Skip to main content

new year's day

I have never been a new year's bell ringer, rather I generally ring in the new year quietly, with introspection and intentions (sounds perfectly pink doesn't it). My standing ritual is to write down on a sheet of paper the things/concepts/belief/crap for letting go and then I throw them on a fire and watch them turn to ash. Then I meditate on my intentions and dedications. That's it. This year we also added a good long howl at the full moon and some poetry games. The poetry game is played when each person writes one line of a poem and passes it to the next person, who writes another line and folds the paper so that only the most recent writing is visible, and passes it on again. When the poem writing is complete, the person who wrote the first line on the page, reads the poem and gives it a title. Shane and I played it together (with some arm twisting on my part)and here are the new year poems (granted they are not brilliant, but alot of fun):
Night and Day
Rising up from a nineteen year sleep,
Papa moon stretched feeling the cool, refreshing air.

Breathing in, he yawned deeply and asked, "Where's mama?"
With the realization that, like all good moms, she comes sure as the day.
He went about his business,
The work of night

Shining on both good and bad with indifference
Until the breaking of the dawn,
When time stands still balanced between night and day

and love springs eternal, always and forever...
Now.Horizons
The moon sat in silver sky
dreaming
of days past and friends near forgot
of love's lost and love reclaimed
dreams come and go
the here and now is eternal
so sleep my dear one or awake
no threat exists to taunt you
see through the night
and the day will come.
Birds fly.
Wings reflect moonlight in a starless sky
A fresh tomorrow.

Comments

Michelle said…
hey sis! remember when we did this with our sister circle?? I use this all the time with my clients! I love your poems! beautiful!
Angelina Lloyd said…
yes, that is where I learned the poetry game and it is one of my favorite tools. We learned it together.

Popular posts from this blog

grief

Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the

a story recently shared by a friend

 Once upon a time, there was an island where all the feelings lived: Happiness, Sadness, Knowledge, and all of the others, including Love. One day it was announced to the feelings that island would sink, so all constructed boats and left. Except for Love. Love was the only one who stayed. Love wanted to hold out until the last possible moment. When the island had almost sunk, Love decided to ask for help. Richness was passing by Love in a grand boat. Love said, "Richness, can you take me with you?" Richness answered, "No, I can't. There is a lot of gold and silver in my boat. There is no place here for you." Love decided to ask Vanity who was also passing by in a beautiful vessel. "Vanity, please help me!" "I can't help you, Love. You are all wet and might damage my boat," Vanity answered. Sadness was close by so Love asked, "Sadness, let me go with you." "Oh . . . Love, I am so sad that I need to be by myself

Inosculation

I learned a new word today!  Imagine my joy to discover "inosculation", to taste the word for the first time, rolling it around the soft interior of my mouth before speaking it aloud with a shiver of delight.   I am a lover of trees, not metaphorically but literally.  I linger beneath their branches. I tear up beside their solid beauty and revel in the rough, steady touch of bark beneath a wide sky.  I love learning anything new about my beloveds and today I discovered inosculation , which literally means to unite intimately. Sometimes trees grow so close to each other that they rub up against one another.  The friction of bark on bark wears away at the hard outer layers, revealing a tender, vulnerable, embryonic layer of life.  If they stay in contact through the friction they will join together, uniting into a third thing....  a tree union.  In such cases the trees share their life force with one another.  I can think of no more perfect metaphor for beloved companions.   Th