tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54934096895289046932024-03-04T23:47:08.680-08:00Stamattina-------each morning we are born again...t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.comBlogger217125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-10253752366760223612016-07-02T11:27:00.002-07:002016-07-06T21:26:54.524-07:00a lesson in lessons <i>and i hope you find</i><br />
<i>more than just yourself.</i><br />
<i>i hope you find</i><br />
<i>the strength</i><br />
<i>not to hurt the people</i><br />
<i>who love you.</i><br />
<i>i hope you find </i><br />
<i>a thousand miracles</i><br />
<i>hidden in the soft rain</i><br />
<i>and i hope you find art,</i><br />
<i>in all the people</i><br />
<i>you deserve to love.</i><br />
<i> </i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> r.m. drake</span><br />
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Everything is a lesson. We are not always ready to learn.<br />
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We think we are. So we go seeking, asking, half assed listening to only what we want to hear or think we need to know. We put unreasonable expectations on ourselves to be at a particular place by a particular time and so exist at the mercy of place and time--stuck and feeling as if it is running out. You aren't. And it isn't.<br />
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Every single moment, as noticeably catalytic or necessarily subtle, seemingly, even, stagnant, hosts a lesson. Lessons are woven intricately into all of our doings and it takes time spent patiently unravelling them, deciphering their message from the coded repetition of our patterns and habits and recurring sequences of events, before we can understand them with and implement them into our being. Look at the first sentence of this paragraph: full of commas; perforated by pausing meant to implement another similar, connected idea or strain that contributes to the entirety of the message. Excessive perhaps, but indicative of how a lesson is not always immediate, but, how as the sentence to follow relays, needs to be pulled from the pauses and collected from what seems to be a constant relearning; to be siphoned from the bigger picture that we have created, so that the truth might reveal itself in its grandeur.<br />
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So that the real lesson, not the one that we are seeking the answer to, can be learned.<br />
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We learn what we need to as we need to, not what we want to when we want to.<br />
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We have epiphanies not because of some random dawning of understanding, but because of a collection of hints and happenings and molecularly sized lessons climaxing into a knowing. An <i>aha</i>. An <i>I get it</i>. Sometimes a <i>duh</i>. Most of the time, a sweet reprieve from thinking and a softening <i>ohh</i>, that's why, and here I am, exactly where I need to be and all of what caused confusion or what played out as an annoying continuation of the same sequence of learning becomes essential, relevant, and clear in this moment. As a lesson for the next.<br />
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We are never done learning, we are in a constant receiving of bits and pieces of understanding so that bit by bit and piece by piece we become more whole, or at least more connected to what is whole. And the seeking lessens as we learn the ultimate lesson: listen.<br />
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Listen. Notice synchronicities, divine timing, dream messages and humans only meant to be messengers and nothing more--the ones that come and go and leave you thinking and feeling on a level untouched by those you are meant to learn more slowly with and from. Gather the hints from what resonates, from what causes you to react. Believe that seeds are being planted always and that only will they begin to flourish when the soil of our beings is fecund; when we are most fertile, ripe for gestation and producing. Remember that you, like and as nature, are subject to cycles, and that often we re-learn before we really learn. And often what is learned is not what we expected. And often what we expect is what keeps us from learning--what we feel we need to know strangles our knowing, is too loud for the intimate listening required to really learn.<br />
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The need to know in and of itself is distracting enough without the need to know where and when--but the need to know why here, why now, when the lessons do settle in--those questions are irrelevant. Really, none of it matters except that you did learn. And then, most importantly, how you use that information. How you take ownership of what you are going to do with that knowing.<br />
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That was something I learned from the students here--they embodied ownership; they all came as they are, uniquely expressive, perceptive, human. They came with a stronghold on their own journey, taking full responsibility for what they would get out of this--what they were after, willing to receive, abundant in offering. Yet because I was not looking for that particular message, I didn't know that was what I had received as a catalyst for necessary personal learnings until their teacher vocalized it two nights ago, and I saw so clearly in my own doings that I had learned that from them. And then, in the knowing, I could see so clearly how their energy had permeated, given me the strength to shine a light on some shadows in a way I hadn't anticipated. And really a lot of dangling strings tied together in a remarkably strong knot and I feel now each inexplicable experience and lesson tethered to my being. Anchored in self. In knowing.<br />
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I could not have learned what I learned here if I wasn't ready for it. I would not have had the circumstantial awareness to open to this perspective, this angle, this shedding of light on this shadow that isn't so dark after all. Could not have attracted a more necessary collection of humans to be seen by and in, could not have said goodbye to a heartbreak I didn't know could exist again, could not have aligned in this way, in this relationship with myself until I was strong enough to. This experience is just a bit piece itself of the entirety of our life experience: we learn what we have come here to learn; we come as we are and the lessons come as they will. Our growth occurs as part of our contract to the divine for this go around at life--whether you believe this is a one chance opportunity or an infinite collecting of lessons to weave over many lifetimes, we are here to know what we are meant to as we are meant to, and then we are meant to share.<br />
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Share who you are, be revealed to yourself as your are to others, honour the space you are meant to hold, with faith, with kindness, alive and learning. Connect, spread love. Whether it is through pancake tricks, unscripted honesty, respectful inquisition or just coming as you are, in the smallest and most immense lessons all of our lives are being changed; at once you may be learning and revealing a lesson to someone else.<br />
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It's pouring rain again as I write this, just as it was that post on those first days of being here. Only this time the filters are less. The sureness is more rich. A truer light unwavering through the shadows.<br />
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Thank you everyone who has allowed me to teach them, allowed me to learn, taught me everything.<br />
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xx<br />
<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-58683717054331433262016-06-24T22:14:00.001-07:002016-06-24T22:36:38.441-07:00what i didn't say {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I asked for one last goodbye.<br />
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I couldn't let us dissolve like that:<br />
into a pool of pain,<br />
hurt creating an abyss to lose<br />
all that we had once loved in,<br />
life rafts constructed from pointed blame--<br />
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<i>here, take fault and you won't drown in my own sorrows</i>.<br />
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I couldn't let us cut each other out,<br />
literally, viscerally,<br />
raw and readily scarred--<br />
there are sweeter ways to make space in your heart.<br />
<br />
I asked for one last goodbye<br />
not to ensure for my own heart<br />
that yours was as defeated,<br />
not to know that you knew what you were giving up on.<br />
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No, I needed to know that we didn't give up.<br />
That every belief we had in love,<br />
still pulsed in the very hearts<br />
that now, deflated of hope, could hardly hold themselves up,<br />
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but would. I asked to know yours would.<br />
I asked because your suffering is mine<br />
and mine yours and I have not yet landed<br />
in a space that is no longer ours.<br />
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But I will.<br />
And so I say goodbye to remember,<br />
and to thank you for loving me.<br />
For trembling with me when we touched,<br />
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and coaxing trust from my defences,<br />
letting me love you as I knew how,<br />
for accepting what you could<br />
and leaving when you couldn't<br />
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pretend anymore that we were more than we are.<br />
Thank you for the strength it took<br />
to love me first and love me still,<br />
and for, in the last goodbye we shared,<br />
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left that love, kindly, behind.<br />
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As published on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/06/i-asked-for-one-last-goodbye-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/06/i-asked-for-one-last-goodbye-poem/</a><br />
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t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-19184310302076452042016-06-21T12:14:00.000-07:002016-06-21T14:02:24.352-07:00Spacious, full<i>so this is it, then--</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>the dissolution of hope.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Reality permeating</i><br />
<i>our newly emptied hearts</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>spacious</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>echoing</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>of what us meant just one rainstorm</i><br />
<i>ago</i><br />
<i>and through every storm</i><br />
<i>and how the sun feels so much different</i><br />
<i>when it rises than when it sets.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HvDMdMWy1QciR9ag5bAFJZBs0ILObcR6oBmrXWAQ-SiWUsp_b8t74YMD_M0uEmh3Cz58PoL5xV86vTuegjHg4_K5SsH1CQV8SaH2iO0DJcY25JxJ4BbN7xS9FUaCmFu8HlJWB0BsEs4/s1600/b34b96_1ae96825a53c482cbeae3ab4a81c1e7f%257Emv2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HvDMdMWy1QciR9ag5bAFJZBs0ILObcR6oBmrXWAQ-SiWUsp_b8t74YMD_M0uEmh3Cz58PoL5xV86vTuegjHg4_K5SsH1CQV8SaH2iO0DJcY25JxJ4BbN7xS9FUaCmFu8HlJWB0BsEs4/s320/b34b96_1ae96825a53c482cbeae3ab4a81c1e7f%257Emv2.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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This full moon was a potent one. This month has been a potent one. This coffee next to me is not potent enough. Never is...<br />
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I am in Santa Teresa Costa Rica, cooking for a yoga teacher training and generally having my spirit transfused in, well, the most potent of ways. Coming here, I immediately felt the shadow side to this oh so easy going surfing village--the trees have a dark allure about them, as if in contrast to the light grey/barely blue sea whose vastness gets lost in catching the light of the sun--she wants something from you here, Mother N, she wants to know all the things about you you aren't willing to share; all that you cling to underneath what you present. She wants your truth.<br />
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And she can have it.<br />
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The energy created in this teacher training has been one of welcome and acceptance. There is a grace to every human here that has allowed the space to feel full--and so too my emptying heart.<br />
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It is an interesting paradox to exist in: at once so empty, so spacious, yet so full. This is the visceral sensation of a cycle in completion: there is fullness-- resolute, decided, finished; and there is emptiness, that which is leaving making space for all that has the potential to occupy. This is sweet: to be unoccupied, with all the room for anything. This is not a duality, at once empty and full, but rather a sameness, a unified state, a oneness. Its the end of the equation.<br />
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Let's look at the beginning of it.<br />
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In coming here, I was wrought with self doubt as to where I stood spiritually. But that is just it, I was trying to stand--I was confusing my physical existence, what I could prove, align with, embody even, with my spiritual one; with the purity of existence itself. I was lost in doubt, delusion, and emotion, convinced of things I didn't believe in adjudicating my very beliefs. I had lost the trust in my higher moral conscious and was like a fish out of water. And there was that sea with its constant energetic embrace, and there was my truth, in my own. All of the pieces of me that seemed scattered, unresolved, gently fused together in a remembered awareness of my energetic presence here, and I felt whole.<br />
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This is my pattern: question, remember, affirm. It isn't to seek out new information, it isn't to desperately need to know, it is to create a distance from myself only to collect back again, more sure, more honest, more content. Undeniably an energetic being as much as a sassy, heart forward, over-thinking human sticky with salt water and mangos, listening always to the echoes of my behaviours.<br />
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In the spaciousness those echoes become more clear. They inignorably sound off of our skeletal existence, the bare bones of whom we are as constructs of our patterns. Listen. What is on repeat for you? What removes you from the constancy of source and intoxicates you with the constancy of habit? Where are you cheating yourself of an immediate aliveness?<br />
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A sister of mine says that we hear these echoes, or rather, repeat our lessons time after (defeating) time, looping and looping a string of behaviour, at some point realizing, <i>here I am again, when will I learn?</i> And every time we complete a circle, the strings are being woven into a cord with the eventual strength to use the lesson instead of being used by it; rather than orchestrating the way that we live, our patterns become the foundation from which to transform. We learn to alchemize our shadows into light.<br />
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And then we start to get right addicted to truth for feeling it's weight in gold.<br />
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Fullness. From the emptying out, from the spaciousness created in trusting, in being willing to let go, in hosting the echoes of our behaviours so that they might resonate more obviously, poignant in deliverance to our knowing, comes a richness. Truth of self is satiating, and it is found in taking accountability for that which feels burdensome, that which is created in suffering, and choosing what is necessary to heal. Choosing to empty out to delusion, false hope, conditions, energetically harmful contracts with your physical and emotional self so that you might feel full of possibility, integrity, and, well, you.<br />
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You. Complete. Whole. Clear. Emptied for expansion, filled by truth.<br />
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I did not know the light that would come for me in the shadows here, but ooh lala do I hope you find the light in yours, and feel the same completion. I hope you saw the sky last night and howled. I hope as the moon closes her cycle to allow for the next, you will too; that as the days get longer, your spirit gets brighter.<br />
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Thank you always for seeing me: dark, light, in pieces or collected together in a unique expression of energy, life, love.<br />
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xx<br />
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<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-42782772368440290862016-05-30T18:51:00.001-07:002016-05-30T20:15:35.687-07:00the truth comes out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I consider myself a very private person.<br />
<br />
This is laughable. This has been laughed at recently by some of my closest humans. My laugh is the last thing I keep private...<br />
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I am here. Laughing loudly. With a voice whose volume has little to do with loud/quiet and everything to do with impact. With a collection of words strung together into some semblance of an opinion or provocation. I am here with poems that if you follow closely enough you'll know when to ask, as some of those humans have, if I need to ceremonially burn a relationship relic. I am here with eyes that change colour with my mood and play host to the fire that is alive in me. I am here to converse in all of its forms, be it I write and you read, or we swap roles, or we swap stories over tea and both leave knowing that our souls were untangled a bit from our performances--from those ideas we have about ourselves.<br />
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I am not private. This is an idea. An idea that for whatever reason I am attracted to and so continue to believe despite acting entirely different. And in that is my understanding of truth.<br />
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My truth is different from yours, and neither is right nor wrong, rather it is our individual reservoir of fuel to live from. To come as we are. However, there is an interesting differentiation between the truths we tell ourselves--as with my self-convinced privacy-- and how we are revealed through our actions.<br />
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To some extent our actions are a product of what we believe or desire ourselves to be, but when misaligned with our truth they only decompose and in such facilitate the growth of a more rooted sense of self. And what permeates then, through our roots and into our external, behavioural blossoming is a more honest self. Our truths are not changeable, they are uncoverable. And once uncovered they need not be explained, not even understood, certainly not compared--they simply resonate on such a level of intimacy that we embody them with precision, grace even, that we can only be seen as living in potent integrity.<br />
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My truth has been diluted by what I have told myself, but is heightened by what is observable in how I live. And by people who see me when I think they can't. Conversations we have had simply through being.<br />
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And conversations that are more literal.<br />
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I'm understanding the necessity of discourse as much as I once revered privacy, or lately, silence. I believe the way to lift yourself from banality, as Svetlana Alexievech says, is to descend into the depths of yourself, especially through meditation and self inquiry and respect for what you are listening for, but also to allow others to dive with you. What someone asks you or what truth of theirs they offer, perhaps through saying what you weren't able to but <i>oh yes</i> feel the resonation of entirely, are ways they plug into your truths that serve to add light into deeper crevices, providing new angles of perception.<br />
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To quote another rad woman with somethings to say, Nayirah Waheed refers to humans as either organs or swords--there are those whom help us pulse, who feed into our vitality and raise our vibrations, and those who slash us open or sever parts of ourselves that must die so that we may live more fully. Persons whom play host to conversations that are unnerving, expansive, and serve to siphon truths from every polluted bit of distrust in ourselves and not need confirmation from anything but our willingness to know more intimately, who we are. Those who, in not judging us, ask us to do the same for ourselves.<br />
<br />
That is where I feel most conversations suffer: judgement. Be it the ones you have with others that are subject to vagueties, half truths lacquered in fear and lengthy vocabulary to avoid saying what is directly aching to move from your strangled throat chakra, or in those more quiet ones we have with ourselves. In self-judgement, we take what we hear from our truth centres and taint it by looking for validation or "rightness" from books, professional intuitive diagnoses or predictions, our astrological sign, doctrinarians, like-minded opinions… external reference points for our internal knowings. Judging in the most cyclical of ways what we know by what we don't know. Y'know?<br />
<br />
We do not know anything for sure, but we learn so much more purely when we do not question every piece of motivation to do, every inclination or innate sense that evolves us, anything we feel compelled to share, but instead surrender and notice from the place of having arrived instead of seeking arrival. When we look at the way we work against or in harmony with every bit of external information we receive, when we hear not just what is said in conversations, but how what is said lands with us--internally. And we do so with the intention to simply witness our experience. When we are tuned into, and tuned by, what is not said amidst all that is being said. This is where listening occurs at its finest--when the questions you ask are not navigated towards a specific answer, but an actual wonder at what is. When what you hear can occur far more subtly than the decibels that speech reaches. When the experience of conversation is as fascinating as the subject matter, and both allow us to see ourselves more clearly.<br />
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See what happens when you find yourself just as fascinating, when you find yourself where you left yourself and arrive as a bit more of your self. When you are not looking for anything, but accepting what you are. When you radiate your intentions and worth, founded in a trust in your feelings to be tethered to truth. When your vulnerability not only with others but with your own self is nothing short of fierce, and you take that into the interactions you have, knowing one thing for sure: what is unsaid has as much value as what is said--and you ought to get oh so clear on both in the next conversation you have with yourself, so that you may converse more honestly whether in whom you are being, or whom you are sharing your being with. Whether you're alone or navigating your depths with another; whether you're private or not.<br />
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Thank you to those who took the time for tea*, who laughed directly at me and with me, who elevated me and grounded me without saying anything, who scratched a little deeper into my truths and held the space for me to feel those raw feels. I hear you. I love you.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*another half truth to the humans who know me best. It was coffee. Lots of it. </span>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-45842431024524702392016-05-11T12:27:00.003-07:002016-05-11T12:28:18.151-07:00I Imagined our Love {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">I imagined kissing you slowly,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">your lips finally finding mine as your hand ran the length of my thigh,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">your heat and the safety your shape brings me</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">as you leaned over me</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">I imagined meeting your gaze </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">in the darkness and from only the light of your eyes </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">knowing we chose this together--</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">falling in love again.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">I imagined after so long, </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">after all the time and the hope that had collected </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">what it would be like to release in to you,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">Surrendering</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">I imagined how after exposing</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">ourselves openly honest, raw,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">how it would feel to lay together again.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">To make love.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">To choose love.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">But it was all just my imagination and illusion is cruel.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">My lips are dry and my legs feel weak.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">I'm alone in the darkness,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">Closing my eyes, falling into a dream of you </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">Again. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">Surrendering to sleep and time and </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">The truths I laid out for myself.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">For in reality,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">in letting each other go,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #212121;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">we loved on still.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121;">As published on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/an-imaginary-love-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/an-imaginary-love-poem/</a></span></span>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-55808130620106602532016-05-10T13:04:00.000-07:002016-05-11T13:04:36.110-07:00My poem, my prayer {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to live in joy.
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</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this "i am" of enlightenment</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lose my fight,</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">my sight of what</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to<i> do</i> with this life.</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hear you about "being"</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm with you, I'm agreeing,</span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">mind at ease, I'm receiving,</span></span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">but wonder if </span></span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">thoughts are really so deceiving...</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff;"><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">is it so wrong to be thinking</span></span></span><span style="background-color: #e0edff;"><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span></span></span><span style="background-color: #e0edff;"><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">sweetly believing</span></span></span><span style="background-color: #e0edff;"><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span></span></span><span style="background-color: #e0edff;"><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">that there is life to be lived?</span></span></span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Can your spirit be driven </span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">by this love you have found in</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">your true sense of self</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">this freedom, this wealth--</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">abundant, and oh, isn't it</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">intimate…</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">what will you do with it?</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let the sun touch your skin</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and walk blooming lotus.</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plant seeds, k</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">iss the earth,</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">give thanks cast to the wind.</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Give in to the ocean.</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Give up fleeting emotion--</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Feel it and leave it,</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look to your heart to believe it,</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trust what is true</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">to your sense of you.</span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think if you wish,</span></span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">not to control or convince you,</span></span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">but with curious freedom,</span></span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">to listen in and move</span></span><br /><span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from your heart, it's your home,</span></span></span><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; font-family: inherit; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">bring love when you come,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">bring love where you go.</span><br /><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is my joy, my prayer, and my poem.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As published by Elephant Journal: </span></span><a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/my-joy-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/my-joy-poem/</a><br />
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</span>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-77992483187556297972016-05-05T20:12:00.000-07:002016-05-05T20:12:39.408-07:00the birthing process<i>"In that place again that I know that I know, but I don't know….for me this is where some of the most raw creativity births out of delicate vulnerability.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The wise and the ancient say that paradox is the nature of Life. That Life is composed of opposites that seemingly contradict. When I can become awake in this stormy place of contradictions, in my highest vision I can see its because something inside is transforming. That it cannot make sense because true sense is a multi-dimensional experience. Therefore to find comfort in any kind of sense my mind seeks is to grasp too tight to the tiny dimension of man made knowns.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>I don't know. But I know. But just cannot know. And if i did, if we knew, how could we ever be surprised by the lessons that unfold through the mystery?"</i><br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
There is still sand in my hair. This could mean that I am a horribly inefficient shower-er, or a testimony to the clinging residue of the fine black sand in Mazunte, or perhaps even a very tangible example of how I am holding on to my time in Mexico.<br />
<br />
I am holding on to my time in Mexico.<br />
<br />
Though, not because I long so much for the sun on every inch of my skin and the sound of the ocean to lull me asleep at any hour of my oh so un-agenda'd days, not because of mangos ripening on the trees outside of my door or the kindness of that quirky town and the jungle medicine of the one before it, but for the ease of being that I had. There was an ease of doing, yes, certainly, but that connection to myself, that deeply reverberating sense of truth and integrity, that unshakeable calm despite all that was shaken--it was easy to just be.<br />
<br />
What is not so easy, is to take those moments that shatter your paradigms as if breaking ground for your roots to grow sturdier yet and your soul to drink in the Earth and flourish in harmony with life itself, and transition away from the place and time which provided the sanctuary for this gestation. Not easy, but oh so necessary.<br />
<br />
So necessary to realize that it was not the place and the time, but the you. The willingness. The readiness. The awakening of your spirit to experience something in the fullness of its intensity. To not shy from discomfort or seek out distraction. To not dilute the potency of your feels, be it the most alive sense of joy, of viva la vida you have ever known, or a sorrow that seems far too palpable to be purely emotion. To not repress. To simply not repress. Ever. Anything….<br />
<br />
This is the birthing process. Post gestating in the womb of everything nurturing, shaping, defining, spacious and quiet, and entering into the noise of possibility, creating, expanding, expressing. The time when you are brought to life with an insatiable wonder at all of it. And yet a distrust. You were once so protected and now so fully vulnerable. All that you feel is new and yet innately natural. Indistinguishable yet refining itself all to its own devices. You are home and you are not. You are you and yet….there is something more. Something that amidst all of the contradictions you can sense that you are only just coming to know, just coming to embrace fully as your archetype, your place, your aliveness. Your self.<br />
<br />
It is so much simpler in the womb. It can be that simple out of it. Life can be as simple as surrender. We exist with paradoxes, we exist with truths that exist simultaneously with other truths and it is our objective not to know one from the other and which is "right" but to trust in the option of both. To know we have options. To know that at once all is already decided for you, yet you are only being revealed to that, to yourself, layer by sweetly unique and changing layer. To know that each birth required a death of some kind, a letting go….so let go. Simplify. Trust.<br />
<br />
Be born again. Even now. Fully embrace that all that you know only brings you closer to all that you do not; the complexities of change only seem so-- your evolution is simple. Be willing for those bits of you that no longer ring truest of true to die off and the newest of your buds to receive more vital energy. Again, do not repress your feels or your questions, rather trust in those same feels providing you the answers. Again, trust. And believe in magic.<br />
<br />
For the birth process is that: magic. A dark and light, white and black magic blend of something inexplicable yet fully liveable for each of us with our own very unique process of integrating into whom we always have been. Mine will look different than yours; right now mine looks like comforting bits of sand in my hair, feels like wading through the sea, consciously moving but more slowly, more aware, and excited in a way that moves my nerves and bones as the relentless sincerity of the waves crashing to the shore did--I may not be able to hear them now, but I remember them, and learn that it is actually myself I am holding onto. And I write these words as much for me as for you. And I hope for us all to continually take opportunity to be in the sweetly mysterious, magical process of growing more alive.<br />
<br />
xxt__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-19521177757784835982016-05-03T11:05:00.002-07:002016-05-03T11:05:44.459-07:00I am not afraid to love you {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi489x5ys4Qpxl9miV1kwEvPxxOrkaewrKdLIcY5z4VilA5vP5Kb97C3xEs-sfyj6GZS-8fiXMOCvUHCBM6FxsYgN8vh2_F3LhLKpwE2Zdun32Fnbz0TeOl3jXk3cm3igVoaWNF5L1LnZM/s1600/IMG_2933+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi489x5ys4Qpxl9miV1kwEvPxxOrkaewrKdLIcY5z4VilA5vP5Kb97C3xEs-sfyj6GZS-8fiXMOCvUHCBM6FxsYgN8vh2_F3LhLKpwE2Zdun32Fnbz0TeOl3jXk3cm3igVoaWNF5L1LnZM/s320/IMG_2933+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I'm not afraid to argue,<br />
come--see me.<br />
<br />
Confront me.<br />
Disagree.<br />
<br />
Let me know you<br />
like you know you,<br />
show that you care to understand me.<br />
<br />
Ask me questions<br />
I only seem to have the answers to--<br />
help me get clear.<br />
<br />
Dig deeper.<br />
Inquire.<br />
<br />
I am not afraid of your<br />
intensity,<br />
get passionate with me.<br />
<br />
Be sure,<br />
and not so.<br />
<br />
Be vulnerable.<br />
Tell me what happens<br />
to your heart when I smile--<br />
<br />
is it so terrifying<br />
to not be able to reason at love,<br />
to let now be enough?<br />
<br />
Feel.<br />
Weep.<br />
<br />
Let me in on your confusion,<br />
your doubts and debates.<br />
What weighs on your heart?<br />
<br />
Ill take it in mine.<br />
I'm here to hold you<br />
as you've held me,<br />
<br />
to ease you your suffering.<br />
To look into your eyes<br />
and see the truth<br />
<br />
through the fear.<br />
To know that when we conflict<br />
we grow closer in<br />
<br />
trust,<br />
a willingness to feel,<br />
working to understand.<br />
<br />
Surrender your heart<br />
from your words,<br />
and know<br />
<br />
that I am not afraid<br />
of love.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
As published on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/i-am-not-afraid-to-love-you-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/05/i-am-not-afraid-to-love-you-poem/</a>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-81643947250394836372016-05-01T03:42:00.001-07:002016-05-01T04:02:20.673-07:00Gestation<span style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>The neem tree scatters sun and shadow
across my skin,
My legs hang painted gold,
rooted, sure,
knowing Mother Earth's fertility.
Take it's medicine,
take my time.
Gestation, growth.
I reach out in wonder, touch it's
leaves and blossom alongside,
wise.
I can still touch the sound of the ocean with my heart.
The echoes are the same there.
The echoes are the same there.</i></span></span><br />
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<br />
I have never been more naked than I was in Mazunte.<br />
<br />
I have never, either, been more quiet about it.<br />
<br />
Never have I been more honest, done more letting go, found more ease/acceptance/value, got cozy in my heart, been eaten by more bugs, eaten more tortilla chips, digested, lived out paradoxes without being torn between two equally true truths, listened to the same song on repeat, listened to myself…. If Yelapa was womb-like, then Mazunte was where I released fully into a period of gestation, growth.<br />
<br />
And here is the thing about growth: we can plant as many seeds as we like, offer water and sun, sing to them the sweetest of melodies, but if the soil is not richly fertile, those seeds will starve. In other words, we cannot learn our lessons unless the willingness to do so provides the most fecund environment to nourish what we need to know--or rather, what we already do.<br />
<br />
You know all that you need to know. None of what you feel you need to learn comes from anyone else's information for you, whether that be in conversation, written in books, broadcast from an alter/stage/podcast--those are the sun and the rain. And let them feed into your growth, let them provoke you, move you, resonate with you, but understand that the resonation comes because they are touching a piece of truth that already exists within you…and then seek to understand this truth as intimately as you can. You become oh so fertile, oh so prepared to flourish when you get oh so clear on your very own version of the world and understanding of yourself within it. The spirit that courses through you is in everything you touch and see and exist in harmony with, every serendipitous connection with creation--get to know it, your spiritual awakening will birth your human awakening.<br />
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But before birth there must be a gestation time; digestion, or as was described in the silent retreat I participated in in Mazunte, a process of deconditioning. After having a pure experience, it is necessary to allow an awakened moment to set in, to keep it from the conditioned mind's patterns so that it might settle more deeply, more purely yet, closer to the divine knowing of the heart. When we feel something rock our beings on a soul level, we cannot ignore that that vibration needs to settle, otherwise the excess energy of it simply gets flung out into an abyss, robbing us of the nutrients it contains that grow us incrementally. Example: falling in love. Ooh lala, delightful. Trance like, a vortex that one can quickly lose oneself in and start to compromise ones own identity for how something feels or the illusion that attraction, lust, desire, hope can persuade us with. We forget that love takes work, constant choosing, commitment, and requires a coaxing from the romance of it all into the great significance of what it can effortfully be; and so it goes for the level of intimacy we have with ourselves. Ultimately, we need time to steep in our lessons, revelations, remembrances, and self love, so that they might concentrate richly and as a developed part of us, so that when they are questioned we know if we are meant to hold steady, grounded in our roots, or bloom further, continue to expand, versify, die and be born again….<br />
<br />
And when you do birth again after a proper, potent gestation, there is an urgency to living <i>now</i>, as you are meant to. Awake. In tune. Enraptured and rapturous. Provoked and provocative. Spacious and open. Continuously stoking your own fire so that you might do so for others--you are not meant to please everyone, but ask them to know themselves by how they are stirred by you. You are not meant to doubt or rush our own process, but to take your time in reverence of your epic formation. Aware of your worth. Trusting. Faithful to yourself and all that can only exist uniquely within you makes you indispensable, alive, present. We are not meant to experience this world in any other way but through the intelligent absorption of our minds and bodies and wondrous experience of our hearts. And in fact we do not need to know, at all, but to settle into experience contentedly, intuitive, feeling, uncompromisingly trusting in every bit of your being.<br />
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You do not have to spend six weeks under a Spanish sun, ten days in silence, or hours listening to words that sound just as medicine heals….you just have to listen to you.<br />
<br />
xx<br />
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t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-90544806415316882722016-04-29T09:45:00.000-07:002016-04-29T09:45:45.649-07:00love you with joy {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What joy can I bring you?<br />
<br />
We know pleasure,<br />
<i>oh yes, how we know pleasure…</i><br />
<br />
but I mean not of a single finger<br />
up your spine to wake your<br />
skin and bring your chest to mine--<br />
no, I mean the loving trace<br />
<br />
of my hands on your strong back,<br />
and our sleeping tangle of fingers and legs<br />
like roots weaving to ground together.<br />
I do not mean your lips on the cusp of my chin,<br />
<br />
warm breath at my neck,<br />
but the words of your mouth--<br />
the questions that cut the tension of touch<br />
and ask me to go deeper.<br />
<br />
I mean the joy in knowing<br />
we can conflict and emerge more intimate,<br />
not colliding in lust,<br />
our bodies worn but our hearts more weary;<br />
<br />
I am here to hear all you have to say,<br />
and hold you more closely than<br />
the arms that pull each other from our clothes<br />
ever could.<br />
<br />
Let us instead pull each other from our souls,<br />
vulnerable, naked, free.<br />
Delight in my laughter,<br />
and I will in yours,<br />
<br />
have the courage to love me,<br />
dance because yes, my hips fit perfectly in your hands,<br />
and when we make love let it be in the joy<br />
we have found in being in love.<br />
<br />
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<br />
As published on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/alone-not-alone-with-you-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/alone-not-alone-with-you-poem/</a><br />
<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-18820559840711974102016-04-28T21:30:00.002-07:002016-05-11T23:16:40.996-07:00Alone and not {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am alone and never alone with you.<br />
<br />
You are embedded in the most<br />
naked parts of my soul;<br />
The first I think to tell<br />
and whom I most wish to listen.<br />
<br />
You alone comprehend my duality--<br />
I see the brilliance<br />
in your strength and your soft hurt.<br />
Blur the lines; we harmonize.<br />
<br />
I feel your distinct embrace<br />
whether your fingers lace with mine<br />
beneath sheets for a night<br />
or your words wrap themselves<br />
<br />
around my heart, lingering until<br />
the next time we meet--<br />
the nights are sweetly sleepless<br />
with or without you here.<br />
<br />
Space makes no difference<br />
between us and time holds no meaning.<br />
Look at the stars on any night<br />
and I will see you there.<br />
<br />
Love anyone else and see<br />
the contrast to our potent relevance.<br />
We are a love unfindable.<br />
We are an us undefinable.<br />
<br />
Defiant, even. Taking the road less travelled,<br />
and knowing not where it leads<br />
and caring even less,<br />
for the company is irreplaceable<br />
<br />
and trust connects our separate paths.<br />
We flow. Synchronized.<br />
You take the words out of my heart<br />
before I can gift them to you<br />
<br />
and we stay attune, borrowing feelings<br />
but leaving them where they<br />
were found so that we might touch them<br />
when the missing is the most palpable.<br />
<br />
Oh these late exchanges.<br />
I would not take sleep over time with you<br />
will rest enough knowing<br />
we only need to dream to meet and dance.<br />
<br />
Our love is poetry, each word necessary<br />
rhythmic and pulsing, infinite in impression. Raw.<br />
Written by two whom only know<br />
to live in the depths of each other.<br />
<br />
Go deeper with me yet, insatiable.<br />
More love to find beneath the wise willows,<br />
in the roots of the oak trees--<br />
meet me in our rabbit hole<br />
<br />
and fall asleep with me to the sound of the sea.<br />
Wake again more alive, with a resounding<br />
belief that ours is not a love<br />
to try to understand<br />
<br />
but to hold as I would be held by you,<br />
if you were here on this night I sleep alone.<br />
<br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/alone-not-alone-with-you-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/alone-not-alone-with-you-poem/</a><br />
<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-31581598147553319922016-04-26T09:12:00.002-07:002016-04-26T09:12:39.969-07:00Some of the People I know {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwCPTbZIP1m_gDaqw_RJasf8ZZklBLjUrXLHSESeqkadFxWx5yZ60bwG1IkLtIUhqA2lAEC6udutrORoTyAVoikQZBIaR2PDqj_7QhtdK81wzICUnIYR5WwiKkPcZlTw_7zq33Oh4cBPE/s1600/IMG_2604.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwCPTbZIP1m_gDaqw_RJasf8ZZklBLjUrXLHSESeqkadFxWx5yZ60bwG1IkLtIUhqA2lAEC6udutrORoTyAVoikQZBIaR2PDqj_7QhtdK81wzICUnIYR5WwiKkPcZlTw_7zq33Oh4cBPE/s320/IMG_2604.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the strongest people I know are the most gentle. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes the strongest people I know cry the sweetest tears. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At times I know their strength more fiercely in their humility. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Always in their vulnerability. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the bravest people I know have the most fears. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes their bravery comes from a need to conquer. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At times what is unconquerable feeds their courage. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And they learn the powerful grace in surrender.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some of the most joyful people I know have sadness. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sometimes their light is made brighter by the raw truths in their darkness. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At times they are so moved by what they have found that they howl </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">with sorrow fuelled compassion, humanness. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the most lost people I know </span></span><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">have the greatest propensity to live.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes their confusion is but the siphoning through of what matters the most.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At times what they find filters through is a potent dose of brilliance, inimitable.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And they embrace their journey in its entirety.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the most alive people I know die time and again.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes they change in but a moment, fluid, evolving, existentially free.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At times they are so unattached that they scatter impulsively, undefined</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and come to land in a deeper, more expansive sense of self.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the most governed people I know have the wildest dreams.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes their discipline is what grants them their freedom.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At times their boundaries so respectable that I crave</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the guidance of their sureness.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of what I know of myself is not myself at all.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes I am brave, strong in joy and sadness, alive and dying.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At times I am sure, mostly I am wild, always I am free</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ever willing to grow, discover, express the dual nature of me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/some-of-the-people-me-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/some-of-the-people-me-poem/</a></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #141823;"><span style="line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-51341606162478319072016-04-24T12:17:00.000-07:002016-04-24T18:23:32.669-07:00I dance {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3AZZr64HLHZ7TBD9AVDXuLiqjmZM1AkD8WStkmGQ0RI3lsekIqwd4V9de7VcGdhZLCfI5OCSDuUNFQxFQJWWjOmcWjJmku5L9qSE9wxjixy5AjkMdfvNHw8WU8nF0HOsHpz4NjlWCa-4/s1600/IMG_2455.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3AZZr64HLHZ7TBD9AVDXuLiqjmZM1AkD8WStkmGQ0RI3lsekIqwd4V9de7VcGdhZLCfI5OCSDuUNFQxFQJWWjOmcWjJmku5L9qSE9wxjixy5AjkMdfvNHw8WU8nF0HOsHpz4NjlWCa-4/s320/IMG_2455.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
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I dance for the moon,<br />
letting her pull me as she does the entire ocean,<br />
sway me through the thick air<br />
loosen my hips and<br />
lubricate my spine.<br />
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I dance for my sisters<br />
feeling their feminine pulse with my own--<br />
freely expressive, bold, and alive.<br />
I sway my thick hips<br />
and pour open my back.<br />
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I dance for the music<br />
of everything living. Cicadas they call<br />
and roots pound with bass,<br />
the Earth is my sitar--<br />
move my hips, move my heart.<br />
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I dance for you--<br />
for the weight of your hands on my hips<br />
and the look in your eyes that said<br />
I was yours to love<br />
as the jazz dripped cool down our backs.<br />
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I dance for myself<br />
and my sweet desire to live, to move<br />
and to love each inch of my skin.<br />
My soul at my hips,<br />
the song in my heart.<br />
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Dance for it all.<br />
For your grace and your wonder, to touch<br />
a vibration that you cannot see.<br />
Move your hips, arch your back,<br />
set yourself free.<br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/dance-yourself-free-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/dance-yourself-free-poem/</a><br />
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<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-11833877480453124372016-04-22T19:51:00.001-07:002016-05-02T21:14:28.529-07:00day twelve<i>"Diez huevos orgánicos</i><i>, por favor. Gracias"</i><br />
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I spoke too soon.<br />
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Twice.<br />
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First, I politely ordered ten eggs (because I can never remember twelve in Spanish, so I never get a full dozen...) breaking my vow of silence on the very same day that I took it. But, breakfast…..<br />
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For the next ten days I didn't say much more than a few "ow's," and listened only to the ridiculous dialogue of my distracted and quite imaginative, mixed tape lyrical mind (whose obscure, and borderline spiritually toxic soundtrack included <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czkHmjrFCnM" target="_blank">Medicine</a></i> by Rising Appalachia, chanting <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e_dob916RQ" target="_blank">Jai Shiva</a></i>, <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iuO49jbovg" target="_blank">Head over Feet</a></i> by Alanis Morisette, and <i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLwvc5Qywzk" target="_blank">Get Low</a></i> by T-Pain), at times laughing aloud at the absurdity of me. Which I hope did not disturb anyone else's silence or leave the impression that I am, perhaps, more crazy than I am. Or just, that I am.<br />
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<i>I am</i>.<br />
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That was the very simple guiding mantra of the twenty minute to three hour meditations of this 10 day silent retreat. Or rather, the question: who am I? *<br />
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And the very non-answer answer can be found in your spiritual heart. Not your heart heart, that masterful feeling organ that pulses your vitality through your body, but the one that attends similarly to your soul. Your spirit. Your youness and the isness, oneness of everything and everybody. And it is something that there are many and no words for, a very necessary experience of existence found in silence, in simply being beyond the doing, "knowing" mind.<br />
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And I talked, too soon, after it.<br />
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And not enough about it.<br />
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That was the second time. Leaving the retreat I broke the silence in too many ways about too many unnecessary things that took me too far from the very palpable result of this whole journey: the undeniable feeling of self.<br />
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You feel everything and can deny nothing. It is all there for you because it is all within you, from what you project into the experience to the moments you land back in your flesh from somewhere ethereal and as gorgeous as any bit of jungle I have seen here--from the very marrow of your self. Although my days of sea, salt, and sun, words, movement, and anything in a tortilla are very simple and leave plenty of space for me to know me, there is something incomparable to the nothingness that is everything of silence--and its remarkably loud.<br />
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To be with you in this prolonged, intentional, intimate way: r<i>emarkable</i>. Any distractions you create become a part of your unravelling, and you have this birds eye view on the very wondering of your soul. And when everything is directed toward the heart for observation it bypasses the didactic mind and instead of undergoing some sort of psychoanalysis of bad or good it just is. Because without the personality to dictate how you are going to perform this quiet ceremony of sorts, you get the undramatized version of yourself and the most tenderly simple resonations of what matters--a quiet symphony vibrating inside of you. And no matter what awful rap song would pervade my space to whichever rawly impactful chakra purging lightening of self that I was immersed in, the sensation of being oh so sweetly satiated by something I could not quite define never mind control, and really did not care to understand, lasted through the sleepless nights and sunrise walks like an elixir of truth.<br />
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Because it was.<br />
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Truths. Every meditation an offering of simple understanding in oh so potent form. Epiphanies that landed in ways that were not merely neat, oh-I-get-it realizations but would embed themselves in the very fibres of your being so that you might weave a cloak from the inside to wrap around your exterior, enrobed, embraced by non-duality. I felt as if I were sea glass, softened by the steady massage of the ocean and glowing softly--not in a way that called to be seen, but in a way that was seeing and accepting. So much to see. So much acceptance.<br />
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So much to share.<br />
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But even this seems like too many words and not enough.<br />
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And it is all a bit much, trying to process and digest and remember is pulling at the strings of that cloak and re- sharpening my salt-exfoliated edges, especially when accompanied with re-organizing life beyond the silence. I want to stay in the quiet and the feels.<br />
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Last night I was asked directly for the first time after ten days of silence: how do you feel?<br />
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<i>Afraid of losing how I felt in silence.</i><br />
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I struggled as everyone there did: with the stillness--most often ending a three hour mediation in a sort of seated sprawl…--with the lack of sleep (dreams are wild when you are in that sub-layer of awareness for hours of the day), with the wandering egoic mind, with the maddening desire for creativity and expression, and was literally in some form of countdown (minutes of meditation, meditations in the day, days left at all) for the totality of the experience to be over and yet now that it is, I want back in. I want to steep in that heart wisdom for more than hours, for days or for howevers long, until my entire being emerges, prune like and cared for, and then and only then fully expel every bit of <i>holy-YES</i> for every body, in bit pieces of the most sincere sureness. To share and write, to cry and dance and laugh however crazily from the grandmother soul of my mango-filled belly, head back and heart open.<br />
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How do I feel? Gorgeously overwhelmed. Alarmingly peaceful. At odds. In full surrender. And understanding why after each meditation, the bowl would chime and we would be told "a few more moments" to sit with the stillness we had just witnessed. Sit a little more with the self. No rush, no waiting. Ease of being. Aware. In the heart.<br />
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So all I have for now is a passionately suggestive: Sit in your heart. And then sit a little longer. Feel something, then feel a little truer. Know yourself, and then dig a little deeper. Trust your intuition. Listen. Love.<br />
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Some poems and thoughts coming your way in later days.<br />
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xx<br />
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(and if you wanna steep for ten days until prune like and inexplicably at ease with all of your everyness: <a href="http://hridaya-yoga.com/meditation-retreats/10-day-hridaya-silent-meditation-retreat/">http://hridaya-yoga.com/meditation-retreats/10-day-hridaya-silent-meditation-retreat/</a>)<br />
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<i>* I will talk more about this question later, as it is not meaning anything to do with your personality or defining qualities, but something much much more. And also my aversion to this question and subsequent replacing it with "know yourself." But who am I to suggest mantras--T-pain showed up in my background noise.</i><br />
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This piece is now up on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/speaking-too-soon-after-10-days-in-silence/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/speaking-too-soon-after-10-days-in-silence/</a><br />
<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-25896095398680660562016-04-10T10:17:00.003-07:002016-04-10T10:18:07.273-07:00Letting love take it from here {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've given myself to you time and again,<br />
let you have my heart and have it handed back to me.<br />
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You have walked away, closed and bounded,<br />
then sent a whisper in the night of missing me as yours.<br />
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You have made sadness familiar to me<br />
in all of these goodbyes--<br />
<br />
yet I would take back none of them.<br />
And, now, I will take it from here.<br />
<br />
The love I wanted from you<br />
I will give to me.<br />
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I will reach deep into the vastness of my heart,<br />
and plant seeds of forgiveness,<br />
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acceptance, and love into its fecund pulse<br />
so that I might be sustained<br />
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by what courses, warm, thick,<br />
through my veins--alive in self.<br />
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Alive in love.<br />
I will not grow weary wanting<br />
<br />
what cannot be given,<br />
will not tire from desire to co-create<br />
<br />
but write instead my own great romance<br />
from the love I was created.<br />
<br />
I will dance under the moonlight<br />
with my arms to the sky,<br />
<br />
letting the stars pull at my fingertips<br />
and spin me as you may have,<br />
<br />
wanting nothing more but to fall<br />
asleep in the tender shelter of my skin.<br />
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I will love this body not for what it can do<br />
but for the songs that it holds<br />
<br />
in harmony with the sway of the trees<br />
and the pounding bass of the sea.<br />
<br />
I will love without a calculation<br />
of value, without seeking reciprocity,<br />
<br />
the only exchange I make is in<br />
receiving as vulnerably as I give.<br />
<br />
I will love with tenacity,<br />
reverence-- spirited and free to love<br />
<br />
as I may. Love as I can. Love as I am.<br />
I hope you will do the same.<br />
<br />
I hope all lovers will not be caught wanting,<br />
broken, questioning love.<br />
<br />
but know it to be in themselves always,<br />
plentiful and unwavering--<br />
<br />
undefined by another's acceptance,<br />
inimitable as your own sacred offering.<br />
<br />
Love on. Love hard. Love you.<br />
Let love take it from here.<br />
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<br />
As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/i-will-take-it-from-here-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/i-will-take-it-from-here-poem/</a><br />
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t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-77212912797341052312016-04-08T19:01:00.001-07:002016-04-10T08:20:33.781-07:00Love is alive {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJfKR9DG0WFEzUbeuYo1UNFIz5PbJ1uTXMeef3GrmwKSbd3Gw-k5Tl_khg3IiBsZUzXernb83EBDpvmPl9QAo7J7Gcefl2g3M19enq77yyvJHUtt3j6c3ZHZC_IvpmGIe9TidRSR_fWv8/s1600/IMG_1908.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJfKR9DG0WFEzUbeuYo1UNFIz5PbJ1uTXMeef3GrmwKSbd3Gw-k5Tl_khg3IiBsZUzXernb83EBDpvmPl9QAo7J7Gcefl2g3M19enq77yyvJHUtt3j6c3ZHZC_IvpmGIe9TidRSR_fWv8/s320/IMG_1908.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I want you to know what love is.<br />
<br />
For it is not a feeling you have felt<br />
nor one that you can learn.<br />
<br />
No darling, it is something far more palpable.<br />
<br />
Innate.<br />
<br />
Pulsing.<br />
<br />
Love is not something you fall into,<br />
not anything to find or trade for,<br />
but something you come from.<br />
<br />
It exists in the marrow of your<br />
soul, permeating your heart<br />
and encompassing your entire being.<br />
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It is limitless, with a disregard<br />
for object and highest reverence<br />
for truth.<br />
<br />
It hardly whispers at all, and is not<br />
provoked by lust.<br />
Love is not a stimulant,<br />
<br />
not a high, not a vortex,<br />
but a force, a vibration<br />
of the most potent quality.<br />
<br />
It is not something to complicate or master,<br />
to control or understand,<br />
but rather, when we are purified<br />
<br />
it is love that we radiate.<br />
<br />
Love is a light.<br />
Love is life.<br />
I want you to know love<br />
<br />
so that you might know what it is like to truly live.<br />
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As published on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/live-in-love-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/live-in-love-poem/</a><br />
<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-53335138777037199552016-04-07T12:16:00.000-07:002016-04-07T12:16:18.281-07:00The poetry of alive {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmonSoMTHzM4UWTyaQVvaMB_Kd8hBQfd8X37KWY1PyGEvIzu9HeHadhkoL7d-GpaOb5KWXl3n7RaUF_EyMxg0-nBQSxJVqZJ9RIjEFB-vGq97oJGDAlzTnhZwasqvQxtfLcor0p7Bo33o/s1600/IMG_1947.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmonSoMTHzM4UWTyaQVvaMB_Kd8hBQfd8X37KWY1PyGEvIzu9HeHadhkoL7d-GpaOb5KWXl3n7RaUF_EyMxg0-nBQSxJVqZJ9RIjEFB-vGq97oJGDAlzTnhZwasqvQxtfLcor0p7Bo33o/s320/IMG_1947.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I set out to </span></span><span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">write by the sea:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the ocean in her grandeur</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">colliding with the rocks and shore</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">so fully alive</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">in her untraceable power.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her body was a fortress</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could not move against,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and so, I moved with her--</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">allowed her fully palpable energy</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">to take me.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bouyant.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Suspended.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Embraced.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">My spine arching to each wave,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">surges of energy into my chest </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">my heart,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">my breathe.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I could feel her calm urgency </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">pulsing through me. I was</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reverent,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">in awe,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">humbled.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black sand in the contours of my shape</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and salted hair--the wisdom</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">of Grandfathers in each powdered </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">grain of volcanic ash</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">exfoliating my every part,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">connecting me deeper to all</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">that was before me </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and all that is with me.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blending masculine </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and feminine--</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">purifying.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intoxicating.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sweetly simple.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every sound, every sensation,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">every resonance </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from everything living</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">massaged into my being</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and messaged my soul:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Feel something</i></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">it was anything but a whisper. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so I poured myself back into</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the wildly mysterious ocean womb</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rolling, still, as she was.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I moved,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">laughed,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">wept. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">A</span></span><span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">nd the </span><span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ocean became more</span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">concentrated in salt</span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and more concentrated in me--</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I became the sea</span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and the reflection of the stars and moon,</span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">and I remembered again</span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d; line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">that all life is one, </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">that all is alive.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I set out to write by the sea,</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">but she wrote herself into me--</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #373e4d;"><span style="line-height: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Living is poetry.</span></span><br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/living-is-poetry/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/04/living-is-poetry/</a>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-37978699879655095772016-04-03T18:49:00.002-07:002016-04-03T18:49:52.939-07:00Wisdom Men<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"<span style="color: #4b4b4b; line-height: 21px;">Medicine Woman, Medicine Man</span></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>walking with grace, I know your face, and I trust your hands</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Medicine Woman, Medicine Man</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>walking with grace, I know your face, and I trust your hands"</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A week-ish ago I posted a shout out to the women in my life. Spoke of being so enraptured by Yelapa, by Mother Earth in all of her powerful, fertile, radiancy. It was a collection of words and photos redolent of feminine reverence, and while I have shared in celebrating this reverence with the women whom inspired that work, I have also come to believe the same can be celebrated with and for men. That the feminine and masculine are not in fact counteractive energies that serve to balance us humans, but instead, as all things yin and yan, we are one-- forever spiralling together, apart. Rather than try to balance the two, we ought to embrace each with equanimity--allow them to blend harmoniously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Harmony. That word. Mmmm.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is conflict, often, when we are trying to achieve balance as if in fact it is something to achieve; in such it becomes counterintuitive to pursue balance when really surrender, listening, and internal wisdom will even you out so sweetly. You will, as you know, find within or be brought by the laws of attraction, precisely what you need. And so when the masculine requires the feminine, there she is. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And when the feminine is as potent as she is here in Yelapa, there to receive is the masculine, and the two permeate, amalgamate, just mate. The two thrive from the same source of life, love. The two are one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjcaZBnVcoLSsmxtWs3l_2aox3yi6W6vkV6iOzs7c91xeyWgD73dX0S2fW645WE2UH2cvXm2cxaedlhFNGLd-Lc870CjXRjLLpviEf1MmZG89ScUJbIaYsJe4EITpel-HNbL0q_XnouA/s1600/IMG_1033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDjcaZBnVcoLSsmxtWs3l_2aox3yi6W6vkV6iOzs7c91xeyWgD73dX0S2fW645WE2UH2cvXm2cxaedlhFNGLd-Lc870CjXRjLLpviEf1MmZG89ScUJbIaYsJe4EITpel-HNbL0q_XnouA/s320/IMG_1033.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;">I felt this most in a powerful ceremony here, where the practice of surrender is necessary, where my sisters were alongside my guide, but the sensational safety I felt was in the men who have gifted me at one time or another, their strength, their unyielding support. There in spirit I came to realize what it is to be held without touching, that the stereotypical representations of men: strength, protection, </span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">honour, are so because they are true, and I sat, acutely aware of how blessed I was to have these men exist, now, within me. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4b4b4b;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">That masculine energy was in each Grandfather: volcanic rocks that rested for three hours in a well stoked fire, welcomed into our sweat lodge and persistently heating our skin as we prayed as I have never known prayer before. Father Sky, alive with stars and the calls of the jungle wild bathed over those who are now family to me, and those men who've been my always were there in the wisdom of the trees that encircled our maloca, with a powerful, quiet, loving attention. Some were there in the organized chaos of my mind, proving to me my propensity to expand and asking me to get more intimate with the workings of that ever working headspace. And the hands that had most recently, most literally held me lingered so tangibly that I could still feel his fingers not to guide me in anyway, but to touch with the longevity of our intimacy, the withstanding vibrancy of our vulnerability--so vital, so present. Presently. Right next to me in the purest of voices, a new male friend saturated the space with song when I needed the pull to that very moment the most. "Gracias al a Vida": thank you for life--the bad with the good, the dark and the light, the masculine and the feminine, in sweet harmony. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4b4b4b;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">I felt in those moments and my present moments since what it is to know the so called balance of masculine and feminine. I was reminded that I am blessed with men that have stood for me, have offered the same reverence that I offer to my sisters, who have loved me not because they have needed from me, but for what they have found in me. Men who understand that femininity demonstrates the versatility in strength, different than their own, but equally notable. Men who when they take my hand are not trying to take me at all, but to walk with me, at each others side. Who are not threatened when I am bigger, but encourage it. Men who look at me and know what they see and accept it is always changing and worth watching do so. Who know that the worrying suppressed identity of woman is not the true wildly capable, illustrious and intelligently provocative embodiment of feminine. Men made wilder themselves in knowing, seeing, and embracing this--who do not seek to tame; lions to her lioness. </span></span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; line-height: 21px;">Men who allow, rather than control; move from love not force.</span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; line-height: 21px;"> Men who find harmony with women.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #4b4b4b; line-height: 21px;">And men whom find the harmony of masculine and feminine within--not by blurring the lines between the two, but embracing both. Men whom can cry the same as they can yell, pull themselves up a mountain with the same raw attention as they plant the seeds of next season, can talk to Mother Earth and mothers in law with respect.</span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; line-height: 21px;"> </span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; line-height: 21px;">Men who father with both their hands and all of their hearts. Men who love from their hearts with body and soul, who see the relationship in any propensity as sacred. Who know the divine feminine and the divine masculine are nearly synonymous. Men whose paradigms have expanded to include within and without themselves, the room for both masculine and feminine. Men whom grow more and more whole every time we meet in more than spirit.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wckSQVEH9P7g0Uh700W3CaMFsGHEXONYbCCNQ9YDoutf-9Uwy0NPoYtl2iDyjd6ZAlWY88FX0dWpXSVAb5k8cm4gmxM1D2szTImRn5ecdUYFXfwiByeBSw_Ta2Rdw4hmc5P5qG3rd1M/s1600/IMG_1684.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0wckSQVEH9P7g0Uh700W3CaMFsGHEXONYbCCNQ9YDoutf-9Uwy0NPoYtl2iDyjd6ZAlWY88FX0dWpXSVAb5k8cm4gmxM1D2szTImRn5ecdUYFXfwiByeBSw_Ta2Rdw4hmc5P5qG3rd1M/s320/IMG_1684.JPG" width="256" /></a><span style="color: #4b4b4b;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1N3lzVCFCxsl_B89FwrkJx_Rqkt7cUC8OJK3P6qDu8biquHOF7m2x8h8oFmapyf7OxpDdIFNcGG8XZ3VSWBeirxEIaMiR0BHFLuGq-L2v8ye-lIgnnCYXDS2VEv7bmNAHlaqObawMK0/s1600/IMG_1351.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD1N3lzVCFCxsl_B89FwrkJx_Rqkt7cUC8OJK3P6qDu8biquHOF7m2x8h8oFmapyf7OxpDdIFNcGG8XZ3VSWBeirxEIaMiR0BHFLuGq-L2v8ye-lIgnnCYXDS2VEv7bmNAHlaqObawMK0/s320/IMG_1351.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #4b4b4b;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">So to every man who is strong, protective, linear, and rationally discerning, embrace the gentle, empowering, creative, heart-forward side that is you too. So to every woman who is gentle, nurturing, thoughtful, and feeling, so embrace the strength, enabling, reasonable, willful masculine within. And so to every man and every woman: listen in, </span></span><span style="color: #4b4b4b;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">beyond</span></span><span style="color: #4b4b4b;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"> the preconfigured roles we are so confined to by modern </span></span><span style="line-height: 21px;">societies</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"> interpretation of masculine and feminine, and you will find that every jarring diversity comes to soften. The same that can be supposed as man, can be woman--she can be masculine, he can be feminine. Yes he may thrive in physical strength, and yes she may innately nurture, but so can the lines blur as reflections in water. So can we come from the same ever-loving source, for the purpose of something far greater than the simplicity of man and woman, when we can fully, earthily and soulfully, pulse--as one.</span></span></span><br />
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ps. listen to this discussion, a gift from one of the first men to teach me purely by being any and most all of what I have written here:<br />
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<a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fca%2Fpodcast%2Faubrey-marcus-podcast%2Fid521945322%3Fmt%3D2%26i%3D350488374&h=MAQEMGnwpAQGbfqoCoxgibaGtNMjQRmayvh3saJKO825wHg" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: #e0edff; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; text-decoration: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/aubrey-marcus-podcast/id521945322?mt=2&i=350488374</a></div>
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t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-86348011506354607132016-04-02T10:59:00.000-07:002016-04-02T12:11:18.574-07:00Ill wait for love {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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You say that you are waiting.<br />
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I will wait with you.<br />
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We can walk alone<br />
but I will still feel your hand in mine,<br />
remember the steps that we took to here,<br />
fingers interlaced like the weaving of our paths<br />
and I will try not to run, pummelling towards what is not yet real.<br />
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Our love is tenacious.<br />
Loud.<br />
Louder than either of these fearful hearts cared to hear<br />
And that volume pounds in mine still.<br />
Matches my footprints<br />
as I take my road.<br />
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I am waiting too.<br />
Waiting to know that<br />
our love was meant for something,<br />
that it wasn't just a seed<br />
tossed carelessly into dry earth,<br />
but tucked lovingly into fertile soil,<br />
planted with prayer.<br />
<br />
That we are still growing,<br />
flourishing.<br />
That the work of now<br />
is for the work of a forever<br />
that although we cannot know<br />
we can use our hope to light these paths we travel alone.<br />
<br />
I wait with you<br />
in awe of the times<br />
we have walked apart before,<br />
and walked apart together,<br />
and welcome each and every road less travelled.<br />
We have never followed a map before<br />
why would we start now.<br />
<br />
So, love of mine,<br />
take your path<br />
and I will take mine.<br />
Alive<br />
in love<br />
and waiting for what is waiting for us.<br />
<br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://l.facebook.com/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.elephantjournal.com%2F2016%2F03%2Fi-will-wait-with-you-poem%2F&e=ATMo4iQpZCPk_ZzJFalFN8PBSLZxPtD0y7SegwAVt1P1b7tU8UCNXE5g0eKfcw" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>www.elephantjournal.com/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>2016/03/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break" style="display: inline-block;"></span>i-will-wait-with-you-poem/</a><br />
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<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-1579281719733146912016-03-30T20:11:00.000-07:002016-03-30T20:11:05.926-07:00Be a human<i>"It is a familiar sadness to me both to forget things and to say goodbye."</i><br />
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Impermanence makes me weary.<br />
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Sometimes a bit distrustful.<br />
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Sometimes it is far too complex to try to explain feelings.<br />
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And aren't feelings the most impermanent of all?<br />
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Sigh.<br />
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Impermanence makes me weary….<br />
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On Monday I said goodbye to two women who in less than two weeks have become like two sisters. As I leaned against the dock railing, salt water at my toes and on my cheeks (and everywhere really, its sweatily hot here…) I was in a state so fully indefinable that all I could do was smile through and at the salt, at how much had come from this so very impermanent collision of humans. At how much could be encapsulated in such a small amount of time--how immense of a takeaway I'd been given.<br />
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Love.<br />
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Compassion.<br />
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Kindness.<br />
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Acceptance.<br />
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Trust.<br />
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Gratitude.<br />
<br />
Light.<br />
<br />
Straight up humanness.<br />
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What does it mean to you to be human? That list, for me, is it. It may look familiar, like a standard collection of well regarded traits that are oh so easily lost in the banality of day to day life. To offer the most genuine, expressive, honest bits of yourself with the utmost humility, while graciously accepting the same from others is a daily, no, moment-ly, immediate bit of work. So is letting people see you and seeing them. Having uncalculated interactions that are not following some sort of armoured protocol for instigating stereotypical or respectable formalities, but subjectively fluid responses that are so heighteningly present that you almost see yourself involved in a new way. Founding relationships that burrow under the surface nuances of small talk into the deeper artistry of aliveness. An exchange that isn't about what you can get from someone, but what you can share in. Being human.<br />
<br />
Over the most fleeting two weeks of my life (that in their immensity so feel like a lifetime in themselves) we shared laughter, meals, ceremonies, and so much more sweat than was seeping that farewell morning. Every "how are you?" was an invitation to be exactly how you are. Every conversation was invested in. We sang "Lean on Me" walking through the jungle and meant it. We allowed each other to become a significant, vital part of our own personal experiences here. Immense.<br />
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It was immense because at some point, each of us decided, whether consciously or not, that we would be here. That we would come as we are and meet each other where they were. That we were not here to tell or teach or lead, but to share. Perhaps it was because time here was so obviously finite--everyone but me has a return ticket home (don't worry Ma, I will book one…)--there just wasn't any bullshit. But really, isn't life just as finite? We all know we are simply walking home, we all have that ticket--so really, we don't ever have time for bullshit.<br />
<br />
And it is so fascinating, without the bullshit, with just the take- me- as-I-am-and-let-me-love-you humanness, how you are perceived. How in those moments of being so fully present, you get, as I wrote above, that moment of opportunity to almost take a birds-eye of yourself and be so aware of how you are interacting, on your participation as a human being, and the voice, the very energy you are offering to the experience. You have this opportunity to be a witness to your own light shining through and where you may be dimming yourself, to see whom you are being and recalibrate with your truths outside of your habits, outside of roles and routines and immersed in the ever evolving, immediate self. In that, there is spaciousness, and you feel your whole self filling it entirely, aware of your potential, your essence, your offerings; you feel purposeful. And then, beautifully, from these new relationships you have formed you receive insight into that very person, that self that you are observing--and your perception of you may be so different, sometimes absurdly so, than those in your vibe path. I mean, if I had a dollar (roughly 13 pesos, or 2 mangos--seriously!) for every time that someone told me my energy was zen and I laughed out loud--too loud-- I would be booking a flight to Bali next; in my ever running mind, zen isn't necessarily a choice descriptor…but I will take it. I will see it.<br />
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As much as you let people see you, they will filter what is shown through the lens that is their own self, picking up on what attracts them or doesn't, what they are triggered by or reflected in, the lessons they need and the ones they have learned--and so will you them. We are all harmonious blends of so many every things: feminine/masculine, tender/strong, sure/wavering, forward/secretive, faithful/doubting…as complex as feelings can be so can the humans that feel and embody them. And so then, being human is knowing too that your perceptions can become assumptions, and to foremost offer grace, for yourself and others that we are all just discovering ourselves, and to be welcomed into or to offer that up is a sweet gift of humanity.<br />
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You see, it is not the memories that may fade with time that saddens me, but diluting how each human in each experience--the sheer oneness-- has made me feel. This is what I do not want the sadness of goodbyes to strangle, these that I do not want to forget:<br />
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Perception is everything.<br />
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Be present.<br />
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Be kind.<br />
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Offer joy.<br />
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You are a gift, you have gifts--give them.<br />
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We are one.<br />
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The value in connection is incomparable. There is no exchange rate into pesos or mangos.<br />
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Each of my neuva familia was and continues to be on our own exquisite journey, but as I was reminded here: everywhere you go, everyone matters. And so I go, with an immense amount of wonder, self-actualization, unravelled wisdom, prayer, and gratitude to continue connecting, to continue to matter.<br />
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Love for you everywhere,<br />
Tiff<br />
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<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-69752654418910258082016-03-29T19:05:00.003-07:002016-03-29T21:17:58.645-07:00To my sisters {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODI6L8qNMOxyTp_zKGkFDZRvGG5wNHFY1vY8sDPSWcc0HBaNJ4o01toEnT0XZuGfb-P3I93Kp1uwJCzd3YaTSGZsCkRkXhMgMwlIO-g2moxyjJ0AxpoOqk8zVJk3pw9G_WdMuwt09B8A/s1600/IMG_1266.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgODI6L8qNMOxyTp_zKGkFDZRvGG5wNHFY1vY8sDPSWcc0HBaNJ4o01toEnT0XZuGfb-P3I93Kp1uwJCzd3YaTSGZsCkRkXhMgMwlIO-g2moxyjJ0AxpoOqk8zVJk3pw9G_WdMuwt09B8A/s320/IMG_1266.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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To my sister<br />
<div>
whose blood runs the same as mine.</div>
<div>
Who has watched me starve</div>
<div>
to be more honest</div>
<div>
to my fearful heart,</div>
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and fed me full,</div>
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sustained,</div>
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nourished</div>
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with your love.</div>
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Who has sang </div>
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out of car windows</div>
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about believing in love</div>
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and danced in kitchens</div>
<div>
in homes across our lives.<br />
Whose acceptance<br />
has given me worth<br />
and the freedom to be.<br />
<br />
To my sisters<br />
whose souls are made from the same stardust as mine<br />
Who have watched me thrive<br />
as I am<br />
and never competed<br />
but empowered<br />
with their<br />
unwavering love.<br />
<br />
Who have sang in angst,<br />
pulled the car over<br />
to chant to the streams<br />
and dance wildly under the moon.<br />
Whose acceptance<br />
has asked me to<br />
be more.<br />
<br />
To the sisters<br />
I have not met<br />
who inspire in their work<br />
in their light<br />
and in their truth.<br />
Who love themselves<br />
and so love out--<br />
I see you.<br />
<br />
Who holler<br />
out the windows of the world:<br />
here I am!<br />
Who move to the same<br />
pulsing goddess beat. <br />
Whom I pray accept<br />
themselves as they are<br />
and give permission<br />
to be to their sisters<br />
<br />
and their sisters<br />
and theirs.<br />
We are one.<br />
<br />
To the sisters<br />
that we came from,<br />
the mothers and grandmothers.<br />
To Mother Earth,<br />
lets us revel,<br />
sing<br />
and dance<br />
to the wisdom<br />
and beauty,<br />
the power<br />
and grace,<br />
the wildness in each of us<br />
fertile and free.<br />
Join hands with your men<br />
grow stronger<br />
grow in love.<br />
<br />
To all women,<br />
to all kind,<br />
We are one.<br />
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As published on Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/to-my-sisters-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/to-my-sisters-poem/</a><br />
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t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-45391406588350074472016-03-27T10:23:00.001-07:002016-03-28T07:28:57.220-07:00You are my poetry {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I found an old poem<br />
I had written for you/<br />
of you/<br />
as a result of you….<br />
<br />
so much of me is a result of you.<br />
<br />
I am what exists underneath<br />
the layers that--<br />
lovingly forceful,<br />
at times provocatively, then,<br />
at times so patiently--<br />
you asked me to remove.<br />
<br />
Oh how it once felt<br />
you were asking for so much.<br />
Too much.<br />
What did I have to give/<br />
to reveal/<br />
explain,<br />
so that you would<br />
know that I was just as terrified as you<br />
to be at love's mercy.<br />
<br />
That no matter<br />
how many words<br />
I write,<br />
I cannot define love<br />
anymore than anyone else<br />
who does not need<br />
to understand it<br />
to trust it.<br />
<br />
Now I trust that<br />
I have so much more<br />
to give/<br />
to feel/<br />
to know…<br />
<br />
That is what love does,<br />
isn't it?<br />
Embeds another within us<br />
and in its immensity,<br />
moves us to<br />
feel/<br />
be/<br />
give so much more.<br />
<br />
To in some way<br />
transform our feelings<br />
into art,<br />
an exquisite expression<br />
unique to only<br />
the writer and her muse<br />
who know all<br />
that is left unwritten.<br />
All that is<br />
still to be found.<br />
<br />
Take my words<br />
as yours and read<br />
my sweet truths,<br />
know that<br />
every poem written<br />
is but a means of<br />
loving you still.<br />
<br />
My love, my muse.<br />
<br />
I read an old poem<br />
I had written for you….<br />
<br />
and found that most of you<br />
still exists/<br />
is felt/<br />
loved,<br />
beyond words,<br />
unfinished,<br />
in my heart.<br />
<br />
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<br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/to-my-muse-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/to-my-muse-poem/</a>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-38304617019809210632016-03-26T12:52:00.001-07:002016-03-26T13:24:32.966-07:00Love--set free {poem} <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This ocean is immense,<br />
it disappears into the sky and<br />
in that fading horizon<br />
I know freedom.<br />
<br />
Boundaries. You insisted on boundaries<br />
and now I have some tucked into my soul<br />
for the next time my heart begins to sail away.<br />
<br />
For now, I harbour here,<br />
wondering at lines drawn and crossed,<br />
at the thunder I hear not only<br />
when it rains,<br />
but when I remember how we crashed<br />
into each other, each time a storm<br />
of a propensity we thought would fade<br />
but never did.<br />
<br />
Each time revealing more of the same<br />
mystery that is held by the sea<br />
to be held in our souls.<br />
<br />
Each of us becoming,<br />
on a journey<br />
we know not yet what love has to do with,<br />
and so we take ours alone.<br />
<br />
Wandering and wondering inwards,<br />
finding love there first<br />
so that we may love out more fully.<br />
<br />
Diligently learning.<br />
And though I have never wanted something rational,<br />
I know I could be swallowed whole<br />
again if I swim after you.<br />
<br />
So I silently watch the waves<br />
pull in and out,<br />
and look not for words to say<br />
to make you understand,<br />
but love on as the days move easier.<br />
<br />
Love on.<br />
Let go and<br />
know, with unwavering trust<br />
that love comes back in its richest integrity<br />
when you first set it free.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/for-now-i-will-love-you-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/for-now-i-will-love-you-poem/</a>t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-52098557246527567732016-03-24T20:58:00.002-07:002016-05-06T20:29:37.878-07:00Wisdom Women<i>"You are not meant to go where it is safe, where love is--you are meant to go where you are sent, and bring love"</i><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Those words from a most remarkable woman! </span>I met Claudia on my most recent visit to Yelapa--a bit piece of sanctuary a ferry ride away from Puerto Vallarta that became a second home when cooking for a yoga retreat there a year ago. This time around, she was one of the many gorgeous offerings in coming back. <span style="text-align: center;">Claudia is a stringer of beads into jewellery saturated in spiritual storytellings, weaver of the tiniest details into the most subtly grand expressions, a dreamer who made a home out of visions, time, and nature; she is an offerer of wisdom, space, and laughter, a believer in magic, a woman who's words I wanted to wrap my tongue, pen, and heart around. </span><br />
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Words like:<br />
<br />
"you lose the experience of human evolution when you are lost in routine."<br />
"make things glaringly different"<br />
"decide which of your wants are needs; learn what you can be happy without."<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiStme1DTE4q1lLu-4x0qyyYPELIld-8hdfHSfHUTEdXvfvPEf-RAqy0F3Is2JWknOFt_AboYIp9ieGgTUB04E16ZJ9DGlnaie-XvRIVQNBy1tZW_kW3VnSNAlrYgDQaoi1MOMaB__R3nA/s1600/IMG_1036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiStme1DTE4q1lLu-4x0qyyYPELIld-8hdfHSfHUTEdXvfvPEf-RAqy0F3Is2JWknOFt_AboYIp9ieGgTUB04E16ZJ9DGlnaie-XvRIVQNBy1tZW_kW3VnSNAlrYgDQaoi1MOMaB__R3nA/s200/IMG_1036.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglf0ahnGh2DkIyLXTyHhyz_wC8yvZlgBhxtCjaf4aaYzN6mhKgwnmOZ7MGLC2FBkcsB7igoHvzmV9VjTIVwYj-RskNn6pTVn84_kN8_K09rx8VqUfl08mIv5ANeElnmz6x8LOhKYGSPfc/s1600/IMG_1041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglf0ahnGh2DkIyLXTyHhyz_wC8yvZlgBhxtCjaf4aaYzN6mhKgwnmOZ7MGLC2FBkcsB7igoHvzmV9VjTIVwYj-RskNn6pTVn84_kN8_K09rx8VqUfl08mIv5ANeElnmz6x8LOhKYGSPfc/s200/IMG_1041.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
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She told too, a particularly resonating tale of eight people, including yourself, together at a well. You are getting water from this well, pulling up buckets of clean, elixir like refreshment. This brings you joy, delight. But none of the other seven is filling their buckets. None of the other seven are celebrating receiving this revival of spirit, this life source. Your joy then, is limited to you. There is no sharing, there is no extension of happiness. The water is God, the divine, actual source--whomever you pray to-- and when you are fuelled by something greater than you, when we all tap into that immensity, our vitality, our happiness extends.<br />
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In my interpretation: we are enough on our own, but together, on a soul full level, we are so much more.<br />
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And every woman that I have met here has continued to remind me of that.<br />
<br />
Reminded me that we all have wisdom, we all have a healing energy, we are all seeds with the propensity to bloom into our uniquely gorgeous selves--abundant in offering and expression. While I was in complete awe of Claudia--truly one of the most generous spirits I have ever gotten to share guacamole with--her wise self listened so easily, so fixedly to each of us, sharing in the enrapture.<br />
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We are rapturous Women. Meant for the Sisterhood that I have found here and the one that is my tribe at home. Meant not to compete, judge, or compare ourselves to each other but to join hands and hearts and walk home together. Meant to empower each other, permit one another to show up as we are in movement, voice, full amplitude of self, by embodying our very own majestic sovereignty. A goddess is not some ethereal, unattainable being limited by a convoluted changing definition of beauty, but a woman alive with joy for her fellow femmes, grounded in the wisdom of the mothers before and the one's that are nature herself.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRmUydwtW6NO4ZRMYp8V5RlCFYzZbdEy5YdgGyBfIDnjbg63yCaqReKyGE8rvAnhtm6jrGIIqda50M-tJNXHxZ6jvECLWemvBQpkIM-S6nsi9pGRdzsJ-opAiTeQIm7N9646vlQ01RYE/s1600/IMG_0891.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDRmUydwtW6NO4ZRMYp8V5RlCFYzZbdEy5YdgGyBfIDnjbg63yCaqReKyGE8rvAnhtm6jrGIIqda50M-tJNXHxZ6jvECLWemvBQpkIM-S6nsi9pGRdzsJ-opAiTeQIm7N9646vlQ01RYE/s200/IMG_0891.JPG" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoilxKYHBW_omArvEgmK01GUdDhrGLjRgFvMevDlcCgfvedXeI3Ky0cgzMTXGfZqCVrrQiYOqWtwhDlriLCUNj0r8k40DOP6ip9NRwhMyGQgZoQCBa9Zp7bCyOdwkomYA7wXi42AaPQ5w/s1600/IMG_0905.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoilxKYHBW_omArvEgmK01GUdDhrGLjRgFvMevDlcCgfvedXeI3Ky0cgzMTXGfZqCVrrQiYOqWtwhDlriLCUNj0r8k40DOP6ip9NRwhMyGQgZoQCBa9Zp7bCyOdwkomYA7wXi42AaPQ5w/s200/IMG_0905.JPG" width="200" /></a><br />
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Yelapa, herself, is Woman. Hare Hare. Pachamamma. The ocean is her voluptuous womb, her Earth fertile with cycles of life and possibility. She unravels herself to you in offerings when you accept her nurturing. She is often called a vortex, for you lose all that you created a false sense of necessity out of when you are held in her arms and come to know, sweetly, what truly matters. In every contour, every intimate space that she lovingly receives your searching--knowing--self with is another detail of her feminine beauty: the ginger plants blooming, the side of the mountain painted red as the sun sets, Our lady of Guadalupe hung from beams and tucked into stone crevices, every woman that for however impermanently, calls her sanctuary home--the women whose singing voices echo in the caverns of every soul here, who drum with the power of the sea, and call the hummingbirds home with a harmonica. Yelapa is more raw, more honest, more than any poem I could hope to write. She dances and you dance with her. And, Women, we were meant to dance.<br />
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On my first full day here I felt her. Under my feet and in the heat of the sun, in the Women who have welcomed me and the kind men who respect her and hers, in how she pulls my heart to the sea and to home. She calls me to connect to what I know is constant, is God, and extend my happiness. And while I was asked to come and have been shown nothing but love, the love I feel sent to give is not ignorable.<br />
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To my Sisters, Mothers, Grandmothers, to the newest extensions of my tribe who offer me their wisdom and allow me to share mine: understand your reverence, fill your soul, extend yourself. I love you.<br />
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t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5493409689528904693.post-32689517369950522962016-03-24T15:35:00.003-07:002016-03-24T15:35:42.092-07:00I imagine us {poem}<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I imagine we would have danced.<br />
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You would have taken me by the hand<br />
and spun me,<br />
once,<br />
slowly,<br />
so you could watch me me move<br />
before pulling me into you.<br />
<br />
Told me all you needed to say<br />
with the smile of your eyes<br />
and kissed me,<br />
hard,<br />
when the sheer love offered<br />
back through mine<br />
took hold of your heart.<br />
<br />
Spin.<br />
Hold.<br />
Your hands on my hips,<br />
they land there<br />
the same as mine know to kind your neck,<br />
my fingers can dance on their own in your hair.<br />
Shoeless.<br />
Careless.<br />
In awe.<br />
<br />
I am in awe of how real<br />
that dream feels.<br />
Of how my imagination<br />
can make an already gorgeous moment<br />
that much more potent with<br />
a simple vision of you.<br />
<br />
This way you touch everything<br />
I touch and see all<br />
that I see.<br />
I can collect our words--<br />
repeat them,<br />
create them.<br />
I can still feel your fingers and<br />
smile to mimic<br />
what I remember in your eyes.<br />
<br />
Memories of you spin me now,<br />
so sensational I risk<br />
the distortion of my reality,<br />
might miss the beauty of my aloneness.<br />
And yours?<br />
<br />
Do I linger in your thoughts.<br />
Do you look out at the sea<br />
and long to wonder out loud to me?<br />
Wish to catch my hand and<br />
run at the waves,<br />
collide with the salt<br />
as we did with each other<br />
once,<br />
spin<br />
in the water<br />
find your wet hands at my waist<br />
and mine, their, where they've always<br />
been, at the subtle scoop of your neck.<br />
<br />
Do you scoop me up in your dreams,<br />
in the moments of your day<br />
when you have too much time to<br />
think,<br />
when there is space for your<br />
heart and head to converse<br />
and the love we shared<br />
makes your eyes smile again?<br />
<br />
Or am I truly alone in knowing<br />
that you cannot ever unlove<br />
one whom your soul has danced itself<br />
into,<br />
lost in a sea of memories,<br />
and dreams, that still,<br />
with hope,<br />
could be.<br />
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As published by Elephant Journal: <a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/you-still-spin-me-poem/">http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/03/you-still-spin-me-poem/</a><br />
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<br />t__mariehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11208089445240055810noreply@blogger.com0