Poetry for the Esbat: Heartstring Moon (January 2017)

La Luna, the Heartstring Puppeteer.

La Luna.

She is a master -- the Heartstring Puppeteer
and when I turn my face to Her face, 
sometimes I see Her beauty, reflecting my beauty, reflecting back to Her, to me.

Sometimes I see You
and you
(and you and you and you and you.)



And I know she has your strings as much as She has mine, because you tell me so:

"Happy full moon, my dear." in a message from J.

Loving text from S.

Photo from my heartstring A.

These are a few of the faces which look back at me through Her face. So many more, there are -- if you see me, you can be sure I see you. Just a sentiment to keep us warm while this cold season passes by. 

Winter Sun by Molly Fisk

How valuable it is in these short days,
threading through empty maple branches,
the lacy-needled sugar pines.

Its glint off sheets of ice tells the story
of Death’s brightness, her bitter cold.

We can make do with so little, just the hint
of warmth, the slanted light.

The way we stand there, soaking in it,
mittened fingers reaching.

And how carefully we gather what we can
to offer later, in darkness, one body to another.




Blessings to you & you & you & you, this Esbat. 

Poetry for the Esbat: Mad, Mad, Mad Moon. (November, 2016)

"Infernal Apparition" by Paul Lormier, 1848

Lilith. (and the lilītu?)

Dark Moon, She is (they are). But I shall explain...

"The energy of the evening was lacking & what little there had been died away in an unceremonious manner. At an unusually early hour, the other women -- now more than vaguely disaffected -- meandered home, leaving just the two of us & the Night. She stood, I sat. I looked up at her & realized how much & in how many ways I will miss her. She has always struck me as unusually carefree & a touch New-Agegy, but not tonight. This was supposed to be our parting, but she was mad, mad, mad. There was room now to speak of taboos -- that which has left us all reeling inside but was left unsaid. Instead of exchanging pleasantries, we shared our chagrin. Raising her rich, full, singer's voice in disgust, she shrieked, 'Why the fuck do we train for this shit if we do not use it for anything?!? The time is over! No more messing around -- if you know how to do Magick, do it people!'" 

Who said this? Was it the dark, luscious woman before me, or was it... Her?

As far as I can tell, the Earth has split open & one large, festering pustule of human loathing has been loosed from its containment. (Not that it is the only one.)

So be it. 

(as long as those of us with any wit do not remain idly grazing in the pastures)

***

The Works. So many, so little time.

I began an ambitious project a year or so ago (one of many, believe me) -- a shrine to Lilith. 

It is not for me, it is for Her.

It has waited patiently for me to complete it, but the time for patience is over. Her rage & despair are mine. They are ours.

May Her fire be unleashed & may Her steely, self-assured grit carry us through the unwanted Darkness (there is a difference). I will do my part to facilitate this. 

Rupi Kaur, artist, poet, woman.

Segovia Amil, artist, poet, woman.

Use your Magicks*, Women. 

And remember this: The moon lives in the lining of your skin.

***

Like the feline, She sleeps ever so lightly.
The Moon/La Luna, from Patrick Valenza's 
Trionfi Della Luna & Trionfi Della Luna Paradoxical limited ed. sets.

The Esbat... not something I would normally associate with Lilith, a Dark Moon sort of creature. I am not one for Dark Moons (or Lilith really) until now & that stems purely from an elephantine indignation shared with so many of my kind. 
Women: 
We are magnificent. 
Thus, it is in a kind of tangled web of Moon forces, womanhood & sheer exasperation that I present the poetry for this Esbat. 


Ode to Naked Beauty, by Pablo Neruda

With a chaste heart 
With pure eyes I celebrate your beauty
Holding the leash of blood
So that it might leap out and trace your outline 
Where you lie down in my Ode 
As in a land of forests or in surf
In aromatic loam, or in sea music

Beautiful nude
Equally beautiful your feet
Arched by primeval tap of wind or sound
Your ears, small shells
Of the splendid American sea
Your breasts of level plentitude
Fulfilled by living light
Your flying eyelids of wheat
Revealing or enclosing
The two deep countries of your eyes

The line your shoulders have divided into pale regions
Loses itself and blends into the compact halves of an apple 
Continues separating your beauty down into two columns of
Burnished gold
Fine alabaster
To sink into the two grapes of your feet
Where your twin symmetrical tree burns again and rises
Flowering fire
Open chandelier
A swelling fruit 
Over the pact of sea and earth 

From what materials
Agate?
Quartz?
Wheat?
Did your body come together?
Swelling like baking bread to signal silvered hills 
The cleavage of one petal 
Sweet fruits of a deep velvet 
Until alone remained
Astonished 
The fine and firm feminine form 

It is not only light that falls over the world spreading inside your body
Yet suffocate itself
So much is clarity 
Taking its leave of you
As if you were on fire within 

The moon lives in the lining of your skin.



Extra Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends. You may need them. 


*We all have them. What is yours? 
(If you have no answer to this question, find it.)

Poetry for the Esbat: Cool It Moon. July 2016.

“‘Heat, ma’am!’ I said; ‘it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.”  Sydney Smith

It's hot.

It is hot...

Summer Sun through the smoke-filled air -- wildfires abound.

...too, too hot.

The heat! 

This is something I expected from the high desert, but to return to Alaska to find the same! Context is everything. I adore the heat, but it doesn't belong in this place. Not like this. 

Besides, Alaskans can't handle the heat.

Neighbors who can't handle the heat behave badly.

And maybe the heat is getting to everyone having a Summer on this planet. I don't know, but it seems to me that someone shoved a stick through the hive & the wasps are very angry... turning on one another.

Perhaps we turn on one another in order to ignore the much larger, much hotter problems that loom over our so-called 'civilization.' 

☽◦☾

These are times when I look to the Moon. She is the purest form of Quiet Calm -- a cool, reflective lens. 

Shhhh... 

Lady Luna, cool, quiet.

Shhhh...

Be still.

Be still, chaotic little children of Earth.

Cool it.

Please.

If we look to Lady Moon as our guide, She can remind us to be quiet & look within. She watches, unwavering as we scramble about, soiling our nest & blaming one another. She will witness our end & calmly continue to witness what lies beyond.

Last night I was awake late enough to see Her sliding along the neighboring rooftops opposite the never-quite-setting-Sun. To describe the feeling I experienced as 'reassuring' would be to understate the effect Her presence has upon my psyche. Centering, calming, clarifying, a sense of succor -- none of these suffice. Hence, the inspiration for this month's Esbat poetry. 

THE MOTHER MOON, by Louisa May Alcott

The moon upon the wide sea

Placidly looks down,

Smiling with her mild face,

Though the ocean frown.

Clouds may dim her brightness,

But soon they pass away,

And she shines out, unaltered,

O'er the little waves at play.

So 'mid the storm or sunshine,

Wherever she may go,

Led on by her hidden power

The wild see must plow.

As the tranquil evening moon

Looks on that restless sea,

So a mother's gentle face,

Little child, is watching thee.

Then banish every tempest,

Chase all your clouds away,

That smoothly and brightly

Your quiet heart may play.

Let cheerful looks and actions

Like shining ripples flow,

Following the mother's voice,

Singing as they go.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

Poetry for the Esbat: Darkness Moon, 2016

Almost there, sister.
Waxing Moon, June 2016.

There are no words. No words to explain my delight in this Sky, this sprawling, Dark, Night, Sky...

Tonight I receive many, many messages & images from friends & my beloved. Tonight they are celebrating the Summer Solstice in that typically modern Pagan way -- on the most convenient weekend. They are also celebrating the Solstice Alaska-Style: in the endless daylight. 

Tonight, 

here in the yawning Desert,

under the sable cloak of Night,

I find myself not missing it.

Not at all.

Tonight, in the company of crickets, I photographed the Moon. But first, I sat on the porch of the house (the one that stole my heart so many years ago) & waited. It took awhile. She had been playing coy behind the clouds. It doesn't matter really. I am patient. Besides, the Darkness is enough for me. Had She never left Her coverlets, I still would have left satisfied. 

Yesterday, while washing dishes to avoid the heat, I was reflecting on the raw thrill of the Darkness; the vulnerability & the opening of the imagination which only being doused & disoriented by the Dark can introduce. So I was very pleased to recover this Esbat's poem from my lengthy favorites list on my phone's Poetry Foundation App (yes, I recognize this app thing is cliché) this evening. Things always seem to fall together just as they should, no?

I know there are a variety of rich & thoughtful literary interpretations for the following piece. But, I personally like to take it at face value -- with a very uncomplicated ear & heart. I like to think it's really just about the Darkness & being a goofy human, completely & hopelessly maladapted to nocturnal living & literally smacking your face into a tree. Then, perhaps, with practice, patience & some caution, finding your bat's wings. I find that interpretation most satisfying actually.

We grow accustomed to the Dark - (428) by Emily Dickinson

We grow accustomed to the Dark - 

When light is put away - 

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp

To witness her Goodbye - 

A Moment - We uncertain step

For newness of the night - 

Then - fit our Vision to the Dark - 

And meet the Road - erect - 

And so of larger - Darknesses - 

Those Evenings of the Brain - 

When not a Moon disclose a sign - 

Or Star - come out - within - 

The Bravest - grope a little - 

And sometimes hit a Tree

Directly in the Forehead - 

But as they learn to see - 

Either the Darkness alters - 

Or something in the sight

Adjusts itself to Midnight - 

And Life steps almost straight. 

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends. 

Poetry for the Esbat: Two Moon, Not So Blue (May 2016)

XVIII, The Moon.
From The Lover's Tarot Deck by Jane Lyle. 

Given my need to make up the difference this Esbat, it would be cleverly apropos if this coming Full Moon was indeed Blue, but it really isn't exactly. 

However, I will still make my amends this month by including the poetry I had planned for last month's Esbat. This time, it's a "two-fer."

Many people-projects & collaborations have swirled around & about, unfurled their fronds & closed up shop in recent months. As I prepare to migrate once again, I breathe a sigh of relief. I yearn for the quiet stillness of the slumbering Desert, the Sunrise ritual of incense & coffee with Breakfast Canyon, the soft Darkness of Night's starry cloak & of course, eye contact with The Moon. 

This should be a good time to reflect upon lessons. Lessons learned.  Lessons observed. Lessons digesting. People critters, they are a curious lot. Sometimes it is a very good thing to step away from the fray & regain the Outsider's perspective.

◦◦◦

The poetry for this Esbat (& last) is about people-lessons. These poems can be understood in many ways, upon many layers, from many perspectives. Read & think. Think & read. Nothing is ever really as clear cut as we might prefer. Everything is an onion.

And the Moon. Here, the Moon, She is the Teacher, the Initiator, the Instigator, not necessarily the distant (or close), cool (or warm), Object-of-Reverence as in so many of the devotional poems. But, I like this side of Her. 

Last month's poem I snatched from the Evolver Social Movement's feed. Unfortunately, there isn't any credit information for this piece & it has now become something of an internet meme, making it even more difficult to track it's author... but isn't that just the way of people critters? Lost sources aside, I cannot succinctly express all the layers of Life that I have discovered in this short piece, but I will say I have not yet stopped peeling away at it. 

"You lost her... (to) dimly lit stars." Credit unknown.

The poetry for this month's Full Moon has explicit source credit -- something I really dig. It also seems to demand that it be revisited repeatedly over a long period time. I have considering it for about a year now. I am not done. This piece from Rumi comes from a rare publication housed at Utah's Marriot Library. (Isn't that just keen how the departure poetry matches the destination?):

"NEW RULE: A POEM BY RUMI
Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek
San Diego, CA: Bay Park Press, 2000
N7433.4 R73 N49 2000
A flecked, navy wrapper is folded in three, housing the primary sheet which is, in turn, folded into three, unequal sections. Letterpress from Bodoni and Times Roman on Fabriano Rosaspina Bianco and Fox River Confetti wrapper. Images created using polymer plates, monotypes, linocut, and screen printing. Edition of forty-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 19."

New Rule: A Poem By Rumi, illustrated by Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek. 

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends. 

Poetry for the Esbat: Flow Moon, 2016

Dancer Delilah (Flynn) crafting her Art, underwater.

There is a powerful synthesis happening. Strands of my life way, my cosmology, my relationships, my body, which did not seem to connect now find themselves intimately woven in the most sensible ways.

Everything keeps making sense & that is just a bit freakish.

○○○

In the past, when asked about whether I would be willing to "teach," I replied, "I only teach my accident." It was a gentle way to decline. 

But strange things & strange persons happen. And sometimes, they change the rules. Or, perhaps they unveil rules you never knew existed. And in this change or unveiling, I began to teach. Of course, it has not been in the manner to which I originally consented or anticipated, but isn't that just the way of things?

Flow.

One of my True Loves is Sigil Magick. Yet being a critter of much privilege & little for which to want, my practice of the Arte is often lacking impetus. Perhaps this is why I needed to teach the art to others.

Here on this Esbat I find myself working out the last details of a traditional Golden Dawn style talisman for presentation -- but also for myself -- the pieces of which seem to be attempting to tie my worlds together. The focus of this talisman, in brief, is Flow. Hence the card for this Esbat, "Going with the Flow," the Ace of Water from the Osho Zen Tarot -- a deck I discovered while working on this particular project. 

Ace of Water, Osho Zen Tarot.

"The figure in this card is completely relaxed and at ease in the water, letting it take him where it will. He has mastered the art of being passive and receptive without being dull or sleepy. He is just available to the currents of life, with never a thought of saying "I don't like that," or "I prefer to go the other way."

Every moment in life we have a choice whether to enter life's waters and float, or to try to swim upstream. When this card appears in a reading it is an indication that you are able to float now, trusting that life will support you in your relaxation and take you exactly where it wants you to go. Allow this feeling of trust and relaxation to grow more and more; everything is happening exactly as it should." -- OZT

And isn't that just so very apropos for this Lunar occasion?

Concurrently, my studies in dance have been directed at this subject of Flow & somehow (ha!) this brought me to discover the underwater dance images of American belly dancer Delilah:

Her flowing (quite literally) being so illustrative of a condition I seek to realize for myself.

Not only in Dance, but in Life. (And are they not the same thing?)

○○○

This brings me to the poetry for this Esbat. In keeping with all the flowing & synthesizing & surrendering, I present a poem I have been sitting on (in my Poetry Foundation App) for several years now. The reasons for this I do not know, perhaps it was just not time. If I am honest with myself, I actually think I never quite understood it completely -- until now. 

[As if the moon could haul through you], by Neil Fischer

As if the moon could haul through you

Its tremor of light and stone,

Be cleared of sound. Plough

The mind's noise until it's a shine

In the purl of south-bending river that bears

Itself toward a blacker part of the forest.

If you hum, hum through the motes of air,

Perhaps your nerves will find at last

A tone to which they will succumb.

Be still. Be not so heavy-hearted

For a moment. All is not a tomb,

Blind sarcophagus staring dumb, thwarted

Pleasures nailed inside. These fireflies

Sweep their tracings on the evening.

Weep if you must, but board what falls

Away, abdomens flaring—

The brief, nomadic intervals.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

What He Said. (About Imagination.)

"In all forms of magick, the imagination or image-making faculty is the most important factor." 

-- Kenneth Grant, Cults of the Shadow, Ch. 10: The Cult of the Black Snake -- II

Lunar Offerings February 2016

Poetry for the Esbat: Quiet Moon, 2016

XVII: The Moon.
From Tarot Illuminati by Lo Scarabeo.

"Most Witches are in fact elemental vampires who, according to legend, gain their powers from the moon..." -- The Demoniacal

Several Moons ago, he said to me: "Your recent communications about your relationship to energy made me ponder your Luna devotions as she is traditionally yin and cool, and a perfect ground... so I wonder where she is in your current moment.  You missed your full moon post I think for the first time in a long old ... Not a thing for self-recrimination but perhaps significant..."

Ah, you.

It's so annoying how you know me.

☿☿☿

Throat Chakra Elemental Activator
By Ashnandoah of DeviantArt.

Since I returned from the High Desert, I have suffered from a case of severe communication paralysis, neglecting everyone who doesn't come at me like a freight train or a crying baby.

But the lapse in exercising my fifth chakra began long before...

And I blame most of it on the drought & heat & fires for the lack of fungi because I can see from the record that this is where it all began. Or ended.

(And no, this is not the "Snow Moon," because we don't have any.)

But the Moon, She doesn't bow to climate change, so I have no explanation for the disconnect save for... what? My spiritual web -- is it that sensitive to changes from one end to the other?

Perhaps a spiritual lifeway, as it becomes truly organic -- that is, of the organism -- also becomes much like any other living system itself. As with our ecosystems, our energetic fields, our planetary wellness, etc. -- alter the balance of one thing & watch the mayhem begin. 

It is worth some thought, anyway. 

And so the poetry for this Esbat illustrates my personal bond with the Moon as silent confidant. She is for me, a little bit like a Star to follow, but also a bit of a recent reflection as well. The model Role Model, in so many ways.



Moonchild, by Christopher Poindexter


There was a reason 
that she was so 
romantic about the moon.

It never asked her 
questions or begged 
for the answers, nor 
did she ever have 
to prove herself to it.

It was always just 
there – breathing, 
shining, 
and in ways most 
humans can’t understand: 
listening.



Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

Poetry for the Esbat: Bliss Moon, 2016

Lunar Devotional.
A Resh K'eljesh member.
Masterfully captured by my friend/charge/muse Z.

Moon!

Lady, slow down!

It is January... so many plans, so much to do on my Huge-Ass-List.
But it is a sprawling splatter of creativity & that pleases me. 
It is the Bliss of the Create-Thing. 
It is a Winter Thing.

If it is possible to suffer from excessive inspiration, this may be my affliction.


As I return to my journal Word-Place here in the ether, I see that I have missed many messages from my people. For this I am very sorry. I seem not to have received any notifications. Can we just blame it on Mercury Retrograde? 


In this current create-phase, I find myself a little without words. So maybe just pictures this time:

Luna, my ever-muse.

Sophia, #89. A recent muse.

Charging a project.

A finished project. Sort of.

Project detail.

An old friend who assists with many projects.

Creatrix.
Curiously marked by the Moon.

Project in progress. Many layers, years to come.

Create-space.

Learning, feeding, growing from tenuous dynamics.

Project in progress.

Needful things for tricky business.

Project-vision born from necessity.

And of course, the POETRY.

This Esbat, I take a piece published in Poetry Magazine in December, 1992. Written by poet May Sarton, I think it says it all: 

"Bliss" by May Sarton as published in the
December 1992 edition of Poetry Magazine.

Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.

Poetry for the Esbat: This Cold December Moon, 2015

The Moon
& other cards from The 78 Tarot, first edition.

A squirrely Summer segued into a lackluster Autumn,

a season which robbed me of my muses.

And I found myself strangely adrift

as though I just might need them.

And the Autumn dragged on with a tease, a joke, plus a few more.

Always promises, yet nothing to follow.

Traditions scattering about me and vague weather... 

I waited, but

I couldn't tell when Mother Hulda's night actually happened.

I went inside,

both literally and figuratively

where I found myself preoccupied with many artistic endeavors.

It is ok. It has been very human time.

Somewhere around Samhain, I found myself utterly blindsided,
dismantled,

by Things I thought I was not looking for --

but maybe I was.

Human things. Mostly.

The consequences of this have been mystifying. 
Or something.
And now it is cold. 
Cold in the North and cold here in the high desert.
Ah, how the world marches on, 
even when you are lost in your own.

Tethered to not-so-much right now, I sheepishly return to my anchor. The Lady. The Moon. I have been remiss. Or something.

The poetry for this Full Moon is indicative of the place I found myself -- after I stumbled onto it. A new view. Standing on the precipice of a vast canyon, so familiar, yet completely original. Its curves, swells & hollows beckon me to explore. Everything has taken on a raw, curious caste. Everything looks at the very least, slightly different. 

Before another step, I recheck my anchor & guide. 

This piece from the Poetry Foundation is not about the Moon per se, but perhaps reflective of Her talent for shape-shifting our picture of the world with that uncanny light. Is it there any doubt why we humans have ascribed to Her such an illusory temperament? Oh, how She changes what She touches! Cast in Her glow, the common becomes uncommon. The familiar becomes a stranger & vice versa. Other things -- discoveries, upsets, awakenings -- can invoke a similar effect. Yet there is no falsehood. One's truth is all in the light with which one views things.

Various Portents, by Alice Oswald

Various stars. Various kings.
Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.
Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,
Much cold, much overbearing darkness.

Various long midwinter Glooms.
Various Solitary and Terrible Stars.
Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.
Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.

More than one North Star, more than one South Star.
Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems,
Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thicknesses of Dark,
Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth.

Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens,
All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes:
Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk,
Works of wonder and/or water, snowflakes, stars of frost . . .

Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes,
Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness,
Various 5,000-year-old moon maps,
Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in braille.

Various gods making beautiful works in bronze,
Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains,
And all sorts of drystone stars put together without mortar.
Many Wisemen remarking the irregular weather.

Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers,
Watches of wisp of various glowing spindles,
Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac,
Seafarers tossing, tied to a star . . .

Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.
Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.
Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening
Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.


Blessings to you this Esbat, my friends.