life. But don't discuss it in polite society.
Keep it under wraps.
Don't think about that now.
Concentrate on the positive, dear.
On deep dark nights in December
Sharing cups with ghosts of many Christmases past
I wonder and reflect with
Dismay and defiance.
With acceptance and surrender
My only true choices.
Intentions born of the swirling deep,
the long deep dark,
when I muster the light
gather it from wherever I find it
hold it gingerly, tenderly, and
squirrel it away in my aching heart
and blow my words on the flickering flame.
My pantry, supply cabinet, store of lamp oil.
Bolstered for the next blow.
How will this new year's challenges erode me,
Shape me, fire me like a clay pot?
Where will I find the raw materials
to fashion my courage anew?
Reach forward
From shoulders no longer wracked with pain
And increase my range of (e)motion
To include ALL in my humanness
Light and Dark.
This fragile form senses and experiences
And provides one more data point
from the unique experiment of me.
Find within me the bittersweet human awareness,
Cast death in the light of success, not failure
of triumph and return
of oneness and graduation
of return to ultimate togetherness,
finally leaving aloneness behind.
Do it with grace and aplomb
And a song in my heart
My feet dancing and spiraling in and out of sunlight and shadow.
Seeing my steps, then watching them fade.
Momentum carrying me through.
Teardrop on my cheek.
Finding the words to cast my spell
My intention for what I hope to create now; to be;
to live embracing the dark while seeking light
Giving my body comfort
and my mind peace.
There is a beautiful prayer I'd love to share
that has brought me great peace this December,
It's called
"Out of the Darkness
Mother Wisdom Speaks"
by Christin Lore-Webber.
Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.
I will hollow you with knives.
I will not do this to make you clean.
I will not do this to make you pure
You are clean already.
You are pure already.
I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.
A passage.
People will find their way through you.
A bowl.
People will eat from you.
And their hunger will not weaken them to death.
A cup to catch the sacred rain.
My daughter, do not cry.
Do not be afraid.
Nothing you need will be lost.
I am shaping you.
I am making you ready.
Light will flow in your hollowing.
You will be filled with light.
Your bones will shine.
The round open center of you will be radiant.
I will call you brilliant one.
I will call you daughter who is wide.
I will call you transformed.
introspective and deep.
For some journeys there are no pictures,
postcards or travel brochures.
I imagine the other side of the river,
but no bridge or boat to take me across
yet I think, it must be just around the bend.
glimpses of the mainland, when the sunlight and atmosphere
conspire in alchemical revelation.
Like the day I saw Maui from the North Kohala coast,
Emerging from the mists.
A survivor still, I have stood on this shore,
imagining the crossing.
Doubting.
Yet finding my passage.
On the death of a loved one
How will I go on without...
Leaving my home to strike out on my own
I am so scared. I want to go home, but I'm too stubborn to admit defeat.
Moments of poverty and lack when I didn't know where the money would come from
What am I going to do now?
In childbirth,when only my body, but not my mind, knew how to deliver
When will it be over? I can't take any more pain...I want IT OUT.
When my newborn child was taken to the NICU and no one knew if he'd survive
After all that, please, please don't let him die.
When my child survived, but later my friend's does not
Why, why, why? And all I could do was hug her. And it was never enough.
At the end of a marriage that I thought would last a lifetime
I never meant it to end this way, but somehow I must move on. Alone.
Following hysterectomy
Stripped of my womanhood, hormones in crisis, pain overwhelming.
What does it mean to be a woman now? Who? What am I?
Loss of a lover
Will I ever love again? How can I trust another?
Raging cultural shock
9-11, Columbine, tsunami, Newtown, and many, many more. What is the message? Why?
Other passages, losses, triumphs, initiations, injuries, crying jags.
Many nights of tears.
The silent prayer of surrender
Comes only stubbornly to me,
After the reassurance of defeat.
Contains within it a flicker of hope
With mind or body screaming,
No! Not me! Not now! I can't! Why?!
Surely, there must be another way!
Or not.
The mind parries and dodges
While the body spits out tears and renders pain
And I feel alone
Whether I am or not.
And if I'm lucky, I haven't died
Yet I know I am bound to, someday,
and others I know do, and will continue to.
Ultimately no one escapes alive.
That's life. But don't discuss it in polite society.
Keep it under wraps.
Don't think about that now.
Concentrate on the positive, dear.
On deep dark nights in December
Sharing cups with ghosts of many Christmases past
I wonder and reflect with
Dismay and defiance.
With acceptance and surrender
My only true choices.
the long deep dark,
when I muster the light
gather it from wherever I find it
hold it gingerly, tenderly, and
squirrel it away in my aching heart
and blow my words on the flickering flame.
My pantry, supply cabinet, store of lamp oil.
Bolstered for the next blow.
How will this new year's challenges erode me,
Shape me, fire me like a clay pot?
Where will I find the raw materials
to fashion my courage anew?
Reach forward
From shoulders no longer wracked with pain
And increase my range of (e)motion
To include ALL in my humanness
Light and Dark.
This fragile form senses and experiences
And provides one more data point
from the unique experiment of me.
Find within me the bittersweet human awareness,
Cast death in the light of success, not failure
of triumph and return
of oneness and graduation
of return to ultimate togetherness,
finally leaving aloneness behind.
Do it with grace and aplomb
And a song in my heart
My feet dancing and spiraling in and out of sunlight and shadow.
Seeing my steps, then watching them fade.
Momentum carrying me through.
Teardrop on my cheek.
Finding the words to cast my spell
My intention for what I hope to create now; to be;
to live embracing the dark while seeking light
Giving my body comfort
and my mind peace.
There is a beautiful prayer I'd love to share
that has brought me great peace this December,
It's called
"Out of the Darkness
Mother Wisdom Speaks"
by Christin Lore-Webber.
Some of you I will hollow out.
I will make you a cave.
I will carve you so deep the stars will shine in your darkness.
You will be a bowl.
You will be the cup in the rock collecting rain.
I will hollow you with knives.
I will not do this to make you clean.
I will not do this to make you pure
You are clean already.
You are pure already.
I will do this because the world needs the hollowness of you.
I will do this for the space that you will be.
I will do this because you must be large.
A passage.
People will find their way through you.
A bowl.
People will eat from you.
And their hunger will not weaken them to death.
A cup to catch the sacred rain.
My daughter, do not cry.
Do not be afraid.
Nothing you need will be lost.
I am shaping you.
I am making you ready.
Light will flow in your hollowing.
You will be filled with light.
Your bones will shine.
The round open center of you will be radiant.
I will call you brilliant one.
I will call you daughter who is wide.
I will call you transformed.
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