Freeing The Force

Cards from the *Tarot of The Spirit* deck by Pamela and Joyce Eakins

There is a pulsating, overwhelming force

Smoldering, sparking

Seeking its direction

Seeking where to land, seed, focus, grow

Seeking where

To nurture, connect, become

Compass spinning

The yearning is so terrible

And the voices are so loud

A wanting

A hungering

Suffocating and aimless

What stands in the way

Of this sacred force’s aim?

Tens of thousands of swords

Piercing the mind, twisting the strength

Over the centuries, ancestral

Illusory confusions

Bleeding out lifeforce

To stand, to aim, to thrive

What then can I do?

Voices, betrayals of the past

Survival scaffolding that must now break away

Once valid, it is no more

Begin the peeling, the shedding, the grieving

So the pulse, the yearning, the new creation seeking

Can see its target

Can find the direction

Can muster velocity, and belief

To land, and blossom

On its mysterious and otherworldly surface

How then

Do I align the soul’s condition

For this whittling to occur?

So long have these layers sheltered me

So tightly do I cling

How then, do I let go

For this blast off to succeed

After so many failed launches?

And out of the darkness,

She answers.

Sister Fire says

I dance

I place myself in the center of the trees

I lay down my obstructions and fears

On the altar, I offer

A sacrifice

I let the wind pivot my limbs

I open my mouth, spinning

And let the wildness sing through me

Sister Fire says

I am the one who brings forth the knowings

I am the one who has travelled through the fire

I am the one who cannot be denied

I am

The Master of Spontaneous Expression and Liberation

Sister Fire

Mouth open

I let her dance me

I become her

Envisioning bold stance, supple curves, chin to stars

I twirl

And scream

And partner with the rhythms of dirt and sky

Allowing it all to burn away

Letting her reveal me

Letting her open my eyes, my channels

Loosing the magma

When it is time

And the layers have dropped away

Lion, lizard, and flame my allies

And Fire Sister, a twinkle in her eye

We will be soaring

We will be aiming

We will be burning

Towards the one True Will of my heart

This pulsing will connect

This blazing will form

Like supernovas and our great central stellar core

This yearning

This wanting

This hungering

Will finally come

To Be

Verse or Curse

This morning I awoke

To a bible verse on my phone

My first reaction was cringe

And an urge

To reject

The sender, sweet

But in no way knowledgeable of my being

So I stopped and listened

And I heard “wait”

So I waited

And I walked

And I thought about

All the reasons I cringe

For the witches

And the women

And the oppressed

And the ancient ones

Many persecuted with these very

Verses

I thought

Of the shaming of the body

Of the simplistic duality

Of the good and the wicked

Of the woman’s penance

For the downfall of man

And then

I was there

Thick trunks smoldering beneath me

Witnessing the jeering faces

Thumping these black books

As my skin began to burn

As my loving heart

That worshipped the beauty of trees

Began to break

Their fervor, like arrows

Against me

Liminally wafting

The lifetimes informing…

And then

Back to my here now feet walking

I thought of the archetype

Of that man that carried love in his heart

That fought for the downtrodden

That held both the light

And the struggle

With compassion

I wondered

As I reread that bible text

Did this man, Jesus, exist

And if he did, were any of these words

Actually his, spoken?

How much of these verses

(Now perhaps turned curses)

Are lost in translation of the projections

Of humans, of fear?

Not new thoughts

But interesting they’ve been called

Into reflection

I look at my phone as in a dream

And wonder why the message has come

This bible text beaming before me

These questions

Such a veering away

From this fence sitter’s witnessing of it all

So, having waited

I felt a strange challenge

Battling in my throat

Shall I stay silent

Shall I swallow the message

That does not align?

Or shall I share my truth

On the dark wings of respect

And Love?

Forming my letters

I did my best to express

My response did not reject

But inform

I am a believer of belief

Enjoying what brings you pleasure to share

But let’s get this straight

I’m not right

And you’re not wrong

And we can live in this

Strange and mysterious dance

Together

In between words

Feeling

The wind

Just think about this

Before you assume I’m neatly in your court

And please

For some future misuse and slander

Don’t quote me on that

VI The Lovers

image and prompt from Pamela Eakins, *Tarot of The Spirit*

The Lovers

Children of The Voice

Splitting Apart

Making Connection

Crossing The Abyss

Does the Gap Between Worlds

Help us

To Realize Love?

Past Lives, And Fences

I’m not sure if past lives exist

Or if ancestral/epigenetic memories are real

But I feel like this lifetime

Has me reliving, re-membering,

And disbelieving

All the various forms of magical paths of previous skins

From cunning folk

Hunting down leylines with dowsing rods

Scrying by the augury of nature

To Druidry, Spiritualism, Crowley-esque seances

And skyclad Gardnerian circles under the moon

To dabbling in dissolving and coagulating via alchemy

And achieving Masonic handshakes and Golden Dawn initiations

Upon checkered floors

Tendrils travelling through portals

Ancestors tugging from all directions

“Complete me! Finish my work! Carry on the magical line!”

Like being torn apart on the rack

I do not know how to handle it all

I do not even know

If it is real

I sit on the fence

I’m a lifetime fence sitter

Watching all of this approach and retreat

I’ve found myself role playing, smirking inside

Each time the opportunity invites me to embody identity

I step in, explore, and bow when I part

But nothing sticks

And I wonder at how so many

Can be Sure

Lately, though

It’s been getting pretty real

Egypt keeps coming up to me and introducing itself

As if I need to wed it and bed it

To learn all over again

Coincidences of two, mulitplying

And I find myself questioning my disbelief, my impartiality

I also find myself questioning

My urge jump off the fence

To become a believer

To be that person saying that thing

“I have received a message, praise be the Lord!”

While all of my charred sisters cringe

While famines and wars and violence

Unfold in the name of some crazy-ass and

Unseen certainty

I stay sitting on this fence

Looking at the whole menagerie of beliefs

At what is real, at what Real is

Asking who am I?

Am I an amalgam of all of these beings?

Am I some crazy wizard priestess

Reincarnated over and over again

Just now meeting my “Soul Family?”

Just now receiving “the Teachings?”

There’s something so tempting

About deciding to jump off and join

And yet something keeps me here

Watching

Something keeps me here

Listening

Something keeps me here

Loving

All

This splintering fence

I’ve made it pretty cozy

With my steaming tea, and my ice packs

I can see pretty far

And most days the weather is fair

I’m not sure if past lives exist

Or if ancestral/epigenetic memories are real

Even if it’s fun to entertain

That I’m some crazy wizard priestess coming back time and time again

Even if they keep coming

Swearing they’ve seen me in ceremonial gowns on the Nile

Even if holding my measuring cup, counting grams

Hearkens me back to some cold and specific ancient laboratory

I can’t quite do it

Decide with all my being

Who I am, why I’m here, and who is

Wrong

Even with all the tendrils, pulling

I think I’ll stay here

On this fence

In this lifetime

For now

Issues

Photo by Juan Pablo Serrano on Pexels.com

Why did you go, Daddy?

Was it something I said?

Why didn’t you call, Daddy?

Did I do something wrong?

Was I not enough

To make you stay?

All those years, wondering

All that

Silence

Sometimes I get so angry

At the hole you left behind

I do my best to forget it

Yet I keep recreating you

To find the answers

But Daddy

You’re dead

And I’ll never know

And this longing

Confusing, sexual, childlike

This rage, Daddy

Has nowhere to go

Is This Love?

Is this love?

And I, running

My heart stands

Confused

Is this love?

Or do I trust this hesitancy

All these

Good Reasons

Do I go with the gut?

Do I draw the line?

Is this love?

If it is

Does it matter?

Can I enter

Fresh from multiple ER stays

Disembodied from pain

Terrified of past emerging present

Heartbreaks, deaths, betrayals

All the usual defenses

Can this be love

And can it be right

To refuse it?

It taunts me, pulling at my core

Is this love, instead

Something to open into

Something to receive

((I am so faulty at receiving))

Is this love

The Medicine?

Is it the counterintuitive move

That will fill the cracks with gold?

Does it even matter

Whether I run

Or stay?

If this is love

Will it wait?

Will it wait

For the months

For the years

For the decades

Before this body

And all Her terrors

Are ready?

Will it call again

Will it

Return?

Yesterday I said no

But now there is a space

I am thinking about you

And a wondering haunts me

If I threw it all away

If all of my stories

My can’ts and shouldn’ts and

How could I evens

Decimated a sprout, so gold

Before it reached out of its casing

Before its right to bloom

Was given a chance

Did the sword of my fear

Slash it to the ground

Before its innocent yearning

Could even begin

To radiate?

Is this love?

And can a love

Hold a broken body

A terrified, can’t make it to dinner

I am hemorrhaging again

Kind of style?

Is this love

And will I ever know

It’s been so long

The firefighters and soldiers, always at the ready

Defending

Is this love?

And I, running

While still, thinking of you

And your pictures of sunsets

Of past lives and magicks

Is this love?

My heart stands

Confused

Who Am I

Exercise One: Who am I?

I am a woman

I am a prisoner in my body

I am 50 years old

I am someone who has been through a lot

I am someone who has felt strong as a result of this

I am someone who usually sees the positive in things

I am compassionate

And

I am angry

I am scared

I am tired of being in pain

I am not sure I can keep doing this

I am a shell of who I used to be

I am tired of feeling fragile and powerless

I am tired of being sick and unable to do the things I love

I am not sure what to say anymore

I am not sure who I am anymore

I am nothing

I am nothingness

I am presence

I am acceptance

And

I am rage, resenting

I am a fire burning, perhaps burning clean

I am a Tower

I am crumbling

I am old foundations disappearing

I am all comforts and surety erasing

And when this is done, I hope

I hope I am dancing

I hope I am laughing

I hope I am writing

I hope

I am free

Sneak Attack

The sun, shining

The geese, hissing

The water, lapping

I am laughing with her at the lake edge

Maybe today it will be okay

Maybe today

It will be okay

.Just to play it safe

I end our connection

I make some time

A need to rest

I fear what may come

I lay down

Just in case

I am listening

The sun, shining

The geese, hissing

The water, lapping

I am chanting affirmations

In the back of my mind

And suddenly

In you rush

A sneak

Attack

You come out of nowhere

Dropping your force

Terrorizing my field

All creatures within my soil

Run for cover, trauma shaking

They know not what to do

One minute it is peaceful

The sun, shining

The geese, hissing

The water, lapping

And the next…

Decimation

I feel your violence pentrating

All levels of my being

Cataclysmic, destroying

Any sense of plans, identity, joy, hope

Obliterated

In one moment

And now I lay here, sobbing

Avoided betrayals welling

The stones, aching

Darkness obscuring

I cannot see where I am going

And there is no future

But pain

How can you and I come to peace

When you keep annihilating me covertly

When you keep making these

Sneak

Attacks

Just when I’ve found a place of center

The sun, shining

The geese, hissing

The water, lapping

The children

Giggling

This is not the way

Somehow, you need to teach me your language

Somehow, you need to help me understand the hurt

Somehow, we need to get to the core

Together

Will we ever get to the core, together?

You and I, standing?

The sun, shining?

The geese, hissing?

The water, lapping?

The children

Giggling?

Will we ever

Get to the core?

Will we ever stand together?

Will we ever hold, and heal

Where it hurts

Finally

Fully

Instead of these

Uncompromising

Traumatizing

Immobilizing

“Incredibly successful”

Walled off, endless

Solution-less

Sneak

Attacks?

The Knot

Help me serve from this pain

Help me find the way

Help me see through the latticework

Squeezing my visions with fear

Help me open to clarity

Dreams to embody with ease

Instead

Of this moldy, wretched knot

I keep trying to untie it

I keep trying to understand

My brittle fingernails

Pulling, twisting, struggling

Just to make one tiny, tiny opening

For the light to come through

This knot

Dangling, chiding

Taunting me with its solid persistence

Disgusting me with its growths

And fungal putridness

I’ve sought out guidance

Over and over again

Only met

With question mark eyes

I’ve stared at it for so long

In so many ways

From every direction

Fingers, aching

Mind screaming

Life force dwindling

Asking

What is the message?

How do I not drown?

How

Can

Transform

This?

I know there has to be a way

Just to make one

Tiny, tiny opening

In the mass of these frayed edges

For the light

To come through

Bless And Release

Photo by Luis Felipe Alburquerque Briganti on Pexels.com

Uneasy

Overwhelmed

NO MISSION

I want to freeze

Food sensitivity

AMNESIA

Expending more than consuming

Thinning

no dreams

OBSESSION

Pain, sickness, death

Hopelessness, apathy

Ineffective care

Nobody’s listening

WHY

TRY

IT’S

NEVER

WORKED

BEFORE

Tiny boxes

Strangulation

Resignation

Confusion

Fear

Sacrifice on the stone

Rite is turning

Fire is burning

The young one reminding

Bless and release

May we

Bless and release

Moving forward, clean and free

Into

The Strawberry Moon

Bless and release

What will you

Bless and release

Moving forward, clean and free

Clean and free

And so it is