A Little Comfort

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I do believe that there are things out there

trying to get us to notice the miraculous.

There are choruses at sunrise, and colorful

mosaics – like stained glass windows –

crafted among the trees at sunset.

They say: “This is a house of worship.”

They say: “Listen. Look.”

They ask: “What is it that you have been praying for?”

And, I often sit with that question for quite some

time. I’ve prayed for a lot of things, usually not

realizing that I was praying at all. Usually, prayers

about brokenness – mine or someone else’s.

But now, I do choose to pray. Sometimes, silently.

Sometimes, through words shared with the world.

Never, big. Never, flashy. Often, I just want to bring

a little comfort to a soul – mine or someone else’s.

A poem can be a prayer.

~ Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press

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My List

How does one live a meaningful life? I asked this question.

~

A song sparrow chipped at dusk, three times, and started

me thinking about what it takes to know that out there in the

creeping dark, it is he, Song Sparrow, without a doubt, I hear

giving thanks for the pleasures of the day. So, I made a

list of requirements. I’ll read it to you.

1. Notice that you are not alone in the world.

2. Become interested in something besides yourself.

3. Engage in relationship.

4. Learn what makes a good offering.

5. Serve the other in this way.

That’s something.

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press

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Rosie in on the Counter Again

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

She said to me:  “I am important. You should see me.”

I said: “I do see you. You make it very hard not to see

you. You jump on the counters and bat at my face with

your right paw.” And, she said: “That’s not about me.

That’s about you.” Surprised, I inquired: “How so?” And,

she circled her lean tortoiseshell body, tail arced, gold-

green eyes chasing mine, and meowed, so sweetly:

“That’s my way of saying: You are important too.”

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Available thru Indiebound.com and major online retailers

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The Berries

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I could have picked

them. I didn’t. Red.

Round. Winter saying

something, boldly.

Maybe to the red

bird in the green-

boughed pine. Maybe

to me. But, I have a

thought. It’s about

beauty. Maybe it’s a

test. The important

kind. Maybe someone

up there wants to

know if you can see

a thing and praise it

and that is all. This

I’ve tried. I can’t do

it. Every time I walk

away, my heart is

full.

~  Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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Short Poem

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I'm going to tell you a secret:

The holy is visible.


~ /Jamie K. Reaser, Author
From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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Reason Enough

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Today, I watched the sun wrap his long glowing

fingers around a pine’s narrow waist. It was a

lover’s embrace. I am sure of it. Daring things

are happening – beautiful and fearless. I want

to recognize them all. I want to tell about them.

This would be reason enough to stay for awhile

longer. This is reason enough to have come at all.

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press
Available through Indiebound and other online book retailers

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Reindeer Games

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Siberia is a place of the far North characterized by long winters, snow, and reindeer. The Tungusic are indigenous peoples of Siberia whose lives have long been dependent on an intimate and sacred relationship with reindeer – they are reindeer herders. The word ‘Saman’ (shaman) is a Tungusic word that connotes a spiritual specialist, someone who serves as a bridge between the ‘everyday world’ and the ‘spirit world.’  The shaman’s role is to engage with the spirit world (aka practice magic) in order to support the community, generally through visions, healing, protection, and resource abundance.

Snow

Far North

Reindeer

Magic

Amanita muscaria is the scientific name for a mushroom commonly known as fly amanita or fly agaric. It is a relatively large, attractive looking mushroom sporting a red cap specked with white dots. You’ve probably seen them illustrated alongside fairytales.  Amanitas generally grows under – and in a close ecological association with - conifers (pine trees). They contain the psychoactive compound muscamol which, when ingested, can induce hallucinations (including visions of flying), euphoria, and a ruddy complexion.  Dried mushrooms are, apparently, most potent. However, it is reportedly safer to experience the affects Amanitas by drinking the urine of someone or something that has already consumed the fungus.  Amanitas muscaria is a favorite Autumn food of reindeer.

Red and white

Pine trees

Flying

Reindeer games

In the Tungusic tradition, it was the shaman’s role to work with the spirit of the Amanitas mushroom – the holy mushroom. When it came time to gather them, he would do so ceremoniously, dressing in long black boots and a red and white fur-trimmed coat. He carried a large collecting sack. Once he had a sufficient number of mushrooms, he returned and distributed them throughout the village. When the snows became deep, it was common to enter the family yurts (large teepee-like structures) through a hole in the ceiling – which also served as an exit for smoke. Imagine, under the influence of Amanitas, how this rather jolly, red-faced man might look descending through the chimney with a “Ho, ho, ho!” And envision the mushrooms then being dried by the fire with care – strung together like garlands or, possibly, hanging in garments, such as socks.

Gifts

Chimney

Santa’s attire

Holiday decorations

Stockings

When the dried mushrooms were consumed during Winter Solstice ceremonies, would these peoples have seen the shaman flying in a sleigh led by reindeer? Perhaps. Stories of the various gods being associated with flying chariots date far back in human history – and various versions of the story claim the chariot was pulled by horses or, yes, reindeer. Thor was one such god. In the Old High German language, he was known as Donar. Interestingly, mythology also reveals links between the chariot and the Big Dipper – a star constellation which appears to circle the North Star over the course of a single night.

Super human

Flying reindeer and sleigh

All in a night

Guiding star

The North Star was considered sacred by indigenous people of the Northern Hemisphere. Because it seems to be a fixed point encircled by other stars, it was essentially their Axis Mundi – the center of the universe. To some of these peoples, the North Star adorned the top of the World Tree which connected the realms of the universe – underworld (roots), middle world (Earth), and upper world (cosmos - the realm of the gods and their chariots).  The shaman was responsible for climbing the World Tree and setting the star in place.

Or, so the story goes.

Remember to leave the cookies and carrots on the hearth.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Winter: Reflections by Snowlight"

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Nuthatch Logic

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Today, in the wood, I decided to converse

with nuthatch. “Nuthatch,” I said, “the

world seems upside down.”

And, nuthatch squeaked in the way

nuthatches do, and replied:

“I can see how you would see it that way.

I don’t understand how you people get

around the way you do,

All that blood going to your feet. It must

be hard to think.”

And, I could say no more.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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My Dirty Windows

Photo: (c) Jamie K.  Reaser

Someday you might visit. So, I need to tell you

this: I keep my windows dirty. I’m not a bad

housekeeper. My mother was. And, she’d say so.

I like the birds and feed them because I’ve heard

that you should feed the holy, and also because

it makes me happy to see them so delighted.

They are. You can tell. They have their ways of

expression, as I have mine. Though I’ll admit, theirs

are much better.

But, sometimes birds see things that aren’t there

and make bad choices based on these illusions.

Head first they go, hard, often.  The window

pane is not a forest, not the sky, not another set

of feeders full of tidbits to gleefully chip and

fluff about. But when the lighting is just so, they

don’t get this. Sadly. No.

Have you ever held one that hit and fell, lifeless?

The spirit goes out of winged ones fast. I suppose

that is because they already know how to fly. Or,

they already know which angels to call by name. Or,

they become angels. These are some possibilities.

So, do you now understand the smears and splotches?

Maybe. Likely not. I say this kindly. I’ll explain.

My windows are dirty so that I will remember to be

thoughtful, discerning. I’ve seen a lot of things in my

life. Some of them, I later found out, weren’t what

I believed them to be.  

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press

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When I Knew

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The long ringlets of white synthetic hair were so many; I could only make out a nose. The red and white fabric of his hat, jacket, and boots was shiny and soft to the touch, but synthetic too. And the wide black belt, plastic. Most notably, the sprig of holly attached to him, fake.

If this was Santa, he was a man of little fashion sense. And, cheap. What’s more, he was well preserved in a way that I didn’t care to appreciate. His hands were absent wrinkles. Not a one. Surely, Santa should be a grandfatherly man.

But there he sat, jollying it up on our floral couch with me in my floral dress sitting, suspicious, upon his lap. Yes, as he handed me a small gift wrapped in pea green tissue paper (it was the 70s), I was being told in no uncertain terms, “This is Santa.”

How very disappointing.

I decided to prefer the unknown, and magic.

(c) 2012-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Winter: Reflections by Snowlight"

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Untitled

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Maybe it’s fog, or mist, or a cloud in

fetal form, or maybe it is something else

that has come for a time to teach us to look

close in because we are so often set on far

horizons.

What is your perspective?

This is what I know:

that which

you can’t

see is what

turns a

hermit

into a

master.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
From "Wonderment: New and Selected Poems" (a work in progress)

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Maybe, Then

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

If you can’t hear the turkey tail and the bright green
moss singing on the rotted oak corpse, please don’t bother me.

If you can’t converse with a stone or
haven’t even thought about learning the language of birds,

Please move on.
Life is short. Each one.
I want my allegiances to be with lovers;
the kind that reach out and invite everything to touch them.

Two hands are not enough for this world
in my humble opinion.
There is so much to hold beyond fear, beyond hatred,
and so we must use our sensibilities to find each other.

Let my prayers be that you will hear the angels at the corpse
and listen for a long while to what the stones know

about the bodies that they have met.

And, the birds, the birds. Let me pray that someday, soon,

you will understand what they are saying about

the need to wake and rise.

Maybe, then, we could take a walk together

and be astonished

by the beauty of this world.

Maybe, then, a poet could be understood.

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press 

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The Old Tom

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Nine years ago, a large-pawed tom sung his way into my

small cabin.  He’s not happy. At sunset he has been taking

to the window sill, waiting among the orchids. I watch. And,

I wait too, but not so earnestly. Eventually, I get distracted

by something else, a chore most likely, and that’s when it

begins: the growling, the arched posturing against the pane

that I should get around to cleaning sometime soon. “He’s

out there!” he says. “Another one!” And, I turn on the porch

light and confirm, “You are correct.” A lean brown tabby streaks

into the darkness. And, then I say, “Be nice. Don’t you remember

when you were scared and hungry and alone? It was not so long

ago.” And, he looks into me with sharp golden eyes, locked.

Annoyed, I think.  “I’m getting old,” he replies. “Our time

together is short. I will not share you.” And, to make his stance

clear, he turns and marks the front door, the threshold of our

shared life, our cozy home. Suddenly, I’m back in high school

Humanities class, studying mythology. Sooner or later, I recall,

the gods always get jealous.

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

To be published by Talking Waters Press in late 2015

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Robins in the Black Gum

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

You can see how summer was good to them,

their robust breasts gleaming in the mirror of

the afternoon sun, and they are cheery. They

have a way of speaking about things that sounds

as if rejoicing, never reluctant, and this, even

after the early season freezes put ice on the pond

already. But they are meaningful too, dropping the

black gum seed where it will grow, and holly,

and I saw them not long ago at the dogwood berries.

Brilliant red. People don’t think much about this

anymore, I know, but birds plant the forest. Other

animals do too. Squirrels, for sure. Yes, angels are

common among us and doing such good deeds. I

swear. How is it that we miss the grandeur of it all?

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press

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Where I Live

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

“Where are you going?” asked Crow.

“Home,” I answered.

“Is that a place?” asked Crow.

“It’s like a roost,” I said. “And,

 a nest. A roost and a nest combined.

Well, it’s where humans do most

things,” I concluded.

“Oh,” he replied. “Then why are you

out here in the woods with us

every day?”

“Because,” I answered,

“This is where I live.”

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press

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Who Paints the Sky?

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Who paints the sky? And, why has it

taken me so long to think to ask?

I want to know who is up there

to love, and how I can bargain, if

I might, for more days to end like

this one:

in attentiveness,

in wonderment,

in devotion.

©/2014-2019 Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World" 
Published by Talking Water Press 

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A Moose in the Rain

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

She thinks the face of a moose is as sad

as the face of Jesus.  But, Jesus didn’t look

sad when we met. And, the moose, he

was, I’d say, fully accepting of his awkwardness.

All my life, I’ve been trying to be that moose,

though, until now, I wouldn’t have said “moose,”

maybe “duckling,” because that’s the story I

remember being recited to me, repeatedly, during

an awkward  childhood; they, perhaps, thinking  it

a salve, but I’ve never looked and seen a swan

looking at me,

so when I saw him there, his fleshy proboscis

lipping shrubbery in the pouring rain of Denali,

his body his own and soaked in its true nature,

I thought:

“This is magnificent! I am a moose.”

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in  Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion

Winner of the Nautilus Book Award silver medal for poetry

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The Black Dog

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

The black dog looks at me through big chestnut eyes

and says, “Someone couldn’t love me.”

And, I stroke his silky ears, and then his soft neck,

and I say, “If they loved you, you wouldn’t be

here now, with me.”

And, he wags his tail and, I think, smiles

as he exclaims:

“Oh, now I understand!”

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press 

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Now Available!

"Jamie K. Reaser's newest collection of poetry is a celebration of simplicity. Written during winter snow storms, the poems explore the essence of the season and what it is to have the routines of modernity stripped away when the power goes out. In this simplicity reside the profound truths that Nature and human nature have to offer those who have the courage to sit still and get quiet enough to listen. Place your chair in front of a warm fire and take Winter: Reflections by Snowlight into your hands."

For more information, please visit: http://www.hiraethpress.com/books

When it Shows Up

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

When it shows up,

you should go outside and make offerings;

you never know what form a god, or

goddess, will take.

Sometimes it’s a wild thing, but more

likely a cat, or a dog,

once it was a sheep, really,

today, a white pigeon

- not a dove -

that I gave seed in my grandmother’s

cereal bowl, painted by hand with a fruit decor,

by someone who might now be

someone’s angel, or just gone,

I won’t claim to know how these

things work, although I do have

my ideas. As, I’m sure you have your own.

Who has lost their way?

Standing on my door step, I often wonder

which one of us

most longs to be found.

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press 

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Every Evening

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I am like the mother who has never

had children, and so is mother to them all.

I cannot rest until they are where

their four legs should be at nightfall:

in the barn,

on the antiques and bookshelves,

boxes and baskets,

several on beds, one with a

head on my very own down pillow.

How could we settle for anything less than

a sacred ritual? “Are you safe?” We ask

the other.

And, we don’t stop searching,

not

until we hear,

in some language,

“Yes.”

© 2014-2019/Jamie K. Reaser

From "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

Published by Talking Waters Press

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Just

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

Who says, “it is just?”

Oh, Lord. It has been me.

Is the dervish just whirling?

White skirts entrancing white roses

and also the white sun.

Is the witch hazel just blooming?

Golden, spidery blossoms,

and in autumn for goodness sake!

Is the chestnut-sided warbler just here

and then gone? No! Think of it thundering

those tiny wings across the Americas.

Twice a year.

You can’t do it. Not once. Nor can I.

Words can lead us to grace, and they can

call us away from the inherent sacred. “Don’t look.

Something might change you.”

OH!

I must stop.

This life is dedicated to Earth-praise,

to loving this unordinary world.

Words are my activism.

And, they are not just words.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Coming Home: Learning to Actively Love this World"

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