I am still forever curious of the nature of them all.

I have just lost interest in separating myself from the sensation of their being. I know I can have both but for now, I am remembering how to feel.

So, I simply notice the expansion of my breath and body when I see the feathered beast lifted high on a warm air current. I feel.

I notice the light blue chicory flowers in bloom in august, I gaze. I feel. When I sense my heart and the heartwood of another being, I listen.

I let the lightness of my being mingle with the song the wind sings.

And yes, in their naming, I honor them. And in my witnessing them, I honor them.

And in remembering how to feel them, I become them.

Have you called to the winds, the reeds and branches to bend and sway as they hold your aching heart.

The reeds bend gently and the bough will rest upon the earth for you.

The river, she too, longs for the ocean will draw you near to console you in her current.

Moss and lichens, they wait for you to whisper your loss so they can reach towards the sun for you. They will draw you into their light world.

Fern is a grateful keener, a mystical mourner. Reaching for you, furling and unfurling towards your wilted heart. And you, curl in and spiral out in every moment. Held always by the movement.

So the flowers bloom as well for your weeping. Nourished by your offering of tears. Their bloom, gratitude.

Keep your ears tethered to the flapping of wings and the songs yet sung, there are many under the sun.

They all whisper, “look up! Listen, gaze upon the world with wonder!”

Does golden rod know Joe pye weed as a friend or foe?

Does cedar waxwing wear red tipped wings because he loves the color?

Do crickets know they sing?

Does the wild meadow flower know her beauty?

Why did those marigolds grow so tall?

Will the indoor plants miss me, too?

Why did the cedar tree come back to life?

I do not wish to know the answer to any of these questions.

I do not wish to know the why or how.

I simply wish to wonder in the now, quite often and out loud.

.

I feel the thrill of something longing to return

In the hollow of my bones

There is a song that I am aching for

In the hollow of my bones

I will return to what I have known before all the smoke made my mind hazy

In the hollow of my bones

I stand alone before the altar and the sea

Oh my, what a giant that looms before me.

Carve out the spaces, find the traces of the marrow left inside that clings to memories of life before the fires and the floods.

In the hollow of my bones

The moon grows full and quiet and I know it in my soul

In the hollow of my bones

I feel the years of all the moments passed

In the hollow of my bones

There is a candle casting shadows in the room and I am light again.

In the hollow of my bones

I remove the mask of lack that keeps me playing hide and seek

Oh my, what a giant there that kneels before me.

Carve out the spaces, find the traces of the light that lingers inside the liminal place where the table is set for two of us, love.

In the hollow of my bones

In the hollow of my bones

In the hollow of my bones

And I am whole again, home.

“The body is the medium through which we know the earth.”

― Andrea Olsen, Body of Earth

Sometimes, my relationship to my body and Earth feels fractured, disjointed, overwhelming and numb. I forget that I am born from the waters, that my roots run deep and that I reach towards the sun. Sometimes, I forget that I am a fractal unfolding flower. When I let ocean tears fall, when I wave like cattails in the wind, when I sing my birdsong from tree top, when I witness the blossoming of the Catalpa tree and taste the bitter sweetness of a just barely ripe mulberry. I remember. I remember that I am Earth body when I dance, move, shake and laugh. I remember, when I let myself rest in the safety of a good friend, like the hemlock by the brook or the old stone in the forest. I remember my beautyway when I feel safe and when I can rest in the loving presence of another human and more than human kin.

My massage practice is grounded in remembering and racination (rooting). It is grounded in a desire to offer presence, nourishment and gentle tending so that you can become the Eden of your dreams. It is grounded in a desire to walk alongside you as you reconnect to your body and the world around you so that you can share the abundance of your garden with the world.

“...when we fall in love with our world, to fall into oneness with it as well. We begin to see the world as belonging to us as intimately as our own bodies.”

― Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self

Photo by my mama, Jen Lavoie

She’s quietly mending wild web left anattended

Hunter returns and yearns for parts of her to leave him

hiding behind the hurt that he is feeling

Fox Woman dreaming on the wild edge of sorrow

there’s no soul to borrow when it’s your pelt on the arrow

Her wild edge becomes too sharp for parts he fears

Pierced by unnamed, unchained wildness she carries

She won’t beg or let her wild self be buried

She’s a flame untamed and unashamed

And so she runs becoming one for song and sight

Stars becoming bright with stories of ancient light

Hunter’s left longing for the empty house once home

Now alone, bemoaning love lost, what a cost

Hiding behind the mask he’s made to last

A hardened heart, his present and his past

Fox woman dreaming on the wild edge of sorrow

There’s no soul to borrow when it’s your pelt on the arrow

Fox woman dreaming on the wild edge of sorrow

There’s no soul to borrow when it’s your pelt on the arrow

If ancient elders fed the land

with countless cultures nourished by light work of many hands.

Hands in prayer of grief and praise

for song of seeds and trees we need.

Though we may never see them aging

these are futures that we’re naming.

Humans born of soil and seed

our love is the web we weave.

The whisper that your heart is breaking is the future that we’re naming.

Can I share these gifts in the belly of another?

Knowing that we grow each other.

What is it your berries have to offer?

and when mourning calls, how will we answer?

So come with tears and dreams of deep

your gifts for all the Earth to keep

and know they’ll come around again

for they are our sacred kin.

Keep reaching out for hands to hold on these sacred lands

for we all walk each other home

and life does not begin alone.

Stories become reality when we become the sanctuary

moving bodies, singing song

we hear the hum of time to come and

know our work has just begun.

Surrender to the river’s flow

and follow paths to great unknown.

Plant the rain that keeps on giving

feed the song the trees are singing

and we will tend to make amends

as the circle begins again.

Murmurations, constellations.
I’ll float away then, In soft elation.
No hesitation. It’s my way then.

Imagination, bird migration.
No separation of our creation.
We spiral in and out again. murmurations. murmurations.

Memories become sanctuaries.
The stories our ancestors carry
Walking over stones and prairies. prairies. prairies.

Myths Emerging from our lives converging.
Crafting cultures, we sing in song
Of our unfolding and belonging. belonging.

Night hawks flying, watching half moon rising
As persimmon sun has just begun
To set on leaves that teach me tenderly humility and harmony
I am on my knees. prayerfully.

Holy Mother. Sky grandfather.
The web that tethers. Clouds unfettered.
We watch them change as it begins to rain. rain. rain.

The seed we sow become those we know.
Growing old now our stories told.
We turn this soil into gold. gold. gold.

A note about the photo: three beings kneel together, heads together and hands on shoulders, a gentle embrace. We danced before the “Ark of Hope.” And we carried bird puppets during out “Murmurations” dance made by Sally Linder. The dance was choreographed by Laurel Jenkins. You can read more about the event here, https://earthcharter.org/earth-charter-25event-vermont/.

Me with my windows shut

My door closed and lights on.

I have forgotten the soft fall of your wings

and the soft pad of your foot on dried leaves.

Last night, I heard your siren call

beckoning my being into the night.

I am sorry. I did not listen.

Tonight, I stepped into the thick black dark.

To hear your song.

I listened to your song.

Tonight, I stepped into the thick black dark

and I sang back to you.

You are the one.

Sacred wings in flight

beyond our sight.

Alchemizing rays of gold

to pillars of rainbow light.

Divine spectrum of color

spills from your Heavenly form

to meet my Earthly body.

We sing to you, call to you

to transform our hearts, to give,

and to receive. We pray your

journey is swift and that

one day, we will meet you

again.

In the same way we honor the spring equinox, summer solstice, the bounty of autumn, and the falling into winter, may we hold the passing of our beloved as sacred. In the same way we might honor Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Quan Yin, the Waters, Mountains, Sun, Moon, and Stars, Soil, and Trees may we also praise and offer our tears to the ones we love, so they may find peace.

In The Smell of Rain on Dust, Martín Prechtel writes:

“Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.”

Grief and praise—grief and love—are our greatest kin. They are the allies that walk alongside us as we meander the spiral path on Earth. The great waves felt so deeply in the core of our being and the longing that pulls from the center of our heart, are gifts from the Great Mystery we are born from and return to. Grieving and loving are the ties that bind us to one another and to the Earth—universally felt, collectively experienced, and remarkably unique.

We are woven into the tapestry of life, into this string of pearls and when we grieve we honor our beloveds as we honor the sacredness of spring, summer, autumn harvest and winter rest. When we grieve together, we witness each other’s deepest longings and open our hearts to our collective human experience. We honor our inter-being, our relationship with the Earth, with each other and we honor the sacred gift of life.

In a village of trees, the loss of one is felt, and those surrounding it respond. Elephants bury their dead and vocalize their grief. Whales and dolphins ritualize death. I feel that the keeners, the wailers, and the cries of elephants are alchemizing their loss through song, releasing the energy of their tears and their longing back into the Earth.

We know that trees, animals, and human beings are returned to the Earth, joining the cycle of nutrients and decay. When we do not mourn or honor our beloved, we may feel disconnected from one of the most sacred experiences. When we do not ritualize death, we may not metabolize the grief that becomes lodged in our throats. We may feel severed from the web of life. Martín Prechtel has also said that “all war is unmetabolized grief.”

So, we mourn to transform our collective, planetary wounds as humans and repair them. We mourn to honor our planet. We mourn to honor each other. We mourn in community to see each other in our humanity, to share our divine love for what we have lost. We mourn to alchemize, to release and to return the gifts of our loved ones back to the Mystery. When we mourn, we are healing the wound of disconnection. We are reconnecting to our birth right as feeling beings on this planet. We mourn to send the roots of our love into the center of the Earth to be metabolized, as the tree is metabolized into soil and new life.

Trees know their neighbors – and respond differently when they die - LTER

Do whales and dolphins grieve for their dead?

The Smell of Rain on Dust

Oh I am my grandfather’s pain
I am the brothers that he lost
I come from a line of fathers
Ragged by great loss

We are ragged revolutionary
we were born from ancient ones

Oh our ancestors were worshippers
of druids and the land

Oh I am my mother’s daughter
and my sisters greatest friend
I will learn to walk the gentle path
I will learn to make amends

I am the friends that have passed
I am the ones who took their lives
I am the lover that I’ve wept for
I am the one who has heard their cries

We are ragged revolutionary
we’ve moved nations with our grief
we’ve had the change to begin again
To walk down different streets

Oh I am the land that has been ruined
I stand with her at my core
I walk with those who long for peace
Who yearn for distant shores

we are the future and the past
we are the ones to end the wars
we are those with silent pleas
We are down on our knees

we are ragged revolutionary
we’ll meet resistance at no cost
We will raise our fist to meet the sun
we’ll meet jesus at the cross

we need beings who will stand up
We need beings who will sing
we need all the love that ever was
we need all that we can bring

Our hearts are (our) ragged revolutionary

A collective evolutionary

We are made of stars and rivers deep

We are the company we keep

it’s time to sing death’s lullaby

so mourn for me my friends and foe

our paths unite more than you know

and sing me to the beach of stars*

I need your tears to travel far

and in my wake do not forsake our love

now it comes from up above

so turn your eyes to skies of blue

and see my form as something new

turn your back on not a one

shun not even the wicked ones

and count your blessings like the stars

infinite and wise they always are

and in these times where lies persist

we will rest as we resist

and we will see the light again

until that day

we walk as friends

*The beach of stars is in reference from the teachings of Martín Prechtel from his book, The Smell of Rain on Dust.

I know you, said Moon

I’ll stand with you, said Tree

I will carry you, said River

I will listen, said Wind

I will sing with you, said Sparrow

I will hold you, said Sky

I will shine for you, said starlight

I am with you, said Love

Read more

If hands are too busy tending soil and Sun

There is no room for war

If my arms are so full of another

There is no room for war

When my voice is so full of Song

There is no room for war

When my eyes are so full of wonder

There is no room for war

When my mouth is so full of laughter

There is no room for war

If my heart is so full of love for you.