The title, the chosen image, the poem itself – fabulous!
Category: misc
Advice to myself by Louise Erdrich
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/05/29
Poem: “Advice to Myself” by Louise Erdrich, from Original Fire: Selected and New Poems. © Harper Collins Publishers, 2003. Reprinted with permission.(buy now)
Advice to Myself
Leave the dishes.
Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don’t patch the cup.
Don’t patch anything. Don’t mend. Buy safety pins.
Don’t even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don’t keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll’s tiny shoes in pairs, don’t worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.
Samhain: the Beloved Dead await barely concealed by the thinning veil
Looking for messages? This would be an ideal time for a bone throw reading. Interested? You can purchase one here. Blessings all around!
Thoughts on Leadership
Reblog. Yes, this.
A leader goes first where they want you to go…and at the same time, a leader stands behind you. It is in holding this duality that shit gets done. It is in holding this duality that a leader disappears into the fabric of the moment.
A leader trusts that you will bring your excellence to the table, holds you up while you stretch past your comfort zone, and believes that you will touch the golden core that’s at the heart of you.
“A leader is best When people barely know he exists, When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, They will say: We did it ourselves.” ~Lao-Tzu
The “good” disabled person
Reblog from Loki’s Bruid.
Word.
Pittsburgh Pagan Pride Day 2014
Thank you, Amoret and Magnolia, for doing this! ❤
Having a table at Greater Pittsburgh Pagan Pride Day was great fun. Big thanks to the organizers of the event, and to those that helped man our table, and to those that stopped by to learn more about Reclaiming and Feri and Bone and Briar!
Anger as motivation
Reblog. So interesting. Gaiman and Pratchett and anger.
I rushed to get the link up and neglected to put up my own thoughts. I feel there is nothing wrong in using anger as a motivator so long as you understand the risks and price of doing so. I have some friends who are athletic, and use anger to push themselves. I have many friends who are activists who use anger every day. So long as I am sure that they understand what that can cost them, I wish them the best of luck. Just be aware that you must not let that anger consume you. Then it becomes much darker and more dangerous.
SCIENCE! – reblog
Among other excellent points there is this gem:
If you ever have the audacity to tell me that my mental illness “was invented by Big Pharma to make money”… you try living with it for almost 35 years. All of the willpower and positive thinking and Reiki and herbs in the world did not help me get better. Buproprion and clonidine did. You know why? Because what I have is actually a brain disease involving brain chemistry, that can only be fixed by chemicals. There’s this new thing, you might have heard of it, called science. It works. No really.
Names Don’t Matter, or: what to do when your god pokes around with your identity by poking around with His own
If I had words I would use them to explain why you should read this. I do not have words. Read.
A young girl is on her hands and knees at the water’s edge, keening into the sea. There is no other word for the sounds coming from her, the sounds of a spirit bound too tightly slipping its cage and splintering from the force of it. She feels herself shattering, and no amount of trying to hold on will stop the process. She is beyond fear, beyond worry, beyond hope. She has given over to this moment, and she is caught up in fury, in desolation, in these big, crushing waves of emotions that are too big, too wild, to be held back. Her spirit has tasted freedom and it will not return to its meager existence. Her spirit knows the depth and beauty of the worlds, and it calls out for rescue.
He comes clad in moonlight and darkness, in denim and leather, in flesh, bone, and magic. The…
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Holy Grief
The grief rushes in, as a wave of numbing, crushing, cold despair crashing upon the shoreline of my spirit. Its breakers distract with their frothing, gleaming spray, while the undertow undermines the foundations at my feet. Joy and hope shift like so much sand, pulled out into the vast sea of roiling, storming, Holy Grief and Terror. Despair is tangible. Despair is crushing. It is not mine. It is not mine.
“Hold Fast,” He says, and His presence is soft, thick, good wool wrapped snug around me. We are wet, soaked in this ocean of Grief, but He keeps me warm even as wet wool can manage to do. My spirit wants to shatter under this strain, but He holds me up as the ground underneath me gives way. I think of the other part of the year, when the Holy Grief I bear witness to is not mine, is…
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LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 