Sunday, October 28, 2012

the apothecary shop




it was tucked away in the quiet backstreets of the old city
an apothecary shop, vibrant dried plants in clear glass bottles
books of spells and healing, culpeper's herbal, cobalt bottles and tinctures
old parchments, a wizened shop keeper, clay figurines
smells of leather and leaf, beeswax and flame

in the front window, a large astrological dial
she paused at the door, her heart loud
she could feel it rising up, a remembering

a something stronger than a dream
that she was moving toward,
her hand on the brass door knob
and the waft of opening, inside, as she entered

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

into dust


while stroking braille-like, the veins, tendons and flesh 
of my hand, in her hand
she says:
"one day...these bones will be dust..."

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Underground



some say she has gone underground
      has lived below, in dark caves, in the moist underbelly
her heart beating            all these years

waiting
waiting for us                 to remember
                     our own wombs
       blood rich and fertile
                          she is the sound of dripping water
                           she is the sound of mo(u)rning
we breathe her in, her amniotic voice                    
               our own bodies swell
                     where we know her   where
                                                                  we   know        her


       

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Empress of the Dark Forest


Dear Francie,

we spent the day in the aspen grove yesterday. it was a cold, windy but clear morning.  the road into the grove was especially hard to navigate, filled with large boulders and almost un-navigatable, with drops and ruts. but i made it.

there were about 25 of us. we gathered together in a circle and laid on the earth, covered in blankets and down.  the wind blew over us in great exhaling out-breaths.

it was marvelous and... i felt tired...winter has arrived there.  the trees are bare, a few with a whisper of leaves, but mainly bare, the land has that quiet 'tucked away' feeling, as if everything has newly gone to sleep. humans are more scarce now, at this time of the year, and everything can rest.

someone saw a bear and in the distance, all day, the sounds of hunters.

we sang.  told stories of bear and bear's plant knowing, around the fire. and then it was time to dig.

we took our time entering the sacred part of the land.  it wasn't the oldest part, but close to it. the air felt different in that particular grove. like rain and fertile earth. i played my frame drum with my spine pressed against an aspen tree. someone played a flute. we all paused.

the wool woman and i ended up under two pines, with large spreading branches. we sang and rattled, and offered chocolate and cornmeal. we put our bellies on the earth and dug with fingers and antler bones. washi was a shy root, mysterious and potent. i prayed for healing, my voice intertwined in earth and pine and root.

we took our time. as the dry earth gave way to her pungent smell.  we breathed her in. me in gasping breath-fulls. we worked our fingers in and around her crevices. followed her long limbs into the earth in different directions.  we ate her. came up covered in dirt. fingernails caked full.

then it was time to make the root into medicine. we told more stories, helped each other, worked the root into jars of local honey with dirt smeared hands.  many of us simply rested and ate.


i've made you some honey. we missed you in the grove and quiet song. 

dearly,
L.


Thursday, October 18, 2012

Grimoire


    she found the grimoire, pages torn, strewn into the willow grass

above her, the bright dome of a sky 
heavy with autumn's breath
her fingers touched pages, delicately, then full palmed, 
a stroking
            a pressing
                            a press
a rising up
                  of earth secret




Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Portals


she awoke after dreaming that night
of a man she had never met
the soft skin of her bones
and his/a heart/flailing beard and vines

she wondered if it could be a visit from the green man
a man of mythologies and mystery
a  man waking her into some unpronounceable future
or perhaps 
it was a numinous woodwose
beckoning her into the deepest parts of autumn
the deepest parts of her body
into her own wild season

either way, the wind became chilled,  a mountain's out-breath
she could see doorways, portals, between the trees
inviting nooks, and small branch huts
she could sense the animals 
she could smell the warmth of their pelts as they gathered in

she wandered, but not long
as she no longer felt directionless
her toes in the clean, warm earth





Sunday, October 14, 2012

Bloodletting



you let the blood go. getting to the vein, is the only painful part.  

blood leaving the body does not hurt. 

like menstrual blood, pulled out by 
gravity and the moon.  the actual blood itself pumps warm and forward. 
i could hear it fill
 tube after tiny tube. i relaxed into it. my own blood sacrifice, 
my offering to self.
this act, of priestess, of the old temple. blood for life. blood for fecundity.
        on the cusp of a new season.

my arm shook. i couldn't stop the adrenaline flowing from earlier that morning, the worry the fear
the rubber tourniquet quivered as i held my arm straight,vein up.  
tube after tube. then a memory shook me.
a dream from the night before and a long tube, blood flowing out. painless, as the chalice filled, white robes, my nest and my calling.

afterward, i felt altered. never faint or squeamish. my blood ritual produced a trance and a state of euphoria. i've
given the energy of my struggle. a transformation, an initiation. 

i rested, lighter than before, and marveled at the ease of letting go.

then the fatigue and headache that put me in bed, as if to say: 
'slow to the rhythm of your own heart beat. listen as the cool blue sky thrums overhead...
this is all you will know now. this is all you need know.'

a few days later, my moon, my blood arrived, slick between my labia. a quiet dripping at first, then a loud storm of pain, no medicine could touch.

more bloodletting. under a full harvest moon. more sacrifice. limits of the body.

a drained body, a slow body. a body of intensities and vertigo. 

down for days trying to stop the tilting of the universe. 
i say the words for winter ... of red snow, basins of syrupy fluid, a squirrel's missing tail ... 

as it all swarms, anemic. needing a blood broth. yellow dock and molasses. 
two yellow eggs. 

and my body. wrapped in green donegal wool.