Meeting

If you look deeply enough into anything, you will see everything

The motion in the stillness, the health within the illness

The simplicity in complexity, the you within the me

We are cut from the same cloth, woven by threads of love

Love that ushers us into and out of this world

Love which flows in all places and all moments, caressing us tenderly even as we weep with unbearable pain and unspeakable shame

All of life breathes and moves and flows and transforms

In this moment, may we practice breathing, and thus, transforming

What are we ready to let go of, what is no longer serving our highest selves?

There is always something to surrender and something new to take in, even if only space for future growth

All I Know

This is all an illusion

This separation between us

We are all everything and everyone

We are all the colors under the sun

I want to remind you what you already know

Though your ego may protest it, though you may have covered it like a blanket of snow

Someday the sun will melt the illusions down

It can get quite hot

You will find it worthwhile after your tears stop falling

To see how much you’ve nourished the ground beneath your feet

Then you can grow

That is all I know

Self Love

I love me, even if I say it sheepishly

I love me, so you’ve got to let me be

Even if in your mind I am still a caged animal

What matters is that in my mind I am a soaring and roaring and free from your attempts to limit my potential and happiness

I love myself, though it took me a lifetime to learn

Frozen in fear, chained to a sense of obligation

I believed I was responsible for everybody else’s feelings; those around me felt awful, so I felt worse

I am only responsible for myself, and I am learning to care for myself with a fraction of what I’ve given to others

Standing at the crossroads of the future and the past

Searching for a way to make this moment last

The future came and passed

All we have is the eternal now

The sun blinds my gaze

I bow my head, lower my eyes in humility

Bask in all that is illuminated

This is for us

Even when we are persecuted and oppressed

This world is for all of us

Let the haters hate themselves

I stand strong in love

I am rooted in love, overflowing with love

Love nourishes and protects me, uplifts me and sustains me

May I remember this moment when I feel weak and defeated

May I refill my cup before I am completely depleted

I cultivate my spirit, pull out the weeds from the garden of my heart

What I used to perceive as my weakness was my strength all along

Box

I let myself get pushed into boxes, dark and small

Pressured by the perceived need to be perfect to all

Well practiced in the art of self-neglect

Sitting in front of a sunrise, I stop to reflect

Giving my life away isn’t worth it

Despite the loud protests of the vain who ingrained their voices into my brain

I didn’t know not to believe their threats

Now I know that the sun shines for all

Growing plants for us to eat

Glowing light and radiating heat so we can see, so we don’t freeze

Gently reminding us when it is time to get up, and time to go to bed

May the sun melt away outdated beliefs from my head

I remember the ladies I wanted to be friends with but couldn’t find the words

It was easy with men, my body did the talking

On the streets I set to walking

I had forgotten that the sun shined for me too

Today may I remember

That I am worthy of health, wealth and happiness

May I burst forth from self-imposed restrictions

And shine my limitless potential

Hands

I used to feel furious

At the injustices committed against me

For the unwelcome fingers

Prodding my small and growing body

Budding puberty awakened in me

The realization that my childhood was criminal

Waves of rage washed over me

I threw off the comfort blanket of religion in an instant

I roamed naked and savage for years

Unsure where to focus my energy

I worshipped money but I was too generous

I worshipped work but didn’t know when to stop

I worshipped knowledge and became a hoarder, slipping on the shifting sands of science

I worshipped men and was disappointed

I smashed hearts and egos on my path

I stumbled into spirituality and awakened the eternal peace in me

I found a humble man who requires that I be humble too

He welcomed me back to the fold, now older and perhaps wiser

I am grateful for the hands

That initially stirred my pot and set my life in motion

Closet

My closet holds an avalanche of dress-up clothes
Costumes for all occasions
I am the teacher and the seductress
My closet holds a harvest of skeletons
Big-boned men, backstage women, and first-trimester fetuses
I am bi-curious in my closet
I locked myself in long ago
I am buried under a whirlwind of unspoken emotions
Terrified to let a breath of truth seep out from the crack below the door
It is getting crowded inside my closet
Yet I gather more
Peering out, I wonder what it would be like to show myself to the world
Instead of burying myself under other people’s expectations
I have great expectations which remain frozen in fear
Seemingly motionless year after year
Yet there is growth within stillness
I put on the uniform I need to play the part
Only then do I step out from the dark

Love Languages

If you want to show me that you care about me

Be gentle

Be non-judgmental

Don’t bully me or pressure me, manipulate me or coerce me

Don’t try to imprint your paranoid delusions on my mind

Don’t ever tell me what to do, when, or with whom

Control is not my love language

My love language is freedom

Acceptance

Shining light in darkness

Healing and growth

Leaning through the veil of illusion

Not argumentative protrusion into the autonomy of others

You asked me if you were ‘other people’ to me

Absurdly

Like a child wailing from ego injury, I reassured you that you were special, that you are important to me. You are, but for different reasons than you think you are.

Though we are separate, we are also not separate

We are one spirit

You have forgotten

May you remember

Until then, you babble on

Rambling brook

Carrying messages in bottles

Smashing against the rocks of my enlightenment

If you want to win the game, you have to play

To play, you must be playful

Stop making everything so serious, so grave

Stop pretending that you care about oppressed people

As you actively oppress me

You shout for the voiceless, marching with your fist in the air

As you silence my voice without a care

If you care about me, let me be myself, let me live my life

You have your own life to live, your own love language of anger and jealousy

To communicate, we must learn each other’s languages

I think I’m learning your language of anger when I want to shout at you, ‘Leave me alone, I’ve always wanted you out of my life, I’ve had enough of your abuse’.

I refuse to be controlling and jealous like you.

Perhaps you will learn my language and say, ‘I accept you as you are without judgment, I love you unconditionally, I support you as you follow your heart’

Man’s Medicine

I am surrounded by man’s medicine

Doctors like me are compensated in proportion to how much we dominate and penetrate patients

This is man’s medicine

But it would be nothing

Without Earth Mama

We are born from her

We are made of her

Yet we often forget and neglect her

Bedazzled by sharp and shiny surgical tools

Our tongues twist around exotically named medications

All the while hungering for the ambrosial milk of our Earth Mama

To thrive we need the roots of her body, her verdant leaves

Yet we are blinded by starched white sleeves

Were it not for her willow bark

We would still be in the dark

She manifests her love

through starry nights and petals of foxglove

Let us remember the rainbow which birthed us

The marvelous miracle from which we sprung

May we hear the beautiful songs yet to be sung

I’m not knocking man’s medicine

I’m just saying

It would be nothing

Without Earth Mama’s healing touch

Talking

‘They’re talking to me’ he said, staring me down with a glint in his eye, squinting a little, as if trying to give himself x-ray vision in order to see through my training bra
I was a budding adolescent, barely thirteen
He was referring to the two growing humps of my chest, of course

That was the first time I learned of my newfound ability
To turn the heads of men
Whether I wanted to or not

When I was a bit older,
And my breasts had grown considerably larger
I charged them rent
By using my body to make a living
Enough to get by and then some

I heard what every Tom, Dick and Harry
Had to say about my boobs
And the rest of my visible anatomy, for that matter

All the while I never stopped to listen
To what my breasts were trying to tell me
But here is what I hear them say now:

I am sacred                                                                                                                                                  I am powerful
I am deserving of respect