Tag Archives: Sanctification

Your Performative Allyship Is Okay…As A Start

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Listen up white cis-hetliberals…if you are ANY of these things at any intersection, I want to talk to you…

I am speaking in my intersection as a transwoman who suffers from things that share a great congruence with my BIPOC fellow humans.

I have been cogitating on this for several weeks now and I am ready to unreel it.

There is a thing called “Performative Allyship”. Google it to find its meaning and then come back to read further.

I have been working outside in our yard a great deal since June…using clippers, shovels, hoes, weed whackers…and a brand new battery powered cute lil chainsaw…and it is great exercise and it is also making our yard look just that bit more tamed…but not groomed, for we have always desired our yard to be reflective of Oregon’s naturally occuring foliage as much as we can.

One of the largest challenges as I do this work is dealing with blackberries…and THAT is where the nitty gets gritty.Column: Aaron Horrell: The blackberry patch (5/16/20) | Southeast ...
First of all, they are bushy, thick, tangled, and VERY formidable to deal with.

Secondly, you will always ALWAYS pay with a little bit of blood, a great deal of discomfort and a ton of frustration. But there are ways that are more effective and less effective.

One could just spray them with poison…which makes them go away, along with poisoning everything…

Or one can do the work.

Do the work.

This is a line that comes up for ANY PERSON who wants to become an ally, whether in areas of race or areas of gender.

What “doing the work” in terms of blackberries looks like is this: take some clippers (lopper style work best) and start lopping off canes, about a foot or so from the ground. Stay there, lopping off canes…again and again and again…and then rake them all up and take them to the bonfire and burn them.

You pretty much have to start here because the vines and brambles are too thick, too strong, and block access to the real source of the problem:  the roots.  If you go for those first thing?  There is simply too much pain and blood, too many cuts and obstacles, and you will end up doing nothing.

Then go back and admire how much better everything looks.

If you get that far, congratulations!! You have just engaged in the equivalent of “PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP”!

Things LOOK better…you FEEL better…and also, if you walk away thinking your work is finished, you have made NO CHANGE at all for the better and MUCH change for the worse…because that simply stimulates the blackberries to grow more vigorously, which they can because…

the roots are still intact and fully operational.Getting to the Root of it – Simperi
When you are “that ally” who comes around and cheers for awhile, and then declares the task finished when all the surface stuff is cleared, you are NOT AN ALLY!! You are hurting things, hurting people, and contributing to the problem.

AT THE SAME TIME: the second step of the work CANNOT commence until the first step is taken! It is NECESSARY…in order to set the stage for the real work to start.

So what happens next?

Well, you get a shovel and a hoe, and you start to get down around each and every stalk that is sticking up…and you dig it out…all around it, deep, careful, laborious, difficult…and you take your hands and crumble the dirt carefully back down…and you keep at this until the ENTIRE ROOT is dug up and exposed.

These roots are dark, ugly, tough, nearly indestructible, and if you tossed it back on the ground it would TAKE ROOT AGAIN!!!  You must throw them into your wheelbarrow.

This stage is HARD. It makes you sweat. It takes a long time…because there are SO MANY ROOTS BUT ALL OF THE SAME THING!!

And in any patch, there are pretty much just a few BIG MAMA QUEEN ROOTS OF THE WHOLE PATCH…and some of these take an hour or longer to get up.Less Noise, More Green: Blackberry bushes, it's time to move on ...You have to make sure you get it all, too, or it just grows again.

So THIS part in the analogy is doing the HARD work…when a person you pose yourself as ally to checks you and calls you in or calls you out and you believe them, receive what they say and are correctable, you have successfully gotten a root out. Sometimes there are thorns still that prick you and hurt…and yet you keep digging…

Eventually, the reward is a patch that is LARGELY free of blackberry vines…there are always remnants that need to be worked on though.

And the final step is you light your bonfire and burn them…get the canes first, and stoke the fire hot and then throw in the roots…because they are ALMOST indestructible and are so difficult to burn!! But they WILL BURN!!!
I wish I had each of you out to our patch to teach you this while you worked.

This is why I do things the way I do things.

Many allies rebuke performative allyship and call out those who are performing it…but I do not. I keep it silent and I approve, in the same way I approve the children on the playground who perform for me and want to be seen and recognized and affirmed…I simply encourage, watch the stalks fly, give a nudge here or there about gathering them up for the fire…and let them get the joy and catch fire as they see their blackberry patch LOOKING better…

And then comes “the work”…that moment when I pick something out and point at the root and admonish that it needs dug…

THAT IS WHEN THE WORK STARTS and PERFORMANCE STOPS!!

And then, the vigil in the night while the roots are burned, the ashes stirred and sifted and fire lit again so the remnants can burn…
Agapanthus – a much maligned plant | Meeka's Mind
It is humbling, hard, and holy work.

There is another way you can deal with blackberry patches: you can mow them. And THESE patches always look so neat, and you can never ever walk on them barefoot or lay down and rest on them cus you will get poked and pricked and cut.

And that, friends, is the white person, the cis-het person that can miss me. THAT person will always have the memes up, will always link to the articles, will have mastered the art of words (mowers) to run over their privileged roots but will NEVER DEAL WITH THEM REALLY…

To be authentic, I generally expect this option from the majority of people who come around…because it is the most frequent response…lopping stalks and avoiding roots…and making the roots being there still MY fault because I was the one who pointed it out, who precipitated the exposure…
But the ones who AREN’T that way…the ones who come back with a backhoe and a crazed intense determination in their eyes to DEAL WITH IT ALL!!! LOL, thinking of you, Litter Mate!! Who for the sake of getting the mile done will go 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 20 miles!!

They make it so worth it.

No…backhoes aren’t needed…too much that should stay gets taken, and then has to be re-added artificially.
It is best to take it in stages, blackberry digging and becoming an ally…

Your performative allyship is okay…as a start.

Our Little Hut (October 15th, 2014)

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Darling, are you awake? Yes?
Good…do you remember our beginning?

A little hut by the sea
wearing grey cedar shingles like feathers
ruffled in rainy winds and shot thru
with browns and blacks…
the red round rock stacked
shambling into walls that just spelled home,
nestled midst woven thatches of
marram shot thru with sedges and dandelions,
clinging to shifty sands like picnic blankets
strewn round that heart…that little hut,
our beginning kissed by windy sands
scritching out beach music
on violin decks and cello chairs of cypress.

You were a wordless humming song
and tidal in my veins you moved
in rhythm, rhyme, in time to that
strumming music tidal
joyous humming in the dancing of the waves
and sand and wind and sky.
We walked each day steady
across those shores ever reaching
to the sea and the sea ever running
back to sands and sunset ever blessing
everyday each moment with its many colored kiss
in hues of pinks and purples, oranges, yellows, hues of bliss
in reds and blues, and greys… you…
always grey lining blue of mine with you,
in silver shot straight thru
with grey shot thru my blue.
We knew each sunset,
whiled away another day
closer to that sunset last
and that final mystic gateway
at the end thru which we enter
Lone and sundered, hoping that we yet may
walk together on a new shore
where there are no sunsets because
there is only sunrise
sunrise
sunrise
yet again
and yet again…

We walk still each day,
and every sunset bows to us,
and then bows to the night,
to the next day yet born,
to the next sun yet risen,
to the next sunset kiss…
and the stars always
over head and constant,
glitter chips of always-light
against the thick and sable night,
the stars nod in return, return…
ahh…the beach at night.
Air refreshing, breezy, flexible,
runs its loving hungry fingers
thru your hair pliable
as we walk, the sand
packed and wet and clean
and time at last is friable
in the smell of salty air
its kiss brushes against you,
trailing fingers across your cheek,
over your skin, and I too brush against you
(rush within you kissing,
trailing fingers)

We are Quietness
nestled deep in certain stillness,
and snuggled yet deeper
in the steady static roar
of the ever crashing waves
and the gurgling swishy swirling
of waves playing tag
with sand and seaweed
and seagulls refereeing
crying foul foul foul
so the waves run
and retreat in laughing ripples
back to the waiting deep safety
of the vast receptive sea,
and us safely snuggled
in our you and me.

The sand is crisp and cold and damp
as we walk, you and me, our steps
singing skritch skritch skritch,
singing in time
to the cry of those legalistic gulls
and our feet slide as we move from wet to dry
and we skim across the surface
walking like penguins
so we can move thru time
and yet leave nary a trace
and you feel so safe, like you are home
and you feel so safe in my feeling that…
find safety in my adoration
and you are home…
We can see
a vast array of stars overhead,
a broad expansive sea swelling before,
and stretching there a beach, the shore
beneath our sliding skimming feet,
comprised of endless grains of sand
uncountable but having number,
speaking of the days of time
since time began…

everywhere

are unique things uncountable,
innumerable…and you:
a one off, one and done
and rendered even just that much more special
on this stage of infinence
in the midst of audience
of blank uncountable conclave.
and there upon that stage
you are all the more substantial,
present, solid, singular,
just the endless treasure of your beauty
and the vast stretch of my love
(echoing stars and sand and sea)
singing harmoniously
in the presence of this eternal array,
this echo of infinity
we’re in.

And we walk, away from our little hut,
towards our little hut, and away again,
and time is scrolling out before us,
we two, we poised to write
with heart quills dipped in love’s well,
and then time rolls back into itself
(ah, it sees its the sea,
rolling out to kiss the sand
and rolling back to dump those kisses
into waiting heart so deep)…
time rolls out day by day by day, and back again
neath the stars,
in the night,
with the wind.

I wonder in the midst
of this sandy sacred setting
which thing it is my heart echoes
as it aches and hurts so fierce,
so good as it longs, yearns
so empty and so full,
so hungry, satisfied,
so intricate, complete…
my fiery core of passion and of promise

what…

Rolls in and out in waves?
Glitters fierce like diamond stars?
Never ends like grains of sand
everywhere there’s earth?
It aches too fierce, too good,
it thrills, thrums too ferocious
to identify and focus on,
and then it gets dim and blurry
when I look at you and see the quiet
gentle fierce glad brightness
of your countenance at night that
dims the stars, and
blurs the sands, and
makes the waves stand still
breathless and in awe, and
I know then my core
is ever always you you you

we married,
long ago beside this same vast ever sea,
on the same shore of sand golden, tan
and singing to the music
laughing in the running waves
beneath the glitter gaze of stars
overhead and hanging on angel visions,
we married…
and the moon officiated,
she gloamed before us
as we walked into her temple,
her the Officiant,
the Congregant of Always and gentle love,
we walked her moonlight aisle together…
some marry on mountainsides midst craggy peaks
to the wedding songs of brooks and creeks
and others still mingle in the firelight
beneath the tall stentorian witness of deep forests
redwood and sequoia who roll out meadows
soft and green, and arrayed more beautiful and
richer than the wealth of Solomon in their dress of flowers
and stalks and stems as the birds serenade
and sing their praise to them.

we visited there, you and me,
we heard that brooky song,
we saw that craggy might,
we lay in meadow soft
resplendent in love and
we have in our many walks found that
we were foundered, mired
in swampy lowlands funky, smelly,
decomposing rotten and releasing
the last gasp of life in its methane relief
but still stinking of that unbecoming…
we have thought us lost but then discovered
that it is here that wombs become impregnate,
become renewed as elements of used-to-be-alive
stick to our skin in longing desperate clingy clutchings.
But it is back,
always to the sea,
we are drawn, we,
to that intersection
of time and truth and bright eternity
that we see tangible
and with us in the sand,
and stars and sea.

and inside us,
you and me, burns a flame we share,
yes the same one, the same blade
of those fires that we see before us
in the night and yet to rise anew
in the day yet to be born,
the echo of stars and suns,
of the moon’s desires and passions
for lovers everywhere
and the twin of driftwood fires
that we kindle every night
as our offering to beauty,
to love, to us, to light midst
the crackling shouts of wood at last
consumed and released popping up up and away
in sparky eager pieces at last
free to become the stars overhead
that driftwood prophecies of old proclaimed their fate,
and the incense of their longing
drifting around us in thick vapours
that smell of longing
at last to be fulfilled,
smelling of worship,
smelling of Mama’s breath
and the courts of the Risen Lamb,
and smelling of Us,
you and me,
and our little hut.

tumblr_nczqhoQxtV1rcrcdeo1_500

My Heart Is…

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like a river running…
dipped in for a drink
a pipeful, a turbine twist

and then running on
alone and so much more
ever questing to the sea

and no one knowing
what passed by
in the night unknowing

and unknown

Like Clouds, Like Shadows

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I had it all together
rows and blocks
neat and trimmed
even if they sat
ragged round the edges
like clouds, like shadows

and then artesian wells
of soul, of spirit
invaded, armies
of color riotous
rejoicing round
those edges ragged

like clouds, like shadows
welled up out of
nowhere

and I am

now here

07 | February | 2016 | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This is from 2016, and I think it is very relevant to right now, because there is so much here you have missed.

I really do not know how to interpret your “gifts”, quotations used because you have often used money to obligate, to create hierarchies, to…gawd, who can ever really know?

The heck of it is that I have zero trust to ever really find out, because I don’t think deep down that you are really prepared to understand that this is an existential path instead of a moral one.

Regardless…this day from 2016 is a really good day to take a look at, in that it records several really fine poems and a couple essays that are palpable…this one being the most salient.

…you say that I think I can do what I want and pronounce it all forgiven by my belief in my “make-believe god”?  You say that I think I can justify whatever I want and call it a “Road to Damascus” experience?

You think wrong.

You will never know the depth of the pain and sorrow for each and every time that I have fallen short…

…and you also will never know the hurt and pain you caused me with your false accusations of abuse and physical harm, your violent anger and threats of murder…your false memories and placing words in my mouth that I never said or even thought…

You will not have a way of knowing that even in your falseness I see that as my own fault because I did not do a good enough job to birth you into wholeness and understanding of truth…and instead, you go on forever about things that are so insane as to be befuddling to me.

No.  I am blood guilty of sins of commission, and sins of omission as well.

But I place my faith and my trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and in His Cross…and I ask Him to see me thru.
I trust Mama to Defend me, Advocate for me, Sustain me, Console me, and Comfort me.
I will do so all of my days, no matter how good or bad I was each day, no matter how deeply I fail or how high I fly.

This will never change, though I hope and pray that I will, continually becoming more like Jesus’ Lovely Heart by the Grace of God poured out liberally.

And there are others too…who read here like Nicodemus…you from the past, who used to come out into my working environment so you could criticise me, call me unsubmitted, tell me how I had no rule over my soul, and basically oppose every thing I attempted…I know you read here and think me tragically deceived, fallen away, or (one dude, you think this) in the clutches of “sexual sin”…

you think that being transgender is an act of sexual fulfillment, which absolutely cracks me up…like, I guffaw when I consider your ignorance and assumption.

You all have missed me in the midst of your judgement.

Here is me:  this song forever, along with the other ones I have posted this morning.

If you want to understand me and be in my heart, you must understand and accept these songs.  Whether or not you adhere to the songs is not my concern…that is up to you and your own convictions and choices.  I seek to love and accept you regardless, from you who say you dreamed of murdering me for years to you who shake your head and waggle your beard because you have judged me outcast and shunned.

Sometimes I need to make these declarations.

Today is one of those days…and I am still here…like Papillon…I am still here…clinging to the precious Bleeding Side of Jesus.

Source: 07 | February | 2016 | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Under Galloping Moon

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it’s a
foggy caul
a skein,
night’s skin
here under
galloping moon.

She rides, Her horse
grey and shadow
She bleeds silver
mercury drops
quicksilver seeds

i melt into Her
wet rivers, dripping
slick with desire
swollen with devotion
aching with longing

until i am breathing
underwater, under
galloping moon.

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

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Night has gnawed grey brittle bones
clean, bare and thin as grave clothes, shriv’n
of warmth, sheer worm-worn sheets like stones
as cold as mercy never given

and weary…in the fires and flame
of time’s compressing screeching keen
as red heart slows, constricts in shame,
wings tangled in the chancel screen

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

Feel Her presence there in echoes
of bones nigh breaking, at least kneeling
to the moment’s cadence, throes,
within the Delphic Sanctum reeling

For a breath without drinking smoke
and thirsting throat, a coal black caul,
a scarf of soot round necks to choke
a masquerade, a pallor, pall

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

The loss of life and stone stilled tongues
and this is real, is bitter tart
It’s in a face, laces the lungs
It’s breaking in and on the heart

that continues rustling rough beneath
those sheets, and fearful to the touch
that long slow wet grief’s glistening sheath
and trembly tears the only crutch

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

Whoever dares to come, show up
with tears impudent, bold, absurd
and brave enough to take her cup,
enough to quench flames shaken, stirred

and break her crumbly mouldy bread
and eat and drink the Overwhelm
in numb mute witness, slow soft dread,
in courage, waiting in this realm

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

Yet…beneath the brown and chuckly dark
a river runs, it’s clear and deep
like liquid stars, a crystal spark
flowing, a fount in this stark keep

Yet…all who partake of her sup
can find their certain path to drink
of living waters springing up
and resonating in the ink

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

A tide lived backwards in the crush
A tide rolled forward far and wide
A resonance of life-blood gush
Love’s unstoppable great glad tide

The crisis of this time is met
in intimate authentic breath
that fears no evil, dreads no debt
and singing rises from short death

In The Temple Of The Queen Of Death

Of Rain On Rooftops | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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Ahhh, how I love this poem!!

So, new readers and potential “Constances” (Constance is the name I give to those who become “Constant Readers” and is my deep thank you of gratitude and wonder):

The best way to interact with my blog right now if you want to access all the living work and art that lives in the marrow is via the calendar in the Right Hand Column.

You can use that to jump around to various days.

Here is the important information though:  it displays the current year…SO, to access a previous year and month, please scroll down to the BOTTOM of the blog and see the footer calendar (located at the very bottom left).

There, you can select a drop down menu that shows month to month from year to year.

What I find fun is to go to today’s month in other years…and then pull that down from the menu and load that page.  Once it is loaded, use the calendar on the Right and click on the date…if I posted on that day, it is hyperlinked to that day’s postings…

And in this manner you can not only access my poetry, but the context it was birthed in and thru…and I think that it begins to show the depth and breadth of my heart’s reach.

I am not posting current writings because I am mostly keeping notes and drafts, filling my artistic ditty-bag.  This is because I am doing other projects that involve visual arts and creating thru that means, as well as new spiritual practices and involvements.

Besides, I find that I must cry out against the thing with human skin that shits from its heart every time it utters something…that thing ttaf which is the mere familiar of the multitude of monsters that have become the living dead without even knowing it.

This poem though…what a treasure and delight to me it is.  I think I captured it just right.


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…

Source: Of Rain On Rooftops | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Because Of The Women

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…and in the cool
of the quiet evening
it was women walking
silky, as yet unseen
in the garden.

Silver shears caught
slivers of sunlight,
captured them gently
like butterflies netted
with meshed moonlight
and given to a special
catch and release program

to each bush they bowed
in authority and grace
snipping deadheads
from verdant relieved stems
smiling and murmuring
in the gloam
and answering
alarmy squirrels
with sighs
of contentment
and moving on

men strode
by with eyes
so full of mirrors
they saw nothing
else and everything else
as reflections of reflections,
having used their silver
30 times in their
own name

and the
garden sang
and sang
because of
the women

This Painful Threshold (For The Healing Circle, inside and out)

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It’s on this painful threshold here
we suck the bitter sop of grief
and cling to dust, cry for relief,
we seeds that die so You come near.

Our teardrops carve so deep and mark
with crystal joy and sacred sigh
our burnished face, our emerald eye
our hull that breaks…in rain, in spark

and make us, each one so unique,
each one our own and also owned
by every hurting heart of stone,
by breaking soul and grieving cheek

an offering of healing strong
a unguent for this wounded earth
restoring life and giving birth
again to Your Unending Song

Oh Mama come and make of me
a heart cut red, a spirit shorn
and bleeding Grace for all who mourn
along this path back to The Sea

Blind Bartimaeus and You | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I am reposting this prose essay that I wrote in 2015.  Based on current readership, I think it might hit some hearts that are perhaps now harrowed by grief and plowed by sorrow, and tender, softened by trial to receive seeds of humility that may grow and blossom into the fruits of compassion.

At least…I hope so.

May we all find the grace to become as Bartimaeus.

It is clumsy and has arthritic hands when it speaks and cannot hold small fine brushes or move with nuance, and so it paints with a broad brush in generalizations and caricatures…it is cartoonish, buffoonish…it is guffawing and backslapping……and the absolute worst is that it advocates the very hatred and othering and policing against others that has wounded and killed so many in LGTBQ circles.

Somehow, hatred and othering is okay because “they have it coming”.

I would say that I am embarrassed for the individuals to whom I refer, except that I am so deeply dismayed embarrassment is too embarrassed to show her face.  I think it is clear that hatred is a human heart problem…and will never ever be conquered by more hatred…ever.  Hatred can only be driven out by love, and when love is met with more hatred, the only secret weapon it has in its employ is grace, as displayed by forgiveness and then more love.

Constance:  if you fail to grasp this essential truth, then you will be doomed to circle the constellations in this galaxy of ideas and ideologies that provide us with cosmic meaning and orientation, and you will dwell in one thinking it is finally the one with no idiots or haters present inside it…until you hear the voice of hate and bigotry emanating from within the very halls you hallow and inhabit!

Source: Blind Bartimaeus and You | Charissa’s Grace Notes

The Leap

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I laid down on a rock
to have myself a sleep
the lichen whispered in my ear
of mystery-wonder deep

and even though the clock
spun round, toward death did creep
the rock just waited, patient, near
for me to make the leap.

Wave | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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wave ever rising
hanging there eternally
wave ever falling

Source: Wave | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Where The Light Passes In | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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From last year…I really love this lil beauty!


Do you know the place where the light passes in?
That’s where you’ll find me when darkness is seeping
from crevice and cranny while Spring trudges weeping
I sit in the place where the light passes in.

You’ll find me there singing of beautiful life
and of faith like pure gold burnished shiny with hope
as my tears fall like diamonds so soft in the wind
In that place where the light, where the light passes in…

(continued at Source: Where The Light Passes In | Charissa’s Grace Notes )

The Straight Way So Crooked

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look for the off kilter doorway
find where the street has no name
enter between the curb and the gutter
to stand in the light just the same

as the saints and the mystics before you
had to stoop and to crawl and to cry
for the straight way that looks oh so crooked
to the jaundiced and natural eye

Two Year Flashback

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Two years in, it still applies.

To Everyone Who Knew Me Then…

Situla (Sans Images)

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I admit I am surprised that there has not been more interest in my recent poem “Situla“.  Perhaps it was layout?
Situla means “a bucket for Holy Water” by the way…Here is the poem, laid out without any images…

 

Just after dawn…
but before sunrise
I wait
ajar
a jar
of costly
perfume

I hear the sound
of music stilled
and waters hushed

hushed beneath
frost crystals clasping
roses’ leaves…

I rise and
wait, hushed and
clutching me

my
alabaster
jar

this
empty
situla

still reeking
of sorrow and nard
of fragrance and tears
and deep joy too.

I guess the guests
are still around
the table, I think

the gusty crowd
is still sitting in
the dark and staring
(eyes shut)
at the inside
of the veil…

as I travail
in silence,
as I writhe
in ecstasy

and groan

for separation
to give way
to liberation
and this coming
fragrant day.

The frost
gives way
as light and heat
sing gently ’round
the edges,
as the roses
are anointed
and

the alabaster jar
breaks open
yet again

and I
pour
out my
soul

Her
situla

Situla

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Just after dawn…
but before sunrise
I wait
ajar
a jar
of costly
perfume

I hear the sound
of music stilled
and waters hushed

hushed beneath
frost crystals clasping
roses’ leaves…

I rise and wait,
hushed and clutching

me
my
alabaster
jar
this
empty
situla

still reeking
of sorrow and nard
of fragrance and tears
and deep joy too.

I guess the guests
are still around
the table, I think
the gusty crowd
is still sitting in
the dark and staring
Image 004
(eyes shut)

at the inside
of the veil…
as I travail
in silence,
as I writhe
in ecstasy

and groan

for separation
to give way
to liberation
and this coming
fragrant day.

The frost
surrenders
as light and heat
sing gently ’round
the edges,
as the roses
are anointed
and

the alabaster jar
breaks open
yet again

and I
pour
out my
soul

Her
situla

Some Older Poetry That I LOVE

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“talking with you
sometimes is either
a slap in the face
or a slammed door,
and yet the Void…gaping gulf,
it is but exhalation
in the Light of your shadow!

And falling
into that seeming nothing,
yawning and gulping, well
it is but a dropped stitch
in the Banners over me
of You.”

The Fall of Ancient Time (A contemporary Re-write of Psalm 5)

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

“…Barcelona, City of Bones
Baking before the gates of the Sun,
I sacrificed my purity for thee, such as it might be
(my purity, not my sacrifice)

Purity…
of thought,
of mind,
of heart and soul,
purity of
song and deed
and strong intention.

Barcelona, my sacrifice
so droll, so dirty is actually
sterility masquerading
as purity and thus is merely

the absence of jazz,
the absence of spice,
the absence of that
jagged noise of exultation
and thus there is no
purity and nothing
quite acceptable
enough…”
barcelona_above_by_coigach-d9gyhp2
City of Bones

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

“like the way
you touch my ankle
when we sit upon
the floor there,
by the fire
in the speckled-star-lit night
gathered close
outside the house
just like a mama bird who nestles
down so gentle on Her chicks…”
tumblr_ny9okxgwbf1rsj4s9o1_1280

This Speckled Star-Lit Night

A Look Back That Inspires

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Something happened today which prompted me to want to repost something that I wrote in January of 2014…so long ago, and yet only 4 years…

In order to understand where I am at emotionally and spiritually in light of the event which transpired today, you need a bit of a refresher…an understanding that the repost at the bottom of the page was written BEFORE so much took place:

I wrote the words I am reposting before I wrote about the beginning of the shunning from the spiritual culture as defined by the vast majority of Christian Evangelicalism…these words, which talk about the nearly total experience I have had with Christians from my past (there is one…ONE person who has verbally, physically, emotionally and spiritually received me who is from my past.  She did so with tears of joy and literal kisses all over my cheeks and forehead, and was stricken as she thought back to the prison I was in and she was amazed that God had loosed this captive so wonderfully).
I wrote them before I wrote about a baby step of coming out that was looming…and ended up being a devastating attack and shunning by the time it played out.

I wrote them before I wrote about the shunning that happened on a monolithic totality in regards to every single friendship from the past which happened when I came out…I received a letter from a person that I had known for 30 years…a person that I had worshiped beside, shared many meals with…a person who had lived in our home…a person who I had walked alongside as they sojourned thru the valley of the shadow of an addiction which nearly destroyed family and self…a letter that shunned me in the Name of Jesus, The One Being who welcomes me constantly and says that His Blood is enough and more than enough for me…

I wrote them before I wrote of the public shunning that happened, when it was the searing abandonment in public circles.

I wrote it before the 21 Gun Salute took place, that professional execution I endured…that death, and the subsequent resurrection from those Phoenix Ashes…

I wrote about it before the horrid attacks coming from supposed Christians which were filled with literal perversions, profanities, and exhortations to kill myself…all given in the name of Jesus of course.

Yes.  That literally happened.

So what happened today that precipitated this reminiscence?

This:  there is a man from my past, a person that I met in the late 80s and who I was in close proximity with until the year 2005…this man operated (and perhaps still does?  I really do not know.  Lord knows that I have grown up, been pruned back, become more and become less, been adjusted, and healed of terrible blindnesses…so I do leave room for the possibility that this has happened with him as well.  But I do not hold out a shred of hope, or a scintilla of expectation that this has happened, for the need of those who are deeply in thrall to a certain assumption and paradigm to punish me and punish me utterly is far greater than the ability to actually live out the sacrificial Love of Christ that went straight for every single person who was “yet dead in sin”…and not just to the so-called righteous)…

This man operated under a deep orientation that assumed all the doctrines related to “submission”, and truly felt it was the loving thing to enforce that notion…I have many many hurtful memories of those years, from the comments regarding my supposed “cheesy grin” that I supposedly wore (likely, it was whatever mask was on me during the deep dissociation of living trans in a male role and carrying the burden of remembering every detail so I could forget that I was a woman, and thus related to the fracturing events of early childhood) to the interactions which accused me of seeking to utilize my role as a worship leader on Sunday morning in service of self, to the utterly devastating final blow given in such “sad sorrowful tones” which said that my father was suffering and dying in the way he was because I was not properly submitted to “the leader” of this group…

There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that every single one of these actions was done from true conviction that it was the right and loving thing to do, based on the paradigm in which he (we) swam…indeed, I myself interacted with people who approached me for help and counsel as they struggled with their sexual orientations in light of the teaching assumptions we were under…and I gave the “answers” I had learned…and I grieve over that…so deeply…

I myself bought into attitudes and distortions of good teachings that I sincerely and 100% believed, and I thought those with other understandings to simply be sinners who were seeking to justify remaining in sin yet still retaining connection to God, and I simply…well, I simply did not have an ounce of compassion…

I shared the privileged view of the privileged…and had NO CONCEPT of the Other…

And it wasn’t until I was no longer “one of them”, not because I resigned membership in privilege, but because when I transitioned I was executed swiftly…

In the personal-relational realm
In the spiritual-religious realm
In the professional-economic realm…

So I know that the intention of those times was, within his own heart and self, “good”…

We also shared many other times too…good times where somehow who was submitted to who wasn’t that important and was never even thought of…such as working on each other’s houses…putting out a fire that started on a hill and nearly burned the entire area down…eating meals together…

Those years…I believe it was about 17 years…during those years I did a lot of dying, and had a lot to die to…and that place was the crucible of purification, in which I gained much wisdom thru death to self.  I was so fractured…so young…and so deeply in the grip of dysphoria and dissociation which was the hidden reef under everything in my life.

He did not know anything about this…neither did I.  And looking back, sooo many things just SHOUT it out so loudly, and while it is occasion of grief and mourning looking back, it also is comforting to know that at least there was a reason for it!

Well…Charissa’s Grace Notes is a public blog.  And this man is a reader…regularly…how frequently, I really could not say, but based on my own internal tools I have as the creator, I suspect it is fairly regularly.

How did he even know I had a blog?  I have not exchanged a word with this man for years…a good 7 years before I even transitioned, and certainly not a word since transition….God forbid!  I am pretty sure he would not, and I KNOW I would not because I decided in 2014 that I would never again submit myself to spiritual abuse and attack from anyone to whom I was a priori a demon-possessed hell-bound apostate.

It is obvi that he found out about my blog via word of mouth…because it is funny:  the biggest evils that scripture has volumes of teaching about (the tongue, the heart) are so easily ignored in Christendom in order to condemn the phantom evils which scripture never even speaks about (gender variance and orientation)…and wowsa did the word spread like fire!!

In fact, the person mentioned here even swore to me that he considered it his spiritual service and duty to God to out me to every single person he met, lest he be tainted by my “sin” of intentional self-deception and thus have my blood on his head.  Yes…these sorts believe this:  “If you see your brother approaching destruction and you do not restrain them, their blood is on your head”.  They interpret this old Proverb as the license to attack anyone doing anything that is to them “a sin.”  He told me that he needed to warn every single person he could that I was anathema and not to be received among “the brethren”…

try and imagine how this felt, and feels…

So anyway, I know that the man I am writing about this morning found my blog fairly easily, but after hearing the words of the tale-bearers, those morsels of gossip that go down so sweet and titillating…

But he has stuck around…and has been reading…for a long time, if I am guessing right…and because I am made who I am, and because of my heart towards God and understanding that I have been made thusly to break down walls and uproot lies and then to plant and build true kingdom attitudes, I have held out hope…a very very teeny tiny shred of hope…

…that maybe he has done the work, read the research…maybe he has examined the scriptures and his own assumptions…maybe he has the courage to know that in spite of anything he might believe about gender variance, the person he knew was truly a child of God and is still one now…that maybe he has met other transhumans…

I am not optimistic about this, or myopic…the odds are VERY slim.

But this man has done something, not once, but twice.

He has contributed money to my transition fund, each time choosing an amount which is significant to me as the number of my name.

But I am leery.  It is not inconsistent with the old assumptions of that paradigm to do acts of charity or service for those considered lost and perishing.  It is thought of as heaping coals of fire upon the head…it is thought of as setting an example…and sometimes it is flat out a genuine expression of God’s heart of love.

How do I know this?  Because I have been there, done that…myself.  Previously.

I am also skeptical and very wary because one of those donations referenced my children…and there is a huge assumption in play in those circles that a righteous relationship with God is able to be detected in the condition of relationship with one’s children and other family.

(Remember the remark about my dad suffering because I was “not submitted” and “rebellious”?)

It is not by any means whatsoever a stretch to see that particular donation coupled with that particular remark about my children as the “coin of unsanctified pity” and ultimately as a dig, a cut, an arrow shot in hopes of providing a wound that cleanses and restores…and if it was that, it was an arrow that shot and wounded and brought death because there literally is not a cleansing and restoring relatable to gender variance and orientation.

God knows there are plenty of areas in my heart that need adjusting and cleansing…it just so happens that being a woman who was assigned male at birth is not one of those areas, anymore than anyone need repent of their gender orientation, or their hair color, or leg length.

So I am very wary.  (Oh yes:  the donation this morning simply said “thinking of you”…and that was both a very simple comment and a very pregnant comment.)

The first time it happened, I accepted the donation, spent it on my legal costs in fact…yeah, dude…you helped me change my birth certificate, a great day in my life!!  LOL!!!!  But I did not reply or interact with the person, because I do not expect that interaction to be life giving and healing, but rather to be a battle and ordeal.

And then it happened again, this morning, and this one is significant to me…

…you see, just before the end of the year, on New Year’s Eve morning in the early morning, I dreamed about this person!  In the dream, Jane and I had a place we were building up in the hills.  We went up there one day to do some work in our structure, which was framed and roofed and wired and plumbed, but lacked sheetrock or siding and finish work trimming…and when we got there, we were shocked to discover that the entire area around us had been developed and had structures on it of various states of completion…all told, the area had around 30 houses, where there had just been ours and a lot of wild land.

We looked around a bit, confused and concerned, when who should approach us but this man who donated to me this morning!  He walked up to us and called out to us…and looked me full in the eyes and greeted me with “Hello, Charissa, may I walk close to you?”  I was very taken aback that he used my true name rather than my dead name and that he knew he needed to ask permission before moving close to me!!!

I said yes, and watched as he approached, and saw tears in his eyes.  He extended his hand to shake hands, and I impulsively brushed his hand aside, greeted him by name, and gave him a hug.  He did not shy away from the hug OR from the double reminders of who I truly am…and then he broke the embrace and held my by my shoulders at arms length and said that it was really good to seem me, Charissa…and his tears were streaming down his face.

I motioned around me and said “So what is happening here, and why are you up here?”  Meaning the development and his presence where there had been nothing but our house and no one but us.

He looked down in what appeared to be sorrow or shame or conviction or regret, I really couldn’t get a good read on it…and then he looked up and said to us “I am so sorry, and I have been wrong.  God has been working in my heart…in our hearts…and we wanted to learn.”  I said “Who is the we you refer to and what are you sorry for?”

He said he was sorry for all the same things that I sorrowed over about what I used to think regarding LGTBQIA issues and Christian teaching, he was sorry about the same things I sorrowed about in terms of the expression of God’s heart in such a cancerous and poisonous way that evangelicalism has become…and that most of all he was sorry that he had automatically condemned transgender people to the label of (fill in your favorite slur, I am not using it today)…

and he said that the “we” he referred to were all people from this little group that grew up, insular and inbred, from a “school” that he helped to start and keep going…that around 30 people all had this deep repentance and wanted to walk away from that old set of beliefs, and that he had bought all the property around us, in order to live close to us and learn from us…

…and would we please teach him, teach them?

Well, Jane and I looked at each other, shocked, suspicious, wary, and on the verge of running.

(Credit: Tyrus Wong
Tyrus Wong, Bambi (visual development), 1942. Watercolor on paper)

But one this is so clear to me…more clear to me than nearly anything I have ever heard from God:  It is completely and utterly inviolate to me that God Themself planned and intended to create me as I am from the start:  A Transsexual Woman, who would grow up wounded and fractured and driven to God as my only hope of salvation from despair and ruination…and that it was a very sobering thing to Them to do this, for They knew full well the horror and pain this would be to me…and each of Them stepped forward and said “I am enough for her”…and the reason for this is that They had assigned my life destiny to be a prophetess to the people of God who forgot the Heart of God…to speak to them of God’s Heart for the ones who are slaughtered in every realm and sacrificed on the altar of gender…

and that it should be easy for those people to receive me and God’s message, for in those old days I doubt any of them would have thought I was hell-bound, and in those days virtually all of them thought that I heard from God regularly…even though “there is so much wrong” with me LOL!

And so because of that mission, that quest…and yes, the desire to set them free of their blindness and prejudice and hatred, we did not run…but stayed…and said that we would consider it, but had many things to be worked out, many boundaries to be defined…

The man was joyous in our response and agreed to this…

and then I woke up.

Of course, since this was a dream, I interpret the details and events symbolically. I got up from bed and sat and thought and prayed for awhile, wondering what in the world I was dreaming about that dude for!!!???  I had not even thought about him for a couple of years.  Jane held similar puzzlement about it…and we both thought that it was talking about “a neighborhood of understanding/teaching/thinking/transformation” rather than an actual sub-division, and we saw both the man and the people he referenced as symbolic of that whole group of “white, cis-gendered, straight, evangelical Christian conservative” human beings who literally have NO IDEA how much they are bequeathed things on the basis of their race, their sexual orientation, their gender purity, and their religious understandings.

So we said a quick prayer…and I promptly forgot about it.

Until this morning.

Here is this comment “Thinking of you” and this monetary amount…and the dream rushed back…along with all the wariness, suspicion and other emotions which come from the experienced trauma and trial of those years.

The crucial thing to know is this:  a bell, once rung, cannot be unrung.  A woman who gives birth is always a mother, even if the child dies.  There is no “going back” because there is no back to go to.

It is this way with me:  I will never go back.  He is dead, Caterpillar Dude…he is no more.  He is the “back” and is gone.  So there is no “going back”.

Any “kind indulgence” will not “induce to repentance” because there is nothing to be repented of in terms of my transition!  As to repentance of any kind?  Oh yes…the continual joy of beholding Jesus and being transformed by degrees from the glory of the letter which kills to the glory of the Spirit which is life…yunno…the same repentance we share in common.

I am not sure what I will spend this amount on…probably on my HRT, and this is a valued and well received gift.

I am always open to the generosity of heart and spirit that flows in God’s economy from they that have abundance to they that have need…and would always in that spirit welcome such donations/gifts…other gifts I have actually passed on to others in far greater need than I.

But if the spirit and intention of the gift is anything related to “getting me to go back”?  To “repent” of “gender heresy” and “assume my old name and role?”

There is not a chance.

Those things are further from me than East is from West.

And if that spirit and intention is thus impure, then I consider the donation to be “the spoils of Egypt” and still put it to good use.

Wow…what a ramble, eh?  If any are still with me, thanks for reading patiently.

Blessings to you today from our wonderful counselor and our comforter and the lover of our souls,

Charissa Grace White
God’s Graceful Gleam

 

via Updates about my life

Nina Simone Sings It True

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This is from 1976…and how I never knew about it until today is beyond me.  I have mocked and mugged over the song “Feelings” since it first hit the air waves…it is a piece of crap song.

But listen to what this incredible human does with it…what she says with it…what she doesn’t say…

Please…this is what I want to do with my Poetry

Used Pig: Of Toads and Truffles (dedicated to Tina) | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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People…CONSTANCE!!! (“Constance” is a moniker for “Constant Reader”, btw…)

So what is UP??  Why is this gem getting so little attention?  Is it because I use Pig as a metaphor for Someone?  Is this a bridge too far??  HAHAHAHAHA!!!  If that is true, it misses the heart of both the pig and the Someone.

Give it a go…I rather love this poem, with its little oinky rhythm and pace…
It is clouds…just clouds, hanging nowhere,
in nothing, like smoke curling quick
in Blue extending here and there
(and Here to There too…yeah)…

Source: Used Pig: Of Toads and Truffles (dedicated to Tina) | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Our Little Hut | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I think this is among the handful of poems that I really feel good about, from the point of view of technical craft…I think I really hit the sweet spot and was risen above a mere hack or journeyman kind of poetess…

I wrote this, pretty much the first true poem I wrote after a seminal crushing happened to me and I was worried that my creative fonts had been polluted forever…thank God this worry was unfounded, as this beautiful little creature shows.

“…You were a wordless humming song
and tidal in my veins you moved
in rhythm, rhyme, in time to that
strumming music tidal
joyous humming in the dancing of the waves
and sand and wind and sky.
We walked each day steady
across those shores ever reaching
to the sea and the sea ever running
back to sands and sunset ever blessing
everyday each moment with its many colored kiss
in hues of pinks and purples, oranges, yellows, hues of bliss
in reds and blues, and greys… you…
always grey lining blue of mine with you,
in silver shot straight thru
with grey shot thru my blue.
We knew each sunset,
whiled away another day
closer to that sunset last
and that final mystic gateway
at the end thru which we enter
Lone and sundered, hoping that we yet may
walk together on a new shore
where there are no sunsets because
there is only sunrise
sunrise
sunrise
yet again
and yet again…”

 

Source: Our Little Hut | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Used Pig: Of Toads and Truffles (dedicated to Tina)

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It is clouds…just clouds, hanging nowhere,
in nothing, like smoke curling quick
in Blue extending here and there
(and Here to There too…yeah)

and then pulling, parting, LO!
Beyond the blue It Comes, it comes,
The Pig steps forth majestic, shaggy,
Wild with Wonder, Pig of Power
Looming larger than the sky
from which it bursts in sounding sniffing
grunting thunder hooves a rumble
tumble tango striking sparks
in their first touch so terrible
and taut with cracking sound of sizzle
snap and clacking tap-dance Prince Pig
prances slapping touching earth,
made into holy place, and touching
down in France and also somehow,
every other place as well…
‘Tis red and ruddy, bristles stiff
like forests, thick like brambles tangled
heaving bunching with each lurching
hidden graceful step…

Mille Chiens!!!

What is this Thing, this Scion stepped down
from Beyond and then stepped in,
this Archetype, this Power pulsing
reddish brown totemic wonder
of an Uncreated Creature
Come to sniffle, root the earth
and dig the children of the clay
out of their seedbeds into day
where they will grow in deep delight
of our Delight and Love and Grace…

pig…Pig?

deliberate it shrinks, so slow
and funny, so intentional,
soon become short, ordinary,
just a snuffle huffle snorting
porcine pot of piggy, trotting
almost dainty, dancing deep
connected to the wonder hidden
in this ancient dirt so new
and old and full of life just waiting
to be sniffed out, found, discovered
there deep in the wombs and be
drawn out from earthy tombs…

look quick and see it…hiding there…
beneath that “used pig” thin veneer
and human truffles laugh and jeer
yet if you listen you can hear
the Pig inside the pig just laughing
as it shuffles, snorts and sniffles
each and every human soul
(human truffles if you really wanna dig deep into Truth)
the Pig roots rough and ragged thru
the forest, sniffing, grunting, rooting
sloughing with its trowel snout
deep thru the red red red rich dirt
running deep down to the core
and in the middle of the deepest
scents of mother earth the scents
of birth, the scents of womb,
oh, NOT a trifle, scent of truffle waiting
to be sent from tomb and tussle…Image result for sheep grazing in a vineyard
the sheep are walking gracelessly,
unaware and grazing in
among the vines and looking down
their noses at the rumbly Pig
deep in the fields and forests pregnant…

sheep so sleepy, unaware
that buried there are toads both dead
and yet alive and full of death
and parasite that’s also camouflaged, disguised
to look like truffles…sheep cannot discern, distinguish
which is which and what is dead,
relationship of death and just a rancid bond…
and what is still just waiting, still,
to be uncovered in its shell
and be delivered here…no trifle!

But the Pig, it knows the secret of
what really happened in the forest…
that smells like roadkill lacking graces
to just let go and return, that tastes
like tin foil soaked in vinegar,
metal, and electric acid anti-truth
the Pig, it knows those puffy toads so poisonous…
but leaves them buried deep entombed
where they belong…to root out truth
found deep in dirt so red, so rich
and truffly and toothsome to the soul…

Toads or truffles, that is what
The Pig came down to give to us,
a choice…our choice…but we must
be rooted out and snuffled deep
and ripped into our very bones
and breathe so deep the earthy scents
of just becoming

Just…Becoming…

as blood like liquid dirt that pulses,
courses thru our veins like rivers,
rivers in our noses

just like truffles…
rooted out…
by that disguised
and worn out
old Used Pig

Mama You Told Me | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This poem is the sister poem to another one I wrote on the exact same day, several minutes earlier.

It was three years ago, and it was the day of my court hearing which would change my name legally…it was a huge day of excitement and anxiety…and it led to my professional execution less than 2 weeks later.

Ohh, but even in the loss of so much, it is worth it…for in it were the seeds of becoming.

I hope you enjoy one of my own personal faves

…and me…spit up and emptied
and waiting for You
to fill the silent spaces
that ate grace and jeered
while feasting on my food.
me emptied, waiting …
and my heart,
ego-stained and washed clean,
captured
by Your face,
Your gift,
Your grace…

waiting…for that one grain of sand
to start an avalanche within me
of hope, nay!
of Hope…

Source: Mama You Told Me | Charissa’s Grace Notes

For JP | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I wrote this for a friend who occupies a very distinct and unique place in my life and history.  She is a woman that I have never met, exchange conversation with “occasionally”, or at least compared to other friends…she is of similar spiritual ilk and call, and is cut from the same cloth as me.  My beloved one and only knows about her, knows her…and we have never been anything other than what we are:  “Litter-mates”.

If you have ever had a dog who had puppies, then you know what litter-mates are…pups born at the same time from the same conception…and they are together until around 8 weeks when they all blast off to their families where they live…litter-mates are more than close…they are simply litter-mates…siblings.

My friend is like that to me, and when I first encountered her, I flashed on so many more things than I can write about, but HAVE written about here, and here, and a few other “here“s too…

This poem was written in that blissful innocence and joy that two people have when they meet and just know they are fast friends and sisters forever…it is my heart, flowing and pouring forth such beauty that it is capable of retaining from the Beauty That Comes With Poetry…it was in the moment and will always be my pure commitment to her, my sister.

And then I discovered to my horror and defilement that it has been used to accuse…that JP and I are accused of being “lesbian lovers”!!  Remember, we have never met…and that I myself am accused of being a “predator” who was “grooming” my incredible friend (whom I have never met, and whom my one and only till death we do part beloved knows about and rejoices in)…that I was grooming her for…this part I still do not really comprehend.

It is two years later…and my poem is now covered in shit and filth…from a literal whore-monger and thief and also from a religious dementor who is so deranged she makes the Pharisees look like the blessed meek.  One of them is sex addicted…and both of them are self-addicted…and I find out that they violate this poem, they violate JP, and they violate me…and I feel so sick and nauseous at this…this absolute shit.

Maybe it is the picture that did it in their minds…which is stupid because each woman has on her swimming suit, and even if they did not it would STILL not necessarily say anything!!  The picture represents the utter joy and abandon that comes when one is cleansed of all extraneous distraction and burden.  The water is the Divine Flow…the exhilaration is freedom.

Asshole Pervert:  I will never ever talk to you or have any contact with you ever.
Religious Dementor:  YOU I will give a chance if you ever find the One that you doll up in your shitty clothes and filthy rags imported in from the Law so you can feel like you are adding your work to the work of the One who said “It is FULL” which is usually translated “It is finished” and it means “It is totally summed up and completed”.

Sadly, for me?  This poem will ever be shit-stained by a monster and poisoned by a daughter of the slithering viper of poison tooth…but I know Mama will cleanse it, and those stains will at last be the colors which make JP and my friendship even more close, and even more surrendered to the Holy…to the good.

JP…Jennifer…I love you with my whole and true and innocent heart, dear Litter-Mate and fellow prophetess.
i clothe myself in wonder
for you, wrap myself in night
i am your pirate plunder
you can have without a fight

the milky way my shining sash
the moon my pendant true
and cricket song my lingerie
i give myself to you

you there, so strong, so brilliant
straightforward as blazing suns
your ready laugh, your brewing storms
the way your rivers run

from mountains high, jagged austere
you flow into the sea
for you i wait, indigo here
for you to give you me

we…night and day bonded and true
and joy our wonder-fates
you wrapping me, me inside you
Mama’s happy litter-mates

Source: For JP | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Singing In My Holy Heart | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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Ahhhh…last year I wrote this to try and express how closely the ecstatic and the erotic dance in me as I connect to poetry and the words enter, flow and exit…

I’m asked sometimes if I write erotic poetry, and I allus laff and ask “Why?”

The question is like asking someone if they are eating McDonald’s french fries during the best feast of their life…

So anyway…this poem is about Poetry, about connection with the Divine, and yes, it can be about connection with the person you love to…connect with.

PS:  this selection is towards the end of the poem…there is a staircase that gets you there, but you have to decide whether you ascend these steps, or descend them…either one is wow!!
…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…

Source: Singing In My Holy Heart | Charissa’s Grace Notes

On This Shore I Break, We Break | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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I wrote this for the first human other than my dearest darling to really see me, Charissa…she has never not seen me.  She has never seen him, even though she knows all about him, and I have told her everything about him that matters and also that she has asked…

I would tell her everything without reservation…but sometimes, she simply is bored by him, because he is an absent caterpillar and she loves the butterfly.

By the way…where do caterpillars go when the enter the chrysalis?

I love you Dani…you are my first friend and my dearest heart of friendship…special and distinct from the many friends and sisters I now have.  ❤

PS:  Pay attention to the line length…just a hint

Listen…
you can hear
my words in waves
breaking on your beach
and celebrating…

lament at long last left limp
in clammy depths
‘neath the surface of seas
of blessed forgetfulness
and chuckling…

midst the shells and sand swirling,
rejoicing surf returning resurrected,
remembered, sanctified by sorrows
faced and sorted…yielding
wholeness certain, sure…

on this shore I break,
we break,
on this shore gently
and joyfully too
we break…

on that shore
that someday shore
we will unbroken break
on that shore and in that circle
by and by…in that circle

by and by…

Source: On This Shore I Break,We Break | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Reflections | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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SO loving this old one…”old”…HAH!  Just a few years, very early on in transition…and a word play via homophone leads the way in this one.


The scent of our home,
funky quaint and riddled
with books and bikes,
and the long laid scent of family.
The scent of the kitchen,
yesterday’s dinner
and the overlay of croissants
like fierce french washer women
scrubbing away all other scents.

…the scent of our clothes,
and our laundry soap…
the scent of the air cooler,
that of the soft night air
waltzing in,
slow and sleepy
from her night out
amongst the stars,
and carried in drowsy
on cricket wings…

…the scent of popcorn
shared on the couch,
of our wine wafting
from bottles possessed
by only the last 12 drops,
our lil garden outside,
and the auto sprinkler
which has come on to water
in the dark and the cool…

the scent of your currents,
your deep distant observing soul
that hangs back and watches,
even in the midst…

i do go on…

from here…from now…
in the sweltering heat,
where you and I lay,
you sleeping,
me watching you sleeping,
soft face limpid and languid…here…
listening to tides of eternity
race round and round
inside our veins, our universe…

i do go on…

Source: Reflections | Charissa’s Grace Notes

The One Who Knows | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This poem is the antidote to “The 25 Hour Yesterday”…and it is attempting to write about redemption, and how it is only relational and never NEVER legal.  You want to see changes in this world?  Then change your relational dynamics…with yourself…with others…with the Divine…

“…It is the Valley of Dry Bones,
the charnal parched and bony strand
with bone-dust laying down for sand
that walking comes The One Who Knows
and singing re-creation songs
and the truths we tell make harmonies
to reach the very stars…”

Source: The One Who Knows | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Come Home To Yourself | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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My dearest heart of hearts.  She alone stood steadfast, faithful, amidst her own dealings and sortings and studyings…and she transitioned WITH me!

She NEVER left, shunned, or re-wrote our history to suit her current mood, as a couple have done.

She never othered or divorced as so-called friends of three decades did…

This poem is my attempt to express how I felt/feel about her, and her soul and her love.

She is the truest person I know…even when she is searching for that truth…and I love her with my bones.

PS:  It is written in my favorite meter…because I want that rhythm to speak to the central most shining thing about my darling:  her steadiness.

It all seems like a dream…like I woke up
into Real life and there you were, grinning,
that crooked lil smile and that small dimple
at your mouth’s corner, honey cupid bow.

It was as if we happy-laughed forever!
And cried for ever too, both all at once.
It was as if my torrid fever broke!
Things clear now to me, I’m in on the joke

regarding the us that we were…we are.
How I must have puzzled you, my dear!
Befuddled you and discouraged you too,
for you saw my real red and pulsing heart,

and underneath, the shade of deep dry rot…

Source: Come Home To Yourself | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Breaking Beans | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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AAHHH!  Wowsa…again with the metaphor choice that I love!!

Green Beans…human “beans”…and again you can launch from there.  I really REALLY like how this one turned out, sitting here a couple of years later.


the snap of those fresh green beans
the smell of fresh linen
infused with lacy scents of
fresh baked bread lingering

the sound like
*past* and *present* and *future*
punctuated with
period.  period.  period.
and my heart the ellipsis that lingers

like the freshly baked bread…

Source: Breaking Beans | Charissa’s Grace Notes

I Lost Time Today | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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PLEASE:  Read this out loud, and zero in on the rhymes as the key to where to place your meter.  Lovely, lovely effort, this.


I lost time today…misplaced it completely
as I sat, wondering how
the lavender takes body and position
in the skies above.

Does it wish its way up there?
Does it woo with song and dance?

Notes so sweet floating on air
to paint and wash and seize its chance
to smear its bloody beauty stain
upon the sky’s face once so plain
just blue…and now in wonder-grains
of beauty brief that won’t remain…

I lost time today…

Source: I Lost Time Today | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Refresh My Thirsty Roots

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It’s the wind, fresh splashed
with wild rain and then dashed
across slate and sand and then

strained thru my window
thrown open and grasping
for beyond and beyond and…

then scent simply there
and all around me sent,
in my hair and nose and lungs,
as if I were the tree
and that old gnarly oak
out there was me…

except that I am
sitting beside you dear,
laying there in your
innocence and cheer
still fresh from so far
away before you came

Before you were
sent so near to me,
oh my lovey,
lovely, my girl…

I sit, and drink of you
as you refresh my thirsty roots
forever until Forever.

After More Than 20 Years as Conservative Leader, Paul Williams Comes Out as Transwoman

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This story is very parallel to my own.
I encourage reading it, especially for the understanding
of a Gospel of Incarnation rather than a Gospel of Law.
“Transgender teens with unsupportive parents have a suicide rate 13 times higher than their peers. They are the most at risk group in the nation. Most of those unsupportive parents are Evangelicals.

“I have been in personal contact with thousands of LGBTQ individuals and their families from seven countries on four continents. Almost without exception these souls are Christians who have been ostracized from their churches and/or families. They always ask the same painful question, ‘What do I do now?’ I feel the weight of the responsibility.

“In my previous work, I hoped to save people from spiritual suffering. In my current work, I hope to save people from dying.”

Paula went on to state: “I do not care about their (evangelicals’) brand of orthodoxy.””I have no interest in debating it. It is of little interest to me.

However, I do care about their orthopraxy, how they practice the Christian faith. I find it lacking. I find any religion lacking that leads with judgment instead of leading with acceptance and love.”

Source: After More Than 20 Years as Conservative Leader, Paul Williams Comes Out as Transwoman

In Arpeggio Miles | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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Ahhhh…omg how I LOVE this poem!!

I wanted to talk about gaps, about distances…
those that exist on a vast continuum of connection,
and yet no matter how close you get,
you never really can connect…

the gap between two people, regardless of closeness…
the gap between the earth and moon in spite of gravitational pull…
the gap between us and ourselves…
the gap between stars…

and I wanted to also talk about connections, too…

and of course, it is a simple love poem at heart.

I encourage you to spend some time with it,
and perhaps even linger with some of these
metaphors and layers of meaning…

it’s a rich poem and I am quite happy with it.
❤


Prelude:
There is an indigo bunting
outside my window singing
in the moonlight streaming by
a million miles an hour.

But it is not the window
on my mind tonight…
I keep returning to that door
the one between you and me.…

Source: In Arpeggio Miles | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Suffragette of Sight | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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From 2014…trying to tell people how we hide…


They leave marks, tears.  Look.
You can see them if you stand
eyes akimbo and uncrossed from normal.
They don’t show if you look usual-like.

But they shimmer
like living starry
liquid songs of sorrow…

Source: Suffragette of Sight | Charissa’s Grace Notes

Burnt Offerings | Charissa’s Grace Notes

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This is an older poem, and I really like its rhythm.  Try reading it aloud, for you will find that the sound of the words shapes how you say the coming ones.

These words are my offerings burnt
singed in fires of pain and hurt
written as gouts of bright blood spurt
from my contrite soul.

I take treasure from my heart
pleasures, pains, my every dart
burn them for a brand new start
the incense of my spirit …

Source: Burnt Offerings | Charissa’s Grace Notes

ever Spring, ever Autumn

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My own poem from last year…I do really favor this one.

it looks the same to you
whether you stand
in winter or summer

…the gate of my heart…

The Great Gate

Source: ever Spring, ever Autumn

A Disjointed Incomplete Meditation…

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This is talking about my own life, my own family…and yours, too…because all of us have this brokenness.  The evidence is irrefutable.

This poem is all about forgiveness…trying to give it and trying to receive it…and the incredible revelation that it is impossible.

There is no trying…there is only becoming.

“…And so now we get down to it:
there is no exit,
no escape from agony,
pitstop from pain…
all we can do is
exchange suffering’s form
and it’s face, from our own
for the pain of another…”

Source: A Disjointed Incomplete Meditation…
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Miriam’s Song

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A poem from 3 years ago…seems appropriate in light of the marches!


Roll back stormy waters, roiling steely dark and deep.
Roll back clinging finger-waves and the icy grip they keep.
Make a way thru waters where there isn’t any way
And lead me laughing, walki…

Source: Miriam’s Song

Sonnet Of The Phoenix

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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!
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Come Holy Fire, we answer Your Call!
and All Reborn, and Love is All in All,

“Someday…someday the snow will fall!”

Advent Reflections: The Activity of Incarnation (Part Three)

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In a foreign land, early.

Not early in the day…or even early in the year…

…but early in the Kairos of Significant Appointed Time!

And with Open Eyes…there waited Wise Men…who watched the skies, looking always upward for the arrival of…SOMETHING…they knew it not, what they sought, but they knew it had to be…because of the ache inside and the absence of something that caused the ache.

And then…there it was!  A star appeared in the sky, and in that quadrant that allus presaged SIGNIFICANCE!

And as they watched intently, behold!  It began to shift!  And as it shifted, so too within them something shifted, something began to be drawn…something…SomeONE…was tugging at them, pulling them.

And they left their homes, their places of comfort and familiarity…and began the road trip of all road trips, one that some scholars theorize lasted a couple years!
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Do you see this?

The incredible events of Advent that happened within the scope of 9 months for the principal actors and happened in one night for the shepherds…

…began as much as two years earlier for the Wise Men!

Talk about Active Waiting!  Their waiting involved a journey as well!

They passed thru many lands, and as they were men of means and wealth and influence, their entry into the various kingdoms and lands thru which they passed created a stir, even consternation!  But only because it was…odd…strange…unusual.

Until they got close…to the land for which such things held great import…that land governed by an evil and malevolent pile of egocentricity.  In “The Fox”, it was as if all of the original assertion of ego which extinguished The Beginning Light was concentrated and distilled…and this small, infected and diseased pus-ridden pimple of a human being who was so full of hate and fear that he even killed children in his attempt to maintain his power was jolted by the arrival of these men and the implications of the Star, and the shockwaves that were about to break.
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He was cunning, unctuous, viscous and smooth of speech like a cobra hypnotizing its prey…but the Wise Men were, well, wise to him…and they held him at bay with deference and deflection…and journeyed on after giving him the impression that they would indeed abide by his word when in his land…

and then they at last came to the place over which the Star pulsed and danced…

a baby…in a humble hovel stinking of beasts and despair…and their open eyes beheld Him.

They gave Him Gold…because they saw He was High and Royal, above all beings.
They gave Him Frankincense…because they also saw He was a Priest above all Priests.
They gave Him Myrrh…because they saw something hidden, from all others…until it was manifest…

…they saw that this Baby was simultaneously there, in that manger, and also at the crux of all, and hanging in agony, in Passion, and that His blood was the Spring that watered the very roots of the Universe…

and the Myrrh was burial spice…for by His death our life is.

They knelt…and worshipped…and were changed…by Emmanuel…the Incarnate One.

After awhile, they chose to depart…but did they obey “The Fox”?  Did they come under the rule of government?

No…they had been changed forever, and they now were serving the Agenda of heaven and they resisted the intention of the earthly…and they departed in “civil disobedience” in order to preserve the life of God With Us.

And that is the activity of Advent declared to you in the story of the Wise Men.
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Part Conclusion:  https://charissagrace.com/2016/12/19/advent-reflections-the-activity-of-advent-conclusion/

I Tell Time

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Some nights seem slippery,
more than I like, lately
maddeningly abstract
yet deeply intimate,
infusing every
word and gesture…

and breath
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I wake to the sound
of dark, without detail
underanemptysky

or maybe
underground,
in a cavern or
falling thru space
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I might be dreaming
I could be dead.

Time moves one direction
but I move all directions
and take time with me

I tell time
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Deeply Well (French Pantoum)

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You are a Many-Moon now
Baby, deeply well
My Conjurer-Priestess
just like Me.
Image 001
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.
37a0871243a3dc61dd16b6d3e9f5ec4dMAMA!!
IT HURTS!!

You shall not run dry…because
you are a Many-Moon now,
Baby…deeply well

T78 INT 61

Sands and Shadows and Pearls, Deconstructed

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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… ❤

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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
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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)
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(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)

Bones

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I hear those glowy bones glowing,
those bones of mystery-menace bright
so dark inside their red cocoon
but white unto themselves alone
and full of lively light.
Incarnate Dead
The blood of bones in oceans vast,
the breathing moon’s silent contrast,
earth sweats her dew cooling and sweet,
rising to meet all thirsty feet
and bones stirring at last…
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To taste again of Love’s Birthright
and resurrection echoes loud
and everything restored, made new
from glowy bones Faithful and True
Bones blazing, Bones of Light
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Singing In My Holy Heart

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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
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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
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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)
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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)
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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
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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
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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
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In The Edges

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“Edge places fascinate us, because at heart we too are seeking the edges, the places of risk and unknowing. We long to embrace our own wildness. We feel alive when we live from our wild hearts, breaking out of the boxes of convention and expectation, and growing in trust of ourselves and the deep wisdom that emerges from our bodies and the world around us.”
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— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Self-Study Online Class ~ Earth as Soul Care Matrix: The Wild Heart of Ministry

Where are the edge places in your life? Where are the places of risk and unknowingness where you experience both fear and joyful anticipation simultaneously? How might you set your wild heart free?

That Eye Unblinking (A Holden Lament)

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Last year a wolverine broke loose, came slashing and gashing, ran up and down
canyons and cliffs and crittering quick up tree-trunks with such fierce red claws…
Snarling and yowling the haunting roar raged, moaned and cursed with such
hunger, such fury, that flurry of wood-thirsty teeth insatiable, free from hiatus and

running heart birthed straight from Their Great Altar There which purifies
all things with Holy Fire so freeing, so cleansing…wafting austere like pure Incense
arising, in billows and plumes and ash, ASH, everywhere and 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 with care, beneath the watchful eye of
Moses there, beneath his rod extended, as if the sun stood still again, and trees grew
up and great in grit and girth like Children of the sun, see how fat they had
become…See them, their indifferent eyes unblinking, safe, satisfied and

self-centered and 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 and make new everything it can consume and challenge all
it cannot touch to understand that TRANSFORMATION’s the destiny
of every-thing with the courage to crawl out from underneath the letter and run
from the rod and leave behind the tyranny of the typical to the flames…

and walk away from Moses, into freedom in liquid-gold fireworks,
free from the cares of the world that cling so fierce and so easily entangle us,
choke our lives in hoary growth and lullabies lulling us fast to sleep,
a Sleeping Beauty Bride on her bower of soft and easy privilege.

She like an eye unblinking
safe in her cloister so fair
deaf to Her loud Divine Dare.tumblr_nfiksuYzYz1twolrlo1_500
And (just like that forest or Sleeping Bride), there amidst that red hot bloody conflagration set another eye, a forest eye, unblinking sightless eye and
woke up wide awake in terror tribulation, hushed in dread anticipation and fear and 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 with care and foresight, that Eye Unblinking sat there in fright…
and Holden its breath and leaning against a wolverine dread come at last to
consume the dead, to rip that forest wide open and slash the woods to crimson rags

dripping bloody with flame and red flurries…
wrapped in silver sheets reflective, shiny
(or were they merely space age burial shrouds?)

It never blinked, that Eye, and all was shrouded safe, cocooned within
and underneath the rod and 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 and gives a skin-deep makeover, but leaves

the sleepy years untouched and undisturbed on laurels long gone brown
with age and loss of life though all appearances would say that Holden is
alive and well and safe from that destructive hell of fire and 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 year later in the same Unblinking Eye I rolled in on the waves
and wind (Charissa, meaning “Grace” but named “Char”-issa, “Ashy-one”) seeking
to drink of the life that flows through a village untouched by anything that fell
outside the Mosaic burn and no longer shrouded outside but just maybe mummy

rags still wrapped so tightly around a heart perhaps long grown so slack, so sleek
and oh so fat just like that forest was last year before God gave a wolverine to rage and feed, and cleanse, renew…I saw History on display and windfall fruit rife
on the ground and satisfaction ruled the day, and 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 with blinking eyes that squint into the light,
oft times in fright of storms and lightning flashing forth…and found
my blinking words rebuffed by cool and hooded eyes that had seen it all,
eyes satisfied and cynical cus been there done that, ho-hum…done much worse

I ran aground on fire roads and that Moses curse of long ago still Holden Court
over long hearts that found consuming fire fearful, dreadful and to be avoided
at all costs by any means…and 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 upon a village that mirrors the forest that kneels all around…She said that She has a fiery crown and Holden is that forest fat and ready for the Refiner’s Fire, the Cleansing Burn that
resurrects those vital dry bones waiting…but She must choose that fate and blink…

Yes, we must welcome Fire Fate from God and let the dead wood burn,
and blaze, and feed Mosaic Ways to the flame and trust the Good God of the Fire
to keep her safe underneath Their Name and resurrected, cleansed, renewed
and ever delivered from stain and 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!
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Come Holy Fire, we answer Your Call!
and All Reborn, and Love is All in All,

“Someday…someday the snow will fall!”