RIVER OF AWE
When they ask where you have been, say you have been swimming
in the River of Awe again—dropping skins to arrive here,
to be bathed and reborn in this starlit current.
*
Some of the most difficult work we will do in our lives—
is to retrieve joy from the clutches of bitterness.
*
There is a choice along the path—the many crossroads.
Will the crucible of living soften you, or simply thicken the armor?
*
In a recurring childhood dream—I stand at the edge of the sea—
watching a mountain of a wave surging towards me. In that moment,
I know just how to turn my body inside out to create an opalescent shell.
So that when the wave crashes, I tumble unharmed in the wild foam.
*
A teacher says to me, perhaps it is time to let go of that dream—
for now you know you are the sea itself.
*
When the fierce visitor of dis-ease has come to reside in your own body,
in your own mind-heart—you must learn how to receive
the teachings and let the teacher go. It is only the raft
to the other side of midnight. To the other side of the wounded self.
*
A revelation—to see that your story is not as personal as it all seems.
That the gods are not out to get you. Nor are they here to save you.
*
It’s more elemental than that—this body a landscape where storms
wash away entire canyons before the sun rises again over green shoots.
Yes, this map of you is rewritten over and over by these elements
that shape you, as they shape the mountain.
*
Go to the River of Awe and let the waters clear the pain
of the small self. You may feel the disorientation of this—of unhooking
from the familiar habit of you. And yet there you are emerging—
the light streaming off your skin.
*
You were given this Oracle long ago.
There is an Intimacy with life you are offered.
It requires everything of you.
Even the surrender of the story of the life
you thought was yours to live.
.
Weaverpoetry@gmail.com
LauraWeaver.org
©Laura Weaver
WILD PLUMS
It’s erotic—my hands sifting through
plum flesh for pits—the purple skins,
the golden juice like a fine wine—
this bowl overflowing.
*
But wait, there is more to that story.
There is the moment when we stood
in the September dusk in the storm light—
four women laughing in awe at the miraculous
choreography of this evening—harvest moon,
late summer wind blowing through
branches so laden with plums they fall
off by the dozens into our open palms.
*
Gathering to harvest the way peoples
have always gathered when the year
spins around to equinox again. Each
to make our own version of plum jam—
the alchemy of this particular summer,
where grief and beauty have been lovers.
*
This season where we have all lost someone
where we have sung river songs
by the river and laid our bare bodies
on warm rocks in the sun, finding the places
where our mythologies weave,
where we dream not only for ourselves
but for each other.
*
Yes, this is the taste of a summer
that will be remembered in mid-winter—
carried in the essence of these plums—
this memory of bright stars and purple asters
and the bears rumbling around
gorging before they sleep. This moment
of equal day and night, just before the sun
sun slants south to the honey of fall
and then the crystalline thin light of winter.
*
But wait, I am here, standing in the kitchen
my hands plunged into a bowl of pulp,
plums boiling on the stove with cardamom
and cinnamon –thinking of
all the ways we make love with life,
all the exquisite ways we are offered
to commune with the fruits of the world—
so freely given. So freely given.
LauraWeaver.org
©Laura Weaver
HARVEST
Standing in a trembling grove of aspen
tasting the fire in their release—
I see all the moments in my life
as shimmering leaves
on the Tree of Life.
*
And I see how all of these moments—
even the ones I have prayed
could stay—will turn to gold,
speak their story, and fall
back into this black earth.
*
How I never could have never imagined
this face of mine after five decades—
the unique shape of this life of mine,
the particular harvest baskets I carry
full of the seeded grasses of childhood,
the plums of love, the late summer
blackberries of longing, the boughs
of elderhood that beckon to me now.
*
We are travelers through a life
that re-writes itself again and again,
season after season, so we become
unrecognizable even to ourselves.
And as time passes, we become
more intimate with all that is transitory—
resting in to the unknowable,
all the urgent questions falling away,
become chaff for the next growing season.
*
So now there is only the bliss that arises
from this particular quality of light—
the scent of these leaves, the silver crescent
of moon in violet sky, the imprint
of all we love, of all that loves us.
*
As evening comes, starlings murmurate –
spectacular oracles speaking
in the language of wings and wind—
and I feel the autumn weaving
its magic again on the loom of my being
for another round of seasons—
*
And this blessed weight
of my harvest baskets
filling and emptying
and filling once again.
©Laura Weaver
**
LauraWeaver.org
BROKEN OPEN
Some days we fall to our knees
and pray for a new heart
that is free from the scars of this life.
*
For this ancient heart of ours
has been dragged around the wheel of time
behind the horse cart of suffering
for a few miles— or perhaps thousands!
*
There is our childhood of course—
this perfect wounding
that is passed between generations—
the pain we thought we should take on—
this pain that is not even ours.
*
Maybe there is even an existential
exhaustion we only notice
in the moments between sleep and waking—
an obsession with hand wringing
we can’t seem to turn away from.
It all seems so personal!
*
Just remember— We were warned!
Our hearts were made to break open~
It was in the contract we signed just before
we tumbled down the spirit ladder.
It was in the fine print we don’t ever read.
*
It said:
You will encounter the tumultuous winds
of your unfathomable fears
and the blooming
of your own exquisite light.
*
You will feel abandoned, disappointed, betrayed.
You will be asked to forgive everything—
and most of all –your own luminous self.
*
Your heart will break open—
and spill its mysterious treasures—
This is good news!
Don’t try to stop it!
*
You may feel like you are on fire
with all that is awakening.
You may feel you won’t make it
to the other side.
*
But this is your heart—
and your heart was made
to break open.
*
And as you pray at this altar
of your broken open heart—
you will find the handwritten note
you left yourself on the mirror
of eternity so long ago.
*
Note to Self:
You will have the chance
to be healed by Love.
Take it!
~Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
©Laura Weaver
God is the Crack
Between the towering red sandstone—
is the deep cut of the crack. And here,
the tree of life blooms –this wise juniper
with gnarled trunk and serpentine roots.
She is older than memory –
and the wings of her branches drop
blue-green berries into high desert soils—
an act of divine faith to put seeds down here.
*
Yes, god is the crack—god is the place
life emerges—disruptive and outrageous.
Not the ordered heavens where all hums along
in a temperature controlled starry glory.
But this storm—this rumble that trembles
our bones, announcing its arrival—
this lightning that blazes through sky,
this precious rain on our upturned faces,
leaving pools of water in hollows
of lichen-streaked rock.
*
God is the crack. The way the down of the milkweed
splits the husk, the way the egg shatters
into furry body and untried wings.
God is the way the rainbow of mushrooms
explodes out of earth after storm—
these fruits of the underworld
that can you kill you or sustain you—
this living neural web that nourishes
and transforms the forest.
*
This life depends on rupture—
thrives in places where edges meet.
And yet so often, we want to curl into the comfort
of the static—as if this would save us
from being part of everything—
as if this would save us from the torrent
of time carving us into new shapes
we have never seen before.
*
God is the crack. It is the place where the gold
lettering of your soul speaks its truth.
The places where the bent and curvy dance,
where the dandelion defies the concrete,
where the mustard seed turns
a fallow field into a parable
that would feed the world.
~Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
©Laura Weaver
SANCTUARY
Because sometimes you are down and in
the cauldron of transformation—
deep in the fertile darkness
where the underground waters flow—
and you feel you’ve been
here for an eternity.
*
You’ve met your demons and angels.
You’ve unspun spells and curses—
and unraveled the beliefs
that kept you wedded to the past.
You’ve spit out
the bitter poison
of your own resentments.
*
The holy waters
of forgiveness have flowed through
and soothed the raw places
in your soul. You’ve let your love
out of all of the boxes—
and untethered your spirit
from the anchors of safety.
*
You have even seen
the great shining sea
where your ancestors rode in
on their galloping horses
bringing gifts.
And now, you say, now
you are ready
for the next chapter—
*
you are ready to arrive back
in the outer world
back into the upper world
to return with the gifts
from the fertile darkness.
*
You come to the gates, eager—
And yet still, the beloved turns you back.
No darling, it’s not yet time—
there is more here.
Stay in this alchemical vessel,
the good part is just beginning!
*
You put your ear to the ground.
press your belly against the earth’s belly—
you, who are the cocoon whose
butterfly cannot be rushed.
And you realize it’s the very resistance
to being down and in,
the very attachment to the one of you
who lives in the shiny world
that you are being asked to release.
*
And you recognize the one of you
who would come up and out
of the belly of earth before
you are fully cooked
in these divine juices.
*
For no, it is not the old one of you
who rises, Oh Lazarus. It is the one
of you who is so much older than that.
It is the one who remembers
the first instructions written
in your own bones. It is the one
who knows the codes~
*
It is the one who can turn
all the lights on in the house—
not because you are afraid of the dark,
but because you have finally
learned that this is not a waiting place
not a place to eternally endure—
but the sanctuary
of the Holy One
with 10,000 names.
~Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
©Laura Weaver
GOLDEN FEATHER
I saw you in the sky yesterday—your wings
spread out to the edges of eternity.
It was as if you had forgotten
your worn out ways–and the waves of joy
shimmered in the late light on your feathers.
*
But then, as I watched, you seemed to reach
the edge of an invisible horizon-
the boundary of familiar territory.
Some tether pulled you back—as if some great
distraction caught all of your attention.
*
You wobbled in your flight—looked down,
and in that looking, plummeted to the ground
where you began to peck at the same square
of terrain you’ve pecked at for centuries—
pecking at all those places that hurt. There are
a thousand holes in that well-trodden ground.
Don’t you think it’s gotten a bit obsessive?
*
Perhaps there comes a time to leave it all alone,
to unhook from those tethers of the mind,
and send the mad logician home.
No more need to try so hard to relieve ourselves
of the ache of being a single dancing body
in a World Soul- or the body of the world
dancing in a singular soul.
*
I saw you in the sky yesterday—your wings
spread out to the edges of eternity. And now, I will bring you
the golden feather that dropped from your wing.
I will remind you not to look back.
~Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
KING TIDE
Every year the king tides come
long and strong against the coastlines—
the full spring moon pushing behind
towering swells and sheets of spray.
*
Something in me is drawn close—
closer than is safe. Something in me
wants to take that wave inside me
like a gong and let it wash away
all the debris—to be filled with the sheer
open roar of white noise.
*
I think there are angels
who line the arcs of these waves—
there is a taste of heaven in this tide—
some lust for the shoreline
some promise of the mortal press,
the union of water and land—
the hard and soft, this holy third thing
that is created here—
a breath we long to breathe.
*
Something in the sheer pounding force
shows me there are powers far greater
than my small mind that seems to find
so many threads in the weave to pick at.
For now the waters rush up the riverbeds
that usually flow down to the sea—here,
there is an insistence on the fluid forces
that reshape us, either little by little
or in a flood, in widening gyres.
*
Yes, how the life we lived
a decade ago is now a distant song—
a set of waves we catch glimpses of
in dreams— poems from old lovers,
fireflies through windows, cedar and lilac
on summer wind, fresh honey on the tongue—
all these notes that plummet us
into the cave of memory.
But this is not us anymore.
*
We are like crustaceans who must leave
one home for another or die—
and we are so vulnerable in between.
And yet, this is what is here—
these moving shifting currents of time,
the blossoming faces of loved ones,
the strange unexpected mysteries
that arrive at our doorsteps
when we least expect them.
*
And so I turn to the King Tides
and say yes, take all the old versions
of me back to the sea— for I am ready
for this new shape of myself—
the one who is riding in on this full moon,
while the calla lilies bloom on river banks
and owls cry the night open
and the angels ride on the backs
of the King Tide to re-make us again.
©Laura Weaver
LauraWeaver.org
TEMENOS
Come to the dream temples
where the gods of healing live—
Where the snakes of our primal knowing
flow up from the center of the earth
where our own lungs are filled
with the breath of Dreams
that show us the way
our center is connected
to the navel of the world.
*
Incubate a dream ~
call it to you with your attention
let your body become the vessel
for the Great Dreamer
who casts a net into the stars
to catch the one golden fish
that will speak the language
of our soul, our own particular myth.
*
For though in these times
so much seems impossible—
the reach of the Dreamer
is infinite. And as day dreams
and night dreams weave their tapestry—
we see that all that is falling away,
all that is breaking down at the end
of empire is becoming
the fertile soil of the garden.
*
It is so easy to give up.
It is so easy to have blind hope.
But what is awakening
is some deeper medicine—
the way under the cities you can
feel the river of fire running.
The way underneath the structures
of modernity you can hear
the web of roots speaking.
The way you can see
the bonfires of the future lit
on the shores of this now.
*
Come to the Dream Temples.
Incubate a Dream for the great waves
of generations to come. See them
flowing out from this birthplace—
right here, from this pregnant moment.
©LauraWeaver
Meeting Eros
Because after the snow and the rain
the redwing blackbird trills in the cattails
and the song of the inner life is born again.
And from out of our dark caves
we stumble and call to each other
wondering what has been transformed
in the winter months and who will now emerge.
We are like bears bounding
out of the mountain, slightly bewildered
blinking in the bright new light,
ravenous for the world.
*
This is eros unleashed—
the seduction of apple blossoms –
petals raining on wet fertile earth,
hummingbirds unzipping the cerulean sky,
the glint of streamflow and bare skin.
How the full moon pours Maylight
upon our upturned faces,
and the breezes carry the scent of longing
and melancholy, lilac and the spice
of all that is greening.
*
We have died a thousand times
and been reborn for this.
To lie back, even for a moment,
into the arms of the world—
to meet eros in every turn –
to be courted by you who stirs
the inner waters and tears apart
the old husks. Yes, you
who makes us want to eat fire
and lay down in every meadow.
*
We have been waiting for your arrival
and now you are here,
no longer a Stranger, but a Storm–
you, who strikes the bell of awakening,
so the whole body rings out
with Delight.
©LauraWeaver
LauraWeaver.org
soulpassages 