“It was one of those days so clear, so silent, so still, you almost feel the earth itself has stopped in astonishment at its own beauty.”
—Katherine Mansfield quoted in Meditations for People Who (may) Worry too Much
The editor of this anthology, Anne Wilson Schaef, goes on to say:
“When we do stop, many times we look around and realize that we are the only ones rushing around. We realize that the roses, the trees, even the clouds seems suspended in space, and it is as if the universe has paused for a breather. Life has time to experience itself.
Often, when we stop and let ourselves take in the beauty that is around us, we realize there is much more than we originally imagined. Our eyes begin to see beauty in the cracks in the sidewalk, the crookedness of tree limbs, the cragginess of faces, even the color of cars.
We don’t have to travel to see beauty. It is everywhere.
How much more alive we are when we can feel those times that the earth has ‘stopped in astonishment at its own beauty.’”
Do you have time for beauty? When was the last time you stopped in astonishment? What is astonishing you lately? Where are you discovering beauty?
Category: Poetry
In My End: My Beginning by Margot Van Sluytman
In my end is my beginning.
T. S. Eliot
This year two colleagues of mine died. And my heart roared. Tears aplenty accompanied me. Poet that I am. Word-lover. Image-seeker. Meaning-making-hound-dog. Doggedly seeking a place to plant myself so that the ache of these losses within the crucible in which I find myself grounded, honed, chiselled, challenged, challenging, writing, wording, rewording, sculpting relationship with my students, who are too my teachers, is soothed. By tiny shards. Soothed. And death finds home everywhere. In each nook. Cranny. Crevice. Concreted crenellation or grassy llano, there she be.
What research, I ask myself, can we do when the heart fails to cease its eking, leaking ache, and crushing sorrow? What academic skill need we birth, resurrect, divine in order to erase this over-whelming tsunami of acknowledging our finitude? Where to look? What book? What paper? What journal? To what podcast need we creep, crawl, scurry, bound, fling ourselves in order to quell brutal, blistering despair? Self-immolation cannot work, for too, too many teeming tears douse the flames.
Continue reading “In My End: My Beginning by Margot Van Sluytman”Cymidei Cymeinfoll by Diane Finkle Perazzo
Carbon and quartz; granite and marble.
Her iron bones were forged in fire.
Her heavy body was carved from stone.
She rose up through black water and rocky soil,
up to the out and around, and born into
the green and growing ground.
As she walked, the ground rumbled and shook.
Rocks rolled and tumbled from the mountains
and Roman roads crumbled where she stepped.
She brought a gift they did not ask for; a vessel
forged in fire from the womb of the earth —
a life-giving cauldron of renewal and birth.
After the Crowning by Sara Wright
Emerald and lime
chartreuse lemon
burgundy
burnt umber
leafy green
breath
transformer
palms and
needles
raining light
magic bean
spirals skyward
star gazing
ferns feather
paths
pearls
at my feet
wild lilies
woodland
valley brook
scarlet
roots
hug
weeping
fruit trees
conversing
underground
pollinated
rose petals
nourish
moist earth
each tear
slips away
bowed
deep
gratitude, a
grieving moment
a thousand
bees hum
as One.
This cycle
ends even
as
another
has begun.
Poems by Annelinde Metzner
For a number of years, I’ve been staying at the St. Helena’s Island, South Carolina home of Ifetayo White, Reiki Master, teacher of doulas, and healer in many modalities. I am always deeply healed by Ifetayo’s presence, and by the island itself. This island near Beaufort is the home of the Gullah people, who have kept their land since Reconstruction according to a legal system called “Heir’s Property.”
The spirits are strong here, and I’ve tried to capture some of the essence of the island and of Ifetayo, in these poems. In the first, I describe Ifetayo’s wonderful healing room. The second features the Grandmother Tree, one of the live oaks covered with Spanish moss, so prevalent in the Low Country. The third features the Resurrection Fern, which appears brown and almost dead on the limbs of the oaks, but springs into vivid greenness after a rain.
Continue reading “Poems by Annelinde Metzner”Margins for Magic, by Molly Remer
My ritual today
is to forgive myself
and to begin again
with what I have….
A rite of renewal:
Step out under the sky
whether it holds thunder or sun.
Rest your hands against your heart.
Say: I am here.
I am grateful.
Open your arms to the sky.
Feel air soothe you
and wind bless you.
Say: I am radiant in my wholeness.
I am loved.
Sweep your arms down
to touch the Earth (or the floor.)
Say: I am connected.
I belong.
Settle your hands against your belly.
Say: I am centered.
I am powerful.
I am strong.
Return your hands to your heart.
Wait.
The sacred will meet you here.
We pause today in the middle of the road to listen to a mockingbird perched in a crabapple tree by an abandoned house. In clear and rapid succession, it runs through its impressive repertoire: Phoebe, cardinal, chickadee, titmouse, laser-gun, a few extra trills and beeps and back again. We stand, heads cocked and silent, to experience the performance before walking on with a smile, pausing again to inhale deeply as we pass the wild plum trees so sweet and fleeting. I have been preoccupied with projects, feeling bright, creative energy burgeon inside me as it does around me, so many things tug at the mind and ask for time, leaving my dreams restless, my eyes wild, and my mind awhirl with both pressure and possibility, a persistent urgency that calls me on and away and out of being where I am. On the way back home, we stop again because there are five red winged blackbirds, conversing by the neighbor’s pond and we circle through the grass to examine white flowers in the pear trees and to check for peach blossoms (none). I love spring in Missouri, it restores and nourishes me. It reminds me I am home. I sit with my tea listening to a distant chainsaw and the wild turkeys in their rites of spring, a light rustle of wind, and the clinking of my flattened spoon wind-chimes from years gone by. A lone crow glides in to alight on an oak tree beneath the sun. It tips back and forth briefly, wings a satin shimmer in the sunbeams and then drifts away like a black kite through the spring sunshine. I have joked that the description of my next book could be: “I sat. I saw these things.” And, this is true, for I did, and this is my news for today.
Continue reading “Margins for Magic, by Molly Remer”Praise Arianrhod by Diane Finkle Perazzo
Divine Arianrhod, Beloved Goddess.
Your truth is an inspiration to all living beings.
As you weave the light and the dark so do you scatter.
Joy is in our hearts while you live among the heavens
Celestial Arianrhod, Your crown shines among the stars.
You are the Goddess of the silver wheel upon which all magic is bound together.
Fortunate are we that you are a child of the land and the sky
and mother of the sea and the sun.
POET WARRIOR BY JOY HARJO: HEALING HEARTS AND NATIONS by Maria Dintino
Moderator’s Note: This post is presented as part of FAR’s co-operation with The Nasty Women Writers Project, a site dedicated to highlighting and amplifying the voices and visions of powerful women. The site was founded by sisters Theresa and Maria Dintino. This was posted on their site in 2021 and then again on March 21, 2023. You can see more of their posts here.
Healing hearts and nations is what Joy Harjo does. Standing up for justice is what Joy Harjo does. Joy Harjo is a teacher and leader for our times, for all times.
When she asks this question in her book, Poet Warrior:
“What do I do with this overwhelming need for justice in my family, for my tribal nation, for those of us in this country who have been written out of the story or those who appear to be destroyed or perverted by false story?” (46),
Continue reading “POET WARRIOR BY JOY HARJO: HEALING HEARTS AND NATIONS by Maria Dintino”Archives from the FAR Founders: The Dark Half: Reflections on the Winter Solstice By Xochitl Alvizo
This was originally posted on December 21, 2011
I’m a Capricorn. People seem not to be surprised when they find out. I’m also the oldest of three siblings and a keeper of people’s secrets. Stories and secrets – my family’s included – I hear them all, take them all in. Sometimes someone will share something with me that involves another and afterward say, Now, don’t you go telling so and so that I said this. And of course I always reply, I don’t tell no one nothin’. And it’s true, I don’t tell – I simply take it in. I listen and I take it all in. The stories shared, stories of joy and of love, excitement and disappointment, of hurt feelings and misunderstandings, all of them inform me. They all cause me to reflect and consider the fragility of us all, the precariousness of life. We affect each other so much, from the smallest moment to the largest system, all of it makes such a difference to us.
Tonight we celebrate the Winter Solstice – it marks the boundary of darkness and light – it is the shortest day and longest night of the year.
Continue reading “Archives from the FAR Founders: The Dark Half: Reflections on the Winter Solstice By Xochitl Alvizo”If I Were an Octopus by Marie Cartier
You say you want the truth, and I want to give it to you—I mean you asked for it and I want to give it you. I mean—I do want to tell the truth but—
to be honest I’m not sure I want to be the person that truth belongs to – but I want to tell the truth
So- ok.
To be honest. You know, transparent– I am out of candles.
Totally – even tea lights, never mind seven-day candles
I am out. In all colors: red, pink, blue, orange, even white. And I have no intention of getting any more.
Done with candles.
I am also out of quilt squares, and quilt materials and thread— and I – well, I am just out of anything to do with sewing, quilting. And nope- not getting any more. Done.
