A Poem for Mothering Ourselves

I'm preparing a class for next week on the topic of Mothering Ourselves. I want to incorporate some beautiful serene music about the feminine face of god, and a visualization,  imagining the Shekinah or female companion of God in spirit form wrapping her wings around me, or soothing my brow with the palm of her hand, or lying in the lap of Buddha....here is a poem to go with that self-compassion.

What If?

by Jena Strong.

What if you knew
that everything was going to be okay,
that something was in motion
beyond your field of vision,

beyond even the periphery
of your knowing?

What if you knew
that everything you want,
everything you’ve been seeking,
trying to figure out, missing,
is right here, already whole
in your hands, in your life?
What if taking in what is
could satisfy your longing?

What if you could rest your frantic, racing, busy mind
and rest your neglected, tired body,
put your head down in someone’s lap
to have your hair stroked,
like a cat, or a child?

What if you didn’t need to understand
how it works,
but could enjoy the magic
of how love shows itself
in the most unexpected, simplest of gestures?
What if everything is just it should be?

What if nothing had to be better,
bigger, different, or other?
What would you do then?
Who would you be?"

 (SoulCollage cards representing Rest, on top, and the Great Mother).

Jennifer/Musemother

Women's Stories

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 (meaning

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, Jennifer Boire

published 1997

Empowering the Feminine within: A woman who follows her own heart

SoulCollage(R) Card Shamanic Healer & Storyteller

“The things women are most yearning for---such as deeper connection, spiritual awakening, self-expression, creativity, right livelihood, creating an enlightened world for generations to come---all require a new level of Feminine Power to bring them forth.” Jean Houston

A woman who follows her own heart has learned to listen to her intuition.

A woman who follows her own heart listens to her body guidance.

A woman who follows her own heart shares deeply, listens deeply, is present with others.

A woman who follows her own heart feels her fear, acknowledges it, but is not held back by it.

A woman who follows her own heart is always expanding, growing, learning.

A woman who follows her own heart discovers her true desires and interests.

A woman who follows her own heart is impatient to get started.

A woman who follows her own heart believes in herself, and her creative powers.

A woman who follows her own heart is able to say no, and speak her truth.

A woman who follows her own heart knows the value of doing nothing, of rest and recuperation.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that to go down and in is preparation for coming out and up.

A woman who follows her own heart is a source of calm, a balm for others.

A woman who follows her own heart leans inward in times of trouble, but is not afraid to ask for help.

A woman who follows her own heart knows that angels and guides are watching over her.

A woman who follows her own heart knows her own value.

A woman who follows her own heart accepts herself as she is, flawed but fabulous.

A woman who follows her own heart lets her children be flawed and fabulous too.

A woman who follows her own heart stands her ground.

A woman who follows her own heart knows how to be grounded in root energy.

A woman who follows her own heart lets go to the flow of synchronicity.

A woman who follows her own heart trusts the Universe and knows she is loved.

A woman who follows her own heart has a constant companion and Friend within.

A woman who follows her own heart reaches out in compassion to those who suffer, she has been there too.

A woman who follows her own heart creates an atmosphere of love and caring around her.

A woman who follows her own heart remembers where her Joy is.

A woman who follows her own heart laughs from the belly.

A woman who follows her own heart loves her body and knows she is beautiful within and without.

A woman who follows her own heart forgives herself for her mistakes.

A woman who follows her own heart is in love with Beauty.

A woman who follows her own heart is in touch with her feminine power.

Any woman who follows her own heart can learn to be this woman.

Any woman who is aware of where she is and how she feels, and doesn’t try to pretend to be something different, can be this woman.

You are that woman with heart, unfolding, becoming, and realizing herself as the goal.

Heart is the Hearth and Home of you. Come home to your heart!

Eve reimagines her beginning

“I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over man: she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, and became a transgressor.”  (I Tim 2:11-14) 

Naming Adam

“She desires herself alone, fulfills her desire

becomes pregnant from that desire.”

               Reinventing Eve, Kim Chernin

Some say she was pulled from his rib

golden in the leaves of paradise

or rose from the spermy sea on a shell

foam on the salt waves.

But the first woman entered like lightning

from the wet red cave

a sea of milk in her breasts

rich menstrual blood in her womb.

She took of her blood

mixed it with clay, then swallowed it,

dancing, churned the moonblood

in her belly to a child.

From the cleft of light, the sacred

opening, the first man was born.

She licked her blood from the clay-wet form

breathed life into his mouth.

He called her Eve, because she was the mother

of all living beings.

She named him Adam, for the red earth

from which he was made.

(published, Poetry Canada, 1990)

“The Muse Mother” (1982)

by Eavan Boland

My window pearls wet.
The bare rowan tree
berries rain.
I can see
from where I stand
a woman hunkering –
her busy hand
worrying a child’s face,
working a nappy liner
over his sticky, loud
round of a mouth.
Her hand’s a cloud
across his face,
making light and rain,
smiles and a frown,
a smile again.
She jockeys him to her hip,
pockets the nappy liner,
collars rain on her nape
and moves away,
but my mind stays fixed:
If I could only decline her –
Lost noun
Out of context,
Stray figure of speech –
From this rainy street
Again to her roots,
She might teach me
A new language:
To be a sibyl
Able to sing the past
In pure syllables,
Limning hymns sung
To belly wheat or a woman,
Able to speak at last
My mother’s tongue.

I had no idea there was another use for Muse Mother out there, let alone a poem!
My other blog, Musemother is here: www.questinggirl.blogspot.com
/jenn

Love has to be felt

Love has to be felt; it cannot be 

a definition in words. Drink 

until your thirst is quenched. 

Eat until your hunger is satisfied. 

Sleep until you are rested. 

Search until you have found peace 

and then, understand.

There is incense already burning 

in the house of your body — smell it. 

It is the perfume of God.

Smell it. And be satisfied, 

be content.

Excerpts from address by Prem Rawat 
wwww.wopg.org 

More Menopause Poems

Soul Mate, after Twenty Years

Jennifer Boire

Sleepless in the night, you toss and I turn.

Such a gentle man, even in your sleep

you laugh and chuckle, while I grind my teeth.

Slow to anger, you are mute sometimes,

at other times eloquent as mint,

sharp as old cheddar.

Husband and wife, we have shared

first a captain’s bed, then

a double, then a queen’s, now a bed

fit for a king, And blessed it with our wandering

hands, enlivened it with our howling,

whispering, smooching.

Ever since that first kiss of recognition

I felt you calling me home,

that feeling of two halves clicking in,

then struggle as we lit out, each on our own paths,

and babies didn’t come as easily

as we had predicted, but we both got

a chance to finish our higher education

and find meaningful work

before the babies came.

Long nights of walking up and down

halls with a colicky baby cradled on your arm,

or me, sleepy, nursing or crawling after toddlers,

and somehow we are still here, still together,

ready for a new adventure, two teenagers

filling the house with their boisterous

love, and moody noise.

O let us linger longer into old age. Let us

Still hanker after each other, alive with desire.

Let us not hamper each other.

Let us each fill our selves separately

and come together to share

what we have found.

In ups and downs and disappointing

tired, cranky, or high uplifted times

let us live, rooted, in love.

Quebec in Spring

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.

Burying the dead twice

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

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

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

Desiderata

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)

Poem for Spring Flowers

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

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)

Keeping Things Whole

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

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.

October by Mary Oliver

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

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

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.

Poem for The Change

"(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