transformative poetry for the willing

your regrets and disappointments,
let them go
missteps and infelicities,
cast them aside
indiscretions of the past mean nothing now
and if you insist on lugging them along
in some ersatz act of Sisyphusian heroics
your feet will fail you

and you may never arrive

leaking baggage is no longer de rigueur
as proof of your wounded eccentricities,
the weight of these badges has inspissated your soul!
elevate yourself
let each sodden sack tumble over the transom

these millstones are no longer yours to carry

place your struggle on the ground before you
and walk away
bundle your ancient shame in a canvas bag
loosen it from your shoulder
and drop it on the doorstep of Creation

it is none of your business who picks it up

do not look back,
retrain your gaze
the old holds nothing for you now!
you need not watch in morbid fascination
as it sputters and spins itself out of existence

your eyes were given to see so much more

divest yourself of the accumulated wreckage of life
and its propensity to drag  you to the dungeon,
the light of all that is good and true
sweeps the endless horizon in illuminative glory,
searching out the intrepid spirit
that lies beneath your ragged heart

prepare to receive the outpourings of love

not lost, yet definitely wrapped up in action

It is hard to fathom how much  has been going on with me since my last post — which seems like eons ago.

I have relocated to the tiny southeastern Colorado town depicted in my banner (above) and am awash in a new world of communication snafus. No cell phone service, intermittent internet at my home computer, and no landline (yet).

But that’s really okay, since I am now finishing up a book that I need to deliver to the publisher in about a week. So, the fewer distractions, the better. The book, Be Filled With Faith, is set for release by Blue Mountain Arts in March 2010 – my first solo title with them. Up until now, they have published a handful of my greeting cards, plus included individual verses in about a dozen or so of their gift anthologies.

Also, I am treasuring my last week with my daughter, who heads off to a distant college next week. Plus, about two weeks ago, she and I traveled to the Washington, DC area for a wonderful week with family.

So, amidst the unpacked boxes and bags, unmade phone calls and  emails, etc., I am basking in my newfound community –  embraced by my generous and caring rural ranch country friends, sustained by offers of fresh eggs, plums off the tree, and a 25-lb watermelon (among much more to nourish body, mind and spirit!); and luxuriating in the emptiness that surrounds me with its richness.

As you might presume, nearly everything I’ve ever written about is manifesting in my life in an accelerated manner — and I couldn’t be more thrilled!

Give me another week or so and I hope (!) to get back to blogging with some regularity. In the meantime, continue to clear and release, embrace new opportunities, and leap into this amazing new world that is unfolding as we speak. Never has there been so much support available to those of us who are committed to the manifestation of our highest truths and most cherished dreams…

‘migration’ garners honorable mention in spiritual literature competition

I am thrilled to share the news that my poem, Migration, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Writing Competition sponsored by Tiferet: A Journal of Spiritual Literature. First Prize went to a work of nonfiction; two Honorable Mentions were given each in the Poetry and Fiction categories.

Tiferet’s self-described mission is “to promote peace in you as an individual and in our world. Our poetry and prose are dedicated to bringing you closer to spirit and higher consciousness through the written word. Tiferet is a Hebrew word meaning reconciliation of opposites, the heart, compassion, truth. On the Tree of Life, it is where the material and spiritual worlds meet. Tiferet the magazine is a multi-faith publication, presenting a variety of religious traditions as different paths up the same mountain.”

Not certain what might accompany the honor, since I haven’t received official notice but simply stumbled upon the news today on the Tiferet website. For me, however, the profound joy at being recognized in the spiritual literary arena, in a journal that features work by some serious heavyweights living and dead, is enough. Oy! I am certain that my Grandmother and my Father are beaming from above.

BTW, this poem first appeared on this blog on August 25, 2008, under the title “poetry for the nomadic soul: migration.”

For another winning poem, (re)visit the post, “well, dang if i didn’t grab first prize in the “inaugural poem we should have had” contest!”

Migration
By Rachel Snyder

Here is where I lay my head
Where I have proffered my heart time and again in absolution,
At this very juncture I extracted the juice from an overripe pomegranate
Stripped off a smocked robe devoid of fasteners
Knelt beneath a river of bliss that choked my bloodstream with its acrid sweetness

And shook my fist defiantly in the face I had stroked tenderly mere eons before.

Here is my port of storm
My underground railroad lugging along an oasis of liberation,
Two rivers confluent in the language of ornate limitation
This unmapped cacophony of intersecting lines and concurrent spheres
Littered with etched footprints askew in the breath of restless sand

Mocking my every move with its erudite solidity.

Here I seek a deep shred of nourishment
The unmistakable stench of recombinant DNA wends through my brain,
Taking up residence in caves noiselessly vacated by wanderers besotted and adrift
Awash at sea in the primordial tears of unborn nebulae
Insistently begging to be shown the higher ground

Peering into my eyes and gazing beyond unknown ellipses of abnegation.

Here is a waystation for the soul’s undoing
The familiarity of nowhere grazes dermic underpinnings,
Floods a riparian desert with outpourings of eternity run amok
Every empty vessel is filled to overbrimming
The sublime and sublunary meet in a shuddering of ecstasy

The balm of Melissa no longer soothes.

i ought to be in pictures (oh, wait, here i am!)

I’ve been hinting at my newfound love affair with a small, rural town in southeastern Colorado, and now here’s another piece of the puzzle. I have been given stewardship over an historic schoolhouse/church — along with the charge to convert the building into a community gathering spot/cafe/museum/visitor center/mercantile/you-name-it.

The benefactors who purchased the building and I have been working on our vision since we met last November, and on June 26-27 of this year, we held our first Open House and Flea Market fundraiser. Two guys from Texas rolled in on their motorcycles and then started their tiny camera rolling, too. Took me a while to “get” that the camera and mic were clipped onto the side of the guy’s helmet  and he was taping me — and even longer to discover that he actually had uploaded the video to YouTube.

So here I am, raw and uncut, giving a tour of our building (and talking about plumbing a lot, it seems). There’s a lot more to this story, and I’ll be sharing it in dribs and drabs. Suffice it to say that I am responding fully to the Call of Creation, and in return, am finding what I’ve been seeking a long time.

The unfolding of this experience feels to me like the film Field of Dreams, or the 1960s Sidney Poitier film, Lilies of The Field. There’s a little bit of Chocolat and Fried Green Tomatoes thrown in there, too. We never know where we might find Home, but that doesn’t mean we should ever stop looking.

rachel walks her talk, heads for a new frontier

The new photo atop this page is of a tiny community in southern Colorado that has called my name and entered my heart. Much is unfolding! If you feel drawn to the idea of living 50 miles away from a gas station or grocery store; being fully present to the vagaries of weather and wind; and basking in the reverent quiet of prairie, mesa, and canyon, drop me a Comment and I will tell you more.  PS: Both photos are by a local high school senior who is brilliantly wrought beyond her years.

Las Animas County, Colorado

I can scarcely tell you where I’ve traveled
The maps have yet to be drawn
Terrain emerges from heights and depths in every moment,
Uncharted landscapes arise with the sun.

I know only that I wandered among the dunes
Weighed down by ancient sacks stuffed full of recrimination
Earthen pots brimmed with incomplete assumptions
Sacred oils nested deep within the skins of alabaster jars.

I turned down dusty highways ringed by sage and supposition
Met my own gaze behind bovine eyes and waving prairie grasses
Only to be jolted out of a creeping complacency
By the applause of thunder and hot-white lightning
Rumbling and riveting their way across an unsettled sky.

It is not words on paper that make the poet
But the way in which one creates the poetic life,
The deft melding of rhythm and meter
The juxtaposition of long, languid strokes of yearning
With staccato bursts of becoming,
The full and rich laid up against the dark and empty
Glorious containment coupled effortlessly with the unknowable everything
And a fractal patterning that presages cycles now run their course.

My poetry lives in my every step
Every in-breath and exhalation,
It unfolds from the deepest recesses of a heart
that will not clang shut the drawbridge,
From a soul whose Divine connection may sway
under the weight of human machinations
Yet will steadfastly refuse to exchange faith for fear,
or compassion for complicity.

These scratchings on the discarded bodies of trees
Are not byproduct but prima material
They rest in the marrow of every bone
Until they wrestle themselves free in the face of most formidable foes,
Stanzas irregular, ponderous executions of wordplay obsolescent
Rhyme schemes interwoven in a crazy-quilt of flash and introspection
Neither pen nor ink hastens the dredging.

I sat on the wall,
Flanked by the generous abundance of summer
And the passionate celebration that autumn brings,
The sun, the moon, the stars embrace me with flagrant arousal,
My poembody arcs in erogenous splendor.

Weary of the shifting sands
I have come down off the dunes
Lassoed my own roots and tilled my inner soil,
No longer do I offer entry to boulders of immeasurable size,
The tongue of the mesa licks clean my wounds
As Creation’s immensity comforts a chafed and weathered heart.

Let it be said
that my first gesture was to smile,
That I did not shirk when called to action
That I put down my knife, my sword,
Tempered the call of my drum,
And moved on with not a glance behind me.

If I carried doubts
Let it be said they remained unnoticed
That my fear receded quietly and without pause,
That hesitation made no appearance on the empty stage
And resistance slumbered on ‘neath a blanket softly tossed.

Let all who observe speak of a quiet glow surrounding my crown
An inexplicable flurry of wings
Echoing a muffled heartbeat cross twilight-kissed skies,
Let them remember that birdsong filled the trees
And made its way in all directions,
That a gentle peace descended o’er me
And that my footsteps carried me Home.

word of the day: sky

Storm Duck, Essex U.K, (c) Bev Hadland, www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

Make time to stare at the sky.

Take in its vastness.
Try to imagine how it feels to live without limitation.

Did you ever notice how the sky blankets us,
embraces us from above,
yet never smothers us?

Spend time with the sky in all kinds of weather,
at all times of day and night.

Watch it move from dark to light,
from blue to purple to red, orange, and gold.

Find a horse in a billowing cloud;
see a wagon with wheels flying high.

Shriek and scream at lightning that fills the sky
on a warm summer evening,
at thunder that rumbles right down to your toes.

Stargaze and find your place
in an unending universe.

The sky helps you remember how big life can be.
How small are the details.

And how starry-eyed we sometimes must be,
to think ourselves the center of it all.

The Milky Way Galaxy Over Ontario, 07/29/08, digital composite by Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn

the whole world is listening: poem for the rootops of iran (video)

This poignant poetry was recorded by a woman on June 19
as she filmed the rooftop shouting of Allah O Akbar (God is Great!).
During the current uprising in Iran, the traditional call to prayer –
and one-time revolutionary chant–has become a cry for freedom .
Listen! as you read the subtitles.

can you remain awestruck during tough times?

These words are from a book on Faith currently under development by a publisher who shall remain nameless. The NASA image of the sun is not a Summer Solstice photo-but it sure gets me in the mood!

Ultraviolet-wavelength picture of the sun, 10/23/03, NASA

Be Awestruck

Although it isn’t always easy,
the toughest times require you
to believe in the greatest, grandest possibilities.

Can you allow yourself to be brought to your knees by miracles
and finely orchestrated “coincidences” that defy rational thought?

Can you soften your gaze and recognize the truly extraordinary
when it happens right in front of you?

If you think small,
if you believe that your own mind contains
every potential outcome,
you miss an infinite universe of possible scenarios.

Are you willing to see the unseen at work,
to marvel at how your simplest steps can lead
to unimaginable conclusions?

Can you sufficiently chip away your armor
and swoon before the unmistakable awe that exists
just inches outside your usual concerns?

Untold beauty and inexplicable synchronicities
are at work in every moment.

Toss aside your rigid pictures
of how things are supposed to occur
and acknowledge the grandeur of how they actually do.

Only then do you reclaim the true meaning
of the word “awesome”
and the vastness and beauty of all it contains.

what there is to love about a man: journey

This excerpt is from my out-of-print book, What There Is To Love About A Man.
The art is by British artist David Preston-Earley, who adds,
” This image is about a mythical journey where the people of the world
are carried on the back of a turtle. The turtle is a symbol of
fertility and long life. To the Native Americans
it was associated with the lunar cycle and also female energies.
The spirit of the turtle can also teach us about our relationship with time,
it does not move fast, the turtle knows it has all the time in the world.”

Journey, by David Preston-Earley

When a man goes on his true journey,
it’s hard to know who might return.

His quest requires that he strip down to his authentic core,
that he litter his pathway with the baggage he no longer agrees to carry.

He will pass through uncharted territory with no map
and little understanding of where he’s headed.
The trees will be covered with thorns
Large, lumbering dragons will appear without warning
and breathe hot fire into his face.
Winds will shift
and golden fruit will hang just out of his reach
when he is starving most.

It is a pilgrimage he must make alone,
though able guides are recommended.
He begins when he is ready,
When he can no longer tolerate who he’s become.
When his only choice seems to be
implode or explode.

Loved ones, wait patiently.

When the journey’s complete,
the pilgrim is reborn.

fearing clearing? get your move on & deal with your stuff!

I am an inveterate nomad who carries the DNA of a migratory desert dweller. When I feel called to relocate, I prepare with little or no hesitation. Oftentimes I pack and stand ready for months while the energy lines up for actual physical movement. For me, moving is a sacred ritual and a potent symbol of an engaged life journey,  and I bring to bear as much presence as I can muster.

Suddenly, it seems everyone is on the move. They’re moving away from relationships, jobs, houses, towns, cities, communities, states, and heading to something new. Something unknown, perhaps. Some of you have had the rug pulled out from under you and feel desperate and dislocated. Others are manifesting long-held visions and await “The New” with radiance and outstretched arms.

Indian Family & Belongings, from "Material World"

Ultimately, no matter why, where, how, or with whom you are on the move, the energy you bring to the experience is wholly up to you. So, what’s it gonna be? Pain or Pleasure? Resistance or Surrender? Miracles or Madness?

Truly, what do you want to take with you? In even more blunt terms: How are you dealing with your stuff?

Each and every item you live with carries an energetic signature and is imbued with memories and past experiences. I recently watched someone throw old, dusty, rumpled, mismatched, broken, dirty pieces of life into crates and boxes. I observed quietly (No small feat, that!) and saw the patterns in this individual’s life. Things are never brought to completion. Everything is left half-finished. Beginnings and endings are glossed over, never acknowledged, let alone honored. To “let go of” is fraught with loss, grief, and the emotions they carry.

Nope, this isn’t about housekeeping, and it’s not about living on a limited budget. Nearly everything I own has come to me via consignment and thrift stores, free boxes in front of homes and in alleys, and as a result of helping others clear their clutter. I routinely ask friends if I can review their castoffs — and generally then offer to take the bones to the donation drop-off. I continue to be astounded at the new and nearly new items relegated to dumpsters: Why not just crumple up dollar bills of every denomination and roast marshmallows over the fire?

Japanese Family & Belongings, "Material World"

Everything is vibration, therefore, everything is “alive.” These so-called inanimate objects have a life cycle, too. They need to be with people who love them, appreciate them, and will give them the opportunity to express “themselves” in appropriate ways. If they’re “done” in their current form, they’re free to go. Face it: If you reincarnated as a blender, wouldn’t you positively yearn for the opportunity to puree, mix, froth and whip? (More on this concept in my earlier post, The Secret Life of Words Revealed, found here.)

There is no better opportunity to wipe your slate clean, than when you are moving house, apartment, double-wide, tipi, or shop. Do you actually desire to drag all your old baggage (physically and metaphysically) into a brand-spanking-new life?

Does it honor the memory of your dear, departed mother if you toss her old things into a box that once transported chicken breasts to your local Chinese restaurant — or might it be a more loving gesture to wipe them off, wrap them up with gratitude and love, and then give them another shot at being enjoyed by someone else?

If you haven’t already seen “The Story of Stuff,” check out this quick tease below. For the whole story, click right here.