Transformative Prose
Born into this life, we are light wrapped in sinew and skin.
We’re given 5 liters of blood and a breath of oxygen.
Labels are soon affixed to our tender human egos like our gender and race.
Yet our spirit remains nameless, existing beyond the limits of time and space.
Beings of pure energy physically embodied, we are lighting in a bottle.
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.
The same love that ushers us into and out of this world, and holds us tenderly in our moments of need.
Meeting this moment, I see the breath in all things, the potential of even seemingly inert objects to transform again and again.
To the young amongst me, I hope you are at my funeral
That is to say, I hope you outlive me and that I am worthy of being missed
I haven’t been a saint at all times but I was able to rein in my crazy before committing too heinous a crime
When homicidal or suicidal thoughts drop by to visit, I teach them how to meditate
I’ve solved problems creatively, which is to say, illegally
For the record, if I had a written record of my life I would burn it in order to boil a pot of tears for tea
I like a little salt on my sweet
I don’t read instructions but I keep them around for future reference
I start sacrilegiously but tend to end with reverence
I don’t have a plan as often as I have a man: that’s a poor combination depending on the situation
When I illuminate my dusky corners, I see the sparkles that were there all along
Though I awake with amnesia, I dream in song
I’ve learned to love doing nothing, to look forward to stillness and inactivity, to settle into peace with humor and curiosity
Why so serious? Asked the fly to the spider
Drawing close, the fly offered hot cider
Take, eat, remember me, or not
The gift was unconditional anyway
It is enough for me to have a cosy corner and a cup of tea tonight
Listening to the rain, old friend and fellow traveler, land with gentle impact outside my caravan of dreams
I am warmed by the glow of light within and without
Perhaps the deafening din of my own carryings on will simmer down enough for me to listen to the voices of others
Sacred silence is my favorite meeting place, in that field beyond words where kindred spirits melt into bliss
Then I return here, to my life of toils and troubles
I live with one foot in each world, walking the line between Earth and the Divine
It happened again.
Anxiety wrapped me up so tightly I must untangle myself with scribbles that you are kind enough to read.
Socializing leaves me aching with regret for the words I said wrong and the words I didn’t say.
I feel like a failure, even though I know that is a harsh conclusion, I feel it still.
I feel inept, like no matter what I do I won’t ever feel comfortable in social situations.
Even though I have undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder, as is more common in females. Even though I have worked painfully hard to hide my differentness, my social awkwardness rarely stays below ground for long.
In the game of whac-a-mole, the moles keep popping up no matter how many I whack.
Self-love, self-compassion, forgiveness, humor, perspective, reassurance that I belong in this human family, in this world, that I am enough, that I am worthy of love, as we all are: these are the treasures I have gathered along my journey.
These are the treasures I hope you find and cherish as well. They must be carefully cultivated, nourished and loved.
May you feel nourished and loved.
May you rest on the shores of peace.
Inhale what you need. Exhale what is no longer serving you.
All is well, even when we are under cloud cover, the clear sky remains above all.
For the duration of my whole life, the sun has never stopped shining- there were only times that I couldn’t see it.
The moon is a reminder of what I don’t see.
Maybe everybody feels this way sometimes, and it is normal and ok.
May I remember that I am blessed beyond measure even during the uncomfortable moments of this human journey.
Storms will rise, then pass.
May my breath be my anchor to weather me through until I see the sky of blue again.
Your thoughts are like clouds in the sky
Coming, going, passing by
Do not mistake one thought for the whole sky
For the sky is much bigger than any one cloud
The sky is bigger than all the clouds
The sky is vast, deep and many colored
Yet it clings to nothing
It holds the sun, moon, rain and rainbows
Sometimes it is calm, sometimes it is stormy
Beyond what you see, the stars are always shining
The sound of the rain needs no translation
You can observe the clouds while keeping your feet on the ground, without being pulled by them, without your vision being clouded
We are only responsible for our own feelings
Our spirit receives a breath a life, we exhale back into spirit
Life and death are one big moon bounce
Quotes worth sharing, found along the journey, I bow in gratitude to the sages:
If you want to be enlightened, you’ve got to lighten up
You are not a drop in the ocean, you are the ocean in a drop
Do not wait for the last judgement, it takes place every day
Joy is what happens when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are
Listen to your life. All moments are key moments
There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way
Who cares if you’re enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
Make a gift of your life and lift all mankind by being considerate, forgiving and compassionate at all times, in all places, and under all conditions with everyone as well as yourself. This is the greatest gift anyone can give.
When you judge another, your do not define them, you define yourself.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
The care you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek
Eternity is not the hereafter, this is it. If you don’t get it here, you won’t get it anywhere.
If you want to find God, hang out in the space between your thoughts.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.
Why are we born? Why do we die? Life has no meaning except for the meaning that we give it.
First do no harm to yourself
Live well
You can’t hurry love…or speed it up
Don’t work or study every day
Relinquish your need to be right. This is the single greatest cause of difficulties and deterioration in relations. The spiritual partnership is a relationship of equals. No one needs to be proved wrong.
You can’t hate a fire for burning you
Even after all this time, the sun never says to the moon ‘You owe me’. You see what happens with a love like that? It lights up the sky.
I am only responsible for my own heart. You offered yours up for the smashing. Only a fool would offer up such a vital organ. May we all earn wisdom in this life.
Oh God of dust and rainbows let us see that without the dust the rainbows would not be.
To simplify thoughts and emotional responses to things, label experiences as:
a) Pleasurable
b) Unpleasurable
c) Neutral
When the body is free of tension, and the mind is free of fear, peace can fill your heart to overflowing, pour forth from your spirit’s center
Breathe in and release the tension from your body
Can you feel it now?
Babysit my attention
I don’t want to be left alone with my thoughts
I babysat young children when I was still a child myself
When I was a sex worker at age 20, I told my friends and family that I was a babysitter;
Both jobs require you to work late hours and pay cash
It was for less than a year, but the PTSD lasts a lifetime
I fell down a rabbit hole of sexual trauma
I was perfectly trained to be a professional rape victim from my real life experiences
There is no protection for sex workers
Clients violate any semblance of boundaries
I tried to shout ‘No!’ but only a soft ‘yes’ came out
Customer satisfaction was prioritized above protecting my body from harm
Every time I took an HIV test I was sure it would come back positive
Maybe if I had said ‘yes’ to the screening questions of ‘have you ever exchanged sex for money?’ some resources may have been offered from the public health worker- why was that the only question I said ‘no’ to?
The truth shall set you free
But I was trained by my family to rely on no one and nothing, to survive on sheer grit and ingenuity
Babysit my attention, inform and entertain me
Here and now, I sit in stillness and embrace the present in deep gratitude
Some poems get swallowed whole by sleep
Like dreams that only my mind’s eye keeps
Some men want to know if I am a virgin
What version of virgin would you like to explore
I tend not to count the non-consensual or the bisexual encounters
I don’t count quantity, I feel out quality
If you feel me, you know
I say yes with silence and with my own lips and with the parting of my hips like the red sea
Amidst it all I hope you see me
I performed ancestral energy healing ceremonies on stage in a dream last night
I blew fluffy airborne dandelion seeds with my mind
A soft breeze blew one seed down my own throat
All the magic in the world is not as powerful as heartfelt truth
Perhaps this is where the next phase of my spiritual growth starts
A continuum of all that has come before
I spent most of my life swallowed by severe anxiety and depression, flung from one extreme of bipolar to the other without ever letting on about my inner experiences to anyone.
I am damn hopeful that I will crack this seed open and blossom because I feel growing pains and I feel the Earth below and the Sky above.
Though I sometimes forget it, I am made of Love
Sage Burner Poetry 