Inspiration is Always Present by Sara Wright

I walk with care
clearing paths
iced over
lead feet
dragging
a broken foot
my companion
Listen to
first spring
bird song –
chickadees
and doves!

January
thaw
 a steel
  fixture
punctuated
by frozen
slippery hell –
Temperatures
soar and dip
 swelling
wild waves –
Soul stay
attached
to body
Be Octopus*
Sensing feeling
tasting
her way
befriending
the Other –
Keep a keen
eye on shifts
one is coming
perhaps
relief
from nightmares
too.
I look to
 rushing brook
for inspiration
natural joy
open waters
 flowing stone
sooth muscles
 loosens old bones.

Rigidity will not do!
See the Hemlock
bent so low
She won’t break
My Talisman
As mystic she
 reminds me
Endurance
Is All.

*There is a moving documentary that I have watched a number of times called: “My Octopus Teacher” about a man who befriends an octopus who in turn becomes attached to him… A naturalist who is thrilled by the wonder of his experience with this animal he remains stuck in the colonized western thought process. “An octopus shouldn’t be this intelligent” he states after saying that 2/3rds of the octopus brain is in its tentacles, only a 1/3 in actual brain – here we see the colonization. Humans are STUCK on brains and measure every other species by brain capacity – refusing to acknowledge that many creatures don’t even have brains and yet they do fantastically intelligent things – if we have brains – brain and body create intelligence as a whole. BODY carries everything intellect does not – inner knowing – intuition – feeling – sensing – experiencing ALL WAYS OF KNOWING THAT COMPLIMENT THE BRAIN IF THERE IS ONE – Materialistic science calls befriending ‘ lower animals’ nonsense – informs me that receiving communication from a tree or dog or fern is just fantasy – when I am using ALL MY DESNES TO DISCERN WHEN OTHERS DO NOT… IF CREATURES HAVE BRAINS IN THEIR SKULLS FINE – IF THEY ARE LIKE THE OCTUPUS THEIR BRAINS ARE IN THEIR TENTACLES. I use my brain and all my senses…This man falls in love with his octopus but doesn’t acknowledge it beyond saying he feels wonder and grief… This film could show us other ways of seeing if we would just allow ourselves to move beyond the stupid brain box we are stuck in

Not all species are interested in technology – humans are – that’s fine – we have created marvels but just because animals choose NOT to doesn’t make them less intelligent… human have brought the earth into crisis – not the rest of nature – does this give us a hint?

BIO: Sara Wright is a naturalist, ethologist (a person who studies animals in their natural habitats) (former) Jungian Pattern Analyst, and a writer. She publishes her work regularly in a number of different venues and is presently living in Maine.