Monthly Archives: December 2014

God doesn’t make mistakes, people do

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Constance, the amazing Lori Duron says it best. Please read her post below. I am still processing this horror, but may have some thoughts in a few days.

Walk Humbly. Just that.

Raising My Rainbow

Art by Leelah Alcorn Art by Leelah Alcorn

The suicide and suicide letter of Leelah Alcorn haunt me. They have gripped my heart and not let go, squeezing tighter every time I think about them. And, I think about them often.

Leelah’s suicide affects me so deeply because, like her, my child is differently gendered — putting him in the group of children who have the highest rate of suicide attempts in the world.

That could be my child. That could have been my brother.

We grew up in very religious home. We went to youth group on Wednesday nights and church every Sunday. If you didn’t go to church, you didn’t go anywhere else.

Starting in seventh grade, at age 12, I was taught that being gay was one of the worst sins a person could commit and being transgender was unspeakable. When I was in high school and my brother came out…

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This Brilliant Indifference

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tumblr_nh5lyiZ6JT1qgk7mfo1_500I am a childe of dark, a childe of light.

I was born beneath the shining moon
but just outside it’s golden touch
there, on dim green meadows blanketing
the warm red earth in comfort midst the singing dark and stars.

I was born upon the stones that radiate residual heat
as they remember blazing suns so brilliant beneath that blue sky
that blankets those same meadows green and glorious in the day
but now those stones lay bare in the cold night, as I am bare as well, uncovered.

I was born in darkness, and outside
looking in upon the singing stars
hung in night sky velvet-soft and sable
surrounded by splendors from some lost fable.tumblr_mhw41fyY9F1s3ik60o1_500

Outside.

I was born outside the secret knowledge that every other person seems to have
of just how goddam dull and ordinary everything around them “really is”.  I mean
just look at them, shining so brilliant each day and acting like it’s only night!  I see
their flaming hearts a-fire and blazing but they just trudge by feeling bored, uptight.

I watch events unfold and want to sing in joy and caper!
But when I open up my heart and shout and point in wonder…
well, those fish eyes turn and stare and those mouths gape and mock, hung open
and I am named too much, inglorious and out of order…out of order…out of order.tumblr_n8rdf9rMDR1sbg1lmo1_1280

Childe dwelling in the swelling dark of gloomy bored indifference
Childe dwelling midst the dazzle vast and glory of a day

(just One Day that unfolds brand new
over and over and over and over and over
Full, expressed complete miraculous
in every single same lily white
in every single same bird flight
in every single whispering wind
that echoes ever over the same ever different waters bright)expansion-by-paige-bradley

I am a companion with no company to keep because I’m
elated and afraid,
curious and fearful,
confused and wide awake
and seeing all around me
the marvels that they fail to see

(or rather, what they see and call the same?
the same ole same ole same ole same ole same
and let the repetition rob them of the vision
and leave them drunk and sober but
out of proper phase for when intoxication
is called for in this moment and when sobriety is come
to sing us back at last to proper sanity).tumblr_nh5isnxmlS1rk1cbbo1_1280

And on the cusp of Dark and Light I’m homeless in the day, the night,
homeless and repudiating that blank stupor of disinterest
that surrounds me…tries to drown me, pull me in it’s vicious grip
and trap me in its undertow of

violence unfolding
suffering repeated
oppression and injustice
become mere background noise
to serenade those bored yawns
and sighs of such indifference
that boredom has become
a way of life.

Out of phase (childe of dark)
and out of synch (childe of glad day)
delighting in monotony…
another walk beneath beauty…
another page before I sleep…
do it again! do it again, God!
another minute sharing hearts
because our moment is delight
alas…this childe born but belonging
not to day and not to night.tumblr_naka9qSUsT1thqgeao1_1280

 

Autant que toi by Mystic4Ever Dec 2012

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Une nuit de plus s’étale au grand jour
Se propageant comme un feu de Bengale
Au cœur des veines stratifiées d’amour
En puisant sa force au fond sidérale.

Le brouillard étreint l’horizon fébrile
Dans un corps à corps aux contours parfaits
Et même la lune a des airs graciles
Lorsqu’ il l’habille de cotons épais.

Quand le vent sabre un à un les nuages
Un ballet sensuel s’anime là-haut
Le silence est toujours le point d’encrage
Et la pluie menace à jamais les maux.

Le temps se dissout en discontinu
A genoux le ciel fait sa révérence
La terre tremble à perte de vue
Dans son sillage mène cette danse

Et

Je vois mes larmes au bleu de tes yeux
Tu vois tes larmes dans les miens verdâtres
Et nous les regardons brûler ensemble…

Mystic4Ever
Le 27 Décembre 2012

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Suicide Strikes Again

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Constance…this appeared on my Facebook feed…I am distraught.

***********************************************************************************

Leelah was a 17yo ‪#‎trans‬ girl who just committed suicide. Rejected by her Christian parents. Put through reparative therapy. Her suicide note is below.

(Yes, it’s a verified real story. This post is from the City Councilman. Leelah is misgendered in news reports and images say “beloved son.” Love your kids, no matter who they are.)

10882203_10152890370433559_4919673113361989723_n
Chris Seelbach

Some very sad news to share.

Yesterday, a 17-year old committed suicide by jumping in front of a semi on I-71 near the South Lebanon exit.

It has come to light that this person likely committed suicide because she was transgender.

While Cincinnati led the country this past year as the first city in the mid-west to include transgender inclusive health benefits and we have included gender identity or expression as a protected class for many years….the truth is….it is still extremely difficult to be a transgender young person in this country.

We have to do better.

By reading her letter, Leelah makes it clear she wants her death to, in some way, help “trans civil rights movements.”

Please join me in making a donation (investment in our trans kids) right now to TransOhio.

Invest by clicking here: http://www.transohio.org

SUICIDE NOTE
If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide and obviously failed to delete this post from my queue.

Please don’t be sad, it’s for the better. The life I would’ve lived isn’t worth living in… because I’m transgender. I could go into detail explaining why I feel that way, but this note is probably going to be lengthy enough as it is. To put it simply, I feel like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and I’ve felt that way ever since I was 4. I never knew there was a word for that feeling, nor was it possible for a boy to become a girl, so I never told anyone and I just continued to do traditionally “boyish” things to try to fit in.

When I was 14, I learned what transgender meant and cried of happiness. After 10 years of confusion I finally understood who I was. I immediately told my mom, and she reacted extremely negatively, telling me that it was a phase, that I would never truly be a girl, that God doesn’t make mistakes, that I am wrong. If you are reading this, parents, please don’t tell this to your kids. Even if you are Christian or are against transgender people don’t ever say that to someone, especially your kid. That won’t do anything but make them hate them self. That’s exactly what it did to me.

My mom started taking me to a therapist, but would only take me to christian therapists, (who were all very biased) so I never actually got the therapy I needed to cure me of my depression. I only got more christians telling me that I was selfish and wrong and that I should look to God for help.

When I was 16 I realized that my parents would never come around, and that I would have to wait until I was 18 to start any sort of transitioning treatment, which absolutely broke my heart. The longer you wait, the harder it is to transition. I felt hopeless, that I was just going to look like a man in drag for the rest of my life. On my 16th birthday, when I didn’t receive consent from my parents to start transitioning, I cried myself to sleep.

I formed a sort of a “fuck you” attitude towards my parents and came out as gay at school, thinking that maybe if I eased into coming out as trans it would be less of a shock. Although the reaction from my friends was positive, my parents were pissed. They felt like I was attacking their image, and that I was an embarrassment to them. They wanted me to be their perfect little straight christian boy, and that’s obviously not what I wanted.

So they took me out of public school, took away my laptop and phone, and forbid me of getting on any sort of social media, completely isolating me from my friends. This was probably the part of my life when I was the most depressed, and I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself. I was completely alone for 5 months. No friends, no support, no love. Just my parent’s disappointment and the cruelty of loneliness.

At the end of the school year, my parents finally came around and gave me my phone and let me back on social media. I was excited, I finally had my friends back. They were extremely excited to see me and talk to me, but only at first. Eventually they realized they didn’t actually give a shit about me, and I felt even lonelier than I did before. The only friends I thought I had only liked me because they saw me five times a week.

After a summer of having almost no friends plus the weight of having to think about college, save money for moving out, keep my grades up, go to church each week and feel like shit because everyone there is against everything I live for, I have decided I’ve had enough. I’m never going to transition successfully, even when I move out. I’m never going to be happy with the way I look or sound. I’m never going to have enough friends to satisfy me. I’m never going to have enough love to satisfy me. I’m never going to find a man who loves me. I’m never going to be happy. Either I live the rest of my life as a lonely man who wishes he were a woman or I live my life as a lonelier woman who hates herself. There’s no winning. There’s no way out. I’m sad enough already, I don’t need my life to get any worse. People say “it gets better” but that isn’t true in my case. It gets worse. Each day I get worse.

That’s the gist of it, that’s why I feel like killing myself. Sorry if that’s not a good enough reason for you, it’s good enough for me. As for my will, I want 100% of the things that I legally own to be sold and the money (plus my money in the bank) to be given to trans civil rights movements and support groups, I don’t give a shit which one. The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was, they’re treated like humans, with valid feelings and human rights. Gender needs to be taught about in schools, the earlier the better. My death needs to mean something. My death needs to be counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicide this year. I want someone to look at that number and say “that’s fucked up” and fix it. Fix society. Please.

Goodbye,

(Leelah) Josh Alcorn

Between the Lines

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Tree-lines mark the end of alpine meadow-frolics green
and the start of stone relief against the ever-constant skies
stretched out in steely greys and stellar silver blue sky-lines,
and space between connected by the ties of trial and time.Image 001

Far below this mystery waltz I walk deliberate down the lines,
railroad tracks slow, stretched out stark twixt here and there, and ties that bind,
the ties that bind are cracked with age and splintered in worn weather-cloaks
of rushing trains and tumbling time… tumblr_nhc0cxn1Yz1trfg04o1_1280

rumbling down the tracks,
trickling down the rails,

down the lines…
and over ties that bind.

I am between the lines and walk in lurchy stride
from tie to tie in my own quirky dance and graceful glide.
I look sideways, askance with eyes that look inside
to know what’s hidden there between the trees and skies tumblr_nh4aoh3jEn1rgfa66o1_500

and in between the lines,
where I step stride by stride…
and move from tie to tie.

I walk the rail, steps mincing,
my arms swing, flail, balancing,
on that hard steel there, long stretching,
so distant-quick before me,

and falling far behind me,
and steady just beside another rail
that’s always there but can’t be touched
across those ties, beneath that veil.tumblr_nh3jjgaW1O1qei7a7o1_1280

That space between the lines tugs hard at me,
I fall forever in that six inch gaping gulf
to step again on ties, ties carved from trees
cavorting early with those steel grey skies above,
and I am finally caught again
and touch upon the frosty earth

like fog touches trees
like skies caress crags
like roots touch stone

and there I walk, alone between the lines,
my feet upon the ties, the ties that bind
and my heart ponders lines, and ties and spaces
in between the lines, the ones inside of me and what is hidden
there to see by those who stop and look and listen

…and take the time to read between the lines.tumblr_n6ji2gedCm1rfxi3qo1_500

11 Ways 2014 Was the Biggest Year in Transgender History | Rolling Stone

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11 Ways 2014 Was the Biggest Year in Transgender History | Rolling Stone.

Good Morning Constance…

I ran across this article this morning, and of course was interested to read of this historical recounting of an amazing year of awareness growing…

…and yet, somehow, I found it strangely disconnected from my own life.  In the midst of these events, I swam in my own seas of trial, toil, sorrow and joy.

My own year:

In early January, I went to my therapist dressed as myself…outside in public.  It terrified me and I thought I would die of fear.  When I walked into her office, she cried in joy.  Her tears are jewels in my memory.

In late January I had my ears pierced, and though it hurt like crazy, I was ecstatic.  A week later, I was derisively interrogated by subordinates at work “what the F**k had I done with my ears?”.  That particular brand of self-loathing, shame, fear and anger gave me its first sip…it is not intoxicating.  It is hell.

In February, I began HRT…and the horror fires banked so long in forges that rival Mordor in despair began to diminish, and then extinguish, and streams of mercy clear and relief substantial coursed through my veins…and who I am began to blossom and bloom…I was well named at birth, if it is considered what that sort of thing is destined to do…

In April, I had more experiences at work that were distressing.  I also joined my poetry group, and that cadre of people who have only ever known me as myself are such salt of the earth wonders, who simply know me as Charissa, the odd poetess.  One beautiful woman in particular has taken me under her wing…and on that first fearful night, she looked at me with open face and clear eyes.

In Spring and summer, I sold my truck and used the proceeds to fund my transition…of this I can only refer you to those months.

In summer a relationship that is very significant to me began to be built, the first one, in fact, as me Charissa.  It is a very simple one in its arc and scope…it is very complex in that it is unfolding from the end to the beginning, and someday we shall arrive where we are meant to begin.  It is encumbered with obstacles, none insurmountable but all onerous…distance, time, and prejudice rooted in ignorance and fed by distrust are outside forces that have so far driven us on with sails full before those winds, and we have sailed to many wondrous shores…may there ever be another, DDH…ever be another until the Last.tumblr_nh5lyicxll1qgk7mfo1_1280

And in the autumn, I took my own journey down The Green Mile that most of my sisters walk…I was murdered professionally, guilty of the crime of becoming myself and throwing off the chains of privilege and white male power and position.

This is the ultimate crime in our patriarchy.

A human being, born biologically as an XY chromosome-assigned being, and granted all the accompanying privileges, rights and riches, power and position, initiated into the ways of “men” and present in their spaces…this human considers all that as utter futility compared to the all surpassing richness of being myself and authentic…and I am unabashedly thrilled to be myself…I openly declare being a woman to be the better destiny and life.

For those crimes I had to die.  I have been put in my place, and my tale of woe would be recognized by any woman anywhere who sought to be herself in places she was not permitted to be.

Since that moment life is full of unbecoming…unwrapping, unraveling…the chrysalis is split and the butterfly within is terrified as its house and covering is torn asunder…only the future will inform her she can fly while she writhes in the clutches of the threatening lonely present.

Abandoned by friends, neglected by loved ones, showered by Mama, constantly encouraged by one…the heart of my heart and constant support and nearly my life itself…16601790-standard

…that is the year in review for me.  A year of portent.  Perhaps the overall macro view contrasted with the small view of this flea will give you some perspective in the issues we face that cis-gender people take for granted.

May 2015 contain triumph to match the certain tears…may there be joy enough to overcome my fears…and may I find somehow the grace to continue on, in the midst of lonely silence and neglect and need, laying aside my own selfish point of view and greed to feed and care for myself…may I be a vessel poured out over and over again, trusting Mama to fill me full and looking never to others.

Blessings to you Constance…and deepest heart gratitude that you are reading here this day.  Your support has been so precious and invaluable.

Charissa Grace…a butterfly emerging and persistent.

book-sculpture-david-kracov-book-of-life__880

This Is How You Lose Her

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“You must learn her.
You must know the reason why she is silent.
You must trace her weakest spots.

“You must write to her.
You must remind her that you are there.
You must know how long it takes for her to give up.

You must be there to hold her when she is about to.
You must love her because many have tried and failed.
And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.

And, this is how you keep her.”
— Junot Díaz,
This Is How You Lose Her tumblr_nea02hivmC1qj5oxwo1_1280

Living Bread or Primal Soup

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believe in a virgin birth?
implausible, absurd, immature!
a miracle problematic and troubling!!
inconvenient, that!  disruptive!
Why, I don’t prefer it!

go walk on water, or multiply yeasty slices!
but inside…my body…my body…MY body!?!?
Nay!  Do as You please with Yours but

git Yer greezy paws offn mine!

(it’s my precious!)

what’s that? why not?
Why not this birth inconvenient and impractical?
Why…because there is no mystery about this whole mess!!

Simply:
somehow, somewhere, sometime, someway
there was a soup

(not mine, I assure you, and whose?
well that ain’t my department!!)

a group of molecules

(from somewhere, sometime, someplace)

got together without knowing

(because:  before knowing, ya ken?)

they just got together and became self-replicating

(i don’t know about that…
but we have that problem yet today:
self replication…ah self, you cursed demon!)

Hmmm…this sounds ummm,
well, I don’t want to be a smart ass
but I will risk becoming a talking donkey
and ask you:

If there was a Virgin Birth, what happened?
Molecules insensate unknowing
tasting soup without primordial tastebuds
and becoming out of nowhere
the Bread of Life?

And that’s different…how?
(except it excludes Love, oh such Love contained therein!)

Our smartest blindest tell us this:

‘…the universe can and will create itself from nothing.
Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something
rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.’
(ima duck my head now and giggle!
and the tome called The Grand Design…
design…
by a not-Who
in a not-Where
for a not-Reason
but Grand.
and Design.
lol…molecules just laffed out loud)

Look:  this never happens, not anywhere.
So, accepting that mystery, well then
we’re all the same and somewhere we leap

in faith.

‘Cept I leap at Mama…not molecules.
I eat of Miracles, not primal soup,
but I will dunk such Living Bread
as given to me
into the cup of suffering
for the sake of Love
and a Baby
born of a virgin
and my Mama dancing.

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Advent Poems: The Season of Revelation

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the arrival of that miracle
our hearts all know lurks
just outside this skein of time,
practicing its own waiting
for the miracle moment of emergence…and
redemption of yet another season of waiting.

Revealed.our_ends_are_beginnings_by_paradisiacpicture-d7oasob

A God
shouldered It’s Way
into the world today…
This God, revealed
rough and roaring
and wrapped in the skin
of this baby asleep,
hidden here in our heart

Revealed.tumblr_ngacq8vgRy1s7jx17o1_1280

Reunion waits for me and you…
That towering act of redemption
Resounds throughout all of creation, today

Revealed.tumblr_ng4cw8PIiF1soxzypo1_500

Lion, Lamb and Baby through the smoke
Paying every Promise that They Spoke

Revealed.tumblr_nfydtomiHu1s9ib3xo1_500

God has stepped into our world
to dig us out of every prison
we disguised as snug burrows
and cozy hobbit holes

Revealed.tumblr_n0wa71grGI1rj8gavo1_500

This Christmas,
nothing has been exposed…

Revealed.tumblr_msmhh7xdmD1rq9ek2o1_500

Time will never simply pass by
without engraving its mark
in a stab to my heart or a tender sweet touch
or a mortal wound bleeding and dark

Revealed.tumblr_lxlo4o4U3N1r8xslzo1_1280

Kneel where you are, for that is where it is,
that lowly manger unseen by the great
and in that manger, there inside of you
your face upturned and wet with Heaven’s dew
the Christ Child comes to make all things brand new

Revealed.tumblr_ngw3mjvEWs1r3fkjno1_1280

They…hungry…ready
to come to us now.
Them with us
move in us
empty us
to satisfy us
dine with us
and hunger ever sharp and sated
all at once

Revealed.tumblr_ngj4vr7T1y1r1vfbso1_1280

…and we?
With gratitude we enter, invitation tightly clutched to aching breast…
we kneel hushed and astonished safe and sound as we are changed
by this Child’s Gift (or is the Child Himself the gift that’s given?)
Invited to approach and revel, knowing what we’ve always known
is finally here and shining present, Sacred Heart Alive Forever
in the season of fulfillment pure and everlasting…

Revealed.wg441_ghost_1

…and so we yearn, together, aching
in the lonely moments waiting
perfect timing of those winds
to blow away the mists
and let that mountain shine again
in solid clarity and splendour promises
that someday the Divine Loneliness
and human grieving longing
will be overcome by
Faith and Hope and Love

Revealed.tumblr_mozejosP561rn6qqco1_1280

I am mindful of
many things I hold in faith,
committed to God

Revealed.tumblr_mp4l3fWgCO1s6oboso1_1280

For here it is we sit and wait,
for the coming of our Heart
Their meaning to our Core impart.

Today, the Life Revealed,
the Heart of God Revealed
utterly different than the heart of man
revealed.

And you?
Here in this season of Revelation?
Do you dare?

Look within
Look without

and see what is revealed.

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Advent Poem: The Season of Silence

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Today hubbub and hustle
tramways trollies and trellises
crammed with travelers, trophy-takers and talkers

the cacophony joyous ascends, surrounds, spreads
and in this din great tidings of cheer resound
and rebound, and return round again.

But at the core, where I sit,
(you are sat there too, you know.  Just listen)
it is silent.  The Quiet is here.

Thick.  Palpable, wooly white and
smelling of seasoned woods and wet forest kneeled
and of the hush in the heart of the Snow-Covered Fields.

It descends, swells, covers and crawls
(on feet like Sandberg’s cat)
and fills the core of cheer with substance

The substance of Silence.
The presence of Anticipation.Image 001

For here it is we sit and wait,
for the coming of our Heart
Their meaning to our Core impart.

And as the night stretches out and goes on
and the din dies down exhausted and content
the silent sound of labor has begun.

The shriek of sweat trickles down
(fingers down life’s blackboard revealing white beneath)
her face, contorted in composed intent concentration

Bearing down, the groaning of contractions
and the towering soundless shouts of no one there with her
except her earnest clumsy man so loving, so full of silent fear.

*me sat here, throat lumpified and choked,
mummified and heart stokes,
smoke stacked up, backed up
and no where to go but inward,

no words to say no deeds to do
no place to go no getting away
no arriving new just sat here,

enduring, waiting*

The silent moment flexes hard and pushes
Her face a rictus of the wrenching passion
of the passage of a God, her baby

and then deliverance and everything on pause
every heart breath held and chest unmoving
until the night is pierced by One Small Cry that echoes still

across our darking skies,
in the fullness of Anticipation
In the Season of Silence, this Holy Present Silence.

tumblr_ngxzz03rdG1r2zs3eo1_500

Advent Story: The Healing of the Light King (Epilogue)

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 For Part TEN, click HERE
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****

LK062
The old man was quiet, and then said simply, “Yes. I did.”
“Oh, show us, Grandpa. Please show us,” the children begged in unison.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

“Now, now,” protested the old man. “It’s time for bed, you fuzzyheads! Come into my arms and I’ll carry you to your room.

“Oh, Grand-pa!” they wailed, but they obeyed.

He hoisted them like they were babes and turned to leave the fire’s light. He hesitated, and then he strode over to a dark, lifeless lamp, and stood still a moment. The Children, one under each arm, looked at each other excitedly and held their breath.

And then…the old man breathed on the lamp…WHOOSH…and laughed as light

…pure light…

leapt up in the lamp in answer to the call of his breath.
LK004
The old man laughed and danced around the room, swinging the children high and breathing upon lamp after lampLK010LK026LK043
until the whole room had blossomed, ablaze in light, and then he whisked the children out of the room and whirled down the hall to their beds.
LK031 LK030
KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
*****     *****     *****

Some time later, he emerged.

“Hello Father”, came a deep, strong voice.

The speaker was a tall, noble man with grey streaks of wisdom in his beard and a golden crown upon his head.The old man looked up and grinned. “Hello son, err, Your Highness,” he bowed with only a hint of teasing.

“Kids settled in, Father?” asked the King. “I was just coming to tuck them in.”

“Oh yes. I expect you’ll find them ready and waiting. Ready and waiting”.

The king looked at his father…all dressed beautiful red—like blood—and hair white as snow and shinning bright.

“You’re putting’ on a little weight, there Father. Your belly looks like jelly!’

“Aye, that it does, son, that it does. Too much ale and good cooking’ I guess.”

“But you look healthy, dad. By the Star—you look like you will live forever!”

The old man threw back his snowy head, pulled his crimson cloak around him, and roared in delight.

“That I may, son, that I may”.

Then he walked down the dark hall to his chambers and as he passed, every dark dormant lampLK048

blazed on in glorious heavenly echo of the light of his passing.
LK049
The King stood and watched him until he disappeared round the corner, and the echoes of his laughter faded in the distance.
LK047
“Behold, the Light King”, he said softly. “Behold.

He turned and went in to his children.

The End
LK066

 

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
For Part TEN, click HERE

A Palate Discarded

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I am without any poetic elegance.
using words like paints,
with my St Vincent’s Heart
and Random Jackson’s Hands,
one ear gone
snatched by That sword.

I long to make
something beautiful
because I am something not…
beautiful.
I long to create
things warm and worthwhile,
glowing valuable inside
because I am not,
valuable.
I just manage
to echo value,
remind of Light
in my weak and futile
fading flicker.tumblr_mzmyeelf5Y1qzskcyo1_1280Oh!
I think I know now…
I’m a palate,
daubs of paint!
Streaked, smeared chipped,
a mess of abilities and gifts
They dip into with brushes
bristly and disturbing.
They make paintings
and me in hand there…
well I guess that’s the closest
I will ever get to beauty…
until I am laid down
and They done painting

for now

and me there,
then discarded,
set aside and yearning
languishing, staring,
looking up at that painting pretty,
at that bending beauty
so near and yet so far,
so very far away.

Hey,
wouldn’t it be great
if there was
a gallery of palates
used and slathered
held and blathered
in mess and in creation,
the partner of an Artist
and co-mid wife of beauty?

That’s a hall
I might haunt,
a place where chaos
is considered
in the context
of the range of raw materials
present and poured out.tumblr_m0yeqdsEz91qafc06o1_500

Advent Poem: The Season of Promise (in haiku)

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The sound of raindrops
and the smell of fir branches…
I was lapped by time.

I am mindful of
many things I hold in faith,
committed to God.

In this reverent mist
silver memories descend
gentle on my face.

I think of my heart,
its four chambers birthed from me
leaving Their Promise

soft there inside me,
layers of a tight red rose
blossoming each day

It’s these Christmas gifts,
given in deep love, bright hope
Of that final gift…

…of arriving home,
every Promise made fulfilled,
All Things Then Restored.

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Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 10)

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 For Part NINE, click HERE
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
 The stable came back.  I was still kneeling beside the manger; my tears were still His crown.  The others had all gathered close and were waiting in a hush.  The baby let go of my hand.  He turned His tiny head and looked at the side of the manger.  The point of a careless nail protruded starkly through the wood.  Slowly, deliberately, He reached His tiny hand toward it.  The woman perceived His intent, and started forward to stop Him, but the man stopped her.

The baby covered that nail point with His hand, and then, deliberate and slow, He pushed His palm against the nail. He never hesitated; he never even winced. He drew back his hand, and there in His palm lay a red pearl of great price—a drop of His innocent blood.He reached His wounded palm out to me and then He pressed it against my forehead like a kiss… and my pain was gone. My grief and sorrow vanished, and I was healed, and filled with light—HIS very light!

I rose and ran to my packs and drew out the chest of myrrh. I took it to the baby and laid it at his feet.

“Oh my Blood King, my death is your death, and your life is my life,” I said. I was still weeping, but now with tears of joy and gratitude.He answered

“I am King of Lights who has become Blood King. Your death has become Mine, and My Life and My Light are become yours. You are My Light King! Here is My charge to you: go in My Light. Spread it wherever you go. Care for the children. Give them gifts. Wherever you speak, there Light shall be. Wherever you give, Life shall grow. Remain faithful until you see Me return on high! For I will go, and I will return!LK044
The Star King and the Mountain King were transformed by these events came and they bowed low, laying their gifts at His feet. They had found the Song of the Star!
LK015
Gillae, Brownie, Dannaeo, Mikkens and Towser also stepped forward. The Baby giggled and petted each one. They received His touch like knights receiving the dubbing of their King’s sword.

Gillae turned to me and said, “I see now, Light King, the hidden ways of the Master. I honor Him and acknowledge you, His messenger and Giftbearer.”

*****     *****     *****

The fire popped and crackled as sparks occasionally leapt skyward.  The old man’s voice faltered and grew and silent.  He seemed lost in memory.  Sweet Caroline and Frederick waited, and waited for him to continue, but finally Frederick could wait no longer.

“Finish the story Grandpa! PUH—LEEZE!”

“Yes, oh yes”, chimed in Sweet Caroline. “What happened next?”

“Huh?” asked the old man. “Oh. Sorry my bumpkins, I was just remembering. Well I told the Star King and the Mountain King all that had happened to me and introduced them to my shepherd friends. Then an angel told us to go home a different way.
LK035
Seems the Breaker had gotten hold of an evil king’s heart. But that’s the stuff of other tales.

“I finally arrived back at LIGHTSHINE HEARTHHOME exactly two years to the day I had departed. Everyone was shocked to see me. They thought I had died. And –in a way—I had. They had let all the lights go out.

“Except for your dad! Maker’s hands, he had kept his burning for me, and he stepped out of the crowd that day, marched straight up to me, and proclaimed, ‘BEHOLD THE LIGHT KING!’ And nobody laughed, for it was finally, impossibly true.”

“And all the dead lamps, Grandpa”, asked Sweet Caroline. “Did you light them?”

“Yes Grandpa,” echoed Frederick. “Did you bring light back home?”

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
For Part NINE, click HERE

Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 9)

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  For Part Eight, click HERE
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****

 The Star King wore a look of disbelief. The Mountain King seemed disappointed, like someone at the end of a long, unfruitful quest.
LK076
I cleared my throat, and said weakly, “Hail and well met fellow kings. Why be you in this god-forsaken place?”

The Star King glanced, then did a double take. “Hail and well met fellow King,” he replied in astonishment. “We thought you dead this night. Even now you look more dead than living. But alas for us all. We came looking for the Mighty One of whom the Star sings, but found only yon babe and vanity!”

Gillae spoke up, eyes blazing: “Good King, yon babe IS the Mighty One! Do not err! Take heed my counsel: to rise up you must bend down. The eye of pride cannot see the light of humility.”

I glanced at the Star King to gauge his response, but he merely stared at Gillae like he were some dirty peasant beneath his notice and station. I looked back at the baby, and noticed a man and a woman seated near the manger looking overwhelmed by all the attention and commotion.

All at once, the babe opened his eyes, and gazed straight into mine. I felt lost in their depths.

Then I heard a Voice… “Come to Me, Light-King,” it said.

I looked all around but I couldn’t see who was speaking. Suddenly Gillae was thrusting his staff against my back, pushing me towards the babe.

“Go on, quickly!” he hissed. “The Master calls you.” I laughed out loud.

“The Master? Him? That helpless babe? Surely you jest. He is no more master than you are, Sir Shepherd!”

Brownie ran up to stand at Gillae’s side. “Go on,” he urged. “Remember what Gillae told you! ‘…As He comes, so too must you come…’ He sent for you: now you must answer Him!” I looked back and forth between the baby and my friends.

“Remember your dreams!” called Gillae.

“Yes,” said the Voice. “Remember your dreams.”

Suddenly I realized that the baby before my eyes was the same one I had dreamt of for all those years! He was the King of Lights who was savaged by darkness. I gasped in awe and terror. If the dream baby was real, were the dreams real as well?

“Yes, they are,” he said. It was the baby who had spoken, though His lips had not moved. The Voice I was hearing was His!

“Draw near to me, my Light King and learn the meaning of these things.” He called me “Light King”, but in his mouth it was not a curse but instead was a caress.
LK052
I knelt at the side of the manger. Memories swept over me and in pain I wept. Tears ran down my face and crowned the baby’s brow. His tiny hand reached out and grabbed me with a grip stronger than life, stronger than death. I tried to pull away. But he held me stronger than chains and looked into me.

“My precious Light King. I called you. You answered. I prepared you. I send you. But first I will heal you.”LK077
The stable fell away and we were in my dreams, only this time he held onto me. Darkness came rushing at us with hungry teeth and sharp screams. I was terrified. Claws of dark tore at Him and His light bled out and the darkness took us down, down deeper into Hell.

I screamed and tried with all my might to get free but He held me there with him. The awful stake came and pinned Him there with nails of death, but still He held onto me, and still we went down. His light was pouring out, but we went down deeper than I’d ever been in any of my dreams.

He took me down all the way. It was there, at the bottom that I saw what I’d never been able to see before…the ending of all His light at the bottom of the end of down.
LK018
I screamed in despair, certain that all was lost.
But then came His blood in a rush!
LK001
His light had made a way into Dark’s evil heart and the flood of His blood raced on the heels of the Light! Dark thought it devoured His light, but Dark was deceived! Like an arrow straight and true Darkness was pinned and blood consumed it.

And by His blood the Breaking was broken,
and by His blood death undone.
By His blood all light resumed flowing,
by His blood all healing begun.
LK029
From the lowest, most impossible place of all, we began to rise, He and I and still His marvelous hand gripped me. We were rising on a tide of living light; lifted by the flow of His blood and He sang with victory and triumph!

“Behold, the King of Lights is come,
Bruised and poured out from on high,
The Blood King’s battle now is done
And Death’s devoured by victory!
King of Lights, Eternal Fount
The Blood King conquers every foe
Rising with triumphant shout
Peace, Goodwill to those laid low!

As He sang the light grew brighter and blood redly ran deep and wide and we were high and lifted up, and still He held me. He held me! And I understood.

  For Part Eight, click HERE
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****

Advent Poem: The Season of Loneliness

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Unbidden,
moving like mist in mountains
slow and fast and slow and long,
and lingering, white laced in grey,
and crawling, clinging to ramparts
and ridges that stand
strong and stark and still
catch an occasional ray of sun
from outside…but dimming
as the sun retreats before
the darkness of the night
that rushes over everything
with recollections
haunting,
isolating,
obliterating
sight.

Unknown,
vaporous,
real but irresistible and arising from…
*moan*…
and meaning…
*sob*…

climbing,
clinging,
clutching
clouding out,
shutting out
shouting out
solid rock stable and holding hands
reeling, cavorting, swirling

Undoing,
settling down on everything
and growing quiet,
and gaining in gravity
and growing heavy,
and draining memory
of every drop of blood
until everything
is overwhelmed and overtaken
and surrounded in the silver
of the dull fogs of what once was
and alas will never ever be again.

Alone,
in fields, waiting,
staring at the skies
so clear and so occluded,
every loss hung there bright brilliant
on deep black skies never ending,
every sorrow there is twinkling,
every hurt is glowing blinking there
so merry, so unyielding,
I gaze upon my starry constellations
of great loss and ruination
marking time and pointing steady
so unchanging in this night…

Cold,
missing home,
missing that place (and time)
where all things hushed and gathered
noisy in a deafening din,
all collected, full, o’erflowing
from my tender heart within
the very center of the moment
in the Advent Season Present
bathed in wonderful quick joy.

Real,
that place then but lost now in my mind
(like ridges and ramparts now submerged).
The sheep rustle restless
and underneath their bleating
I hear the sound of bleeding
in the heart of living memory
of hearth and home now pierced
and rent and disappearing…
and I wait here,
lonely in this mist and overcome,
hunkered down but kissed and left so numb
as I recall the bliss of Christmas past
and have no hope of Merry Christmases
to dawn and to me come.

Winds,
well they exist,
and they do blow!
Cleansing from the North
and from the south they flow
in warmth and restoration,
dispelling every fog of gloom
and routing every hurtful memory
that ever happened.
I fix my gaze on that One Star,
that portent bright, surpassing
all the mocking, twinkling titters
of the past its reminders constant.

Here,
in the season of loneliness
my lonely Advent heart
echoes that loneliness that lingers
there inside the heart of God
and so we yearn, together, aching
in the lonely moments waiting
perfect timing of those winds
to blow away the mists
and let that mountain shine again
in solid clarity and splendour promises
that someday the Divine Loneliness
and human grieving longing
will be overcome by
Faith and Hope and Love.

Grace,
and peace,
in the season of loneliness,
Love, Charissa

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Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 8)

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 For Part SEVEN, click HERE
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****

When Gillae heard that death cry, he actually threw his head back and laughed!

‘Be OFF with your foul self!’ he commanded.

And the thing actually stopped. But then it spoke, and the sound was terrible, like the squeaking of a cemetery gate. It dug savagely into my mind.
LK079
‘You have no authority to make such command’ it hissed. ‘For your insolence I shall stop your heart and feed it to my wolves!’ the thing continued. ‘You have no part of this. But, in my great mercy I may let you live and even give you wealth and fame and comfort! But you must walk away and leave the night to us.’

“Gillae jumped forward with a war whoop and swung his staff with all his might right at the center of this thing, and screamed ‘In the name of the Baby King and Heaven’s Song I come against you to the death and I rebuke you!’

“And with that his staff found its mark. The demon gave a scream of pain, fear, and rage mingled with defeat, and then with a bang the monster was gone!

“Gillae looked at me as I sat speechless and frozen in fear. The great man winked and nodded, and gently said ‘Eh, Brownie, pick up your jaw and rise up! We have a flock to lead and a king to find!’

“And then he was off to slay the remaining wolves.

“I hurried off across the field in search of the sheep, and that is when I stumbled over you! All this time you had been out of it, lying in the field while angels and demons made war round about you. I looked over for Gillae just as he slew the last 2 beasts, and hollered for him, and, well, you pretty much know the rest. Can you see why we were uncertain regarding yourself? After what we had been through you could have been nearly anything! It is funny when you think about it…we found our king all right, but one who was old and dying, rather than a newborn babe who is called Wonderful Counselor!”

Brownie walked in silence and I pondered what he’d said.

Finally I said “Thank you for the tale Brownie. I understand why you are such a fierce defender of Gillae. He is brave AND modest, a rare and pleasing combination. Your testimony is true and loyal.”

“Aye, and it is also too much talking and not enough working!” that booming familiar voice thundered. There stood Gillae, big as a horse! He had slipped back to us unnoticed as we talked, and overheard everything Brownie said. Brownie hung his head and hurried off to help the other men with the flock.

“Forgive the boy, Sir King” Gillae requested. “He is forward and given to bragging. It is to my detriment that I have not succeeded in instilling within him some restraint.”

“On the contrary, Sir Shepherd,” I answered. “He is a bright boy, and I sense his story is true, yes? A more complete picture worthy of reporting to a king?”

Gillae reddened and inhaled sharply. “I am reluctant to speak about such things” Gillae answered quietly. And then Gillae would speak no more on the subject.

After a while, Dannaeo fell back to walk with Gillae and Mikkens and Towser and I.

“We draw near, Sir King,” he said.

Gillae looked intently at me and said “Know that all is not as it seems. High is come down and low is lifted up. Light is cloaked and darkness becomes light. Even as He comes, so too must you come.” I was at a loss when he spoke, but my heart stirred at the promise of light. Gillae gazed at me unblinking, eyes glowing.LK075
I looked back in exhausted confusion. “What do you mean, Gillae?”

“I will say no more, lest I put you in danger of pride. Only realize that to rise you must descend, to be found you must be lost. Take heart and be bold. Believe your heart, and remember your dreams!”

“Remember them!” I repeated in pain. “I spend all my waking hours trying to forget them!”

“Nevertheless, again I bid you—REMEMBER THEM! For the Master wastes nothing.”

We finally came to the outskirts of a small town and the Star stopped, and fell lower and lower until it was drawn impossibly near to earth and hovered there, motionless in stellar proclamation of heavenly portents.LK073
The town was bursting at the seams with impossible crowds of people all trying at once to find food and lodging. We came to the inn, and I was sure that Gillae and the boys would get a room for me to rest and prepare to meet the Mighty One. But they walked straight on by with nary a glance! Down a narrow lane into an even narrower alley, flock and all, only to enter into the gloomy darkness of a smelly, dirty old stable!

“Gillae, why do we come to THIS place,” I asked him in confusion.

“Listen in your heart, and you will know, Sir King,” he answered, “but if you are deaf, then lift up your head and you will see the star over your head like a bonfire of comfort and joy.”

And I looked up and there it was in its beauty to take away your breath. I looked around us and saw animals, some people (shepherds mostly), and even Kings! Yes—the Star King and the Mountain King had found this decrepit place, too.

But no one was looking at us. They were all looking at a manger, or rather, the small baby who lay in the manger. He was newly born and at peace.

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
For Part SEVEN, click HERE

Advent Poem: The Season of Fulfillment

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1
All the world is hushed and still,
waiting under heavy burdens
white and grim and unrelenting,
groaning, crushed and disillusioned,
longing for redemption, peace,
goodwill and aching for release
from darkness, loneliness and death,Image 0032
and outrage…OUTRAGE
seething in this Silent Night
that echoes with Death’s violation
and defilement of our dreams
and destiny…such desecration…
Death so vicious and relentless
in its Never ending hungry lusty rusty horror.

tumblr_naz7399eA11qlh9eeo1_500

3
He came small and vulnerable
to bear the scars of our outrage,
came near enough to prove He’d stay,
regardless…Closer
than we realize or can imagine
in this night so long and lonely
Small He came to us, undignified and oh so tiny.wg836_desire4
That nearness, Love Personified
The Incarnation towers tall
Mysterious, absurd and all the while
Undignified, God’s Trump card (HIM)
played foolishly and weak
upon the table of the strong
confounding all the worldly wise, so clever and austere.

tumblr_n9hyazE1ZK1tirxdoo1_12805
Dignified? Undignified!
when Love became personified,
“Immanuel Undignified and one of us”
(and yet still outside twisty time)
approaching us as one of us,
held guilty and responsible
accused of shattering religion! Such a glory crime!tumblr_nap87vpqde1rwtzqno1_1280

6
And dwelling here in innocence and staying in our sorrow cold
but not to merely dispel shadows or resolve conundrums, no!
Bearing our humanity, and present with us in the midst of darkness,
Oh The Truest Light, The Deepest Joy, The Most Glad Heart
Fulfilling All Expectancy when every hope will come to pass!
Submitting to a grisly death to hold the whole world in His Heart that
He had held dear in His Hand to mediate our case to God… tumblr_nfco87W3fA1tw3geao1_500

7
The Child did Bleed, the Child did Die, and we?
With gratitude we enter, invitation tightly clutched to aching breast…
we kneel hushed and astonished safe and sound as we are changed
by this Child’s Gift (or is the Child Himself the gift that’s given?)
Invited to approach and revel, knowing what we’ve always known
is finally here and shining present, Sacred Heart Alive Forever
in the season of fulfillment pure and everlasting.tumblr_n8wb7sIxEO1qkww7to1_1280

 

Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 7)

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 For Part SIX, click HERE
*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
For as the light rushed through the tear in the night it filled up the air around us. This light was SOUND! Crazy I know, but the light was music, and the music I heard was the light! But the worst was yet to come, for suddenly, out of the very midst of this heavenly light angels began to pour forth.  Hundreds upon hundreds, and thousands upon thousands! Like grains through the glass they came, each one singing loudly at the top of its lungs!
‘GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST, AND ON EARTH PEACE, AND GOODWILL TOWARD MEN!’

Over and over they sang this, and the song took wings and flew forth from around us out into the world.LK020It is flying still, of this I am sure, to the darkest and loneliest places in the world. It is a song that will never be stopped. It will live with heaven’s life and all that hear its triumphant ring will thrill in their hearts with hope and comfort and joy.“As this all happened even Gillae was knocked down, but while we all buried our heads in our arms and sought to hide in the dirt, I snuck a peak at Gillae. He lay on his back, face unveiled and eyes alight. As the gigantic angel of the Lord sang, he flew round and round over Gillae’s head and Bold Gillae just laughed in great bellows almost as loud as the angels.

And then, things started to go backwards-like, and trickled in reverse, and began to flow upwards, back to heaven, until
only the angel of the Lord was left.
LK023

‘Rise, oh chosen of the Most High’

he said.

Gillae stood immediately, and the angel’s booming laugh echoed in my head, and he said

‘I am talking about all of you! The King of Glory has a special fondness for shepherds. He has chosen you as His heralds. Go quickly to Bethlehem, proclaiming to all you meet that He is born the Divine Christchild, Light of the world. Tell the world the Maker is not mad, and He says Peace, Peace, for there IS Peace! But beware, for the forces of the deceiver gather even now to steal away the light of the world. You must be on your guard! They will stop at nothing.’

“ ‘Bring them on!’ shouted Gillae. ‘The evil doers will regret the day they opposed the Maker, and shall be sent back to the chaos that spawned them,’ and Gillae brandished his staff towards the angel of the Lord in skillful and dangerous flourishes!

The angel rose up on high with a loud shout, and then with a clap like thunder disappeared in a lightning bolt! All was still, except for the gentle wind and the sound of our hearts hammering in our heads and the echo of Heaven’s Choirs ringing in our ears.

We lay there like dead men, but Gillae roused us up and said ‘Come lads! Heard ye not the angel of the Lord? We have a KING to find.’

“We slowly lifted our heads, still quaking from Heaven breaking into the night, but as the seconds passed, we got excited, for Gillae was jabbering and encouraging us constantly, prodding us with his voice like we were sheep on the business end of his staff.”

Brownie was silent after this, and I waited for him to resume. He glanced around uneasily, and then looked at me as if I might still just be a phantom.

“Speak on, Brownie” said I.

“Well, Sir King, off we went as the angel had said, but suddenly we heard something that chills the bones of shepherds everywhere…the lonesome sinister howl of a hungry wolf!”LK002
“‘Hie! To the flock men!’ shouted Gillae. ‘Remember the angel’s warning! We have a king to find! Let nothing quench your heart! Defend the flock!’

And then they were on us in a flash, 6 big, black wolves with red eyes and yellow teeth. They were taller than my head, and the likes I have never seen and hope never to see again. We tried to stand, but the howling, slashing mouths were terrifying! I was frozen in fear, and one of them actually had me by my cloak, and was dragging me off to eat me, but Gillae came flying out ofnowhere in a leaping shouting whirling wind of vengeance.

He whacked those skulkers with his staff, and their bones cracked like kindling!LK042
They crumpled with yelps of pain and death, but still Gillae pressed on for though 3 were slain, the rest had him surrounded. He circled as they darted in and slashed, and parried each attack. The rest of us were milling about chasing the sheep so we were no help to him as he fought for his life and ours.

“But then the air grew cold, like the grave, and a dank foul smell arose from some evil place. Life was draining out of me and I wanted to run away. I glanced at Gillae and saw that something blacker than night was floating toward him.  It was like a tear in the night that let in death and despair and it was painful to look at.
LK009
Gillae slashed at the wolves and cracked the head of one like a ripe melon as he backed off from the dark thing. He drew himself up to his full stature and shouted ‘HALT FOUL HELL SPAWN!’ Leave us for we are on a mission for the Maker!’

“Everything was still, and then from the midst of the black, 2 red eyes opened and an awful black hole gaped like a mouth. From the midst of the dark came a scream so evil it must have been from hell.

At this, my knees DID buckle, but still I looked on at Gillae. I thought that if I could just keep my eyes on him I would be safe.

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
For Part SIX, click HERE

For Some Reason I am Compelled to Post this: Are you Sick? Then Read…

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http://nourishedkitchen.com/bone-broth/

Traditional Foods 101: Bone Broth, Broth & Stocks

Bone broths are given special emphasis among traditional foods circles.  Preindustrial societies across the globe have always placed particular and special emphasis on the preparation of the whole animal – and that includes emphasis on using bones for making broth.  African tribes placed emphasis on bone broths for babies and small children.  In Asia, emphasis is placed on stocks and broths made from fish and fish bones.  In Europe, stocks and broths have become the foundation of cooking and are used in not only making soups and stews, but also for preparing reductions, sauces and for braising vegetables and meats.

bone brothwhat’s the difference between broth, stock and bone broth?

In traditional foods circles you’ll hear a lot about broth, stock and bone broth – and they’re typically used interchangeably.  Bone broth, broth and stock are built on the same basic foundation: water, meat or bones (or both), vegetables and seasonings.  As it cooks, the liquid is typically skimmed (although this is not necessary since the scum that rises to the top of the stock pot – off-putting as it is – is a rich source of amino acids) and eventually the solids are removed by straining the stock with a fine-mesh sieve or reusable coffee filter.

  • Broth is typically made with meat and can contain a small amount of bones (think of the bones in a fresh whole chicken).  Broth is typically simmered for a short period of time (45 minutes to 2 hours). It is very light in flavor, thin in texture and rich in protein.
  • Stock is typically made with bones and can contain a small amount of meat (think of the meat that adheres to a beef neck bone).  Often the bones are roasted before simmering them as this simple technique greatly improves the flavor.  Beef stocks, for example, can present a faint acrid flavor if the bones aren’t first roasted.  Stock is typically simmered for a moderate amount of time (3 to 4 hours).  Stock is rich in minerals and gelatin.
  • Bone Broth is typically made with bones and can contain a small amount of meat adhering to the bones. As with stock, bones are typically roasted first to improve the flavor of the bone broth. Bone broths are typically simmered for a very long period of time (often in excess of 24 hours).  This long cooking time helps to remove as many minerals and nutrients as possible from the bones.  At the end of cooking, so many minerals have leached from the bones and into the broth that the bones crumble when pressed lightly between your thumb and forefinger.

why bone broths are good for you

Bone broths are extraordinarily rich in nutrients – particularly minerals and amino acids.  Bone broths are a good source of amino acids – particularly arginine, glycine and proline.  Glycine supports the bodies detoxification process and is used in the synthesis of hemoglobin, bile salts and other naturally-occurring chemicals within the body.  Glycine also supports digestion and the secretion of gastric acids.  Proline, especially when paired with vitamin C, supports good skin health.  Bone broths are also rich in gelatin which improves collagen status, thus supporting skin health.  Gelatin also support digestive health which is why it plays a critical role in the GAPS diet.  And, lastly, if you’ve ever wondering why chicken soup is good for a cold, there’s science behind that, too.  Chicken stock inhibits neutrophil migration; that is, it helps mitigate the side effects of colds, flus and upper respiratory infections.  Pretty cool, huh?

Colorful Squash SoupBone Broths are Also Inexpensive and Very Convenient

Bone broths are easy to prepare at home, very inexpensive (the cost of bones is usually under $2/lb), and are very convenient and simple to make.

 

ready? start making bone broth today

Ready to start making bone broth?  Start with the recipes below, they all involve the long and slow cooking process that allows for the full release of nutrients – amino acids, gelatin and minerals – from the bones.

how to use bone broth

My husband and I aim to consume about one quart of bone broth per day, per person.  While we start every morning with a mug of broth seasoned with salt, pepper and crushed garlic, we also use bone broth to braise meats and vegetables as well as in soups, sauces and stews.

How to Store Bone Broth

Bone broth can be stored in the refrigerator for no more than a week.  You can also freeze it in ice cube trays, and transfer the frozen cubes of broth to a resealable freezer bag where they will keep for 6 months.  Alternatively, consider making Homemade Bouillon.

get started on bone broth with these resources

Typically, all you need to prepare bone broth in your kitchen is a good stock pot or a 6-quart slow cooker and something for straining the broth.  To prepare a very clear broth, I recommend straining with a very fine-mesh sieve or a reusable coffee filter (using both in conjunction yields the finest results).

Advent Poem: The Season of Hunger

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a pregnant mother waits…hopes…fears…
weary and unflagging, full of energy
and yet, so still and growing
larger with each day.

and inside her heart each quality increases…
hope and fear, expectant joy,
after all, it’s said she is expecting!
Expecting…and growing larger.

But with her hope grows hunger!
A hunger for the end of every minute waiting!
A hunger for her baby, to hold and cuddle quiet
A hunger to sing songs of love and comfort in the night.

Expecting…and growing hungry
for bread of life within her
also growing and expectant,
rising in the oven of human worth.

(other ovens hungry ate their fill
of offerings from monsters of the Breach
but this was not unnoticed by The Justice
nor beyond the scope of Mercy’s reach)tumblr_meim9rS2Ce1rguz4ho1_500

She hungers, swelling curved expectant in the night
The word becoming flesh and bone is served
a feast of human need and sorry fright
and love, devotion, faith, and truth and grace
and laughter there on each expectant face.

We…pregnant…waiting
in our weakness,
lonely lowly moments silent

They…hungry…ready
to come to us
Them with us
move in us
empty us
to satisfy us
dine with us
and hunger ever sharp and sated
all at once.

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Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 6)

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 For Part FIVE, click HERE
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“Aye”, echoed Towser. It is our privilege to carry you. It is not every shepherd that gets to carry a King to meet a King.”

And off we went, Gillae leading the way, the flock following close at heel, the group of shepherds scattered round them, and then Mikkens, Towser and I bringing up the rear. We travelled an hour or so in this manner, following the star, men speaking to one another in hushed expectant tones.

As we travelled, I marveled at the endurance of my 2 bearers, and I could not help but reflect on the difference between these 2 and my previous 2 companions. One thing was becoming evident the more time I spent with these shepherds: Royalty is not a title or station in life, but rather a way of being that is oriented towards joyful sacrifice. Perhaps my bearers were kings more than the ones who had left me to die.
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After a while, I started to doze off, rocked by the soft motion of our travel.

I was startled by a voice and woke to find myself staring into Brownie’s intense gaze.

“Gillae wasn’t telling you the whole story, and I think you should know it, being a king and all. I don’t know much about kings, you being the only one I ever met” (and with this he eyed me dubiously), “but I can tell you that Gillae is braver than any man I ever met, and he is stronger and more giving than any person alive. Many times we have all been too tired to take our watches and we fall asleep, only to wake and see him on guard, over us and the sheep both. And in truth, tonight’s events have only added to his exploits!”

“Brownie” said I, “You have all seemed on edge and wary, and of course all of your hints and outbursts tell me there is more going on here than meets the eye. What exactly befell you on this evening of wonders?”

Brownie looked forward at Gillae to make sure he wasn’t listening…and no fear of that for Gillae was leading, and walking at ready as if expecting an attack of robbers, or worse. Then in a low voice, Brownie began to speak.

“Well, it all happened like Gillae said, but when the gigantic man appeared to us, we fell to the ground like dead men, but not Gillae! He stepped forward and raised his staff, and challenged the newcomer to identify himself as friend or foe, and if foe to prepare to meet his doom. The giant shining guy began to speak to us as we all clung to the ground like babes to their nursemaids.
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I will never forget his words:

‘FEAR NOT, oh sons of Adam’

he declared.

‘I bear to you good tidings from the throne of the Most High God Himself, tidings of great joy, to all men in all places here and for all time until the Breaking is made Unbroken on that Day. Unto you is born this day, in David’s city, a Savior! Christ the Lord!’

“His voice hung in the air like a living thing, and was frightening but beautiful. He said he was the angel of the Lord come from the throne of the Maker.

‘You are to go to the Savior with all haste. Look for Him wrapped in swaddling clothes’

said the angel.

‘But what are we supposed to do, break into people’s houses?’ Gillae said. The angel gave a thunderous blast with his voice, that must have been angelic laughter, and it both chilled and invigorated my soul.

‘Look in the stables, Shepherd, for this King will be with the sheep, lying in a manger.’

“‘A manger’” Gillae replied. ‘What kind of king is it that is born a Savior yet is lying in a feeding trough?’

“When he said this, the guy just threw back his head and again thundered a laugh. But bold Gillae demanded proof that he was the angel of the Lord, and not some seducing deceiver from the Breaker’s dungeons. He actually stepped forward and thrust his staff into the face of the angel!

“Well, the angel just glared at that staff, and then rose straight up about 50 feet, and clapped his hands three times…and the night split open
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and rolled back like a scroll and in its place was light like you cannot imagine!

“It was like a hole had opened in the night, and the shadows were torn away, and Heaven’s own glory was invading the dark earth, and if you think we were scared before, we were simply undone now!”

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For Part FIVE, click HERE

Just Remember…

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always…there is another person on the end of your tendrils
always…there is another whose story trumps your own
always…what you think everyone would get if they only understood
is what they want you to understand and get from them
always…the choices we make because we feel we must
are their own style of choice!
always…the lives around you mirror you in all need and desire
always…your children are who you were once
always…your parents once were just as you
always…do unto others as you would have them do unto you

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always ever treasured

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in the silent moments,
when nothing speaks
(you did know that, didn’t you?
Nothing speaks.
Have you not heard its voice?)

and to stopper its relentless words
my mind goes elsewhere,
and I wander back thru pages of the days
and chapters of the years
and past volumes of the decades
until I stop at last
in children’s books well thumbed
and read nearly to death.

it is there I see you still,
and in your running laughter
released and giggly grasping
our guts in gales of mirth.

i see your eyes unguarded,
your innocence intact,
your trust still whole, unshattered
unsullied by grief’s touch.

I see your wispy curls, I see your toothless grin,
I hear your nonsense singing always
and you there, secrets within and harbored deep and lonely
I see you there within.

you cannot know how I feel, here
now…because the books won’t open
into your life unlived and yet to be discovered.
Well…you could believe and listen
when I reach out wholehearted
and full of love to give
and wanting to redeem all
that depression ruined
and self-loathing polluted.

lovelies I was always there
though trapped so deep inside!
I was shipwrecked just as you
when you felt choked by your hometown
well I was dying in my body
smothered in its horror.

The present yous swim into view
and lay yourselves upon
the little yous there innocent,
those brand new perfect yous
and I see at the same time
the spectrum of your beings
in scintillating sharpness
so smudged by separation
and blurred by longing tears.

I see your cold and austere looks
I hear your voice demanding
your questions stark, commanding

“what does your flaw have to do with me?  What is your point?
So you suffered, big deal! Worse, you broke me mangled, mutilated
folded spindled, permeated all the air I ever breathed
with your dysphoric world!

“I was not given a choice! If I was, it would not be you!
so just step back, just go away and fade into the pages back
before our volume started, we are now ever parted”.

But as I said…they cannot read into their future
those pages remain stuck together, gummy in a messy wad
of yet to be determined, yet to there be written
in the blood of choices made and in the ink of voices raised
to speak of deeper things…or not.

regardless, I can still take out those books
and thumb the well worn pages
and read the much loved stories
of long lost wholesome glories.
and I will always love my babies there so cherished
and kissed and ever treasured, ever, ever treasured
always ever treasured.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

 

And I Could Be Either One

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the dreamer longing,
the lonely unrequited.
the dreamy girl alone
and aching on the staircase,
betwixt two places, seated
within the place of passage
but still while all around me
others arrive to home…

or yearning doggie loving,
transparent in the moment
unnoticed in the wistful hurt
and past trauma returning
just hungry for a gentle pat,
or give a doggie comfort
and drink in human pain.

Yes…I could be either one.141891254570537

 

Debt and Gratitude

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in this morning still, in the murmur of the quiet
my tender heart is open and from it graceful tendrils
of gratitude entwine with the quiet stillness.

Would that then be a quietude?
Quietude:  a moment grateful (a grateful moment)

dawn is hushed and waiting still
crouched beneath the misty shrouded hills
that shelter things not yet awake,

birds, heads tucked awing
deer swaddled in wild grasses tall
ducks, there so still on the silent lake
as it always was, and as it is, wondrous still
in my time and place of debt and gratitude.

I was born beneath these burdens heavy
(taxes ripped and torn from my life blood)
and I owe debts that were inherited
a thousand times bequeathed beneath these tear-stained skies
I pay my debts in tears and grieving cries

but something else, surprising, unexpected
has crept into this life of streaming days and hovering nights

a bird awakes and sings
a hart rises to eat
a squawking duck upon a laughing lake
a cedar incense scent upon the night breeze gentle
that stirs the sleepy dawn and wakes the dead.

quietude: the grateful giving of my thanks
that I am made a treasure hard to find,
tough to discover and hidden in a box of yellow pine
inside a cup of silver filigreed
with Mercy’s Motto and with Grace’s Creed.

and I at last grow thankful for myself
a life of so much more than dusty shelf
and windows shuttered, four walls grim and dull
and debt that never rests, is never full

a tender thought arising there within me
a sacrifice unnoticed but rejoiced in
a song sung graceful, skillful hidden,
a gentle touch so faithful and committed
to stir the Day awaking and Undying
in the never ending Light of that Becoming.tumblr_n3lzrtGHrD1tq7o0to1_500

Advent Poem: The Season of Eternity

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Time running in streaming ribbons behind laughing children
twisting in a holiday blur of color, movement flowing
Time swimming sinister, sleek in the silent night
hungry to devour the Child there before it quiet
and in that cattle trough.

Snuffling with snout insistent, inhaling fragrances
of common birth and bearing…and something else
coming…the smell of death overlaid in incense
but underneath…the smell of…what?
The smell of other.

And then those guileless eyes flash open,
dark and endless but not with perpetuity
no!  Endless in the Moment never ceasing!
Endless in a present never moving but never still either,
And time found itself hooked and billeted and beached.

Time is just a boat, no…a moat…a mote in eternity’s eye
Time is but a note in Wonder’s Symphony!
And with the Baby’s birth inside of Time
Eternal bells of joy ring out the chime
Olly Olly Oxen FREE!

The season of eternity is nigh,
when God gives Their response to our hurt cry
and renders youth and age trite matters moot
and blows away the ashes and the soot
revealing hearts like stars still shine beneath.

Kneel where you are, for that is where it is,
that lowly manger unseen by the great
and in that manger, there inside of you
your face upturned and wet with Heaven’s dew
the Christ Child comes to make all things brand new.

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Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 5)

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For Part FOUR, click HERE
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Gillae rubbed his chin, regal as any king I ever saw and sat silent and brooding as he considered all the things I had said. He was weighing my story, weighing me by some measure that I knew not but I cared very much to be found adequate and worthy of his good judgment.

A short and chubby shepherd stepped up to Gillae and began to speak to him in whispered tones that I couldn’t make out. Gillae nodded and answered something back, and then the little butterball stepped back to the small group of shepherds and began to urge them out to the flocks, and there they went to work gathering the sheep together as if to make a journey.

“Well, King. You are fortunate that we happened upon you. Our good man Dannaeo says that we should bring you with us on our journey, and I concur. It seems that your quest overlaps considerably with an errand that we have recently been…charged with. The boys are gathering the sheep, and when they are finished, we will fashion a means to take you with us.”LK045“Sir Shepherd,” I said, “you have mentioned dramatic and unsettling events. Pray tell, what happened to you and how did you stumble upon me?”

Gillae fixed his eyes upon me and stared sharply. He shifted his great bulk and rubbed his jaw reluctantly.

“Please, Sir, speak up,” I commanded in as regal a manner as I could summon. He cast his eyes down, and said “Very well Sir King. I will tell you enough to get us all to the fold in the same herd, but most pressing is our errand.

“Nigh on three hours past sunset the boys and me were on the move from yon ridgeline headed toward this very field to set the flock in for the night. It is well protected and the sheep love the sweet grass of this swale. Brownie had the flock well bunched and moving a good clip. Up at the head of the copse yonder we began to allow the flock to spread out, and we looked for firewood in amongst the trees. Dannaeo rustled up some grub and soon we were cozy in the shelter and settling in for a cold but not unpleasant evening.

“Several of the boys were nodding off and there was peace in the still night. But things began to change. I noticed that the sheep were restless and stirred myself to look for some slinker that wanted an easy meal. The air grew heavy, and shivery like, and then began to glow with golden glimmers that grew brighter each passing moment. Suddenly there was a brilliant burst, like when a big knot bursts in the midst of a roaring fire, and standing before us was a gigantic shining man! I must confess that I was undone, and I fell to my face before him like a dead man.”

“YOU DID NOT, GILLAE!” shouted an outraged high-pitched voice. I looked over and saw that young Brownie had been lingering on the edge of our conversation listening in. He rushed into our midst and began to shout, “Gillae is always changing things around to cover up his bravery! He is the biggest and bravest shepherd of all, and he stood up to that guy and made him tell us wh—”
LK039
“Hush yourself Brownie!” Gillae said sternly. “Since when did I ever teach you that it was polite to eavesdrop on the conversation of others, let alone listen in to a royal report to a King?”
Brownie dropped his eyes and hung his head. “Umm, never sir” he mumbled.

“What was that, young whelp? I can’t hear you,” Gillae chastised, all the while managing to conceal the indulgent look in his eye. It was evident to me that Gillae loved Brownie very much, and was secretly pleased with the spunk and spirit of the young shepherd.

“Brownie, it is important that ye learn to listen twice as much as you talk. This will please the Maker to see you use EACH of your ears so when you return to Him you will be full of wisdom and not emptied of sense.”

“Aww, yes Sir” Brownie mumbled, but then his fire rose up and he just couldn’t help himself, bursting out with “but Gillae, if this is a king he should KNOW of what you are!”

“That will be QUITE enough, Jubal Dripsten…do you HEAR me!” This time the note of command and chastening was unmistakable and evident. “Back to the flock with ye, and make things ready. Have Mikkens and Towser fashion a litter upon which we can bear our companion. Sir King, I apologize for this whelp. He is young and impetuous.” Gillae followed Brownie’s departure with his gaze.

“No apologies needed, Sir Shepherd” I retorted. “I too have been his age. But pray tell me more, and do feel free to give me the full story.” I sensed that there was more to the tale than Gillae was telling…indeed there was more to this man than he was revealing.

“Oh, well. Let’s see…where was I?” he muttered.

“I believe you were laying on the ground like a dead man?” I remarked dryly.

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For Part Four, click HERE

Advent Poem: The Season of Redeeming Time

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I’m surprised by the passing of time
it waves as it dances along
and leaves me here on this bench in the park
with astonishment gripping my heart.

Time will never simply pass by
without engraving its mark
in a stab to my heart or a tender sweet touch
or a mortal wound bleeding and dark.

And I think of the birth of a child
who will dance with time in ignorance
and get lost in occasions of beauty and joy
and its happy and frolicking lark.

But time walks away without caring
as it always has, does, and will do
and that’s when the child sees the back-side of time
as it passes austere, tall and stark.

The back-side of time is a window
to somewhere beyond time’s long reach
So I follow, and run after fleet-footed time
as it swims like a quick-silver shark.

But time just leaves me for dead.
Tell me, why is this such an outrage?
This act of irreverence, indifference unfeigned
in every crude step of time’s arc.

But I know a secret inside
the heart of my heart: come, and listen!
Proud hungry time is caught up in hubris
So I laugh, on this bench in the park.

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Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 4)

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For Part THREE, click HERE
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LK011Sensations swirled behind the darkness that I wandered in, and in the tenuous patterns slowly formed. I listened eyes closed, and was comforted by noises that gave me hope all was not lost. Bells…voices …and then I noticed aromas of fields and wet wool…SHEEP! That was it! I was walking in a dark cloud surrounded by sheep!

A rough, wet, slobbery thing touched my cheek and my forehead. I was being LICKED! I pushed out with my hands and found the rich wooly coats of sheep gathered round me. I was not walking upright in the darkness at all, but was actually laying on my back in a dewy, cold field, and these sheep were gathered around me, licking me like I was Hiram the Shepherd’s salt lick!

“Gillae, come quick! An angel lays in our midst, fallen and ill!” I heard a high-pitched young voice scream. I turned my head and the world tilted violently as I did and I felt sick and began to groan and heave in dry wracking spasms.

“HIE! Back off there, Brownie! Not too close! After what we just went through I be not wanting ye to take any chances! Let us have a lookee!” The voice that spoke was like a waterfall’s roar, deep and loud, and not a little alarmed. With all my might I tried to turn to look, but before I could I felt a hard rap to my ribs and a persistent jabbing. The fool was poking me with a stick!

“WHAT BE YE!?” shouted the voice! “Speak up, now, and be quick about it! We are in no mood for further shocks and surprises, for the events of the night have greatly unsettled us!” Somehow I managed to get my head turned and my eyes open, and there I beheld a giant of a man.
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He rose from the ground like the Yule Tree in the Castle Courtyard. At the top of his head was the bushiest, tangledest mop of hair that ever crowned a head! His beard was long and it moved in the wind with a life of its own. His hands were like shovels, and they held a staff the size of a small sapling! His eyes flashed brightly in the moonlight, and his teeth glistened like pearls as he spoke to me. He was one of the most commanding men I have ever met.

“Hie! I’m talking to you, there! Be ye man or be ye angel or be ye demon!?”

“I’m just a king” I managed to choke out.

“A king? You are a….KING?” The giant threw back his head and laughed like his sides were split. “You are no king, that is for certain! Brownie, bring us a light.”

A small, slight boy stepped from behind the man, bearing aloft a lamp. He was quick and well built, and had a pleasant, intelligent air about him. He gave the lamp to the giant shepherd, who scrutinized me closer.

“Hmm. Now that I can see things more clearly I am certain that you are no angel either. You do not seem to be much of anything!”

“He’s no king…is he Gillae?” said Brownie, seeking reassurance from the big man.
“Back away there Brownie,” Gillae said, and he took the lamp and drew it close to my face, and began to study me intently. His gaze was piercing, but strangely inspiring, and I felt life begin to flow again. I stirred myself to his challenge, and sat up to return his look. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed there were several other shepherds on the fringe of the lamp’s circle of light.

“By the Maker,” said I, “King I am…in a land far away. ‘Tis true that I do not look like a king, nor feel much better, but far I have journeyed to find the end of my travels. I seek the treasure of the ages. And why, by the heavens do you talk of such things as angels and demons?”

“Hmmm…perhaps I see royalty in yer veins, it may be as ye say”, Gillae said. “‘Tis evident that you have many miles of a journey upon ye, and ye are not well. But after this night’s drama it is no wonder that we knew not if you were human or inhuman. But ye speak of treasure…what is this treasure that a king would leave home and kingdom for?”

So I told him of the Mighty One that we sought, of the star that traveled and moved, and drew us on to the One. I told him of my illness and of my companions who had gone on without me, and Gillae grew evermore full of wonder and comprehension. Finally I was too weak to go on.
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I raised my arm towards the sky, and gestured weakly at the night, at the star that still shone brightly and steadily overhead, silently shouting of great wonders.

“I must find Him!” I gasped. “I must….”

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For Part THREE, click HERE

Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 3)

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For Part TWO, click HERE
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The kings stayed with us three days, and I was determined to accompany them despite being in no condition to make such an arduous journey. We had no idea where we were going, or how far it was. All we had was a new star that the Star King said sang to him to follow until it stopped where the Mighty One was. I would most likely die before I returned and yet…I knew in my heart of hearts that I was destined for such a quest.LK055
And so we set out that fateful morning so long ago. The Star King had a big barrel of frankincense to give to the Mighty One. The Mountain King had a big chest of gold to give to Him. ‘What will you give Him?’ they asked me. I laughed in mirthless despair. What could such as I give to such as Him?LK032I would most likely be dead before we found Him, but I said, if I was not dead, then I would give Him myself. HA, HA—a joke on the Mighty One—a dead King as a gift. So, I loaded my pack animals with food, water, and a large trunk full of burial spice—myrrh. It would most likely be used on me before we arrived, but if not, then I would complete the joke and give it to the Mighty One in the face of death, as a down payment for his dead King. My subjects lined the roadway and cheered us—some in jest and some in sorrow. Deep inside it was like everyone knew I was not coming back alive.

We traveled for months, following that star, and I grew weaker and weaker, and my dreams more and more terrible. I saw each blow of the whip and heard each gasp from His mouth. I saw each drop of living blood fall, liquid ruby light. I saw each time He was hit. I saw every crystal tear drop, and I saw the hammer fall time and again as it drove the nails through Him and stuck Him to the stake. I saw Him dropped into the earth like a broken sword in the midst of an empty grave. I needed constant care but death like the tide just kept creeping closer and closer.
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Finally one night, in the dreams, I held onto the King of Lights as He was drawn down. Deeper and deeper into the teeth of the darkness I was pulled, but still I held on, down into such hell itself. The pressure and sorrow and grief and the undead dark were overwhelming and again, in shame and despair I had to let go and seek the light of the world I knew. But I couldn’t find my way back. I was lost, and in the darkness, I wandered alone. The Star King and the Mountain King thought me dead and left me with all that I brought.LK067

And I lay, I know not how long.

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For Part TWO, click HERE

Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 2)

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For Part One, click HERE
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“’Twas on this very day, 77 years ago that I left this very castle, LightShine HearthHome and began the journey. I was sick, and full of torment. The fever upon me was getting worse. The times I felt whole and pain free were fewer and shorter, as aches and hurts grew like hungry dragons feasting on my days and devouring my nights.LK063

“The Light King” they called me then, though the name was given first in mocking jest. But King I was…then. Before the pain there was not a man under my eye that didn’t pledge his all for mine. What needed doing we did! No hesitation or moment of indecision! Strength it took, and strength I had! But it left me, strength, deserted me just when I needed it the most to fight off afflictions that no sword and shield could slash or beat down.

I loved the light in those days—and now—more than all else! I remember how sunlight through clouds and moonlight through trees fascinated me. I wanted to touch that light! To hold it, to drink it, to breathe it! To live IN it…ah!LK060
In those days men said there was a shine upon me not seen around others, a shine that matched my strength. But my strength began to fade, and the shine began to cease.

I was terrified. Oh, I put on a brave face, but secretly I cried in desperate agony and fear. I began to collect lamps and fill LIGHTSHINE HEARTHHOME with as much light as possible—lamps in the kitchen and lights in the hall, lamps in the library, wherever I could fit them. But the more lamps I brought inside the castle, the less light I had inside of me! It was like they were stealing their light from mine and burning my strength for fuel. The castle and all in it was brighter, but me—I was growing dimmer, fading you might say.

I heard whispers behind my back, and “Light King” became a mocking title because I had so many lamps and so little light.

Oh, to my face it was all peaches and cream, but behind the curtain I was mocked as a laughingstock—king in name and calling only. Always remember: position and riches do not royalty make. It takes qualities of spirit that cannot be bought, but only earned.LK014
Then it got worse. The dreams began—awful dreams of agony and torment over what I saw in the dreams. I feared going to sleep, and with the coming night came dread as well, to lie like a great monstrous dog across the foot of my bed.

“Oh, Grandpa,” gasped Caroline. “What were the dreams about?”

Ahh. They were about a new baby who became a noble man. This man was…well, it’s hard to say after all these years…he was light! I know that seems like an odd way to tell whom someone is, but there it is.

He’d be laying there, a new baby shining like a diamond, and right before my dreaming eyes he’d grow up into a man, who was LIGHT!

He was incredible to behold! Not exactly handsome, or attractive, even…but he was beautiful! And if I was “The Light King’, then he was King of Lights! I thought if he’d just reach out and touch me, then I’d be so full of such light as’d never fade nor flicker and the pain would be eaten up and I’d be strong again!

But then the awful part of the dream started. The darkness took on shape, like dragons and daemons, and it gathered against my King of Lights and tore him with claws of hatred. It beat him and broke him into a bloody horror.LK046

Then he was nailed to the stake and blood was everywhere. Finally the darkness set its teeth into his torn body to drag him down into its maw…deeper and deeper down…I screamed in rage and terror and ran to him and grabbed him to keep him from being pulled down into the blackness.

But I wasn’t strong enough and I was dragged down with him into the pit and I wasn’t brave enough to hold on and face the terror at his side so I let go in despair and shame…and woke up screaming and weak, dim and dying. This nightmare happened all night every night, and it was killing me.  LK064
I was near death when the Star King and the Mountain King arrived. The Star King had seen great portents in the sky of a Mighty One who was to be born, and together with the Mountain King was making pilgrimage to do him homage.

To survive this journey they needed the support that my treasury could offer them, and they desired me to accompany them! The fading Light King—nearing death, and I was supposed to help them? But I was intrigued by these tidings. A mighty one born in my lifetime. “Perhaps the Mighty One of All,” the Star King kept saying. It stirred…truly and deeply.

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****
For Part One, click HERE

Are People Books?

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my books…
my true treasures
faithful and constant.
always there,
waiting for me…

they never cry off
as too busy,
too tired,
too too too too…
they’re always
there always…

each time
there is something new,
something I didn’t see the first
(or second or third or fourth)
time thru…

I swear that books
write themselves,
add things based on
the currents we have
connected to them
like veins,

and what we are living
somehow informs them
and they change in accordance…

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A Difficult Movie Moment

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Hi Constance…so many fun holiday movies to watch!

Okay, I admit it…I am a sucker for all those cheapo ABC Family TV movies, Christmas Romances one and all…but there are some classic ones to boot.  Ya know, the first 2 Home Alone movies are pretty dang good.  Of course I love any version of A Christmas Carol, and it has been my life long vow since I was a 5th grader to keep Christmas better than Scrooge did, after his visitations, that is.  I love A Christmas Story and my word Christmas Vacation is always always funny and poignant…way too many phrases are now part of Jane and my vernacular

“I don’t KNOW Margo!!”

And then you get to the true classics…Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, and others…

…and then the one.

The one that I dread.  The one that has defeated me, every year since the first time that I saw it when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

It’s A Wonderful Life.

Now this is a wonderful movie, objectively speaking.  No question.  I have watched it at least 30 times or more…and every single goddang time…I want to die afterwards.

Why?  I can hear you asking me that…why, ‘Rissa?  WTF??

Well, I will confess to you why.  Because I am convinced that if I ever saw what George Bailey saw…life without me ever having been born…well, I have always been certain that everything would be better and everyone around me better off.  It would be the opposite of what George Bailey experienced.

I know it isn’t a rational thing to believe…I have dissected these thoughts ad infinitum, and they still kick my butt…every single freaking year.

So this year, I am going to leave the old Savings and Loan to the Baileys.  I think I will watch “All I Want For Christmas” instead…or “Miracle…”  Hey, it is at least bluntly honest when Susan Walker says “I believe…I believe.  It’s silly but I believe!”

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Breaking the Gender Covenant | On Being

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Breaking the Gender Covenant | On Being.

and

Gender and the Syntax of Being: Identity and Transition (a podcast)

Can I just…say…wow.

Joy Ladin has shared some incredibly important and significant ideas at the link above.  I have read her book

Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders

It is incredibly moving, deafeningly poetic and lyrical, and it captured my life as very few accounts have been able to.

In the article I am linking to, I can assure you that she gets it right, and while I never was forced to break the gender covenant with my wife, it has happened to me in other areas to the extent that I can verify her words as true in my own life too.

So…Constance:  it goes without saying that it is the right thing to be kind to transgender people, to be kind to everyone…but there is a deeper reason that I post this.  Are you able to read this article, synthesize out of it the core issues of becoming, and then find a way to apply them into your own life and experience?

There are ways that you too are “transgender”.  Oh no, I am not talking here about biology and the mind-body dichotomy.  Rather, I am talking about you the spirit inside you the body, and ways that this is often just not a good fit…you yearn for something more, something beyond.

I am talking about you the entity in this world, as if you the entity is your “internal sense of gender” and the world is “your exterior genitalia”…there are times when the fit is so wrong and so alien that you feel as if you would explode.

That is the place that is of greatest interest to me, Constance…because it is in that place that you and me and all of us are on the same sojourn to congruence and wholeness.

Advent Poem: The Season of Emptiness

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I remember
last Christmas,
lingering in my mind
midst memory’s fogs
and memories
…just grey mists now,
swirling and coiling
back on themselves,
roiling forward
from the past
and boiling over
into this morning,
this day…

LS_14_020L1

this time sitting
in the midst of ashes
dead and flat remaining
from that cold conflagration
of becoming thru the fires
of that season.

Friends, job,
name, family,
reputation,
all consumed
by fire,
all revealed as
morsels of the moment
(that lasted 55 years and still just a moment)…

last year,
I had it all
at least in the eyes
of those who don’t matter,
I had it all…especially
the awful yawning
void of nothing
gaping inside
me, most real
inside me,Processed with VSCOcam with x1 preset

I remember
the day after Christmas
reduced me to a place
in the hills adjacent
to the place a woman
took her own life
this year,
reduced me
to screaming incoherence
because I had run out
of words to scream and
I had just begun
to scratch the surface
of what there was
to scream about,
that awful
substantial black
nothing.

that day,
it was a close matter
a razor’s edge tumble
into red greedy flames
burning long and low
all year until
they blazed in fury fanned
when smothering shrouds
were snatched away sudden
in torn and tattered strips
to consume the bribes
and chains of nothing
clothed in costumes.

This Christmas,
nothing has been exposed,
revealed as the imposter
it still masquerades as.
I am empty of screams
but full of me and
ready to receive
the Promise of words
to give voice to
what’s unspeakable, unnameable,
to dress that wound
infected with nothing
and salve it with
the scratchy tickle of truth
and set free we
shadowbound to be
our shining selves,
casting shadows
instead of being flat
and cast by them.

It is the season of emptiness, and places
prepared by pain are hungry
for the Presence
and the Promise
that only emptiness contains.

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Advent: The Healing of the Light King: A Story of Christmas (part 1)

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Healing Charissa

“ Grandpa! Please, please tell us a story,” the young children exclaimed.

They were seated in the lap of a man who had seen many, many years. His gnarled, rough hands were like the branches of an oak tree, and his hair was thick and full, and white as snow. His face was a harvest apple in January—wrinkled and browned, but sweet to the taste. He was old as the hills and yet his eyes…full of light and joy, tears and grief, brokenness made whole… they made this old trooper seem like an eager child on Christmas Eve! He gazed down at his grandchildren, Young Frederick on his right knee, sweet Caroline on his left.

“So!” he boomed. “‘Tis a story you be wanting, is it my sprites? Well then! ‘Tis a story you’ll be getting, only then you’ll have to run off to your beds! For tomorrow we celebrate HIS birthday, and GLORY what a celebration we’ll have, eh? Frederick, throw some more wood on that fire whilst Sweet Caroline and I scoot closer to it.”

LK013

Frederick jumped down to obey. The old man rose with his granddaughter under one arm like a kitten, and with a casual flick of his wrist he tossed his huge oaken chair about three feet closer to the fire, like it was made of twigs. He sat down, and Sweet Caroline squirmed up his chest and wormed her arms around his corded neck. “Grandpa,” she said with a solemn face, “Tell us about your journey. Tell us about Him.”

“Yeah!” Frederick chimed in excitedly as he launched himself upon his grandpa. “Tell us about when you were The Light King, and when you went to see Him when He came, and about Gillae and Brownie and—“

“Whoa, slow down my bumpkins,” interrupted the old man. “You’ve heard that story so many times it must be nearly worn out from the telling! Surely you’d rather hear about how your papa, the King, killed the ugly dragon, Ba’alzamon,LK074

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

or about how he rescued the beautiful Princess Katherine
and made her his Queen and your mother?”LK025
“NO GRANDPA!” they shouted in concert.

“Tomorrow ‘s the Day–—His day and it’s your day too, said Frederick.

“Yes, Grandpa,” said Sweet Caroline. “It’s my favorite story, to hear how you met Him and everything. Please, Grandpa, oh please?”

The old man sat looking back and forth between them as if caught deep in indecision. He glared at them in mock irritation while delight danced in his eyes. The children sat in suspense, hardly daring to breathe, hearts straining with desire to hear the magical story.

Sweet Caroling looked at Frederick, and had a giggling fit. Frederick shushed her with an agonized frown and the darkness of the night pressed in through the windows as they huddled close to the fire. The room was full of lamps, all of them unlit and dormant. The fire popped and crackled fiercely. The old man drew in a deep breath, held it, just to build the suspense and then exhaled in mock resignation and secret gladness.

“Oh very well you smooth talkers. The tale is yours for the telling.” Frederick let out a whoop and Sweet Caroline accompanied him with gleeful clapping. “I swear! You two could talk an elephant out of his trunk while making him feel he was the talk of the town for the bargain! Okay then—gather close and settle in, and you shall hear the telling of

THE HEALING OF THE LIGHT KING

He took a deep breath, and began…

Overview and Comments on an Original Christmas Story

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Hi Constance…so last year at Christmas time, I published here a long original Christmas story, called

The Healing of the Light King

Clicking on the link will take you to the post in its entirety.

This is the Christmas story written from the perspective of one of the 3 Kings who goes on a journey with the other two, following that brilliant steady star that had appeared.  But the king is dying, from some ailment unknown, and so brings along the supplies needed to bury him in the likely event that he died on the way.  And if he made it, well, he would make those burial spices his gift to the royal personage that the star in the heavens spoke of.  After all, the spices were quite valuable.

Along the way, the king is abandoned by his companions when he has a seizure and they think he has died, and he is discovered laying unconscious in the fields of some shepherds.  They have just experienced some extraordinary events of an unprecedented nature and as they share these things with the king, they discover that their destination is the same place, the same Person, and so they set off travelling together.

They meet this Person, and something astounding happens to the King…and he Becomes…

…well, you will just have to read it to find out, now won’t you?

Here is the killer to me though:  this story moves me as much as anything I have written…ever.

And yet only one person pushed “like”.  And historically?  Other than when I read it out-loud to my kids when they were little, I have never received any sort of response to it!!  No response of any kind.  Not one time has anyone said “omg that is the most boring stupid thing I have ever read”…or “omg that was delightful!”

Nothing.

I even solicited input from readers a few days after posting it here…and what is totes ironic is that the post soliciting comment got a few likes.  Apparently, my plea for feedback was more interesting than the story itself!  But as per usual, no comments on the story.

Hey, I can deal with being told that I sucked and just am a very bad writer…I can deal with hearing that the story needs work and were I to ever to get any feedback on it I would work it in rewrite until it sang.  But apparently it isn’t even bad enough to create even that reaction!!  Giggles…now that is bad!!

Well…screw all that.  I like the story.  It is fabulous, imaginative, inclusive of diverse elements and taps into the Mythos of Christmas.  It touches on the Mystery of it, the Magic of it, and the Majesty of it.  Whether or not I wrote it very well has nothing to do with the story and what I saw when it came to me.

Maybe the problem is that it is a bit long?  It takes a while to read it.  I have heard that the modern mind has a short attention span (makes me so G Damn happy that Tolkien did not write in our day, or I likely would never have read TLOTR because no one would have published it!), and that is one way that I am very much not like modern minds, for mine is convoluted, complex, intricate…my thoughts and ideas take notions, nudges and knowings and weave them carefully.  And of course then there is the whole issue of being guilty of producing too much content.

Whatever.  I am who I am.  I am what I am, and I am not going to apologize for that, any more than the mighty Mississippi apologizes for feeding the sea.  I like the story so…

…so this year, I am going to re-post it here, but just a little bit each day.

Maybe it’s good…maybe it isn’t…who really knows?  But between now and Christmas, I will dribble it out here.  And if you want more?  Well that is the cool thing about blogs…you can go back in time!

Merry Charissa-mas!

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My Christmas Gift To Myself

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“Go where you are celebrated – not tolerated.
If they can’t see your true value and worth,
then it’s time for a new start.”

There are a number of ways that this is applicable for me…this is a good reminder for me in terms of friendships.  So often I have felt like some people see being friends with me as a job or burden to be endured…and I think that I am worth more than that.

I think that maybe being friends with me is an honor and something to be treasured…at least, that is the idea that I am toying with.

Those who think otherwise, or give off that impression, well I think I can safely just invite them to move along, nothing for them to see here.

I am sick and tired of feeling guilty for being who I am.

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Advent Poem: The Season of Expectancy

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I’m homesick for a Blue Place
that might not be real…
but I know it is.

It has to be!

It floats here,
Azure in my silver
longing heart unsinkable
and it’s scarlet voice calls
from Beyond into beyond,
to that Place
I have never been
but can describe
oh so very well,

down to tittery wine
that brings all joy
but never leaves
hangovers in its wake
and the drippy bread that breaks
crusty with truthful crunch
and fills you up
without filling you out.tumblr_nd3f1fcRM41sktpb4o1_500

Slow down, to open
quick windows of awareness
and be of thick spiritual health.

Find jubilant quiet Mystery
inside stillness’s expectant embrace,
the only Place that God’s own Face
can safely show Itself, It’s Grace.

God’s Grace, God’s Face,
an infant among us…
Good God with us
(a freaking BABY??!!??!)…
a disruptive Mystery
wedged into reality
and stuck in the craw of dismay.

Where only They can fit.tumblr_ng0upkntmb1sn5m44o3_1280

But Mystery, even a disruptive one
(no…especially a disruptive one!!)
is well worth

stillness,
wonder,
contemplation.

This Mystery is rich enough
to make us stop and wait,
and is poor enough
to catch out all pretenders
greedy for gain alone
and thus lost of soul.

God has stepped into our world
to dig us out of every prison
we disguised as snug burrows
and cozy hobbit holes.tumblr_nepxwwD5ae1t0vssco1_500

Listen.
If you cannot hear it
you will miss it.

Make room.
Divest yourself
of lists and budgets
and endless holiday labor
and fretful commotion and
freeze-dried contentment.

Contemplate
empty your heart
and your hands of stuff,
of chaos, of injustice and
hatred, death and despair.

It’s the season of Expectancy
so heavy in the air, and that is
miracle enough, from there…

from Blue…and from Beyond.

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