Saturday, February 18, 2006

Plunging in to the Sea of Tranquility

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Boldly I plunge
back into the
sea of tranquility
from which I rose.

Templated
moulded
fingerprinted, named
and shaped.

Swirling
Amid the concentric circles
I drift
back
towards
the Centre

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The Cup

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Ms Dementia Praecox, drawn for Anita Marie Moscoso, who created this wonderful character, as a part of her Faraway series.


Ms Dementia Praecox
Holds out a cup to me.

``Don't drink it, don't drink."
A warning voice whispers in my head.

Something moves within the pale green liquid,
Something with fire in its heart.

Not like a tequila worm.
This is alive, and malevolent.

Ms Dementia Praecox
Has eyes that burn through me like flaming arrows.

`Don't drink," the voice whispers, then is stilled
As my hand curls around the cup.

I draw it close to my lips
And the worm slithers up the glass and into my mouth.

I feel it seeking the secret places in my mind,
bringing cold red light into the darkness.

In the labyrinthine coils of my disordered mind
The worm sees itself.

Ms Dementia Praecox
steals away, her work is done.

I drank my own madness from my own cup.
She merely held it for me.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Spring Cleaning

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Images pass before me
as I sit in the humid stillness
that soaking rain has not washed away
If Soul Food vanished,
if my words disappeared
Would I be the same?
Same person I was

Stopping to question
attachments to material things
Do I need the things that surround me?
Who would I be
If I abandoned some of the things
To which I have become attached?

I look and wonder
who would I be?

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Woman at the Crossroads

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No one is sure who she is but, despite the wind's concern, she is coming.


Woman at the Crossroads

Follow the way
the wind blows
like a feather
weightlessly buoyant.

Follow your heart
its desire
pulling heartstrings
like a lovers
gentle caress.

Follow your creativity
wherever
it may take you
like a journeying
traveler.

Follow the path
at the crossroads
that which you must
only you
will know.

© Megan Warren 11 January 2006

Friday, October 28, 2005

Night Ride



'Night Ride' by Heather Blakey
TRIPLE WONDER

Listen close to the whispering leaves
of memories fallen from Life's Tree,
and you will know of the chant of three.

"Foresooth come one, bind two, circle three
To seize hold of quest and courage --
By this count your will is forged to be."

For they are the Steeds of the Goddess,
that plunge across dream filled skies,
in thrine with earth and wind a fire.

You but need supply the human tears
for the fine charity you must share,
for Her chariot to clear the path.

Ever grasp the reins and spare the whip,
for Shea guides with gentle hand
that ye may find answers from within.

Their names are Spirit, Soul and Mind
that must pull in harness one the same,
if thee would beguile the Enchantress.

"Foresooth come one, bind two, circle three
To seize hold of quest and courage --
By this count your will is forged to be."

Triple Wonder by faucon of Sakin'el

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Isle of Ancestors

I had let the others go to the Isle ahead of me, had deliberately lingered in the Tavern of the Inn, sharing a night cap with the old woman who ran the place. We talked about the group I had bought to Duwamish and she marvelled at their implicit trust. "You do have a gift child" she said as she poured me a smooth musket. I laughed out loud and cynically told her that I most certainly had a gift for waxing lyrical. She looked at me with knowing eyes and said that she thought I needed to take the trip to the island instead of sitting here by myself trying to avoid truth.

So I got up from the bar stool and as I rose I heard footsteps behind me. As I turned I gasped. There, right before me was Dad, looking just as he had looked when he last stood at my door with his basket of homegrown vegetables in his hand. I dropped my glass as I stepped forward to greet him and glass splintered across the floor. I hugged him and held him tightly for ages.

"Come Heather! I have come to take you to the ferry woman. My grandmother will take you across to the island."

"But Dad! Can't we spend some time together?" I pleaded.

"Shush little one" he smiled, putting his finger to his lips. "There will be time for that later, after you have been to the island."

With that my father led me to the quay to journey to the Isle of Ancestors, led me to the boat my great grandmother steered. It came as no surprise that her boat was shaped as, was in fact a black mare.

Dad gave me a leg up and my great grandmother and I rode bareback without speaking to the Isle of the Ancestors. I knew that she would be by my side while I completed the journey, that she would witness a rebirth. She smiled, nodded in agreement with my thoughts and led me through the moonlit apple orchard towards the stone doors, carved curiously in the shape of a vagina.

The doorway was open and we walked together down the labyrinthine passage way. Memories of Chartres Cathedral swarmed back. Memories of walking the labyrinth gripped me.

On we walked, my great grandmother and I, her warm hand guiding me until finally we entered a space that looked like it had been woven by a raven. A raven's nest? But then, as we circled and approached the hooded figures who were waiting for me, I realised that this was the womb I had lain in all those years ago. For a moment I thought I could hear my mother's voice, feel her movements, hear her feel the quickening as I moved. But then there was silence and I looked at the women who had gathered to greet them and gave them the raven feather I had had tucked in a pocket for protection.

As I sat tears welled and I began to sob in the arms of my great grandmother. The tears I shed were tears that I have resisted shedding. They came in torrents, flooding, drenching us.

"Why?" I blurted almost incoherently. "Why have I had to carry such a burden of grief and loss? Why can't I know unbridled joy?"

The women rose as a collective, revealing themselves to be my grandmothers, dating back centuries. I had never known one of them in my physical life yet I knew them to be my grandmothers. These women embraced me, as a collective and held me until I stopped crying. No one spoke. I felt their empathy, their knowing and I knew that they knew my agony of isolation.

It is a blur now but at some point I realised that they had wrapped me in a cloak of their collective knowing, that they were the cloak, that they had transformed themselves and were a part of me. My great grandmother, the Ferry Woman, sat me on a throne, wearing my specially woven coat.

Bells sounded, announcing that it was time to lead and my grandmother led me out of the throne womb, back up the labyrinthine passage, through the stone vulva and we rode on her mare back to Duwamish.

I held her warm hand briefly, pulled the collar of my new coat up to block the dawn chill and, singing with joy danced towards the inn. The Innkeeper told me the others had been down at the bathhouse and hadn't noticed my absence. So I slipped quietly to my room and slept, still wearing my coat, a coat that will always distinguish me and name me wounded healer.

The agony of isolation is over. Praise be!

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

The Cave of the Enchantress

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Inside the Cave of the Enchantress

I stand looking tentatively at the sealed cellar door that leads deep within, to a place I have been reluctant to enter alone. Others have bravely opened their tailor made doors, but this one has been haunting me for many years. I have seen it in there, amid the parched arid terrain, tightly, heavily closed and I have felt an overpowering apprehension. The fate of Pandora and her box has been well and truly etched into my psyche and I have dreaded the thought of opening it, only to release winged terrors.

Right at this moment something is very different. As I stand looking I can hear sounds that I have never heard before, soft voices calling me to explore the expansive chamber below. Intuitively I know that this will not be the last seal to break but I have been released from a stressful work-place and feel a little stronger, more able to cope and those voices are haunting me.

It has been a long day and I am weary. I am standing in harsh, flat, scrubby plains that have little appeal. I am confused! The Sibyl's Grotto is supposed to be in Umbria, Italy and this landscape most certainly is not Umbrian. The enchantress is not going to be impressed when she cannot find me at the appointed spot.

The voices become louder, urging me to lift open this door, at the bottom of stone steps. The steps remind me of an abandoned factory where I played, alone, as a child. At the end of those stairs there was a sealed door and I spent hours imagining what lay beyond. Curious!

With a strident, unfamiliar self confidence I grab the steel handle and pull it towards me. The hinges had appeared to be rusted but the door opens without so much as a creak. Relief washes over me as I pass through the doorway into refreshingly cool darkness. I lightly touch the chilled, stone ledge and make my way down into what feels like a vast chamber. It is the sounds, the smell that reveal the dimension of this place that I have entered. I sense that this is an enchanted, mystical , spiritual place that I have stumbled upon and stand quite still, adjusting my eyes to the light.

A warm hand grabs mine and as my guides flashlight hits the walls I gasp. All around us is exquisite, sacred art, art that is calling up my past. The rocky overhangs have been transformed into magnificent galleries, adorned with hand stencilled images, painted with striking red ochres and yellow clay paint. A thousand eyes turn to look at me, eyes that had been motionless until I made my entrance. Figures turned in recognition, figures longing for life to be infused into them.

What artist painted these halls; carved these figures, shaped the towering rocky overhangs?

My guide turns, looks at me and smiles. I know her immediately to be the Enchantress that had said we were going to Umbria. "This has been a place of celebration and ceremony for thousands of years. These are to be your quarters for the coming months!" she tells me and before I can respond she has vanished.

Still holding my empty suitcase I look around. No longer dark or gloomy the cavern is filtered with a radiant luminosity. This hauntingly sacred place, so full of atmospheric secrecy, has no sign of permanent occupation. It is pristine, the ultimate refuge. Nearby are deep, dark, still pools, filled with reflections and memories by Mnemosyne, Goddess of Memory.

I put my suitcase on a ledge, leaving it open, ready to store the stories, images, artefacts and look for a place to rest. I am suddenly beyond weary. I yearn to sleep. The Enchantress is gone, riding, galloping towards the Lemurian Abbey. A night rider, dressed in black she is sure to return, eventually. I have faith that she will return.