Monday, February 27, 2012

Evidence of Life Unseen















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser, spotted salamander egg masses


A white-tailed buck visited pond-edge,
the light of Jupiter and new moon
dancing upon his back like giddy nymphs
at the first ball of spring.

It was the willow sapling who told me
of his visit, the story emerging into the lines
of my palm as I ran my hand over the long,
rough, tawny wounds spanning two feet
of its narrow spine:

A rubbing post for velvet.

Time and temperature and penetrating rains
have beckoned forth spotted salamanders.
Thick as a thumb, jet black, and each marked
with a constellation like none-other,
they have crawled from their subterranean haunts
into what we call the world.

I know of this from the still-chilled waters
of the vernal pool, a receptive womb
in which opaque globular egg masses float
amongst the decaying legs of
last season’s cattails:

Freshwater pearls encasing the bounty.

Someone trained in the arts of deep allurement,
put out a line and a bunch of foolish
catfish took the bait. He filleted them and, 
for reasons I cannot fathom, drove the whiskered 
heads high into the mountains where he pitched 
them aside in a quiet holler,
their eyes still plump with surprise.

Turkey vultures with bad breath tattled on him,
launching their heavy bodies from
leafy ground to barren tree when
disturbed by the words:

“What the heck?!”

A woman sat on a rock with a purring marmalade cat,
content, watching the breeze play finger games
in his mistress’ long silvery hair.
She did nothing more apparent
than write a poem.

You can see for yourself:

Everywhere there are stories being told
to eyes willing to listen.


(c) 2012-2020/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" 

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Monday, February 20, 2012

Sacraments
















Image: Sharp-shinned hawk by John James Audubon


How does last night's fall snow
feel about the morning sun's radiant touch?

Is there a deep yearning to be melted,
or is there a great fear of death?

I whisper:

"They can be one, the same."

The sharp-shinned hawk throws himself,
like Cupid's hell-bent arrow,
head on into the bough-damp cedars.

He has faith in a universal memory
that has never occupied him personally.

"There will be nourishment at the core of
this dark and tangled thicket."

And he is correct,

Emerging with brown, flopped-necked sparrow
in his blood-warmed talons.

He makes no apology for taking a life
to secure his own,

But he does pull each of the sparrow's feathers
and sends them fluttering free into the blue of sky
as his particular way
of making an offering to the Holy.

And is this what it's all about? I wonder:

Every act of life, a sacrament.
'

(c) 2012-2014/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life" and "Wild Life: New and Selected Poems"  (www.hiraethpress.com) 

(Feel free to share. Poetry is meant to move.)

Saturday, February 18, 2012

In the Body of a Woman





















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I’ve been searching for the
source of your fear -

The wound that you
have forgotten,
but never healed.

The wound that has not
forgotten you.

How can any human being
choose to desecrate the
holy vessel from which they
emerged?

You were conceived
in the body of a woman.

Your father’s best swimming sperm
found your mother’s luminous egg,
and they joined in union.

You are nature’s miracle.

In time, your fingers and toes
took their form in the body
of a woman.

You wiggled them delightfully.
What wonderment.
And sucked your tiny thumb.
What comfort.

You became unmistakably human
in the womb of a woman.

I’m curious:

What about that disgusts you?

Please, tell me. I want to know.

In the body of a woman.

You’ve burned us,
beat us,
stoned us,
owned us,
molested and raped us –

body and soul.

Witch.

Whore.

Chattel.

Cunt.

Bitch.

Mother.

Daughter.

Sister.

Aunt.

Niece.

Do my breasts actively offend you?

Does my vagina scream profanities?

Do you think my loins are the Devil’s hiding place?

Please, help me. I want to understand.

In the body of a woman.

This, my body, is nourishment.

This, my body, is love.

This, my body, is creation.

Why does this, my body, terrify you so?

Please, sit with me awhile. I want to embody compassion.

In the body of a woman.

Wounds are not healed through bloodshed.

Wounds are not healed through oppression.

Wounds are not healed through loss of dignity or shaming.

Wounds are not healed in ink.

Oh why are you compelled to try to do so?

Please, take my hand. I want to help you find another way.

In the body of a woman.

I’ve been searching for the
source of your fear -

The wound that you
have forgotten,
but never healed.

The wound that has not
forgotten you.

Please, listen for just a moment.

Please, I want you to hear just this:

If I could take your body into my open arms,

and heal all your wounds,

I would.

In the body of a woman.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"
Published by Talking Waters Press

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Thursday, February 16, 2012

In the Dark of Night


Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

In the dark of night,
between the Sun's abandonment
and the Moon's possession
there can be great temptation
to run. 

Don't.

Sit. Be still.

Invite the Beloved to haunt
every aspect of
your vulnerable being.

What's the sense of being truly alive
if you won't commit to being ravished
by the exquisite tenderness
of the unseen?

The breeze picks up and takes your skin
into the pucker of its lips.

This is merely foreplay.


(c) 2011-2016/Jamie K. Reaser
Published in "Sacred Reciprocity: Courting the Beloved in Everyday Life"
www.hiraethpress.com

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Invitation to the Sacred Masculine



Photo: Jamie K. Reaser


I know how long you have
been waiting to be received.

I have heard the desperate cries
from the little-boy-of-you –

The one who wants to be held
in ways he’s never
truly been held.

I’ve felt the pain projected
from the adolescent-of-you –

The one who believes that
you have to test love by
being unkind to the ones
who say they love you.

I’ve seen the fear,
and sometimes the rage,
in the young-man-of-you –

The one you self-sent to war,
hoping that embattlement
would make you a Hero.

This poem…

This poem,
is an invitation that I’m writing
to the initiated-adult-of-you –

The one who understands that
vulnerability and courage
can reside in the same body,
simultaneously,

And that these are the gateways
to intimate communion
with the Sacred Other.

The one who knows he’s tended,
always and forever,
by the Great Mother,

And who has come to his knees
in humble gratitude and
reciprocal offering for the
nourishing milk of life that he
has received daily from Her supple teats.

The one who has learned
the difference between the
ego’s encampment of the Hero
and the hero’s journey of the Soul,

And who has chosen to no
longer believe in enemies,

but who actively fosters extended families
of Sisters and Brothers
among the two-leggeds, four-leggeds,
feathered, finned, and furred,

and who embraces each being
from the empowering surrender-stance
of the heart-warrior.

Beloved,

I’m wondering if you can hear
these words in the

Wail of the full moon’s light
or the song of the sky-breaching whale,

or the warble of the dawn-painting thrush,

or the woman-of-you who you
may still be denying knowing,

or the one whose voice you’ve heard
a thousand times,
but never really listened to,

or the one who you have yet to believe in
because you’re still not fully
convinced that the Sacred Feminine
can show up in human form,

or that you are worthy of her affections.

My love,

I’m talking about
these words,
the ones that say with
open and iridescent sincerity:

“I am longing to receive you.”

Should I repeat them?

These words:

“I am longing to receive you.”

You see,

I know of the great aching
that stretches across this lush,
yet lamenting world of holy desire.

Can’t you hear the evocative voices in the
swale of the moist wind and the
surge of the wave as it rises
and reaches out for something
to take hold of?

She wants you.

In the swaying of long meadow grasses,

In the rippling of the mountain stream
around an imperfect mossy stone,

In the releasing of perfume from every
splayed blossom,

she is speaking to you.

She wants you.

You See:

This poem…

This poem,
is an invitation that I have written
to the Sacred Masculine-of-you –

It’s an invitation to fully show up.

It’s an invitation to be fully received.

It’s an invitation to manifest,
in co-creative union,
embodied,
within me.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Available in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"
Published by Talking Waters Press

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