Monthly Archives: December 2013

Ceridwen’s children

Ceridwen’s children

Afagddu

I am a great crow.
In the tree’s top I beat and beat and beat my wings.
I leave everything I touch uprooted and searching.
You think this is destruction, that the tree is dying.
But I do this in order to extract the acorn and drop it from my beak into your hand.
Notice how the acorn cannot feel
Neither can It hear or know
It exists in utter darkness below the earth
Where things go when they expire.
It is hard and turned inward on itself,Wracked with defenses.
And yet it breathes—and yet it grows—curled
Changing silently unseen, unfurling.
I am hear to remind you of it’s name, of the thing it is.
Unless you take this creature of compact dirt spaces, of dormancy,
And cultivate it, make it your own:
You will not get this beautiful tree, grounded,
Reaching to the heavens with outstretched arms
You will not hear the birds coming to nest there, or see bark browns and leafy greens,
Or feel the sacred blood flowing through its veins.
Instead, grow from where you have landed
Buried like a seed under the earth.
Do not hate it, meet it in anger,
For then it turns dark and barren, corrosive to life.
Even if it hurts, even if you scream, even if you can't bear the sight of it,
Feed it, love it.
Nurture it, nurture yourself.

Creirwy

I call you, innocence, light, sun at dawn,
Shine in my heart.
Song of words, new and clear, aching life,
Free to breathe, still to be, to be still,
It is I, the joy you seek,
I, the color of your truth.
I answer and question,
My eyes are clear with unknowing
I am untouched by grief,
I am the peace within you, the journey's end,
I am life once suffering is wrung out of it
Dried clean in the sun
I am your shelter, your ideal, your striving
Neither blemished by disease nor ill at ease with character
I am the beautiful song bird that sings and sings and sings to the world.
I am hope I am dream
I am your longing calling yearning love of nature
And the star of the sky
I am a humming bird, I sing, I laugh, I fly.
I'm an experience that's just begun
I am the turn, and the joy upon return
You see this beautiful sunflower? See how its face bends to the light?
So open, so patient, so vulnerable, so expectant,
Smiling at the world, greeting it anew?
No fear could touch that flower, no loss could it endure,
And in that respect it is fragile and demure.
This is who you truly are.
This is you beneath the sea of pain and the shock of fear
Beautiful you, whole you, vast and strong
Unafraid to cry, to dance, to speak, to shout.
Radiant and radiating from inside you open out
Tall and purposive, drinking in the mystery without hesitation
The feeling you do not have yet, waiting upon the horizon
Known there beneath the shadows of confusion
That tiny flame that burns in you alone,
When to yourself you finally come home.!

Being Complete

There is not one word that can name the shallow tide pools
Or rocky crags, wind blustering by
And blue, deep flowing, growing blue
A whirlpool of color in the vastness of this sky.

There my self of many faces passes by
The red beneath blood deep within
And blue around me reaching out across the thresholds of my skin
There but for her shaping hands go I

Molding new ground for my weary feet
There but for their ancient eyes
And strong tall forms, long streaming hair, glinting shields
And for me finding all of me, I might never have been whole.

I duck inside the shelter of my own light house
As vast as sunrise, as wide as mountains
As old as time
Home at last I sweep the floor
I’ve left my golden shiny things outside.

The only thing that matters now is the unconditioned joy of living
The streams of giving poured out from their hands
I once asked why, fragmented my soul against stone to understand
But now  newly formed and unknowing
I am content to stand, belonging to myself  beside them
Hand and hand.

Where haunting melodies of Lír’s children linger in the silence of the night
Where the Fianna’s hunting horn lies buried,
Where I can still follow the footsteps that lead inside earthy knolls
Where landscapes reawaken and the absences of dreams leave holes

Along the path less taken
I discovered who I was
Fragile and bony, easily torn
Eternal and holy a spirit now born.

When the rains came and washed fear away into the seven seas
I opened my eyes from a long sleep of seven years
And with a gratitude more full than the universe has stars
I jumped off securities jagged ledge
And soared into the trees.

Now I do not try to name what refuses to be a certainty
Better it remain wild and unruly, like the history of landscape
Better to welcome those you dance with wordlessly
So you do not waltz into the four sided space of a definition
With no way to return as inexplicably as you have come.

Slide me into the glaring light of your microscopic gaze
Try to holler at the silence that murmurs along the edges of my life
I will sift like mist between your fingers and nothing will linger
But the emptiness you made of me

For I am, at heart, a mystery
And no one word could ever capture the unfathomable totality
Of who I am when all is said and done
Even then, I will be.