Tag Archives: art

Communion

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Re-posted from the Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Image re-posted from the Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Long lines winding up an aisle in incense fog to papery offerings. A feeding of our soul so sterile I am drifting out the door before my mouth opens to receive. Receive what, exactly? Paper, bread, body, blood of Christ. A distorted figure that makes no sense, as I furtively glance at red dripped cross hanging, hanging, hanging for centuries that is an eternal damnation to a heart stuck on butt-worn bench. Sinner ever waiting to be clean. Sit, stand, kneel, sit stand, kneel. Tongues curling round words spoken in mindless cadence that eyes glaze from the loss of meaning. Cold seeps from stone floors into my shoes and all the wiggling toes will not warm my feet. I cough hard to shake the religious congestion loose, purulent and thick with dust.

Doors swing wide. Light pours in. Air fills my lungs.

Communion is the hunger flowing from my spirit alive and green. Running in open fields and winding up forest trails; exploding like Niagara out of the great northern territories. Communion that permeates my skin with loving rain and grounds my feet in Spring mud, a crocus rising at the equinox. Communion that fills me with such wholeness I can no longer tell where I end and dandelion seed begins its journey on the wind of my billow’s breath. Communion flooding the senses with peach juice down a child’s chin and autumn’s smoke of leaf fed fires the incense that opens the nostrils. Communion so sweet my mouth is filled with its mystical wonder and I sing out, an early morning robin alerting all to a day’s break. Communion that is an opening of the heart into a river that floods the delta with endless meandering trails that follow no crafted, structured pattern or timely release. Communion with the unknown, unrehearsed, unpredictable wonder of spirit. Now, on every breath, bookless hands raised to a midnight moon. For that I am famished, parched and deliciously ready to devour.

Working piece from Front Range Writer’s Group on reclamation of words. Marj Hahne facilitator.

Girls of Autumn: Photo Poem

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Light Trails: Phot by Noelle

Light Trails: Photo by Noelle

A recent study demonstrated that light-emitting photons continue to emit light for up to twenty-eight days, AFTER, the photon had been removed. That is, the light the photon gave off when it was at a given point in space and time would still exist in that space and time even after the photon had moved on. They found the average degradation of that light was approximately twenty-eight days. Give this some real thought. Imagine as you move through your day that you are quite literally walking through light trails everywhere you go. Not discernible to your naked eye, but there, nonetheless. Look at these little girls running, dancing amongst cattail particles on a sunny day. They are not merely dancing in cattail dust, but dancing in light that is refracted off of every surface that autumn sun hits. And even after the photon hits and leaves, its light gift remains floating there for you to touch. The negative of this picture captures this idea for me, as each little girl appears to be leaving a light shadow.

Psychiatric and therapeutic circles spend a great deal of time discussing what Carl Jung referred to as our “shadow”. The side of us we don’t want to see or confront. Our ‘darker’ aspects. But what if the real story isn’t in our darker side, per se, but in our light shadow? What if, by confronting our darkness what we really find is a light trail we are leaving everywhere we go? What if the trail isn’t a dark shadow at all, but like those light-emiting photons we are leaving light wherever we go?

My favorite Thomas Merton quote goes:
“There is no way to tell people they are walking around shining like the sun.”

Hard to get people to believe, but I will tell you all the same. You are walking around shining like the sun and as in the photograph, you are leaving a light shadow everywhere you go. Embrace that today. Namaste

Torn Asunder

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River bank collage in gold and purple: Photo by Noelle

River bank collage in gold and purple: Photo by Noelle

I did not understand the loss
Not the switchbacks in direction
Nor the unfulfilled need

I did not see the change
Or the push of the envelope
The strain to see

I hated the destruction
Crushed and laid barer
Than the hull without its seed

Down to bone you left me
Naked and exposed
Winds of confusion whipping me clean

Standing in dirt
Vines sprung up, wrapping
My naked bones with leafy tweed

Vines bore flowers that brought the bees
That pollinated my blossoms
With your divine beads

Which grew ripe and colorful fruit
That attracted the birds that took up
Nests in my mind to feed

Laying eggs of inspiration
All babies learning to fly
And then I knew I did see

Such a deep appreciation
For having been torn asunder
Destroyed and sanded to a reed

I was never the hull
Always the seed
And in muddied dirt You and I grew me

Little Gem: Joy and Sorrow

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From flood to drought: Photo by Noelle

From flood to drought: Photo by Noelle

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Balance of Off: Photo poem 13

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Run Off: Photo montage by Noelle

Run Off: Photo montage by Noelle

This is a composite piece from a photo I took of sprinkler run off, layered with spliced sections of two poster paintings. One from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page and the other from Hippie Peace Freaks Facebook page completing the collage.

It is clear I long for balance, as each piece has a composition that embraces balance and harmony. Balance, proportion and color bring a sense of forward motion and ignite a creative hunger.

Yet, there is also a need for bits of asymmetry. Pieces that are slightly off center that bring the piece into a different kind of harmony and nurture creative innovation. An expansion that moves beyond yourself into larger views. I call it the balance of “off”. A tension that comes from being at a harmonious odd with the world around you. It is the threads in the tapestry intentionally mis-woven. The grace that comes with imperfection and the uniqueness that can only be found in what is slightly off the beaten trail.

Each person needs to find their way and I will merely pose here that the “Balance of Off” is a potent and surprisingly harmonious path to take. The Chinese understood this as yin-yang and sought it out in the balancing of their homes and lives. Apparently, I seek this too, both without and within.

Rain

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Image re-posted from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Image re-posted from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Rain falls hard drains tick and rattle
Branches whip the window so bold
A frenetic heart beat, steady
In the closeness of the house
The sound is a chaotic symphony
That does not grace within
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

Cracking thunder
Light washes a dark field
Water rushes the stones
My chest fires back an adrenaline shot
Deep into my vessels it flows
Who is a storm now
My belly creaks
My breath shutters
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

Shadows dance
Trees sway, not lovers
More women thrashing wheat
In fields of silver rivers and
Matted grass
Leaves stick to the pane
While rivulets swing around them
Wild Celtic women
Dancing around a leaf alter
Tick and rattle, pitter patter

I am the rolling thunder
I am the relentless rain
I am the mad lightening that strikes the heart
And jolts my spirit awake in the
Wildness of an eternal dark
A mighty storm
Tick and rattle, pitter patter