Convention Fallout

Posted on July 22, 2016 by rita kowats

Artist: Fred Croydon
http://haidapointart.weebly.com/raven.html

Cousin to the crow, the raven is a messenger bird, as mythologized by the Haida People of the Pacific Northwest United States. It symbolizes creativity and knowledge and has mystical attributes.

Convention Fallout
July 22, 2016

I sit on a covered deck
Listening to the steady flow of raindrops
Kept company by a lone leering crow
Holding vigil on a nearby lawn chair.
Life appears clean and simple
In the afterglow of convention phosphorescence
Fear falling like snow snared in a globe.

Saturated with rain now
The crow still sits in vigil
While I flap spiritual wings
Seeking to shake off the slick aura of hate
That rains down on me.

The crow fixes me with an intent stare
As if to say “Move. Now.”
Inertia is a choice.
Choose life.

Blessing When the World Is Ending by Jan Richardson

Posted on July 12, 2016 by rita kowats

Jan Richardson’s blessing comforts me in this painful time marked by hate and violence; I hope it comforts you as well.

Blessing When the World is Ending by Jan Richardson

Look, the world
is always ending
somewhere.

Somewhere
the sun has come
crashing down.

Somewhere
it has gone
completely dark.

Somewhere
it has ended
with the gun
the knife
the fist.

Somewhere
it has ended
with the slammed door
the shattered hope.

Somewhere
it has ended
with the utter quiet
that follows the news
from the phone
the television
the hospital room.

Somewhere
it has ended
with a tenderness
that will break
your heart.

But, listen,
this blessing means
to be anything
but morose.
It has not come
to cause despair.

It is simply here
because there is nothing
a blessing
is better suited for
than an ending,
nothing that cries out more
for a blessing
than when a world
is falling apart.

This blessing
will not fix you
will not mend you
will not give you
false comfort;
it will not talk to you
about one door opening
when another one closes.

It will simply
sit itself beside you
among the shards
and gently turn your face
toward the direction
from which the light
will come,
gathering itself
about you
as the world begins
again.

Dark Night of the Soul

Posted on July 12, 2016 by rita kowats

Soulball

My soul feels tight
Like a ball of yarn
Wound around itself
Strand by strand round and round
Until no redemptive chink
Admits light or air.
Ego clamors to unravel and reveal
As if knowing alone can extricate and redeem.

Instead
Spirit takes this Jonah by the hand
And descends into the belly of the ball
To sit in her light and breathe in her air
Until the beginning strand finds me,
Wraps me round and catapults me
Into divine spaciousness.