Month: September 2022

Equinox

such subtle ways

and

shades of turning, ever so slowly

creeping in where I can feel it there,

just over the horizon

red-burned and dancing

beneath a moonglow grin

crescent-waning

as equidistant are shadow and light, our cycles and singing

drawn from time, eons birthing each age of being

where we speak as equals

to the living and the dead

+Lj

I Dreamed This Dream of Wooded Wilds

I dreamed this dream of wooded wilds, dripping moisture in the grey air. The Earth’s many scents release when the rain drops onto pine needles and oak leaves. The pat-pat sound of the rain on the palmetto fronds is familiar in my mind.

I rise from my bed, surrounded by quiet and the familiar hum of the ceiling fan. It is early morning, the hour of in between twilight just before dawn, and I hear a voice. A man’s voice outside. From deep inside the dark cool trees, his voice travels out to me. I know that voice.

I wander out of the house, at odd morning hours. My bare feet padding down the lawn leading to the edge of the woods. I hear a crow, the rain, and his voice calling to me.

So I enter that wild realm of insects, birds, spirits. The wild god who waits for me.

He calls to me again, his voice warm and dark as fertile soil. My pulse thickens inside my skin. Shivers tremble up and down my spine, but still I long to find him.

I wander with soft steps on sacred ground. The smells inundate me, decay and life and rain. I weave through the thick trunks of ancient trees, winding thickets of brush and bole, over roots jutting out on my path.

And then I find him. He waits for me by a stream. The sounds of pipe and drum hit me then, though he holds no instrument in his hands.

His face is unmistakable, though I only ever see it in dreams. He whispers my name, and I approach his perch above the swirling water.

“Look,” he tells me. “Your strength is in this shadow, buried beneath the birch tree.” He smiles a cryptic smile, as a teacher might to his student who is working out the solution to something in her own mind. There are no birch trees here.

He reaches his hands out to me, and I take them in mine. His hands are warm and rough, mine cold and unsure.

He pulls me to his body, his warmth, his earthly knowledge. He smells of oak and pine and soil, and the decay of leaves.

His mouth covers my own, and I suck him in, all the scents and senses, the knowledge and heat.

Then I wake, shaken in sleep. Deriving meaning from dreams in the deep.