Ancient Heart, Modern World

Wherever did my insides go

away so far with laughing leaves

on turning winds of Autumn air

oh where could my desires be

inside so deep, asleep?

No. They stir

they squirm inside their

circumstantial shackles

hard they push but quietly

In leaves they dare not make a rustle

in the snow they dare not crunch

Lest I wake the bossy world.

I stalk my dreams in camouflage

I track them silently.

I watch them from a shadowed cave

a purgatory's slave.

Sit still my dear and watch these plants

it makes no difference - your dresses or your pants

watch this plant until it shows

you where inside your soul

you lost

your heartache nerves

and chose to be this numb, this scared

and ask how you can be repaired

And get up off your ass and act

with sharpened blades of Self

Just do

what matters to you. If you see

the dance in a song and you want to move,

move

if you see the medicine in movement,

then heal

if you are sick and tired of redundant linear grace

the pirouettes of symmetrical faces

then be the grit. The noise. The mismatched perfection.

Disgrace to us our pigeonholes of women's lines and curves defined

if we accept these roles - these holes - then we are still confined

I spit on billboards hot with exploit

I spit on mini skirts

I shit on all your subjugation, all your secret tabloid worlds.

I shit on all your tampon governments.

Inside

I scream

to be recklessly beautiful

to let my thighs dance free and wild and ripped with muscle

to show the leaves I know their route

from life to yellow flight and forest floor death

Uncurl like ferns and fingers

Ripen like flesh and fruit.

I hurt inside, to love without

rules.

My back aches to bend in arcs

like rose canes drenched in blossoms

Fastened by roots.

But I lack the thorns.

All those eyes of expectation

all those red pens marking

yes or no, good or bad, right or sin.

All those chasing egos on my skin

and ropes of judgment cast.

These artist shackles keep me locked

in bars of iron, barbs of heart. Inside I wait

for freedom's gate.

For safety's key

and fearless walk.

Guts and Sass

Maybe life just takes some guts and sass

To rub blindly up against the rough bark of a dream and laugh

at the furrowed trunk of growth and the rings

of years sustained amidst the pains of sins

pulling so hard on those reigns of belief, chaffed with will

power, your muscle of dreaming still

holds fast

without fail

without steering you

wrong

Maybe the chains of life's confinements

are glass and foil.

My dagger dreams come sharp

committed, mapped

like yours do

not trapped - they are wild, enraptured

entranced.

In this life we need guts

and sass

to run towards those mirrors of glass: they are lies

and trash. Run buffered by animal tallow and run

fierce

like Buffalo. Pierce

the shadows of crumpled foil and run

wild with dreams of your own

Recklessly owning your

own vision.

Sludgy Lung Elixir

Spring tends to evoke maladies of the lungs, especially in those who are of pitta - kapha constitution. Something of the watery-warm thaw creates a synonymous action in our bodies. Of course it isn't the only way in which our bodies bring us back to the awareness of the fact that we are inseparable from all life on Earth.

A simple elixir of Earth's healing herbs can bring us healing and relief in our lungs, whether a viral and swollen throat or painful, persistent, spasmodic cough.

Lung Elixir

To a 1 Quart size mason jar add:

1 Tbsp Cloves, dried

2 Tbsp Elecampane root, dried (double for fresh rt)

4 Tbsp Wild Black Cherry bark, dried (double for fresh bark/twig)

6 Tbsp Cinnamon bark, dried chips (if you have fresh cinnamon you are lucky!)

1/2 Cup Ginger root, fresh sliced (1/4 cup if dried rt)

Fill the jar of herbs 3/4 of the way full with brandy or alcohol of choice.

Fill the remaining 1/4 of the jar with god local honey.

Apply label with details and record in your herb journal or calendar.

Variations can be made to your liking, for example you may want to add a little fresh turmeric if you tend to get bronchitis or if viruses set into your muscles and make you ache all over.

If you're making this for your children, you can add dried elderberries and reduce the amount of ginger and elecampane to improve the taste and add the immune and lung strength of elder.

If you have a favorite lung herb, of course you can be as creative and intuitive as you wish. If this sounds like too drying of a remedy for you, add it to a demulcent mallow, violet, sassafras leaf, or elm infusion and sip it that way. Remember that our mucilage carries our antibodies, so befriend the good snot and keep it working. And remember too how slippery cinnamon can be.

If you need immediate relief, these same herbs at approximately 1/4 of the recipe can be steeped in 2 quarts simmering water for 30+ minutes and drunk as an effective decoction.

Allow one moon (month) for the extraction of your elixir to take place. Sing to it, shake it, admire the changes. Set it out in the full moon to absorb the healing powers of the water element.

Use small amounts in hot water or tea as needed.

Happy Spring

Make it Your Own

What's there that I missed?

In the mist the whisper

the list of the missing

things I ditched

and left? Or things

I feared and ran

from before I landed

in quicksand in locked

eyes with danger or wit

too great, never mind

fate. I hate

the longing that haunts

and shows up to taunt

my every blinking

breath, my wanton

heart

I sew words in hopes

of a better suture

My life's true suitor

green in curly scapes

in summer

shapes make their ways

through my daze

Dancing plays

and tumbleweed

where's the feed

for souls

like me

Lost in wondering

singing silent

where's the insatiable quest

the drive in my chest

the blindness to test

Lest I wake in another life

with tails untied and tasks

untried

Denied of dreams

of rose petaled streams

of bamboo leaps

and leaf colored leotards

Scribbled in air

scripted in sinew

imprinted on eyes

on karma's long thighs

How the waiting narrates

story lines

arabesque lies

of no pain but inside

as the pages they flip

on waiting's hip

I trip up and hiccup and

skip

ballerina

run

flat face first into muscled tree arms and soar

beyond writing OR

So write AND

dance-pick flowers-make life all yours.

Betula

Betula

Saplings all over my yard

I reach my heart out

Listening for hers

I can taste her tingle

just by thinking

She opens

says hello

says 'welcome daughter'

we start again

Fearless

in the arms of Mother

and the sky of father Sun

we re-create

I am sweetest

on a warm day

after a deep sleep

I am strongest

with my family all around me.

I am most happy

when there is sun on my skin

and space for me to claim.

I am versatile

but never a pushover

I have my place in this world.

My Medicine is new

and it is old.

I heal the wounds

unhealed by time.

Open your heart, child,

we are all in this together.

~~~~~~~~~~

Song for Together

The water-like ripples of the bird songs wake me

lifting my eyelids from their slumber

like a miniature sunrise

My quaky bones stretch like cold birch limbs

into the courting air of March

humming silent murmurs to the hidden flowers

My heart reaches for the melted ground

where the leaf litter crumbles

into muddy compost

Yet my ears still search

for the calling home

for the welcoming.

Where's the village song?

Where's the calling down

of the rain

and the blissful chant of the grain?

Where is the Daughter when the Mother falls ill

Where is Grandpa when the Son's heart breaks

Where is the feeling of together.

Far away we fly

on metal wings

slicing through flocks

to get to the beach or the jungle

"to see the world"

To see that it's true in some ways

in some pockets far away

that we do call with our voices

the rain, the sun, the agony, the blessings

We sing in the spring

And chant our mourning

until the haunting dissolves

And in our pocket here

where bounty is expected

and freedom reigns

we wake lonely

with the bruising of far away pains.

Where is the Daughter when Mama falls ill?

She's flying overseas calling home on her cell

Where are the Grandpa's with stories to tell?
They're back at the homestead; abandoned home-shell.

We're selling our souls to the mortgage Gods

and breaking our backs to feel worthy.

We're starving for wholeness of wheat and of tribe.

We're selling our fancy new knowledge

for what? Cars? Fashion? Pride?

I rise from my sleepy blankets and listen

for that call of the red bird

to sing me back home

to the vision of whole

where I can rest my birch bones.

Where the sunrise is sung

up by children

and the stories are still told

where the trees are known from each season's skin

and the senses stir wisdom from deeper within

I call out my voice to the wandering souls

to the hearts lost on the islands alone

to sing yourself home to the land

you call home

and sink in to the flavor of each moment born

How we long for the leaves to speak

to us

for the roots to tell us when to plant

How we long to belong

to feel safe

and yet free

How we long to sing

our wild heart song

to the wind and hear her call us hers.

How we long to shed our costumes of "independence"

and fall hopelessly in love with togetherness.

Work in Progress II

I wonder if the reason

we - artists-writers-herbalists-soft underbelly mamas -

don't get the work in the world

we wish for

is because we are so damn busy waiting for

approval.

waiting for the right business to hire us

(affirmation)

for the right school to say you graduated

(it's official!)

for the right business partner

(I can't do it without a scapegoat)

or whatEVER

and we keep getting only some of what we need.

MAYBE we keep waiting for that special validation

with the right hours and perfect situation

because we are to damn scared to say

I'm good at what I do

I take responsibility for my learning curve

I have the right to make my hours,

create the structure right for me,

to be unique

and excellent

and at the mercy of no one else's

approval

besides my own.

Maybe we would prosper if we decided

we were so passionate at what we did that we were

always

learning more

and maybe we would prosper

if we had the guts

to shamelessly

self promote.

We wouldn't want to be confident, now would we?

That would be arrogant, presumptuous.

How can you have any objectivity towards yourself?

I am good at what I do.

I love what I do.

I care about my work.

I can make my own hours,

meet my own needs and those of my family,

take care of my home and the land I love,

and I deserve to make good money for it.

Without overworking.

Without extremism.

Without selling my ideas

or pride

or leaking out my well of energy.

There is room in this world for good people to prosper.

We are good at what we do.