This a continuation of the Great Bear King series, which started here & moved to here & now we’re here.

“When we project an encounter with the masculine out onto an external man, rather than cultivate it in ourselves, we may find ourselves in relationships where the grip is just too tight, the leaves not as bright as we remember, and the whole affair just not as thrilling as the possibilities we glimpsed out in the forest. We are attempting to obtain in the rinky-dink world what we glimpsed from the otherworld. A man can have a hand on the tail of the wolverine, or a heart that exotic birds feed from, but ultimately they are also linked to the human form. That’s not to say that magical blurring points can’t happen, but no man or woman can be a substitute for your own magic long-term: that ship will hit the rocks.” —Martin Shaw, A Branch from the Lightning Tree

“Magic is not so much about permitting the bizarre as it is about recognizing that even the littlest thing is significant in ways that preclude our compensatory attempts to scale up, to get bigger, to become more noticed – as if, only then, we start to matter.” —Báyò Akómoláfé, “A plea for magic”

“There is never anything conclusive, just an endless series of tests.” —Lorrie Moore, Self-Help

GBK//moon blood//may26

PS. The voiceover has two downright mistakes (hints: “34” & “moose”), and some sleepy mispronunciations such as “shoup.” But singing surprises throughout, of course. Some neighborhood dogs, too, dammit. All to say excuse the imperfections and couch studio/GarageBand fuzz. I’m jus’ aiming to wake and feed the sleeping King above…

Did I even notice the little island some nine months before it claimed me? Surely I would’ve seen the driftwood on the mid-river sliver diagonal from the shore I was camped out on. Wouldn’t I have looked a wee bit to the south and been curious about the tall green growing from that belly button? Would I have felt its power? Thought: What grows there? Who lives there? A woman? A King?

I really can’t recall.

What I remember is the willow billowing as the September sun set on the last day of my 34 years here in this particular cuneiform. I remember discovering the mice’s tiny star impressions in the sand, alongside the heron’s four-pronged imprints, themselves like an ancient bird in flight.

With the night waxing and the moon waning, the flicker of the Guadalupe candle gave light to my fabric snippings as I prepped prayer ties for the next month’s Moondance in Mexico, an all-women’s four-day ceremony. Because that felt like the almost-35-years-old thing to do. See, recently birthdays have carried the quiet weight of responsibility > celebration with them. My five years in Taos — full of ceremony and a couple of longish-term Red Road boyfriends — had showed me that this sacred life is very serious and must be dealt with as so. I wanted that maturity.

The last September, I’d sponsored a peyote meeting that — despite feeling like a dark blob wearing a rainbow most the all-night prayer — taught my coyote ass “it’s all good.” Alone in Chicago in 2023, I prayed through my 3:59 am entrance into the world before biking sunrise to the lake to cold plunge in, tits to the Windy City. I disciplined my pen the rest of the day till comedy class. I also got a colonic. (You know what they say — you can have your b-day colonic, but, pretty please, don’t eat it, too.) (Comedy class worked, right?) The year before that I camped alone after driving to Navajo Nation to buy my ex a beaded staff that I never ended up giving him. (This all a switch-up from Kentucky days throwing themed parties: “Over the Hill” (picture the drunken rollator danceoff), and, later, a funeral wherein I “died” and people put rose petals on me, kindly eulogizing before I was “reborn.” The “pussy” a pink fiesta made of balloons and streamers.)

This go-round, I minded the cloth and sang to the dark. I sang with longing, because as disciplined as a gal can be, she is also full of desires. I sang a song I learned at Bealtaine — that Gaelic celebration welcoming in the fully fertile summer — hoping my notes would travel up, up, up. I sang to the present that still wasn’t quite present. I stood and I swayed and I sang: Come, come, pretty love, come, come, come. Come, come, my true love, I want some.

I sang until I heard a strange plunking sound. Loud. Like a cougar could be playfully pawing boulders into the water. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk. Or was something walking? An elk? A bear? A mighty man? A mighty, mighty good man?

It was as if it could’ve been the recent May’s Bealtaine in the green-shimmering meadow all over again. Except this time, I am the Queen squatted down over the hole the women’ve dug and prayed into, wishing for good men, healthy babies, healed sisterhood, and offering tears for clean water, plus tobacco, cornmeal, and moon blood. My hips are jumping with the drum as the women sing the rest of that sexy little ditty: Oh, my pretty love is home, sweeter than the honey in the comb.

And my pretty love. My King. That dancing and kind-hearted and steady love, muscled with myth (and actual muscles). My strong container. My slow and deep listener. My singing key. The King — riding his ceremonially-chopped cottonwood chariot balanced on the shoulders of many men. They aim toward the hole, but before they slide the tree in and erect it to Maypole position, the women and I slowly lather its end with oatmeal. The thunder rumbles overhead, and the rain eventually falls for four days.

But it wasn’t Bealtaine. And I wasn’t Queen. My King wasn’t plunking toward me. My shoreside dance with the river shadow — honeycombs buzzing, arms rippling out, eddies breaking free — was met with… Nothing, really. The inner King? Not yet, because my mind was elsewhere. My mind conjuring T.

T. The Man at the Top of the Canyon. The Trick of the Coyote’s Bones. The Father of Both Flora and Fauna. The Lost Words Blessing Singer, who I can’t unremember reciting: “Enter the wild with care, my love, and speak the things you see. Let new names take and root and thrive and grow…”

I’d met him once upon an aspen-eyed dream as the Carhartted keeper of my fire. With total permission, I ran from subconscious ridge line downhill to the orange glow silhouetting him. As T turned toward me, I jumped very excitedly into his waiting arms. A reuniting that felt so good.

That was just a dream, though. IRL, T was a married man with many scorpions crawling around under his chest. He was also almost 20 years older than me. To top the birthday cake, he was a mentor in making myth with the land — my most favorite ceremony yet.

During that first storytelling training two summers ago, I was very impressed by the way T spoke and listened and held questions and, once or twice, grunted around on the ground like a gorilla while reflecting a story. Despite the absurdity of the crush, his embodied wildness seeped into my psyche, as he hummed “Our House” on the way down.

Meanwhile, I did the work I was there to do: Confront my inner masculine. A continued theme from the wilderness-rites-of-passage fast I’d done earlier that spring. I walked the steep highs and low groves dealing with my daddy issues: the missing link of half my lineage; the questions and grief around father figure Frank.

Frank in the eerie dank basement of the property’s falling-down house. The moldy smell the same as his underground wood shop, where we’d pencil measurements before sawing cedar when I was a kid. And what else?

Frank appearing as bearded cloud in a full moon lightning sky as I wore the one sweatshirt of his I have.

The surprise of my bio dad’s voice echoing through a family of trees when the rain came one afternoon. (Oh, but no, no, no. This was just the voice of another participant — an old man also named Frank — who I later asked to adopt me.)

Every man arrived at dawn as I sang my naturalness to the new day: Good morning to morning/ Good morning to the good morning.

In place of the missing man, I found a random seashell in all that landlockedness; the spiral big enough to whistle through. I found a home upon a hillside — a simple, uninhabited cabin that made me dream of living simply in the woods. I found a maroon tree root surfacing from the ground. I was shocked at how much it looked like a winking vulva. I bent and rubbed her like a statue of the Black Madonna before anointing her with my spit. Then I baptized my head in a little creek, who told me, The father lives inside of the mother. It is a gift to be a woman. Quite the relief.

Back then, I wanted to inform T about the part he’d played in my process, that beloved dream. I wanted to practice using my voice in honesty as a grown woman addressing a grown man. To dispel/release any energy behind the story. Being in the teacher position he was in and being the zap-deep creature he was, I figured he got this kind of thing all the time, ring or no ring. But a friend — an older woman there — advised me not to say anything, and, figuring she was the wiser, I listened. Mostly.

As he was packing up his truck to leave the training, I addressed him simply and seriously: “The woman in me sees and honors the man in you.” He might have smirked in response? Don’t remember. What I remember is the rest of my little secret like a wild raspberry under the tongue. A held breath, which I eventually blew on other fires.

I forgot the dream altogether until I returned again to the late-summer aspens a year later for the same training, this time as an assistant who’d just found out the man had gotten a divorce. Even with the intriguing plot twist, I held a strong regard in my heart to let the work be the work. I wanted to honor the path that my own footsteps had led and followed me into. You will be here for the love of the stories made with nature and all the healing and belonging that brings, Arielle Reyna! Keep it clean and clear.

But it was honestly over for me the moment I got to the land where you can walk a dragon’s back and where deer antlers grow from the trees like branches. Already, as the two of us were unloading gear from his truck and waiting for others to arrive, T was telling the old story of the Zen Farmer, which reminds us that only time is the real storyteller. Setting up the kitchen canopy, he talked with a good dad’s devotion about the cupcakes he’d made for his son’s birthday, complete with cream cheese and maple icing. It was sweet and broke the air of frustrated grief that encircled him.

It was really on with the rattlesnake. He saw her first, guiding me to her whereabouts for a peep, though she blended in with the rock jumble so well I couldn’t see her. So, I stepped closer. She announced herself then — straight up and tail shaking. The surprise jumping me back into the momentary hands of the man.

“Medicine for both of us,” T said, and a calm excitement undulated.

While he went to fetch a shovel and trash can, I watched the snake slither across the drive, pass under a fence, enter the tall grass, and angle toward the decrepit house, smoothing her belly up its concrete until she finally settled in a broken crevice in the foundation. There, the snake spiraled herself over the down ’n brown leaves. Then she yawned, her mouth wide open. Pink folds and a deep middle darkness and a clit between the fangs. The yoni open to me.

And inside the yoni is an egg. Inside the egg is a Queen. Inside the Queen is a wild woman. Inside the wild woman is a wild man. Inside the man is a good heart. Inside the heart is magma, undulating liquid gold. Inside the magma is water, hissing steam. Inside the steam is a mantra that won’t stop repeating: I shake the snake awake. I shake the snake awake. I shake the snake awake.

Oh god, was I viper vapor rising through the pines. I did my best to keep grounded that long weekend. Careful to hold the people in their reckonings and releases and coming homes. Still — a glitch. Something online in me that had the strict need to be SEEN by the man. And I did show myself. Big time. Peacock feathers activate. Creatrix come to play. One long and many-valleyed song winding through everything, even the osha tea that I served to everyone one drizzly afternoon.

It was good to push more freely into out-loud edges and to try on different ways of being with a story. To repeatedly receive the instruction from the other guide — the old woman, crone/hag/harpy — that I don’t need to ask permission to sing or express. Ever. That there is no wrong way. I was learning how to woman, but it came with the cost of a sharp awareness of myself in the presence of the man.

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Post-training, my pursual unchanging direction, the man became a leaf on my whooshing wind. T and I kept the conversations alive through the fall. They were long and often and mostly by phone. Both hearts were curious and with an eyebrow raised. I know this because I was not the only one sharing stories, questions, gifts and songs. Welcome in the welcome boon.

The request was that we take our time and not write any story too soon. T was sensitive re: suffering projections as Teach and having dealt with those consequences before, just as I’m being extremely careful to write about the taboo here. More so, he was in the heartbreak of his crumbling family. The grief of which he was definitely feeling, and thank god, right, guys? That the dark devastation is actually contended with. Plummeting to the hollowing, achy depths. Mourning at dawn.

I felt for him as I felt for our whole human family. I’ve long believed that the disruption and displacement of the family system/ tribe (due to colonization, the lie of separation, and money, money, money — crossing borders for “the great dream”), has perpetuated a world with so much brokenness and a general lack of safety inside of it. In self. In home. In the streets. A girl doesn’t have her father, and something remains incomplete.

Though I knew that one cannot rush a chrysalis, and that I, too, needed stone slowness (seeing how I hop in relations too quickly then wanna run, an unsustainable pattern), I was still semi-hasty. My rescue team — of clever jokes, encouraging words, points toward beauty, and shake-outta-yr-heaviness jams — was absolutely on the clock and ready to resuscitate. Even though I knew full well that it was not my job to save the man.

Couldn’t touch lips, anyway, given that a big rule of his was no kissy kissy. Though we only hung out in person a few times — our schedules full and everywhere — I was thrilled by this hard line. Even more so because he abided it in the face of my insistent teasing. Mmm, that level of cool control. Had any past partner ever been able to resist me? (A purr— and a hiss—)

I felt a humility in all of it, often wrapping my scarf over my head like Mary Magdalene veiled before Jesus. Eyes downcast at a sacred site. A guarding, too — because — in all honesty — I was terrified. Of T? Of love? Myself? My soul shook with the man’s thunder power, soft authority. I wondered what it’d be like to share together in the responsibility of helping others remember God as their own sense of wholeness.

I was soooooooo damn activated during this brief interlude with T, no matter the age gap or that I might change his diapers one day. An energy — always alive and endlessly creating — was riling me to the best me I could be. Relearning the ukulele! Finishing three essays in one month! Really putting my comedy skills to the test! It was exciting to feel the yes, after having felt so much back-and-forth in previous relations.

That energy swirled and I envisioned myself as superstar stepmom jumping trampoline with the kids, and feeding them butternut squash soup and maple/cream cheese icing-cupcakes when they’re sick, believing sweetness a cure. (Which I did one day—delivering the treats topped with pomegranate arils in swirls and smileys to an empty house. Fitting, in retro. The laugh on overly-available me.) That energy made me want to be a really, really good caretaker in this brief and beautiful life. That energy a God in me.

What drives us to do anything? What makes us think of someone so highly, fervently? What makes us put energy toward one person and not another? What opens us? What shies us away? What of willingness? Loyalty? Is it real? Is it love? Is it bad patterning? An addiction? Is it the divine? Some third thing?

Back on the riverside that September evening, I fell asleep without ~really~ accessing my inner beloved, but I woke to everything. It was my birthday, after all. And being a very prepared Virgo, I’d come with some special items in tow to enact a wedding, of sorts. A unification ceremony between my inner masculine and inner femme.

My rings of choice?

A uterus and a ball sac.

Yeah, you heard me right. A tiny eweterus and a ram’s musky sac. I’d collected the reproductive bits from a harvest for a friend’s wedding in August. I’ll never forget all the life those deaths brought me, an excited newb in Carhartt overalls to the old, Earth-close process.

The ewe was the first to leave the garden. We gave our gratitudes and blew smoke over her amazingly calm body before the knife sliced her life. I was the designated “blood catcher” and held a speckled bowl beneath her neck as the red poured. Stirring it with a whisk to keep from coagulating, I watched the ewe’s eyes intently, and I swear I felt her spirit return to the night sky.

The ram put up a fight on his way out. The horned one musta been 300 pounds and it took four guys to flip him, hogtie his ankles and carry him across the lawn already thick with death, a funeral song still in the sun-clapping aspen leaves. I had to lay my whole body over the ram to quiet his lurching. I thought it was strange when we didn’t blow the tobacco over the big boy, but I guessed with his bucking heft, it was better to get the job done. I held his feet together as they started to slip out of the bale twine. My bro pulled the blade from curled horn to curled horn to send the ram into that good night.

Sorta. It wasn’t a clean cut. The ram tossed and heaved. Suddenly there was blood all over the ass, deepening into the matted wool. My blood. Apparently the knife had jumped on the ram’s last seizing breath, and took some of me with it. My thumb knuckle was sliced wide open. To me, it seemed all the life in the ram required a big offering and the Great Spirit was gonna get that from somebody. I just happened to be on deck. Taken by the sacred pact, I let myself bleed and bleed and bleed.

(I’d like to note here that while undressing the two sheep, I saw how beautifully and perfectly Mother Nature orders everything. The jewels of organs; the fluids kept behind the linings. The stomach not even a stink until ripped open by the dogs to reveal the green mush inside. I’d also like to mention that when my homie — whose whole life is like a primitive-skills gathering — showed me I could blow through the ram’s lungs and play them like a trumpet, I marched around the yard sounding the balloon, a parade of sheep spirits following behind.)

Birthday sun already over the canyon, I sat on a river rock with the heavy sac in hand. I’d stuffed one side of the hairy, testes-free pocket with a bunch of wildflowers I’d gathered that dawn. In the other side: handwritten vows from bride to groom and vice versa. I promise to support you in all your wild, creative roaring. I promise to see you for you in all your honest authenticity.

When I adjusted on the stone, the uterus — a two-centimeter miracle that somehow expands to hold lambs — slipped into the water. I yelped with one half of my ceremony lost to the Rio Chama. I downright panicked, actually, begging to pretty please have that back, as I was sure the tiny organ had already floated far downstream. I wondered what it meant to lose this piece. But when I reached into the river again, I curled my fingers around the soft squish — its top split into a heart shape, the two arms like a ram’s curled horns. I breathed a sigh of relief, tucking the uterus next to my vows.

With this, I welcomed the whole of the canyon to the wedding. Every willow and every swallow and every skitter bug and sandstone formation and mouse track and heron track and on and on and on. I thanked them for being witness to this matrimony. Then I began to sing.

I sang the song that came. A peyote song I’d learned for an ex, the one who’d later go on to become May King at that Bealtaine celebration, and the groom attached to the sheep feast. I’d learned the song — called “This Couple is Living Together in a Beautiful Way” — because I was a liar. I’d forced myself to sing the song for him. This time, I was singing the song for me. The clearing tears touched deep.

Nevertheless, I still hoped T — who was camped at the top of the canyon for a reason not related to me — might peer over the cliff, curious about my doings. Could the nuptials have been pure, then? Did it take something away from the sincerity of the story if I was so eager to return and tell it to T?

A split between the matter and the man.

Though he wasn’t technically there holding space for me (which is another dream—man tends fire while I go commune for days with She), he was the first one I saw when I resurfaced as semi-“bride/groom.” He helped me take off my backpack. Made me coffee with cream. Gave me a bottle of maple syrup, as requested I’d like for a birthday gift. Served me up some cupcakes his kids helped create. Listened intently to my story. Said it sounded like something walking across the water toward me, which I used at the top of this piece. All in all, I felt cared for and seen. Like an eagle with a labradorite heart and silver circling wings.

Looking back, I’m not sure if I ever truly saw the man or not. I gave T a lot of my precious attention — even holding his “I’m a boring, domesticated dad” truth in one palm — but did I see him? Likewise, I’m not sure if the man ever truly saw me, operating at only the most tuned-up frequency I could muster.

When I got my hands on WE: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love by Robert A. Johnson, a Jungian analysis of the old love story, Tristan and Isolde, I read how all too often in romantic ideals, we over-divinify our partners, which inevitably holds them to dramatically impossible (and disappointing) standards. The book made the age-old case that the only one who can meet my top-notch soul man criteria is me. Too, I found it interesting to be on this side of the pedestal I hate. In the past, I’d long resisted my exes’ projections of me as jungle vision or rainbow light, and now…?

As an existential crisis incited, I cried for the outer man. I felt T’s presence with me slipping quick. It was gone, gone, gone during our last hang together come November, even though I came over in a black velvet bustier I’d hand-sewn his blue corn kernels into — a costume I’d spent days on. I mean… Bro?!?!?!?!

And…sis!!! I also grieved the ways I felt I needed to be an absolute goddess in T’s eyes. Realizing how unrealistic — and even damaging — that was. That perfectionist and pressurizing need to show that I’m mature, capable, caring, and wildly divine, divinely wild. Even though so much of me is Her, the fact that I was trying AT ALL, meddling with the truth of my being, was a form of self-abandonment.

There was self-abandonment in my lack of listening, too. At that October Moondance in Mexico, on the third night of fasting and praying around and around, the portal of Truth open to me, I swallowed the fact that this man wasn’t gonna be my man supporting me from the outer circle the next year, my fourth and final.

I couldn’t put myself through any eensy lying force for no man no mo. So, as honorably as I could, I turned away. The dream — full of hummingbirds, and the laughing children, and sparkling agave — slowly but surely dissipating like desert rain.

Alas, it’s as innocent as the teacher as the Teacher. Life gives us these, right? The lessons sometimes quick and straight, while others wind their way through the open valleys of the heart, whether in silence or in harmony, or likely both. This lesson bearing a greater sword toward the inner beloved and what he might look like, sound like. An inspiration to take and root and thrive and grow.

It seems everything is always feeding something. Whether literal cupcakes, or dancing river vespers. Without my really knowing, the songs for T and the enlivening of my inner woman became osha and berries for the Great Bear. The bear patient in his cave in the soul’s water, peacefully dreaming the world. Dreaming me dreaming him. Father and lover and King.

Shoreside last September, I didn’t recognize the Great Bear King’s presence the way I’d come to fully meet it the next Spring. I wouldn’t see the eternal flame of his staff shining the new day, or watch his big bear breath rise and fall, a benevolence in the sway. Wouldn’t feel his voice became my own — stern in integrity, even and especially when risky or unfavorable — till on down the line.

I’d not yet hear the whispers of the little island in the Chama River, either. But surely — surely, surely — the island heard me. Gathered my timbre floating downstream, voice catching like a cottonwood leaf on the breeze. A stirring in the mid-river willow. A shake in the sand. Tickle in the fur. A long song on the way.

On my 35th birthday, I held my holy sacrament to the sky before tossing it in the water. I know now that the King Roaming the Center Place felt me, because a most hilarious and miraculous thing happened, a joke that only my true love could pull on me. Because the scrotum is shaped with two distinct curves meeting in the middle, its splash created ripples in the unmistakeable shape of a heart when the water ate it.

A heart — undulating out and out and out and out right at the mouth of the little island.

A heart — beating in and in and in and in.

It was a declaration still truly in the making, but, nonetheless, an intentional offering to my pretty love, echoing, I do, I do, I do, I do.

***

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Y’all. I’m not gonna say much else besides that I’ve worked on this piece so hard for over a month. It has been painstaking. Grueling. There are many times when I ask myself: Arielle…why are you doing this? Why are you making this a priority? No one reads these things! Not a single like on the last one! AH! This series — of coming to terms with my inner masculine and centering the King inside of myself — may be the most important and most difficult endeavor I’ve ever followed through on. I hope you’re paying attention and learning something, and I pray in some way that this GOING IN is a further step in clearing whatever toxic ties to men I’ve inherited/perpetuated. For you, too.

If you want to support me going after this for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours, feel free to donate a lil tip here to cover that last round of coffee I just drunk right the what on up. (My poor adrenals.) Or purdy plz share, share, share.

On the next installment of GBK, we’ll get back into the Nanai myth, The Snake and the Bear, that helped inspire these writings by considering The Little Boy/Agna. Or we might just skip to the part where we meet the Great Bear King and y’all can hear the song cuz GLORY BE this is taking for motherlovin’ ever!!! (In a couple weeks, I do think I’ll squeeze in a poem & miniature update vs. taking five-ever to tackle the Beast. So that’s something bite-sized to look forward to.)

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& of course, a specially-curated playlist for this essay….

<3<3<3

This is the second installment of The Great Bear King. Read the intro here.

***

“Glory be to the lover, and to the beloved, and to the love they share between them. As it was in the beginning, as it is now, and as it shall be, world without end.” —Hail Mary remix

“There is no happy ending, because there is no end.” —The Good/Bad Magician in The Last Unicorn

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*

If you were exchanged in the cradle and

your real mother died

without ever telling the story

then no one knows your name,

and somewhere in the world

your father is lost and needs you

but you are far away.

He can never find

how true you are, how ready.

When the great wind comes

and the revelries* of rain,

you stand in the corner shivering.

The people who go by —

you…

Read more

Crescent current.

Crescent crud.

Crescent moon.

Crescent City.

Wayward ghosts gather at this sandy knob, beginning with the gatekeeper — a towering, disembodied troll with a lumpy nose and a perpetual, open-mouth growl. He looks chewed up and spit out by the Devil theyself. Or maybe this is the Devil theyself? Either way, he looks ready to eat me alive. And I admit that I am delicate bait — spirit-taut and brooding.

To be honest, I don’t even see the gatekeeper’s grey intensity amongst the still-green pocket of December trees, at first, so focused am I on the graves. The one parallel me features many dented spray cans screwed into a pyramid of dredged-up plywood, risen where one has fallen. Quite the ramshackle remembrance. It’s mostly concrete in this bay where big barges lap water against the beginning of land’s train tracks. Could there be a body buried beneath there? Or is it ash to ash and rust to rust?

This sudden graveyard reminds me that everywhere is hallowed ground. Everywhere is death everywhere is life. New Orleans is known for its “Cities of the Dead” — the above-ground cemeteries housing row after row of marbled mausoleums, which are guarded on all sides by brick walls, wrought-iron fencing. Famous historical figures like Voodoo queen, Marie Laveau, and Civil Rights activist, Homer Plessy, live there. Eventually, a 10-year-old boy will explain it to me very matter-of-factly: The land isn’t deep enough to put bodies six feet under, therefore they must be kept in their stone chambers. Better there when a flood comes versus sending unearthed bodies swimming in the streets. Some swampy Varanasi.

I walk around, careful not to disturb the houseless man seemingly sleeping in his camping chair with an umbrella angled overhead, blocking the noon light on this 68 degree day. His black dog quietly holds gaze over the territory while her four pups bound around. They find a tattered blanket in the grass and play tug of war with it.

I’m part amazed by the creative ingenuity of this place, and yet still sorta creeped by the surprise. At one altar, broken tile shapes a skull into a shadow box as a strand of King’s Cake babies sways beside the mosaic. A brown jar labeled “Mississippi Water” hosts some dried, crooked-neck flowers. Tall glass candles are souped by the last of last week’s rain and I wonder when those wicks last knew fire. In the mini-Airstream shrine for the lost boy named “Deadbird,” a live lizard makes home of the pretend trailer, which has a tiny bookcase inside, knocked over beside a pale crawdad shell in a bowl, plus other random remnants.

Who were these people? Were their lives expelled in excess? The extremity of which feels like the shadow side of this femininely abundant place, once known in Choctaw as Bulbancha — “place of many tongues” — which is never not in bloom, and is island colorful (houses in teal, magenta, lime green), and also like all tomorrow’s parties happened in one night. So much pushing beyond edges. The way this river rolls. Broken levee; faulty systems that be. Did these punx die chasing a dream?

I know about dreams. I’m back in anything-goes NOLA on the tail-wisps of one. She is Mother Magick, who is basically the highest incarnation of me — bringing people together through sacred play and song and story, freely, effortlessly, and hopefully with my brass band, The Horned Toads, and whoever else wants to join, beside me. She’s a lofty one, maybe, especially remembering standing in Jackson Square last Spring, barely braving busking with my medicine drum and some still-shaky, unamplified songs. I haven’t done much more in the way of that so publicly since.

After leaving New Mexico a week later than planned, I practically rode the brakes the whole drive to the Big Easy. See, me and life were chillin’ over in the wide open expanse of red, red rock, and cold, star-bright nights. I was finally feeling some calm acceptance of myself. Feeding my stories to the fire, which is where it all begins anyway. Quieting the fuck down and listening in. A semi-soothed nervous system.

Only problem was I’d already put a deposit down on a spot in the hip Bywater neighborhood. And, though I coulda let all that hard-earned money just… you know… go… (how dare you!)… some still-small whisper packed my bags and pushed the car forward, repeating, “Just see. Just see. Just see.” I felt some height of hope through Texas, listening to Wonka’s “Pure Imagination” and Wendy’s “Over the Rainbow” on repeat. I could feel the freedom of truly sharing my gift buzzing and exciting and making a smile of my teeth.

Here, though — I feel fight and flight and freeze. I’d fawn dawn if I hadn’t completely forgotten how to wake up and pray to it like I did back home. A disorientation of sky. Something half alive in the cemetery. What is it to risk yourself? Can one do it with a safety net — increments, steps — or must they completely throw themselves at the sopping ground of the unknown’s feet? I’m not sure whether it’s best to let the dream die, or try and revive it.

The cathedral is truly impressive. It’s a two-ish-foot-tall river pebble construction with stained glass windows and goofy gargoyles grouted above the bevels. (They’re tongues-out with beards and boobies.) The back of the tower remains open to receive any offerings for whoever this is dedicated to.

Not to judge eternity or whatever, but, to my very Virgo eye, this all feels like a warshed-up, forgotten heap. I’ll later learn that around All Soul’s Day there’s a procession that marches to the “End of the World,” as this bend in the river is called, to honor these folx. I’ll return to this spot again later and the Airstream will be totally cleaned out, and the plastic alligator and framed “For My Son” note rearranged on the porch. So, some frequent, gracious tending. For now, however, the bardo feels like a hot mess that needs a good cleaning up. Like something that needs to be breathed into. Something that needs movement. Needs a deep and trusting bow at the altar of the soul’s knowing; a choice to believe and trust in the goodness found in the present moment. Right here, right now. Not over there. Not that grass. Not split. Here. Now. As one. Fully alive.

Or —

oh —

wait —

is that just…

me?

{Looks around side to side to see if anyone has caught her in this confessional slip.}

Oh.

It is —

{Perplexed scowl.}

Me.

{Arielle emits a long sigh through the mouth that makes a horse sound and ends in an exaggerated pouty face. Her shoulders slump all the way forward. She defeatedly swipes her tennis shoe across the asphalt and accidentally kicks a hard, browning pomegranate.}

Pomegranate.

{An ancient myth spirals forward.}

The underworld.

{Arielle realizes her whereabouts. She brings her hands to her face, which begins to morph, melty-like, as if in Munch’s “The Scream.” If there is a camera filming, it holds for a beat too long on Arielle’s wide-mouthed terror as she mimes, “NOT AGAIN!” If there’s sound, it’s the simultaneous spin of an ambulance blaring and the faint but sure plucking of a harp.}

I am in the underworld.

Literally, in a sense, as much of New Orleans is drooping below sea level; a precarious and resilient bowl of somehow. Here, the dance with death is sound in the air. Those above-below, above-mentioned cemeteries, of course. Too, the many haunted ghost tours around the French Quarter (full of bloody, murderous facts). The Secondline street parades that are now Sunday parties for everyone originally started as funeral marches — the first breath coming through those celebratory horns born in a beloved family/community member’s last one.

To me, the underworld is apparent in the everywhere-you-look-and-anytime-of-day drinking. The man shooting up in the bar corner. Trash everywhere. All. The. Ceaseless. Noise. The National Guard and ICE stalking the streets, and somewhere behind the criss-cross applesauce of assault rifles, a man who was once a boy who radically forgot… what again?

Mmhmm. The underworld. Yeah. I said it. Though the waves of NOLA heat are deliciously pool worthy — and though the Bear here has not necessarily halted her sleep (a different place to dance every night of the week) — and though here comes Carnival, here comes Carnival, right down Mardi Gras Lane — it is still Winter, the time of rest and regeneration. It is still the season of letting die what needs to die before Spring’s sweet return. I am held tight in God’s garbling grip. I am goop galumphing.

{Arielle follows the pomegranate she knocked, which rolls over broken glass and dried, scattered roses and lands at the feet of the cemetery’s “Wind-Up Phone Booth.” The corded antiquity sits open-air on a black table with a note encouraging to “PHONE A DEAD FRIEND.” There’s a lace backdrop hung behind it. Little lights. A strand of jewels.

With some spook in the reach, Eerielle picks up the handset thinking she’ll call Grandma Iva. She begins to turn the dial, remembering playing with one of these as a kid and the slight bit of pressure needed to move the wheel around. But, for whatever reason, though Arielle is trying for 7 and 8 and 9, the wheel will not move beyond 6 and 6 and 6. Arielle gasps with a worried expression: “666!?” She places the receiver to her left ear and hears a quiet, familiar purr.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.}

A flat voice fuzzes in: “Welcome to Hell. To whom may I direct your call?”

She sounds like Roz the slug secretary from Disney Pixar’s Monsters Inc.

I didn’t really expect anyone to answer, so am stunned for what to say.

Roz clears her throat. I can see the fat stickiness of her lurching as she adjusts her pointy glasses and says, “Hell-o, anyone there? How may I, hrrmm, hell you?”

Sooner than I know it, out stammers, “P-p-p-p-Persephone. Is Persephone in? Can you connect me with Persephone?”

Roz snorts, “B’ahh! Popular lady! Queen’s busy ushering in new souls with Hades, sugar. Besides, as soon as she’s done in four more months, I gotta get her on the line with Demeter, who’s been calling every other teary-eyed second for her daughter. Doesn’t she have some seeds to be counting or something? Like, give it a rest, ma.”

She chuckles with a duck-like hah-hah-hah.

“Oh. Yeah. Hmph,” I say, unsure whether to be more alarmed that I’m asking to talk to the Queen of the Underworld, or that this slug just called me “sugar.” I inhale and try again. “What about Inanna?”

“No can do. She’s on book with the hooks.”

“What?” I say, watching as a crow flies overhead.

“Don’t you know the story, little sister? From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below — from the Great Above the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below —”

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Let’s get inspired by images, ya! Check some these collage journals I’ve been making for the not-so-masses. (Everything I do = one-o-a-kind, ain’t it now, and usually just a wee crooked.)

Hey, do you want a collage from moi for Christmas, or as a gift for someone you lurve? Can be journal-like or framed. DM me.

This man from Virginia bought this guacamayo (parrot power) jacket I painted off of me at a Dia de Los Muertos art market in Taos.

When he was deliberating, spinning ‘round in his almost wings, checking this angle and that, and flapping the fringes, his wife said to him, “Where you gonna wear that, hunny?” And he responded, “I don’t know…family Christmas?” And she said, “You sure? Your grandma rips you a new one when you wear a necklace!”

I laughed and laughed until I almost died when he FINALLY decided to walk away with the big bird—that symbol of being your squawking and colorful authentic self no matter what; those healing feathers.

Almost better than this step toward realizing myself as an actual artist who can move some goods, was learning allll about this sweet fam & their five kids & Matthew’s love for his woman & how this man had recently met his papa not long after some surprising DNA test results. Turns out dad’s a crazy-good saxophonist. I saw the proof.

Tonight, I’m sending all that lot good vibes, especially Gran — some holy acceptance when she sees her boy has really flown to the wild side.

Who’da thunk it?!?!?!?! Apparently this coat used to belong to once-upon-a-country-star, Terri Clark. (Though I know my man here isn’t singing “poor, poor, pitifiul me” and more “awesome, awesome, amazing me” in this LOOK.) If you’re interested in peeping any jackets (or I’ve moved to purses, fanny packs, and even some loafer-like Fryes) for yourself or a loved one for Christmas wish list, let a sister know.

Mother Magick is in this corn maiden/mother/maiden?/mother? costume she created. I sewed (yes, sewed) every kernel into place. Ok, I admit, I hot-glued them on my “unicorn” “helmet,” which does have mandalas and spirals and so much devoted detail, by goddess. You’re gonna hear about this outfit more in the essay I’m still not done chewing on. Hold tight!!!!! (TBH, I may not include that part, so don’t get your hopes too up.) (Lol @ the “For Life” by my head. Corn4lyfe. But really. I mean it.) PS ANOTHER SHAMELESS SELF PLUG TO HIRE ME FOR YR NEXT EVENT :)

Now is the time to give high praise to this little teal typewriter. I am so thankful for the way we’ve gotten to know one another lately, and for what a true gift it has been to be at the helm of the Poem Store, writing on-demand poetry for the people.

It goes like this: you give me some fun details to work off of — the juice, essentially — and then you give me five minutes (sometimes more; I’m still sharpening my channel) — and then badabingbadaboom, baby. Your special poem performed to you by me and then landing right in your hands (sometimes with a few typos ‘cause my spacebar’s been gettin’ stuck, aye).

It’s amazing what I can learn about people with this humble, old-school tool. To learn what lights people up, or has their heart hanging low. One of the wives in the lesbian couple has cancer, and they want a poem about getting to the other side of it, so I write them in a sunrise next to an alpine lake, remembering the long hike here and the beauty of a waking now. A little boy is VERY SERIOUS about trains, so I make him the conductor of the Southwest Chief, and he races a roadrunner across the States. Some besties are reuniting, and they want flowers in their poem, so I have them walk across the largest dahlia petal ever known; after, I find out one of the women’s names is Dahlia. (This strangely happens often.)

It’s like that, right? The magic of the moment. The spark of the chance. The subtle synchronicities when we’re open to them. The importance of the sharing, the caring, the bearing witness with a simple clack, clack, clack.

Grateful.

Oh, okay! Another video! This is a teaser for the playlist, “HOW THIN ARE YOUR VEILS,” because I was able to look at my Substack stats and see that hardly anyone clicks on the link to listen to my very well-curated music selection. Now, I’m not taking that personally, but I did wanna encourage folx to CRANK IT, so I did a short dance mash-up of some of the songs from this month’s grooves.

Do I absolutely love the video? No. To be quite honest, I was close to bleeding when I took this, and I was having quite the frustrated bouts filming, realizing how tightly my pants are fitting these days and just how unlubricated my joints feel. I felt as stiff as a burnt tortilla. I’m really glad my jeans didn’t rip as I creakily went deep into the funnel of love. Plaza Blanca, though, am I right? WOW.

So, that leads to… the last but not least… ‘list.

It starts with Frank Morgan’s “Lullaby,” which I learned about while writing a preview for the Taos Jazz Fest, in its 11th year in honor of Morgan. Somewhere in between the time that he was in and out of prison on drug-related charges, he linked up with now-82-year-old master pianist, George Cables, to live again and again and again in this lullaby. I’ve actually started AND ended the set with two different versions of this song, because it melts me so completely in the present, and draws me ever closer to my future.

“Raven Song” and “Marigold” and “By the Grave” are specific to Dia de Los Muertos time, which we’re pretty far past at this point, but, hey, the light is still fading and the shadows are still long, like in the song “Long Shadow,” by Kentucky crew, Twin Limb.

Alice Phoebe Lou is back with her absolutely ah-ing/awing honesty. She’s “stronger now and softer, too/ I’m older now, but feel younger than when I pretended to know everything/ wanted to win rather than to learn something…”

I’ll speak to one more song amongst the 21, and that’s “Halo,” covered by Alexa Sunshine Rose. What a surprise to learn that this woman — who I first heard singing around a campfire at an ancient skills gathering (think: mocassin making, hide tanning, etc.) — sings THIS song. Normally, she’s all pachamama and water medicine music, and now she’s Beyonce medicine?!?! It’s a beautiful rendition, and all the better ‘cause it tickles me so.

In case you didn’t click it the first time. ;) enjoy!!!

<3 con todo mi sleepy-eyed corazon,

reyna

Ohhh, shnip! The third time Arielle is in your inbox this week? That’s unprecedented! First, a multifaceted Magic Mother birthday video! Then turning dead coyote pups inside out and right side in! And now this throbbing Woman of the West newsletter, oh my!

The recent inundation has really re-emphasized to me that sometimes you got it (AND WHEN U GOT IT U…

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When’s the last time we had a proper Viewsletter up on this stack? And can anyone tell me what qualifies as proper? Because there’s a chance I don’t wanna go back...

Guess what!

I was born again by the river on September 18. The celebration culminated in a birthday wedding. Yeah — birthday wedding. Once and for all, I married myself. The new-day Chama Mama, my willow cousins, plus Grandpa/ma canyon were my witnesses. And the hummingbird, of course. Magic all around. It was a real…ball. You’ll get that joke once I eventually write about the union. Though that might be a month from now.

Because what I’m realizing is that one long-ass essay cada mes is about the best I can actually promise you people. Remember, oh, remember, way back when — when I was but a budding Substacker selling you sillies weekly gutwrenchers/overshares, and, like, lots of other shit? (Where dat p-cast at, hmmm, Reyna?)

I really had great and pure intentions in all them cross-my-heart-hope-to-dies. Then I realized my monetizing/forcing passion quickly brought the “hope to die” part to life. Yikes.

Now — I’m not tryna make excuses. Really I’m owning up to the fact that I’ve slipped on my word/s. Especially bowing here to all my paying peeps. You know who you are, and gracias, gracias, gracias for continuing to Stripe me. Not like you’ve been tossing and turning for my letters in your inbox, but hey. I feel better having acknowledged this.

And for sticking with a new plan: I’m gonna give you what I can when I can, and I hope to God the writing will be all the better for it.

Like with this coyote story that’s coming to you before I hum off to Mexico for the Moondance on Tuesday. We’ve been hanging out hardcore, me and this coyote. Sharing rabbits in the sage and and “den” whats…! Nah, but really, there’s been some good inside-out making through the bones and fur of this upcoming essay, and it’s needed spaciousness between my goes at it. I’m genuinely excited for you to lock eyes with the little beast prontito, though. Owww-woo!

Other than that, I’m very excited to be receiving letters in the snail mail, as requested for my b-day gift. I was really curious to read little tidbits about people’s lives in that slowed-down presence that can come with handwriting. I also realized I didn’t know what most of my friends’ scribbles look like. To me, it feels like a beautiful extension of the heart, to be in the dance of pen to page. It’s so personal. So intimate. (It’s also cognitively better for you.)

It’s such a fun adventure going to the mailbox to see who’s arrived. Suddenly, I am on a walk with elder-drum-heart, Silke, and we are finding golden aspen leaves and feathers together in a raven card. Then I am celebrating Wendy in her leaning-forward remembrance of her relationship with herself. Cara writes big on thick, colorful paper and is emerging from a long darkness that details rainbow-whispy like her epic “life magnified: moth antennea” stamp. (I saved it.)

I cry with Kyle’s letter. Kyle is my oldest friend in the world starting back in them good ‘ole YMCA days. I’m touched the instant I see his pink-inked name in the return address. Transported in time with the Lisa Frank unicorn sealing the envelope shut. More stickers fall from the opening: coyote, elk, parrot, butterfly. Does he somehow know I’ve been on one with the coyote lately? Or that a huge bull crossed my path two starry skies back, rack near scooping constellations? A wink of seeing without seeing. Uh-zig-uh-zig-ahhhh.

“On your 35th trip around the Sun, I wish you waves of prosperity and, above all else, moments of stasis; quiet pockets where the tumult calms, and you can just be wholly, wonderfully yourself,” he near-signs off before challenging me to have a dance party in a parking garage like we used to do as seniors, blaring Tegan and Sara’s “Walking with a Ghost.” (MISSION ACCEPTED.)

His pink scrawl is so soft and words so sincere that they push through the subtle annoyances an Aries boy and a Virgo gal headbutted all those years as besties. It felt like an across-timelines bowing. Pure love. I had to lay in bed and let that goodness wash over me for awhile, slowly breathing it in.

I have been continuously stand-stilled by the seriousness and preciousness of this life lately. I feel myself opening, and opening again. Saying yes. Reaching in deeper. Answering the call to higher purpose, pray tell.

Anyway, the real subject of this whirly-womany newsletter is — what I opine as — this very daring little b-day vid for you that I spent some hot, amusing afternoons on.

The video goes through 35 different iterations of Arielle Reyna, one for each year I’ve been twirling around down here on Mother Earth.

Some characters you’ll understand, easy peasy: the writer, the mermaid, Briskie dog mom.

Some you’ll only recognize if you saw my one-woman show, The Lil Mermaiden, last year. (Try-a-Ton’s back with a shaved mustache and a serious self-talk repatterning, yo! And Cursula’s snake-shed outfit was more intact than I thought she’d be, thank goddess.)

In one clip I’m embodying my great-grandmother and wearing her ripped-up, 100-plus-year-old dress.

Another clip is super-duper edgy. Like………………………………………………

One references this video, which is never not funny.

Throughout most you’ll notice that I’m representing different energies of the goddess that I’m working with. You’ll also see that my hair absolutely loves being inside my mouth hole.

I might’ve done one extra for shits & giggs. (To count that nine months in Mama Barri.)

Since we live in a Tik-Tok world, I tried to keep each clip at five to 10 seconds. Some Arielle versions go on a little longer, especially the intro/outro by Mother Magick, who’s a newer part of me I’m stepping into. At first in the editing process, I’d chopped up her part, but then I went back on that to let her breathe in her natural unscriptedness. Even if she’s a lil redundant when she says “abundant riches” toward the end. (Embarrassing!) Even if it takes one whole minute for her to say what she’d like to say. Can we respect the getting there??? My life motto right now is “LET HER, LET HER, LET HER” & I’m damn devoted to it. Both Mother Magick and I thank you for your kind attention.

The whole show itself is 9 minutes and 18 seconds, which correlates to my birthdate: 9/18. (You know I am this way.) Stay to the end for the best present ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And lo siento ‘bout the wind skewing sound. I don’t have a boom mic, and, as they say, “Wind in New Mexico…” (My vid skills are what they are and ain’t what they ain’t.)

It’s hilarious to think I spent sooo much time on this for no real reason other than just for fun. For the freedom in the flow. Who does that anymore? I’m hoping my good feeling meets somewhere in the middle with yours. A vesica piscus of pleasure, and unity in diversity.

Now, without further ado, the masterpiece!

<3

Recently after I drum, the hum. Loud and buzzing. Like a small plane could be landing in my ears. Thunder’s afternoon yawn echoing clouds in the curl of my cochlea.

A month ago, night one of my wilderness fast: walking a canyon at dusk. I played my hand drum with a persistent beat — a shield to whatever big animals shift liminal. When I paused my singing…

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******

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******

First time busking on the screets of New Orleans.

It’s funny how we get these big ‘ole idea…

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*

There’s a parade rolling through the Garden.

An eastern wind sets in just after sundown on the curved corner of Earth and everywhere. It blows right through the tuba and trombone and trumpet. Animates a whole cast of four-leggeds to march on their hinds and mimic thunder on the drumline. The coon wraps his lil hands around snare stick and downstrokes a …

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******

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******

I thought I was all done with my three-part essay, The Cougar’s Whisker, until I went back to the cave where it all began & listened for the whispers for a little while.

*

The night was very alive from the inside of the quiet cave. The sky tremored with heat. Lightn…

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******

Gonna lay down my burdens down by the riverside.

Woke with the whole damn fam this …

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This here is pt. 3/3 of “The Cougar’s Whisker” — an essay about the first wilderness fast I experienced in 2022. A grand meeting of nature and my soul. The story weaves my personal narrative with an old Korean myth. Click pink to catch up with pt. 1 or pt. 2. Otherwise, stalk on.

******

I didn’t want to leave that place. My between-world walking. The rippling folds of eternity. That cave whose mouth I danced, sending up sand like spit as I turned and kicked, letting the 13-year-old inside my 31-year-old body break from all her choreographed steps to lose it the length of the overhang. There in the spirit’s home. The soul’s home. The armadillo’s home. The hawk’s and heron’s. The cougar’s.

When the cougar finally came, I’d just finished “merging.” Essentially that looked like creating a line of rose petals across a flat in the cave and visualizing my teen self on one side of the divide and my woman self on the other. Looking playfully-challengingly into the other’s eyes, big me countdowned down to “GO!” Bam! Merge! Like intentionally running into a friend in the high school hallway, a crashing chicken. “I need you here with me,” I said before the collision, hoping this could be the final step in this soul retrieval on the last sunrise of the solo; three hours till returning to base camp. I did the chest-bumpy-leap thing a few times on each side before falling to the ground, letting my lungs finish the process.

A stillness. The air morphed then. A high string singing the valley. A harp. A harmonica. Absolutely nothing at all. Light bent and shadows skipped. The lizard stopped his pumping rock, and the birds hushed their hymns in the sparkling green. The magnetics of the sacred pulsing the bone. The bare step of the big cat coming from the south.

I slowly turned my head to face the cougar. Watched as the quiet-reaching forearms guided the cat my way. Her low-hanging belly swished as she moved and I took in her incredible size. The power in her square face, both soft and sharp. The pink-dark nose shifted gathering the scent of me. Me — mute, remembering to breathe; my heart a sudden kid on the drums: wild and without reason. To my surprise, I heard myself say, “Hello.” She stopped then, staring intently with those yellow, unshakeable eyes.

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******

I had to come clean about the threesome. The threesome I’d had in Matchstic…

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******

The next day, she went to the market early, returning with a slab of raw meat. Wrapping it carefully in layers of cloth, she put it in a sack, and walked to the mountain. She started up the path. One step ahead of the next, she dared not think about her goal. When she had walked halfway up the mountain, she stopped. She began to sing a song…a lullaby that she had heard as a child. Over and over she sang the simple song. // “Hush, hush, don’t be afraid. Hush, hush, the stars will guide and protect you. Hush, hush, don’t be afraid, my sweet, sweet one.” // She rocked as she sang, singing to herself and to that great one she had never seen. Carefully, she unwrapped the meat, leaving it in the middle of the path. Her footsteps were careful and silent as she backed down the path, and waited far away, from a place where she could watch that meat. // After a time, she felt more than heard a presence. Moving smoothly down the path was a beast – a great beast, greater than she had ever seen, she caught her breath and watched as he paced around the meat, watching, watching. —The Tiger’s Whisker, Korean Folktale (retold by Bonnie Malouf)

******

I am like that cat, overcoming my own darknesses. The soul duels fear and doubt and inertia, for these are the children of the snake, the worms hidden in the clay of being that would gnaw a man to death even while he lived. I am that cat. I stand up and fight. I struggle with the evils of my own petty insistence. The battle of old gods wages in me. I am a creature of history—human and divine. I am the scroll of numerous myths, one teller of a single story. —Awakening Osiris, Normandi Ellis

******

“Cave Song/ Easy Does It” — a little diddy that came to me in the cave long ago & was helped realized with guitar accompaniment today thx to Mr. Matchstick. <3

******

There is a place where time folds and falls into soft dark light, sand beneath the fingers, fingers in the sand. Where the past and the even-deeper past honeycomb future, sponge present. Soft mind of the heart iterating now and now and now. It is a time within time and a time out of time. A magical mercy rich with myth and metaphor and absolute calm and quiet slowing down. It is hard to bottle brilliance — the heart in its true expansion — but I will whittle with words the meat I molded in this homecoming. Present to you the marbled slabs that caught cougar’s attention and brought her my way. The shining string of her whisker like a moonbow beholding the valley.

******

First, I had to bury the dogs.

I trapped their yap in various nature.

I designated the Indian Paintbrush with its vibrant lick of coral as the little show dog. When I was 13, all my nails were polished that hot-orange-pink, purple flashes of eyeshadow popping above my blue-colored contacts. Every tone of me painted another tone. Tucked in the flower’s yellow bracts? Hair fried with heat. My blonde poodle perm. Highlighted then darkened. Hours spent crimping, straightening, perfecting, perfecting. Booped into the brush’s never-skinny-enough stem: A million trips to the mall and the ripped stitches of Abercrombie and Fitch. I’d walk into that manufactured maze looking like everybody else and came out with no clue who I was. Shaved down bare with no tap to my roots. I held the bright perennial loosely before bending the valley to put it beneath loose needles.

The juniper berries were comparison. A little clan of them rolling my palm like a church of chihuahuas, a clique of girls. White cloud over purple skin. Why don’t I have that rhinestone collar? That tiny body? Why isn’t my bark as beautiful? How much of my power had I given away in lessening myself to the pretty ones who somehow toyed the attention of my unrequited loves? I was a big block of shallow, jealous breath. One of the long-haired, ferocious dogs kept trying to flee my roundup, bit me with a cactus spine when I chased her seed through the dirt.

And then there was the arrow-pointed rock: the meanest maltese: the popped-collar need to prove my looks, my worthiness. Then, and then, again and again. In middle school, I’d learned how to lie to lure a boy. To wield the sharp arrow of my body — a most powerful tool — to steal even the slightest attention. Eighteen years later and I still subtly objectified myself to make sure I was seen, unabandoned. Thirty-one going on 13. This time — instead of crumpin’ extra hard center-court at halftime shows for the cute so-and-so in the bleachers, or drunkenly landing myself on any lap around the bonfire to force my heart through Swisher-Sweet-stained spit — I was busy showing my then-partner just what a ceremonial dream girl I was. I will smoke your smoke. I will sing your song. I dared grippingly. In hunting his love, I trapped myself. Tiny, crooked teeth made big shadows on the walls of my heart’s slow releasing and becoming. Growl and pant and tense and please.

A few of those dogs are still lost in the forest somewhere. Couldn’t fully lure them from their hiding. They run amuck like a little freak pack in the corn fields, the hawks eying overhead.

*

Hunched with a mortar and pestle in hand, grinding.

My mortar: A slightly curved rock I found in the cave, some piece of sea language saved along its edge. Coral, perhaps.

In the rock’s palm, spit-softened corn gave with the persistence of my pestle.

And my pestle: A marbled jasper massage wand I’ve used to feel inside of myself, to reach into the womb I never learned about as a girl except as a laminated slide with western medicine diagrams of that pink, armed blob: THE VAGINA. Back then, I snickered into my desk — a penis Sharpied into its corner — never daring to peer at the power beneath the wood of my middle school seat. The creation of all existence: a total blank in my existence.

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