Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977) popularized the song “In the Ghetto” written by Mac Davis in 1969. The following TikTok video, featuring an artist with whom I am not familiar, is better—in my opinion—than any other rendition I’ve heard. Such depth! Such raw passion! Such strength! Such vulnerability!
https://www.facebook.com/100064420368301/videos/1352885832113207/
Here are the lyrics:
As the snow flies
On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’
A poor little baby child is born
In the ghetto…
What if everyone said everyone was their Valentine?
I mean you are walking down the streets telling strangers:
You are adorable.
You are my love.
Kiss. Kiss.
Well, maybe not, I am thinking of those candy hearts, with the sayings, my favorite Valentine’s candy.
But what if everyone in the world on Valentine’s Day, February 14th,
decided that that the world, the Earth, was their lover?
Squishy hugs and smacking kisses,
and loving her with what she wants.
What if we all decided for twenty-four hours to love everyone
in the way they wanted, in the way they needed?
To respect women?
To say please and thank you and excuse me?
To honor difference and listen to all these voices
who have been silenced?
To give the sweet chocolate of understanding to those
who have been so misunderstood?
To take fifty Happy Meals to downtown L.A. and pass them out to the homeless,
yelling, “Happy Valentine’s Day!”?
This poem is dedicated with gratitude to my “Women in the Mabinogi” writing group…
Rhiannon comes to me in my dreams.
She ebbs and flows like the waxing and waning
of the moon.
Steady hoofbeats,
clop, clop, clop
and then, in a rush of beating wings
she vanishes,
leaving a swirl of tiny white petals that spiral like stars.
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!
This past summer, my family and I lovingly carried my brother’s ashes to a favorite spot of his, in the woods at our grandparents’ Catskill farm. My mind was on the simple, beautiful ritual, each of us stating memories and scattering some of the ashes around the tree, and singing a few songs. It had slipped my mind that this tree grew at the entrance of the very meadow where, at age 11, I felt urgently compelled to create a ritual for myself, just at puberty, where I connected with the Grandmothers of the four directions. No one had taught me this, and I am still in wonder at what we carry with us, undoubtedly from prior lives. I feel that this poem was my self initiating myself into the world of the Goddess, and preparing for my own future.
In this poem, the Grandmothers are speaking to me, with a bit of disdain and fond teasing.
Continue reading “Return to the Grandmothers and 2 Other Poems by Annelinde Metzner”Just for right now,
let the swirling soften.
Exhale into the day,
wherever you are,
whatever is happening.
Allow a cloak of comfort
to settle across your shoulders
and enfold you
with peace and restoration.
Draw up strength from the earth
beneath your feet.
Settle one hand on your belly
and one hand on your heart.
Feel the pulse of the sacred
you always carry within.
Breathe in
and know you are loved.
Breathe out
and know you are free.
Trust that you are carried
and enfolded
as you go along your way.
A chill is in the air and Winter’s Queen has spread her gray cloak across the land. She has stilled the leaves and frosted the hills, has quieted the scurrying, and placed her fingers firmly on the pause. In this waiting place, hushed and chilled, we remember the preciousness of the light of renewal, we remember how essential the warmth of connection. Just as the earth does, let us, too,
lay aside what is unnecessary and draw close to one another once more, rekindling the fire of community, offering one another what nourishment we can. Let us enter a time of deep restoration with intention. Let us listen to the call of contemplation that twinkles in these dusky hours of replenishment and renewal. Let us pause and wait with grace.
Find some pine trees
and a wide rock in the sun.
Settle down and feel gratitude
curl around your shoulders.
Listen to the wind
sense that there is sorrow too
in this place,
deep and old,
threaded through the
lines of sun
slices of shadows.
It tells of what has been lost,
what has been stolen,
of silenced stories,
and of fracturing.
Make a vow,
silent and sacred,
to do what you can,
to rebuild the web
to reweave the fabric.
Lie on your back in the pine needles,
feel your body soften into the ground
and become still.
Allow yourself to feel held,
heavy bones and soft skin
becoming part of the land.
Wonder how many of your
ancestors kept other people
from becoming ancestors themselves.
Watch the sunlight making tiny rainbows
through your eyelashes and pines.
Find a pretty rock.
Don’t take it.
Leave it where it belongs,
on the land that gave it birth.
Go home.
Keep your promise.
In many cultures of the world, including our own, trees are considered the ancestors of humanity – own our ancestors.
Trees are connected with great goddesses throughout antiquity. We see this in the bible where, as I’ve noted before, the Tree of Life is Eve’s tree for the word Eve means life. It is, in essence, the Tree of Eve. Goddesses in trees feeding humans were common themes in ancient Middle Eastern art. The tree was Hers to give freely of as she wished.
Anthropologist and religious scholar, Mircea Eliade writes extensively about the associations of trees ancestral connection to humans. He calls them both mystical and mythical.[1] His examples include the Miao groups of Southern China and Southeast Asia who “worship the bamboo as their ancestor.” He also notes Australian tribes who view the mimosa as their progenitor. And there is a tribe from Madagascar, called Antaivandrika which means “people of the tree,” who considered themselves descended from the banana tree.
Continue reading “Biblical Poetry – Trees by Janet Maika’i Rudolph”As I curl up
in my hatchback
open to sky
I am a snail
loving her shell
sun warms
me from behind
Autumn light
shimmers, leaves
a testament
to breeze
some withered
by a freeze.
Burnt umber
Gold
Salmon
the understory
in full glory
Bare hardwoods
peer down
sentries stationed
Overhead
Acorn browned oak
leaves smudge
sage greens
dark crimson
bleeds
geese fly by
haunting goodbye
A dragonfly lands
on my foot
Not a grouse
in sight
Hunted
in thickets
too thorny
for stealth
She’ll
live to see
another dawning
Scarlet pockmarked palms
lie face up
on the ground.
Warning.
Signs are everywhere.
Insect ridden leaves –
puncture marks
deform once
smooth hands
some shriveled
beyond recognition.
Continue reading “When Earth Meets the Son by Sara Wright”Moderator’s Note: Margot reads each of her poems aloud. They can be heard through the links in the titles.
“And what then is poetry?” We ask this time and time and time again. And poetry HERself answers. SHE needs no descriptor. Mimetic sagacity spells HER clarity.
~~~
Dreams be Fed
I am a body that remembers
The joys of falling into hues of
Brilliant blues and greens.
I am a soul that trades in
Cinnamon and spices.
Elevating chance.
Caressing mystery.
I am a will that conceives fat
Ebullient Moon as
Golden Goddess. Divine.
SHE who feeds our dreams.
SHE who teaches us
To tend our fires.
©Margot Van Sluytman
Feminism and Religion 