Category Archives: Poetry

Resurrection

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Nurture. And destroy. Both are holy. Both are required for resurrection.

We’ve domesticated resurrection. We’ve tamed its wildness. We’ve turned resurrection into cute, fluffy sweetness. Picture the typical Easter symbols – frolicking lambs, fluffy bunnies, downy chicks, fluttering butterflies, waving daffodils.

But what if the green blade riseth as a knife?

Resurrection is no gentle thing.

Metamorphosis is inherently destructive. Egg shells shatter as the chick hatches. The caterpillar’s destruction is necessary for the butterfly’s existence.

Beloved, I am sick to death of meekness. Of pleasingness. Of niceness. I crave clarity and focus. I want to be a sharp-edged blade forged in my life’s fire.

Ask yourself: What must die for life to be freed?

What if, on your journey of rebecoming, you have uncovered a warrior within? What then?

Will you embrace this inner warrior, or will you command her to drop her sword and spear? Will you nurture your inner insurrectionist? Will you feed her and clothe her? Or will you send her away hungry and alone?

Will you dare to speak your heart’s desire?

Will you dare to be a weapon in your own hands?

Will you dare to trust your aim?

May we whet and wield our strength. May we see clearly and give voice to truth. May we defend the defenseless. May we walk away from labels and roles that cage us. May we excise from our lives anyone who wants us small and afraid.

May we be faithful to ourselves and each other – our comadres, companions, fellow warriors on the Way.

Embrace conflict as a whetstone that sharpens and hones you.

Trust yourself to throw your spear. Trust yourself to know which suckers need to be pruned so the tree can thrive. Trust yourself to see what needs to be done, and do it.

Most of all, trust the deep Love in whom you live and move and have your being. Remain rooted in her. Live in and from her.  

Nurture. And destroy. Both are holy. Both are required for resurrection.

Ordination

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I consecrated you with blood and salt water at your birth. I bestow upon you daily ordinations. I tell you of your belonging every moment. ~Barb Morris

ORDINATION

You say you’re waiting for permission.

You say you’re waiting for direct orders from an irrefutable voice. A voice from the heavens: This is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased.

Listen to her.

An ancient ritual, laden with pomp and circumstance– Proper form and order.

An ordination with weighty words and codified gestures, performed by men wearing heavy gowns and rings of gold, who seal decrees with wax.

You on your knees on the floor of a long narrow dusty hall ruled by straight lines.

My love, that’s not how this works.

My ordination comes through rock and stars.

This holiness is swimming in the mighty river welling up in you that will not be dammed.

This holiness strips your old tough too-small skin from your body with gentle-edged hands you’ve forgotten you had.

This holiness is living in new thin porous skin permeable to excruciating joy.

I consecrated you with blood and salt water at your birth. I bestow upon you daily ordinations. I tell you of your belonging every moment.

Hear my voice in the piney wind, songs of birds and frogs, and laughter. Feel my hand as butterflies and bees, sun on skin, feet in cold river. See me in seasons’ spiral, cycles of day and night, everyday dying and rising.

Your sweat and tears taste like ocean.

You know my wordless urge and tug in a baby’s cry and the need of a friend. Or a stranger.

Here’s your permission: Daughter, you are here.

You are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. Breath of my breath. Blood of my blood.

I feed your body with my body.

Anoint yourself with oil and honey.

Stand up, and walk.

Do your work.

©Barb Morris, first published in April, 2017. Stock photo edited on Canva.)

On the Last Day of the World

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Here’s a poem about the last day of the world.

W. S. Merwin, “Place”

 

On the last day of the world

I would want to plant a tree

 

what for

not for the fruit

 

the tree that bears the fruit

is not the one that was planted

 

I want the tree that stands

in the earth for the first time

 

with the sun already

going down

 

and the water

touching its roots

 

in the earth full of the dead

and the clouds passing

 

one by one

over its leaves

And here’s my poem in response:

“On the Last Day of the World”

 

On the last day of the world

I would want to swallow dirt

 

what for

not for the dirt

 

to thank this sweet earth

for the gift and miracle

 

to bow to my debt

to take this earth into my body

 

as earth will

at sunset

on the last day of the world

fold me into hers

 

and the stars appearing

one by one

 

singing

 

~Barb Morris, after W. S. Merwin’s “Place”

What would you do on the last day of the world? Feel free to respond in prose form!

photo credit: raphael nogueira on unsplash

 

Going Wild

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This is an inconvenient time for going wild. I have responsibilities. And it’s cold outside. …..

I watch my hand that holds the hammer that pounds me into a shape that fits the proper hole. I pound and pound myself, but I don’t quite fit. I squeeze a bulge in here, shave off a sharp edge there, and pound and pound and pound. I try to whittle myself down to nothing so I can disappear. Bop bop bop on my head hits the hammer. Square peg in round hole. Redwood into toothpick. I cut the inconvenient pieces off – limbed so I can slide smoothly into the mill.

Limbs are where the wild things live – where birds make their nests.

Limbs are an impediment to masts and poles. I will wield the ax for you. Let me cut off my limbs to make myself suitable for industry. I will make myself straight and rigid and useful to you powers. Let me read your mind and do what you want before you ask it, so you are blameless.

Behold the limbless handmaid of the Lord.

I will stop pounding myself into a hole that will never ever fit. I will regrow my limbs and branches so the wild things have a place to live. I will nourish my roots and reach out for others’ roots, too.

I am no longer espaliered.

I am a redwood. I am an old ponderosa.

I am a woman following a carnivorous cat across a narrow ridgeling, an arête, on a dark night, with only my senses to guide me, to follow her – I can smell her, I can feel her warmth, I can taste her scent, I can hear her breathing and the soft sound of her paws hitting the ground with each step, and I catch a glimpse of her every now and then, in the starshine. Her eyes glow when she turns to make sure I’m following her.

I am regrowing myself. I am undebecoming.

Deep kindness. Compassionate heart.

Put down the hammer and the axe.

Let go. Free fall. Trust.

Allow yourself to be who you are.

Completely here.

I am giving birth to myself. I am gestating myself. I am both mother and child. I am womb and embryo. It’s not rational, yet it’s completely true.

We are not a fiber farm. We are not a monocultured industrial forest. We are old growth. We are complex and we harbor secrets. Sasquatch lives here. We have stories upon stories. Our usefulness is not immediately apparent. Small numbers of unusual organisms live only in us. We are interwoven and interdependent. We contain entire ecosystems in our crowns. Marbled Murrelets nest in our upper limbs, bathed in the fog from the Pacific. Treelings sprout from leaf duff six feet deep a thousand feet up.

We are the old ones. The living ones.

You fear our fertile, fecund, wild darkness.  We are at your mercy.

I am a seed on the wind.

I am an embryo in my own womb.

What’s necessary for growing a baby? Nourishment. Rest. Love. Patience. Strength. Peace. Vigilance and fierce protection.

Prepare.

You are deeply loved.

Growing is your job.

Be who you are. Exform yourself into the world.

Photo credit: jed Holdorph

Things that bother only burros.

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Love Does That

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,

he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,

because love does
that.

Love frees.

~ Meister Eckhart ~

I Want Transformation and I Want It NOW.

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The waiting part of transformation is HARD, at least for me. I want to just do the change, and do it quick. Unfortunately, that’s just not how transformation works. Unlike our get ‘er done culture, what happens in that chrysalis can’t be rushed. (See this previous post for more about change, transformation, and the difference between them. Today’s post goes deeper into #5, about the predictable pattern of change.)

My hypothesis is that the obligatory waiting phase is why I resist necessary transformations. I hate that in-between thing so much. (And if I haven’t done the grieving I need to do with any change, transformation pretty much stops.) All those messy feelings, when we just want to feel bright and shiny and good at life, right?

I’ve been finding these words helpful when I feel myself resisting the necessary waiting phase of transformation. It’s an excerpt from John O’Donohue’s blessing “For the Interim Time.”

As far as you can, hold your confidence.

Do not allow your confusion to squander

This call which is loosening

Your roots in false ground,

That you might become free

From all you have outgrown.

 

What is being transfigured here is your mind,

And it is difficult and slow to become new,

The more faithfully you can endure here,

The more refined your heart will become

For your arrival in the new dawn.

 

I love that the poet speaks of enduring faithfully. I love that he speaks of loosening roots and becoming free, and how he acknowledges that it’s a difficult and slow process to become new. Mostly I love that he describes the interim time as a time when our minds are being transfigured.

Stay present here and now, in your body. Spend time in nature, and pay attention to how this amazing Creation in which we are embedded actually works. A flower blossoms when it’s ready, and not a minute before. Hold your confidence. Allow your roots to loosen. Faithfully endure and allow your mind to be transfigured. You are becoming new, which is a holy enterprise.

Be faithful to your metamorphosis.

if you’d like to explore how I can help you navigate change and transformation, I offer a free 60-minute consultation. Fill out this form and we’ll set up a time.

Ordination

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Swallowtail on thistle

 

ORDINATION

You say you’re waiting for permission.

You say you’re waiting for direct orders from an irrefutable voice.

A voice from Heaven:                                                                                                         This is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased.                                                                     Listen to her.

An ancient ritual, laden with pomp and circumstance-                                                   Proper form and order.

An ordination with weighty words and codified gestures,                                           Performed by men wearing heavy gowns and rings of gold,                                             Who seal decrees with wax.

You on your knees                                                                                                               On the floor of a long narrow dusty hall                                                                            Ruled by straight lines.

 

My love, that’s not how this works.

My ordination comes through rock and stars.

This holiness is swimming in the mighty river welling up in you that will not be dammed.

This holiness strips your old tough too-small skin from your body with gentle-edged hands you’ve forgotten you had.

This holiness is living in new thin porous skin permeable to excruciating joy.

I consecrated you with blood and salt water at your birth.                                                      I bestow upon you daily ordinations.                                                                                        I tell you of your belonging every moment.

Hear my voice in the pine wind, songs of birds and frogs, and laughter.                             Feel my hand as butterflies and bees, sun on skin, feet in cold river.                               See me in seasons’ spiral, cycles of day and night, everyday dying and rising.

Your sweat and tears taste like ocean.

You know my wordless urge and tug in a baby’s cry and the need of a friend.Or a stranger.

 

Here’s your permission:                                                                                               Daughter, you are here.

You’re flesh of my flesh and                                                                                              bone of my bone.                                                                                                           Breath of my breath.                                                                                                         Blood of my blood.

I feed your body with my body.

Anoint yourself with oil and honey.

Stand up, and walk.

Do your work.