Water

Sweet water

happy tears

pouring down their rattle song rushing

snake river, falling

minerals

moving Earth wet

living belly warm

womb fluid

given in

abundance

landing in our place

space filling up round

quenching wells

swelling seeds

deep under

thunder rocks

of soil drinking

gulping mouthfuls

pushing out through veins tiny

rivers inside roots

boots covered muddy

joy

day of rain splashing

every where you are

we are

water ways, life's

liquid maze

amaze me sweet water

pour my goblet

all the way, all the ways

full

My Photos in February's Herbal Roots

I'm simply delighted that my photographs of Willow will be featured in the upcoming edition of Herbal Roots Zine.

If you have not yet encountered this enchanting, all-ages, magic portal into the world of herbs and herbal healing, well get on it! You will NOT find this quality and quantity of grassroots herbal learning anywhere else for this price.

Kristine your work in the world is beautiful and invaluable. I'm lucky to share my Willow photos with you!

dinner

There is this thought

that the more we wake up

the more joy infiltrates

the more bliss dominates

but how am I to believe this?

I eat

my dinner

and watch

my family

laugh, and drink

and make silly jokes

and I feel how much I love them, how much I fear this moment

to change

so it's easier to block it out, find something wrong

than to let my heart swell and break with the truth

that the love in this moment of laughter and health

is more than my little heart can hold

or my eyes can see

and so they fill

with tears

of discomfort

of fear

that this moment will pass today

or someday forever

be gone

from my lense

my glove

my table.

My children

chubby-cheeked, sweet eyed and sassy

My husband, strong and willed, optimistic

my skin clothed and hearth warm

that the need in my belly, should it not be filled

with this I could die

loveless, empty

void of blessing or luck

or worse

robbed of what beauty had given me so generously

right now in this moment

as they laugh and eat

my attachment grips me

tight

and I run

to the bathroom where mirrors are small

enough to avoid

and far where small sounds of weeping cannot

be heard and the cloth

of tissues can sweep away the open wounds of my strangling love

dumping me in the lap of the moment

revealing pain as truth and love

as duality. Moment as short.

Children as miracle. Husband mortal. Self;

permeable.

Belonging

I never thought

the moment would come

"Oh shit" I said

inside my head

as my heart grew from grinch to grin

and water swelled

in my eyes.

I squeezed the steering wheel

as I felt the white pines

watching me

and the juniper listening,

celebrating

with frosty bitter blue fruit

jewels on her boughs

and the white birches reach, drinking

in the January sun while it lasts

as the bald eagles cavort

and the jagged mountain sides pour

with thick still ice

While I drove down

interstate 84

West

with my children in the car

and the smell of this particular place

and time

in my nose,

Home

landed in me.

I'm here.

This land is me. My body

responds now

to it's changing light

the curvy hipped roads

and gazelle winter trees

The decent of Autumn

and revelation of summer

Her greenery, her cycles

my teacher.

I never thought

the moment would come

when Connecticut called me

home

and I would accept.

Yet in the time it took

for the next snowflake

to melt on the hood

of my red Saturn

(which is terrible in snow)

the spirit of this land

thawed my icy heart

as my mind sped

a film in my head

and showed me visions

of all the plants I've come to know

and trees I've wept upon

and rivers carrying my prayers

roots and nuts that are now

my hair, my skin

the hills who hold my walk

the rocks who tell my story

and the collective of

that movie

surrounded by the people keeping

me loved.

"Oh shit"

I thought

"It's here?

Not Tennessee? Or Virginia? Or

Asheville North Carolina? Costa Rica?"

No

She says

at least not right now.

You are here

with me

you are here

come in.