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
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me

Pilgrimage to Blue Lake

For so many years, you have built elaborate cairns

along the trail to the house of your self.

 

You have found just the right rocks for balancing,

just the point along the path where you might get lost—

 

so that in every season, in the deepest snow,

you can find your way back. Each time you come,

 

you lay a fire on the shoreline with the kindling

of your grief and delight—watch the flames burn slowly

 

at first—then fast and high as they quicken,

bringing light to dark spaces.  And so it is this day,

 

as you arrive on the shores of Blue Lake, you hear

a different cadence pulsing from the land—

 

and you wonder if it is time to build a stronger nest

for this next round of seasons, or if it is time to fledge

 

all together. You stand shaky, barely balanced on the edge

of this and that—while below stretches the great horizon

 

you long for, though you never believed you could walk

beyond these cairns you have so carefully tended.

 

And this sacred valley is filled with mist—for the light

has been drinking snow all day long. And in a devastating flash,

 

you see you must leave this place that has given you all it has.

You have been filled by such beauty—you can no longer stay—

 

for what is yours to give can no longer be given from here.

And so you take the stones from the cairns,

 

offer them to the lake and walk off

the edge of all you have ever known.

©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me!

First Flight

There were edges to my loving—
places where countries clashed along borders
where lovers were not admitted,
where the thicket grew thickly, impenetrably—
designed to keep out the savage creatures
that ambled about in the night, smelling of musk.

There were edges to my loving—
places to guard, gardens to endlessly tend—
the project of myself that took such devotion,
voices in my head I did not want heard
by another who might lean over in the night
and kiss away such tender uncertainties.

There were edges to my loving—
there was the wild one of me
who did not want taming,
the one who thought someone else held
the keys to my freedom, the primal roar
of the lioness who said: I will belong to no one
but myself, so I cannot belong to you.

There were edges to my loving.
But then came the tearing wind,
and the sheets of rain, the storms
on the high seas, the sunlight on bare skin,
and the eyes of god blazing through my heart
at dawn. Then came the beasts crashing
through the thickets, despite my best laid plans.
Yes, then came life softening
the edges again and again.

And one night I woke up from a dream
to my own laughter, to a knowing of my love
rippling out in endless circles—untethered, infinite.
And in my bones I felt what has always been free—
this sovereignty that does not require
guarding or liberating. And from here,
belonging to everything, I walked out of the cage
of my own making, unfurled these gossamer wings
and tasted true flight for the first time.

 

 

©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
luminouspoetry.com
OR subscribe to my blog at:
soulpassages.wordpress.com
***You can find and purchase a copy of LUMINOUS on amazon, my website, Boulder Bookstore, or locally from me!