Some images to offer today, after the long hiatus since my last post in September. I was traveling for about a month in the southwestern U.S. and in Mexico, and there was much to take in and experience--hence, less time for creative outpouring.  I think of this site to as a place to share my creative self, not as a place to offer reports of what I've been doing on (hence my longing for a title better than "blog"...), and thus I have been silent. I've also had so many disparate experiences that I am processing many rich bits and pieces rather than a coherent whole. But I am feeling the pull to put forth some of those pieces, and reach out to at least touch you with the light they swim in.

I am thus sharing the eye candy of travelogue-type pictures. I know people do appreciate these, and that they are easy to take in. The photos are more  impressionistic than documentary, but they still convey a sense of some of what I was experiencing.The images have descriptive captions, so click on them if you want to see them full size and clearly identified.

Also, look for an additional post with totally unrelated content, also coming from my heart.

For Lenore Tawney, “Mirror of the Universe”
 
There’s a thread between us
made, no doubt, of linen,
with long fibers and waxy sheen.
Not quite straight, like yours, or solitary;
this thread meanders, and twists around others.
 
Thank you for the transmission,
the black bird flying high above the canyon,
riding updrafts and seeing far.
Thank you for the open space,
the drawers filled with feathers,
bleached bones, and tiny sweet shells.
 
I learned the thread language, once you had named the grammar,
and followed the path you first set out.
We touched just once, in an overheated room,
mingling tears and sorrows,
but you were always there
flying through the crow-world,
and beckoning.
 
The thread loops around now,
calling out the lineage
and coming to rest, deeply bowing
to those open spaces, recognizing
our connection, and
deeply grounded love.
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The second poem came from a shamanic journey I did where I called in the spirit of my mother. I describe the way she was at the end of her life, and the way she appeared in this non-linear experience.  I hope the words convey the majesty and power of the experience.
 

 Seeing True

Small, and in soft focus
eyes enormous behind the thick glasses
of the legally blind.
So tired.
Dwarfed in the white sheets of the big bed,
my mother, weighted down,
feeling useless, defeated,
and far too old.
 
Today I found her, well past all that.
Looking intently at me, she opened her body suit,
parted it right down the middle,
a superman gesture, but slowly,
with deliberate grace.
She stepped out to her full size, her full self
and I took it in--
so tall, smiling, resonant,
oh, the bright glory of her.
 
“I see you,” she said,
meaning me, in my own light body
far beyond the human life
she once thought she knew.

“I see you,” I said,
meaning this magnificent one,
infinitely large and beautiful.
 
There we were, beholding,
seeing true
the full awesomeness of it all.