Creativity and Spirituality: the Enduring Path: poetry

20 March 2014

Healing the Wound of Forgetting

15 February 2014

Prayer to Grace

Search for me in the barren desert of false self.

Search for me in the bitter landscape of fear.
I wear my loathing like a skin I did not know I grew.
And now I wonder:
How many skins lie below this skin,
the ghostly remains of a motherless child.

Grace be my Mother,
Cradle my frightened self.
Breath sweetness into my heart.
Say a prayer over stillborn selves
Smooth away the dead skins.
My stillborn selves hunger
For the sweet breast of Grace.

14 January 2012

Without Silence We Would Not Hear the Song

Silence
by Emily Hanlon

Life is born of silence.

Without silence we could not
hear the song.
She is the life-giving womb,
the beat of the heart.
Worn like a crown,
she is a star-studded cape.

Worn in laughter, sorrow,
joy and pain,
she is Self.
Enter her womb,
there sound is born.

03 October 2009

This Love Affair Call Life

A love affair with life, the child's immediacy

In this love affair called Life
I am too often a silent partner,
Hiding – in fear of what?
Could it be joy
of such an exquisitely simple nature
I mistook it for a dream.

The cynic’s shroud.
When did I first try it on?
Long ago when I gave up
on fairy wings and dancing slippers.
That wonder of being sparkling always
Beneath the comfortless shroud.

17 April 2008

Trust the Inner Journey

We journeyed to our "source", asked for images and let the images speak. Barbara Livingston's image was a swirling yin/yang. This is what the image wrote:

swirling down

swirling up

the direction does not matter

it is one and the same

breathe deeply

the mist obscuring the path

trust in the journey

the destination is not your purpose

you are not a visitor here

participation is necessary

the stillness is your guide

the questions need not be asked

their answers already written

01 April 2008

Embracing the Gift of the Shadow: She Touched Me In Silence

Embracing the Shadow: She Touched Me In Silence

From the August Retreat: Women, Creativity and the Journey of the Soul: Embracing the Gift of the Shadow.

She touched me in silence in the early morning dew.
She touched me at midnight in the moonlight glow.
She reached down to my core and found what was needed to make me whole once more.
She took me down the labyrinth path and made me whole once more.
Irene Kessler

11 March 2008

Inner Beauty Walks Beside Me

Beauty within
Beauty inside me
Flowing and increasing
Alongside me
I am my own friend
Giving to myself
My love
Respect
My joy that I so deserve
Makes me happy
And makes me whole.
I am me.
by Joy Weissman

01 January 2008

We Have Come For Love

The Mother Bear
by Emily Hanlon

Such confusion is life
emotions and doings and things.
Right, wrong, yes, no,
a whirlwind of living.
And where is love?
Like the roots of Sequoias
love penetrates,
tender, strong and caressing,
a web of support.

The soul’s song is sweet and ancient,
fierce with love,
a mother bear
wild and free.

This is what we have come for:
love, you and me, love!

19 November 2007

The Stillness and Awe Between You and Me

The Stillness and Awe Between You and Me
by Doris Russell

The bowing down of the creature before her God.
When the boredom passes
there is just the utter stillness and awe between
you and me.

I stretch out my arms and the stillness envelops me.
I didn't understand it then -
the boredom, the quiet, the loneliness -
the utter dryness of it all.

Yet my sisters and I stood before you in our sameness
and we were one in the quiet.
I get the same feeling here in the Circle as I did many years ago.
But now there is no boredom
Just an ever unfolding awe as the day melts into the night -
And I look forward to the mystery of life - the next breath
A little scared - but excited in hushed anticipation of the
next moment.

"My greatest wealth is the deep stillness in which I strive and grow and win what the world cannot take from me with fire or sword." --Goethe

11 September 2006

The Portal

A Portal Opening to Me... a poem by Emily Hanlon

Deep within my being,
free and safe,
is a light
leading to a portal
opening to me …
Me waiting so patiently
for my return.

22 May 2006

In Solitude I Am...

In solitude I bequeath myself to myself.
In solitude I am.
In solitude the core of light envelops me.
In solitude I am.
This is the journey:
to enter the quiet, to enter the solitude of being
without busy-ness, without fear;
to find that space daily.
In the core of I Am.
To remember and accept
the invitation
to step in...

14 May 2006

Self Unto Self, A Poem of Reclaiming

Poem by Emily Hanlon on Nurturing One's Self

Emmy, My Love
Are you the darling twin I have longed for all my life?Have I sought myself inside myself,not knowingI am my own true love?
Who were we when we did not know,when fear strangled words,and sorrow dimmed the song?What visions did we seek, together alone?
I lay you down in the heart of the Mother Bear.There, in the soft warm fleshI give you birth.Self unto Self, Emmy, my love.I am.
Walk with me nowin sweet days of innocence.I give you comfort,you give me joy.

Emmy 2
I throw you high into the air.Wheeee!You twirl, laugh free.The words come.

25 April 2006

I Am She, Your Mirrored Self

Okay-so I am entering the 21st century with this!

Writings in Litchfield
Poetry by Jean Aloe after returning from one of my women's retreats at Wisdom House, Litchfield Ct.

- 1-

it’s dour outside
overhead
a scarf of gray
unwinds itself
the oaks and maples
struggle to bud
even the doves
are silent….yet
beneath my feet
a lone tulip lifts
its yellow face to mine –
I smile back

- 2-

we come together
like pieces of a puzzle
scattered on the floor
patiently a hand places
each of us
where we belong
here….right here
a whole picture forms

- 3-

my feet planted firmly
sprout green roots
my heart unfolds
pastel petals
my hands strong vines
covered with blue wishes
I am woman – golden

- 4-

unannounced
my spirit guide
comes shrouded
in a long dark cloak
with trepidation
I rise and face her
she calls to me
Sangin – sister
astounded I search her face
Mira? I query
Yes she answers
I am she –your mirrored self

(Thanks for reading....Jean)

Pages