Grandmother Blessing (with a poem)

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.  Ruby, our oldest grandchild, turned 13 a week ago, and today she is having a few friends over to celebrate.  A milestone birthday.  I'm remembering the time just before she was born, how her four grandparents came to Berkeley expecting an imminent birth. We wound up waiting five days until she decided to join us.  

Thirteen years later, here she is:

The poem I wrote for her, a blessing poem, still hangs on our wall, thanks to a beautiful print made by our friend Bill Denham.  I thought I would share it today, in honor of this wonderful young woman.

Honu* 

Little honu,

swimming her way to shore

on the full moon’s tide.

We have scooped her up

and held her next

to our hearts,

each one of us.

 

Blessed is the mother

who labors to bear the child.

Blessed is the one

who protects so fiercely.

Blessed is the father

who attends to the mother

and who welcomes his child.

Blessed are the grandparents

who dream the baby

into the world and

add pairs of helping hands.

Blessed are the uncles and aunts

who fall in love

at first sight.

Blessed is the baby

who give us hope.

 

For a week we

lived in a bubble

outside of time.

Only birth and death

drop us into that place.

The outside world

disappears in

irrelevance.

 

A long waiting week

it was.

The two, never

losing faith, never

wavering,

surrounded by light,

held in many hearts.

So many hours, so

many long nights.

 

Then, suddenly,

she is here; the

word came,

she is here.

 

The world has

waited eons

for her.

Her gifts, yet

to be revealed,

unique on the earth,

may be exactly

what is needed

to save us all -

little honu,

so recently surfacing

from the seas of

the other world.

  

* honu = the hawaiian word for sea turtle

Still sending her blessings today...

The poem is included in my new book. If you haven't seen the book yet and are

interested, it's available from me directly or on our website.

A New Poem: Pilgrimage

 Just back from Hawaii.  

Pilgrimage

  

The first gate opens

when you set foot

on this land.

You have entered

the ritual by arriving.

The first phase is spent

high up the mountain,

attuning to the land.

 

The second gate opens

when you descend

to the ocean.

The waters of the sacred bay,

rising and falling,

set the pace for your heart.

You ask permission

from the land and the sea.

You bow to the ancient

birthing place and

dolphin home.

 

The third gate opens

when you stand at the edge

of Pele’s home, the caldera

wide and steaming below

ohia and ohelo.

The arduous trek one mile

down the chunky lava path

leads you to the final gate.

Dense green jungle opens out

to expansive, bare caldera.

 

At your chosen spot,

you make your prayers and offerings.

You understand now

that the whole journey has

been the pilgrimage,

not just this culminating ritual.

Passing through all the gates

was necessary and more than

mere preparation.

You cannot know

if your offerings are

accepted and sufficient,

but you have fulfilled

your intention.

 

A vision comes:

you climb out of a

lava tube pool, greeting

the sun and the day,

the ocean and the forest,

the mountain and the sky.

You understand that

you are to carry this image

in your heart, no matter

what you face

on your return.

The ritual has been akin

to one the women of

ancient Greece enacted,

your personal Thesmophoria

in a different spirit-filled land,

a going down and coming up

in worship of the Mystery and

of the sister goddesses of

descent and ascent.

 

A New Poem and SoulCollage® Cards

 Last week I held my first SoulCollage® group in a long time.  It felt so good to be together and to make cards.  I intended to make only one (I have so many already, having made them since 2006), but then an image of a volcano came to my hand, and I knew I needed to make a second card. It  sure looks like Kilauea to me.  We were leaving for Hawaii in four days.

Here's what the cards are - sorry for the less than great iPhone picture.

A day or two later I wrote this poem.  It's called The Story.

The story is one

of an unsettled soul.

She lies around,

leafing mindlessly

through a magazine,

or standing in a doorway,

waiting, looking out

at the mist and fog.

Sometimes she crawls

around aimlessly,

wondering how low

she can sink.

 

But somewhere

a volcano is erupting.

Somewhere, the gods

are moving through the earth

with their fiery fingers,

and they will not be stopped.

We cannot control them,

but we can sniff out

the smoke and follow.

 

That’s what she does,

the lost and weary soul.

Out into the haze she steps.

Maybe it is the smell or

maybe the tremors

penetrating from far away

that make her think –

I will bring water to Pele.

That I can do.

We must wait and see how

the story ends, or at least

moves on.

Maybe her offering

will be accepted,

and she will not return

to her room of ennui.

Maybe she will sink back

into herself.

Stay tuned.

 

We are now on the Big Island and will be traveling to Volcano in a week and a half. 

The Pains of Living: A New Poem

This morning I had the treat of listening to my friend and Rumi's Caravan fellow traveler Kay Crista share some of her poetry and memoir writing (on a monthly Zoom poetry sharing).  Sometimes transcendent, sometimes plumbing great depths, Kay's work and the way she delivers it reveal her luminous soul.  I'm not exaggerating.  It was a marvelous half hour, time well spent.  You can get listen to the recording here with Passcode: ROp*Q!2=

It led me to reflecting on the wonderful diversity in poetic voices.  How we each experience the world and then reflect on it and shape it into new and original forms of language... well, it's a miracle.  How wonderful that we have others' art and voices to appreciate and be moved by.

My own poetic way seems to be one of simple language and images.  Who knows why the poems come to us in the way they do?  I don't often have a poem with a lighter or more humorous touch emerge, but one small one did come to me recently.  It's not at all that the subject matter is funny.  On the contrary.  I do think of it as in the realm of the elder, though I'm sure many youngers can also relate.  

The pains of living,

sometimes existential,

sometimes physical,

are like the phone

ringing constantly,

or the doorbell.

You want to write a poem,

or dive into meditation,

or watch the birds at the feeder,

but there it is again-

Ring! Ring! Ring!

“I’m here again.

Pick up the phone.”

Ring! Ring! Ring!

“Answer the damned door!”

Just a reminder that Rumi's Caravan will be in Sebastopol next Saturday, February 11th for our first large event in three years!

And, if you haven't seen my recent book, Distilled: Poems on Eldering, you can find it here.

It’s been a while since I looked at any of the poems in my recent book.  After revising and proofreading them so many times, I really thought I’d never want to look at any of them again!  But, for some reason, as my three-month scan cycle is approaching its end, I opened the book to look at my Going to Hel section, which includes a bunch of poems from when I was actively dealing with cancer.

I have been fortunate to be 2 ½ years in remission now. Sometimes, life almost seems “normal” now.  Sometimes.  Almost. But then scanxiety (a word I'd never heard until cancer) unavoidably creeps in. And today I re-read the following poem:

Undying Companion 

 

Once upon a time,

         the word cancer

evoked such terror

         that merely reading

or saying it superstitiously

         tempted a raging

death curse into

         the body.

 

How things have changed,

         now that the interloper

invisibly insinuated its rapidly

         growing presence inside.

I can say the word now,

         without flinching.

Even after surgical removal,

         this disease has asserted

its place as my undying companion,

         and always will.

 

I will walk with cancer.

         I will dance with cancer,

I will sit with cancer, and

         I will sleep with cancer,

until I sleep

         for good.

 

It is not that the terror

         has dispersed.

It is only that uncertainty,

         which is true for all,

has traveled from a

         complacent distance

to take hold

         of my hand.

            

Uncertainty is truly what we all have. Here it is again, my undying companion.