Draws of Stories

Clearing my father's house is an emotional journey. Initially as I opened each draw I felt sadness as I connected with forgotten or even unknown stories of his life. With each passing day some sadness remains but something else is emerging.  In recent years my relationship with my father has been strained as we have pressed each others buttons and got a little lost in our own baggage and neurosises. Connecting with his life stories is allowing me to see him in his true light and to hold him in the light. As I open each draw and bring in the light a healing process begins.

Pathway

This path I walk each day,
forever evolves in some new way,
Today all ahead lies clear,
no dark foreboding landscapes here,
to stir, to wake, my deepest fear,
Bathed in dappled light of sunlit glade,
There is no need to strive, to wade,
The ground my feet do barely greet,
So lost am I in Nature's sensual retreat.

Rooting out the Truffle of Truth

It's funny how things come into our awareness. How our outer landscape mirrors our inner landscape. This whole thing about dishonesty, deceit and the search for truth that has been going on in my outer world is, as always, a story of two parts. I realised this yesterday when I looked out my window and saw a wild boar in the top of a Scots Pine tree. Not a real boar of course but the shape of a boar created by the needles. Curious I looked up the meaning of the wild boar totem and to my amazement discovered the symbology of the totem is truth, courage and confrontation. As I pondered this a wee while an image of a boar rooting out a truffle of truth came into my mind (see doodle below). Soon after other articles and images started to mysteriously pop up on my Facebook page.

It began to dawn on me that these messages weren't to do with vindicating my own behaviour in a recent altercation with a mate although I am sure my ego would love that to be the case. No these messages were telling me something about my own inner landscape. They were telling me that if I am to find my true self, my connection with the greater consciousness, the divine, the universe, whatever you choose to call it, I need to excavate through my own lies, dishonesty and deceit.

I now see my obsession with finding out the truth as to what was going on between my mate and I was ironic as I have hardly been living an honest life myself. Me seeing him at times as being narcissistic was merely a projection of the narcissist that lives within me. He is part of my shadow. I was denying he existed because I didn't want to accept and own my own shadow, yet in truth there is a narcissist residing within all of us. We are after all beings of duality - yin and yang. I find it interesting I label my narcissist he, may be that says something about how I view men. (A note to self - further work required on men and narcissism). Anyway I project my narcissist because I fear him and cannot own him, yet in reality he probably represents the most wounded aspects of myself. I am now going to do what Rumi advises and welcome him into my human guest house with all the emotions and feelings he brings for he has much to teach me.

The Guest House by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought,

the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Nightmare

The storm on Friday night felled the old horse chestnut tree in the wood behind my house. In Autumn when the leaves fall from a horse chestnut it leaves a scar on the twig which resembles an inverted horse shoe with nail holes. It started me thinking about the Goddess Epona again. Epona was called 'Mare' (MAH-ray) by the Irish of Dalriada, she was the bringer of dreams good and bad. The English word 'nightmare' is derived from her Irish name and her association with horses and dreams. Epona is often depicted riding a white horse. Anyway all these thoughts swirling around in my head found their way out in a poem.

Nightmare

Beneath the gnarled contorted skin

A nightmare stirred deep within

She feared not the baying pack

It wasn't her scent the rabid beasts tracked

Their quarry, her protector, her cage

Who's ravaged ageing frame

Stood testimony to countless battles raged

Against Winter gales and torrential rain

He'd held his ground

He remained unslain

In for the kill the howling hounds attacked

Splitting, stripping

The wooden armour from his back

Eighty strong they tore at him

Ripping limb for limb

Then I heard that final ear splitting crack

Slain, his dismembered trunk

Lay strewn across a storm teared track

Now freed from a Horse Chestnut skin

A white nightmare soared from deep within

Elen of the Ways

Working on a pen and ink drawing - Elen of the Ways.

A Work in Progress

Remember if you woke up this morning feeling broken, a thousand shards scattered, beyond repair, do not loose hope. Pick up the pieces you can find and work lovingly with them. Reshape them, add new ones and in time you will become like a beautiful glass sculpture. As you grow a little each day your light will begin to radiate outwards; a beautiful rainbow of colour. You can heal, you are the artist, become the sculpture of your lifework. Work with love to create something truly beautiful.

Soul Searching

Bleak and cold the desolate landscape I roam,
Devoid of vibrant hues and tones,
Lost beneath an impenetrable freeze,
Darkness has come to bedeck my home,

Winter's army mercilessly invades,
Takes no prisoners, no slaves,
And my defeated soul, long tortured, retreats,
To the place where demons grow,

Lost in Hades' world where fear resides,
I do not die,
I sleep and dream of Spring,
And glimpse those vibrant colours that reside within.

The inspiration for the poem came from a painting by artist Graham Wallace. The artwork like all of us is a work in progress.

https://www.facebook.com/Graham-Wallace-Art-278319268894770/ 

Midwife of Words

People sometimes ask me why I write poetry. A fair question especially when I contemplate the time I spend mulling over my thoughts. Yes I must spend, minutes, hours, days even, swirling thoughts around in my psyche, feeling their energy flow this way and that. Sometimes its good energy and it resonates with a lulling harmonious rhythm that sings to my soul. At other times it is not so good energy. It thrashes around my inner house leaving emotional devastation in its wake.  The mind monkeys enjoy the feast. They love a good story another drama that will perpetuate the cycles of unhealthy behaviour.

I guess the act of writing allows the energy to flow, to move from that void within where it has been spiralling round. It enables it to flow outward. To take form. No longer lost within those dark depths the words can now dance across the page. Black on white, darkness finally meeting light as a poem is born. Birthed by the poet; the midwife of words.