Sunday, April 19, 2015

A Messenger with Giant Powerful Wings

 “In mythos and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.” 
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype











Friday, April 17, 2015

Great Blue Heron Rises From the Pond











Heron Rises from The Dark, Summer Pond

So heavy
is the long-necked, long-bodied heron,
always it is a surprise
when her smoke-colored wings
open
and she turns
from the thick water,
from the black sticks
of the summer pond,
and slowly
rises into the air
and is gone.
Then, not for the first or the last time,
I take the deep breath
of happiness, and I think
how unlikely it is
that death is a hole in the ground,
how improbable
that ascension is not possible,
though everything seems so inert, so nailed
back into itself–
the muskrat and his lumpy lodge,
the turtle,
the fallen gate.
And especially it is wonderful
that the summers are long
and the ponds so dark and so many,
and therefore it isn’t a miracle
but the common thing,
this decision,
this trailing of the long legs in the water,
this opening up of the heavy body
into a new life: see how the sudden
gray-blue sheets of her wings
strive toward the wind; see how the clasp of nothing
takes her in.
~Mary Oliver

Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Mists of Avalon


Through the mists, on the road to Avalon. It's like this sometimes. Wandering in a dense fog, searching for the shores of the mythical Avalon. The place where healing dwells. Never quite sure of what lies ahead, grateful for the silence and for the forward motion, even if it is blind.  When you feel things this intensely you don't need to see, and even if you could, would you want to? 

I'm journeying to a distant shore, we all are really. Some of us just arrive earlier than others. Either way, we will meet up again..... on the shores of Avalon. Until then, try to enjoy the journey.