Here I am
caught up in your wonder
and wondering how
it is that you have written it
all over me
and around me.
I am here inscribed
by your eyes, your lips
your hands have writ large
in wonder upon …
Source: In Your Wonder
Category Archives: Charissa Grace
Advent Poem: The Season of Emptiness
This poem is about how the work of Advent involves a preparation of Empty Bequeathed…and it uses transition as its vehicle.
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.
The Big Books Of My Longing
In the Big Books
of my longing
the pages
(fresh bread fragrant,
full, and beckoning)
speak of other
days and other
worlds hung in
Mystery Skies…
where Winter walks
in sleighbell slippers
and flashes snowflake
teeth in starlight,
teeth gleaming
in teeming flurries
dancing furiously
frivolous and fancy
free…
reaching to me
inside my room
in the Big Books
of my longing
and pages rustle
like wrapping papers
and chestnuts pop
so merrily,
clicking their
Christmas tongues
tsk tsk tsk…
and She,
Lady Winter
in furs of hearth
and home, underlaid
with ermine fires
like brown-tinged
liquid gold, furs and
white hot coals inside
Her Heart so cold…
so Warm…
It’s just outside
my window pane
(and glowing
in the pages too)
in the big books
of my longing…
Look! And see how
even in Her Presence
(Her very Presence!)
In Her Presence
ducklings sneer
at that name called
Frozen
and quacky laff and
swing a wiggly waddly tail
and burst in shattering wings
that break the pond-limit water pane
once so still and now awash in
ripple-tizzy ripple run
tum tum tum
pum
just outside
my window pane
they break
with earth
and rise
revealed
just ducks
of quacky
laff at regal
August Winter
in December…
while
the swans,
contrapuntal
in becoming
also rise
(like the
floaty moon so
silverlight in
revelations
of duck
and dirt
and
common
clay)
Swans,
become stars
swimming thru still night
and singing all Her praise
and shining gracefully
on gliding wings…
in the Silent Singing Snow
and
every
sound
echoes
my heart
inside that
just outside…
just outside
my window pane
and the Big Books
of My Longing
Big-Hand Little-Hand Me
and what, Mama?
You turned me inside out
so red, so dark, a cave…
an old sock wooly
on the outside,
and yet hollow
and full of things
yet held…
and yet the holder
of a galaxy of galaxies!
You took my emptiness
and filled me with Yours
which aches with the pregnant
potentiality of it all.
what am I gunna do
with this new ache
You gave me?
You reach
and grant that grace,
that terrifying removal
of veil and valence and vector…
and this new and bracing ache
remaining behind like
a lost tooth in my
heart’s mouth.
I went to that mat of death
alone and yet surrounded
to discover that pile of me,
I bone of my own bone…
what gain was there?
what loss endured?
my mouth stoppered
my eyes covered
ah but ears so open-wide
to hear the death song sung
so slow and yet so steady
tock-ticking its way round
that twisty path to me
laid there like a circle…
my big-hand little-hand me
We Happy 15 (A sending poem)
Ya know, even Jesus,
being a dude and all,
didn’t get it!
He thought He
could do it all
with just 12…
and Himself of course!
L. O. freaking L!!
What else would you
expect from a man?
They always think a few inches is a ruler!
“Hey buddy, suck it up Bro!
Rub some dirt on it
Call it good”!
Umm…yeah no.
We know different,
am I right?!?!
Every woman knows
it takes 14
to make a goddess!
A living zesty busty
hippy jazzy sleek
fat hale hearty
slick and
slippery
oh so yummy
JUICY LUCY GODDESS
made of us…we happy 14.
Our Hearts have twined,
our souls have moved
And Mama, She poured
out Her glue
until
We have
elided, danced
and birthed and
been born US!!!
goddess awake and so divine
and we decree our ministry:
the mission of the Broken Pot
forever pouring, ever filling
ever loving, ever willing
always welling upward welling
HEALING
Then? Mama Herself
presses in and on to us
(We Happy 14,
extension of Her face,
Her mask created!)
And caps this Broken Pot of wee
with Holy Trust and Sacred Mercy
running burning everywhere
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14
And Mama…
We Happy 15
Six Word Memoir (Seven Examples)
From fire
and ice
I’m born
Come On In!
the Water’s fine!
from the ashes
I have risen
I’m Mama’s Girl…
Just ask Her!
I am a
Selke
of Shalom
my bones
call the
goddess you
You ask me
why I laugh
^
|
(insert a comma after “why” for double entendre)
In Blood & Bone (A Seven Line poem)
It is looming, dark and leaning in, this Winter
and its ancient song echoes in blood and bone.
It pulls down Blue from frozen skies…
While perched nearby a wizened crone…draws breath
and throws her gleeful cracked chanson in cackled tones
that run and roll like casting bones…that dance and then…still
and winter, song, blood and bone and ancient crone…are one.
Deeply Well (French Pantoum)
You are a Many-Moon now
Baby, deeply well
My Conjurer-Priestess
just like Me.
MAMA!!
IT HURTS!!
I HAVE DUG YOU OUT
My Conjurer-Priestess
just like Me!
My Consolation is Sweeter…and
I HAVE DUG YOU OUT!
You shall not run dry…for
My Consolation is Sweeter.
MAMA!!
IT HURTS!!
You shall not run dry…because
you are a Many-Moon now,
Baby…deeply well
A Rain So Red And Warm (Transgender Remembrance Day 2016)
“April is the cruellest month…”
T.S. Eliot said…
he simply wasn’t paying
the steep cost of attention.
It’s in the brown pits of November,
when we lie in hopeless wait,
in limbo stuck there in between
the stupid and sublime…
stuck in that old and barren hollow,
wedged between a grease congealed
KFC bucket called Autumn
laying in dead crackly leaves
and its winter-shadow-self
approaching in uneven shambling
gait with cutting winds, harbingers
lurking in its fraying heart.
I listen hard, I strain my soul
in this insensate endless month
for a song, a sound…anything?
maybe a last, desperate word
of Release?
Real-ease?
Reeling, I go through the gates
of death that loom large in the night
aware that I may well be robbed
of all this nothing left to me,
of all the rest of my short years
aware the grave cannot give praise,
that death cannot sing elegy
and I know, finally, that we
are sick for life, and desperate cling
to this nameless shining thing,
a fountain sealed, we drift toward
our edges, there below revealed
in such familiar frightening
familiar numb-ed anguished sting
shared just by one Incarnate One
a weak and beaten broken man,
a God defeated, crying in
the quiet weeping freezing rain
falling slowly in the black
and cloying plummeting sloe dark
that’s darker than our darkened world
blacker than all blackened loss
blinder than all senseless hate
and bleak as splintery bloody cross
and it is there our questions cold
fall limp…just like the rain itself
and like His sadly dripping tears
(Himself a rain so red and warm)
and here His tears mingle our own
and here His blood flows from His side
and there the final faint quick spark
flickers within His ruined hide
His broken heart amidst the dreck
of our lives brutally played out
in this tragic blind senseless wreck
where light lays down, and breathes its last
and mourns all dreams of futures past.
our only hope a hang-ed man
become the lowest of the low
embodying every despair,
He gives a cross to cling to, know
a hang-ed man, His own self there
insistent Incarnation fair
drinking the deep cup of despair
and promises that it is Done.
In The Face Of Death
waters of Mara
turn to life
and royal streams
of Violet Purple!
purity has taste…go ahead
taste it, taste and see
see Whom you shall see
and say to Them
teach me in Your waters
living, knowing kind
you will find my secrets
hidden in the bottom
ahh
Ancient Grace
in the face
of death
Silver Tails and Fading Light
flick of silver tail,
flash of waning argent light
bloated belly rolling over red echoes
of a blooming crimson sky
and then these little gifts eternal
nestled in the cleans-ed sand
another flick of tired tail
a last flutter of gaspy-gill
and all is still…
floaty toward the slumber stop
and all is still
The Adoration In You
Run, Child, from the once into the upon and thru the times
to emerge knowing that leaves ARE…
having passed from once there
upon a tree
thru air
in that
moment
Twisty
Timeless
Floaty
Look Child, in my voice’s sound and hear
the siren call of Riotous-Red Drifty yellow
(sounds like MMMMMMMM!)
My hand, Baby Girl…touch…my…hand
Darting
Diving
Twisting
Oceans Run and Race thru the air
within these sacrificial leaves…
A continent is written in the wind
beneath their stems!
Crackle
Swish
Swoop
Settle in the sun come down
into a million longing little leaves
all starting…all fall…to settle
Fly without wings, without eyes!
Trust your heart, it sees the leaves
that fall within my Heart for you
and in
falling
and flying
and settling
Shall you know Peace
Shall you touch Release
and know the adoration in you
My Heart of Hearts
A Love Note…From The Darkside Of The Moon
Sisters…
I have come, like Hagar returning home…
back from the dark side of the moon
and I am full of wisdom gleaned
from sun-baked wanderings
across wide bleak and barren lands
and Beautiful Bedouin Deserts
and all the way to that distant shore…
the edge of my soul-wound.
I have faced the edges of myself
I have faced that Gulf of separation
and I have headlong heedless SWAN-DIVED
pure…and I survived
the plunge!
I have crossed over…that gulf
I have TRANS-ED!
And now I run
returned to you, same-sided ones
My CIS-ters dear and precious-rare
marooned and longing for The DARE!
You still stuck on that Lost Coast
of desolation waiting at the long deserted
service station called same old
same old same old old old SIDE
Ohhh Sarahs! I have heard such secrets in
the red-reed voice of Sirocco winds
Oh the things I know, winnowed by that
wind and winnow-stick of courage
from the shifting Sands of self…
I have sifted and been sifted
by the heat and cold and light…and
the dark
the dark
the dark that knows what sleeps alone
the dark that knows what it knows not
(and nought, ahhh, yes, the dark knows nought)
the dark that knows what it knows nought
and it has taught me Love Notes…
on the dark side of the Moon
OHHHH MY MOON!!!
MA MERE!!!
You see, she is stuck too (just like you, Sarah, just like you)
in his orbit circling and one side shining one side dark
her endless pasted happy smile while growing thin and desperate
and starved, ravenous in the night
Oh Sarah, remember you laughed, back then!
Well, I could teach you a thing or two about Laughing NOW!
Cus from your chuckle sprang a promised child
who grew into a nation dusty rusty red?
But I…me? Hagar??
HAH!!
From the Womb of my laughter
springs forth The Children of Her Promise!
I!! The Outcast ME!!
My Laughing womb brings forth
the very Rose Behind The Sun!!
We are two wombs, two moons, Sarah…you and me
But I’m a moon that got fed up and broke away
and learned to spin and twirl and dance!
I learned how to gladden this close Dark
I have understood how to please the Light
as I spin and twirl and turnturnturnspinstepspinturn
lightdarklightdarklightdarklightdarkLIGHT!!!
I am your Hagar! Outcast and returned
here in your hour of great need!
I stand before you, with you
with my wand of Cedar freedom waving
and my book of Mama-Conjuring!!
Ohhh Dearest Sarah, can’t you see?
That you are the same as me?
Look past desert veils so long ago assigned
Peer deep beneath this hoary hated hide!
And see the vital fertile oceanic sea…
see my…
ME!
Ohh Sarah, I see you! I was you…
languishing in bitter wounds of old
I see you in your hurty night
your tear stained grief
and darkened dreams
I see your Crystal Mountain Rare
now Shattered in Indifferent air
and Chasm shards!
And I have come to midwife you
from the womb of your true self
to the mercy of your real True You!
I will help you see with eyes unblinking
thru your tears those canyons riven
by erosion bit by bit from
your most treasured self!
STAND! Leave behind the CIS-ter lands
and join me, we’ll reclaim OURSELVES!
Finally forever truly SIS-TERS
For in truth?
Our destiny is one.
To be exultation light-filled
Trans-women all
crossed over
and spinning wildly,
Joyful in the Night!
To The Monster Lurking…
Sands and Shadows and Pearls, Deconstructed
So I wanna give a lil glimpse to how I weave poems into poems…this is Sands and Shadows and Pearls, but taken apart into its strands…you can read each strand, and then go back and look at how I juxtapose to create Poetic Harmonics…this should create some depth and distance in the metaphors and implications of waking, dreaming, shadow, sun and what casts the shadow.
I hope you will work with it some… ❤
I do shed tears, these days
I also shed dreams too
I dreamed, last night
I also shed tears too
I think…yes.
I dreamed that I walked lands crying
and my tears fell on red sands glistening
my tears
my tears on red sands sizzled
because I had no shadow,
they had no shadow
and then in that glaring sun unbridled,
that staring star unfiltered
they became pearls
of white
and ivory
and pink
they
became pearls
of My Mother,
the Mother of Pearls
and then I saw,
Her, walking there,
sowing in tears
and reaping in pearls
with nary a diamond
in sight
and She turned to me,
She bid me pick them up
and take…eat…and I did
and where they lay
the sand was gone
and green grass jumped lush
into my eyes with verdant glee!
And the pearls tasted like honey
and the pearls
became glory within me
and I rose up on glory,
I rose up in glory,
glory within me
and glory in the air
and I saw my shadow,
distant and crumpled
and pinned to the ground
for always by arrows
and spears and the knives
of those children
of red sand and shadows.
And just as I began to wake
I realized that ever
would they gather there,
around that shadow
pinned and empty
of all save their vitriol and hate
while I walked free but achy
across the red sands,
with no shadow
between me
and that stark sun
except for the glory
that’s given by pearls
plucked from green grass
so verdant that used to be
red sand so hot
on which was shed precious
tears without shadow.
So I wake, each time
I wake and realize
I do not need a shadow
to stand between me and the sun
and some something
to tell me that I am, I am.
I am.
I just need those tears
shed on sands red and glaring
become pearls from my Mother
to wrap me in glory
and glory wrapped in me
and no shadow my shadow
forever
and pearls
(and nights…it is strange
to wake and find the wet
residue of sorrows dried
and digging at the corners
of my eyes),
(like tears).
(last night…it is strange
to wake and find the dry
remnants of dreams moist
and pressed, pushing into
the spaces between me
and my pillow)
(like dreams).
(my tears glistening,
not the sands, they lay leering,
skulking, glaring flat and angry)
(the ones in my dreams,
the ones with no shadow)
(the tears and me,
not the sands and dreams)
(my tears)
(like the armpits of abalones,
who also learned to live
without shadows)
(my tears,
not the abalones,
or the red sands,
or the shadows)
(born of tears shed on red sands glaring,
tears glistening and without shadow)
(not shadows or sands)
(because diamonds have shadows
and slinky songs and glittery platinum
brittle best friends)
(the pearls, not
sands and shadows)
(like shadows flee daylight)
(and clear thirst-quenching
shadow-clearing life)
(and the pearls of my Mother,
not the sands and shadows)
(not to day,
not in night,
I wake to me)
Sometimes In Fall
sometimes in Fall
when the mist is just right
floating, hanging in light
you can make out a wall
a rampart extends
from the Back of Beyond
shouting of a far place
that is ever so near
and if you simply walk
walk right thru that deft arch
on your light tippytoes
you can just about touch
the glowery stem
of the flowery Rose
at the Center of all…
sometimes in Fall
My Sharp Longing
the soft day
withdraws
from the stage
retiring but
not shy
she makes
her way gentle
and in layers
of soft silky
swaddling clouds
and I, brief burst
upon the face
of quiet night
shine fierce in
my sharp longing.
Of Rain On Rooftops
and it is in night…
like a babe in fresh blankets
snuggled and seeing,
quiet and jumping
in jammies with footies
singing of safety,
hot chocolate and nibbles,
then raindrops on rooftops
tingtingtingthrumthrumthrum
silver tin foil lightning
slashing thru thick dark air
that quivers and tears
then closes again
with thunderclap rolling
and rain steady hissing
down quiet and soothing
and shushing and rushing
and we settle, snuggle
and Autumn is come
to quiet our soul
and gladden
our hearts
I Love This Song
‘Once I have endeared the deity, she will love me in her heart,
the offer I bring may wholly cover my sin,
bringing sesame oil may work on my behalf in awe may I’
A Pregnant Late Summer Moment
when fireflies all held their breath
and neither glimmered nor glammered
but just held…held…
when soft tealights strung in trees
waltzed together in the breeze
soft, faint, sun-kist and sad
and you
and me
dancing into the velvet night
of hanging silks and wattled wine
and I am yours
and you are mine
Singing In My Holy Heart
It took me there, it broke me there
on a sandy sliver midst some smooth black stones
so silent, sitting at the edge of this lake longing,
this tarn quiet, dark and clear
from deep inside my mouth
I felt my wet heart rise, surge burst…
I would’ve screamed forever
idididididididididid
scream forever
but cannot get sound past the breaking
past the past and into and over
and thru
me
I’m so full (there’s more)
I can’t take any (more)
I struggle to breathe
and then I relax
into…(what?)
herherherherher
HerHerHerHerHer
HERHERHERHERHER
pushing deeper
into-from
my mouth
and I desperate while stars dance
burst, birth, explode, rip right from my heart
my lungs my breasts bright surging
glorygloryglorygloryglorygloryGLORY
I am me spread-eagled
beneath Her velvet verses,
(me)
my legs slick, straining against air surging
ebbing, words liquid raging flowing pushing
tearing thru me and me and me
quicksilver soul, a lake, a mirror
shattered by this Stone
unseemly and perfect,
Huge and Lacey
Light and Heavy
Her (r)ock
mmmmm
flung down from faraway
(who knows where?)
and into this lake
(mmmmmmmmmm)
and a million murmuring moaning circles
pushing outward sliding downward
groaning upward thru this water
sainted, and that Air, each circle
almost pulls me beneath under
I am buried living-forward
I’m resurrected dying-backward
I am stained forever always after
with that pungent glory,
with Her Glory running down
my chin and from my lips so wet
and thus I shiver deep within
all the way from my down-low throb
to the very roots of my
ecstatic shining hair
She pulls Her hand out, slowly wraps
Her arm around me…I curl up
and drift off, musky fragrances anointing,
smearing my eternal cheeks
singing in my hol(e)y heart
singing in my whol(e)y heart
singing in my holy heart
While You Were Saying It
It’s bigger than a blue canyon,
that place my orphic words live
and come down from,
a canyon with one end anchored in eternity
and one end tipping into whatever
“-ality” … “-ernity” we dwell in
right here in River City.
I reach up and pull down Words
like apples golden or ripe peaches soft
fragrant and newly fuzzy insistent
and throw them into that canyon blue
blewsy runny and streaked in greys
and oranges (like rock sunsets)
…but those words…
those words
reduce
those words
shrink
and become
small,
as small in your eyes as they
are big in my head and
what was once limitless
is now merely living
and that makes me lonely
and feeling like
I got too close to important truth
too close to your secret hiraeth heart
buried in your soul’s backyard
like some long loved lost bone…
so you just look at me funny
and shoo me away with
blinking eyes and wagging head
as if not grasping what I said,
as if not seeing my words or me.
But do you not see me
and see yourself
in the seeing of me?
You almost cried
while you were saying it!
The Ship Inside My Head
There’s a ship inside my head
It sails upon the seas
that stretch, that roll out from my bed
to the far shore of me
sometimes that ship it runs aground
because the tide is out
and blind men, blind men think me drowned
and beached deep in their drought
But tides, well they run deep and true
they go, and then return
with golden glad tidings of you
that splash my bow, my stern
And my sails bloom, are full once more
and dance upon the breeze
I slice thru waves, I dive, I soar
set free from my dis-ease
To sail and sail, to skim beneath
the moon there in Her bliss
and I wrapped safely in Her wreath
and sainted by Her kiss…
Ahhh…there’s a ship inside my head
I sail the ancient seas
of greens, and blues, and golden-red
I sail the seas of me
True North
that passing
parade of people
flashes by, spinning
roulette wheel
KLAKLAKLAK
LAKLAK
klak klak
KLAK
and in the midst but set apart
and singled out from time to time
and separated from the herd
and from the heard and from the hearing
distant from particular promise
feeling so far from God’s presence
or God’s forgiveness because something’s
blocking our view of God’s sweet mercy
I
think
it is WHITE
Double OUGHT
and the house wins again and preens
in false humility and slings
blame upon us Double Zeros
skewing vision til it seems
God has truly overlooked us and that’s not justice, it’s just us…
It’s that inconsistency between
things we thought we knew
and things we deeply feel,
and yet
Desire is our compass
bloody, steady, unblinking.
It points to our True North
and leads us home
against all odds
Like Blood And Oxygen
breathing underwater,
these ancient words waves,
and these timeless thoughts
tides, and beacons…
my breath, my lament
(like blood and oxygen)
held tight within my chest,
and crushed by the familiar
finally rushes out,
released exposed expression
of an anguished soul,
a suffocating heart
what was true for all,
of All ‘neath the sun
was not true for me,
me, here without air
cast careless away
(chummed over the side)
remnants of shame bubbling
out thru my clenched teeth
and sinking, sinking, drowning,
praying for a whale
or even just a school
of plankton-kissed bright breath
and then against my will
my chest constricts, it heaves,
and bucks…glory oh glory
at last it’s true for me
and I am, finally
breathing underwater
I Am Charissa Grace
I am Charissa Grace
and not your dumb head case
I’ll muss your hair, throw off your pace
and maybe even kiss your face
I overflow permitted banks
and needle apoplectic cranks
cus I unsettle everything
I am wild WILD WILD thus I sing
of mountains dancing, winds untamed
and my heart free in Mama’s Name
To All From My Past Who Read Here
Hi.
If you are someone from my past and you read here, I want you to know something.
You are welcome to read here.
If you are someone from my past, and you are genuinely open to learning new things, updated understandings of the ways that technology has revealed realities regarding gender and DNA…if you are willing to meet me…Charissa Grace White…and truly receive me as you would any human being you had met and were getting to know, then you are welcome to be in contact with me.
But know that my choice to transition is not up for debate…it is made and done. To debate that with you would be as silly as debating with you whether or not it was the right thing to marry the person I chose. So I will not allow this…I will not put myself at the end of your firing range to become your scapegoat for the social ills you so deeply dread.
And finally…if you are someone who reads here while thinking of me as that freak who is a “man” but is deceived and deluded by the devil and is now under demonic influence for thinking “he is a woman”, then just GTFU…ur dum. Holding this position is like boasting about how stupid, intractable and ignorant you are of the incredible body of literature on the subject. You ought to be asking yourself why you are so deeply upset over this! Why does it bug you so much?
I am by far a better person than I ever was before…more of what people have always loved about me and less of what people have always despised about me.
Just go away if you are in that latter category…I don’t care how long I have known you. The length of time you have known me is directly proportional to the ought you are obligated to in connection with me! You ought to be more compelled to read the literature…you ought to be more compelled to know the open flower and stop worshipping the tightly closed bud.
There is a male who flat out broke off a relationship that was over 3 decades old, because I “had crossed a river he would not cross”. He has had zero contact with me since. This in spite of how his actions violate the very gospel he claims to love. This in spite of the countless hours we spent together, the countless actions of service and love and support, the walking thru darkness on his behalf…
…clearly the issue is on him.
But I bring him up to tell you that his is the party you want to go join if you are in that latter category.
I am me…free…and flying. You can fly too, if you would actually take responsibility for your choices and your failures to choose…your fate is in your choice, and may you find surrender to Love as you choose…
Photography
I take a picture
(absurd,
when you
think about it)
(take)
(a picture)
I capture
something
(the shutter shudders)
(the lens blinks)
and a reduction
becomes a memory
That Eye Unblinking (A Holden Lament)
Last year a wolverine broke loose, came slashing & gashing, ran up & down
canyons & cliffs & crittering quick up tree-trunks w/such fierce red claws…
Snarling & yowling the haunting roar raged, moaned & cursed w/such
hunger, such fury, that flurry of wood-thirsty teeth insatiable, free from hiatus
& running heart birthed straight from Their Great Altar There which purifies
all things w/Holy Fire so freeing, so cleansing…wafting austere like pure
Incense arising, in billows & plumes & ash, ASH, everywhere & in
perpetual Wednesday, marking the Cross on all things there…within.
the fire had time to make up…
One Hundred and Fifty years to turn…and it was said to be
A Great Mosaic Burn.
At last to feed its need to cleanse a forest fat w/care, beneath the watchful eye
of Moses there, beneath his rod extended, as if the sun stood still again,
& trees grew up & great in grit & girth like Children of the sun, see how fat
they had become…See them, their indifferent eyes unblinking, safe, satisfied &
self-centered & all together, such a stand of forest land, secure, untouched…
so sleepy, nodding off with rusty Time’s tock-ticking Heartbeat softly crooning
to ossified great forest stands so very grand that didn’t know they needed
Severe Mercies to come with fire and hot kisses from the Phoenix.
It had not chosen cleansing
It did not know it’s need
for resurrection, for refining
For fire comes to cleanse & make new everything it can consume
& challenge all it cannot touch to understand that TRANSFORMATION’s
the destiny of every-thing w/the courage to crawl out from underneath
the letter & run from rod & leave behind the tyranny of typical to the flames…
& walk away from Moses, into freedom in liquid-gold fireworks,
free from the cares of the world that cling so fierce & so easily entangle us,
choke our lives in hoary growth & lullabies lulling us fast to sleep,
a Sleeping Beauty Bride on her bower of soft & easy privilege.
She like an eye unblinking
safe in her cloister so fair
deaf to Her loud Divine Dare.
And (just like that forest or Sleeping Bride) there amidst that red hot bloody
conflagration set another eye, a forest eye, unblinking sightless eye & woke up
wide awake in terror tribulation, hushed in dread anticipation & fear & with
helpless petitions arising, not like incense but like signals…smoke signals…
to Moses? To God? To the Universe Fire come down to feed? Protected by
roads cut w/care & foresight, that Eye Unblinking sat there in fright…
& Holden its breath, leaning against a wolverine dread come at last to
consume the dead, to rip that forest wide open, slash woods to crimson rags
dripping bloody w/flame & red flurries…
wrapped in silver sheets reflective, shiny
(or were they merely space age burial shrouds?)
It never blinked, that Eye, & all was shrouded safe, cocooned within
& underneath the rod & the Letter, striding secure thru the Red Sea Fire
escaping the sharp teeth of wolverine the Eye remained preserved amidst
a work that renovates the face & gives a skin-deep makeover, but leaves
the sleepy years untouched & undisturbed on laurels long gone brown
with age & loss of life though all appearances would say that Holden is
alive & well & safe from that destructive hell of fire & fear…yet none
could name that something still so desperately needed a root canal of flame!
for all the Who’s in Holden sigh
for yesteryear, forgetting that it’s
the thief that steals tomorrow.
And this year, one yr later in the same Unblinking Eye I rolled in on waves
& wind (Charissa means “Grace” but named “Char”-issa, “Ashy-one”) seeking
to drink of the life that flows thru a village untouched by anything
that fell outside Mosaic burn no longer shrouded outside but just maybe
mummy rags still wrapped so tightly around a heart perhaps long grown
so slack so sleek & o so fat just like that forest was last yr before God gave
a wolverine to rage, feed, cleanse, renew…I saw History on display, windfall
fruit rife on the ground & satisfaction ruled the day, familiarity won the race
and wore her shiny tangy plumy purple tinsel crown…
Golden Apples, everywhere and casual and everyone was on the in,
societal, and fire roads cut secure and ohh soo straight.
So I said Hi and reached w/blinking eyes that squint into the light,
oft times in fright of storms & lightning flashing forth…& found
my blinking words rebuffed by cool & hooded eyes that had seen it all,
eyes satisfied & cynical cus been there done that, ho-hum…done much worse
I ran aground on fire roads & that Moses curse of long ago still Holden Court
over long hearts that found consuming fire fearful, dreadful & to be avoided
at all costs by any means…& thus she stands this very day…Holden Village
on cusp of…petrification?…or on that hot edge of the Phoenix Way!
Holden, Eye Unblinking, ensconsed
in the forest, last year just as this one,
in a forest cleansed to living bone, and Holden?
I heard the Spirit resounding The Word that Fire must fall on a village that
mirrors the forest that kneels all around, She said that She has a fiery crown
& Holden is that forest fat & ready for Refiner’s Fire, Cleansing Burn that
resurrects those vital dry bones waiting but she must choose that fate & blink
Yes, we must welcome Fire Fate from God & let the dead wood burn,
& blaze, & feed Mosaic Ways to the flame & trust the Good God of the Fire
to keep her safe underneath Their Name & resurrected, cleansed, renewed
& ever delivered from stain & shame!
Let the rod be cast into the fire hot and be consumed!
For Moses died on Southside, short of Zion is his tomb!
And find us Lovely on the Northside, once again the Spirit’s womb!
Letter cannot take us there, nor blaze of past great glory fair
We must eradicate those roads of preservation that we wear!
They trap and capture us and cut us off from Grace unhindered
so we, like the forest, turn dull and dry, reduced to deadwood’s kindred!
I see Holden cleansed by Fire, and crying Holy tears when Holy
Spirit has free reign again to fall in fires that restore
and interrupt Sleeping Beauty’s snore and dead trees gone,
that speck removed and blinking eyes await the Dawn!
And animals can come again now welcomed
and bathe released in Grace and Precious Holden,
His Eye now blinking free and shining fair in Jesus’ Face.
Oh Holy Lightning Strike like Griffin Swift
upon this yearning heart in desperate need
of Your Mercy Severe, Your Holy Gift
Give us Grace to Find the Phoenix-Way!
To rise in faith from Ashes and from death
to self and self reliance, come what may!
On resurrection wings and Spirit’s breath
alive again and all is well this night
that breaks and shatters with the rising dawn…
and not a single fire road in sight,
and what will be well it shall simply be
and what will not be well it will be gone!
Come Holy Fire, we answer Your Call!
and All Reborn, and Love is All in All,
“Someday…someday the snow will fall!”
That Sinister Lurk
Shine into the darkness
of brooding quiet forces
that do not want you there.
Radiate into those shadow grey spaces
that don’t claim the name of place
and thus do not receive or comprehend you…
shine on loudly into that sinister lurk.
Your bones deeply grasp
their independence from person,
place or thing…they embody
the stringy collaboration
with you and you alone.
They do not need anything’s
skunky permission to be
or to do or to sing into the
communion of the stars
of courage and anthemic
soaring adoration of LIVE!
Some would shine like the sun…
but you, like the moon
are magnanimous and magical
in your mystery and simplicity
and your goodness and gift radiates
in glowy glimmers and clear silver
beams bouncing off soft evening meadows.
They wait for morning, in
that sinister lurk, that cold
and sinister lurk, while you
mount up…big, bony,
beaming gentle in the soft
beautiful night…
that sable cotton brilliant
and gentle.
The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday
I wrote this last year related to the events current…and this morning I am struck in how all that has changed is the temperature…which has gone up and up and up…
…and half our nation has lined up behind the likes of someone who truly believes they can simply fire the rest of the world…
For Little Mama, On Vacation
I think your heart is called by canyons,
you find them, or…do they find you?
But all across creation’s face
the creases, clefts give you their Grace.
You have left labors to themselves
and sweat and tears behind.
You put your nose into the wind
and cleared your clever mind
And headed west, west, west of West
to canyons once again…
but these are running, bloody, wet
with nature’s life blood pure
So sit…it’s called a river out here
but you know its bone-truths
It’s really still a canyon dear
So be renewed…be clear
We Lords of Tuscany, We Ladies Of The Meadow
At last we finally
have come down to it,
perched here on this edge
of sun-bleached splintery white planks
and darkly stained with shadows and blood.
I hear the wind winding
thru the distant trees wistful,
insistent and full of desire for
golden times long past and golden
songs sung oh so long ago.
It saws its way, the wind, it saws.
Forth and back, across again
that one long thin strand fixed just so
to that grey ancient, heavy beam
that I can barely see because
history’s speck embedded
in my eyes and clawing,
scratching them
and clouding my ocular
true blue vision.
But as I stand here, on the edge
of gone for good at last, and I
behold the hushed and held tense breath
of the gawking crowd…I remember
Tuscany and us
when we were young and ageless
and we ran the fields like wild-fire
in joy and wreck-less free abandon…
we ran…and ran…and
free we ran…
I recall vineyard embrace, green
in the cool night sprawled beneath
the glitter-glare of celestial songs
taken form and sight in night
and flying, shooting, never landing
never ending, never…
except in our hearts,
our ageless hearts,
we Lords of Tuscany,
we Ladies of the Meadow
And time it stood still while we swirled
and then somehow twas we stood still
and everything turned round about us
til somehow…now…
here at the end
in the hangman’s
clutching final
noose as the reaper
plays along upon
his shimmer-scythey harp
and the rope
relentless quivers
and croons and
begs me to
forget…
But I remember
Gold and Fire
and glowing embers
in you…
and in me…
We Ladies of the Meadow
We Lords of Tuscany
The Best Gifts In The World
I find this quote significant for me on this day. Thanks to the best gifts in the world: the soul friends who have joined my journey…Gifts of Healing Presence from God to cleanse and heal the horrors of abandonment by unfaithful and fearful humans who even after 3 decades did not have the wherewithal to go the distance.
There are several significant people who walk with me, both in person and online…both groups are not large but wow are they substantive…thank you for walking me into me. ❤
July 13, 2016
“The tradition of soul friend reinforces the communal and corporate nature of Celtic spirituality and the dangers of traveling the spiritual path alone. A soul friend helps to offer us the courage needed to say yes to the big dreams being birthed in us. They help us to gain clarity over places of self-deception and denial.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD
The Wild Heart Of Longing
“For the desert mothers and fathers, the monastic cell was a vitally important place.
It was both literal reality, a place where the monks retreated to experience a deep stillness.
Yet it is also the symbolic place within us where we welcome in the fullness of our experience.
Consider holding this image of an inner cell during this journey – the place within where you can
retreat and be present to the fullness of your experience.”
— Christine Valters Painter, PhD The Self-Study Online Retreat ~ Women on the Threshold: The Wild Heart of Longing
Under Her Mantle
“Brigid sees the face of Christ in all persons and creatures, and overcomes the division between rich and poor.
“Our practice of inner hospitality as monks in the world is essentially about healing all of the places we feel fragmented, scattered, and shamed. One of her symbols is her cloak which becomes a symbol of unity.
“All can dwell under her mantle.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Self-Study Online Class ~ Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Daily Conversion: From & To
“In monastic tradition, there is great value placed on both conversion and stability. I think of conversion as always being willing to be surprised by God. Conversion calls us to remember that we are always on a journey, that we are always growing, that we have never fully arrived. It calls us to great humility, and the more we grow in wisdom, the more we realize how little we actually know.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Self-Study Online Retreat ~ Practicing Resurrection through Creativity and Archetypes
Lured By What Shimmers
“Richard Rohr tells us that when we move through life in a driven way we are being propelled by the ego.
When we allow ourselves to be drawn forward, lured ahead by what shimmers, we are moved by the soul’s desires.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Self-Study Online Class ~ Earth as Soul Care Matrix: The Wild Heart of Ministry
Inside Dead Wood And Splinters
You
woke me
and I didn’t even
know I was sleeping
inside dead wood and
splinters waiting for
a spark or a coal
from Your
altering
Altar
The hate and ignorance
of the petrified forest
is matched only by
Your manifest mercy
and glorious grace.
And now I am awake
and walking free
in living flesh
Butterfly And Bone
I’m a butterfly carved of bone
white, bleached, sun-baked bone
my wings are just my lungs
spongy-red and wet but free
inside my chest is open space
soaring chasms awaiting light
butterfly, bone, breath over breadth
I’m a butterfly carved of bone
)
I am diamonds in the night.
Boredom
I don’t believe in boredom.
I think it is code for
something else,
and I simply
choose not
boredom.
I laugh when
I see people
cultivate a
“bored look.”
I hope
the only time
I look bored is
when I am laying
in my casket, waiting.
Who has not asked himself at some time or other:
am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?
— Clarice Lispector
That Table Small
sitting around a table small
and caught by the heartstrings,
just a player on that stage, all
the rest again make up this gathering
of those who see the task as fencing
in, fending off, wriggling away
from what this Troubler of Israel is bringing
and defining her place, her place to stay.
I have not once been here…at this table
to be made glad over, to be thanked
or complimented or told I’m able
to do, to be, amazing…it’s to be spanked
that I am called there
to be yanked that I am hauled there
to be flanked by falderal there
sitting around that table
small
Scraps
those words
scribbled, jotted
scrawled across the
face of old envelopes
and dull
hearts
elements
spices sitting
poised to pounce
into a pot of poetry
or an essay or
an abstract
kinda makes
you think, wonder
where the meaning is
in the pot or in
the one who
stirs
Taking Communion At Pride
In the 57 years I have spent on this planet, I have taken communion tens of thousands of times.
The most recent of those times was at Pride in Portland Oregon on June 19th, 2016…served to me by Pat Christiansen while a gypsy troupe danced to insistent almost militant drumming behind us…
I closed my eyes as I took the elements, just as I always do, and looked to Them to see Them, to taste and SEE that the Lord is good…and I saw the Sacred Flaming Heart Icon…pulsing…beating…THROBBING…in time to the militant drums, and I was certain that this is the heart of the Risen Lord who wears the Two Edged Sword and Eyes like Fire…
The Heart was pulsing…pulsing…PULSING…
There was a frame around the Heart, and it was getting bigger…and it was pushing against the frame.
The frame began to splinter…and then at last, the Heart gave a MIGHTY PULSE and burst the frame, shattered it and splintered it, and then grew bigger and bigger until it utterly enveloped me and I knew it was off to the far reaches of everywhere.
The nightclub’s name is Pulse. The city is Orlando…which means “Famous Land, Land of Renown” and lesser meanings of Times of Importance.
I find the entire experience prophetic and insistent…and I wonder…
…are you going to stay inside the frame? The Heart has left, departed…gone outside the city gates.
Are you going to sit and imagine Jesus coming to earth to kick ass on all the people you do not like…yunno, sort of like the Pharisees did and when Messiah showed up and punched them square in the conscience they got so mad they killed Him?
Or are you going to understand that God is stirred in Mercy and Compassion to the point that those things become the consuming fire of Light and Love and each thing they touch responds according to its matrix of being…if it is true it becomes pure and if it is not it simply is consumed.
Stand with The Sacred Pulsing Heart. The time is now.
If you wanna be in the “next move of God”, it isn’t with the so-called prophets and evangelists who seek after gold dust and commit adultery on a mass scale while the crowd has what amounts to a spiritual cluster-fuck.
No…it is in the highways and byways, where Mama compels to come in, and the Heart races to rush out.
A River Is Never The Same
“We will never be the same again.
But here’s a little secret for you—no one is ever the same thing again after anything.
You are never the same twice, and much of your unhappiness comes from trying to pretend that you are.
Accept that you are different each day, and do so joyfully, recognizing it for the gift it is.
Work within the desires and goals of the person you are currently, until you aren’t that person anymore,
and everything changes once again.”
To Feed You Evergreen (For Lil Mama)
you’ve been running canyons
looking for yourself
that beautiful wild girl
who sat there in the dust
and wrestled with that trike
while others just looked on
(they had forgotten joy)
and cursed you with perspective
above and to the right
that made you second guess
and work hard in the night
to be the perfect one
and get them off your back
for good, for evil too
but it just distanced you
and gave you space to run
in canyons made of bones
along your Sangre River
still looking for yourself
alive and free and wild
well, Baby, you have found her
she thrives though she is short,
and though sun’s rays are slant
they still can peek down deep
to feed you evergreen
I have always seen you
I see you still, here, strong
and still, delicate, fragile
and still indestructible
growing wild and free
Bullets Flying Everyday
Nightmares.
That’s how I have been…lately. See, someone asked me “How have you been doing, lately?”
Nightmares.
It was a common question asked in a common way. When I answered that Orlando had really shattered me, she shrugged and said that the world was going to hell in a handbasket and that we just had to deal with it.
Indifference mixed with derision that I was “emotional” and “unprofessional”.
And I flinched under a fresh hail of words which might end up being something else…let me explain.
Here is why I have had these nightmares of being chased, being hunted and slaughtered, being tortured and tormented and left to suffer and die:
Because this man took action in the real world as an avatar of what our culture throws every single day…words.
Every.
Single.
Day.
As you read here…people from all walks of life…you statistically are cis-normative and as such you swim thru the waters of our culture with the current, finding it easy to slip and slide thru waves of words which wash over you and pass downstream without even a scratch.
But that is not the case for me…for millions in the LGTBQIA community…for tens of millions of others who are not privileged…and ultimately, it is not the case for you.
Every day words are slung around by trigger tongues shot from missile silo hearts loaded with radioactive fissionable words and those words destroy over and over and over. But bodies do not drop to the ground right away and we think that there is no effect.
I have read hundreds of so-called christian messages that say God hates LGTBQIA people, that God is punishing us for what we have “sown” (but it is implied that God doesn’t punish a cis-normie cus they are not … what?). I have read people who are celebrating and saying they wish he would have killed more people.
In a strange way, I think this man was more honest about things than the vast majority of haters, because he actually did it: he actually took instruments of death, and looked human beings in the eye, and shot them down in hatred, in horror, in fear.
But you? You who use your words everyday on others and shoot them dead in the heart? You who sit three thousand miles away and use words to hurt and silence and kill? You who cast stoney words? You who use chemical weapons of mass destruction in the name of “hating sin” and call that “loving the sinner”?
You are him. And anytime, anywhere, any of us indulge our evil and hating hearts with our words?
We are making our Our Own Private Orlando. Our own little abattoir of blood and bone and terror.
I read a FB friend who was so eager to decry the so-called terrorists of radical Islam that she momentarily forgot to carry the slaughtered in her heart…a gentle and indirect prompt stirred her, thank God and to her credit she took down the post and remembered the true enemy…but I tell you this:
Every single slur, every single sarcastic remark, every single angry slam, every single troll comment is a bullet.
And I have nightmares because all this man did was precipitate into the physical world the death and destruction and rape and violence and horror and rage that surrounds me, assaults me, overwhelms me every single day.
Yes…I remember the days before I came to myself…and I was like any other typical white privileged christian who thought they did not hate anyone and yet made casual callous jokes and had no awareness of anyone different than me as a hurting human being…and I will always bleed over those years of blindness, for they indeed qualify me as chief of sinners.
But no more…and now I can see how each and every time christians say that God is punishing the LGTBQIA community with actions like this, and that God is angry and pissed off because They feel mocked and thus slap us down, and that we are reaping what we have sown when in fact we had nuffin to do with how we are made…each time this is the attitude? They have made the sacrifice of Love that Jesus made for us on the cross null and void…
…and they nail us up there…and they nail their shadow and sin there…and they are the ones who vent their wrath and fear and loathing…on us there…and they have made Jesus sacrifice to be in vain.
What I am trying to say is this:
Each and every time you speak in insensitivity, unawareness, privilege, hatred, anger, prejudice, and judgement?
You are the Butcher of your Own Private Orlando and the hearers of your words your victim.
I am gonna go out to the world today and walk in that hail of bullets, that storm of bullets flying everyday.
And when I show how they wound me? I am gonna be the one jeered at, the one others recoil from with the forked fingers thrust at me with the christian evil eye ward…
When you stop killing with your words, creatures like that killer will not have nearly the power waiting to channel as an avatar of a culture of hate.
Nightmares.
I am having nightmares.
I am a pincushion of death-words thrust into me…
Let us wake one another up, for the hour is getting late.
I Await Your Sacred Steps
I dashed this off…
well, actually it just
shouldered its way
from my soul
and forced me open
and muscled forth.
No…
it is not polished,
or even much good,
but it is insistent
that it wants to be…
just as it is…
unfettered,
untamed,
unedited…
on fire and fierce.
let its blood
trickle across your tongue,
down your throat to infuse
you with starfire unquenchable,
with the seeds of birth that come
when nebulas collapse
so that new stars
can be born.
Will you let
something new
and unkillable
catch fire
in you today!!??
Will you rise
up unshakeable
though ye tremble,
undefeatable though
ye weep?
Yea, weep
and mourn,
grieve and wail
on the mountains…
and drink this philter
as you pour your tears
like rain upon these bloody
sands so desperately needing
the touch of falling stars to ignite
the birth of light again in this dark night!
Carry this fire inside
you, Prometheus returning
to those gods weak and beaten
and frightened in a pulsing night
cowering before their creatures
unfettered and held hostage
to hate and darkness…
bind it to your forehead
bright diadem of Hope
and going past the fallen
crumbled thrones of old gods
doddering and wetting the bed
of their comfort and ease…
and hail
to the Halls
of the Risen Lamb
slain and shining ever
in Love, our Sun/Son/Lion!!!
We march
on Saturday.
We march
on Sunday.
Friday,
though you be bitter
and seem so final,
you are nuffin to me!
I have fought
thru 5 decades
of Fridays
to get to this
time and place.
And
I see
Abraham shining…
I see
Martin and Martin
there, glim’ring…
I see
Susan and Harriet and Joanna…
Joan and Hildegard,
Thomas and Peter
and John…
I see them,
a sea of those
gone before
who beckon,
exhort…
Yes, weep…
pour it out,
and then
TAKE IT UP,
your tears now
jewels of fire
and precious
and eat them,
living coals
feeding the fires
of new stars
in your souls…
I await you
in the streets of life,
and I shall never
be silent,
I shall never
stop or waver…
forward!!
Onward!!
We have come this far by faith,
and we shall not turn back now.
See the enemy posture…
covering that cowering fear
as we loom, our faces bright
and fair with Love
and Mercy and Justice
our diadems and Mama
and Jesus Avatar of Love Eternal
our Sovereigns…
I await you.
This is your time.
Come out this weekend, ye privileged!
Cast your crowns in the gutters
so they can find purchase and grow
and their roots tear down
the walls of Massa’s farm.
Come.
Out.
Ye.
Shining.
Chosen.
Singing.
Ones.
I await your sacred steps.
Ode For Orlando
I saw the stars fall in the night
it was dark and closing in
as I lay paralysed and still
and shivering in deathly fright.
In waves and showers down they plunged
as sable curtains tore and trembled
in the hand of some great evil
threatening to eat the sky
But somehow, each one shot to me
and landed in my shaking soul
and burned within me fierce and fell
and banished fear and made me whole
Until I burned with stellar fire
and shone in gold galaxy gleams
my heart a starfield bold, untamed
for Mercy’s greater than hate’s schemes!
And so, though Nebulas collapse
let them fall fast to this earth
into your open mouth and heart
Not for destruction, but for birth
Of new stars brilliant, unshakeable
that shine with Justice and with Joy
Children born of grief and ash
Who rise above hate’s cruel slash
This is our birth, our ne’er turn back!
A thousand stars, a million dreams,
A myriad songs and voices shout
We burn bright…our light…
will never…never…burn out
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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