Diving for Pearls
The way, within us, the grit
forms the pearl. You know how this goes.
First the irritation. Something is not right!
And then the way we learn to soothe—
to grow something new from the seed
of what agitates.
*
The way the sting
can be a medicine. Or a toxin
an intoxicant that reveals
the God inside. Or the piercing
the entry place for a new song.
*
Dive into that sweet ocean within
and find the treasure boxes
spilling over with pearls!
Bless the grit
that brings forth
your own magic.
from the upcoming book “The Pearl Sutras”
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
The Kiss
God kissed me in the night
and I felt a quickening~
as if tulips burst through
the dark soils of me.
It was so simple, such a delight!
It brought sweet laughter for all
the pain I think I’ve endured.
***
The soul doesn’t see it this way!
It’s all about the quickening.
What will remind the seed
that it has other places to go!
What reminds the flower
In its time that it can fall back
to earth and rest, and this is no failure!
When did we invent death as a failure?
*
Perhaps all of our lifetimes
we have been seeking immortality
when we have been immortal all along.
This body, sweet mercy, this temple
that allows the soul to shapeshift
into a thousand forms of creation.
This is god’s delight.
We run from our own horizon
because we think it is the end of us!
And it is!
And then the horizon moves on.
from the upcoming book “The Pearl Sutras”
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
Hand Over Hand
*Dedicated with love to all of us in these transformational times of Covid and beyond….
Sometimes we need a hand up—
when we have fallen from the wagon, face first
in the mud—when we are down deep in the belly
of despair. When the dark night of the soul
has its grip and we cannot see our way
through an endless fog.
*
Sometimes we need a hand up
when we are quaking in the corner
of our worst fears realized, when death
and abandonment sit at our table,
when we are in the hold of an ache
that seems to have no end.
*
Sometimes we need a hand up
when the unmet children in us
are crying in the corner, running ransack
through the cupboards looking
for something to eat. Or when the adolescents
ones take the car and nearly drive
off the edge of a cliff. Or when the older ones of us
stand aloof in judgement, behind the stacks
of stories we have built around us.
*
Sometimes we need a hand up
when the storm clouds gather
and it rains for days and floods
all of our streets at once. When
we are tumbling in the heavy surf of confusion,
when we are caught in the riptides
of our own soul and can’t find the shoreline.
*
Sometimes we need a hand up
when we have convinced ourselves
that we don’t need each other,
when the Ace of Blame and the Queen
of Righteousness are passed
around the circle. When we cannot
stop and see we are each at the table
with our own set of cards.
*
Sometimes we need a hand up.
*
In heaven, which is here, which is now—
we feed one other. We see this muddy, tear-stained One
in front of us as a version of ourselves on another day.
We reach our hand out, cast no stones, no shame.
We come close enough to whisper, I am with you.
*
In heaven, there is no need for fixing of saving—
for all must find their way. And yet, together
we make the way, knowing we each fall
and stand, we each carry and are carried.
So when the darkest part of the night Howls,
when our own demons rattle our walls–
together we sing, together we find the songlines.
And in the dawn, when the sun washes us clean
with new sight, we share in this Feast of Grace.
*
And when it is our moment to Fall—
we know this Hand of God will reach to us,
and that there is no shame in reaching back.
For this God of Generosity –that looks out
from our human eyes–makes pathways
where there were only walls,
makes a caravan of beauty in boarded up towns
of old wounds, makes miracles in times of drought.
**
And in the light of this gaze, water springs
from the cold stone we had given up on—
and we simply fill our one sacred cup from the fount,
pass it around the circle and drink,
knowing there is more than enough for all.
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
Bones of Belonging
You’ve been in this love affair for quite some time.
But still, you don’t trust god won’t walk out the back door
or trade you out for another lover when your shine wears off!
*
How many times do you need to hear I love you
before you believe it? How many times do you need to feel
the press of flesh against yours to know you are wanted?
*
How many times are you going to call god an unfaithful lout
when you are wandering along through the lonely moors
or trudging through thick mud in the jungle—feeling abandoned?
*
If the Beloved were here, if s/he really loved me—you mutter—
s/he’d save me from all of this. Oh no, the Beloved says—
you can’t get away with that kind of game any longer.
*
Listen, the Beloved says, I made a vow to you an eternity ago
and I’ve been shouting it from every mountain top ever since.
But you have put your hands over your ears—and cried out—
I can’t find you anywhere!
*
It is as if you have hidden the Beloved in your blindspot
and believed the myth of your own exile.
But now the Beloved sneaks up behind you
and pulls you into an embrace that is bigger than all that.
*
Now the Beloved says—breathe, my love,
and feel the bones of your true belonging.
Let the lodestones you thought you had to carry
to pay some ancient debt— simply fall away.
*
And you look up into the shining eyes of the one
who has always claimed you and say, I see now—
you made your vow and I’ve been hedging my bets.
*
You look up into the shining eyes of the Beloved
and realize you have tried to bargain for safety
when all along your heart has longed to ring out
with its unfettered devotion.
*
You look into the shining eyes of the Beloved and say,
Alright then. I am here. I’m all in. This is my vow.
And the keys in the lock turn—and the doors
to beauty open and the morning sings a ballad
for star-crossed lovers, finally found.
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
Eye of the Whale
We paddle out through coral shoals –
looking for breech, for spray,
for footprints of tail on water—
the sight of glistening fin.
*
Something has called me to this bay
for months now, across thousands of miles–
some longing for communion, for mystery.
But today I am quaking with an old fear
inside me—about my own fate,
about the fate of the earth,
about the fate of love.
*
And so I have come to witness
thousands of pounds of stardust,
breaking surface, to spin in sunlight
and disappear again into the depths.
I have come to hear the stories
that live in these whale bones,
pouring through phonic lips in clicks
and whistles, in lyric melodies and lullabies
of primal seas and deep space.
Eons pass, civilizations rise and fall –
and still this humpback song goes on.
*
We see them close to us now—
a mother who swam 3000 miles
to arrive here, half-starved to birth
her young in these amniotic waters.
We come close, but not too close—
and when it is time, slip into the sea,
naked beside them—so that suddenly
I am looking directly into the shining eye
of a calf and she into me. I stay—
for as long as I can hold my breath,
I stay in the oracle of this gaze
that dissolves all fear.
*
Back in the kayak—I cannot speak.
This is what wanted to be remembered
in me. Species come and go,
continents crumble—and yet this eye
looks out from the center of the milky way—
and we look back in awe. What it is to feel
the whale’s eye imprinted in the heart of the heart,
where stories fall away—where even now
a silence, that is a presence, is being born.
****
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
THE TASTE OF WAR
She tells me how her father foraged for mushrooms
in the Black Forest, Nazis stalking him as he fled. How
after the war ended, he could never eat a mushroom again.
*
How primal the scent of gunpowder and hunger—
the pheromones of fear, the fierceness of love making
when we know all could lost. And in our moment of history
*
Mars rises with the harvest moon—and desperate men
raise flags hoping to fill the ache with feasts of power.
But they are not sated—not with the burning of the Amazon,
*
or with militias that steal people away in the night.
Not with women on their arms who have gone vacant
and forgotten the curve of the moon. Not with stealing
*
piles of gold and wheat and rounding up starving children
on the borders. This is a hunger that wants war. Perhaps
these men never tasted the sweetness of earth’s milk.
*
Perhaps beauty never cracked the heart, or perhaps tears
could never flow to wash the soul clean. Instead, the charge,
the threats, the posturing that rips countries apart
*
and builds walls against our own nightmares. Instead,
this hall of mirrors where there is only one face reflected—
for all others have dropped their guns and run home
*
to their lovers to grow gardens and bake bread. Yes, the others
have grown tired and thin with the taste of war on the lips—
a bitterness no sweet cannot dissolve. What is it that will finally
*
return the war hungry ones in all of us to the awe of northern lights—
the beacon of the pole star, to sun on bare skin, to a moment
when we knew we belonged to something beyond the too steady
*
beat of machines? For we have become toy soldiers
in fantastic war games. And yet even the toy soldier trembles,
cries out in the night, remembers the prayer it was born with.
*
Yes, even the toy soldier longs for the kapok trees full of monkeys,
the true kiss of a loved one freely given—this kiss that heals.
For perhaps it is in this longing that the toy soldier can remember
*
he is not real, that this armor is only artifice, that this ash on his hands
from this burning can be washed clean. And freed from the spell,
he can run back to the forest of his own heart, foraging
*
for what has been lost. And in time he can look into the eyes
of the stars and rock the babies of the world against his chest.
Yes in time, he can exhale and simply rest in the arms of love.
***
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
Where the Honey is Stored
Photo by Archana on Pexels.com
Beloved, we do not have to do anything to deserve you.
And yet we are always trying to prove ourselves—
asking about purpose, looking for meaning,
when all along we are swimming in the coral reefs
of your warm oceans and tilling the soil for the next
season of waving green rye. This is the home
we have always dreamed of, the garden where we once
saw a no trespassing sign and believed it! The drill
of the mind bores down layers and layers in search
of a non-existent core. Meanwhile, a dance is wildly
unfolding just outside our thoughts. Nothing to do but love them—
these bees of the mind that buzz in summer flowers.
Quick! Run past the construction sites of the self
to the hive where all the honey is stored!
©Laura Weaver
From the collection LUMINOUS
LauraWeaver.org
LuminousPoetry.com
soulpassages.wordpress.com
weaverpoetry@gmail.com
The Feast
It is green and teeming again,
the soils supple after years of drought—
after the parched places
called like a lover for rain,
after empty reservoirs
filled overnight, and the earth
offered her great generosity
so that everything is opening,
blooming, gleaming
with sweet golden light.
*
There is so much
we could resist in this life—
drought and famine and flood,
the turning of every season,
the arrival of each decade,
the falling away of a beloved,
our own aging bodies, every betrayal
or hurt we have ever held close.
We could spend every moment resisting.
*
For this mammalian heart aches—
we attach, hold on, scan the field
for potential loss. We love so intensely,
we push love away—lest it break us.
And yet to inhabit this body
in every cell, with no holding back,
we cannot avoid touching those
trembling notes of our impermanence—
those strands in our lives which
arrive for a time, but cannot stay.
We cannot avoid risking everything.
*
For in this exquisite love affair
the world will court us again and again—
and in this awakening of spring,
we will forget the other seasons of lack—
as we are reborn, renewed, unwrapped.
And the heat of earth’s wild eros
rises through us—the peony blossoms
bursting their seams, the fillies cantering
in the just born grasses,
the creeks racing high and fast.
*
And we think—yes, perhaps it will
always be like this—now that I have
emerged from this final winter of my soul.
But all of the visitors will come again—
grief and passion and fear
joy and loneliness and ecstasy—
they will all knock on the door.
And perhaps, in our forgetting,
we will be surprised by these old
familiar visitors who come
in the dark hollow of the night—
or perhaps we will remember this feast
we were invited to long ago—
and we will lay the table generously,
pour the wine, and laugh with delight
with all that is offered,
here, now, for all time.
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
From the upcoming book….
LuminousPoetry.com
soulpassages.wordpress.com
weaverpoetry@gmail.com
p.s. Giving away 10 copies of Luminous to local Boulder folks-ping me if you’d like to pick one up. xoxo
Sing Back the Light
Because you have gone diving
into the darkness, explored the cracks
deep in the earth and swam
in the underground rivers of your soul
*
Because you have traversed
the tunnels between worlds
to find your own heart’s pulse and longing
*
Because you have written story after story
for lifetime after lifetime
and arrive here, now—
quaking in your naked truth.
*
Because you have walked through
fierce fires and watched parts
of yourself turn to ash—
*
Because you have alchemized your wounds,
metabolized your grief, and danced your love,
against all odds, in the midst of ferocious storms.
*
Because you have planted seeds
in the still heart of winter
and believed in the harvest
when you could see no signs of life.
*
Because you are a divine lover of the fertile dark,
and the Beloved mystery–and know the way
she teaches us to see with the inner eye—
and trust our inner compass.
*
Because you have the courage
of the first morning star~
*
Sing back the light
*
Sing back the light
to the places that have forgotten—
sing back the light
to the places that are numb
*
Sing back the light
to all that has been desecrated
and abandoned
sing back the light
to the desperate and hungry ones
*
Sing back the light for the ancestors
who encircle us,
whispering instructions
while we sleep
*
Sing back the light
to our children’s children’s children
who remind us –
everything is at stake
*
Sing back the light
at this time of Holy Revelation
*
Sing back the light
that heals the wounds of Separation
*
Sing back the light—
because tonight
the whole world says—
I am tired, will you stay with me
when the flame flickers
in the darkest moments of this passage?
*
Sing back the light
because you are the medicine
the new world is thirsting for
*
because you are a star traveling
at the speed of love
*
because you wear the wings
of the Dove who takes flight now
in the darkest hour.
*
Sing back the light
because we are a mighty forest
growing up through scorched ground—
yes, we are the seeds
that open with just this kind of fire.
*
sing back the light
because your song ignites my song
and the chorus is a swelling ocean
of Awakening—and we are just beginning
to hear our own roar.
*
Sing back the light
because this is how we remember—
this is how we remember ourselves
past this ending
into the beginning….
*
For in the beginning
there was the Word
there was the Song
and we are here now
to sing ourselves Home.
*
Sing back the light!
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
LuminousPoetry.com
soulpassages.wordpress.com
weaverpoetry@gmail.com
Bearing Witness
*for Malidoma Some
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Sometimes we are asked to stop and bear witness:
this,the elephants say to me in dreams
as they thunder through the passageways
of my heart, disappearing
into a blaze of stars. On the edge
of the 6th mass extinction, with species
vanishing before our eyes, we’d be a people
gone mad, if we did not grieve.
*
This unmet grief,
an elder tells me, is the root
of the root of the collective illness
that got us here. His people
stay current with their grief—
they see their tears as medicine—
and grief a kind of generous willingness
to simply see, to look loss in the eye,
to hold tenderly what is precious,
to let the rains of the heart fall.
*
In this way, they do not pass this weight on
in invisible mailbags for the next generation
to carry. In this way, the grief doesn’t build
and build like sets of waves, until,
at some point down the line—
it simply becomes an unbearable ocean.
*
We are so hungry when we are fleeing
our grief, when we are doing all
we can to distract ourselves
from the crushing heft of the unread
letters of our ancestors.
Hear us, they call. Hear us.
*
In my dreams, the elephants stampede
in herds, trumpeting, shaking the earth.
It is a kind of grand finale, a last parade
of their exquisite beauty. See us, they say.
We may not pass this way again.
*
What if our grief, given as a sacred offering,
is a blessing not a curse?
What if our grief, not hidden away in corners,
becomes a kind of communion where we shine?
What if our grief becomes a liberation song
that returns us to our innocence?
*
What if our fierce hearts
could simply bear witness?
©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
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***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me
