Saturday, December 31, 2011

Resolutions

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


I resolve:

To spend more time
talking with trees;

To speak my truth
and the truth of those
who cannot speak
for themselves;

To let Nature set the
rhythm of my days
and nights

and the seasons of
my belonging to
this world;

To laugh with children
and some adults too;

To throw a wayward
starfish back
into the ocean;

To dance to the music
that moves me;

To mend a broken wing,
mine,
or someone else’s;

To shine as light in the darkness
and become an ever-truer
friend to my shadows
and demons;

To pick up my paint brushes again
and write songs that
I will never sing;

To learn the constellations
and share nights with friends
under starry skies;

To wear purple more often
and paint my toenails
red,

and start contemplating
how I can become
one of those cool
old women when
the time arrives;

To make love,
honoring the sacred
and enjoying this embodiment;

To smile in pictures,
and smile when there
is no one around to notice
that I am smiling;

To find myself in awe of life,
every day;

To hike in the rain more often,
splash in puddles,
and listen to streams;

To see gardening as co-creative process
and value the time shared
with the Mother;

To be fully present as I prepare my
meals and as I nourish my body,
savoring each bite;

To be of service in my work
and play
and to play;

To meditate on abundance
and express gratitude
at least as often as I
breathe;

To forgive as an act of
duty to my soul,
a means of
expanding my heart,

and the laying of a
stepping stone on the
path to a better world;

To build community
and mirror beauty
back to all beings;

To be courageously vulnerable
and hang out with uncertainty
as if we were childhood
friends.

To simply be enough.

And.

To love you,
because I can.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 


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Friday, December 30, 2011

The Beloved




Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I have not complete knowledge
of who or what the Beloved is
for I am not complete.

Longed for by name,
the Beloved
draws near enough
to share my breath,

but the Beloved’s touch
is yet too holy to grasp –

I am loved most in the
act of being forsaken
to the Great Mystery.

Truth must be a candle
without a flame
because in the spark lies
the light and the self-destruction.

Courting the Beloved
is the act of apprenticing
to the way Home.

There is no possibility
of return other than to
step upon one’s own
heart –

Again and again,
until,

Broken,
the doorway
yields.

It is at this threshold
that the Beloved
recognizes
the Beloved.

In we go.



© 2011-2017/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Out Into the Night






Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I wish we could have sat in council
and I could have held space
for your story.

It doesn’t seem right that
women still have to walk
out into the night alone to
unburden themselves
of anguish.

What these constellations know
of the suffering heart must
be something terrible,

and true.

I wonder if you are aware
of your own bravery.

Warriors of this kind aren’t
given commendations.

Did the Parvin ever speak to
you of your beauty?

I pray for you a place among
these distant sisters:

How well they understand
the mercilessness of
a love that relentlessly
pursues the soul.

The grief I’ve shed in this darkness
is for a world yet too small
to accommodate so
large a heart.

But,

night’s more than half gone
now my dear and it’s time
we return to the tents.

At sunrise only the
other women who have
trekked across the sands
will know
of our courage.

and,

for now,
that has to be enough.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
From "Truth and Beauty: Poems on the Nature of Our Humanity"

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