I entered the Silent Tomb;
the Mosque felt
devoid of Presence.
We wandered through
a myriad of glorious arched rooms,
ornately carved woodwork –
soft carpeted floors.
Removing our shoes
we spoke softly
in deference to
Something ineffable?
Each tiled courtyard,
Mute, yet
starred in
cobalt blue.
Opaque light streamed
through precisely cut
geometric shapes,
domed ceilings
cracked the heavenly stream
into patterned shards.
Outside,
unattended,
High mud walls
kept Creation
at bay.
Fruit trees
twisted by bitter west winds
ragged junipers
sagging in sorrow
rendered invisible
by those who choose
not to see…
I wept for the casually discarded
living breathing
Beings –
Pulsing with Light.
Beyond white sand walls
the stark white capped
Mountains cried out in torment
“Here we are!”
“Sangre de Christos” –
it is our body, our blood
that has been shed
not just his.
Stretching north –
Ridged, ribbed serpents
split the continent in two,
valley gorges meandered far below
arroyos flooded Rio Grande
and all the colors of
the rainbow streamed
out of mud and stone. Continue reading “Our Lady is on Fire by Sara Wright”
Author: Sara Wright
I am a writer and naturalist who lives in a little log cabin by a brook with my two dogs and a ring necked dove named Lily B. I write a naturalist column for a local paper and also publish essays, poems and prose in a number of other publications.
Lise Weil – Requiem by Sara Wright
For the Visionaries of the Women’s Movement and Beyond.
“I glimpse lines crazing my face in the windowglass,
crone’s bones emerging. My eyes are growing larger;
soon they will perch on stalks and swivel, crustacean.
The better to see how others do it:
this last chance at living…The message is we’re too fatigued to change the myths
of ourselves at this stage, preferring to die, unmake
the world, in the familiar. Understandable. Yet I persist
in lusting to be seamless with the universe while still aware
of it—so I suspect a future darkly bright, kaleidoscopic
as symmetries glittering beneath eyelids rubbed dry of tears.”Italics are my own.
Robin Morgan “Reading the Bones,” from her latest book of poems, Dark Matter: New Poems, published by Spinifex Press.
Yesterday I attended a reading for the memoir In Search of Pure Lust written by my friend and former professor Lise Weil, a woman who has dedicated her life to visionary thinking and teaching by inviting anyone to enter who has ears to listen and an open heart.
When I first encountered Lise’s radical feminist ideas my hair caught fire; and the flames between us continued to rise higher and higher. Our friendship remains as tempestuous as the fire that binds us still – fire and air are the two mediums of communication that flow between us – one a lover of women, a lesbian, internationally known translator, editor, writer, lifetime visionary activist and teacher, the other, a dedicated Earth centered heterosexual woman, a naturalist and mystic whose lifetime of writing had been confined to her journals up until that point, a woman who returned to school only after her children were grown. Continue reading “Lise Weil – Requiem by Sara Wright”
Befriending our Dragons by Sara Wright
“We are an overflowing river.
We are a hurricane.
We are an earthquake.
We are a volcano, a tsunami, a forest fire…”
These words written by Judith Shaw speak to the underlying merging of woman’s anger with Earth’s natural disasters, suggesting to me that women use “natural” violence in order to create change.
Violence, not the values of compassion and cooperation.
Violence and power over are the primary tools that Patriarchy uses to control women and the Earth.
Engaging in more violence will not solve the problems we face.
So many women including me are struggling like never before to survive on the edge of a culture that continues to sanction the vicious ongoing rape of both women and the Earth.
I use the death of trees as a primary example of the latter. By logging trees by the billions or killing them in “controlled burns” we are literally destroying human and non – human species. Without trees/plants we lose the oxygen we need to breathe.
We need “woman – centered” women to say NO!!! WE WON’T TOLERATE LIVING IN A DEATH DESTROYING CULTURE PREDICATED ON RAPE OF WOMEN AND THE EARTH.
We need women who are willing support other women – Women who refuse to remain neutral – Women who don’t wait until their mothers, daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters are assaulted to take a stand with other women – Women who refuse to stand behind their men when those men continue to support individuals (males or male identified women – the latter are often “Father’s Daughters” in Jungian parlance) – Women who refuse to support a Patriarchal system that is destroying us all.
Raven’s Cry by Sara Wright
Fake coyote calls split
a moon cracked sky in two.
False ‘Indian’ hoots and drums
stunned sleeping birds –
Why do ‘whites’
insist upon using Indigenous ways,
to make a point?
Coyotes know.
Did they think that she was blind
or that her dreaming body,
a roiling belly
wouldn’t warn her?
Deception is a ruse
to twist and hide from truth
even when La Llarona’s river
becomes a mirror
shivering under
winter solstice flight. Continue reading “Raven’s Cry by Sara Wright”
Seed Bearer by Sara Wright
Yesterday old eyes
stung –
fierce white
heat –
blurred vision.
Singing love songs,
I scattered seeds
in furrows
raked smooth,
tucked tufts
under stone…
Imagining
a Wildflower riot!
Bittersweet orange,
blue and gold
winding through
rice grass –
sage scrub,
vining over
wave -like gopher mounds. Continue reading “Seed Bearer by Sara Wright”
Windigo by Sara Wright
Windigo,
the Potawami Nations call him.
Malignant,
this spirit thrives
in the Northern Woods,
within the human soul.
Hatred for self or other
hidden
under Lies.
Windigo, the
Potawami Nations call him
He thrives
on greed.
Empty
He can never
Be filled.
Elk Speaks – For Andrew by Sara Wright
In the dream
the elk’s antler
was a tree made
of bone.
Silvery tines –
tongues of flame
hummed at dawn.
“Embodied Light.”
I would use these words,
if asked to describe
my young friend’s
personality.
But words fall short
of wonder. Continue reading “Elk Speaks – For Andrew by Sara Wright”
The Black Wings of Spring by Sara Wright
Spring on the Wing
Red Willow River’s
waters are rising.
Sea green waves
wash whittled
beaver sticks
against pebble strewn shores.
I bend.
filling a
miniature vessel
with river water
to hold her song:
Water Is Life.
Spring is on the wing.
Bird migrations,
wild winds,
leave – taking,
these are the
elements of seasonal change.
Prayers for rain
may be answered.
Pale green desert rosettes,
toothed scorpion rounds,
purple filigreed ferns,
swelling Cottonwood buds,
all create a chorus of rain chants
sweetening the night.
Blackbirds trill from
tallest branches,
flash crimson
in morning flight. Continue reading “The Black Wings of Spring by Sara Wright”
Dear Mary by Sara Wright
This piece was written in response to Gina Messina’s recent Feminism and Religion piece “Who is God?”
Dear Mary,
When I responded to a post on feminism and religion this morning I wrote that you were my first goddess. As a child I knew little beyond that you were the “Mother of God,” and I found your presence immensely comforting, even seeking you out in secret, entering your rose garden in a local monastery. I needed you so.
Early in adolescence I learned that your life was one of purity, sacrifice, and loss. Your purity left me bereft. How could a young Victorian girl be “good enough” to serve such a figure? I was fierce and passionate – a thorny red rose – with an empty hole in my heart.
Sadly, I released you and chose your sister the whore, the Black Goddess in disguise… but I didn’t know that then; I only knew that the “black” woman succumbed to her flesh as I did, covered herself in shame…What lies Patriarchy tells…
When the Cranes Come by Sara Wright
Departure.
I stood deep
in a toad hole
slinging mud
at twilight
when the sky
turned lemon
and gold.
They arced
over
my head
in pairs,
loose aggregations –
it seemed like thousands
crying out,
crossing
the river.
Ensouled.
Spirits defying
image or word.
A Mighty Migration begins…
I shivered.
Tears rose unbidden
Who calls them North?
I call out “I love you” –
Believing they know.
A crescent moon listens
cradled by nightfall.
To witness
a sky full
of Sandhill
Cranes
dark red heads
ebony eyes
long graceful necks
curved gray wings
dripping black legs
descending out of the blue
to roost
along this
winding Red
Willow River,
gracing fields
of depleted grain
is a Gift
given
at midnight;
the moment
before
departure.
This turning
of the wheel
births
days full of light
and an empty
sky bowl.
Haunting cries
in my ears
ring in the silence
of beloved crane absence
for another year.
Continue reading “When the Cranes Come by Sara Wright”
Feminism and Religion 