Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
(written during and after the solstice passed)
I walked down
to rippling waters
listening….
Frozen mosses
trees and me
old snow
overflowing
anguish
gathered in a
Chalice of Light
my prayer
for us
my dog
and me
to flow under
fire and ice
or tolerate
soul murder
numbness,
soul murder
I cannot weep
A Prayer for Solstice
Winter’s Crone,
cave tender,
cauldron keeper,
mother of time,
guide us into stillness,
into a time of deep rest and reflection.
Unwind our knots
and soothe our scurrying,
remind us how to listen,
how to be still,
how to turn inward and know.
Remind us not to fear darkness
for it is a time of necessary patience and growth.
Help us to celebrate
the cycles of change
through which we move,
honoring the fallow times
and the flourishing times
as equally essential
for life.
Bone woman,
great mother of us all,
quiet our wondering
and our worries,
gentle our grief,
and soften our sorrow.
Restore our weary hearts
and renew our spirits
that we might turn
towards the light we carry within
and warm ourselves
by this,
life’s eternal and powerful flame,
knowing that we belong
to this great grand web of incarnation
and all it holds.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
There has been discussion of what to name Trump’s ever-expanding ballroom. Some have suggested naming it after Epstein. I would suggest naming it after Ozymandias from Shelley’s poem.
There is something about building projects that feed to the patriarchal ego. The Patriarchal ego stands on permanence, largess and if that involves crushing those “below” them, that is just how it is. Pre-patriarchal pagan systems focus on the cycles of life and are based on an understanding that impermanence is what life is all about. Life works on cyclic movement. The seasons, the moon, the sun, the stars, all is in motion and all presages different aspects of the wheel of life.
Continue reading “Ozymandias and Other Patriarchal Ego-isms by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”This set of poems reflects on ways we humans have responded creatively, expansively and artistically to the challenges of our times. Of course, two of the poems center upon music, one of the strongest themes of my own life. The first and last poems are ways that the natural world is always knocking at the door, saying, “pay attention.”
Like this
“Like this,” says the titmouse,
hanging upside down to get at the suet.
“If you really want it, there it is.”
“Like this,” says the January sun,
one day icing us to our bones,
and today like Spring,
warm enough for rides
on little boys’ new scooters.
“Like this,” say the squirrels,
entranced with each other,
whirling ’round the branches,
twining fluffy tails,
intent on making new Squirrel babies.
“Like this,” says the chickadee,
landing near my toe,
tiny and brave, ready to eat,
scolding me to get out of the way.
“You are here to live,
so live.”
Five years ago
I dug a seedling
in protest
ki’s deep green
needles
slender trunk
and roots
yielded
to sweet
spring earth
with prayers.
I believed.
One winter night
I will celebrate
your life
the lives of
thousands
with a
candlelit
spiral
of tiny white lights.
Tonight
white flames
adorn you
old longings
and heartbreak
we share the same
root
stilled by
simple beauty
a single
reflection
of Love.
Prufrock Again
In this our divine
Comedy of delight
Of destruction
Troubled waters
Calm. Quenching
Us yet again
For in
Our penchant
For beauty
We remake
Over and over again
The tale that tries to
Tame us. Gathering
In circles of hope
Once more we remember
How we remember
© Margot Van Sluytman
Continue reading “The Perfection of Our Imperfection by Margot Van Sluytman/Raven Speaks. Heyoka”
Dear FAR readers, here is a selection from my new collection Holding Our Brokenness, a gathering of poems. I chose these particular poems for their connection to feminism and/or religion. I hope you will enjoy them.
The Old One Speaks
You must be unmade here
inside my grey cloak
inside my cold womb
here where the ice forms
and breaks
at the river’s edge.
What Kali Tells Me
It’s all in the rhythm.
Falseness throws you off beat.
Rhythm renews your strength
with every step. That’s how time
becomes timelessness.
Step by step,
we make our way.
Breath by breath,
we choose.
Day by day,
we see where we are.
Let us remember
that we do not really finish anything,
we tumble with the turning
which is right where we belong.
It is now
in this liminal space
between the cauldron
and the cave,
as obligation struggles
to come roaring back
into center,
that we sense what we truly need
whispering beneath the surface
of all that clamors to co-opt our time
and all that howls
to claim our attention.
Stand steady.
Inhabit your own wholeness.
Cast a one word
spell of power: return.
Step into the sacred
right where you are.
Re-collect yourself.
Reclaim your right
to your own life.
Defend your edges.
Give clarity space
to crystallize
and your own knowing
space to emerge.
It is vital,
this work of reclamation.
Hold it holy.
Let the knots unravel.
Set yourself free.
in memory of Esther Shumiatcher-Hirschbein
1.
On a sunny Elul afternoon
I kneel at your grave
a sprig of rue in my pocket.
I recite a tkhine for visiting the graveyard
and imagine that you know this ritual–
stretching string to calculate
the space your body inhabits.
The unspooling wick rests gentle
on rough-cut grass, touching
the edges of mortality,
its twists separating and connecting worlds:
the dead and the living
the past and the now
mine and yours,
a woman I never met,
a writer dead these 40 years.
I Resolve To Speak
There’s a fascist in the White House —
a malevolent clown and front man
for a cabal of the hard right.
Their takeover of the US government
proceeds rapidly, a stunning succession
of defeats for democracy.
The nightmares of fascism
are taking shape in waking reality.
Now is the time, I tell myself,
to speak up, speak out,
name the perpetrators,
name their games.
The bully in the White House
has been called a rapist,
and fascism is patriarchy on steroids,
waging unremitting war on nature,
people of color, and women.
Feminism and Religion 