Wisdom for women

2 Poems for Menopause

2012-01-24T10:48:00.000-05:00

Conversation with a woman over forty

Happiness is the best face-lift. Joni Mitchell

Why change your face?

My mother had that gullet

Fill the cup within - your husband

& sons will taste the sweetness.

crow’s feet in the mirror

loose skin under the chin

I know, I know

a woman past forty needs reassurance

her beauty has not faded,

that the body can perform

its usual tricks.

I’d rather go under the scalpel

than look like that

Beyond your face, such depth

of wanting sears your skin –

they all would drink.

Jennifer Boire

A Poem written against Despair

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

Naomi Shihab Nye

She walked around the circular block of herneighbourhood

and saw that it was good.

She saw lawns newly cut, hedges neatly trimmed,

gardens clipped and tidy.

She saw chrysanthemums flourishing in pots,

purple and gold. She saw asters and brown-eyed

Susan’s in abundance.

She saw three children in the playground.

One toddler, hands full of cookies, came to patMaggie.

(Maggie saw that it was good).

She saw the fresh pavement on the driveway,

where a new family had just moved in.

She saw the sumacs flaming orange and red

along the soccer field, maples’ tips torched

with the same fire.

She saw houses, driveways and lawns,

each one more beautiful than the last.

She saw the sky was blue and the sun

was warm, and she told herself

that to be alive, right here and now,

was good.

She took a deep breath, and told herself,

just for today, all I can do

is quiet the war inside of me,

give up the struggle in my own heart.

If just for today, one person gives up despair

and practices opening her heart to hope,

then peace in the heart will be her gift.

Jennifer Boire

Woman in fog

2011-08-31T17:56:00.000-04:00

from For the Birds, Little Red Bird Press

If only she could, she would give her

heart to her husband, womb to her daughter,

arms to her son. But her body lies on the floor

awaiting rejuvenation, still breathing, broken.

What to do on the days when tears drop

into her soup? It’s ok to do nothing, she thinks,

just simple tasks like laundry.

She picks up a book of poems instead, reads

“trees lose parts of themselves inside

a circle of fog” *

She’s in a thick fog, has shed her leaves,

absorbed moisture till she has water on the

brain, disoriented by the shift that wakes

her at night, puts other parts of her to sleep,

brought to her knees in a wave of heat and tears,

unable to exchange the chief’s hat

for the sombrero.

Her feet feel heavy, her mind dull.

She tells herself, it is only temporary,

lie fallow, compost.

Oh the music she needs to comfort her,

and the long night she’ll travel through

until the bright dawn reclaims her.

Human, faulty, imperfect,

like the low thrum she hears in Cohen’s voice.

Claiming darkness as its source

it rings true, full of light.

*(Excerpted line from poem by Francis Ponge)

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck

2011-07-29T10:25:00.000-04:00

If I had my life to live over, I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television - and more while watching life.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's".. More "I'm sorrys" ...

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute... look at it and really see it ... live it...and never give it back.

(various versions of this are floating on the web, but I think this one is close to the original)

Women's Stories, a letter

2011-07-26T09:08:00.000-04:00

the ones we tell each other,

late at night or early in the morning

over coffee & a cigarette,

more than one if it's a story we've told

over and over like chain smoking, like

dirty laundry soaking in the tub, stains

evoking lost memories of teething, cut

lips, blood on the sweatshirt where

you held his head & he bled all over you

& you want to speak about this love

you have for other women who listen

intently, with their own pain showing

& many cigarettes to carry them

through the telling.

a compassionate voice or ear,

the closeness we feel yet cannot say

because we're afraid of a label

but what we really want, I want,

is someone fearless, a weaver of words

or truthteller, someone who's not afraid

of hurting while resetting a bone.

to talk about the helplessness of being

stuck in a house with a sick child,

the boredom that strikes,

the complaining we do, being called martyr

when all I really want is to tell someone

how unfair it is that I'm the only one

they call for in the middle of the night

& it's my ears hear them coughing

at 3 a.m. & I can't just lie there.

how to find out what our own needs are

& how to take care of ourselves,

not just wait for him to come home, take over,

pick up the toys and the pieces, mop up our spills,

how to find a quiet time, time alone,

time to think & write.

our need to be replenished with each other,

filling up our bowls with sugar & coffee

so we can tell our stories

not just talking over fences in the backyard

but actually getting out & seeing women

doing the same hard work,

no pay, no thanks, just their little faces

when one least expects it, smiling & asking

me to sing a song about I love you

or making up a song about superman

all by himself in the living room.

he says, go away mom, don't talk (meaming

I have to do this alone, don't listen

cause it might not be perfect the first time).

I send you this in guise of a letter

because that's the way the words are falling out

of my fingers. in my mind I hear

the tapping on keys and it comforts me

at least I can listen to myself talk

without talking out loud (for that's

what crazy women do).

so I keep on writing & dreaming

trying to live truthfully

with my emotions, in my body

and I hope you do the same.

from Little Mother, published 1997

Jennifer Boire

Compassion Tao Te Ching

2011-05-27T10:33:00.002-04:00

# 67

Excerpt

I have just three things to teach:

Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and in thoughts,

You return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies

You accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,

You reconcile all beings in the world.

Quebec in Spring

2011-04-08T08:34:00.002-04:00

Radio announces 22 degree high

only 12 this morning

(a boy refuses to wear a jacket to school).

Tomorrow, snow flurries.

Warming sun sinks her down into a lawn chair.

Bird chatter up in the white ash,

silence of winter broken.

Black lab rushes birds to the cedar hedge,

seeds brim over the feeder, swarms of bugs.

Drying out wet boxes, soggy winter dirt.

Skis, bikes & roller blades clutter the garage.

Big oil slick on the paving stone.

When will the honeysuckle bloom?

so far only dried twigs.

She waits in her lawn chair.

Hopi Quote

2011-03-16T16:51:00.002-04:00

"There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.

They will try to hold on to the shore.

They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves.

For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over.

Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we've been waiting for."

Oraibi, ArizonaHopi Nation

Mother of Heaven

2011-03-10T16:22:00.000-05:00

You are more lovely
than the sun and moon
shining in the sky together.

MOTHER of heaven,
Your wonders are sung
by those above and those below.

From Thunder, Perfect Mind (Gnostic gospels)

Do not be ignorant of me. Be on your guard!

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored one and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one

I am the wife and the virgin

I am the mother and the daughter

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one

And many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great

And I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labour pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom.

And it is my husband who begot me

I am the mother of my father.

Heart Centered

2011-03-07T12:31:00.002-05:00

Since October I have been living with a frozen shoulder, and seriously questioning the source of its restricted movement - was I being asked to do less, to rest more? Yes, partly. Was I being asked to relinquish my self-stated role as Overarching Boss of Everything (at least in my household)? yes, partly. Was it about surrendering to my left side, my receptive, feminine side and letting go of the yang, masculine active side? yes, partly. But today I heard another piece of the message.

A friend of mine, Lauren Young http://ascendingenergies.com/ had set up an interview with me over the phone as practice for a class he is doing at the NHC (http://www.nhcinstitute.com/). He began by asking me if I had any questions - and the only thing that really popped up for me was a question relating to the shoulder injury. He told me it was not related to doing too much, but more related to the heart energy and its expression being stuck. He suggested it was an energetic blockage, like a bunch of tangled knots in my shoulder, but coming from my heart's desire for full expression. (I first typed this as 'nots' in my shoulder....hmmm)

While listening to him, I was getting an internal message that this might also be linked to my desire to be more public, more out there in the world with my message for women, with a new book I'm writing, the retreats and workshops I lead and need to publicize better. And also aboutthe need to protect myself, the push-pull conflict of wanting to be more available for new opportunities, and yet fearful of how much I want my private time for myself, for quiet reading, reflection and resting. It could also be about how I manifest my energy in the world - as loving energetically flowing person, or as fearful of being judged, vulnerable, unloveable person. Finally, what I learned is that the most important power I have within me is the power of my intention. What do I truly want?

This was an important new understanding for me, and I look forward to exploring it some more.

It was very helpful to have a trained, intuitive counsellor bring clarity and guidance on this issue. Thanks Lauren!

nameste
musemother/jenn

Quotes on Relaxation and Harmony

2011-02-10T17:15:00.000-05:00

"A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretence and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself." --Maya Angelou

Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. ~Chinese Proverb

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." - Anna Quindlen

Quotes on Stress and slowing down

2011-01-10T10:14:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. ~Etty Hillesum

Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering. ~Pooh's Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it. ~Attributed to both Jim Goodwin and Sydney J. Harris

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. ~Ovid

F or fast-acting relief, try slowing down. ~Lily Tomlin

found on internet, stress quotes

Follow your Bliss

2011-01-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

I first heard this in Joseph Campbell's book, the Power of Myth, but I also have a Zena Moon candle that has this lovely phrase and the following quote:

Don't ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people
who have come alive.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lovely reader, what makes you come alive?

musemother

Burying the dead twice

2011-01-01T15:55:00.002-05:00

unlocks emotions tucked away
stuns the feet into stumbling along
with no understanding.
Normal gets lost when the other half is gone,
one side of your body goes numb,
the harness empty where a pair was.
How to relearn walking working waking
alone in bed at 2:00 am,
no sound of breath or snore to wake you
to comfort or discomfit you,
relearning snow tires, car rentals, traveling
without a navigator, groceries, hammer and nail.

To keep company with the dead, listen to their prayers
whining at the door, like a dog wanting in.
I’m afraid we’re all in the same boat.
No leaving before it hits shore.
No staying past your time,
very little say in the matter.

The coming and going of each breath
is a blessing, he said.
Count your blessings.

Jennifer Boire

A Thousand Kisses Deep

2010-11-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

Don't you love Leonard Cohen's voice? so deep and passionate, so wise and admitting of vulnerability. Hearing a poem read is So much better....

This one,just found on Facebook youtube link, is also a song. The words alone are very poignant and moving.

Love the day!
Jenn/musemother

Song for the Heart: Mount Royal Park

2010-10-14T21:43:00.001-04:00

Tonight I call to my heart to return,

to give flesh to the dry beanlike

thing in its place. I dance looking out

over the mountain at dusk, small lights

bright on the hillside – a whole city turning

dark – close my eyes and sing to it,

feel a flutter of wing beats,

like spring returning. One star sighted

just above the horizon. Feet planted on

wooden floor feel small yet part

of sky stars mountain breathing

rocking on soles of my feet.

Outside the window, streetlamps

line Park Avenue like pilgrims on their way

to the cross, light.

In Mount Royal park, an angel

spreads her wings over the dark.

Jennifer Boire

Inspiring quote for today

2010-09-20T17:05:00.002-04:00

The boat I travel in is called Surrender. My two oars are instant
forgiveness and gratitude — complete gratitude for the gift of life. I
am thankful for the experience of this life, for the opportunity to
dance. I get angry, I get mad, but as soon as I remind myself to put my
oars in the water, I forgive.

I serve. I do the dance I must. I plant trees, but I am not the doer of
this work. I am the facilitator, the instrument. I am one part of the
symphony. I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony that I
cannot understand. In some way, we are each playing our own part. It is
not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another. All I know
is that this is my dance. I would plant trees today even if I knew for a
certainty that the world would end tomorrow.
Balbir Mathur

The Real Work

2010-08-09T11:16:00.000-04:00

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

And that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

-Wendell Berry

Here by Grace Paley

2010-08-05T09:09:00.001-04:00

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last   a woman
in the old style   sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt   grandchild sliding
on   off my lap   a pleasant
summer perspiration

that's my old man across the yard
he's talking to the meter reader
he's telling him the world's sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa   ask him
to sit beside me for a minute   I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips

Empowering Quotes

2010-07-14T12:20:00.000-04:00

"Once you become aware of what stands in your way and become willing to release it, you signal the universe that you are ready to manifest the life you were meant to live." Chérie Carter-Scott

Our Deepest Fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our Deepest Fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you NOT to be? Marianne Williamson

“Solitude, says the moon shell. Every person, especially every woman, should be alone sometime during the year, some part of each week, and each day. How revolutionary that sounds and how impossible of attainment. ... The world today does not understand, in either man or woman, the need to be alone.
...
Solitude, says the moon shell. Center-down, say the Quaker saints. To the possession of the self the way is inward, says Plotinus. The cell of self-knowledge is the stall in which the pilgrim must be reborn, says St. Catherine of Siena.” From A Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Mother Daughter poems

2010-06-24T16:07:00.001-04:00

the daughters of alcoholics

We are made able

we are always stable

we do not drink

from deep in the darkness

our souls shine

phosphorent eyes

of eels at 20,000 leagues

under the sea

We have been left in total dark

so how can we see?

We are far from the Ark --

a thousand splintered pieces

float on the surface

far above.

Down here, the pressure

can kill.

Desiderata

2010-05-17T09:38:00.002-04:00

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even to the dull and ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;

they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain or bitter,

for always there will be greater

and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble,

it's a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals,

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.

Especially do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love;

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit

to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life,

keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy.

Author - Max Ehrmann (1872 - 1945)

You Learn by Jorge Luis Borges

2010-05-07T09:21:00.001-04:00

After a while you learn the subtle difference

Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,

And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning

And company doesn't mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts

And presents aren't promises,

And you begin to accept your defeats

With your head up and your eyes open

with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,

And you learn to build all your roads on today

Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans

And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn...

That even sunshine burns if you get too much.

so you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,

Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure...

That you really are strong

And you really do have worth...

And you learn and learn...

With every good-bye you learn.

by Jorge Luis Borges

ranslation by Veronica A. Shoffstall

found on Oriah Mountaindreamer's Facebook page

Poem for Spring Flowers

2010-05-01T09:22:00.001-04:00

http://www.stellaalesi.com/blog

April
by James Schuyler

The morning sky is clouding up
and what is that tree,
dressed up in white? The fruit
tree, French pear. Sulphur-
yellow bees stud the forsythia
canes leaning down into the transfer
across the park. And trees in
skimpy flower bud suggest
the uses of paint thinner, so
fine the net they cast upon
the wind. Cross-pollination
is the order of the fragrant day.
That was yesterday: today is May,
not April and the magnolias
open their goblets up and
an unseen precipitation
fills them. A gray day in May.

poem from poets.org A Poem a Day

Poem for Women's Day

2010-03-09T10:34:00.000-05:00

Imagine a Woman II

Imagine a woman who is interested in her own life.
A woman who embraces her life as teacher, healer, and challenge.
Who is grateful for the ordinary moments of beauty and grace.

Imagine a woman who participates in her own life.
A woman who meets each challenge with creativity.
Who takes action on her own behalf with clarity and strength.

Imagine a woman who has crafted a fully-formed solitude.
A woman who is available to herself.
Who chooses friends and lovers with the capacity to respect her solitude.
Imagine a woman who acknowledges the full range of human emotion.
A woman who expresses her feelings clearly and directly.
Who allows them to pass through her as naturally as the breath.

Imagine a woman who tells the truth.
A woman who trusts her experience of the world and expresses it.
Who refuses to defer to the thoughts, perceptions, and responses of others.

Imagine a woman who follows her creative impulses.
A woman who produces original creations.
Who refuses to color inside someone else’s lines.

Imagine a woman who has relinquished the desire for intellectual safety and approval.
A woman who makes a powerful statement with every action she takes.
Who asserts to herself the right to reorder the world.

Imagine a woman who has grown in knowledge and love ofherself.
A woman who has vowed faithfulness to her own life.
Who remains loyal to herself. Regardless.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

“Imagine a Woman II” © Patricia Lynn Reilly, 1995
Excerpt: Imagine a Woman in Love with Herself (Conari, 1999)

Meeting my Own Grief

2010-02-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Meeting my grief, even if only halfway, sucks

the breath right out of my lungs.

Suddenly my bra is too tight.

My counselor said, look at that young girl’s stories

with compassion (I unhook the bra).

How to step into the gravity field of my own longing. *

I dream the river is rising. The big car rounds

the bend, makes a wide turn to avoid

splashing water at the crest of the hill.

I round up the kids, get us to higher ground,

look for a shortcut over that highway.

But a man says, only turnpikes, clover leafs,

You can’t get there on foot.

Swallow my grief? Or swim right through it?

I step into the river.

poem by me
*quote from David Whyte

Conversations with God

2010-01-18T20:40:00.000-05:00

Love this book.

Here's an excerpt I particularly like:

"The most loving person is the person who is self-centered.

People think, "If I can just love others, they will love me. Then I will be lovable and I can love me." Deep down we've been lead to believe we are bad, unworthy, missing some essential ingredient and we have to behave well to be loved.

...Your first relationship must be with your Self. You must first learn to honour and cherish and love your Self. You must first see yourself as worthy before you can see another as worthy.

Honour your feelings means to honour the self. Then you can honour the feelings of another. Have the feeling and then you step back from the rage, upset, disgust - you disown them as not who you want to be. You try them out until you realize you don't want to do that anymore - it's no longer who you want to be."

Keeping Things Whole

2009-11-27T16:32:00.000-05:00

In a field
I am the absence
of field.

This is always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

- Mark Strand

Stepping Westward

2009-11-25T14:16:00.000-05:00

Denise Levertov

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.

If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to

ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now

is a time of ripening.
If her part

is to be true,
a north star,

good, I hold steady
in the black sky

and vanish by day,
yet burn there

in blue or above
quilts of cloud.

There is no savor
more sweet, more salt

than to be glad to be
what, woman,

and who, myself,
I am, a shadow

that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out

on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens

they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket

of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me

in fragrance, I can
eat as I go.

To all my women friends, who carry that basket, and bear those gifts.
I learned this poem in a poetry class with Fran Quinn, in New York City several years ago, in which we all learned the value of learning a poem by heart, and making it our own.

Welcome Change of Seasons

2009-10-19T17:15:00.000-04:00

in our bodies we feel the wind get colder
in our bodies we see the sun shining in a thousand mirrored flashes of light
on the water
in our bodies we feel the rain grunting into earth
in our bodies we feel the gorgeous colours reeling in the trees
in our bodies we feel the fall
in our bodies we feel the turning over

let it shift you
let it shift your gears
let it shift you into whatever fall brings you
butternut squash soup and mushrooms
zuccini flowers and pumpkins
the end of black eyed susans and impatience
the comfort of blankets and scarves and fireplaces
let it soothe you

that the circle keeps turning

welcome fall

Wisdom for women: Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

2009-10-06T13:38:00.000-04:00

Wisdom for women: Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

2009-10-05T17:07:00.000-04:00

the collage above was done at our Spring Retreat at H-OM yoga studio in April 2009 by Suzy, one of our participants.

She is a photographer, and she added the words in digitally after the fact.

Gorgeous artistic reminder of our need for self-care and kindness.

musemother

October by Mary Oliver

2009-10-05T13:05:00.000-04:00

There's this shape, black as the entrance to a cave.
A longing wells up in its throat
like a blossom
as it breathes slowly.

What does the world
mean to you if you can't trust it
to go on shining when you're

not there? and there's
a tree, long-fallen; once
the bees flew to it, like a procession
of messengers, and filled it
with honey.

2
I said to the chickadee, singing his heart out in the
green pine tree:

little dazzler
little song,
little mouthful.
3

The shape climbs up out of the curled grass. It
grunts into view. There is no measure
for the confidence at the bottom of its eyes--
there is no telling
the suppleness of its shoulders as it turns
and yawns.
Near the fallen tree
something--a leaf snapped loose
from the branch and fluttering down--tries to pull me
into its trap of attention.

4
It pulls me
into its trap of attention.

And when I turn again, the bear is gone.

5
Look, has'nt my body already felt
like the body of a flower?

6
Look, I want to love this world
as thought it's the last chance I'm ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.

7
Sometimes in late summer I won't touch anytthing, not
the flowers, not the blackberries
brimming in the thickets; I won't drink
from the pond; I won't name the birds or the trees;
I won't whisper my own name.

One morning
the fox came down the hill, glittering and confident,
and didn't see me--and I thought:

so this is the world.
I'm not in it.
It is beautiful.

Song for Autumn

2009-09-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/treantaso/2072229303/ (photo credits)

By Mary Oliver

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come — six, a dozen — to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.

found at http://ethershopf06.umwblogs.org/

The Holy Longing poem

2009-09-03T10:50:00.000-04:00

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent.
Because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher lovemaking
sweeps you upward.

Distance does no tmake you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.

Healing Retreats that only take a minute

2009-08-21T11:05:00.000-04:00

We all need to feel healed, whole. But there are times in our lives when we feel this need more strongly. Here are some Signs that you need a healing retreat, found in the book 20-Minute Retreats by Rachel Harris:

1. You suffer from chronic symptoms such as headache, upset stomach, musculoskeletal aches and pains, with no clear medical diagnosis.
2. You don't feel rested and refreshed upon awakening.
3. Your sleep is disturbed
4. You find you have more cirtical or negative things to say than constructive and positive comments
5. The energy in and around your body feels imbalanced, jagged, edgy.
6. You feel too vulnerable, easily hurt or weak.
7. You're overreacting to daily stress with impatience, frustration, annoyance or irritation.
8. You're at a crisis or major transition in your life and you need to reconsider your life direction, values and calling.
9. It's your fiftieth birthday.
10. You have just suffered a major loss.
11. Your medical doctor has given you a serious helath warning or medical diagnosis.
12. You have some uncomfortable relationships in your past or current life that you would like to heal.

She goes on to outline several 1- 5 minute retreats one can do for healing. Here is one of them:

One-minute retreat-Gathering Bamboo (good for relieving headaches, soothing tiredness, clearing your vision)

Sit with your head hanging forward slightly as if you were looking down at your lap. Place your thumbs in the corners of your eye sockets under the inner point of your eyebrows. You should feel a ledge there where your thumbs seem to fit perfectly. Allow your thumbs to support the weight of your head for a full minute.

This is a polarity therapy technique.

Sweet Darkness

2009-08-06T09:38:00.000-04:00

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be
your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

~David Whyte

Coming Home to myself

2009-07-30T14:11:00.000-04:00

extract

The Self
pushes the neglected forward
for recognition.
Do not disregard it.
it holds energy
of highest value.
it is the gold in the dung.
do not disregard the dung.

Marion Woodman,Jill Mellick

The Poet

2009-07-27T15:52:00.000-04:00

James Kirkup

Each instant of his life, a task, he never rests,
And works most when he appears to be doing nothing.
The least of it is putting down in words
What usually remains unwritten and unspoken,
And would so often be much better left
Unsaid, for it is really the unspeakable
That he must try to give an ordinary tongue to.

And if, by art and accident,
He utters the unutterable, then
It must appear as natural as a breath,
Yet be an inspiration. And he must go,
The lonlier for his unwanted miracle
His singular way, a gentle lunatic at large
In the societies of cross and reasonable men.

Words of Peace

2009-07-18T15:36:00.000-04:00

We are waiting for word that Prem Rawat may come to North America soon, after his European tour, and most specially we are waiting in Toronto and Montreal.

Prem Rawat, also known as Maharaji, offers a way to go within and experience peace as it already exists in each human being.

Right under our noses, right under our breath, is a well of peace and serenity, a peace that he describes as being 'the perfume of God'.

see www.wordsofpeace.ca or www.wopg.org for news and updates on upcoming events around the world, and closer to home for us North Americans.

have a wonderful, sunny summer day (for those of you in my area, where the sun has persisted inspite of rain clouds this morning).

musemother

What to Pray For

2009-07-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

"People pray to God for things they want: a son, or money, or a job. People want God’s blessings to fulfil their desires’, he says. ‘Yet God has already blessed you. His hand is on your head, for the greatest blessing is the coming and going of this breath, which keeps you alive so effortlessly’."

taken from website: wordsofpeace global

http://www.wopg.org/en/news/ontheroadwithmaharaji/69-india-nepal-event

Self knowledge

2009-06-29T16:08:00.000-04:00

Without self-knowledge
you are just wandering.
If you could realize that the pilgrimage
you are making has to happen
on the inside -
the infinite being is inside of you
you don't need to wander and be confused.

paraphrased from Prem Rawat
speaking in Meleka Malaysia, 2009

looking for the pause button....
visit http://www.wopg.org/
for poetry, videos, downloads and inspiration

Poem for The Change

2009-06-08T13:04:00.000-04:00

"(S)he who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
…

A woman drew her long black hair out tight
and fiddles whisper music on those strings
and bats with baby faces in the violet light
whistled and beat their wings"

from The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot

“Desire puts us back in our bodies…mind dissolves and the body focuses like a cat
watching a bird. We need to feel. We need the body back”
Labyrinthe of Desire, Rosemary Sullivan

Mother Famine (in Recognition of Eve Ensler)

2009-05-14T12:46:00.000-04:00

Mother-famine
You were lost to me before I was born. When the ram’s horn blew and the temple walls came tumbling down over my head, stone by stone, at Jericho. I lost you when I ran into the forest, frightened and longing to see your pale face reflected under leaves, in between rocks, your smile of courage egging me on. I lost you when little girls were made to lie beneath the rude soldiers rescuing them, or the sweaty uncles petting them, or the firm young brothers forcing the soft ones with songs on their tongues. You were lost to me when the first midwife was throttled and drowned, when they began to round up the healer women, looking for the devil’s teats on our bodies, then lit the bonfires.

I lost you before the Peloponesian Wars, lost you again when the Mongolian hordes rode their rough ponies through, lost you when the blue-tiled walls of Mikonos were razed by Greek soldiers. Your body bruised and buried, encased in the bogs, your memory and stories erased by Deuteronomy, by Hammurabai, by Zeus. You reign now only as a faint shadow in the moon, but even there, re-named Old Man, until archeologists unearthed your wide hips and round belly, bringer of rains, harvest, and safe berth.

Give us this day our daily bread, and let us eat, remembering. Instead, our female children starve themselves bone-thin to repudiate your flesh, we slice it out of our bodies, we hide it in our fat, we choke ourselves and vomit, re-enact that first shame under the Tree, when making a human form, the labour it entails and the blood that comes with each moon became a curse.

Oh let me rekindle that fierce mother love– and weep for the mother slayers. Can I shield my daughter from the truth that she is powerful and because of that she may be killed? This is your secret, the power of birth and the real miracle of blood turning into milk (not water into wine). We, who rely on these first stories to understand our place in the world, have had a bone stuck in our throats or should I say an apple core, for a very long time.

Give me back my mother love, my rising star, my Venus, the sun’s circle of life: let the man in the sky stop building missiles and fighter F14 jets for South Korea, Pakistan, Israel and South Africa, let the Old Man in the US Senate hear the voices of the women. Let the African governments hear the voices of their raped and damaged daughters.

Let the Lebanese women rise, let the Pakistani women rise, let the Afghan women, the Chechen women, the Colombian women, the Rwandan women, the Venezuelan women, the Chinese women, the Uzbekistani women, the Congolese women, let the women in the veil, the women in purdah, the women stoned to death, the women doused with kerosene for their dowry, the women thrown down wells for honour, the women sliced open and sewn shut, the women interred, let all the women remember you.

Your light was not always this dim.

Jennifer/musemother

**Please read Eve Ensler's speech to Canadian Parliament about the rape of the women in Congo. "Until The Violence Stops: How Canada Can Help End The Use Of Sexual Violence As A Weapon In War."

Read Eve's speech to the Canadian Parliament at:
http://www.vday.org/canada-parliament

taken from V-Day Newsletter, May 14, 2009

Poem for Middle Aged Women

2009-05-12T13:04:00.000-04:00

Cross Currents
by Noelle Sickels

The moon's choreography
is less reliable now.
Unlike the obedient tides
my body chooses its own tempo,
sways out of rhythm
then drifts in step again
for a measure or two.

It surprises my attention.
I had forgotten this last bend
in the yawing currents;
Did not expect as much drama
as at the beginning,
when childhood washed away
like an unguarded doll
at the water's edge;
Or in the middle,
when all of me swelled
with the briny broth
of a stranger's life.
Now again, I search the mirror,
hunt for how my face reveals
the changing course within.

People say I do not look my age,
as if I'd won a prize.
They say I am too young
to parenthesize the moon.
I can not always say I do not like
what people say;
Do not, some days want
to conjour back the blood,
rejoin the familiar round.
Do not, like a lone sailor
in a cloud-thick night,
long to drop anchor
and forget the creaking tiller
the unknown destination
the shape of undreamt shores.

found in Claiming the Spirit Within
a sourcebook of women's poetry
ed by Marilyn Sewell

Motherless

2009-05-07T09:58:00.001-04:00

Julien somersaults onto my lap, Caitlin drums
in the dark basement. I fear for
their lithe bodies
that jump & fall, bounce back,
and blithely go,
while lightning strikes the ground
around them.

Today I feel like a motherless child.
My hips are creaky as an old door.
Where do you go, when you're only lonely,
curled up on your bed
with an ancient urge
to suck your thumb?

I was mothered, and also abandoned.
Now I mother me,
and God mothers me
& I am not alone.

(I wish my children faith in that kind of power,
in the face of winds that devour.)

Mother Love

2009-05-04T15:30:00.000-04:00

“If it is in a woman’s nature to nurture then she must nourish herself.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Oneness within

2009-04-23T11:48:00.000-04:00

You who want knowledge,
seek the Oneness within

There you will find
the clear mirror already waiting.

Hadewijch II of Antwerp 13th ct

From Women in Praise of the Sacred
ed Jane Hirshfield

Words of Peace

2009-04-02T13:37:00.001-04:00

An ageless message, a timeless quest
something old, something new

what you are looking for is inside of you

check out www.wordsofpeace.ca

or www.wordsofpeace.com

for heart-opening news for the current century :)

nameste
musemother

Poem for Spring

2009-03-31T14:45:00.001-04:00

Listen to the birds

The prodigious wind doth blow and heartily.

Something is about to happen.
Listen, it calls you…
bright from within the shining …
glistens, whispers, wet, alive.

Speak, but from the wordless place.

This wind outspeaks the loud roadways
outvoices birds, bells,
the ubiquitious
chrome chimes.

The open sky above the field
echoes dump trucks’ rattle.
Overhead
high clouds line up,
booming by.

Dark over the lake, coming fast,
see the red-winged black-bird
hear the willow breathe –

all that roaring wind
punching branches up and down.
This is the week, the day
it may happen,
the first leaves.

Listen to the birds, robins, crows
They speak from the wordless place.
Something is about to…

No Place Like Home

2009-03-24T17:45:00.000-04:00

Yoga, breathing, relaxation and meditation are all ways of coming home to the place where the true you resides.

1. Come into proper sitting alignment with eyes closed. allow your spine to be long and naturally erect.

2. Take several full, deep, long breaths.

3. Inhale through your nose and exhale with an audible sigh, singing or saying 'Hoooh" on a single note until you are comfortably out of air. Repeat this several times. Allow yourself to become absorbed in the sound as you feel it resonate in your belly and vibrate in your heart.

4. Now inhale, then exhale, sighing, "Mmmmm" on the same note, mouth closed., Repeat several timmes. Allow this vibration to resonate in your heard.

5.Next, inhale through the nose. Combine the two sounds on the next exhalation with an open mouth, saying "Hooooh" and then "Mmmm" with a closed mouth. Feel your spine vibrate with this healing and soothing sound.

6. Practice this combination several times. Then simply sit in silence and listen to the sound of 'home' as if it were an echo singing back to you. Feel the effects of sound vibration on your body and mind.

Welcome home,
musemother

excerpted from Yoga for Your Spiritual Muscles, Rachel Schaeffer

How might your life have been different?

2009-02-16T10:23:00.000-05:00

from I sit Listening to the wind:

"How might your life have been different, once, long ago, when you had worked very hard to know what you knew inside, and were ready to bring it forth....but were suddenly filled with fear and guilt and unable to express yourself...and you felt utterly alone?

If there had been a circle of women waiting to receive you, eager to listen to your understanding of life.

If the women had known, from their own lives, that whenever a woman dares to bring forth the deepest meaning from within, she will be attacked by an old force inside, whose only purpose is to keep things as they are

...and the fact that those women existed made you feel less lonely. And if the women had helped you, supported you with their warmth...and by the wisdom and daring of their lives, given you the courage to speak,

how might your life be different?

by Judith Duerk

On Grief

2009-02-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

There are some griefs so loud
They could bring down the sky,
And there are griefs so still
None knows how deep they lie,
Endured, never expended.
There are old griefs so proud
They never speak a word;
They never can be mended.
And these nourish the will
And keep it iron-hard.

May Sarton, "On Grief"
Selected Poems of May Sarton

Sunrise by Mary Oliver

2009-01-08T15:49:00.000-05:00

You can
die for it --
an idea,
or the world. People

have done so,
brilliantly,
letting
their small bodies be bound

to the stake,
creating
an unforgettable
fury of light. But

this morning,
climbing the familiar hills
in the familiar
fabric of dawn, I thought

of China,
and India

and Europe, and I thought
how the sun

blazes
for everyone just
so joyfully
as it rises

under the lashes
of my own eyes, and I thought
I am so many!
What is my name?

What is the name
of the deep breath I would take
over and over
for all of us? Call it

whatever you want, it is
happiness, it is another one
of the ways to enter
fire.

Sacred Space

2008-12-10T10:47:00.000-05:00

I seek the solace of my own soul's company.

I seek the low-down quiet space inside, where I do not need to travel on pilgrimage, to a holy well, to a grotto or sacred spot with ancient memories of saints and goddesses.

I make my soul journey the passage from outside to within, in silence.

Curtains closed, I contemplate the life force moving, breathing me, allowing me breath.

Lao Tzu says this:

Without going out of my door
I know what the countryside is like.
Without glancing out of my window
I know the colour of the sky.
The farther you travel,
the less you know.
If you are wise,
you can arrive without going,
see without looking,
do everything while you are doing
nothing.

Susan Albert, after Lao Tzu

I found this place within with the help of my teacher.
hear more about his teaching at www.wordsofpeace.ca

nameste,
jenn

death and friends

2008-11-18T19:01:00.000-05:00

We prescribe a friend

We are wisdom and healing, roasted
meat and the star Canopus. We’re

ground and spilled wine soaking
in. When illness comes, we cure

it. For sadness we prescribe a
friend. For death, a friend. Run

to meet us on the road. We stay
modest and we bless. We look like

this, but this is a tree, and we
are morning wind in the leaves that

makes the branches move. Silence
turning now into this, now that.

Rumi

I found out today my cousin died of lung cancer, after 9 months of fighting it with various treatments. Rumi has such a perspective on things, on life, on death. I think the human warmth of friends is the greatest comfort, and silence. And morning sun on the lake.

Jennifer

The physics of cloudiness

2008-10-22T17:00:00.000-04:00

Apparently, when there is too much orderly tought, we are rigid, not creative, yet the opposite, scattered energy too haphazard, is not useful either - nothing sticks or persists. But where order and disorder meet and interlace, in the liminal space of ambiguity, creativity lives, just on the edge of chaos.

One more request to the mountain (Taos)

my hunger for mountains could be a hunger for mother love
the Ma of existence, the One mother
shadow play of leaves on the stucco wall
reaching, touching, rubbing against
each other's shadow
the way twenty-five women in a room see themselves
in each other's shadows
and cannot easily see their own
without a mirror
but when one opens her heart and speaks,
it brings tears to 25 pairs of eyes

We have all considered not sharing
our visions, our goals, affirmations and dreams
but when one of us does, it feeds all of our souls
like leaf shadows playing on the wall
feeds a need for beauty, art, music in my soul
that gentle play.

there are other shadows, dark clouds leaving the mountain
in darkness, that feel more like waking in the pitch black
of 4 am after a bad dream, aware that monsters
and demons exist, and although in theory
I know it is merely a shadow, I still shiver
a little.

note to self: embrace the physics of cloudiness
stop rearranging the furniture

jennifer

women's journey and circles

2008-09-02T21:22:00.001-04:00

Two summers ago, I ventured to Taos New Mexico for a Writer's Spa, a writing retreat with twenty women, which included yoga, yummy food and daily exercises and inspiration from Jennifer Louden and Suzanne Falter-Barnes. (http://www.comfortqueen.com/) and (http://www.howmuchjoy.com/)

It started me on a path of discovery, and change, as I left trying to publish more poetry books and explored what was next for me. One of the things I am learning on the journey is how fruitful and supportive it is to travel in the company of other women, especially those who are like-minded and thirsty for a deeper meaning.

Jennifer Louden's book "The Woman's Retreat Book - A guide to restoring, rediscovering and reawakening your true self- in a moment, an hour or a weekend", has been instrumental in helping me unblock my creativity, find a truly restful way of holding mini-retreats in my own room, and find ways reach out to share these ideas with others.

Another favourite author is Judith Duerk, author of Circle of Stones, and I Sit Listening to the Wind. The importance of sharing our deepest moments with other women is evoked in this passage from Circle of Stones:

"How might your life have been different, if long ago when you were still a tiny child, long before you began to come to the Women’s Lodge as the normal cycle of your life, you had been brought here especially by your mother and aunts…and you and your girl cousin entered shyly into this place you had overheard so much about?

And after the fires were lighted, and the drumming, and the silence, you heard, for the very first time, what the women called the Naming…each woman speaking slowly into the stillness, sharing her feeling of how she saw her life and what she wished to say of it…sharing it with the women around her…weaving the threads of her life into a fabric to be given and named.

And as the shadows of the day lengthened into dusk and you leaned your head against your mother's shoulder, you pondered in your heart a different sense of a woman's life..."

From Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk

The Honey Tree

2008-08-20T13:57:00.000-04:00

And so at last I climbed

the honey tree, ate

chunks of pure light, ate

the bodies of bees that could not

get out of my way, ate

the dark hair of the leaves,

the rippling bark,

the heartwood. Such

frenzy! But joy does that,

I'm told, in the beginning.

Later, maybe,

I'll come here only

sometimes and with a

middling hunger. But now

I climb like snake,

I clamber like a bear to

the nuzzling place, to the light

salvaged by the thighs

of bees and racked up

in the body of the tree.

Oh, anyone can see

how I love myself at last!

how I love the world! climbing

by day or night

in the wind, in the leaves, kneeling

at the secret rip, the cords

of my body stretching

and singing in the

heaven of appetite.

Mary Oliver

Choosing to Stay at Home with kids, poem

2008-07-22T14:13:00.000-04:00

A Woman's Choice

It's the small details:
rat's nest in his hair,
holes in her tights,
who is whose friend today at school,
making sure the right combo of green & orange
gets into their mouths, being there at 3:45
to greet the loudmouth bus driver &
rescue my five year old from bumpy sleep.

No pay, long hours, no public recognition
yet in my heart a small voice says
cancel all job interviews
hold that resume in a file waiting,
like my high heels and work suits in the cupboard,
let my degrees gather dust on the wall.

I want to be there when the first tooth falls,
a quiet rite of passage & mine to revel in.
It means postponing ego strokes.
It means no time just for me, but also
not being split down the middle working double shifts.
I can wait for the glory of a pat on the back & a salaried job.

Right now there's some small things I must attend to:
this three-year-old in pigtails, this fragile boy in the schoolyard.

published in Mothering Magazine

menopause poems

2008-07-21T16:42:00.000-04:00

Medusa 1878 Arnold Bocklin

Medusa

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, - a bell hung ready to strike.
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
and the hissing hair,
held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this.
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
and the tipped bell make no soun.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day.
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

Louise Bogan (1897-1970) American poet,
found in Women Poets from Antiquity to Now

Poem for Midlife women and their Mothers

2008-06-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

August Third
by May Sarton

These days
lifting myself up
like a heavy weight,
old camel getting to her knees
I think of my mother
and the inexhaustible flame
that kept her alive
until she died.

She knew all about fatigue
and how one pushes it aside
for staking up the lilies
early in the morning,
the way one pushes it aside
for a friend in need,
for a hungry cat.

Mother, be with me
today on your birthday.
I am older than you were
when you died
thirty-five years ago.
Thinking of you
the old camel gets to her knees,
stands up,

Moves forward slowly
into the new day.

If you taught me one thing
It was never to fail life.

Trust

2008-06-09T11:45:00.000-04:00

(c) Free nature photos

a woman with too many poems in her hair
can never get enough
blue sky
the world misses her
wildness

for her, the world starts above the trees,
up
with the wisps of cloud

she flies on the back
of the blue=tailed swallow
high enough to sing, or she swings,

a leggy girl with pointed toes
pumping higher until she can see
over fences
over rose bushes
right into the blue water
of the swimming pool next door

& she learns to trust
the air that heaves her
far from earth

little beetle with silver wings
takes flight, circles
overhead
then flies diretly
into the sun

from Little Mother, Hochelaga Press, 1997
originally published in Index, the Montreal
literary calendar, 1995

Mother Famine

2008-05-28T17:02:00.000-04:00

You were lost to me before I was born.

When the ram’s horn blew and the temple walls came tumbling down over my head, stone by stone, at Jericho. I lost you when I ran into the forest, frightened and longing to see your pale face reflected under leaves, in between rocks, your smile of courage egging me on.

I lost you when little girls were made to lie beneath the rude soldiers rescuing them, or the sweaty uncles petting them, or the firm young brothers forcing the soft ones with songs on their tongues. You were lost to me when the first midwife was throttled and drowned, when they began to round up the healer women, looking for the devil’s teats on our bodies, then lit the bonfires.

I lost you before the Peloponesian Wars, lost you again when the Mongolian hordes rode their rough ponies through, lost you when the blue-tiled walls of Mikonos were razed by Greek soldiers. Your body bruised and buried, encased in the bogs, your memory and stories erased by Deuteronomy, by Hammurabai, by Zeus. You reign now as a faint shadow in the moon, but even there, re-named Old Man, until archeologists unearthed your wide hips and round belly, bringer of rains, harvest, and safe berth.

Give us this day our daily bread, and let us eat, remembering. Instead, our female children starve themselves bone-thin to repudiate your flesh; we slice it out of our bodies, we hide it in our fat, we choke ourselves and vomit, re-enact that first shame under the Tree, when making a human form, the labour it entails and the blood that comes with each moon became a curse.

Oh let me rekindle that fierce mother love– and weep for the mother slayers.

Can I shield my daughter from the truth that she is powerful and because of that she may be raped or killed? This is your secret, the power of birth and the real miracle of blood turning into milk (not water into wine). We, who rely on these first stories to understand our place in the world, have had a bone stuck in our throats for a very long time.

Give me back my mother love, my rising star, my Venus, the sun’s circle of life:

let the man in the sky stop building missiles and fighter F14 jets for South Korea, Pakistan, Israel and South Africa,
let the Old Man in the US Senate hear the voices of the women.
Let the African governments hear the voices of their raped and damaged daughters.
Let the Lebanese women rise, let the Pakistani women rise, let the Afghan women, the Chechen women, the Colombian women, the Rwandan women, the Venezuelan women, the Chinese women, the Uzbekistani women,
let the women in the veil, the women in purdah, the women stoned to death, the women doused with kerosene for their dowry, the women thrown down wells for honour, the women sliced open and sewn shut, the women interred,
let all the women remember you.

Your light was not always this dim.

musemother
aka jenn

Union

2008-05-26T09:50:00.000-04:00

....I am being reminded to integrate the masculine and the feminine. to respect the Male Divinity as well as the Goddess. Six months before, on the same land, I experienced a deep and spontaneous sharing with a friend. It was as if a veil were pulled aside and I suddenly realized how alienated I had been from the Father God.

My hellfire and brimstone Christian fundamentalist upbringing had turned me off to the image of God as a punishing and critical father. In my twenties I turned to the Great Mother Goddess for comfort and healing. Now I am being guided to the next step. It is time to turn to the male side of the Divine (of my own psyche as well) to clear away the false images and find my own true relationship between the two sides.

As if to acknowledge my surrender to the task, I plunge into the pool headfirst. I am naked except for my gold ring with a triangular blue topaz, the ring I gave myself as a symbol of the sacred trinity - Father, Mother and Divine Child or Christ Being.

Kneeling in the grass, with the hot sun on my face, I pray to be shown a way to be in a true partnership of the masculine and feminine. Opening my eyes, I see two bright red dragonflies beginning their mating dance, swooping joyfully in tandem. ..."See, just like that! We can be like that and dance and fly together."

from The Woman's Retreat Book
(by a woman on retreat by herself)

Tyranny of the Masculine, yearning for the feminine

2008-05-23T14:34:00.000-04:00

Here's a telling excerpt from The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock:

"What many heroines want is exactly what their fathers wanted and toook for granted--someone to take care of them....to listen to their woes, massage their battle-weary bodies, appreciate their successes and take away the pain of their losses. They want a relationship to the feminine....but they know not what is missing, so they fill the pain with more activity....

"This obsessive need to stay busy and productive keeps her from having to experience her growing sense of loss. But what is this loss? Surely she has achieved everything she has set out to do, but it has come at great sacrifice to her soul. Her relationship with her inner world is estranged.

...She will depend on no one. She drives herself relentlessly to the brink of exhaustion. She forgets how to say no, has to be all things to all people, and ignores her own need to be cared for and loved. She is out of control. Her relationship to her inner masculine has become distorted and tyrannical, he never lets her rest...."

The Inner Marriage

2008-05-13T13:58:00.000-04:00

If we are depending on our partner
to make us whole,
we're in trouble.
Sooner or later, we shall feel betrayed.
Sooner or later, we shall hate the dependence,
sooner or later, we may be the one
who does the betraying.
Wholeness is within.

Marion Woodman with Jill Mellick
Coming Home to Myself

Beyond Perfectionism

2008-05-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

As long as we try to transcend ourselves,
reach for the sky,
pull away from ground and into spirit,
we are heroes carved in stone.
We stand atop the pillar alone
blind to the pigeon's droppings.

Do not try to transform yourself.
Move into yourself.
Move into your human unsuccess.
Perfection rapes the soul.

* * * * * * *

It is easier to try
to be better
than you are
than to be
who you are.

Marion Woodman, Coming home to myself,
with Jill Mellick

Lost

2008-04-29T11:28:00.000-04:00

by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes besideyou
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat is as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Rumi and Silence

2008-04-12T11:25:00.000-04:00

Back into the Reedbed!

Time to ignore sensible advice,
to untie the knots our culture

ties us with. Cut to the quick!
Put cotton in both sentimental

ears. Go back intothe reedbed.
let cane sugar rise again in you

No rules or daily duties. Those
do not bring the peace of silence.

translated by Coleman Barks,
The Soul of Rumi

Wooing the Unknown (watching the mountain)

2008-04-08T09:25:00.000-04:00

written for
Taos
Mountain,
New Mexico

Dark cloud shadow
covers the face of the mountain.
My own face inscrutable, in the mirror.

I sit with the question
what is the one thing I love most,
the one thing I want to share
most with the world.

The clouds move slowly. No wind.
Little humps of green, foothills, grow black.

The poplars begin to shake.
Bird peeps from the Cottonwood tree.
A dark cloud moves this way,
now half the mountain is clouded over.

Rain announcing its venue - it is coming.

First, it grows dark.
Jennifer Boire Taos Journal

A Poem written against Despair

2008-03-24T11:18:00.000-04:00

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
Naomi Shihab Nye

She walked around the circular block of her neighbourhood
and saw that it was good.
She saw lawns newly cut, hedges neatly trimmed,
gardens clipped and tidy.
She saw chrysanthemums flourishing in pots, purple and gold.
She saw asters and brown-eyed Susans in abundance.

She saw three children in the playground.
One toddler, hands full of cookies, came to pat her dog.
(Maggie saw that it was good).
She saw the fresh pavement on the driveway,
where a new family had just moved in.
She saw the sumacs flaming orange and red along the
soccer field, and maples’ tips torched with the same fire.
She saw the houses, driveways and lawns,
each one more beautiful than the last.
She saw the sky was blue and the sun was warm,
and she told herself that it was good.

And that, in spite of the continuing war in Iraq,
uncommon famine in Darfur,
continued violence in Afghanistan and Sudan,
the Aids epidemic in Africa,
junkies in downtown cores and homeless children
all over the civilized world,
that to be alive, right here and now, was good.

She took a deep breath, and told herself,
Just for today, all I can do
is quiet the war inside of me,
give up the struggle in my own heart.

If just for today, one person gives up despair
and practices opening her heart to hope,
then peace in the heart will be her gift.

@ Jennifer Boire

Honour Your Inner Diva with a day off

2008-03-14T16:07:00.000-04:00

Have you seen the Tampax Pearl ad (I saw it in January's People magazine) that says, "Divas don't take days off"?

I'd like to change that ad, rewrite it to say, Divas dive deep on down days and take a breather.

How unfortunate that our 'joining' the masculine world of work has made us forget our feminine centre and our need for rest. We want to be up and running 30 days out of the month, but that's not healthy.

On a slightly different topic, I was visiting a friend who is a busy mom at home, with a 6 year old and a 2 year old girl. She reminded me what it was like to be at home with small children: no time to pee let alone read my emails, is how she put it. It reminded me also of how I struggled to feel 'productive' when I was in that stage. Children are so right brain, and non-linear, kind of floaty and still close to a dream state of imagination. And as adults we are in the linear, 'get to Point B from Point A' mode, so we push and pull them to get somewhere on time, make them fit into the linear, square box of pre-school or 'world out there', when really they are still round pegs, connected to the feminine, not able to fit into the 'productivity' and time-centered world of big people.

What would it be like to just accept that non-linear mode, enjoy life in the slow lane. Not even try to get out to a playgroup in 3 feet of snow with a stroller that can't roll on sidewalks, but invite other moms over to play and chat instead, with no structure or deadlines.

What if a woman could take a day off work right before her period, or on the first day, when she is feeling like she needs some down time, quiet time, to withdraw and be silent.

What would it do for our relationships if we could create a sense of sanctuary for our couple, time and space to be alone together without having to be somewhere, do something?

All this 'lack of time' and getting places on 'time' causes so much frustration. So let your sense of time be suspended when it's that special time of the month. Honour your inner diva.

Divas do take days off, and they are better women for it.

nameste,
jenn

Initiation and Ecstasy

2008-02-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

According to Alexandra Pope, women can access their own ecstasy during menstruation. Not many of us look at our periods as a doorway to an altered state of consciousness, or one that builds our intuitive powers and gives access to a natural high.

Initiation is what happens for women at 3 stages, at puberty, at pregnancy and at menopause. We naturally are not aware that something deeper is going on than the physical changes of our body landscapes. It's sad that we have lost the rituals and initiation ceremonies that used to welcome women into the next phase of the journey, at least in most Western cultures.

But it's there nonetheless. It's like we have a symbolic death and rebirth every month, not just at menopause. The disturbance and PMS symptoms we experience, are mostly due to our being out of tune with ourselves, and because of the lack of guidance from our elders. The knowledge of a woman's cycle of initiation has been effectively stamped out by fear of paganism, and goddess-centered religions.

We struggle every month to get a handle on our emotions. We struggle at puberty and menopause and resist the changes that are inevitable. We struggle because we do not know.

"Menstruation was regarded as a natural time of visioning and prophecy for some indigenous peoples, such as in North America. A woman at such time would vision for her whole community. To my mind menstrual disturbances can be a nascent vision or prophecy attempting to happen that you don't yet know how to read and interpret for your community...If women collectively were to stop 'coping with' or medicating their distress away, but rather let the truth of it unfold, this would be a profound shamanistic act of healing the world." Alexandra Pope, A woman's quest

So what can we do to access this inner knowledge?

Look after yourself. Self-care is utmost on the list. Be aware of your cycle and where you are in it. Try to reduce your dependence on electro-magnetic fields like TV and computers, cell phones in the few days prior to your period. It messes up your psychic antennae according to Pope.
Ask for a vision: ask for a clear message. Especially leading into and during menstruation.
Work with trance states: mostly we call it foggy thinnking, but if you slow down, move at the pace your body wants to go, let the dreaminess happen, you may notice a different kind of awareness and openness. Revel in it!

Let the unknown power of women's visioning come and touch you.
Lose your fear of your own cycle.

imagine what an empowered woman can do in this world?
namaste,
musemother

Reflections on feminine-masculine balance

2008-02-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

Marion Woodman has written about slowing down and meeting the inner feminine, and of the addiction to perfection that comes from living from outer instead of inner values. In our society we are driven, strive for outer approval, let our minds rule our hearts, disconnected from our female bodies. There is a drive for competition and always being right, a drive for control that kills the vulnerability in me, that does not accept uncertainty, or not knowing. In my dreams, my male animus is either a rebel on a motorcyle with a knife aimed at my belly, with the power to kill me if I don't escape, or more recently, a dying father, having a heart-attack, crumpled on the floor at my feet, while my son tries to prop him up.

The old way is dying in me, if I allow it.

Reflections on the life lived with controlling animus in charge:

- what seeks to be right, always
- what hates to live in uncertainty
- what crushing weight on my shoulders
- what blocks my breath
- what pushes past my children in a rush
- what stirves to compete, rushes to get things done
- what forgets to breathe
- what outdoes itself all the time
yet leaves basic life supporting things undone
- what ignores the daily tasks that feed the body
- what derives nourishment from thin air and refuses the
real feelings that are food for the soul
- what punishes and never weeps
- what killing highwayman robs me in my sleep
- what nightmares I pass on to my daughter
- what love I withhold in the name of criticism
- what nasty digs and sharp words hurt others
- what refuses to be vulnerable
- what disdains all that is weak, all that is feminine & holy
- what eats up my quiet time with fretting
- what perfectionism destroys my confidence
- what adherence to law and rote ties my stomach up in knots & grinds my teeth
- what need for approval weighs me down
- what sucks all the joy out of my heart
- what puts a crick in my neck & an ache in my breast
- what will never surrender

The unknown within will be known, makes itself known, uncovers my blind eyes.

The heart sees truly, the body signals the need for self-knowledge.

The feeling body tells the truth.

I listen to my own sadness and cry cleansing tears.

It brings me closer to my self.

I hold myself dear.

musemother
alias little jenn

Joy, where have you been hiding?

2008-01-29T08:58:00.000-05:00

Quiet rush of stilled air around the ears. Ho, you say, it’s nothing, only silence; or wild cheers, hosts of angels, violins, water rushing, wings beating?

Picture of myself 12 years ago at someone’s wedding: wide smile, clear face, Joy? Where have you been hiding? These days the face is a mask that sags into tiredness and fatigue, battling inertia or exhaustion. Fight or flight mode. Too many ancient walls crumbling, retreat from defenses, desire to come home to simplicity, breath, stillness, stretch the body to find its source, not will power, a different motive for moving. Plans yes, plenty, and renovations, vacations, readings, publishing projects, meetings, the Green coalition, the 6th Grade committee, annual general meeting of poets, computer emails phone calls, designer, friends, sisters, all want to plug into the computer already. Start the day! But I lay sleepless in the night for three long hours. Finally dreamt so I must have slept –one eye twitches now, signs of stress, fatigue. There is nothing I can do to save the world today.

The kids are safe in school, the laundry pile awaits downstairs and this rendez-vous
with her untold stories, unmet ghosts awaits her too. What did that singer say- her shed is immaculate, cause she is putting off doing her music work, cleaning house instead. How long can she put off meeting with her younger self? The dark younger One waiting in the shadows, too much evasion, no self-honesty. How deserted she still feels. Time to book a vision quest in the woods. Time off, alone, somewhere to leap into ghazals or poems, on Cortez island, or find a teacher she has not met yet, still wants to learn about this mysterious shaping of words, this in-between state, the cloud of unknowing, learn to trust her dreams, messages, unspoken hints, directions she is too timid to take, but can’t the muscle of trust can be strengthened with use, like any other? Who else if not an intuitive introvert to interpret the signs? It makes her an observer, a reporter, describer of small details, perhaps not a builder of novels or characters yet, but that will come later, if she trusts the small words forming, where? Not on the tongue, it moves not. In between the ears? Or eyes? This awareness looking through her glasses (far sightedness), or the impulse sending words/neurons to the end of her fingers and pen, where do thoughts come from? and why in the middle of the night are they so dark? And unfriendly?

She doubts everyone, even her faithful husband in the dark. It comes, sweeps in like a tidal wave (or a mad dog), insidious at first, but builds into a crescendo until she wants to squeeze her eyes, wring the thoughts out of her brain like a wet cloth, find calm sleep.

Who does she love? Who is the actress playing the part?
Rose scented cream, a raw silk pink shirt, tight over the breasts, the phone rings it’s the bar St-Sulpice, changing the room of the reading planned for the Writes of Spring, and it is a good thing she is rooted in the breath of Tao because she forgets she has decisions to make.

Volunteering at the lit festival, leading authors to their signings and readings, she loved the stimulating panels, the multi-media poetry and sound shows, the gentle conversation with women authors about “chick lit” and the brash New Yorkers, versus calm Montrealers, she would have bought all their books, but came away with just three. Love being around writers, hanging out in the atmosphere of this meeting ground, and of course came away thinking of I shouldn’t have said that, or that was smart, so self-centered and foolish to tell my birth stories to the pregnant CBC host who was kind enough to remember my poetry reading at a Mothering Matters group. We volunteers arrive causally, are thrown into the confusion and crowds and learn to swim very quickly. Did a stint at the info table and learned where everything is, I love to be helpful.

And what I saw was a need to climb out of my cozy nest and make a name for myself. Oh that naming thing again. The hermit poet doesn’t need a name or a public but the writer woman self (still childish) wants to play in the big playground on the big swings with the kids who have published books and risked looking foolish and put down in writing their obsessions – see Joel laughing at his own self-obsession, unrequited love. Well, we all write from something, some desire or need to tell a story, our own story preferably (if I am honest) and have an audience. And the love of theatre, the appeal Catherine says is mixing the private solitary art of writing with the performance before an audience, that mystical alchemical bond with people’s eyes ears hearts listening while you pour your heart out –need confidence in the rightness or deepness of what the heart’s voice has to express – can it be deep uplifting hopeful (reassuring, yes, there is a purpose to all this searching) without being formulaic as a romance novel. Want to work on poems, stories, plays –whatever can bring me to that play acting place of words on a stage, under lights, an audience drinking it up like reading Naming Adam in the Zenon Bar in Trois-Rivieres. I was happiest then, on stage, at those moments with the rhythm of a good poem, words moving through the heart and mind, lips body, out into other ears heart body – so to do this, write your hear out, then in, again.

“This outer is an elaboration of this inner. I prefer the origin.” Soul of Rumi

Do I?

2008-01-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

A note: I am posting extracts from A Woman's Way, Tao of Turning Fifty, sporadically on this site. This entry jumped out at me today, because last Wednesday was Fani's funeral. Beloved Fani, beloved by many, whether patients or friends, whose words still inspire me to be true to myself, spread my wings. This is for you :)

Feb 2, 2005

I am stubborn in believing that my healing and answers will come from inside of me-- like a locked cage or a labyrinth I am lost in seeking the mystery image or sacred word at the center that will free me, or click into place, suddenly turn a light on, or gradually lift the darkness of night in the pinkish gray peace of morning. This morning my daughter points me to the pink puffs in a misty sky at 7 am and although I had been up since 6:20, it had been dark. I thought it was odd that dawn was still happening, I was lost in my newspaper not paying attention to the world outdoors. It is a hazy kind of winter day, soft smothering cloud low on the earth like a damp layer of gauze, holding humidity in the air, making the snow mushy. I felt the cold creeping in, making me sneeze and shiver in my robe. A blast of cold air when I opened the door for the cat – attacked my neck with cold.

Fani believes society has sexualized even young children’s bodies and we can’t go back to innocence. That is so sad. I feel lighter today in my solar plexus, but sore in shoulders and neck. Going for massage later. Need to treat the neck gently-- it is hardened, rigid with fear, crisp with defensiveness, afraid of cracking open the mind-body split. “You are so strong” says Fani. “Yes, woman of steel,” I reply. But the ‘carapace’ is cracking, failing, and it needs to open. My warrior spirit energy is mostly gone – softening. The inner child wants me to honour her feelings. When Fani asked me at the end of our hour if I wanted a hug, and I said not right now, she applauded. I broke into tears. So hard for me to express my feelings, stand firm.

Reading Women’s myths and secrets I was struck by the positive accent on menstrual blood. It has been so demonized, it’s hard to take in the positive spin, making it a holy source of power. Our female power is so lost, so far back. Somewhere in a pre-historic cannibalistic past…can it be reclaimed, made less bloody, more soft and inward? And where is the recognition of the real meaning of breath, the Name of God that is nameless--these are secrets that belong to the human soul, neither male nor female. But our female mysteries of blood into milk, the stages of a woman’s life, bleeding, wedding, conceiving, making one into two, birthing, these, too are holy.

Creativity and Rest

2008-01-25T10:42:00.000-05:00

Some days I am so busy, so intent on learning how to be better prepared, more informed, on top of my game, I forget about the importance of creative loafing, of surrendering to a higher or inner power, of letting go to let new ideas come in. I am much too focused 'out there' on other authorities, books, resources, and forget to look inside of me for insight. David Whyte is a poet whose work inspires me to slow down.

"The word 'expert' seems to be like a fog in which we lose ourselves. We feel our lack before we have done the essential work of touching our own inner longing. In other words, we put the cart before the horse. Creativity has much more to do with giving ourselves over to our deepest longings than it does with giving ourselves over to any kind of strategy.

Often the first impulse people have around their creativity has to do with signing up for school or arranging their schedule to fit more of everything in. The great poetic and mythic traditions say it's actually the opposite: Creativity has to do with unburdening, with giving yourself a break, with letting fresh air in through the windows, with allowing yourself to be lost-profoundly lost, deeply lost."
...

"Silence doesn't necessarily mean being quiet. Silence means you haven't already got the answer when you ask the question. It seems that in the true art and the true poetic line, the answer lies in the very resonance of the question."

from Poetry and Personal Passion, by David Whyte, found in an old issue of Magical Blend

Enjoy some silence and quiet time today. Even nature is dormant in winter, so it would seem to be in the nature of things to slow down, go to bed early, sit in front of a fire and let the muse reach us through the flames. Keep warm, in this bitter cold time of year, and keep open to magic.

dream the dream,

musemother

A Secret Life

2008-01-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

by Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

menstrual cycle and stress

2008-01-04T15:53:00.000-05:00

"A little stress gets you going - too much of it and you start to unravel...You're already up to your eyeballs with things to do and now you've got to sort out your new diet, get regular exercise, and take time out to meditate on the meaning of your life...

but if you don't take stock now you could be in much worse strife further down the track. Remember, the menstrual cycle is the stress senstivie system in women so think of menstrual symptoms as an early warning sign for your overall health.
...
Feeling under stress is also a signal that you need to stand up for yourself more. Your stress is an opportunity to take a personal stand. You've probably been saying 'yes' to others too iften and 'no' not often enough."

from Wild Genie, Alexandra Pope

"We rely on so much on what is visible, active and 'out there' and need also to trust he dormant, the invisible and the numinous aspects of life. The cycle embodies the continuous process of bginnings and endings, birth and death, the eternal return that keeps everything alive. " A woman's quest, Alexandra Pope

Oh ladies, take time today to put aside your agenda, and busy list and lay still, hang out, stop mentally as well as physically. Give yourself some quiet time, especially if you are having a period right now, take time to be silent, even if just 15 minutes. Start liking yourself enough to be alone with yourself and make your own sanctuary for resting in, even if it's a corner of your bedroom with a comfy chair. Or a spot in the back yard where the outside noise is lesss.

"There is an enormous elemental force at work in women's bodies that is both intensely intimate and universal - ecstatic, creative, restorative and full of love. We experiecne this force at menstruation (and also during pregnancy and giving birth). the post-menopausal woman, who has understood and lived the journey of the cycle, fully inhabits this power." A Woman's quest.

Are you ready to be initiated into the Quest? look up this book on the web site www.wildgenie.com

It's a marvel to me that more women are not aware of the gift of their cycle. Come back and visit, I'll have more info later, for all you questers.

musemother

Purdah

2007-12-21T08:39:00.000-05:00

(a poem for all mothers stuck inside the house this winter)

a woman kept in a house
is like a cuckoo in a clock
her breasts sing with milk
in the middle of the night

all night the house blows
in the wind, a cradle
on top of a tall tree
or a ship lost at sea

a man thinks he owns his wife
if she stays in the house
but once she shuts the door behind her
shuts the door on her children behind her
if she shuts the door of her mind
she can fly , no longer under lock & key

a mother alone in the house
is like a cat in a cage
with two birds, alone
in the house with two children
in the house without wings

her two breasts, two small partridges
rustle in their nest, escape
like two cups overturned,
two loose dice on the floor,
two blind mice running to get the knife.

at night the house does not rock
like a boat at sea
it is rooted, stands still
like a woman chained to a rock
awaiting rescue, like a cage
rocking on its pole

the dangerous woman in the veil
sings to the woman in the moon
she sings to the old woman
in the shoe, she sings to a woman
in anything else, but a house.

from Little Mother, Hochelaga Press, 1997
Jennifer Boire

home for the holidays

2007-12-17T19:35:00.000-05:00

postcard to my Self (Travelling Wilbury)

Dear Home-girl,
you are at home, now. Welcome Home.

Hey girl, welcome to here. Home. This house is not your home. This city is not your home. But you are living at this unique address. Remember, you flew into this address on the first in-breath, Wahh! You will fly out one day.

Right now, this is the address of Home. Come, sit beside me and I’ll tell you a mighty secret that may surprise you – the breath inside the breath is calling you home. Hear that? I know, speedy Gonzales, you love to travel. Right now your eyes are traveling, your ears are moving, your touch excites you to discover what is everywhere, elsewhere, not here. What is bright, new, annoying, popular, loud, quiet, hungry – there – a Great Blue Heron, he’s reminding you to dive deep into the stream of home.

Stop running away, baby. Stop salivating for a New taste, a new sugar, a bite of Crispy Crème donut, sushi with wasabi, pecan pie….

Stop awhile by this sweet river, and sip. Slow your jets and shiver with delight at this new, inner sanctum, this in-site. This new sight. Old fright sloughed off. This old as humanity inner sight. Oh, laugh with delight. “You make me feel like dancin’” (spinning diva.)

Welcome back, home-girl.

Jenn

The place I am longing for

2007-12-05T12:07:00.000-05:00

Confusion wades in, disturbs my present peace. Yoga dispels it. I feel too spacey, vadic, anxious. So lie on earth, grounded in breath; an article suggests humming -- ‘lung’ --breathe in cat and dog pose to bring it down into the body…

Too much stress – car and air travel, cell phones, busyness spaces me out. Plan to spend more time honouring this physical work in the body. It feels so healing, so right, less intellectual than talking, reading and writing. That ‘white room’ by the ocean or open sky in the desert calls me. Ocean shore, driftwood, house by the sea, pictures come to mind of the retreat space I crave. Does it mean I have to move there? I cannot uproot family, but must take a break myself.

Our creative needs are not being met. We need music and words to work together, space, time, energy, less activity to accomplish it – spend a weekend envisioning it? First, healing, rest. Clarity will come when we are less stressed and harassed by the daily struggle. Kids also being pushed to the max by school, activities.

How can we down-size our life? Where can we go, where boredom won’t lead to dope and alcohol abuse? Is there somewhere more ‘perfect’ than here?

The place I am longing for is not in this world maybe, but a healing respite from ‘surface reality’ while I undergo the descent, to reclaim the feminine or ground of my being. I have entered the doorway at the bottom of the tree, gone back to the core, (Kore, ripped away from reality, entered dream time and was gone for 3 days) need to cut off the ‘busyness” of duties, household, and focus on this quest. It is real. Stop resisting. Follow the inner pull.

My fear of inactivity, passivity, entering the dark room where mother is passed out all day. I have visited the curtains but never entered there, since childhood. Am being pulled down due to extreme nervous overload. It feels like chaos…to visit the Underworld – but it is freeing to be creative, to explore the underneath side….maybe by concentrating on the breath in each moment like during labour pains, like in a kind of birth, to avoid panic, hyperventilating, suck ice chips and stay in present, focus on work at hand.

(written in 2005, in crux of peri-menopause descent)
nameste
musemother

A woman’s Way from the Tao of Menopause

2007-12-02T19:32:00.000-05:00

Epilogue:

The woman’s journey is to realize her power is within her. As a woman.
Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss

Some of us are becoming the man we wanted to marry. Gloria Steinem

How to Marry myself:
the worldly, practical, doer and the spiritually hungry be-ing want to marry inside the breath. Bathe in stillness as in a clear stream of breath running up and down the center of being. Feel cleansed and whole upon arising. Return to the list of things to do, calls to make.

Keep it simple, silly.

Prologue:

How to get closer to me, to my singular truth, or way, (a woman’s way) like Joan, hearing voices in the light, and Mira, dancing to her own music, or Teresa, despairing of being judged a heretic but heeding an experience so intimate, so her own, that even punishment or excommunication from her religious faith could not dissuade her. Although self-doubt was present, she surrendered to the piercing of her heart –

And so, not to put myself in that league of illustrious company, still, I invoke these ‘mothers of spirit’ if you will, and say, I am ready to hear my own rhythm – at least, I want to be open to hearing it, to follow that narrow path within, where the going is by feeling, letting go of maps, books, guides, all those who say go here, do this, and wish to give me explanations, for I have been lead far astray, until I doubt my every step. Or run so quickly over the path, my feet barely touch the ground.

All I ask or will, is that my two feet remain on the ground, connected and even if losing my reason is the thing I fear most in this world, I am willing to listen deeply and find the inner strength necessary to take each step from a new perspective, one from inner conviction.

A voice coaxes-- says, I have always been here; you have always listened to your parent’s wisdom, your teacher’s insights, your friend’s admonitions, your children’s voices. Now, before you go any further down the wrong road – wait – what do you mean by wrong? If I do not know what is right? So skip right and wrong. Feeling.

I have been told to start finding out how I feel – what I feel. This numbing busy-ness stresses me – carries me out on a wave too far from shore, there is risk of drowning. All right then, now - I am listening. Guide me. I say to my self – if you are the One I have run from all this time and now, you are so close and in fact, inside my right ear whispering to me, then guide me. I have lost my trust in politicians, in self-help books, in science and religion, in philosophy, tragedy and comedy – where else is there to turn?

So if there be guides awake in the night, angels lighting my path, let me listen to you. And then, listen to my beating heart, my ragged breath, and carefully attend, and tend to, the tiny tendrils of inner thought, of being before thinking – If there be a place to find wisdom, here it is. It prefers a sideways glance --stops when looked at directly. No glaring eyes.

-----------
“Suffering is part of the feminine…a sense of loss of all, even capacity for action, a loss so deep nothing matters.” Inanna, Descent to the Goddess

There are those sleeping who are awake,
and others awake who are sound asleep.

Some of those bathing in sacred pools
will never get clean.

And there are others
doing household chores
who are free of any action.

Lalla, 14th century Kashmir

to be continued
musemother

Heart as path and destination

2007-11-28T09:42:00.000-05:00

Am I the author of my existence? no.
Am I the driver of my life's journey? yes.
Did I create the path I am driving on? (still no answer to that one)

I am wondering about where thought can lead us - is it true that we create our reality by our thoughts, that I can visualize what I want, and focusing on that draw it to me?

I guess it depends which reality we are talking about.

The house I live in, the job I do, the family I interact with, are one level of my reality. But there is a space inside my heart that is already enjoying serenity and tranquility, is anchored in deep waters. On the surface, the waves may be choppy, the storm may be howling. But in this deep protected place of the heart, another weather system predominates. And this, too, is real.

In that deep contentment where the heart is full, my desires seem to pale. I still want to get paid a good salary, have recognition for work well done, interact with my children without too much angst, rest when I am tired. But there is not the driving need to get all my fulfillment from my surroundings, because inside my cup is full. It helps me relax into life and appreciate what comes.

This river of full-heartedness exists inside of me, you.

So I guess my previous post about The Secret and its hype, in response to Bella's blog about the Secret and its hype, is about acceptance and not-knowing.

Bella used childbirth as an exampe (the field in which she works). I saw it in my own experience of two very different births. The first one, I was letting the doctor and hospital schedules run things, and not trusting my body very much. I imagined that if I wanted a natural childbirth without drugs or intervention, it would pretty much happen. The I Ching that day said "reality never coincides with its ideal". Well, after a day of being induced with oxytocin didn't help bring a child down, a week later I danced myself into labour, then spent a fruitless night with contractions and no dilation.

The next day, after hours of intense back labour (and more drugs to speed things up), I was begging for an epidural. They put it off as long as they could so as not to delay things any more. It was a relief when they gave it to me, and after pushing a short while, finally, beautiful blue-eyed Julien slid out of me. I was so tired, but too excited to sleep, transformed by his passage through me. Of course, the journey had just begun.

I was determined the next birth I would listen to my body, but after two weeks of waiting past a 'due' date, Caitie's arrival was helped along by an old grandmother's recipe of castor oil, sex and sit-ups; she blasted out of me on the back seat of the car on the way to the hospital after 1 1/2 hours of labour. While I was relieved that she was pink and breathing, and laughed all night with relief, there really was no way of picturing that in advance. We considered our prayers had been answered, in a way, because no doctors or midwives were in attendance, just my husband catching her slippery body and covering her with his shirt.

We also lost two babies to miscarriage previously; and grieved those little fish thrown back into the sea. Was it ambivalence about having children? or nature's way? We had to surrender to those realities.

So I guess I see it this way: I am driving the car, but I do not create the path in front of me. I may take side trips over rocky terrain, then come back to the smooth highway. I may exit for coffee and gas or find shelter from the rain or snow on the side of the highway. I may extend my trip or have it shortened. But I can enjoy the ride, no matter the weather, trust that the highway will bring me to my destination. The ride, with the heart as guide, is more pleasant. A compass to help me find my way home.

knowing only one thing for sure,
I carry home with me, whither I wander,
musemother

The Tao of Letting Go

2007-11-27T09:38:00.000-05:00

#74

If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.

Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpetner's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chance are that you'll cut your hand.

Ancient wisdom: the thing about the Tao Te Ching is that it still makes sense, its essence rings true. We are thousands of years away from that Chinese 'time and place' but still Lao Tzu makes perfect sense.

Just read Bella's blog about The Secret, and how painful it is when bad things happen to 'good' people. How disease, hardship, a difficult birth, all bring us face to face with a larger reality: I am not in control. Even if I use my 'affirmations' every day, or prayer, or positive thinking, I cannot always draw to me what "I" want or desire.

There is comfort in knowing that a higher power or creative force, whatever you want to call that 'master' carpenter, is shaping something for me. There is peace in letting go of 'wishing' the future into being.

My most powerful experiences are not of being the conductor of my own life, designing, creating and drawing towards myself what I can imagine, but of having gifts unfold that I had never imagined, whether jobs, houses, children, projects, friends or challenges....that come my way through no apparent design of my own, and yet, at a deep level are exactly what I need (and not always what I want). Growth feels painful at times.

Yet aren't we in the 'earth school', as I told my husband this morning, as he left the house for another day of battle on the financial frontier. You just duck some days, (keep the ego low to the ground), keep centered in the midst of the fire.

Peace is not the absence of war, peace is found deep within you, says Maharaji, a living sage.

If I wait for the external world to bring me peace, I will wait a long time.

Sigh....deep sigh. I want to begin each day with a new breath, a new moment, and let the serendipity and synchronicity of life surprise me. And bring me strength within to focus on the light, yet accept the dark.

If I can lift my chin, look up from my inner kaleidoscope of desires and wishes and wants, and appreciate this day...

learning to let go,
musemother

Building a mini-retreat

2007-11-17T14:40:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a retreat away is not possible. Sometimes, although every bone in your body is calling to get away and find time alone, you have to stay home.

Because I'm a stay-at-home mom, and have dogs and cats too, when I can't get away physically, I make myself a mini-retreat. I can spare an hour, even two at least once a month.

The original idea came after I attended a retreat called the Writer's Spa in Taos, New Mexico, with Jennifer Louden, Comfort Queen. (Especially during your menstrual time, or anytime during menopause, these times set aside for sacred space are very nurturing and comforting. A great way to slow down and meet your inner feminine).

Recipe for a mini-retreat: (in any order you like)

Unplug the phone.

Light a candle from Zena Moon candles http:// http:// www.zenamoon.com

Meditate in silence for as long as you comfortably can.

Put on some soothing music (Nigel Holton, Eversound, Zen flute or Pure Peace)

Stretch into yoga on the floor, open your hips, legs and chest in Pigeon Pose or just lie in corpse pose and surrender.

Open Native American animals cards and do a Medicine Wheel Spread
(like a tarot deck, inner wisdom through our healer animal spirits)

Write in journal, sit and feel whatever emotions arise. Acknowledge them, without judgement.

Make a cup of herbal tea to calm stomach.

Don't turn on the computer or read emails until later.

Put off laundry, the list of things to do, and rushing anywhere;

Hope you have a wonderful inner peace retreat! It works for me.

(don't forget to blow out the candles!)

namaste,
jenn

Essence of wisdom

2007-11-16T13:04:00.000-05:00

Tao Te Ching #14

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.

Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnameable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

If we consider the source of our wisdom as the source of being, wow, that opens up all the stops.

It may mean slowing down and breathing into your center.

It may mean, accepting and flowing with the life force inside your body.

It may mean temporarily letting go of control :)

It may mean finding your voice.

It may mean speaking from authentic experience.

It may mean you are a wise woman, before you get old.

be close to your wisdom today,
jenn

What if a woman listened to herself?

2007-10-30T14:21:00.000-04:00

"What if woman allowed herself to listen once again to her own sensitivities? To listen to the ways in which she is unhappy? What if she allowed herself to trust what her tears are trying to tell her?

No, not this way, No your life has no meaning lived this way. No…No…slow down, rest. Fill the kettle slowly. Listen! as the water in its slender stream flows down to fill the waiting kettle.

A woman age 55 speaks of her struggle:

Oh the time, the endless pressure of time Even when I have a whole day, I still can’t get to my own things – I don’t even know what they are…

I vacuum, do the bookkeeping, always production-oriented…the endless realm of keeping busy…when I was young, my mother always expected us to keep busy…she couldn’t imagine my need to have time for myself…if one of her daughters would be a bit quiet or inward one day, she would right away immediately accuse us of being lazy and gives us a task to do.

In my dreams there is a quiet chamber, an inner corridor for which I’m always searching and can never quite get to…a quiet, dark place…where I’m allowed to just sit…alone …and be still.

What if a woman were to allow herself to trust her own unhappiness and to make life changes – that would allow time and place for her to experience her life as it lives itself out slowly, moment by moment? To allow herself time and place to be present to her own burning fire, the water springing from the rock of her own experience…to allow herself to leave behind the jet plane, the express lane, and simply to be, there, for a moment, present to her own life?

What if a woman trusted her own tears enough to listen to them, to make real changes in her individual schedule, and to see if those changes spread to her office, her committee, her religious group?

What if she trusted her anger, her irritation, her illness, even her depression, as signs that her own life was calling to her?

What if a woman allowed herself to leave a mode of doing that does not nourish her, that actively makes her unhappy? What if it were not so difficult? If her upbringing had not sought to teach her to be dutiful, moral, caring, giving, helpful, productive and loving…at all times...to all others.

….it is often finally a woman’s own pain and sadness that make her change her life. Finally, it is impossible to deny her feelings any longer."

taken from Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk, Woman’s Journey to Herself