Surface Edge - Poem

Surface Edge

Are my brown eyes too dark?

Do you know what they have to say?

Why is it you think you know

When I choose to look your way?

Always you think you’re right

Always I think I’m through

But we both seem to be undone

By what we think is true

I flood my eyes upon you

I wish you would wash yourself

But you like to choose another truth

Which exist in other realms

Tell me I am not the only one

dancing in this rain

though I am not looking for your shelter

nor your treatment of disdain

But this dam needs rebuilding

there are too many hidden lines

most will be swept by the current

called this inescapable time

that exists in worlds of duality

of which I can’t yet escape

though I’m told its not reality

these bright colours and hard shapes

But what is it you are afraid of?

When you look into the black?

That no light will conquer the surface edge,

that there is no turning back?

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Love Unrequited - Poem

 Love Unrequited

My heart has been stirred

Though nobody notices

The spoon dies with disuse

and memories remain

the pulse does not still

There is bubble and air

and blood pours in torrents

at a mere thought

a reminder

a time best forgotten

but it’s clear and it aches

My heart has been cut

Though nobody notices

The knife that is alive with use

and scars remain

the pulse does not still

a current is produced

and electric shocks

touch those who are close

a reminder

a time best forgotten

but can’t be erased

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Inner Shaman Adventures - Cacao Ceremony 6

In the wake of Lebanese and Parisian pain, we gathered together to help ease some of the dis-ease throughout the world at this time.

The card I received was, ‘Letting Go’.

I drank Cacao in and asked for her help.

Nausea overwhelmed me.

So Old Mother Cacao held my hands.

She told me truths I didn’t want to hear. I writhed in panic, disillusionment, hurt and pain.

But Old Mother Cacao held my hands.

She told me to stop trying to force an outcome that I want. To accept the situations as they are.

And Old Mother Cacao held my hands.

I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to listen. And whilst she talked, whispered, cajoled and sighed.

Old Mother Cacao continued to hold my hands.

Oh resistance! Here you are again! Trying to teach me another lesson about the process and not the outcome.

The whole year has been showing me the same lessons about control and trust, and I am becoming impatient at the slowness of my own progress - at my lack of being able to learn.

She told me, 'Be your own best friend. Stop focusing on anyone else. Love and accept yourself, honey. It's no one else's job. Stop trying to grasp onto people - they will come in and out of your life. The only person you can control is yourself and what is happening for you. What they do is none of your business, how you react to it, is. Trust in your own power.'

  'Recognise the divine in yourself.'

I could feel impatience, irritability, anger and resistance within me and nausea building.

Old Mother Cacao smiled at me and held my hands.

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Cacao Ceremonies facilitated by: http://www.rebekahshaman.com/

The Return - Short Story

She squinted in the summer light, unaccustomed to its shimmer. Like when she would come out of a cinema and daylight would shock her. She imagined it was how a mole would feel should it ever pop its head out of its tunnel, a creature best suited to darkness, like her.

Through her half-opened eyes she saw him looking at her. He was waiting for an answer and she knew he would soon become impatient. It had been a long time since she had seen his face but she knew what it said without him saying a word. She lifted up her hand to shield the glare, not just from the sun but also his eyes. She needed a few moments to accustom herself to the situation. What had she done? Why had she done it? He wanted to know. He wanted to know why she had decided to run, to leave him.

Seeing him brought so many memories to the surface for her – those past images strangling any voice that tried to escape. She was accosted by words, emotions and thoughts of another time, when passion ruled and instinct prevailed. Her, when she was raw, real, untainted by the time honoured dance of deceit.

She cleared her throat, playing for time, and moved her hand to stroke her own hair, comforted by her own softness. Allowing the strands to separate and join, jostling to be highlighted by the sun. Her eyes closed and readjusted, the lines around her eyes deepened and they showed the ghost of laughter that had been; a spectre of another time.

He watched her movements carefully, not allowing her another single action a moment of anonymity. According to him, she had too much of it already. She had made sure of that. He wanted to take in everything about her – what had changed, and more crucially, what had stayed the same. He wanted to see the links that had brought them together. He could see the curve of the small scar near her ring finger nail, where she had once cut herself with a knife when they were cooking on the beach one evening, just as the sun set turned blood red. They washed her finger in the gentle waves just as the sun kissed the sea; he remembered when she, the sea and sun were in blessed union. He had looked up at her face, shimmering in their blessing and knew he loved her, more than he had ever loved anyone. He knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, to be the person who would see all the wrinkles form on her skin and grey strands in her hair. He wanted to count and name them. He wanted to know what they meant and represented in her life. Now, as he looked at her, he saw strangers on her skin – people, places and times he would never know intimately.

Unexpectedly he stammered, ‘Well?’
  ‘Well?’ she replied, as if he were to give the answers that had remained hidden for so long.
  ‘I guess we could start talking,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s been a long time. A lot has happened.’
She smiled ruefully at his gesture of breaking the ice. She opened her eyes despite the brightness piercing her sight.
  ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ she replied. ‘A lot has happened and it would be good to talk. How are you?’ she asked.
  He laughed, briefly, and looked at her, ‘Well, in a way I am relieved. I mean, you are alive…’
  ‘I am,’ she assented and confirmed with a quick smile and her hands lightly brushed the length of her body to remind her that her body was indeed present at their very table, sitting at a café, sipping coffee outside on the terrace.

She looked down at her hands, and quietly said… ‘I know. I know I have a lot of explaining to do… All I can say is I wasn’t doing it to you, I was doing it for me.’ She paused, ‘Selfish I know.’

Silence.

  ‘I am sorry, I hadn’t planned it, it just happened,’ she replied hesitantly.  ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ her voice getting softer and softer.  ‘I don’t expect you to forgive me.’
 

Land and Sea - Short Story

She cries a lot. For a couple so compatible and similar, this is one defining opposite they dance around. He hasn’t experienced the watery release nature has divinely blessed a human being with since he was a child; a native to the dry land and the ground beneath.

He encompasses the hard exterior, the solid foundations of the earth. When he moves there are chasms, edges and holes. The earth shakes in response.

But she was born by the sea and is constantly accompanied by the sound of the waves in her soul and allows her body to spring sea-salt tears and revel in their fluidity.

When there’s a wide expanse of dry soil in his soul, sometimes he would call for her water and bring forth her tears so she can wash him clean. He would allow his land to become soft and hydrated whilst she relishes his warm touch. 

When she is affected by the gathering clouds, he fears her waves. During the approaching storm and high tide, he hides from her blustery nature of wind, currents and change.

Yet she knows he is the foundation to the changes she encompasses, he is the sand to her ocean. And in her depths, she also embodies his stillness. 

She knows that together they bring forth life.

Closed Doors - Short Story

She heard me but chose to ignore what I said. I was sure of it. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her, frustration moving my limbs and forcing it to find justice, meaning, something.

  ‘Why won’t you listen to me?’ Tears fell down my face; my skin blushed from the emotion forcing its way out of my pores into the very air around me. ‘Why won’t you try to understand what I am saying?’

She looked at me, and her eyes flashed. I had lost her again. She was alarmed by my presence, could not recognise the physical characteristics we shared, the personality differences we disagreed about, the shared history that no one else would ever experience. She could not see that my frustration arose from the fear of loss.

She started to shout, ‘Help, someone help me! I don’t know her! I don’t know her!’ Tears crawled down her face. Her arms jutted wildly without thought. Nurses came and split us apart and took me away.

  ‘It’s not her fault’, the Doctor stated. ‘She is deteriorating and soon she will find it difficult to access any memory.’ I stared at her and she bowed her head slightly, trying to show empathy for a scenario she must have participated in a thousand times. ‘It would be better for her if you didn’t disturb her emotionally, try and keep things calm between you.’ As if her words contained the cure, she nodded and moved on down the hallway. Her shoes slightly tapping the linoleum and silence filled the gaps. Silence my sister used to fill; sometimes with tears, mostly with laughter. 

Around me in the hallway, people shuffled and their shoulders were huddled, backs bent forward, seeking comfort in my enforced emptiness. The body of my sister was next door, only a wall away, but I had already lost her.