Category: Elemental Flow

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The World Stops

god is a mother
and with that
sentence
the world stops
the world always stops
when woman and
divine
commingle
as if the
feminine
dilutes the
miraculous
when in reality
it embodies it
when jesus turns water
to wine
they clap
but when women turn breasts
to milk
they cringe
a broken man’s body
is celebrated each sunday
while a broken woman’s body
is just hidden away
and it’s no wonder
that mother is a word
used by men
to demonize those
who don’t claim the name
and weaponized to shame
those who step out of line
because
their ideal
woman
plays the role of
nurturer and silencer
in pews
built and led by them
but
when god
becomes mother
she is neither quiet
or compliant
she leads confidently
she questions authority
she commands respect
which might be the problem
for mother god
did not gather us up
carelessly
but took her time with it
she fed us milk
birthed our souls
and broke her body
and the permanence
can be uncomfortable
and to disentangle god
from motherhood
Is impossible
but
to disentangle god
from womanhood
is sinful
because seeing god as mother
is one step closer
to seeing god in me
and it’s in that
i am truly
born again

~Kaitlin Hardy Shetler

🌙

Image: A new mother nurses her baby
unknown photographer

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I Am

I am the moon goddess casting a silver net over this night

I am the brooding black raven asleep in the dark wood

I am the dreamer and the fox who guards the dreamer

I am the windswept plain where lost dreams can be found

I am the bone songs of my ancestors playing on the wind

I am the heart of the ancient sycamore crumbling into dust

I am green leaves capturing rays of sunlight as they fall

I am the lone crane, standing watch near the shore

I am the jumping salmon crane silently waits for

I am the dance of flickering flame consuming it all

I am Phoenix reborn from the ash of what came before.

~NancyL

—

Painting: Moon Woman and the Serpent:
Gifts of the Dark by NancyL

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Sunlight

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between “green thread”
and “broccoli,” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful. It touches you
as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present
he had sent from someplace distant
as this morning—to cheer you up,
and to remind you that,

among your duties, pleasure
is a thing
that also needs accomplishing.

Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds
of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire?

Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue,
but today you get a telegram
from the heart in exile,
proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them
who can find the time
to sit out in the sun and listen.

~Tony Hoagland

🌱

Image: Mount Shasta Sunset
by NancyL

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My Body

“I am not your cornfield,
not your uranium mine, not your calf
for fattening, not your cow for milking.

You may not use me as your factory.

Priests and legislators do not hold
shares in my womb or my mind.

This is my body. If I give it to you
I want it back.

My life is a non-negotiable demand.”

~Marge Piercy,
‘Right to Life’ excerpt

♾

Image: Venus by Susan
Seddon Boulet

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Becoming Elder

“…To a woman of the Celtic nations, to become Elder is above all to become Cailleach: to represent the integrity and health of the wild places and creatures of this world.

To become Elder is to become strong – strong as the white old bones of the earth, strong enough to endure the long, lonely vigil to the end of the world.

To become Elder is to hold the power, stay the course.

Above all, to become Elder is to become the bean feasa, the Wise Woman: the one who knows the secrets and speaks the languages of the land, who speaks with the moral authority of the Otherworld, who weaves the dreaming of the world.”

~Sharon Blackie
www.sharonblackie.net

🌙

I have a new goal.

Image by Carolyn Hillyer