Thursday, May 27, 2010

In the Presence of Grace




















Image: (c) Jamie K. Reaser



Rain drops
set by night’s storm
jewel iris leaves
past the hour of morning sun.

A child
is born
into purpose.

Butterflies of delicate wing
and nectars sweet
traverse continents
there and back again.

Strangers re-member
something profound
in their togetherness.

A tadpole
becomes
a frog
and
calls souls to dream.

We awaken from slumber
with time enough.

As the flower opens
white petals widely
to the bee
for its first pollination,

Someone,
somewhere,
breathes in deeply
the last breath of
their sacred other ~

And
at the window
the mourning dove coos
a celebration of life
and love.


(c) 2003-2017/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved 
in Everyday Life/Hiraeth Press

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Stop Holding Your Breath



















Image: origin unknown


Stop holding your breath.


The one laying there next to you,

back at your side,

hogging all the covers,


that one doesn’t have to offer

what you are looking for,


doesn’t even understand that

you are looking,


Seeking.


That one prefers to remain asleep,

eyes closed.


Stop holding your breath.


That unmet longing that has you ceiling-staring

has nothing to do with being completed by another.


Nothing.


That unmet longing is the yet-to-be-had,

never-to-be-ended conversation

between your Soul and the Spirit that unites us all.


And, “Why yet unmet?” you ask.


Because you cannot truly engage in any dialogue

while holding your breath!


Part your lips, open your mouth, and release your

inflated cheeks and fears.


Breathe.


Inhale Life. Exhale Love.


Inhale Life. Exhale Love.


It’s time to do what you’ve known

it’s time to do.


With utmost intent,


it’s time to enter into The Sacred Marriage.


With utmost compassion,


it’s time to love yourSelf enough…


Breathe.


©2010-2011/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" by Hiraeth Press (www.hiraethpress.com). Nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Callings














 

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Do you hear yourself being called
to places that are far away,
beckoned by landscapes
intimately known and unimaginable?

Does it feel as if only strangers
can speak your name?

You must leave home.

You must leave HOME!

Escape the walls of your
upbringing any way you
can.

Caterpillars do it.

Travel far and wide,
get lost,
be robbed,
over and over again,
realize that the world is big,
you are small.

Forget who you believed
yourself to be,
who you thought
others thought you were.

Become someone who can’t
answer simple questions like,
“What do you do?”

Fail.

Totally and completely fail
to reach your intended destination,
though carrying a map and compass.

You are where you need to be
the moment after you
give up on all the landmarks.

Sit down and cry out
all of your laments.

Cry out the laments
all your ancestors
feared to cry.

You are indeed walking
in circles,
downward,
inward,
along a path marked
“Grief and Despair”
that leads directly
to soul.

You have arrived.

Arrived at the place
you began
that it killed you to leave.

There is no entrance,
nor exit.
Never was.

When people ask you to tell the
story of your travels,
your journey,
of the road you have taken,
do so by living your life,

Ecstatically.

Now you are human.


(c) 2003-2019/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 


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Friday, May 14, 2010

When Dreams Dry Up














Image: http://uphilldowndale.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/


There are dreams,

like fruits,

which pucker and shrivel

on the stem.


The erotic drip of juice from your chin

is not guaranteed,

no matter how intimate

your relationship

with tree,

and blossom,

and pollinator.


I looked upon such a dream-fruit

today.


There was grief,

and that old familiar smell

of truncated memories.


I had a mind, for a moment, to pluck

the shrunken, hard dried mass

and take it into ceremony,


but my hand stopped,

suspended,

in mid notion.


Aghast.


What arrogance to think that any

intervention on my part would grant

a more holy passage

than Destiny’s plunk into the cradle

of leaf and microbes!


And that’s what I learned today

about dreams –


Sometimes, part way is fruition.


Sometimes,

it’s best to simply step back

and let the energies

return to their Source for re-cycling.


So, to the being on the stem,

I bowed in prayer position

instead.


© 2010-2012/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" (www.hiraethpress.com)

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Receptivity



Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser
















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We were born onto a life sustaining planet.

Why?

Because we signed a contract of reciprocity:

Oxygen in exchange for carbon dioxide.

The problem isn’t that She’s been holding back,
or that you have.

The problem is one of receptivity.

We have bared our souls from an intimate relationship
with Abundance –

Fear shuts down, walls off, defends Homo sapiens
against life-force-sustaining energies,
the oxygen of emotions:
compassion, kindness,
nurturance, love.

…the capacity to experience beauty.

…the capacity to celebrate and be celebrated.

Here’s a hint…

Any closed system will eventually deplete itself,
and a sense of lacking will set in.

Lack of self esteem.
Lack of self worth.
Lack of self love.
Lack of anything meaningful beyond the self.

Nothing made of wood, stone, metal, glass, or plastic
will ever fill the void.

Never ever.

The increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,
it’s not a sign that you’ve been overly generous
in this so-called partnership.

It screams:

“Excess is the ironic outcome of wantonness.”

Excess is the ironic outcome of wantonness.

Here’s what I want you to do:

Open up!

Open your eyes.
Open your mind.
Open your heart.

Expand the rib cage that some
say is the bone of contention
that defines our very existence -
procreative man and woman
begetting an entire species.

Now…Receive.

Open and receive.

Let in the life-force-sustaining energies and
make a place for them to root and grow
in the essence of your core being.

Open and receive.

Encourage others to do the same.

We must stop forcing ourselves upon Her
as a means of securing access to that
which She has already offered openly.

We must learn how to accept.

We need to say, “Thank you.”


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The Cairns of Carrowkeel















Image: (c) Jamie K. Reaser
Ireland, 2003


I, walking past the
vaginal stone,
crouch and kneel
to enter Her.

There is a pooled
wetness that seeps
in the
darkness.

Passage.

Slowly, with a
gentle touch to
ancient walls.

Only when I reach
the wide openness of
womb do I
become erect.

Receptive and empty -
this is a place of
mooning,

where the implanted divine
can gestate and
mature.

Each devotee an egg,
each inspiration -
sperm.

A pulsing life force
vibrates in the
chambers.

We are three:
She, me, and the
potential that dwells
within.

Cycling -
death and re-birth.

An old way of being
is buried when
new life
or a new age
emerges.


(c) 2003-2018/Jamie K. Reaser
A Talking Waters poem

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