I had thought I would stop in some sunlit spot the midst of my walk to sit and to write, but instead I was called off the trail into the sundappled shadowlands, into the arms of a mothering tree.
She pulled me up into her with moss coated strength and then, there I was, in her embrace, embracing her. And there I am still.
For a long time I just sat in her, legs straddling her joint of trunk and limb, one know pressing direct between my breasts, another right into the space between my eyes.
Songbirds with me in this moment, and the rushing waters down below.
This is where I find myself in this moment that has found me.
She calls me to her again and again–and again and again i am hers.
That is the trunk, that is where the moss wants to grow. From that truth strong limbs extend in every direction seeking the light, bearing flowers and fruit. I am hers, I have always been hers…both an empty vessel to be filled with the nectar of her profusion and the liquid itself, which enters her throat to feed the song that is this tree I am held by and the birds that are singing me and the thick smell of ripe and rot in the air.
Today I offer my carefully cultivated silence to be the space between her notes–I would be the soft place she rests after long arduous labors continually birthing the world.
I stretch myself against this trunk, this limb and breath her into me, filled and empty once more.
Another one of those veil thin kind of days
another one of those landscapes made of stories
woven threads of song that last as long as breath
and then become a tapestry of echos
reverberating within the chambers of the lungs
those vaulted cathedrals of grief and praise
some mysterious design afoot
a game with rules made by playing
a play with genius made thru saying
yes
another one of those veil thin kind of days
when each inbreath is so clearly the outbreath of another
when every strange on the the street
was once your mother, and your lover
when our blooming flowers
are so clearly the cookfires of that other shore
and our cookfires
are so clearly the blooming flowers of that other shore
in honor of those nomadic lineage holders
always coming home
in honor of all whose footsteps
fit inside our own
in honor of those whose impossible wings
still beat inside our chests
in honor of those whose fierce softness
is a place to rest our heads
in honor of those
whose songs our children will sing
offering each night’s last breath to the place where grief cycles
singing in your grandmother’s voice
offering morning’s first breath to that place where the night
grows tired of being the night
offering salt tears to the place that holds
the hands that held the knife
offering vision
to each place just out of sight
offering gratitude to the shadows
whose hard work is defining the light
kept company by the wind and the myriad sounds of the world that the wind animates just by doing what it is born to do, i am moving thru space and time unoccupied yet far from vacant.
i move thru the world as the world moves thru me.
the world is made of things: shells, bicycles, clocks, spoons, ponds, sneakers, eggs—and those things are made of sound.
this is the thing i have been told and that i believe.
i believe because it sounds right to my ear made of sound, and not everything does.
~
sometimes the words just run out on me.
sometimes i sit in the place where i am and there are words there, here and there, but they aren’t mine to speak. they don’t occur to me, and by occur, i mean move out into the world thru my mind as if they came from there.
this is practice.
the sound i seem to be seeking to make, mysterious and at least mostly true, takes practice. is practice.
i am learning a whole new way to speak, in service to the thing i used to feel superior to.
reaching with long arms of language towards a thing whose name has not quite yet occurred.
but i am reaching.
i am stretching.
i am beginning to make a sound.
all of a sudden you begin to realize
your efforts of attention
your gift to each sentient increment of the singing world
has landed gracefully on fertile ground
has spent a season of germination as you yourself have been seeking the light
(and finding it within and finding it everywhere (efforts of attention))
has cracked open the limitations of the known world
and exploded into unabashed blooming
even in the deep of winter
(as the rains come sweeping through)
the seed of each moment to which you offered the fullness of your awareness
has allowed the world to be fed by its own awe
and the fruits of your labors have ripened on each tree
and they are dripping juice…
somewhere deeply baby girl Odessa eyes like wild bird migrations grows inside me without a seed
she sings me firelit chasm songs to smooth the sharp corners of my emptiness to curves she unnerves any urgency with a stopped clock that keeps on ticking
somewhere veiled Odessa girl remembers me with needle and thread
teeth ochre red
whistling gap stories unsung for ages pages of petals of tree skin of flesh recovered from the depths of mechanism pages of prizm refracting the visible day into every way home
January 19th,2010
Heartcore,
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It is with profound humility and an enduring desire to be of service to a story larger than my own that I reach out these long arms of language towards you, Grandmother, in hopes that my desire to feed you may be of some use. I choose to speak directly to you in this moment because it feels most genuine to my being, to take this opportunity to open the portal in myself that speaking to you allows me unique access to. In speaking to you, I speak also to anyone else who would listen, and be fed by these reaching words.
When I turn to the East, and call upon the Grandmother who dwells there, the keeper of breath and beginnings, the one who’s song travels on the first light of dawn, breaking over the horizon, I feel my own breath empty and fill me, the fuel that calls me back to myself, able to live another day as part of this great dancing. I offer each exhalation’s cleansing release, I offer each inhalation’s inspired renewal to You, East-dwelling Grandmother, may this breath feed your breath, which is the breath of creation expanding and contracting in its eternal unfolding.
I turn then to the South, and here I call upon Grandmother Spark and Flame, Grandmother Dance of Wildness, I feel heat begin in my feet and travel up my legs, up through my root and my spine, up my creative center, my will center into the core of my being, where my heart catches flame, a bright green flame, who’s roaring is the song of my Spirit falling eternally in love with the Grandmother of the South. I kneel before You, I offer You all my rituals of beauty and pleasure, knowing it is my own aliveness that feeds your dancing. Fed by the breath of the East, these Southerly flames dance higher, rising up through my throat and my crown, becoming the wild song of my soul, feeding the song of all Creation.
In turn, I call out to the Grandmother who dwells in the West, who is the vast ocean of fertile mystery, the dreamtime, the chalice overflowing with emotion’s shadowplay. I am humbled before you Grandmother, for this is the realm where all my fears and insecurities reside. I recognize the challenges my own emotional body holds for me and I offer that up to your alchemical cauldron Grandmother, may you feast on my past traumas and fears and thus metabolize them into their own opposite, into my own full presence, full spectrum availability to the unfiltered ocean of human experience, free of fear, free of insecurity. I prepare to dive head first into your infinite depths, calling in the guidance of my dreamtime Grandmother, making myself fully available as a tool of your works in the world. The salty tears of my own inner ocean fall freely, let them merge with your vastness and unify my own vulnerability with the strength to which it holds the key. Let these tears feed your waters Grandmother, and let them flow clear and clean once more.
With a deep breath, I turn to kneel before the Grandmother of the North, and she does not allow me to kneel, she asks me to stand, to feel myself rooted as a tree with limbs reaching into the stars. In your presence Grandmother of Soil and Seed, Grandmother of Roots and Wings, I feel myself as the vessel for all whose lives have come before my own, whose blood and bone and song and craft shape my own making, who live on thru me, thru the works of my hands and my heart. I dedicate myself in this moment to being a worthy carrier of these myriad lineages, praying only that my life be made into a worthy offering, and that this offering be truly received in its fullness, that it may feed a story larger than my own.
Oh Grandmother who dwells in the Sky, and Grandmother who dwells in the Earth, I invite you to enter me now, to feel my voice as your voice, to feel my hands as your hands, to ride upon the strength of my spine and breathe your creation’s fire out into the world thru me. It is with utmost humility that I offer myself, not for any personal gain or renown, but so that your works may be accomplished swiftly and gracefully, that this beautiful Song of Creation might continue to be sung for many more generations to come.
Grandmother Thump Thump, who lives in the incantations of my heart’s contractions, be with me now, feel my dedication, my willingness to be guided, my heart’s true yearning to be of use to you. Please hear me now, be with me now, and know that so long as I have air to breath, fire to dance, water to wash and earth to plant, I am your humble daughter, I am your praise singer, your open hands and your careful feet.
For all my relations…Mitakuye Oyasin
Long Life Honey in the Heart
No Evil
13 Thank Yous
today grey wordless gropings
i am at your feet and so far away
White House to Hold First Ever Tribal Nations Summit and MyTribeTV will stream President’s meeting with Tribes – November 5, 2009, as requested.
* November 5: White House to Hold First Ever Tribal Nations Summit
The first Tribal Nations Conference will be held in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, November 5, the White House (http://www.whitehouse.gov/) announced today. Tribal leaders heard about the summit during the morning session of the National Congress of American Indians (http://www.ncai.org/) conference in Palm Springs, California. Invitations are being sent to all 564 federally recognized tribes. Each tribe can send one representative.
* MyTribeTV will stream President’s meeting with Tribes – November 5, 2009
MyTribeTV (http://www.mytribetv.com/), an Indian-owned business in Seattle, Washington, will provide online coverage of the first-ever White House Tribal Nations Conference on November 5.
The event will be streamed at tribalsummit.mytribetv.com. MyTribeTV is the exclusive provider for the event.
The White House said each of the 564 federally recognized tribes can send one representative to the conference. President Barack Obama has promised to meet yearly with tribal leaders.
once again here we are at another beginning…
i take a deep breath and dive into the next chapter of possibility unfolding itself in the space between sentient sourcery and fingertips tapping.
this is a test of the emerging broadcast network.
this is where i cease editing and spill apple juice over the keyboard so it seeps down into the city and sprouts up thru the cracks in the concrete as trees to climb on, eat from, build forts in and plot the next movement…
as ever, this is for you
may all worthy offerings be fully received
long life, honey in the heart
no evil
13 thank yous
Sacred Valley, Peru
familia…
officially it’s winter here right now, though it basically feels like the east bay did a moth ago, warm sunny clear days and chilly nights. the brugmanica tree i fell in love with last october has only a few blooms left on it, but still the wild strange sweetness of it is enough to have me pledging my eternal devotion under the full moon. the sunflower seeds i planted then are now 7 foot tall husks, evidence of some bright expansive blossoming.
something about planting seeds whose flowers you will not get to see.
something about how losing a thing makes you better at making it yourself, finding it another way.
today count em, 4 new children arrived at Casa de Milagros. In all my time here there has never even been one new arrival, nonetheless 4, all biological siblings, aged 3,5, 7 and 8, the two youngest girls and the two eldest boys. When Mama Kia and Marie (her daughter) and Patty were discussing the new arrivals there was in no way a sense of overwhelm or hesitation. When Marie spoke of how they all had rickets from severe malnourishment, her eyes flashed. “This is part of our work, right?” They excitedly discussed how they could get the beds rearranged to make room in the best way for such a shift. These were women filled with the grounded electricity of those doing truly good work, and doing it really really well.
Within ten minutes of arrival, some of the boys here had given the new boys skateboards and were scooting around the playground, not really talking, but very much being together, inclusive. In the younger girls’ room, the smallest, Sofia, was looking around with wide uncertain eyes, as a group of girls all gathered around her, quiet and gentle. Maria Flor, who’s about ten, went up beside her and put her arm around her, touched her hand, encouraged her to eat the apple she had been given. Kia said its always the kids the first day that makes anyone new feel comfortable and welcome. They’ve all been in that same position themselves, they are the ones that know what’s needed.
They take it all in stride. this is your new home, this is your new family, here’s an apple, a skateboard, a whole other life. I suppose it must seem like a strange dream, after only knowing abuse and hunger for the first few years you’re alive. their eyes sparkle, they are so willing to roll with it. what was it i ever thought to complain about? if you want to learn about making family, about making life, hang out with orphans. Seems like every morning when i go into the kitchen, Kia is on the floor, under the table with Baby Sol, having a picnic or peeking at the big people, laughing away.
Tomorrow i will walk the mile or so along the river and catch the bus into Calca to send this email, on our way back to Hanaq Pacha, Kia’s little retreat center, to work for the week while the kids are in school. This book is shaping itself inside my mind, like a planet evolving from a single celled organism. slowly each layer contracts and expands against the others…it is an alchemical process…there is more than i can possibly fit into one book, so i am sculpting the planet even as it forms, carving away the extraneous bits to reveal some mysterious shape called Story. it is slow work, careful and strange. i am eternally fascinated. Kia has so much to teach us all, sometimes i am almost overwhelmed with the responsibility of doing right by this woman and her fucking unbelievable life. but mostly i am not thinking about myself. and that is such a pleasure.
My time here is too short, but each day is long, rising with the sun, moving slower and accomplishing more. that is how time passes for me in these mountains. gratitude as i go to sleep and again as i awake, with the spiderweb of dreams still clinging to my lashes. when i am not writing, i am singing small songs to the breezes, convincing them to carry this small evidence of my big love to all of you, catching you off guard in an ordinary moment, and the colors deepen, the sun’s warmth sinks in, and you remember how good it is to be here.
fruta y alas,
eve