Light is Born into Darkness and all Earthlings Rejoice

And now the Solstice Light is with us!

We now celebrate with all our fellow earthlings, for the celestial corner has been rounded and Light returns! Minerals, plants, and animals rejoice.  We humans, whose bodies are composed of these living ancestors, give gratitude and honor to all creation.  These poems have come as gifts from the dream world; they arrived to me as visitors in the velvet night.  For more poems subscribe :  https://www.sharifaoppenheimer.org  Click on the thread A Litany of Wild Graces, or order the book from the Books tab.  Happy Solstice to all!

Mineral

Hillside forest.

Spider webs are quilted sunlight.

Her veins open into this dawn.

Tourmaline crystals

tumble at her feet.

She is mineral.

Plant Woman

Her ancestral home

succumbs to fecund

silted flood waters.

A chair rocks slowly.

Lavender grows

in the palm of her hand.

Waters slowly rise.

Land Animal

Her hair becomes silk banners,

flags flying in mist-laden wind.

She dances on tiger’s back.

Jungle fronds sway,

green waves parting

as the she-tiger passes.

Human

We are composite

permeable form

a place

the world-spirit

travels through:

            minerals

            waters

            plants

            animals

            starfire

wind

all these

gather fragments of humankind

carry bits of our genetic alphabet

downstream or disperse them

on dandelion filaments.

We greet these guests

spirit embedded in earth

tend them

as they flow through us

know that elements borrowed

from star-born

ancestors will be returned

for our children’s

children.

Photo Kate Knott@a_clear_lens_photography

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.