Fall-ing

Feliz Paseos Park

Yesterday I spent several hours walking the trails of Feliz Paseos Park, immersed in nature, joyful and at peace (and, yes, the sky really was that blue!). Yet this is not the fall season I’m used to; it remains unfamiliar with its own mysterious changes and colors ... bronze mountains deepen into solidity, red rocks sharpen, burnished copper leaves reveal themselves upon plants I don’t recognize, cacti seem to suck their reserves in tight, and balls of fluffy seeds seem anxious for a strong gust of liberating wind. Then, in contrast, this morning I fall into a memorial day-dream of autumnal familiarity rooted in decades of northern cycles ... 

      Molasses running through my veins, slow and rich, thick and dark, smelling of long walks deep in the woods where magic happens with every foot that is raised upon the path of knowing and the air dances in meditation upon the belly of joy and wonder as I ease into each moment glowing from within, shades of amber and pitch flowing in oozing alternation, warming in gentle waves. 

     The padded loam of un-tilled soil cushions my steps while It twinkles the winks of earthworms creating abundant life hidden from view by those unaware but I see their mystery as I stare down below and praise their gifts wherever I go. Inhaling the purple decay of leaves once in flight, now grounded in transition. I am happily lost, wandering among memories for a moment. 

     The dark chocolate depths of the forest flood me with sweet tasting peace, the pine trees bless me with a light rain of pointed confetti falling upon cheek and tangling in hair, the last of autumn leaves cling quivering upon stark bones the color of dreaming. Dark chocolate bites into my skin as a limb reaches out further than I thought, distance a deception here in the woods where we are all equally capable of witnessing change and sensation. Alternating patterns as the earthy cakes of heaven are made, a shake of cinnamon with a rusty tingle, a pinch of granulated sugar is the crunch of tan leaves fallen and disintegrating beneath feet wishing they were bare.

Feliz Paseos Park

     Fall that heralds the winter ... the delectable slowing where we can be most at home, the welcoming slumber of lengthening night and the cool bright days that sharpen our delight. The softening of crisp apples grown in the sun and baked in the heat of a dark oven until their juice thickens and flows with an exquisite concentration of nectar, melting without effort in eager open mouths. 

     Intensity abates and relaxation becomes a resting place deep within that is mirrored in nature and vice versa. Don’t struggle against the creamy dark chocolate that overlays the rainbow skittles, for each has its place, and soon enough the wheel shall turn into stimulation of seeds that become a new growth of life-sustaining offerings. 

     I let myself fall, face forward into the bed of leaves and needles that permeate my senses, begin to sink, to disappear, my skin wrinkles and shrinks, losing vibrancy and flexibility, disintegrating into the welcoming leaves beneath me as more glide onto my back, covering me like a patchwork quilt. I breathe in the verdant pine still humming within the fading shells and resonance rises up through my nose where tendrils of aromatic bliss wind into brain and mind before expanding downward through all my channels, spreading peace and release. The full moon smiles Her love as I become shadow, then scatter to and fro, my form no more. I sleep and am a vapor that lifts to touch the white face of the Divine then drifts down once more sinking into the Sacred, and I am simply One ... breathing.

Tucson Mountain Park

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[“dark chocolate” was today's ClarityWorks writing prompt; I had already written the first two paragraphs upon waking so when I saw the prompt, it fed another stream into the existing river of expression already flowing]

Tangles of Hair and Roots

Olive Grove, Crete

Can you imagine 

falling into the long tendrils and tangles 

of the scruffy old wise woman’s hair? 

She lives on the mountains tracing trails older than the oldest human, 

routes traversed by the ancestors of the pussycat cleaning its paws across the room 

and created by the single file marching of sedate beasts who live in the moment, 

ignoring the one who hunts for its belly now rumbles replete, 

its yawn smells of digestion, and 

its movements echo the gentle fall of huge snowflakes drifting silent in the night. 

Can you imagine 

the tendrils and tangles of this world we’ve constructed 

that we cannot seem to find our way out of, 

for every tendril we push away becomes another one wrapping itself around an ankle, 

tripping us until we fall into the tangles ahead and become invisible. 

It’s one thing to disappear into the tangles of nature 

because death there is quick and merciful. 

But the tangles of the world of blinding light and rapid thoughts 

across a circuit board that is constantly overloaded 

is terrifying for in there death is slow and painful, 

dragging one along behind for decades dripping bloody entrails and 

severed limbs so that we are unable to climb out or 

push ourselves in a different direction. 

Ancient Olive Tree, Crete

Can you imagine 

being the tendrils untangled that seek out new lands, 

new paths, the way less traveled, or a 

tendril snipped and lifted high in the beak of a broad-winged friend 

who carries one off to a place of solitude that is still unique 

yet blessed by the sacred song of silence in one’s own head ... 

silence so that we can hear the voices of insects, birds, trees, 

sliding rocks, and thunder riding the lightening. 

Can you imagine 

being given the tendrils and tangles of the hawk’s nest 

in which to curl up and rest, 

or those of woodsy floor 

where thousands of lives have been before,

have birthed and died within the tangles of roots 
that welcome us home without demands or judgment.

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Streaming free-write from the ClarityWorks prompt "tendrils and tangles."

A Writer's Manifesto

A heart can write, did you know that? It can, for the love can come in ecstatic pulses and flow into words without first being dammed up at the mind (where it is then only allowed to trickle out in limited, precise streams). 

I can no longer hold the words in or back and must be true to that which has its own cadence, the throbbing within that wants to reverberate out into the world. Sometimes I can wrap it up all neat and tidy, the way a sentence is ‘supposed’ to appear, or the way a story is ‘supposed’ to be told. However, sometimes I have to simply allow free expression, knowing that the essence of Loving Oneness I feel within me, within the land, air, water, and light, will be manifest in the impressions and expressed as a portrait of flowing words through these eyes and fingers and Soul. For I can no longer restrict the images and sensations just because they might not be ‘right’ or ‘good enough’ or ‘appropriate’ ... I merely seek now to help them be birthed into the world, to go their own way, to be swallowed like alphabet soup and disappear, or to be held gently aloft as the scent of evergreen needles, all by the elementals who shape my fingers around the pen and who carry the whispers into my mind or the rhythm into my heart. 

Yes, a heart can write and that is what I’m letting mine do ... my heart is writing and becoming one with the heartbeat of Gaia, and I pray it will continue doing so until I am no longer form and once more vibrate wholly within Her resonating luminescence. 

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May we all feel free to express ourselves from our hearts!

in the dark moon night

The wet blanket was tossed over the fire to smother the flame as quickly as possible. Someone was coming, I was sure I heard a footstep crunch toward me from the darkness, and we don't want to be seen. 

We weren't supposed to be here, see, the land was off limits, private property, only those dying few who had lots of money were allowed in here. A good heart didn't count for squat among those kind. This land was held and used by The Moneybelts; I heard their ilk were called the something else a long time ago before the awakening, but it's not important anymore. Now there were still a few private lands of lush forest and majestic mountains, like here, but no one could visit except the last remaining strange ones called The Wealthy. 

So we sneak in and commune; we are here to celebrate life within these private velds of green. Instead of hoarding Her energy, we honored and gave offering to Her, our Mother Eairth. Oh, these weren't the only green spaces, not by far. We've come a long way since the time of the Enlightenment when the scales tipped and then fell over to rust, the time of the Change when the majority simply refused to do any more work until all creatures and people were cared for and provided with enough. No, these green spaces still 'owned' and gated and isolated by The Moneybelts were few, but desperately in need of ritual cleansing to set free the spirits that lay within, remnants of an ignorant time when people thought bodies were the most important part of Life and so clung to them even in death, afraid to let them go, terrified of letting them return to the Mother as nourishment through transformation.

"I think whoever it was is gone." Cloud's whisper reaches my ears in the silence of the woods, carried upon the shadows of the dark moon night. 

We pick up our shovels once more and began digging with reverence, casting prayers upon the elements, talking to the ones who were held confined to this space, afraid to leave because of the energies that bound them to their bodies within the vaults guaranteed to last centuries. Striking a hard surface, me and my friends brush the last bit of dirt away gently with our hands and open the lid of the casket. "Mrs. Miller, you're free," I whisper, and my sisters join me in an ancient chant. We take her bones and all that is left of her body, placing them within a hemp bag to take back to the funereal pyre built earlier in the night. I feel her sigh of relief caress my cheek upon the current of light cool breeze. Climbing out of the grave, I look across the dark expanse defined by tombstones and giant pine trees that rise tall and thick among the old stone markers barely legible, I see the bushes and ferns spreading themselves wild around the maze of once perfectly aligned burial sites where roots and quakes have shifted and lifted them out of their purchased complacency. Hundreds more to go, one at a time. 

While we have the legal right to conduct these acts and rituals of liberation, provided by the Council of Elders, this compound and those like it remain heavily monitored by the Old Guard who cling to their archaic ways in spite of all that has been accomplished since the Great Shift, and it is said in hushed tones that they are still willing to kill just to maintain control and a semblance of power over others. They are so few now, they're no longer a threat to the greater good throughout most of the world. But here, we are careful not to be seen. No one could imagine killing another human these days, or any living creature for that matter, but these people might. So rather than risk it, one of the initiations into becoming a priestess of passing is to slip into the fenced compound and free souls from their prisons. We know our duty and try to stay focused, but every so often one of us lets slip a nervous giggle. Which is what thirteen-year-old girls are prone to do, after all.
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This is a free write from the ClarityWorks prompt "wet blanket" in my email this morning. I think part of this flight of fancy came from watching the movie "The Magic of Bell Isle" last night; fabulous movie with Morgan Freeman about writing and the imagination and "seeing what isn't there." A wonderful scene from the movie HERE but don't watch the official trailer as it gives away too many great lines and scenes! LOL Anyway, awesome film.

of myth and legend

Ancient Minoan Olive Tree at Kavousi (3250 years old)

Among the twigs and branches of the mythic forest, I find my way forward, eyes wide open in awe, gazing at the unfamiliar green giants towering above, and at fuchsia toadstools that hide upon the edge of the narrow path where flower petals have fallen and given themselves to guide my way softly with loving encouragement. 

The mythic forest is strong and lush, filled with the truth that I seek. Each footstep is hushed by the layer of leaves and blossoms while a rainbow guides my reaching hands into the next moment of surprise and welcome. The energy changes constantly as desires of millions fly in and out of these woods and clearings upon the wings of fairies who smile with delight to know the change is happening. They’ve been patient and encouraging for thousands of years, and are eager to help in the shift.

I raise my hands and see them tattooed with henna peace symbols, tracings of the veins of leaves that welcome me by tapping on my shoulder and caressing my cheek before drifting to the forest path to leave a secret message in the earth as their own change begins.

A new day is dawning and here where all possibility and potential lives, the inhabitants are rising, pulling on their moccasins of community and their cloaks of imagination, washing their faces in the dew of the rushing waters held a while in suspension but now released, a misty wisdom hurling itself into the morning with the joyous giggling of droplets that can fall freely now back to the ocean and rivers of flowing Vital Force within which lies creativity and freedom. Here in the mythic forest, a change is happening and I am witness to it all.

The walls around the forest have been pulled down by hobbits and rabbits and all those who continued to dig under or climb over in the dark of the night knowing the sacred core was still glowing within, though hidden away at one time for safety and protection, but then was hoarded, and finally forgotten and buried by the overgrowth of inactivity within its depths. Come into the mythic forest where all who love are welcome, where all can play in peace together under the GaiaTree. 

No longer divided or kept away, no longer hidden from self or others, pure freedom flies in this mythic forest upon the wings of the white doves and the wise owl while the eagle takes its cue from them, descending onto its ledge to rest and nurture its neglected young in peace and plenty. The vulture picks clean the bones outside the forest so that they are ready for transformation and renewal, and I help to carry the bones into the mythic forest where the bleached remnants are honored and then burned upon the altar of change, the spirits within rising to kiss the sky, and the ashes fall to nourish the earth. 

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Stream of consciousness writing from today's ClarityWorks writing prompt "mythic forest"