Category: Poetry & Music

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What If?

Am I all that you project
and expect of me?

Am I

a good girl
and vicious brat?

a selfless oracle
and manipulative witch?

a perfect partner
and selfish cunt?

a great mom
and controlling bitch?

a clueless child
and wise woman?

WHO AM I?

What if I fit
all of your labels
and none of them
at all?

What if you see
what suits your reality
instead of
who I truly am?

What if
I am who I am
and no one really
knows me at all?

What if I am here
to be my own truth
without needing
you to agree?

What if I allow myself
to be free
to simply
be me?

~Nancy L

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Sometimes the Moonlight Speaks

Moon Halo Image by Jeff Lankston

 

sometimes the moonlight speaks
showing me my place in things

sometimes the river sings
piercing its love straight through me

sometimes the night wind calls
coaxing me up into the stars

sometimes the raven stares
pulling me deep into the mystery

sometimes the forest hums
reminding me who I am.

~Nancy L

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A Prayer for Today

Dancing Flame

…When the light switch turns let me feel

how my small life leaps into being in the One Life,

the way a flame becomes itself in the fire.

My life has known how to do this

from the start. It wants to do it.

Help me live what is already true

Help me to know it.

☀️

excerpt from Ironing in
Being Home; A Book of Meditations
by Gunilla Norris

 

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Love Can Help Me Know My Name

Open Up to Love
Open Up to Love

Today in the car, this song came on  and I got the chills – literally! Apparently, it was precisely what I needed to hear.  Which song? It was Love’s Divine by Seal, who is one of my favorite mystic songwriters:

Then the rainstorm came, over me
And I felt my spirit break
I had lost all of my, belief you see
And realized my mistake
But time threw a prayer, to me
And all around me became still

I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Through the rainstorm came sanctuary
And I felt my spirit fly
I had found all of my reality
I realize what it takes

‘Cause I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Oh I, don’t bend (don’t bend), don’t break (don’t break)
Show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake
‘Cause love can help me know my name

Well I try to say there’s nothing wrong
But inside I felt me lying all along
But the message here was plain to see
Believe me

‘Cause I need love, love’s divine
Please forgive me now I see that I’ve been blind
Give me love, love is what I need to help me know my name

Oh I, don’t bend (don’t bend), don’t break (don’t break)
Show me how to live and promise me you won’t forsake
‘Cause love can help me know my name

Love can help me know my name.

by Seal

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The Mending

Trees in Fall
Autumn Cherry by Nancy L

The Mending

There comes a time

when the mending is out of our hands.

It falls beyond the reach 

of needle and thread,

of determined fixing and worn self help patches,

all manner of effort falls short.

When the unraveling comes

do not be afraid;

the Unmaker stands before

a greater loom where

chyrsalises are shed, 

tight knots in life unspooled to the floor

the splendor of leaves fall from the trees

returning to the humility of ground

a glint of ebony on the raven’s wing,

as the black thread is shuttled,

back and forth, our questions,

back and forth, crashing wave to shore

rocked by the drum of the heartbeat

lungs empty and fill again,

until the essential nature

of a larger design speaks

quieting us with

the eloquence of stillness.

Simple as a breath, 

into the great unwinding we go

we are rendered out of our hunting grounds,

and delivered into something that opens our eyes;

we become kin to the seasons and

kneel before the wise counsel of winter

bare and humbled

reaching toward our inner sky.

by Margo Stebbing

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Patience

Window Portal

The Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

~ Pat Schneider 
Another River: New and Selected Poems