Time or location, Original piece from 2002

your wounds have no date, time, place or other label

they wear the cold garment of refusal to heal

and refusal to get worse

they are tender to the touch

as my growing panic stretches around today

and if it bursts

if it explodes

it will cease to be panic

soon it will be time to shapeshift

and rise from the ashes

like the fluttering phoenix of dreamtime

pulling on a reserve of patience and dignity

your strength has no name date time location or label

but it has purpose

haunted by past lifetime sins

scratching out verses and litanies

of bittersweet truth, as you hold my eyes open

and you lean on my eternal roots

the pressure intensifies until we collapse

and remake the reality

my art and the poetry of your strength

give me a thick rope to swing from

What roles will you play?

1. I have such mixed reactions to what I read these days, there is the obvious initial rage and fear and sadness that things seem to be getting so utterly insane. But then there is this part of me that feels so incredibly distrustful of EVERY thing I read online about the government. There is the part of me that says phone calls, petitions, even massive marches in protest are not the only answers, if this has really risen to the fever pitch it seems to have reached. We do have power but those who conduct militarized forces will deploy more weapons, use more violence, jail and prison without trial, and worse than we can fathom. They will stop at nothing to make us believe we have no power. I was a grassroots organizer. I have a very strong activist background. But something deep inside me says right now, this is different. What we are facing is different. Perhaps it has always been different and I am just now realizing it. I am resolved in my understanding that each person needs to rebel in their own way and each of us have some soul searching as to what that needs to be. For some, traditional activism is their choice. For others, resistance is meditation and radical loving kindness that is more expansive than usual. I am not saying I have the answers, but I am suggesting that lots of others also do not have answers, even when they are convinced they do and that they need to tell others what they should be doing. This is a time where we need to reflect deeply and assess what kinds of responses we want to give to the parts of the population that promote bigotry, violence, ignorance and are very good at baiting people into debates that go nowhere and end up in more divisiveness. I hear folks resisting the urge to reach out to other groups that serve up hatred and fear, and I get that. I simply wish to offer up the possibilities that all kinds of change are happening in all kinds of ways every day that are not as visible, not easy to recognize, and that do not get media coverage. My intention in writing now, is not to say submit, be pacified, be silent. I am urging folks to find out what they want their roles to be during the next 4 years and beyond. One way I resist is to not allow anything I say or do or think be altered or dictated to me by any politician, from the oval office or anywhere. I will stop here, but this is far from over.

Context, Meaning and Heated Discussions

Deep in thought, partway into a relaxation, and a mental purging of the events gaining steam and momentum, it hits me.

Folks feel that they must be heard, that their frustration is due to not being heard. I ponder this and feel myself rising above it all, as sometimes happens, for that eagle eye view, for that place beyond worldly noises and sights. From that perch, I survey this mess. I see the beauty and kindness squandered by cynical mockery and practices of cruelty.

It comes to my attention that there is a glaring mistake made by so many of the people engaging in these massive struggles for justice. I notice, context is key. It is the key to unlocking the closed minds of those we push up against. In so many cases, reading a brief message on a sign held up in a march, or heated debates online, the context for the opinions and messages is lost, while being pushed forward into the loudness and fierceness of the opposition.

So much is lost amidst all of this because the context for many arguments and potential solutions are buried underneath the emotions and panicked energy. For example, a feminist might attempt to convince a person about the civil right that is a woman's right to choose. This sensible message is so often taken out of context in order to be destroyed that many people have abandoned the viewpoint altogether.

We do not all laugh at the same jokes, we do not all cry at the same tragedies. There are infinitely varied viewpoints and we cannot agree on definitions of words, like the word "feminism". We are so often presented with information that is so wildly out of context that we reject it, but in reality, we have not properly understood what we have heard or read, so rejecting it is a premature reaction. This is the song and dance of the modern debate. Definitions of terms that we all accept to be understood when they truly are not, and information taken entirely out of context, this is the name of the game.

What I have shared with you here, is what the eagle eye's view has given me. I encourage you to fly above it all to see what you see.

Flow of meaning always taking shape

Maybe it is the combined energies and intentions of the objects holding space on the altar in the front room. They seem to blend into the background while taking shape with the strength of the beauty they rode in on, the words are properly placed, the images are arranged to tell a story but only in the most subtle, intimate way. Most would walk by the fireplace and what is displayed on the altar with a dismissive nod, and without taking just a few moments to contemplate the strategy, the understated décor that is more than just an aesthetic treat.

Maybe it is an activated presence of Tara, goddess and bodhisattva and being of many roles, all embodied with fierce compassion, blessings of liberation, dissolver of suffering, giver of longevity. I know she fills the room at times and sinks behind invisible veils at other times. Her mantra is right there if one wished to speak it out and see how it feels on the tongue, yes, Tara's Tongue, the name of this blog. It implies mother tongue, it implies a language of compassion, which is one born of her spirit, her light, her courage, her being.

Maybe it is the balance of combined story and essence, as my fingers are guided to place and arrange and move and create and re-create and keep a flow of truth, a flow of meaning always taking shape. To the untrained eye and to the uninitiated, it simply looks like a gathering of objects and cards. One must already be meeting the world one visits in a deeper way to be cognizant of the reality created in the room by what has been shaped and what has been lined up together.

Maybe it is the application of this mantra: "Words weave intention" and that is what I apply when creating this space. It is not only the words that create intention, but each physical piece has a purpose. Each compilation is a snapshot but remains private.

Maybe you will need to create one of your own if you have not already, in order to truly know what I am saying.

Not in charge

Tonight I move away
from what has become
too much
content
too many sentences
paragraphs
intent to be related to

I move away because
at this time I do not relate
one of these spells of time
wherein I have gathered
all unnecessary pieces
some are enormous
and thrown them into the abyss
some seemed to be precious
so I may have tenderly placed them
on the conveyor belt heading out
to the great place of transformation
and ask will I ever
successfully shapeshift into
the type of being that balances layers of
internal complicating and conflicting worlds
yet still is able to walk in the world of humans
jumping after the dangling carrots of normalcy
normal lives, normal relationships
and many do say that this bizarre notion
will die someday
the snow globe shaken up in your hand,
telling winter that:
"I can imitate your magic
so poorly and still
I am a delight to the eyes
of the consumer"

I step away from consuming
I move away into unfettered silence
the only movement going now
is a recording of water
since I
am thirsty for the real thing
the real vulnerable aching river flow
the ocean with unmasked salty glow
throwing wave after wave
in the direction of the abyss

we make mandalas to pay homage to
what nature does so organically, so easily
as we are taking snapshots of sunsets and sunrises,
congratulating ourselves for noticing them,
nature knows no fear in these cycles of
beauty created and destroyed
horrors to us because of how moronically dependent
we have become on nature not acting out
in order to protect us.

This hit me years ago,
the indifference
within the creating of the storms and fires and all that she has
in her arsenal
can shift to love as one of the
Great Mother's many vibratory realities,
she will reflect it back to us
in the alchemy of our relation to and reverence for her
being at peace with the death and destruction necessary to her
artistic process.
we are not in charge,
foolish to ever think we were.

we will land

patience pours from the stillness
of your activities

in the gaze of yours with that
special blend of what you covet
what you share
what you don't know you are sharing
I never met a person more caring

in the fights
in the throws of passion
in where I am
and where I am asking
in the mystical
and so very precious knowing of you
feeling of you
all the way from skin and flesh
and muscle and bones
to the psychic clairaudient constant telephones
I find myself answering
and hanging up and pushing all that

morbid beautiful information from dreams
from the back of our conversations and silences
inside and through out those private places we shared
wrapped around each other like phone cords intertwined
all at once neutral
all at once furious
with the state of the world
we railed against

inside the decision to bring the knife to the
throat of each possibility and
turn back

in that never using force to get what we want

giving into

the oblique nature of our first tender interactions
the way you got in
without the use of force and
how confused and happy and scared that left me
you never left me
so far
you have never
employed the use of force and this
leaves us spinning spiraling up

falling in patterns invisible to most eyes
creating indifference within the hearts and minds of
those who find it necessary to push back, push into
a life of severance

while I lay more ground work for reverence

we fall and then more so float with the pressure of the subtle wind
just a whisper of a breeze, redefining strength to include

us as leaves free falling
trusting we will land
where we are magnetized to be
vibrating this peace so effortlessly

Relating to this, maybe some of you do too!

1. "The Empowered Feminine is not the Woman who has finally, painstakingly fixed her flaws.
   She is the Woman who has stopped apologising for them.
2. The Empowered Fem...inine is not the Woman who has conquered fear.
   She is the Woman who knows well there is no courage without fear.
3. The Empowered Feminine is not the Woman who has it all figured out.
   She is the Woman who steps in to uncertainty and dances with the Mystery.
4. The Empowered Feminine is not the Woman who has never fallen or failed.
   She is the Woman with scars on her hands and knees, some of which may still be bleeding.
5. The Empowered Feminine is not the Woman who never cries.
   She is the Woman who dares to feel vulnerably and care deeply.
6. The Empowered Feminine is not in competition with other Women.
   She is a diamond in a sky full of stars.
7. The Empowered Feminine is not the Woman playing the blame game.
   She is the one whose divine assignment is the solution.
8. The Empowered Feminine is not the Woman waiting for the approval of others.
   She gives her own permission.
9. She has heard the call.
   And she’s not waiting any more."