Naropa – Spherical Education

LET EVERYONE BRING THE GIFTS say the Bird Women

Let everyone bring the gifts!
The air is full of wings beating,
calling.
Let everyone bring the gifts!
This is the calling, the sound of spring,
the birds singing the plants out
of the ground, the buds
ready to burst,
the color, the immediate saturation of a
sigh
the word ah —again and again—
the sound of the origin,
a beginning,
ah,
Thank the Goddess, angels, Universal
Mother beings, thank the
ancestors, thank the bird people
and the seed people and the sea
people and the wee people.
Thank the forest and the wave and
the clouds and the seals and the mountains.
Thank the trees and the sands and
the chemicals and the stars.
Thank the pens and the inks and the
poets.
Thank the swimming creatures without bones.
Thank the eyes glowing in the dark,
thank the tremors and the volcanoes,
thank the dance classes and the musicians,
who feel the life blood of the spring,
thank the tender Earth, in whose footsteps we
walk, thank the curled and unfurling
ferns, the softnesses of the Earth’s body and
our own bodies.
Thank you cats’ fur, thank you breasts,
thank you sheep, thank you lions thank
you reeds and berries.
Thank you fungi.

The glow we receive we return back
again, again, again.

The birds sing and I remember.

The birds sing and I remember,
and my memories become a song in my body.

The flowers sing and I am reminded
instantly, to exhale, to feel the muscles
deep in my belly, my neck, my throat,
my ears, unclench and re-order,
ready to listen again
for more

xoc
3.18.21

words and image C.Savage 2021

listen to this poem read by the author (on Soundcloud)
LET EVERYONE BRING THE GIFTS say the Bird Women

Birthday Gift

Birthday writing, Sept 1 2017, Well Bred Cafe, Biltmore, Asheville NC, with Aile Shebar

I wrote to you, Aile, on the evening of my birthday to say, “look at the clouds!”

I was on the lookout for them, the memory of our write night last year with the shelf of clouds—impressive, ominous and awe-inspiring—this duality of non duality clash and uprising. Is something hiding there? or just
the feeling—TOO GREAT, must be something behind it—
GREAT, maybe something else AND
just the beauty, the great-ness the
simple combination of
super powers—air, water, wind, light. Something SO HUGE, so mystical
and ordinary.

My heart is calling me toward the color and the form— of
cloud, sunset, tree, leaf, stream. My eye is alerting me to
WATER. WATER. WATER.
Like a timer going off.

Many memories pop up in my brain like an alarm WAKEUP WAKEUP WAKE UP.

On my birthday, I sought the pool that is the color of my eyes.
Sitting, feet and hand in the water, praying,
asking,
Mother, what can I do, Mother,
what can I do for you—

singing.
Silently at first and then with voice,
(here I am starting to grip my pen closer to the nib)

singing. a breath. another breath.

Mother—
what can I do for you?
Please.

And like a wing beat the answer came into my body

you can return.
you can come home.

When I am singing
songs of longing,
longing for you,
you, you
I am waiting here always for
you
you
you—

like a drum my heart finally started beating
FOR.
ITSELF.
FOR.
MYSELF.
I have been waiting for
you you you and
you are right here.

I cried. I let the hot tears fill up and spill out. There was maybe one other person there, I don’t know if he was on the rocks and observing a part of this ritual, this silent, crying faerie in the sometimes sparkling water//A small woman crying with her feet in the pool, under a shelf of boulders.

I made the pool for myself, blocking the views other than birch and rhododendron and water and rock. With my feet I observed the small flows tucked back into the rocks. The undersides trembled a little bit.

I put my right hand in the water, to hear.

I cupped my left hand to my heart, to hear.

And I listened, until the question came,

and I listened, until an answer was there.

And then I listened to the heat in my tears and to the shush of the falls and to the color and the shapes in the rock sticking up in front of me and to the green, green leaves filling my vision.

Mother, I am here.

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!

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!)

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.