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Another journey around the glorious, gorgeous, and gracious sun. And I am ever lighter. 

Wordlessness

To be free is to be wild and to be wild is to be free. 

This is my most recent learning. 

You may notice I wear the word wild like I wear my old boots... that is to say, often. For both are worn from holding and moving me.

The wild communicates without words, without naming its experience or narrowing its essence. I wonder if the wordlessness of the wilderness is where the awe is - is where the artist lives, whittling expressions into offerings for the Wild Mother's altar. The wordless wilderness is among land, plant, river, and sea. And the wordless wilderness is also within you and me. It is the silence within. It is with moon, sun, instinct, and intuition. It is without the rules of man.  It is with fear, but without worry. There is discernment, but no judgement. There is wisdom and less distraction and information. It is not without conflict, but with tender and tremendous peace. 

I love to be wordless. Inside these painted walls and smudged windows, sound screams and bellows and mangles into the bluster and bliss of a happy, healthy family. Our children love to make sound, - to hum, holler, speak, whisper, whine, and sing. Therefore, I take my body to the woods often. I sit beneath trees. I walk with and within the wind. I look up. Eventually, I return to my homeostasis and then I return home. 

O what a silly endeavor: this writing, these words, about wordlessness. Perhaps this post should simply be an empty canvas of silence. 

And yet I persist. 

To live from this wise, ancient place takes remembering, can take courage, and yet when the wordless wild within stands and lifts her long, light wings, one flies into boundlessness, into freedom.

Note

I am a note. You are a note. Every moment is a chord, or a jangled collection of notes. Present moments are harmonious, while disconnected, hurried ones are disharmonious. When we tune in deeply to the music of the moment,  we live in a symphony of synchronicity. 

Gaia's Word

I am the pulse in the air

the vibration of sound

of wind  

of movement 

I am wild

I am the wild

I am God's good harvest 

my body is gorgeous 

is generous 

is resilient

is alive

is well 

my body balances 

and re balances 

I speak as breeze 

as quake 

as wave

I am sea

I am stone

I hold sunbeams 

in my green green

sweet moss dreams 

I have ecosystems for 

limbs and red hot organs 

I am spheres

I am circles

I am cycles upon 

cycles within cycles 

of the years

I float 

and yet I hold 

myself 

together

I am solid 

soft

light 

I am liquid 

my body is like your body 

independent of me and yet part of me

full of symptoms and cures for healing 

I am healing

I can control how I receive your attention

your affections and your disdain - but I 

cannot control how my body responds

to your poisons 

and so I may seem angry 

but it is not rage 

so much as cleansing 

so much as shedding 

of scabs and scars and slivers 

of last winter's skin

I am reborn again 

and again and again 

I am generations

I am time

for I make time 

in my turning turning 

turning 

look to me 

now look to your own body 

they are the parts we feel and see

touch me

I touch back

 

look up 

does your mouth ache for rain?

you know when a storm is coming 

look out 

is the light looking for you?

you sense it 

stop pretending 

you have more important things to do

I no longer believe you

I am healing

you can too

be with me 

and remember 

that it's partly why you're here 

to be in body 

on my body

and to be 

with me.

Oh, how we need community!

I bring my dying grandmother a muffin on Mother's Day. 

Oh, what a silly thing to do! 

I give her a bracelet and her mother's painting of wildflowers, too. 

Some of us flutter around sorrow like a hummingbird tapping and touching and taking, while others root down like Catalpa trees, swaying in the breeze of emotional energy. Some of us chat about job and house and stuff, while others gently dig into the gardens of their loved ones, pulling weeds, pressing seeds, and watering brittle soil. Some of us sob. Others belly laugh. Some of us drink. Others eat. Some of us run. Some of us hide. Some of us fight. Some of us freeze. Some of us stand silent and still, waiting for sun and rain and sleep. Some of us gather. Some of us are gathered. All of us grow. Some of us feel torn and frayed and afraid, while others carry thread and needles and yards of cotton cloth for mending and making patches, bandages, blankets, and jackets. Some of us hunger, while others forage and feed and feast. Some of us are joyful and fulfilled and free, while others toil with regret, ruts, and uncertainty.

Oh, how we need community! 

Grandma knew this. She fed us. She gathered us. She stitched hats, blankets, and sweaters for us. She planted flowers, lettuce, and tomatoes. She tended and foraged and feasted. She rested. We remember her floating behind boats in a dark blue bathing suit. We remember her with books, photographs, and music. We remember her clam chowder and letters. We remember her prayers. Eventually, in her eighties, her hands hurt from all her stitching, knitting, writing, gardening, and gathering. And so, she was gathered. She was fed. She rested. Perhaps this is why I brought her food and flowers. 

Family is a patchwork quilt. It is a three-sisters garden. It is an ecosystem. It is healthy when it is diverse - diverse in experience, diverse in opinions, diverse in ages, diverse in need, and diverse in abundance. Community is holy. It connects us like a dewy web, like forest roots, like a hive. It connects us with light and shadow. It connects us with stories. It connects us with love. 

One Wednesday in June, we stand together in her church. We kneel in the pews. We sit side-by-side and sing her beloved songs. Later, we stand beneath a yellow-and-white-striped canopy while a colony of honey bees swirls above us, dancing and communing before leaving together in a spirited sweep.  

Now Grandma can be a colony of bees. She can be the spider or the fern or the tree. She can be the smell of fresh bread or the salt sea breeze. She can be lines of light. She can be a song. She can be a story. She can be butterflies, ladybugs, and blue jays. She can be memory and emotion and energy. She can be a golden thread in the hem of everything.  

Wild Mother

she misses me

misses my toes on her moss 

misses my legs in her salt sea 

misses my bottom on her stone seats

misses my belly in her breeze 

misses my heart on her mountaintop   

misses my face in her rain and fern and flower

perhaps she isn't broken or bleeding

angry or threatening  

perhaps simply - she misses me

misses my wild open being

misses my quiet company.

Gaia

I am the witch at the edge of the woods

I am the woods 

I am the owl in her hand

I am the roots of her bones 

I am the seed of her egg 

I am the sun of her womb 

I am the wolf at her feet 

I am the rose quartz in her eyes

I am the feathers on her fingers 

I am the infinite slips of snake skin 

I am the elephant wrinkles 

I am the hive 

I am the nest

I am the prophecy

I am the song of the whale 

I am the quills of her spine 

I am the trill of the sparrow 

I am the air in her mouth 

I am the fire in her heart

I am the river carving stone 

I am the pine

I am the herd

I am the flock 

I am the tribe 

I am the child 

I am the witch at the edge of the woods

She is the witch at the edge of the woods

She is the woods 

She is the owl in our hand

She is the roots of our bones 

She is the seed of our egg 

She is the sun of our womb 

She is the wolf at our feet 

She is the rose quartz in our eyes

She is the feathers on our fingers 

She is the infinite slips of snake skin 

She is the elephant wrinkles 

She is the hive 

She is the nest

She is the prophecy

She is the song of the whale 

She is the quills of our spine 

She is the trill of the sparrow 

She is the air in our mouth 

She is the fire in our heart

She is the river carving stone 

She is the pine

She is the herd

She is the flock 

She is the tribe 

She is the child 

She is the witch at the edge of the woods