Pandora's Box

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Image: origin unknown

“Don’t open Pandora’s box!”

“Don’t open it!”

How often as a little girl I gave into

this demand for containment –

this fallacy that there is safety

in ignorance, denial, and self-deceit.

Well, I am a woman now,

and the road I’ve walked has taught

me that Fear

can mistake blessing for threat.

So, the other night I did it,

I lifted the lid of Pandora’s box.

Two savage canid-like beasts burst forth -

hard-bodied, sleek and shimmering black,

with eyes that burned like crimson torches.

Hounds of hell…snarling,

one careened to my right,

the other lept to my left.

There, just out of my line of Sight,

it growled and churned head round to tail,

planning my last moment.

I screamed the primordial scream

taught to me by a jolly mystic,

and awoke, startled,

as my voice

uttered a profound squeak.

In the light of day,

I remembered this:

If you want to know the truth,

offer your demons

back scratches and belly rubs.

Time passed…

But not much of it before tongues lolled

and drool seeped in between

the floor boards.

And They spoke the tale we should

have been told:

Pandora,

manifestation of the Great Goddess,

provider of gifts that make life and culture possible,

had at her side a pithos –

a large jar, not a box as Hesiod claimed.

And oh how this jar was shaped –

wide at top,

narrow at bottom,

gently curved down the sides…

Pandora’s jar –

a sculpted, highly decorated

celebration of the womb.

You and I emerged from the original jar,

as did our ancestors.

We are all of Pandora’s box.

We are all of Pandora’s box.

And indeed what evils our introduction has wrought,

intended or naught –

How the air, water, land…

How the leafed, winged, finned, and footed…

How our own psyche have suffered.

How strangely tragic our journey has been from mother to Mother.

Some might still shout out in shame and regret:

“Don’t open Pandora’s box!”

“Don’t open it!”

But not those who know that in Pandora’s sacred,

unbreakable pithos

one thing remained,

One.

And that was, that is…

Hope.

Hope remains.

When the sacred union is consecrated,

Hope will be fully embodied into this world.

We need only hold ourselves open to the possibility.

© 2010-2017/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out." 

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Emergence

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

It is time.

Crawl up from the underworld.

Depart your long stay in

thick darkness and clay.

Find your roots.

Find your roots.

Follow – straight or

spiraling - to the surface and

into the humid,

star-storied night.

Proceed slowly, yes,

but with the unyielding intent

to become the amazing thing

that you have never before

seen.

Can you feel your soft, tender body

up against the inside of your

dry, tight skin?

The edge. The tightness.

It tears you apart…

this back-splitting longing to

be larger than that which has

contained you.

I know that dream.

The one about having wings.

So, find that place where you will,

consciously,

take the last step as who you have been,

unfold your future,

and cast the old story behind you.

Emerge. Break free.

Surrender to your destiny,

lifting your long struggled form forth

onto a tree trunk,

or a flower stalk.

The moistness.

It is always there –

conception, growth,

birth, life, death.

Notice the eyes.

Red.

Let the soft dawning breezes

caress your sensitive nature,

as you unfurl lacy,

iridescent dreams.

So clear.

Now firm in the daylight.

You are seen.

Listen.

The world is calling to you.

Let yourself be heard.

Trust in what you have been

gifted.

Trust in what you have been

gifted.

Take flight –

with this core truth:

Where you land

and what you do

will determine

how well grounded

we are in the future.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

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Bloom

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

If you were a flower,

would you let someone hold your petals

shut so that you could never bloom?

You are a flower…

The embodied floral essence of your Soul,

And I’m imploring you,

imploring you,

Resist everything and everyone that holds back

your most glorious unfurling!

The Heavens beckon you to reveal

your untamed beauty and offer your unique gifts

through acts of intimacy with the Sacred Other.

How tender the touch of butterfly and bee…

Feel it.

Feel it upon your own skin -

that potent co-mingling of

tenderness, intent, and outcome.

What are you waiting for?

Vow to leave nothing of benefit to

this crazy world hidden.

Vow to make vulnerable what the fearful ego

most demands you protect.

Vow to scream “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to the Cosmos at that

very moment you reach ecstatic heights of blossoming.

I don’t care if you are in a drumming circle, mosque,

or grocery store line…

The more public the better.

Inspire others to long for your courage,

and their own experience.

Scream, “Yes!”

Saying “Yes” in your own voice,

to your own magnificent display of beauty,

is the most powerful way of saying “No”

to anyone or anything that

would seek to keep you

closed up,

closed off,

shut up or

shut down.

Let me witness your radiance –

Let us witness your radiance –

Bloom!

©2010-2015/Jamie K. Reaser

Published in "Note to Self: Poems for Changing the World from the Inside Out" 

www.hiraethpress.com

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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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.

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" 

Feel free to share

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)