Tag: prayer

The Dance of Change – On Christmas Quiet and Lifes Shifting Tides

Leave a comment

It’s Christmas morning. The hustle and bustle of Christmas mornings in the past feel like an ancient memory, an entirely different life than the one I now live. All those years of rising early to make a special breakfast, celebrate my husband’s birthday, open stockings and gifts with my daughter, and then rushing about visiting are over.

My daughter is now a young woman living on her own, and I am divorced and living in my little cabin in the woods, it seems that almost everything in my life it’s entirely different than it was three years ago. And there is freedom in this truth, and also a healthy amount of sorrow and longing, and wishing that endings could have been different than they were. Though not wishing that the endings hadn’t happened.

The heart is such strange territory to travel in. I wonder if while I am alive in this human form I will ever understand my own heart’s ways. How it can long so deeply for the past, while simultaneously knowing that in that past, my heart longed even more deeply for something to change. For some new beginning to happen. For a new life to be born. And now it has, and my tricky old heart cooks up a stewpot full of nostalgia. Maybe she’s just fucking with me.

So Christmas morning I wake alone, well, not entirely. My cat is remarkably good company, and a generous cuddler on winter nights. I climb down from the loft and heat some water on the stove. Some things never change, coffee being one of these solid fixtures of my days.

I take my coffee to my altar, sit on my cushion and light my candles. My life now has a generous space woven into it. I have time each morning undisturbed to set and say thank you for my life, to appeal to the forces of nature, and the deities I work with, to know them, to be of service to this life, that my family be held and well protected, that a new world be woven again out of the wreckage and ashes all around us.

As I sit on my cushion, something within me settles deeply. I feel the weight of my own form become somehow more solid and surrendered. I feel my breath become fuller and my eyes fill with tears. How grateful I am for my life, daily I am astounded by the depth of this feeling. Honestly, I can hardly believe the beauty. I can hardly believe that I get to be alive in a human body today. That I get to breathe air, a gift from the green bloods. I get to look up at my tallest friends, the Douglas firs that surround my home, I know there are ways now. I know how they look in the summer in the winter. I know how they look and the dawn and at 2:00 AM in the morning. I know their scent and they know mine.

Years ago a friend of mine who had been through a divorce told me that it was like a death. I listened, but I didn’t understand. I spent so many years in a marriage that felt like a prison, the anger and resentment in my heart growing high around, like a wall of briars that I couldn’t see through. I couldn’t understand that even through that impenetrable wall of thorns, that the ending of a marriage, my marriage, is a death. I couldn’t possibly understand then how painful it would be.

I sit at my altar and I allow myself to drop into the empty space between my ribs, around my heart, down towards my belly. It’s heavy and dark, it pulses with the soft ache of lost dreams. The tender hunger of a little girl that believed in forever. The desperate which gyrations of a young woman trying everything in her power to make something work that never could have. It was rotten at the center. My marriage had a grail king wound. and neither my husband or I knew to ask the sacred question. So it was never asked. And only festered. Until it grew large enough to swallow all of the attempts at beauty we had made.

Sometimes the space in my life feels like a joy, and sometimes and endless chasm. Over the last three years as I have learned to be a woman on my own in this world, I have had two, no, I have chosen to sit down and learn to face myself. The constant noise And endless doing that we find ourselves Addicted to and this time, are an incredibly convincing distraction. More space and time is what we all say that we want, but once we have that what will we do with it? And how does it actually feel to have the time to sit and know yourself.

I can only speak for myself. It is Absolutely gorgeous and totally terrifying. Without so much of the constant doing and hubbub of living in a small home with other people I find myself frequently deep in thought. Rolling ideas around in my mind, feeling my emotions and reactions more deeply, creating a rhythm of my days that holds me more gently.

Spending so much more time alone has dramatically changed the way that I move through the world. The sentience of the world has shifted, and life has come alive in a way far greater than I imagined was possible. You’re never alone when you feel connected to and held by the more than human world. The Douglas fir trees, my tall friends, know me and love me as much as I know and love them. And this is not an abstraction, this is not a thought, this is a deep knowing in my bones. We belong to each other. I to this land and this land and all her inhabitants to me.

It’s interesting to reflect on how aloneness has really taught me relationality. In the acute stage of rending, as my world tumbled apart, I felt that I would forever feel abandoned and alone. But gratefully that is not so. Gratefully I have not only a human community that loves me deeply, but I have found my way into the wide lap of this great and generous earth. And we have claimed each other. My life path utterly changed by this truth.

As I sit here now at the end of my second cup of coffee, I feel peace in the quiet around me. This day when we celebrate the birth of light, the birth of the holy, the possibility of the sacred walking the earth, I welcome the newness in my days. Even when there is a taste of sorrow, or a breeze of fear blows by me. I am eager to continue walking this path of my life, to see what is being born anew inside of me. And how it will root down and rise up in this world. As always I have more questions than answers, but I no longer think of that as a fault. I think of it as a gift. My life is a gift. One I am so grateful to receive.

From my quiet little home and heart to yours wherever you may be. I wish you comfort and joy, I wish you the sense of being held and tendered well, and I wish all of us peace on earth and goodwill towards all of life. Let us all birth the holy on our breath and with our hands, and do the good work of weaving a new world together.

Being Human

4 Comments

Sometimes revelations of great importance come seemingly out of the blue. Or, out of the gray fog of dawn light, driving down the road with the windshield wipers on my truck swishing side to side, in an attempt to keep those tiny droplets of water from gathering to obstruct my view. It seemed like nothing at first, just a thought, that echoed around inside my body as thoughts sometimes do. “ there is nothing wrong with you Marianna.”

It is strange when thought is delivered into my consciousness from elsewhere and I receive, rather than create it. Strange that a belief this deep can kind of skirt around the edges. If you were to ask me if I thought I was fundamentally broken just by my humanness, I think I would say no. the concept of original sin makes me gag, I mean have you ever seen a baby? There is NO sin there, of this, I am quite certain. Yet under my conscious knowing, there is a deep shame and guilt associated with being human at this time, and in this way.

My individual suffering has its own flavor, I will not say it is a unique, Rather I would imagine that it is similar in taste and texture to the suffering of many other human beings. Wondering about our place in the world and society, fear of somehow trespassing or being wrong, shame about the unhealed darkness, the bruises, and imperfections we perceive in our character. I could go on and on, but you get the point, you may even be shaking your head to say yes, yes, this is my suffering too.

The thought that came to me this morning as I drove, was not related to this particular pathology, the swirling critical mind that seeks flaws in order to find a pattern and get to some semblance of safety. This part of the mind that seems to want to tear me apart, so that others don’t have the chance to do it first. No, this wrongness that my inner self spoke of was the unseen belief that by simply being in a human body I am wrong. How could I be right, how could I be ok, when my entire species has run amuck in a crazy carnival of destruction, hubris, and greed? This wrongness I feel in so many of my days is not personal, it is collective. It is the sense brought on by disavowing the original instructions, it is the poverty of power unchecked and forgotten promises that wreak havoc beyond our ability to comprehend. All of this is true, it is not subjective, it’s not a story, it’s a fact.

And yet, we individual humans, born into this wild mess, this end-stage capitalist nightmare of sorts, are actually not responsible for this entire system we were born into. Responsible, yes. Each one of us is responsible for the choices that we make, for navigating this world with intention and heart, to the best of our ability. For paying attention, and giving thanks, and being humble. We are responsible for these things. But so much harm has happened that is not in our individual ability to control. And it’s important to differentiate between the mess we were born into and our personal actions. For we are also responsible for stewarding our one precious life, we are also responsible for joy, and for choosing a life that gives us a chance to flourish.

Sometimes I think I have learned to believe that as a member of the human race, we the lost sons and daughters of creation, we the ones who have made themselves separate and so desperately alone, that I deserve a certain amount of suffering. That we deserve a certain amount of suffering. And perhaps that is true. Perhaps some of us have already received that suffering, and many of us, all of us, will most likely receive much more. And yet, the voice that told me, there is nothing wrong with you Marianna, did not lie. I am one human, consuming food and fossil fuels, the same as all the rest. American, we are the worst when it comes to consumption. I participate in a system and a lifestyle that I actually find utterly abhorrent, but I did not create this. And I am not inherently broken by my humanness.

There is a grief that lives in me that is so large. I frequently don’t know how to live in the presence of it. It is not only mine. For sure some of it is my personal bundle of sorrow and loss, but honestly, that seems small compared to the devastation I see all around me. It’s easy to slip into darkness. It’s easy to look at the carnage we humans create in our wake and feel my heart drop, waves of pain pass through my body… forgive us… we know not what we do. Or do we? If we know, truly know, it makes all of this a fuck of a lot worse.

And here is where it seems to get complicated. Human and beautiful, complex and aware, collectively and individually choosing a path of destruction, up against forces and systems so entrenched in extraction that we don’t know how to extract ourselves from their greedy clutching claws. All this is true, and still, I am not wrong. I am an animal. Born to love and play and fuck and eat as much good food as I can find. Born to mate and birth and howl and dance. I am the living body of the earth, the very earth I poison with the fumes coming out of my truck as I drive to work. Isn’t that a total mind fuck?

I also know myself well enough to know that if I let the despair grab onto my skirt hem and pull me under I will be of absolutely no use to anyone, least of all myself. And I believe to the very marrow of my bones that a profound piece of my work in loving the world is to find and experience joy. If I am lost in the waves of sorrow and guilt, joy is not close at hand. I believe that my ancestors, all of my people back and back, through deep time, to the very beginning have sacrificed, and paved the way for me to be here in my life. It is my duty to feel joy and pleasure, to share the incredible depth of wonder, passion, and excitement that I carry in my being with me into the world. How can I live in this paradox? How can I feel the true weight of my presence in the world, and the lightness and beauty of my body and spirit?

I hold this complexity in the palm of my hand. I rub it with my thumb, I turn it over and blow on it, I hold it under my tongue, I suck on it, and spit it out again, and still, I don’t know what to make of it. I know that I am not wrong, and I know that I have done wrong. I know that I love the earth and that I abuse the earth. I know that I love my sacred body and that I abuse my sacred body. Perhaps there are not supposed to be answers, perhaps my whole lifelong all I will do is find more and more questions. And weave joy into the sorrow. Weave song into the weeping. Weave human kindness into the harsh reality of human greed. To be awake to our own consequence in this life is a demanding undertaking. To understand the is and is not-ness requires my heart to grow large enough to encompass it all. Can I do it? I don’t know. But I am willing to try. To be broken open and gathered in again and again and again. My spirit is strong and for that I am grateful. My love is strong too, and I need that to survive. I need that to give away, I need that to make it another year, feeling with my fingers and my heart through the bleakness of these times. My spirit says take heart, my love. Look to the mountain, the moon, the sky. Don’t forget who you are and where you came from. You are the daughter of thousands, you are needed and you are not wrong.

She of the Snake

Leave a comment
We are one in this spiral dance ….image from a sight at Mesa Verde

This is a poem that birthed itself. The words beginning to spill from me, catching me off guard, without pen in hand. i’m beginning to be able to recognize this sensation more quickly, and quite literally run to get a writing instrument if there is not one in reach. Mary Oliver said that a writer should never be without a small pad of paper and a pen, I haven’t quite learned this lesson yet.

Snake has been growing in me for sometime now. I have never been afraid of snakes, in fact I’m enchanted by them, The cool smoothness of their bellies, their direct eye contact, the flick of a forked tongue tasting air, so beautiful to me. Yet this thing snake and I have going on, is really tied to the divine mother. Since I began in earnest last year reclaiming my relationship with Mary, now in a garment untied to any religion, and since finding a deep love of praying the rosary, snake has decided to show up in a big way.

Mary is often pictured with her foot upon the snake, some folks have said that she was squashing out evil, casting out the serpent, the temptress, the snake in the garden. I don’t believe this to be true. Yes, Mary has her foot resting on the snakes back, but perhaps more as a sign, A signature mark of her affiliation with the wild and wise serpent ones. Back and back through Time the snake has been a symbol of the goddess. And Mary is, with no doubt in my mind, a manifestation of the goddess. Not only is she the mother of God, she is God the mother. The fruit of her womb is life, and life is sacred. She rests her foot upon the snake with tenderness, and kind regard, a shared lineage of women and serpent, an ancient contract, steeped in magic and mystery.

When I was recently in the desert I was hoping so much to be visited by snake, I spoke aloud calling her, I drew her, as pictured here, courting her with my pen and my tongue. But she did not appear in her corporeal form, only in this poem, dropped into my heart whole and complete. Notice, I did not say that she did not arrive. Indeed she did arrive, hearing my calls and coming to me, gifting me with her presence through my own words. Sly like a snake she is…

What could it be that I have to learn from a snake? There is something about waiting, about not being too hot blooded, about taking the moment of opportunity when it arrives, without hesitation. Snap! Her jaws clamp shut, she does not wait for the perfect, precious moment, she needs to eat now. And all of life is death too. As I fall deeper into the practice of seeing nature as a mirror for my inner world, there is so much to be contemplated, and the thoughts that come into my mind and heart, the creatures I see with my eyes, the way I move through the wind and the rain, all become gifts meant entirely for me. I know how much I do not know, and how much I am willing to unlearn to be open to learning anew.

Blessed are we, creatures living on this earth and under the sun to be gifted teachers, teachers that come in all forms. Today I am giving thanks for snake, and all of her relations, and the gentle wisdom I am learning through contemplation of their ways.

Journal sketch to honor snake

The Woman Who Weeps

4 Comments

I wake in the morning and pray for gratitude. In the darkness alone I feel only sorrow, even the birds songs, delicate and joyful, pierce me with their nearness, and the delicate nature of their singers, who hang now by a thread, species collapsing each day, the losses staggering. I can barely breath. I wake in the morning and the birds sing, and I weep.

Could my tears be a libation? An offering to the earth and her many children, an offering to my own broken heart, and to yours? I offer them as such, I of many tears, a woman who weeps, my lamentation pours forth in this time of trouble. I am witness and I will not look away. I hold a steady gaze through my tears.

How can a heart hold it all? This world we walk is so out of balance. Every which way lies a new disaster, a new ending, a new possible apocalypse. I try to remember the world never ends, she only begins again and again. I try to remember the transient nature of being, no-thing ever stays the same. I try to remember that the world has already ended for so many people, all across time. It ended for someone today, I am sure of it. How could it not? All over the world, individual and collective endings, sometimes it feels like it is all about to collapse. I try to remember to just take the next breath.

My name is Marianna. Mary from the Hebrew Miriam meaning something akin to, sea of sorrow, sea of bitterness. Or in some interpretations, longed for child. And Anna, from the Hebrew Hanna, meaning graceful one, of full of grace.  I am the bitter grace of the sea. I am the sea of sorrow. I cry salt tears for the whole world. As it all burns around me all I have left to offer is my mournful grace, my heart of sorrow.

Do not discount the power of weeping. It is said in some religions that the power of prayer is more potent when tears are shed. The sincerity of heart and the humbleness of weeping makes the Gods take notice, turn an ear to us.  The earth needs my tears, needs our tears, hell, you, reading this now may need my tears. I weep for you, wherever you are and whatever sorrow is lodged in your heart. In the words of the great Bob Dylan, “go on and give it me, I’ll keep it with mine.”  I will, I’ll keep it next to mine. Your sorrow nesting in my heart will cause no harm, the cult of happiness failed us long ago anyway and I walked away. Tears streaming down my face and my hair flying wild as a banshee.

I wake in the morning and the birds still sing, they seem to be saying “just do” – “just do”
And so I do, do. I climb out of bed and turn my face to the sky. I remember that I am a living emissary of my family line, and even if I can’t see the purpose, I have to show up for duty. I remember that my heart, broken as it may be is also broken open, and that means it is fertile ground for something beautiful to grow again. I wake in the morning and the birds sing, and I weep. And then I go to work. In the seeming impossibility of continuing this life as I know it, I go on, and the birds sing me to my car. I think ” I do not know if birds can cry, but am so grateful that I can.”
So the gratitude I prayed for in the dawn arrives, gratitude for the tears, my gift to life, my offering of one heart, broken open to the divine.

Mary_Magdalene_Crying_Statue

Climate grief- the sorrow of endings

2 Comments

I am stirring inside, something sharp teethed is nipping at my heals tonight. It is more than the restless wind that blows through my sails with some frequency, more than the weary discontent I know so well. This sensation of being pursued is darker, rougher, it has grit and weight. Its alive, real, and vicious. This, this stirring that is following me, brewing inside me, this is fear.

I see it on the news, though I do not purposefully engage in the habit of news watching, I still catch glimpses. Or I hear it on the radio. Homes burned to the ground in California, the fastest moving fire on record, starving children in Yemen, and Congo, and here too, in Oregon many are food insecure, though not( to my knowledge) starving to death. But there are houseless families in the streets, and folks lying on the side of the road in their own piss, as we all drive by. Too busy to lend a hand, or a dollar. Refugees wait at our borders to seek asylum, fleeing lives far darker than I can even wrap my mind around. This is happening all around me, the times are baring down now, its getting hotter and heavier, it’s hard for me to breath….

In the face of these sorrows I have mentioned, and the thousand more that wait in the wings, I feel the desire to run away. To run from the city, find a small patch of earth and live out my years in quite, maybe quite desperation but still, quite. I want to turn away from what I see, from what I feel, from this nipping at my heals, this fear, and maybe even more than fear – dread. Thing is, there is no where left to run, this whole place, our sweet and kind blue planet is heating up, systems changing. Even if I found the little patch of earth to live on, there is no guarantee that summer sun and spring rain will bless my fields, no knowing that life will go on as life has always done.

I have long espoused my desire for an all out revolution. Not just in America, but globally. For the people to rise up and say “No More!” In this dream we come together for the voiceless, we tear down systems of oppression and we are victorious, united, a human family. I have a revolutionary heart, an inner fire and the courage to stand for what I believe in. This has long led me to hold this belief that change is coming, and that we will all be ok in the end (cue the triumphant yet soothing end of scene music.)

I am somehow just now, at 37 years, seeing that this ain’t no Hollywood movie, this is real life, and revolution means blood on the ground, maybe mine, most definitely that of at least one I love. Even if we did somehow come together in the name of all life and stand  against the corruption and greed, would we have any where to stand? I guess I am saying – is it too late for us? Have we passed the tipping point and now all we can do is maybe learn to become human in the face of this heart wrenching catastrophe we face?
And if we see the days has come, and darkness gathers all around, can we find the strength to see this ship down. Or will we claw our way over top of the broken ones, fighting for the last breath of clean air, the last sip of sweet water, the last gaze of cedar reaching her tips high to the sky….

My mind keep spitting out lyrics to The Future by the esteemed and grieved over Leonard Cohen
“Give me back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st paul
I’ve seen the future, brother
It is murder”
When I feel dark, and dread filled, I long for music that seems to mirror that back to me, or perhaps even increase the intensity of feeling. I want to wade deeper into the mire, feel the sorrow and despair rising around me, put aside all my over used hope and succumb. This is scary, we are slowly, and so quickly loosing the world that we know. And it’s not pretty, and we are not ok, and I am terrified, raging and desperately sorrow filled.

Even here and now, as I write these quavering truths, just feeling the immensity of this fear and sorrow, I find myself wanting to turn it around some how, find a positive hope filled spin. Finish it off with some well wrought words pacifying the gut deep fear for a moment more….I am not going to do it. I do not comply.

I am broken hearted, sometimes it feels finished, but no, life still blooms so strongly all around us. I hold my loves closely tonight…the future so uncertain.

May love be with you all.

 

 

 

Solstice Prayer

Leave a comment

The sky is dark- clear and cold,
dawn did not come until 8 oclock this morn.
Frozen ground firm beneath my feet
the first sun of this shortest day
reflects off diamond dusted boughs of cedar
leafy holly, hardy grasses
All ablaze with light.

In days gone by when winter crept into our homes
and cold claimed penance of the skins of those like you and I.
When darkness came at dusk and lasted all night long – all long night,
with only glow of candles flame to keep the dark away and cold away
in those days, this day, this shortest day- had meaning
had power.

The longest night- rabbit, underground
lies buried deep, warm bodies of her kin beside her.
Goose has flown south by now, warmer climes await
Squirrel, now nested, acorns stored in plenty,
even worm is tucked away, slumbering.
Until soil warms and springs good work begins again.

Human builds a fire- to drive the dark away
to welcome visions of spring
call warm days back
recall the smell of sweet grasses
the taste of May’s first strawberry
remembering the living world will bloom again….

the dance now calls our feet to dance, our bones to move, our voices chant
to pound our feet upon the earth- voices raised in sacred laughter
faces ruddy in the firelight
Call back the sun! Sing back the sun!
Pound hard on frozen earth with joy!
We have survived this longest night, to see
a new years morn arise again.

The sky brightens with the dawn
we greet the day, alive and well and grateful
For all that has come before
and all that will come after
the magic of surviving
of belonging – here- on this land and in this time
New years sun above us once again
and kinships bonds to keep us warm.

 

 

Solstice Blessings to Your Home and Hearth.
Marianna

 

 

 

In Defense of a Simple Life

4 Comments

I can’t sleep. Up too late with thoughts running circles round my mind. It seems that life is moving faster all the time, each year, no, each month, swifter than the last. I can’t catch up. Here, in this culture where woman wear busyness like a badge of honor, I just want it all to slow down.

I an eternal optimist, I can’t help it, I try to be surly at times but to no avail. I always optimistically believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that I will have more “free” time, sometime in the near future…but sometime is never here. It looms, ever in the future, just out of reach, I could almost touch it if I just reach a little bit farther.

The ideal of the woman who can do everything is a crock of shit. I know this,I feel it in my bones. I know how marketing works, how swindled we all are. If it isn’t a fashion mag we are comparing ourselves with, its that perfect remodel on HGTV. There is no end to the cascade of false ideals dumped on our doorsteps each day. How can we know what is real amidst this storm of consumerist coercion? It insidiously creeps into our minds, thoughts we thought were our own, when opened for examination have no origin in us. This is madness. This drives us to madness.

I myself, am in a daily struggle. The desire to “produce” more, be it income, social capital, or even beauty. Weighed against the truth that I am tired, and I don’t want to play the game anymore.  I cannot hold it all up, and hold it to the standard that I desire to. Things begin to crumble. I cannot be it all, I cannot do it all. I feel this, and I am in a two income family with one grown child. What must this feel like for my friends with little ones at home and bills piling up on bills? Is this the equality we have been fighting for? Somehow it feels like we have missed the mark. “killin it” seems to be killing us.
And yes, of course this is a grand generalization, and I can only speak from my point of view. Still, I see so many women suffering under the delusion that we can multi-task our way to a picture perfect life, that it is time to pull back the curtain on that lie, expose it’s ugly underbelly and begin to engage in some real revolutionary work.

Could it be that in my relentless pursuit of becoming, I have lost myself? Lost the thread I am meant to hold throughout my life, the thread that William Stafford calls to us to cling tightly to? If this is what matters, and I think it does, what has to be sacrificed? What must I lay down in order to have a hand to hold the thread in?

There is this thing, called “too much” that surrounds us. We are so inundated by the cultural messages of acquisition that we fail to see how deep this patterning is. Peers of mine who eschew the commercialized ideals of the “American Dream” (who knows what that even means anymore) still ascribe to the doctrine of acquisition and hope, through a Hodge podge of progressive spiritual ideals that are in fact selling us the same thing. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I am not above this, how many weekend courses have I taken trying to become a better version of me? How many crystals and smudges do I have right now in this very room where I write? Spiritual capitalism at its finest.

It seems that the only way to get off this mad train is to turn and face it looming behind me. To stand firmly in my two shoes and say “no more!” I am unwilling to trade growth for depth any longer. I am unwilling to sacrifice the sanctity of my life to meet some ideal that is not even my own. I will no longer be 3 miles wide and 2 inches deep, I want to be a  well, a spring,  dig deep and find sweet water, here.

I am learning to identify barriers to connection in my life, competition is one, perfectionism is right up there as well. What can I reclaim, or claim for the first time to bring sanity back into my life? I’ve been thinking on this and simple as it sounds, and not surprisingly, I think it has something to do with vulnerability and acceptance. If I can learn to see all the ways I am striving towards unreal expectations or doctrines, than maybe I can turn myself around. Connection is the antidote to bullshit, in fact,  I am pretty sure it is the antidote to all the woes of western civilization.

When I allow myself to be vulnerable, to show my multi layered imperfection, I am open to connection. I can have friends at my house that is messy, I can eat with joy and abandon without concern for what others think of my size or shape, I can speak my mind and heart, not tip toe around others. Which in this PC world feels like it is more an more necessary. Truly, it is not. Disagreeing with someone does not mean you don’t love them. In fact, differing opinions are a healthy thing, if we are all the same it is pretty boring out there.

So I am learning to be uncomfortable, to listen when the feelings of ” I need to be….” arise. It takes so many forms, there are so many things and ways I have been taught I need to be to, to  be worthy, to be accepted. It is a lie. I am, and will be, a whole healthy human woman, even if I don’t meet the standards, even if I look a little frazzled at the edges. I am taking a stand. Because you know what? No one else is going to do it for me. I am going deep, holy well deep. I plant my feet on this soil I call home and I will stay here. I will joyfully  grow my food, raise my hens, sleep beside my husband. I will listen to the quite yearning of my own sweet heart, and stay, home. I will, day by day divorce myself from the system that says I must be more. I am enough. I am woman,  I am home, and I am grateful.

Marianna Louise Jones

*image is of St Fumac’s holy well, Canmore Scotland

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daughter of Earth

Leave a comment

Earth-
I am your daughter
Born of the darkness
Bathed in the light
Earth dweller
Sky gazer
Guardian
I walk upon your firm brown skin
Run my fingers through your grassy hair
Taste the sweet ripe fruit of your lips
You leave treasures everywhere
Simple gifts
And magical tokens
Of your love
Roots, shoots and berries
Smooth stones and feathers
The light on the field at dawn
A gleaming spiral shell
You speak to me in sunsets,
Moonrises, shooting stars
A thousand ways you say
I love you
I am listening
I hold out my hands in gratitude
And you fill them
Wherever I am
I am with you
A daughter of mystery
Born of the darkness
Bathed in the light

Marianna Louise Jones-May 2017

Morning has Broken

Leave a comment

Morning comes
sorrow and praise live in my heart together
strange bedfellows it may seem
but no…
All that we love will go
All that we claim will be lost
All hearts that love will be broken
and yet…
The sky pours generous rains
through oak branches
nearly naked now
leaves lie on the soft earth
and are claimed again by her
birdsongs erupt in the still dawn
and I am here
my feet wet on that same soft soil
a heart full of wonder
and eyes to see this beauty
eyes that pour their own generous rain
down the soft curves of my cheeks
Sorrow and praise
resting together in the
dark chambers of my
Heart.

© Marianna Louise Jones 2017

IMG_3930

A golden heart leaf- photo by yours truly. Taken one cool morning on a trail at Elk Rock.

I too, am Animal

Leave a comment

I wrote this poem last May. While away at my first solo writers retreat. You can read more about that experience here,  A New Old Forest, My Birthday, and the Power of Following my Heart, a few poems are in that post as well. I am sharing  this poem today as it seems to connect so well to my post from yesterday, A Measure of Worth. This inquiry around worth has been burbling inside me for some time, asking to be examined. I do not usually write in rhyme, but for some reason quite a few of my poems from this particular retreat came in the form of rhymed couplets, I do not know how I feel about that, to be honest… but here it is. I desire to share this anyway. Rhymed couplets and all .

I too, am Animal

Swallow does not question God,
he just proceeds to fly
Bear is steadfast in his good,
he needs no reason why.
Deer knows she is worthy,
it was built within her bones.
But somehow, I have lost my way,
can find no path to home.
Otter plays and feeds herself,
she does not need a list.
To track her time and plan her days,
to make sure nothings missed.
Yet it seems that I have chosen,
to live another life.
Away from being animal,
in worry, debt and strife.
I doubt my good, I cannot fly,
I rarely play or fish.
I live my life within white walls,
And always have a list.
To check a box, to prove I’m good,
To set the markers high.
So that I deserve a place to live,
I rarely question why.
Yet somethings shifting in my bones,
I am seeing crystal clear.
That I have picked the short straw,
I would rather live as Deer.
Or Bear or Otter for that part,
live free and take the risks.
Then settle into servitude,
and securities deadly “gifts”.
I’ll tear my hair from its confines,
Let my face grow brown with mud.
And sun and wind and wildness,
feet planted on the ground.
I’ll bathe in rivers cold and clean,
until my skin is pink.
And live on wild berries,
and the shoots and leaves of green,
I return to the Earth,
And her enormous lap.
To suckle on the breast of God,
And never to look back.
Oh, culture you have tricked us well,
But you have not won just yet.
I return to the wild now,
With no pains of regret.
Welcome me home-
Sweet green ground.
Take me as your own,
The bride of life,
The soils wife,
Marvelous and brown.

 

~ Marianna Jones 2017