The notes wash over
This collection of sounds
Becoming music
Almost by chance
Almost
This series of steps
This waiting
This finding
This being
This burning
Soft consonants and sonorous tone
Set me aflame
Choice by choice
Her and her and her
Set us free
Fly together
Sweet song
Month: December 2017
The unbearable weight of knowing
This calm after storm
Broken response leads to feast of life
Halted for empty
A frenzy of connection
A fantasy
This shifting earth falls away
The smell of death
On swift ozone wings
The shift begs permission
Awaits the will to act
Unfettered
Fear and hopeless
Wage war in the heart
Last fade before
Snuffed light
A pagan amidst the sheep
I have been raised in a society that is Christian. But, I’m not Christian. When I was younger I celebrated Christmas. I thought it was great that everyone was happy and loving and giving. And I loved presents. As I grew older I started to see the cracks. Spoiler: Santa Claus isn’t real. I started to see the stress and the mechanics of the economic drive that fuels a huge consumer economy.
However, I still felt that the season could draw out the best in people. That given a excuse, people could be genuine and loving and selfless. I disliked that it required an excuse. And once wrote a whole treatise on extending our hands past the holidays and embracing love as way of life. And I kinda wish that this stopped there. But life is no children’s story.
I grew up. And started buying gifts on my own. I love buying gifts. The perfect gift given at the perfect time can change the course of a life. I believe that. I love seeing a person’s face light up in surprise and delight. To see some of the glee poke out of their shell and watch as they glory in the moment. Now, me, I shop all year for my gifts so I don’t feel the pinch at the end of the year that others do.
But, I see. I see people spending entire paychecks on gifts. I see people who are scrambling for purchase in life spending money they don’t have for people they barely like and I wondered why that was. And it hit me. It’s the social contract.
The society I live in is predominantly Christian of the American persuasion. Which mainly means more protestant and more secular at the same time. More lip service is paid rather than deep genuine faith. And we see how that effects the expression of Christmas in this society.
It becomes a vicious game of giving gifts to ‘prove’ how happy Christmas makes you. Maybe that’s cynical. And if you hold that view, I challenge you to look beyond your immediate family group to the larger society and really see what people are doing. And more importantly, why. Because, this time of year has bled meaning. And I won’t delve into the origins of Christmas and the Hubris of building a major holiday on the bones of older, conquered traditions, except to say that conceptual momentum can infect and change anything that you build atop something that doesn’t want to be changed. That’s probably a different discussion.
We are left as adults to sift through this gift giving frenzy. For myself, I buy gifts for the same reason that I do most things. Because I desire to and because the result brings me joy. I see the season and I find it has changed for me. I no longer see the generosity and hope of the season.
And that’s a good thing. Because this is not my holiday. Because I’m not Christian. I am pagan but in my tradition this is not a time of celebration. We are not joyously leaping for the hope of the daylight and the coming of spring. This is a time of somber reflection. To look back over the course of time and see what change has wrought and decide what course we want to travel into the future. We call the time leading up to the winter solstice The Harrowing. It is a time of testing. Of physical, emotional, and societal strength. A time of decisions. A time to plant the seeds of self now, while the rest of the world sleeps.
For years I observed my paths tradition and my society’s. But as I’ve grown older my patience for the frenzy of good wishes veneer has worn thin. I think that if this season of generosity was truly important that people would act in its spirit every day of their lives and not just pay lip service for a couple of months.
And finally, this year, I find that it’s lost whatever grip it had. I’ll observe the form of gift giving because I enjoy it. But this time and this day have lost its grip.
I am secure and safe in my heart and head with my faith. And the burden of a societal fervor I no longer have the patience for has bled away.
This is just a day. It is your day if that is your belief. I begrudge none their faith if it is deep and true.
But I, am finally free of it.
A blade needs a battle
I’m a prize fighter bent on destruction
Last prize in a fight I’ve been fighting my whole life
Fight for a soul to be happy
But not my own
That may be beyond my power
But this I can do
Always in your corner
Looking for your joy
Might not be with me
But it doesn’t matter
Some wars must be fought
For the ones in our hearts
The things I know
I’ll sing you a song
Of all the future minutes and mistakes
Of triumphs and tragedy
But never will I leave you
I’ll write you a story
Of all things passion and pain
Of fantasy and fact
But never will I break you
I’ll speak you a poem
Of all words wild and simple
Of truth and despair
But never will you doubt
I would make a world
With us at the center
And rise each day
Certain of your heart
But never for granted
I’ll earn you anew
Love is not only a feeling
It is a action
A choice
And I’ve made mine
Shift light explodes through the cracks
This is a broken world
But you are not broken
This is a broken world
But you are not broken
This
Is
A
Broken
World
But you are not broken
This is a broken world
But you
Are not
Broken
This is a broken world
But
You are
Not broken
This is a broken
World
But
You
Are
Not
Broken
The corvid and the dove
My heart soars
Crafting clouds to carry word
Of my deeds
Deep below my mind prepares the way
A place
A home
A sanctuary
What is possible
When dream is made manifest
Time unlocks all
Pilgrimage
Plans bury themselves like roots deep in my bones
Words fragment on my tongue and fingertips
Unwritten
Unsaid
Each slow turn of the wheel
Marking passage to the possible
All my hopes burn like wildfire
Unchecked in a mind enveloped in love
I wait as one who having embarked on a long journey
sees the city of his heart on the horizon
And approaches
Steady
Knowing full well
And with light heart
That arrival means the beginning
Of our journey together
A fish forgets to grow gills
Born into a moment of without you
I’m shook awake by my own fears
Last remnant voices of who I used to be
Rounding up to a calculation of you and me
You’re drowning and reach down
To find stable hands that drag you down to that dark safe place
Where death and life are just fictions we tell ourselves
Where dreams and memories war for attention
And meanwhile I sit at the surface
Looking down into watery depths, hand extended,
You’re such a good person they say
You are light and beautiful and all I could ever want
And I want you to know the happiness I feel
And I watch you sink deeper into the depths crying from the lack of light
My hands extended
I’m not some person trying to create a better world for all mankind
I’m only looking to save you
Take my hand
Pull me up
…I’m drowning
Patience
A desolate jungle bursting with life
predators… and prey
But not the right one
Animals burst from cover and spill out into the light
The cat watches listless
Only perking up when a particular bird sings sweet
Melancholy drips
Waiting for soft touch, for song,
for chance, for choice
For safety, for a truth spoken in the heart
And the soft crunch of bones