Did I draw this darkness to me? Maybe.
Could have been that challenging student,
the complaints of my child,
the traffic, the heat –
but quick as a blink, I’ve
exchanged rose lenses
for cataracts.
No food, no phone call, no errand
will allow me escape when
the old hag is sitting on my chest.
With not enough air to even cry out –
I overcome panic and
let the message
sink in –
sink down –
drown me.
100,000 feet within me there is more
than I can understand,
cold, damp,
pregnant with a mystery –
what will be born?
I’ve been escaping into lists
penned with surface – purpose fantasies,
instead of sinking to the bottom.
I’ve made the darkness grow and
now, here it is:
a dusty brick weighting my heart.
Awful, this feeling.
But isn’t that just it – why I avoid looking here?
The aching seabed calls to me –
this bruise is my alarm.
How many lives will I run away?
How many times have I gotten busy,
engaging anyone who would have me,
to escape the soul reason I came for?
Though I shiver from a chill at 95 degrees,
every cell cuddles
and chooses to remain
with me.
I quit my face; I silence my ringer;
I’m marrying my shadow
in a dark wedding.
I make no promises,
about the reception
on the other side,
but if I had to give odds,
I think it is already lifting and
I’d stick around for the lemon cookies –
If I were you,
which I am;
they are worth the wait.
*************************************************************
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/plant-based-recipes/raw-vegan-lemon-meltaway-balls/
Life as Improv 
I looked at the market here at the coast for the Carr’s Ginger Lemon to Fedex, but they do not carry them. Only worthy lemon cookies will do for one who has the courage to quit their face. Next run into PDX my sweet, next run. I am sitting at the moment all alone in a particularly lovely coiffured house wishing I could share a cup of tea and one of those cookies with you on this rainy day. No talking, just letting you lounge on the chaise. Luke and I send our love. Snore snore (that is him). Chin chin (that is me with a cup of Meadow tea sitting by your side as we stare silently straight into the heart of darkness). -x.M
PS I definitely think that it is my buxom bottom as seen peeking into view behind you. Still, only lady like angles of friendship in repose into the heart of darkness…as only the friends you call to help bury the bodies when the drama is done can do. 🙂 -x.M
Can you bring your shovel? It is time.
You bet. Needed sooner than August? Working on calendar coordination so I can arrive before decomposition alarms the neighbors. Will ping the inbox long before the work schedule needs settling. x
You and Luke and the spot of tea were Just the very thing to transform a brick gradually into a feather – I must be readying myself for the egyptian judgment scales 🙂 I so love you, my sister.
“comedown’s worse”
Volcanoes have a reason for every time they blow
but as for you the pressure mounts relief is kind of slow…
slow and steady always wins the race, but throwing bricks through the windows of abandoning thoughts can be fun, too. -x.M
I’ll stick around for a lemon cookie, to be sure. Diving into a darkness one cannot understand takes such courage and willingness. Willingness to keep going. I am humbled to be a witness to your holy marriage. Don’t bury that body in a rush, in the middle of the night when you can’t step back and understand the placement, because when the flowers peek through the soil, you will want to see them, to pull up a folding chair and sit with them in the cool breeze, and maybe put one in a vase to sit in the window by the sun. When the shift arrives, and everything turns rightside up, beauty is all you will see. There is a second poem in this I can’t wait to read… 🙂
Michael
Thank you, Michael, for your courage in attending my wedding as well as some of my deaths. I quit several things I had still some vested external interest in, all at once – creating a crime scene of sorts. The hag came just as the space had opened up for her to come (I imagined the space for other purposes:) but her solid weight now seems a gift for helping me to remain still for or even turn into what wishes to arise after the slaughter. Turning toward it then made the deaths comes much faster. The bodies will not be buried in haste – and I’ll let you know about those flowers – I imagine that breezy, chair sitting moment will be the perfect cookie break. Grateful that you are one who knows what I’m riddling on about!
How few people there are in life who understand we each have a soul purpose for being here! Fewer still who put their understandings into action and decide that, yes, this lifetime they will marry their shadows and do the work.
Even with those precious few in my life, I so frequently am reminded that – when push comes to shove – they’d just as soon find an excuse to not go into that darkness on this one issue. And the next. Surely that migraine is because of sleeping the wrong way last night, that burning rage is because the other driver cut them off. Couldn’t be that the soul and Universe are in cahoots once again, trying to break us down and break open.
I am so very imperfect at taking the cues and doing the work that is mine, marga, but your post has pressed upon a tender spot in me. I am wondering why there aren’t more of you in my life. How hungry I am to have frequent conversations with people who recognize what’s really going on in their lives, and remind me of what’s really going on in mine – that this life is a stage, with constant opportunities for growth.
But perhaps the issue is actually this: My hunger for like-minded (and acting!!!) companions on my journey is one of my lessons. Perhaps I am too enmeshed in lack and need to learn to trust in abundance? Perhaps I am meant to accept this is a solo journey?
No answers right now, but the Mystery is quite content with that.
Kelly!
No answers here either, but I relate to your longing for these connections. For me, all that I thought of as necessary and normal as a person in our world has mostly gone away – friendships, activities, shallow engagement…some of it left gradually and some was yanked out from under my feet. It has been scary at times, a feeling like I am not existing in the same world as anyone else. I now only have friendships with fellow path-walkers for the most part, but these new connections flow in a different rhythm without needs or expectations. I think that I am learning to trust the greater wisdom at work here, beyond what I can see, and boy, do I relish the freedom from shoulds and obligations. How can I follow my own path with the scripts and rules and disconnect coming from external sources? The longing of y/our heart is heard and answered, but we have to trust enough to let go of what we have known up till now. It sounds like many changes are afoot in your world! Much love to you on your solo, yet connecting journey – we can tie our rafts up together as we go down this mysterious river in tandem. 🙂 xo! m
I too feel that I am in a different world at times. Or rather, that I have one foot in the conventional world and the other foot has moved into the other, and that straddling can be unnerving at times. But I remember that I am not alone in this, and the real hurdle is my own story of who I am and who I am supposed to be.
Yes, many changes are afoot, and whether it feels like it or not, they are all good.
Namaste.