I often think of poetry as a form of medicine; its ability to transform the mundane moments into the mythical, and see our lives unfolding in the realm of image and Spirit. Words can be a balm or tonic that heeds our grief and joy, seeping into unknown territories to help transform the landscape of our inner worlds, expanding or contracting that which needs to break open or break down. Here are a few of my own…

The falling of the tower is less of a threat and more of an invitation, if you are willing to see it: things may be lost to fire, but in the ash embers remain to be tended and rekindled into a new life that is more true. It is a time for sifting, sorting earth from seed, to see what is truly viable. what must be carried forth and what must be left behind.

To Bloom is to enter into a season of remembrance that slowly calls us forth to action; looking with precision and dancing with devotion towards the horizon after Winter. During the dark nights, we can honor our gifts, and make offerings of the contents in our heart, pouring into the collective soil of belonging which warms our bones and melts the illusion of isolation.

But what if we lived in a world in which we acknowledged that our lives are interwoven in complex patterns of belonging? That words and actions of integrity construct spaces of trust, comfort and acceptance for those we love to inhabit. And that when we choose to do something other than share the fullest truth possible, we create holes in the story of trust we have woven; holes through which our own relationships can fall.

I don’t have prayers for peace right now. I have prayers for land to be returned, and for wealth to be divided, and for permission to no longer be asked but taken. I have prayers for the comfort of the privileged to be retrieved from their gripping hands and made into offerings at the place where our ancestors are buried.