Only Love is Strong Enough

Only Love is Strong Enough

We walk into a New Year which is filled with the terrors created by the prevailing Story of Domination and Exploitation.  Yet the very ancient seeds of healing and wholeness, which have lain dormant for centuries, are stirring underground.  These ever-new, ever-eternal energies are too subtle to be caught in the web, the glare of news media and social media….yet they are powerfully awakening and a chorus of voices is singing this new birth into being.

“Wild, uninhibited love is the single force powerful enough to send us head over heels, out of our minds and into our bodies; to bring us home to our senses. The enchantments of the senses ~ the same magic used by the flower who seduces a honey bee to carry pollen for his petalled love ~ hope to entice you to love the world in ways you have forgotten.  Carry this breath of devotion into the world….

To become bellows

that blow the spark of love,

kindling human hearts.

To set ablaze a love-fire

that burns out dead wood

~ domination, greed, exploitation ~

and leaves fertilizing ash.

To impregnate minds,

and midwife the birthing

of the new

To love the world is to walk the path of restoration and regeneration: a radical new-and-ancient relationship that sustains the one-being we have always been.   And now we become again.” **

Let’s begin the New Year with Martin Shaw’s words ringing in our hearts:

“What we need is a great, powerful, tremulous falling back in love with our old, ancient, primordial Beloved, which is the Earth herself.”

 With Love, Sharifa

 ** From my book A Litany of Wild Graces; click on the Books tab to order.

New Year Wishes

Winter Forest

It is quiet and slow in the winter forest, at the dawn of this New Year.  Stop and breathe for a moment.  Join me as I walk the Winter Labyrinth; she is wearing her subtle colors and the song of the wind is low, sweet. I pause, reach down and….

For more poems, order A Litany of Wild Graces at https://bookshop.org.

Winter ~ Slow ~ Quiet

In winter dawn’s pure

shadowless light

            mountain’s north face

shapes emerge, recede.

Her slow pace stops

she bends

holds in her palm

the smooth

flat hip bone

            last winter’s venison

weathered to a richly

embroidered surface.

She sees synaptic deltas

of her mind

reflected in bone’s

fractalline calcium terrain.

Fingertips trace

its ivory in

ever repeating

diminishing

patterns.

She gazes soft, open.

Its infinite living form

refracts outward

visible in forest’s

fine tapestry

            stone, mycelium, bark

Her branching

veins, arteries

are reiterated

in bare winter’s

intricate, eloquent limbs

in reindeer moss

etched by crystals of frost

and velvet lichen

grown chocolate brown

on walnut trunk’s

north side.

We honor the Animal Realm, as we approach Solstice.

#15 As we approach Solstice, this week we honor the Animal Realm.

A medieval principle of kinship invites us to imagine that all of nature….as well as we humans, feels rising anticipation for the return of the light. In the time preceding Solstice, week by week, each of the realms is honored and recognized as kin. In this vein, I offer you ~ week by week ~ a poem honoring mineral, plant, animal and human. These are from my book A Litany of Wild Graces. Click on the Books tab to order!

Animal

Wide cretaceous wingspan
heron descends in majesty
steps high
with ancient grace
through autumn’s garden stream.
Cool intense gaze
studies creek-bank
stream bed
plucks a
crayfish midstream
an elegant Asian woman
she reaches with chopsticks
to extract a plump water chestnut.
Woman moored at the window
a slight quiver trembles between
shoulder blades
as bird ascends
cruising
with slow deep wing beats.

Coyote prints in mud
bear scat amid birdseed
possum’s marsupial parenthood:
we bow to
their warm blood
salute the sun-being
who walks across
his blue arch
raying out beneficence
generosity.
The father of all incandescence
brings light
by the gift of fire.
Our limbs are warm
hearts ablaze
free.

Photo by Pixnio

Nature's realms, and we humans, settle-in during mid-winter. We all wait for the Solstice.

A medieval principle of kinship invites us to imagine that all of nature….as well as we humans here in the temperate northern hemisphere…. is settled deeply into midwinter. As we wait, we feel rising anticipation for the return of the light and the coming of springtime warmth. In the time preceding Solstice, week by week, each of the realms is honored and recognized as kin, as we wait together. In this vein, I offer you ~ week by week ~ a poem honoring mineral, plant, animal and human. These are from my book A Litany of Wild Graces. If you’d like to hear these poems, go to the Sacred Earth Thread’s videos. If you have young children, look for stories of the realms of nature on the Family Life Thread ‘s videos. I hope these offerings bring you warmth and light.

Mineral

Minerals are stardust
coalesced in deep space

messengers of light

shot from Sagittarius’ bow.

Luminous arrows travel

through a new sun’s orbit.

Pulled by love’s gravity
they shape the intelligence of light

into Appalachia’s igneous core.

Electromagnetic signatures ray invisibly

from caves’ palpable dark.

Woman-in-mountain is our sister

breasts twin peaks
waist a deep valley
hips rising smooth

long thigh bone a treeless ridge.

Her timeless gaze
illumines evening’s blue ridge.

Her minerals tumble
through our blood
like stones
carried in highland freshets

come to rest for a time
in our shoulder blades, ribs

then flow on
to nourish sacred ground.