The North

“Great Spirit of Love, come to us with the power of the North. Make us courageous when the cold wind falls upon us. Give us strength and endurance for everything that is harsh, everything that hurts, everything that makes us squint. Let us move through life ready to take what comes from the North.”

~quote credit: a (probably altered) blessing from a four-direction prayer of Chief Seattle

~image credit: https://www.tricksterculturalcenter.org/virtual-exhibit…

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Mother Earth Within

Deep below

Beneath the layers of cold, dark

There is a fire

There are seeds, waiting

There are burrows, warm

There is

A light

She waits, knowing

Her time will come to unfold

Blooming, blossoming

Soft fabric brushing

Skin against skin

As the nights grow colder

As the birdbath forms its frost

She is there, knowing

She is there, glowing

She is there waiting

For you

Whispers rise through denseness

From this deepened core

Calming soothing hushes

Pulling energy inward

Towards Her

Firehearth roaring warm

A chariot awaits

Always available for the riding

Inward spiral clopping

Circling into Her

She calls, she beckons

As the nights grow colder

To ride, to ride

On the starlight trails

Of darklight, inside

To receive the Message

To dream up Vision

To defrost

Frigid extremities

Go into Her

Mother Earth Within

Glide along the well worn

Ancient pathways

Towards Her light

Towards Her warmth

Towards her Love

Deep below

Beneath the layers of cold, dark

There is a fire

There are seeds, waiting

There are burrows, warm

There are visions, dancing

Go there

When you are shivering

Go there

When you feel empty

Go there

When all seems lost

In this long, long night

Go, down

To the Mother Earth

Within

Let Her hold you

Let Her whisper you

To rest, and to someday

Become

~image from The Tarot of The Spirit by Pamela Eakins

Nectar

Ain’t it a hoot

The way Nature places

All of the nectar

At the end of a treacherous tunnel

Anesthesia and oxytocin flowing

So we can’t see

All the demons we’re traversing to get there

Exposed, predator risking

So we can’t turn away

From the fingernail clawings along the walls

From the glowing lessons

Inscribed and asking

Are you sure?

Ain’t it a hoot

How we only wake up

When we’re deep in the juices

Realizing where we are

Sticky, woozy

And how in no way we’d ever spelunk here

With veils removed

Ain’t it a hoot

The way the forces work us

Luring into lessons

Titillating temptations

Sensation saturations

Down the dark and winding tunnels

Into the raw and ripping

Necessary transformations

Solve et Coagula

Again and again

Ain’t it a hoot

The gaping maw

Of nectar

Wolf Medicine

A maniacal fist

Busts through the circular opening

Glass there, but thinner

Shatters

A solid routine, almost sleeping

His laughter shakes the girl alive

Her voice doesn’t work

To send the wild eyes screaming

Laughter, only laughter

As the fingers strain for lock

911

The dial tone

It sends me back to you

Those old walls

Those suspicious eyes

And dead as they are

Still you let me in

There’s a force by my side

New and eldred all the same

I no longer meet you at the door alone

And you

Your solitude also broken

An unknown young woman kneels near

Cloaked in wolfskin

She stares into me

And claims

Sister

A long strong tendril of the line

Sister

Wolf Sister

Come to claim me

Answering my call

Come to show me

This lost but not forgotten

Wild and primal source

Ready

Alive

Later

The head is severed, hanging

The furskin lies manicured on the wooden floor

And I’m left, saddened

With none to reflect

On separations that occurred

How far back did this happen?

This primal nature

Wild eyed and laughing

Banished to psych wards and jailhouses

Begging on roadsides

Needles hanging from sinew

While the world drives by

Forgetting the medicine

You, Sister

You, Brother

Busting through a sleepy-eyed forgetfulness

Laughing at, yet holding me

Reminding

You are here

My Sister

My Brother

Wolf Medicine

Spit flying and coat

Shimmering with the wind

Teaching family

And snarling incisors

On Time and out of Time

Dirty pads creeping past artificial realities

Busting through

Staring me down

Claiming me

Showing me what’s Real

Showing me you’re here

Thank you

Wolf Medicine

What I Wish I’d Said

From the beginning

This voice restrained

All the things, hovering, circling

All the things felt, unsaid

All the things feared

All the things shamed

All the things

Silenced

What I wish I’d said

Where did you go

And why didn’t you reach out to me

For so many years

Not even a word?

These little lips

Too young to know

How to lay down letters

And vulnerable abandoned fearful heart

How to weather the blow

When I saw you, your eyes guilty

I had no idea, the secrets you held

All I did was hug you and left those words

And slimy hisses

Beneath

What I wish I’d said

That I was still grieving

That I appreciated your rescue

But all around me

His dripping cloak of death still haunted

My yearning for him

Still pulled me

Spiraling towards the other side

Instead I smiled and pretended

But eventually my body betrayed me

And became deathly ill

Leaving no choice but to turn from you

At the approaching altar

So many times

She’s spoken what I couldn’t

In all-consuming

Self-destruction

What I wish I’d said

That I was terrified of your energetic penetration

Your constant appearance in my dream

Controlling, controlling

That I felt suffocation

And reminders of

Narcissistic domination

Forced violations

Despite your fair appearance

Probably from some Karmic tie

Your energy field reminded me of

I wish I would have told you

That’s why I impaled you

And roared away

What I wish I’d said

That yes, I very much liked you too

So much you don’t even know

But that I couldn’t do this, here, right now

That the fear of the amount of joy I felt around you

Only foreshadowed the depth of pain

And death

That would eventually come

Not knowing how or if I could make it through

Again

Not knowing if I could face

All the shit that might scream

While you hold me

Not knowing if I could deal with

The terror of the drama

And of being on the hotspring fishbowl stage

With all of the watchers

And whispers

And projections

Attempting to rip tender sprouts apart

So many times I looked at you

And wanted to say

But didn’t

Instead, I lied

I wasn’t disinterested

I was terrified

I was totally in love with you

And you

That no, I didn’t want to move quickly

That instead I’d rather share hearts and eyes

To not bypass these feral creatures begging

But I didn’t

And we crashed into each other

Our subconscious claws protecting, slashing

We crashed

And burned that shit to the ground

And you

How of course I wanted to kiss you

But what might be unleashed

These uncontrollable undertows

Haunting chains and misery

And whipping rage of eons ago

Busting through this flesh

I didn’t want you to see me

I didn’t want to see me

I didn’t want to slice you

I just couldn’t

So instead I turned away

And you

I wish I would have said

I am confused

By the energy you’re sending me

Is this a friendship, or a date?

I don’t really care

Can we just be clear here

So the shit doesn’t get squirrely

So my heart doesn’t start raging

At the back and forth and eventual ghosting

Of weird energies

And assumed needs

I wish we could just say it

I feel this energy

I don’t want to be in a romantic relationship with you

But a friendship would be fun

Or I can’t be in this connection right now

How hard is that to say

But how weird that neither of us said it

And instead

The magical vortex we danced in

You

Poof!

Disappeared into the mist

Another

And now

Here comes the same lesson

Frustrating but so similar

I almost have to laugh

You, like he, come close

We feel the energy, fire sparking

A short dance, intensity, closeness so palpable

We don’t talk about it

Your need for space

My need for communication

Shit gets weird

In silence

Claws out

And there you go

Gone

Again

What I wish I’d said

What I wish you’d said

When will we start talking

When will you start talking

When will I start talking

Stepping past the fear

And into what’s Real

I’m so hungry

For what I wish I’d said

Thanksgiving, Gratitude and Whatever

Thanksgiving, gratitude

Whatever

This week

I sit and remember

The litany of what I have and hold

That so many will never see

The warmth

The shelter

The creamy bittersweet reishi-infused liquids cascading over tongue

The lack of pain

Or extreme imprisonment

The solitude

The health

The vehicle to transport me into varied realities of my choosing

The consciousness

To transform pain to blessing

Almost instantaneously

The wise, deep, cackling crone

Deep within, everpresent

The guides

The teachers

The plentiful food on my plate

The laughter

The sunrise

The immediate access to webbings of knowledge

The freedom to say

“I want a relationship

Where we’re aware and committed to

Working on our shit together”

And the self-love to not care

If the listener runs screaming haha

The voice

The sound

The art that now can come through unobstructed

Through this vessel

The witnesses, holding deeply

The love, the carved out

Empty full compassion pulsing

But

Whatever

What lies beneath

On this day of great trespassing

Aware of that too

Not gratefully bypassing

The millions of original beings

Paved over, passed over

Starved, forgotten, shackled

Extinguished, tricked, lied to

Forced to psychically submit

Gutted and soul starved

Healing the Soul Wound

Do we now see it?

Can this day be of gratitude

That we might just be seeing it

Grateful that the festering wounds

Repressed rage, bigotry

Unspoken for centuries

Are being released

Sometimes uncouth, often offensive

But released

Like Wednesday Addams, smiling

Match in hand

Thankful we can burn that old shit to the ground?

Thankful

We may be seeing the People

The human and non-human People

These beings, given Voice

Rising up

Transforming?

But

Whatever

Giblet laden gravies

Shimmering, reverberating

From distant relative argument

Over recent propositions

And how Sally should have never bought that car

And did you hear the price of gas

And how hard it is to build anything anymore

Without those codes gauging you

Lalala dancing words on aching surfaces

While Sally vomits in the bathroom

While Uncle Jim hides in the car

Taking another hit

To make it through

Whatever

Both eyes open

To my extreme Wealth

In contrast to many

As well as the bowed down

Hoping, praying, singing

To our seeing

To our healing

To our waking

Grateful

Thankful

Whatever

The Soul Wound

The Dance

There is a part

That wants to lay it all out before him

In fresh bloomings

Blow by blow

Intensity of the path she’s led

Situation after situation

Violation after violation

Allowance after allowance

Twisted shreds and fallouts

Visceral evidence of the place she stands

There is a wild, unbridled force

That wants to see his eyes

To feel his heart

To know his Truth

In the face of the litany

In the face of the pain

To see if he turns

To see if he shudders

To see if he

Stays

Hanging by slippery threads

On this fire escape ladder

It’s a long way down

If she surrenders to the fall

Scrambling

Anxious

Terror

Old, tattered parts come forward

Protect or die!

Get it all over with, now

Show the portal he’ll enter

See his choice

With no delay

See if he’ll stay

Hoping he’ll go

To calm these demons

This, of course, is such a metal way

Teeth dripping saliva

And balls to the wall

Go hard or go home

This part wants to live it

Speak it

Shove it

These rumblings have been waiting

These rumblings designed

To push away

And yet

Hidden, ephemeral

There is this other, more gentle force

Gentle, but not weakened

Gentle, but not naive

Gentle, and Knowing

Who appreciates

The Dance

She wants to unpeel, slowly

Revealing layer by layer

Watching his eyes

Feeling his breath

Tuning into the particles

As the skins gradually fall away

Microcosmic realities

Dancing, dreaming

Mysteries touching

At eonic speed

She is an old part

She is a deep part

The one who wants to witness his music

Deep bass resonance on golden crisscross strings

Who wants to hold the gentle fierce line

Of looking for hours into

Trailing light tendrils

Along shivering surface

Stepping back from this Mystery

Allowing space

A roaring, intimate silence

To hold the shimmering portals

Of beauty

And pain

Yet to become

She is an old part

She is a wise part

She is a deep part

This smiling-eyed Dakini

Will She have voice in the great trembling?

Will She stand, in her Love, gleaming?

Will She cradle the demons

While making room for the Other?

This time

The wildness

The fierceness

Channeled not to push away

But to slowly

Gently

Fiercely

Pull them into

The Dance

Pain Body

There was one thing you said

(It actually pissed me off at the time)

That I now see is true

“There’s such an intense pain-body around you”

I dismissed it

As your rationalization, jab

For why I didn’t want to be involved

A unicorn dancing once more

In a loveless matrimonial tie

While perhaps that’s correct

While perhaps a wise woman sensing

The statement you hoisted

That statement is true:

Like so many

Have an enormous, unexplainable field

An invisible armor, always at the ready

To attack

Anything that comes in too close

And reminds of unconscious catastrophy

Its hairs bristle, teeth expose

Protecting, protecting

Unable to manage, primal

Mind goes murky, tongue ties

Frustration sets in

As I feel the rage of eons

Simmering, thrashing in my field

She roars, silent

Recounting unintelligible

Trauma chants

Pushing like the crown

Too large to exit the canal

Nowhere to go

Wailing

(External trained and unrevealing)

Against her ancestral cage

To hold and dismantle these plates

Requires more

And to this point

I’ve found nothing

I don’t want to be your mistress

Your fill-in, rebound lay

This same repeating pattern

Pulling me into its spiral

To learn over and over again

I bump against it, attempting

And am taken down repeatedly

I back away

I slither

Away from this gigantic roaring hoarde

Ignoring, avoiding

In my temple

Of ritual and aloneness

Pretty good

At controlling

This pain body activation

Only marginally triggered by passersby

But when You come in close

When you completely step over Her line

(Most just avoid Her quills)

Here I am

Aware of Her pulsing, raging, fiery breath

Dominating and confusing reality

Taking over

Emanating miasmic sludge

My power lost, understanding decimated

Head hung low

Cup clanking on prison steel

Each time

She’s here waiting for me

For You

This pain body, hovering, enmeshed

Ironically

I’ve attended others’ for so long

But Her? Rarely do I hold Her, fully

Explore Her, listen to Her

How could I?

Like the Void, She’s massive and yet elusive

Nothing’s prepared me for this task

I stay safe, in patterns and routines

Of nun-monkhood

While She waits, simmering

Simmering

This Pain Body

When You come in close

When You completely step over Her line

(Most just avoid Her quills)

Here I am

Aware of Her pulsing, raging, fiery breath

Dominating and confusing reality

Taking over

It’s true

A Ritual Of Death

Oh Great Ones

Well and healed lineages from Beyond

Help me, help me

To bring Death

Death to the old way

Death to the outworn patterns

Carving catabolic caverns in my heart

To the demons, circling

Ripping quivering potential

To shreds

O Great Ones

Well and healed lineages from Beyond

Help me craft, by candle

A ritual of their Death

A ritual of honor

Of the many ways they’ve served

Of the protection, shielding

I’ve needed for so long

The Old Ones, shrouding

I require you no more

It is time

Help me

Craft ritual of their sacred slaying

Psychopomps, I call you

To guide them Home

Beyond this body

Standing now, in safety

Oh Great Ones

Well and healed lineages from Beyond

Help me line the altar with silver blessings

To spread the path with dark kisses and heart

Sword gleaming, turning

Sending, parting

Across and through the veils

Help me

Help me let them

Help me let them die

Help me, release, return, unemcumber

These loyal soldiers

Give them honorable Death

So that I

May Live

Oh Great Ones

Well and healed lineages from Beyond

I am ready

I am willing

Like a great tree,

Sad to see its cloaking

Release

Sail

Fall

Die

Transform

Sad to see

This turning

Of such loyal, long time protectors

But knowing

Knowing

The time has come

Our Raw Heart

A late afternoon beam

Trickles through the canopy

Glowing redwood remains

Hush splintered in our wake

You stop and listen

To the leaves, falling

And silence, unfamiliar

Smiles between us

Further into the canyon

Of waiting fern-graced water trails

Jaws wiggling, diaphragms dancing

You ask me to go deeper

The space I land is remarkable

With these wounds, this heart

And the leaves, they fall

Your depths emerging, extending

And then silence, smiling, returns

I hold myself

And my spirals

Re-storying grand illusions

Into beauty and hope

But somehow, in this reflection

With the leaves falling all around you

I hear myself, in new ways

Many years on the mountain

Conversing with spider and brook

I’ve forgotten the medicine

Of humans

I put my heart

Beating, pulsing, a beacon

Out in between these bodies

And oddly, it’s held

Invisible webbing emerging from two

Deep waters, much solitude

And a bubbling wisdom of Nothingness

I step closer

Into the spiral core

And feel

Perhaps, this heart ponders

It is possible

Two humans

Can heal

As the leaves fall

As the world crumbles

As the core of ourselves and all reality

Is pierced, composted, rearranged

Perhaps, this heart, laughing

Watches, waiting

As I manage to step closer

Into its beating, pulsing

Knowing

Of what’s been true

All along