A Priestess Speaks

We went to a day with Michael Meade last week.  Michael is someone who never fails to inspire me.  I guess that's no surprise, given that he's a mythologer, storyteller and mystic.  The day was all about genius, which Michael describes as the soul's calling.  A topic I dwell on a lot.  I truly believe that we are all born with a unique set of gifts and talents that need to be given to the world; what Angeles Arrien calls our "original medicine."  Hanging out with Hecate as I have been doing, I am in a period where the call isn't as clear as I wish it would be.  It's okay.  I know I'm in a liminal stage, and the new phase of life will open up as it needs to.  But I have felt it strongly at other times and know how satisfying it is to be inspired and to be moving that inspiration into manifestation.

What I do know is that I need to keep writing every day, and I need to meditate more regularly.  I may have to take up William Stafford's plan of writing a poem every day.  The thing about blogging is that these things may come out here unpolished and unrevised.  Oh, well.  So be it.

This is what came this morning:

It is my calling

to be hollow and empty

as a bamboo reed.

The wind may blow through,

or a song,

or the breath and spirit

of one who dwells

on the other side

of the veil.

I could be a messenger

or a vehicle for love’s rapture.

I could be a voice in the wilderness

or a hawker in the city.

I could be a puppet

or a whirling dervish.

I could be a clown

or a mourner.

My crown opens.

My feet are planted.

My arms rise up.

I must take my desires and my preferences

and stash them away.

Empty.

Hollow.

Come, goddess, come.

Some Days You Get the Elevator (and Some Days You Get the Shaft)

The hardest part about having a broken foot right now is that it restricts my activity, when being active is the best way I know to keep from sinking into depression.  I so miss swimming, my best mental and physical health strategy for the last 25 years. 

The house isn’t selling after 6 weeks on the market.  I guess it’s going to take someone out of the ordinary to really appreciate what we have created here.  We love our house and think it looks fantastic.  But it isn’t like the standard new house.  We don’t have a large master bedroom.  No garage.  We’re next to some (practically unused) freight tracks.  The Redwood City schools aren’t great.  What we DO have is a wonderful cottage, a very large family room with (gas-starter) fireplace that has housed many, many salons and rituals, an organic vegetable garden, a beautiful kitchen, lots of storage, a hot tub and nice deck.   The problem is we’re in Silicon Valley – and are looking to get out.  Silicon Valley types seem to want more conventional homes.  People who would like our house probably live in Berkeley or Santa Cruz.  There’s not a whole lot to love here any more, other than friends and the weather.

Some days I seem to be able to look more philosophically at my situation.  I’m 3 weeks into healing the foot, so hopefully about halfway through.  We don’t HAVE to move, and we have lots of reasons to be okay here (though living in a staged house is annoying at best).  I have Max’s wedding to look forward to.  And Ruby to cheer me up on our weekly visits.  Having this blog to work on has been helpful.  I know I have so much to be grateful for.  My problems are so small in the general scheme of things.  But guess what?  It doesn’t help when I’m feeling like this.

All my appreciation and philosophy seem to have taken a vacation today. 

This is NOT the kind of blog post I want to write.  All the others so far have had some content I could be happy to put out there.  But, honestly, I’m spending a lot of time, a lot of days or parts of days, in this place, and it feels a little dishonest to only post the stuff that I like or that makes me look thoughtful and on top of it.

I do have to say that I get more depressed when my other symptoms are up, and today’s one of those days.  I HAVE decided I need to stop saying either “I’m sick of this” or “I’m tired of this,” because I don’t think it helps me to not feel either sick, tired or both.  What I’m trying to remember to say is, “I’m ready for this to change.”  I am.  Really ready.  For all of this to change.

Maybe I can at least get a poem out of this.  I haven’t exactly been following Stafford’s poem-a-day method, but I have written quite a few during this period.  So, okay.  Here goes.

Philosophical

David Whyte has been visiting my dreams.

We walk and talk together.

When he spoke at Stanford last month,

he spoke a lot about his friendship with John O’Donohue,

and his grief over the passing.

John, he said, was a philosopher-poet.

He, David, a poet-philosopher.

It is a fine and wonderful distinction.

What am I? – I wonder.

Not a philosopher, really,

though sometimes philosophical.

A poet? 

It’s not my primary calling.

Perhaps I am a priestess-poet,

in a time when neither priestesses nor poets

have an affirmed place.

There are no temples

other than what we create

in our minds, yards, or trees.

Poets are mostly self-published and marginalized.

All I can do

is go out to the garden,

raise my arms to the heavens

as priestesses have always done.

Bow down to the earth to whisper

to the ancestors.

Leave a few lines of poetry

tucked into the flowers.

And acknowledge myself.

Well, it’s something, and it feels good to have written.  It’s funny putting out rough, unedited poems into the ethers.  Well, what have I got to lose?

One-Trick Pony

I was thinking this morning about my life-long fascination with Persephone, and the phrase “one-trick pony” popped into my mind.  That took me into this first draft of a poem:

One-Trick Pony

I admit it.

I’m a one-trick pony.

It’s an odd thing

for a pagan to be.

After all,

polytheists believe in the many,

            the goddess with a thousand faces,

            the diversity of the universe,

            the many-faceted jewel of divinity.

But I also believe

that Stafford was right, that

“…following the wrong god home we may miss our star.”

So I followed my one god. 

I know

that she is one of many.

I don’t know

if I chose her

or if she chose me.

I have walked, ridden and crawled

down her road,

knowingly and unknowingly,

for sixty years.

I have taken refuge

in the houses of other gods,

but she holds the teachings

I am required to follow.

Why Persephone?  I think it must have to do with the journeying between worlds, learning to navigate and live with the changes of moving from the light world to the dark and back.  There is, of course, the fact that I was born in the spring.  And, it's hard to ignore her story's focus on death.  Being the fear-based type that I am, what else would I focus on?

I have been wondering a lot about what I should be learning in this time of experiencing one physical problem after the next.  I feel out of whack, or hunkered down in the doldrums (hmm....that would be a good title for a poem), hanging out here with Hecate who has always been Persephone's guide and companion.  Maybe I've wandered off the road and she is leading me back to my chosen god.

Holding the Torch

This is a SoulCollage® card I made a few months ago (sorry for the poor quality - I could only snap a picture of it with my phone as the printer/scanner is in storage).  The figure in the bottom left is Hecate.  The one at the very top is Hermes.

The card is about Barry and me standing on the verge of a new adventure (which moving to the east bay will certainly be).  And Hecate has handed me one of her torches.

Today, I began work on another poem, one about holding this torch.  I'm starting to feel like a disciple of William Stafford.  If you don't know the story, Stafford was in the habit of writing a poem each morning.  When a student asked him how he could do such a thing when it took the student weeks or longer to craft a single poem, Stafford is reputed to have replied, "Lower your standards."  Yes.  Well.  I seem to be putting out these unpolished poems here.

Yesterday, blogger refused to accept the spacings in my poem.  It only allowed a single stanza.  We'll see if it's in a better mood today.

 Holding the Torch 

Demeter carried

a torch in each hand,

searching for Persephone.

Hecate held two as well.

Now she has handed one to me.

It is a gift,

a blessing.

It also obliges me

to light my own way.

But wasn’t that ever

the case?

Oh, I have had teachers, guides,

a guru or two whose sway

I barely evaded.

But the road has always been

spiraling, weaving, circuitous -

a route forged

without a map.

Was it serendipity?

Perhaps.

Or maybe I was

guided by an unseen and

unacknowledged hand.

Well, in any case,

now I have a torch.

This means no more excuses.

I am walking

the slow road of aging.

What I have learned

I must now demonstrate.

What I have planted

I must now harvest.

In the light of the torch,

all flaws are revealed,

all scars are visible.

No matter how

they were attained –

bestowed by parents, errors

or happenstance –

None of that signifies now.

To lift the torch

I must raise my arm.

It is a posture of praise,

and an affirmation of merit.

Hecate gave this light to me.

I hope to use it well.