Hair and Bone and Hide...

There is a place I visit 

when weary in my heart,

of who we have become 

and how we have forgotten. 

The journey there is long, 

through cave, mountain, and remembering. 

 I crunch through lightly falling snow, 

trail of woodsmoke 

and cedar scented air. 

Wind blows delicate flakes in bursts and

breathes through tribes of swaying, reaching pines. 

It is night. 

When I reach the glowing shelter, 

flakes die,

stars are born. 

Soft drumbeats and low voices 

hum together from inside. 

I bend and enter

 a flickering world of fire 

and women, 

wrapped in blankets and furs, 

singing songs of moss.

Hair and bone and hide

bound and tethered and known. 

I sit without a word, 

meeting 

- soul to soul-

 the ancient one, 

keeping rhythm 

with antler and broken heart. 

Gentle sounds of rattles, 

shake me into presence. 

I am here, 

as I am, 

nothing more to do or say or be. 

The eyes of each one gathered here, 

 knows of death, 

and of going beyond. 

A raw, exquisite knowing - 

running through the forest, 

hunting a life worth living,

glancing and grinning, 

at the toothless shadowed one, 

running along beside. 

Breathing 

together 

in this circle, 

 drums and rattles and crows,

building, weaving, praying,

there is no forgetting who I am, 

or what I am to do, 

or that owls,

bears, 

and stones, 

are breathing with 

me, 

too. 

*   *   *

This was to be a quick post.... get out my journal, and copy this bit of writing I did over a year ago, that I keep coming back to. It is another day of low, lingering mists, a day when   the forest calls me deep inside myself, and into the shadows between hemlocks and ledges and mysteries. A treasured kind of day, when the reason for my landing here is close to the surface. I used to think writing was easy.... but that was before... before what? Its a mystery. But as I typed the words above, things needed re-arranging, molding, no... more specifically, things need to be trimmed, cut down to bone. I think maybe I am beginning to understand how to write like I paint... but there are miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep. 

I once had a naturalist friend with an amazing collection of feathers from all over the world. He lent them to me for a time and I felt as though I had come home to my body- a winged body of myths and flights. Once, I called a friend (fire spinning Lita) to take photos of me with them. Soon after, the feathers were returned, had to be, it is illegal to have them, unless one is a scientist or native with tribal papers.... but I knew I belonged to those feathers, and the brief moment when they lived with me taught me more than a lifetime of schooling.