Portal Becoming

(Female Blanket Octopus, photo credit Jacinda Shackleton)

 

My friends who don’t read cards say
don’t put all your cards on the table
I listen to
The whispers in the ethers
through the dream
the tendrils of feeling
waking up changing
and the message of the visionary is
I want to be visionary with you
I want to learn beyond my current abilities
and capabilities
phase change into something
completely different
fully efface again and again
move from being
the sea to
being the sky
I want to be the reflection and the
movement
and it keeps coming back to
particle and wave and
they’re not separate I can feel them
tingling knowing wanting
becoming alive in me
me becoming alive in
new ways
my body becomes almost too heavy—molten—
to contain in this dimension
becoming the pool I once visited
becoming the pool I once was
the only time is
now
becomes a portal becoming a portal

 

23.1.26 xoc

I Want to Kiss and Tell

 

I want to kiss and tell
I want to write the dream
I am living
I want to choose the life I lead
I want to collect all of my clothing
I want to do right by my self, my
ancestors, my child, the stars,
I want to swim in fresh, beaver-filled waters
I want to exercise my freedom and delight
I want to be surprised
I want to be courageous
I want to tell the stories of my own
wildly turnings, I want to let the stories
of others fall from my mouth like
tumbling pebbles turned rubies turned
peachpits
turned blood turned stars
I would kinda like it all
and is it wrong to think
it all kinda wants me

I feel it in my chest and in my throat,
behind my sternum, behind and under my eyes,
in my hair, in my ankles, in the bridges
of my feet. I feel it, hovering and pushing up
inside of me,
like a tree knows when to grow
and sometimes explodes the black plastic bag it’s sitting in at Lowe’s

with love.
with love
with love
with love

 

xo c.Savage 2022

Listen to this poem read by the author on SoundCloud I Want To Kiss And Tell

Magical Missions P. I

Magical Missions

It started…when?

I have told this story many times but with different beginnings, middles, and stopping points along the way.
Jasmine flowers on the malecon, ringing a succession of small bells, putting pieces of rocks in my pockets, tucking herbs into my hat.
Bringing home essences of my planet home.
Constructing small spaces to sit and listen
Creating an environment between two people for some third thing to unfold.

What is in the mystery is in the mystery—
it stays there, in the other world.
It stays there, in the what is not shown in the picture,
what is not meant to be shared.

Magical missions, then.
Molecules of walking medicine who show up
when and where they please
by no accident
the world consciousness is in need of recovery.

What the picture doesn’t show is the road
what the picture doesn’t show is my current obsession with purple
what the picture doesn’t show is the years of question and guilt and hopefulness, curiosity, wonder.
what the picture doesn’t show is the name of the tree
what the picture doesn’t show is the real light
what the picture doesn’t show is not-knowing and not-knowing and not-knowing how.

Magical Missions
watching animals wander through dreams
watching animals move in cages
watching animals run and swing through branches and swim and breathe air
watching animals climb trees like a tree highway

sitting with trees
asking trees questions asking for advice asking for mentorship
drawing with trees
collecting sticks like a child
collecting sticks with my child
becoming aware of what the tree is saying
affirming and reaffirming what the tree is saying
running errands for trees
collecting messages from trees, with intent to distribute
bringing the trees flowers and honey
bringing the trees in my hands

Radiant Clown Scene Exploration

Keeping this idea for a clown essay: The Clown at the crossroads: becoming quicksand in shifting times. How can one disappear into and through the clown? The clown as portal, the clown as time creator.

In the US we have a distaste, dislike for the clown, we despise it. Unruly, uncontrollable, farts, wears impossible clothing. I have come to despise the man’s dress clothes. I live in a hippy, natural town. Rarely do I see men on their lunch breaks with loudly clacking shoes and belts tightened into their belly fat. In fact my mouth starts to bare her teeth reflexively when I see this costume in the grocery store parking lot. Insensible, for one, in 80 degree weather, cheap plastics materials pants gathering crotch and ass sweat, itchy, uncomfortable, ill fitting. A beautiful blue suit to show off at a special occasion is one thing, a flapping Men’s Wearhouse gaping kneed every day wear item is another. “This makes me look professional.” Stamped “Professional.”

The hobo clown wears this kind of disheveled ill-fitting suit. Ugly colors, too big or too small, sad face, sticky hair, battered briefcase. Moaning, can’t catch a break. The act could just be wearing this face and doing a regular office desk job. Not Funny. Sad. Our culture is one of slogging through, and for what? I see the clown mime hanging himself with his neck tie. Or. an idea becomes him. A golden light begins to glow from his desk, his face, above. He takes off his suit, peeling it back like Clark Kent to reveal—just himself, just a glowing body, a quick swipe through face and hair transforms him. golden body paint, smudged upward from the heart would do the trick. Suddenly radiant, he looks in the mirror and sees his Baby self, and his smiling parents shining back at him, he remembers, he is crying with excitement and his tears become golden streamers, coming off his hands, off of his face, his hair, he is lifted into the air over his office and his body is obscured by the streamers, he is hooting and shouting and the streamers trail through the desks and his coworkers are radically transformed as well, peeling back their own office gear for beautiful garments or going bare. It doesn’t all have to be glowing. The desks become full of flowers growing from the office pots as the light comes in, the overhead halogen lights stop their buzzing and purplegreen light. Appletrees sprout from apples left on desks, windows open and people holler and scream out of the them, into the streets, light flooding in, birds fly in, there is more light inside than outside and things start to flicker back and forth, it becoming TOO MUCH of a scene and the trees and flowers are growing obscenely large and taking over everything and the people start to panic but it is too late for panicking and they are consumed by it, by joy, by the muchness of it, the flood of loveliness, of nature, of the power of the sun and the force of growing, when given a chance. The birds grow to human size, take the place of the characters, become the characters in a new story, building their houses, their nests from the streamers and the flowers and the beautiful items ripped from the usedtobedesks—shiny handles and pieces of machinery and well,there aren’t really curly telephone cords anymore but in this scene there could be, and they just go on about their lives, flying off, coming back, worms, eggs hatching, pushing from the nest, fighting, etc, the whole thing of life and death (the worms eat the dead birds, you know). The Clown Sun has been forgotten by the audience maybe, he is a streamer ball at the top of the stage left. At some point he is lowered, as the light becomes purple starry, and gives a wave or a smile as the lights go down. The End.

DreamLog: Mission

Last night I had a dream of trying to sneak out to go on a dangerous mission. We were taking TT along and I didn’t want my dad to know. Someone tripped the sensor light and he saw us and we left anyway.
Some border crossings, land based, into or out of Egypt, Ghana, maybe we flew somehow. I can’t remember the details of the mission, only that we were intent on going, and we went in two camper vans.
When we got back, someone who had been traveling with us, who had been latent (like a werewolf at safer phases of the moon), became stirred up. He had a scarred word etched into his face and it started to glow, become inflamed, shift shape into other words. We were continuing on our journey and he couldn’t come. We tied him to a slab of rock, sitting up, while he fumed, and then we drove away.
With dream vision able to see more facets of a story, I saw him become molten and harden again and dig down, down, down through the rock, digging up on the other side of the world with some burrowing mammals and miners. This dream character didn’t seem to be thinking, really, in the human sense, he was consumed, intent on his own survival and mission.

Upcoming: Wash of Posts

Hello lovely people,

I have decided to offer more posts. I am a recovering perfectionist, and I continue to realize how much I keep things tight unto myself and then they form an isolating barrier. I say I am practicing becoming more vulnerable–I am becoming more vulnerable. I believe this is what the world needs more of. Excavating and exposing of our truest selves and relationships to the world. Ideas that “don’t make sense.” Crying, true despair over the destruction we are collaborating on, of our planet and our humanity. And then continuing to work on restoring relationships and safety for all peoples and relations.

“We will not get out of this the same way we got in to it,” so says the indigenous wisdom bridger/teacher Malidoma Somé (www.malidoma.com). Here’s to each of us, resetting, clearing, rejoining.

Yours,
Truly,
In discovery, recovery,
in joy and despair,
Charlotte

Take a deep breath of gratitude into your living lungs.

Take a deep breath of gratitude into your living lungs.

Frequently I am a guest in places of fear, trauma, captivity–hospitals, orphanages, jails, psychiatric wards, and some places where basic needs are not met, where “the issue of human rights” is not some horrible, sterilized bureaucratic catchphrase, but an ache of despair. My body gets hot with nausea and confusion, thinking of it from a distance.

40 girls died in a fire this week in their “safe house”/halfway house in Guatemala.

I was hoping to make some kind of coherent writing, but all of my senses came online, suddenly, buzzing.

The work that has chosen me grants me access to those in need. Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the snow, say a prayer with your actions, your choices, your thoughts, your hands.

I continue to travel, for now, that the deep pains in the world may receive even a moment’s respite.

xoC

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/10/519587231/35-girls-killed-after-fire-in-a-locked-room-in-guatemala-youth-shelter

Can People Get Any Crazier?

I guess the answer to “can people get any crazier” is always YES. Westboro Baptist Church plans to send protesters to the funeral for the nine people murdered in the AME church shooting. #racist #terrorist These people know how to do their jobs of being totally despicable human beings and inciting anger and hatred. My own brain and heart, already boggled and aching over this terrible event, are now exploding and thumping with rage that ANY person would want to do this WBC protest “work.” Another example of systemic, racist hatred passed down through the mouthpieces of people with power, and people who use religious power to promote intolerance and violence. There is a group in Charleston created to form a PEACEFUL, SILENT HUMAN BARRIER around the funeral site if WBC protesters to show up.

http://www.counton2.com/story/29384735/human-wall-barrier-facebook-event-created-to-protect-funerals

May they someday (soon) see that their actions have been based in hate and may their hearts be ripped open with the grief of their inhumanity. May they lie down on the ground and beg for mercy and forgiveness and be heavily punished by nightmares of their actions. And through this suffering and regret may they, like all people, reject ideals of hatred and intolerance, learn, work together, promote and work for equality, and become peaceful.

Uncover and address explicit and systemic racism and hatred. Work for and towards equality. Promote peace and education.

 

In remembrance, here are the names of the victims:

The Rev. Clementa Pinckney (also a State Senator)

Cynthia Hurd

The Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton

Tywanza Sanders

Ethel Lance

Susie Jackson

Depayne Middleton Doctor

The Rev. Daniel Simmons

Myra Thompson

For more information about the lives of these people, visit http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/18/415539516/the-victims-9-were-slain-at-charlestons-emanuel-ame-church

Making the switch from Tumblr to WordPress…finally

Hello!

After a four year hiatus, I’m back to blogging! Many exciting and time-consuming things have happened in my life. I finished my Transpersonal Ecopsychology Master’s degree from Naropa in May of 2012, woo!
IMG158

And almost immediately after that I became pregnant and had my son, Theo, at home on April 30, 2013. Here is our 2015 HAPPY NEW YEAR card (see, it takes a long time to get anything done!)

FamilyNewYears2015_p2

After settling in to the first phase of motherhood, I completed a holistic doula training course through La Matrona in 2014 and am interested in the process of birth and the unfolding (and recording) of birth stories.

MOST RECENTLY I have become interested in making my drawings digital and learning elements of design and illustration to be able to collaborate with Mr. Meow.

That is a lot. I’m sure I am forgetting things. Four years is a long time. Oh yeah, we moved twice and bought a house. That is a lot. We have a 150+ year old oak tree in the front and a big garden in the back, and a visiting flock of mockingbirds. “Visiting” is a hopeful statement.

I am feeling hesitant about using WordPress. Everyone (ok, Mr. Meow and the instructors from the design and technology symposium today) says it’s so easy to use. So far, every time I have looked at it in the last 18 months I have thought it feels clunky and the free themes leave much to be desired. However, easy or not, WordPress seems to get more traffic from Google searches, so I will bring my little big sphere of thoughts, poetry, and upcoming writing, art-making, and design projects on over here.

It feels good to be back.