SOLSTICE POEM

Longest night of the year
The cosmic fire of our sun
Has burned to embers
I yearn to fan those flames
Bathe in the warmth
But first, I must step through
A narrow doorway
And enter the realm of dark mystery
What terrors, what treasures
Await me there?
A vibration, wild electricity
Working through my body
Anything could happen
All my senses are activated
Everything looks, smells, feels
And sounds different
And yet familiar somehow
I have stepped across a threshold
And entered the cave of my ancestors
Hidden side of the frontier
Dreams of hunting trails
Ritual dances to honor bear and elk
I move through this forest
With no sound
Sharpened spear ready
Muscles lengthening, flexing
Feel the movement of air
Across my skin
Hear with my body
Spirit messengers travel
To my truth-telling heart
Preparing me for an encounter
With spirit, with shadow
I set my spear aside
Step more deeply into the darkness
Open my heart
Dare to be available, vulnerable
Ready for something to come
Ready for whatever I am ready
To receive

THE GOLDEN MASK

I am the one who has worn the golden mask
I am the one who has provided abundance, entertainment and more
At the court of my family
Tonight, I remove that mask
Tonight, I put down the spear
I have used to guard my vulnerability
Tonight, in a high desert canyon
I take my turn as Heart Warrior
The sun throws shadows
Beyond the Ocotillo and creosote
Shadows that mirror my own
The warming air supports me
In my courage
To do the work that the world
Asks of me
I look into my essential self
Begin a conversation
At the frontier of my identity
I look not outward, but inward
Step through the narrow doorway
The passage that leads to my one true heart
The desert absorbs me
Beneath the golden mask
Lie my shyness, my vulnerability, and my doubt
Removing that beautiful armor
Something essential is called forward
The walk back to my tent is pilgrimage
My body follows sounds, feelings
I am aware of the burden
I have carried
A great fatigue settles over me
My yellow tent
My golden temple on the hill
Beckons me
As I seal myself in I am aware
That something is being left behind
Something is going to be carried away tonight the story I've been living
Is going to end
In the storm I know is coming
The winds howl like ravenous coyotes
Voices strain at the windows
Of my temple
The foundations are giving way
My temple is carried aloft
And I am calm, even exhilarated
At the center of it
I am being re-birthed on this night
Ready to claim the life
That is truly mine

WILD HEART

It rained last night
Drumming on the roof of my tent
Thunder and lightning too
Vibrating the sky
In my dreams I find refuge in the spaces of silence beneath the trees
Words leap from the wild earth
Into my mouth
Love flooding in like a salmon run
The soul of the world pulsing
Through my veins
Raw and bare
We are of the erotic
Of the whole body
Yet we play hide and seek
With ourselves
And our soulful darkness
Concealing and revealing
The wider boundary of being
Now
Soft, still air
The canyon at first light
My longing informs my imagination
My gift is already here, in me
My wild heart knows
My life is big enough to do something
The stones I collect
The shells and Pieces of wood
Help me to know
Other worlds in this world
Help me to be a unique expression
Of place
I will dance with the Earth
I will move through wild places
I will share stories of transformation
Stories of beauty

FALLING AWAKE

(For David Abrams)

Falling awake
To the wild ecology of perception
To the magic of river, rock, tree
Falling awake
To the bone structure of story
Song of dreams, hearts, poetry
Song of place, of atmosphere
Wandering the wilderness
Of my dreams
Picking up scents, shadows, tracks
Listening with my body
To the speech of this place
Wandering the wilderness
Of sounds, sensations
Feeling my way deeper and deeper
Into the hollow of my mystery
Into the valley of my heart
Falling awake
To the conversation about my death
Nothing between Mystery and I
Questions will be asked to help me remember
Falling awake
To Great Blue Heron
My brother, my source carrier
Ready to carry my gift to the call
Of the Great Turning

MY CURRICULUM

What if I came from another world
to embody something in this world?
What if the strange men and women
Who came to me in the night
The creatures that stalked my dreams
Came not to take, but to complete?
These visitations fired me
Like potter's clay
Left an indelible imprint
Hidden for long years
Deep within the folds of my heart
A map that I alone am now ready to read for my people
The roots of my tree are planted
Firmly in mystery
Primordial wisdom flows like water into my body
I taste the land
I hear the songs of the singing stones
Songs that tune me
Just as my father tuned his willow Switch
To divine water
In those quiet moments when he Channeled magic
His body a vision vessel for beauty and Mystery
My brain tingles, fizzes as images Symbols, feelings towards him are felt recognized and carried in my body
Six white trees
Bleached bones of the earth
Keep solemn vigil over the ground
I release myself to this white forest
Let the calm elders speak to me
No words, just feeling
A visceral sensory connection
Evidence that the world has beauty Meaning and holiness
This is my curriculum

MY WILD LOVER

My lover
My wild lover
Bathed by rains
From churning cloud
Beckons me
To cross the threshold
That beautiful thread
Cast by the ancestors
Illuminated by engagement
By faith
I have been here before
An earnest apprentice
Chasing her golden skirts
Down the hallways of this hill
Now, having offered my story
To mystery
Now, having invited bear to consume
Those parts of me
No longer needed on my journey
My lover's moist skin
Holds me, kisses me
And in exchange
I offer my presence, my breath
My praise, my body
Our love
Wild mystery in motion
Her scent, and mine
Entwine, change and charge
The atmosphere
Her thousand tongues sing to me
Notes only I can hear
And I call out in return
Releasing fully to intent
A vector of generative love
My voice rises from soul
And the atmosphere is changed
And charged again
My lover's flesh invites me
And I step into my wild
I step into my life
Expanded and unconstrained
My kinship to Earth,
My wild lover
Made whole

GREETING THE OTHERS

Today I walked deep into the canyon
Deep into the red flesh and patient Heart
Of the world
To be more present, more alert
To the Others
To have the deepest conversation
I might have with the wild
Everything around me alive
And my body in conversation
With this terrain of the soul
Eddies of wind kiss and caress my skin
Rounding a corner
My hands linger on the rock
As they do on my lover
My skin in conversation, in ceremony
Charged with erotic potential
What does my allurement to the wild
Say about the shape or longing of my psyche?
What is my mystery, my embrace of spirit?
Canyon wrens sing this world into Being
I walk in blessing, in praise
My body, my voice, my desires open
Where does this red temple begin?
Where does it end?
My pilgrimage takes me to a dry Waterfall
The altar of curved rock marking the Space between spirit and form
The imaginal realm
A place of mystery and wonder
I chime my simple bell
To honor the ground that holds us – for I am not alone
And in that moment
My body begins to tremble
Reverberations in the earth travel into and through my flesh, my blood
I am changed, renewed
This rock is God
The pinyon and juniper
The sage and ocotillo, the prickly pear
All are God
All are sacred
All are witnesses to my becoming
My mouth opens and words spill out
Like the rains that fell last night
I speak not from my conscious mind, but from somewhere else
My voice rises as if from the ground
The stones
I express gratitude, respect
I surrender my heart
My wild, strong, open heart
I say yes to living out a new story
My offering to the dance of all life
The fear that blocked the river
Of my one true voice
Has been dislodged
I feel and see myself connected
To something bigger than myself
To the dreams and longings
Of the land
My faith confirmed
My body shakes
There is no turning back now

WHAT THIS IS

This is the end of restraint
Of romantic decline
This is the moment when rain falls like jewels
Through my outstretched hands
And my heart, like the patient flower, opens
To this thing we call love
This is the place where I remember my dreams
Bring those colors, tastes, and sensations
Into consciousness
This is when the field changes
No unquiet quiet filling the space
My lover's body no longer absent
This is the space where our breath mingles
Stars falling from my mouth into yours
This is the moment when my pulse quickens
Animal spirits swimming in my blood
Achieving a oneness
And my skin shivers in recognition
This is the place of spirit and matter
The strange chemistry I have sought
No longer floating dreamily on the air
I am seeded in the earth
This is when I feel the energy in my hips
Carry me deeper into your wild
This is the moment my heart hemorrhages
Fantastic things rushing out
This is the space where our limbs entwine
Birds lifting from a forest of our making
This is the morning after
And all the mornings yet to come
Sandstone glowing purple, orange, yellow
Such a mysterious allurement
This is where I feel more vulnerable to the mystery
Immersed in the intelligence of this earth
Of this body
Following a certain faith
Into the valley of my heart
Listening to what the trees might say to me
Or the red dirt
This is where I forge an erotic relationship
With all things
My breath is my speech, my prayer
Myth, poetry, stone the maps that guide me
This is where the soulful darkness becomes my teacher
And the white stars help me to see the way
Not music, not speech
A strange and beautiful elixir