Solstice Prayer

"We welcome summer and the glorious
blessing of light.
We are rich with light;
we are loved by the sun.

Let us empty our hearts into the brilliance.
Let us pour our darkness
into the glorious,forgiving light.

For this loving abundance
let us give thanks and offer our joy. Amen."

-Micheal Leunig,The Prayer Tree

my dreams, my works, must wait till after hell

I hold my honey and store my bread
In little jars and cabinets of my will.
I label clearly, and each latch and lid
I bid, Be firm till I return from hell.
I am very hungry. I am incomplete.
And none can tell when I may dine again.
No man can give me any word but Wait,
The puny light. I keep eyes pointed in;
Hoping that, when the devil days of my hurt
Drag out their last dregs and I resume
On such legs as are left me, in such heart
As I can manage, remember to go home,
My taste will not have turned insensitive
To honey and bread old purity could love.

-Gwendolyn Brooks

My Faveorite Picture of Shelley

If you look closely you can see that Shelley's ears are twitched backward, that's because he heard me taking the photo... God, he was a great cat. In every apartment we ever lived in, he would sleep in the bathroom sink. When I did the dishes he'd curl up on my feet and meow at me. When I came home from wherever I might have been he ran to meet me at the door. The color of his fur brought tears to my eyes because he was so handsome and orange. When he was a kitten he would lay on my chest, put his head beneath my chin and purr, purr, purr. I loved him, I love him still, with my whole heart. A few nights ago I dreamed he was with me in the yard of my apartment where I live now. I said to him, I am glad you are still with me.

i can say nothing except that it would be worth a visit:
http://owlsdaughter.blogspot.com/2008/03/tarot-card-of-week-
march-17-23-2008.html

up into the silence the green

up into the silence the green

silence with white earth in it
you will (kiss me) go
out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it
(kiss me) you will go
on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it
you will go (kiss me
down into your memory and
a memory and memory
i) kiss me (will go)

-ee cummings

Everyday Is A Reenactment Of The Creation Story

My House Is The Red Earth

by Joy Harjo

My house is the red earth. It could be the center of the world. I've heard New York, Tokyo or Paris called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form.

For instance, that fool crow picking through trash near the corral, understands the center of the world as greasy scraps of fat. Just ask him. He doesn't have to say that the earth has turned scarlet through fierce belief, after centuries of heartbreak and laughter.

If you look with the mind of the swirling earth near Shiprock, you become the land beautiful, and understand how three crows at the edge of the highway laughing, become three crows at the edge of the world laughing.

Don't bother the earth spirit who lives here. She is working on a story. It is the oldest story in the world and it is delicate, changing. If she sees you watching she'll invite you in for coffee, give you warm bread and you will be obligated to stay and listen.

But this is no ordinary story. You will have to endure earthquakes, lightning, the deaths of all those you love, the most blinding beauty. It is a story so compelling you may never want to leave. This is how she traps you.

See that stone finger over there? That is the only one who ever escaped.

Playing Tag

Since I am not the only one who's new to playing Tag, here's how you play:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people. (post a link to blog/website)

Here's what was nearest:

"...leg's opening. That was so long ago and far away, but not so far as she finally ran when she could not stand it anymore, when the lust I made her feel got too wild, too uncivilized, too dangerous."

From Dorothy Allison's collection of stories, Trash

Since I'm not sure I know five people with blogs or websites I've been wondering how to involve anyone who might be reading... Follow the directions and post what you find in the comments. Wanna play? Yes? Yes.

from a letter

...been thinking about you lately. and about reverent strange. i was given a photo of me from 1996 or so - I was about 19 and wanted so bad to be special. I was posing ridiculously with some Christmas lights. I know now that I am special but feel ordinary on the outside. Maybe when I am old I'll know I'm not ordinary, inside or out. Somehow I know that now but feel a grief I just can't seem to wrap my hands around - a grief related to photographs of me. I look at these pieces of film and wonder who are you? How did you get there? What fragment of you remains inside of me now? What seeds of who I am today are planted inside of you...?

Time. Let me vanish. Then what we seperate by our very presence can come together.

For JayBee and Cosmic Monkey

There are two photographs in the hallway of my apartment. The first is at the start of the hall, the second at the end, is in front of my bedroom door. When I look at each of them I experience two things simultaneously: A deep desire to know the person in the photograph and an incredible sense of wonder at knowing the person in the photograph.

The first is of my mother. She's twenty-two years old, working as a roof layer. She's a single mother of four. When I look at her in this photo there's no doubt she's absolutely the most self possessed person I've ever met.

The second is a drawing that I made based on a photograph of me at age six. In the photo I'm wearing one of my favorite dresses, my hair is very thin and I have dark circles under my eyes.

I have carried around an unnamed grief my entire adult life: I cannot remember the first six years of my life. How is it that I can look at this photograph of myself and not intimately recognize and know myself?

What seems to be driving this all home is a book I'm reading called The Time Traveler's Wife. One of the main characters is, you guessed it, a time traveler. One example from the book that I particularly enjoy is when he and his seven year old self spend the night at the Art Institute in Chicago. They look at cavemen dioramas, meteorites and a rare and exquisite version of Audubon's Birds of America. This book is enormous. I've actually seen it because I grew up in Chicago and spent many hours at this museum. This scene is one I can easily put myself and my young self in.

If I could, just for a moment, go to myself at six and experience myself as fundamentally part of who I am today... who knows? I might not have an extra heartbeat.

*Photo by my Grandfather Andres

Missing Kelly

*Photo by Kelly Krahl

Groningen Moon, 2003

Belvidere Moon 1995, Self Portrait 2008

I was 16 going on 17 when I took this photograph. I'm twice as old today as I was the evening I took this picture. I could see the entire circle of the night descending. I wish I could put into words the way this memory stirs me...