Welcome to Poetry Party Number 35!
I select an image and suggest a theme/title and invite you to respond with your poems or other reflections. If you have your own blog, please use the Mister Linky widget below to add a link back to your website. If you don’t have your own blog (not required to participate) or if you just want to post your poem here, please skip Mister Linky and go straight to the comments section to add your poem. Make sure to check the comments for new poems added and I encourage you to leave encouraging comments for each other either here or at the poet’s own blog.
Feel free to take your poem in any direction and then post the image and invitation on your blog if you have one and encourage others to come join the party! (permission is granted to reprint the image if a link is provided back to this post)
*************************
The Poetry Party Theme:
Lately I have been contemplating the sacred feminine and sacred masculine as integral elements of my spiritual path and practice. One dimension of these is what Richard Rohr calls the “Sacred Yes” and the “Sacred No”. The feminine with its archetype of welcoming, nurturing, enfolding energy is the Sacred Yes of our lives — all those things, people, and opportunities we embrace. The masculine with its archetype of boundary setting and protection (think warrior) is the Sacred No of our lives — the healthy setting of limits and protectors of our gifts and energies so we don’t over-extend ourselves.
I have been very much in a season of yes lately, welcoming and embracing many amazing opportunities that have come my way. Just in the last couple of weeks I am feeling more of a draw again to contemplate the places of no in my life. The opportunities to which I am not being called right now or which take energy away from the yeses to which I have committed myself fully. Accompanying my meditation on the Sacred No has been the image of the Guardian of the Threshold. These allies and companions are much like the gargoyles and statuary placed at the entrances to European buildings to ward off evil spirits. Our own internal guardians are those fierce aspects of ourselves that help us to clarify what is life-draining and what we need to release to live fully and help to maintain those boundaries. The photo was taken in Riga, Latvia last summer on our ancestral pilgrimage.
What does your own Guardian of the Threshold look like? What is he or she helping you to say no to? What is the yes that needs protecting these days?
_____________________________________
** MISTER LINKY has been causing problems with this page loading so sadly I had to remove it **
_____________________________________
© Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts:
Transformative Living through Contemplative & Expressive Arts
Become a fan of the Abbey on Facebook, follow this blog on Facebook, friend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter
43 Responses
Carved Design
Watching stone grow
waiting
wondering
built or broken
created or carved
My heart opens
a conduit
for tenderness
My soul knows
a channel
for essence
My body lives
an embrace
for the sacred
My spirit anticipates
a channel
for creation
My sacred no
a sentinel
for the holding
My sacred yes
a whisper
for release
shalm every one, i find this place for the first time and happy i am to find another place in the vast net where people open thier heart and share. i hope to contribute on the next Invetation.
blessings
Dhyan
Broken dreams of my ego
lay strewn at her feet ~
heaps of salt in the desert.
Line 4 should say ‘that suck the hours of the day…’
_________
NOTE: I changed that for you Michaela –Christine
Hello, are you there?
Guardian of my time,
take some responsibility for the endless round of ego-driven ‘yeses’
that suck the hours of the day into a singularity of dark matter.
Hello, are you there?
Guardian of my well-being,
take some responsibility for the mountain high heap of guilt
for undone tasks, conflicted commitments and promises unkept.
Hello, are you there?
Guardian of my heart,
take some responsibility for the love too easily given
and the butterfly fragility of empty commitment.
Hello, are you there?
Guardian – where are you?
What do you mean?
I know I’m a grown up, but I really would like you around
to save me having to take responsibility.
The Guardians of my Threshold are the Sacred Masculine and Sacred Feminine emergence of Lord Yeshua HaMashiach and Lady Marie Magdalene. They tell me NO to what this world tells me is true and YES to the fires of my desire; how I choose to live my life must be the only intention I wove around the Universe until it manifests soundly in reality.
SOUL TWINING
My beloved king, it’s raining again
My mind races to you and once more our souls meet
Many delightful and sensual pictures play out
on the screens of the theatres of our hearts
You are my home and I wander aimlessly
lost between faith and fantasy
We keep our souls calling out to each other
holding on to dreams waiting to be manifested in reality
That sun dappled forest that was our playground still comes alive
Our Garden of Eden remains lush and green
Our Lord and Lady tends to our secret garden
The torn sash from my dress and hair ribbons are draped
across the branches of an apple tree to remind you of me
a softball and a worn threaded mitt remain on a wooden bench
to remind me of you
That was aeons ago when the twining of two souls split
there were many counterfeit incarnations yet we are still lost
the seductive trappings of Sheol shattered our innocence
our hearts closed and hardened to the disappointment and deceit
of the parts we reluctantly play on this stage of disillusionment
but my dear heart when the lights are out
the darkness and silence weaves our song
sleep shelters our souls and we remember love
a strong sweet truth that cannot die even in the midst
of our countless failures
My beloved king, it is raining again in our secret garden
we meet on the astral plane again playing in a midnight downpour
Eugenie, your words moved me to tears. Simply perfect poetry in my eyes.
GREAT poems! I especially resonated with Stacy’s…go for the warm sun on your feet and back! The Muses guard us when we don’t enough to be afraid!!
Karla, lovely images here, I love the vibrancy of the verbs and the sense of strength gained.
Eugenie, where are you? is such a potent and tender question, I love your movement here toward the union of all that is.
Thank you both, such beauty and gentleness here.
No Threshold
Where are You
when I am left bereft
Where are You
under my dreams and wishes and cares
wanderings and fears
the bleeding
that will not stop
the wounds
that do not end
the evil that keeps penetrating
through
my
life
that I must allow in
to protect this precious one
Where are You in my heart
and my mind
that will not allow the darkness
to cross into me
Where are You
where I am me
as You made me
Where are You
Where am I
Lost
Yet in Your hands
slay me
heal me
Your love
reaches
me
forever
beyond
and
beneath
this
abyss
til
there
is
nothing
left
but
You
in
me