the sacred path

I spent New Year’s Eve at a ceremony of letting go and welcoming in. Just where I needed to be. Burned a pile of old old letters in the bonfire at midnight. Howled at the beautiful blue moon, shrouded in fog. 2 lunar months since my heart got broken. 12 days before my journey into the south begins. oh one oh one one oh. numbers are sometimes poetry.

Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Make room for the new by exhaling the old. Let go of judgement. Be in the moment. Community. Emptiness. Endless cats and one armed beavers.

I cannot fathom what it is that speaks to me. Grandfather spirits, ancestors, drumming, singing, togetherness in our aloneness. Shedding possessions feels like stretching my wings. Ready to fly. Passion into obsession, compassion into love. Flowing with the water, burning in the fire, reflecting in the moon. A collision sends my spirit into orbit, shifts my magnetic north, humbles me completely. Suddenly it is a new decade. Suddenly it is just the present moment over and over again.

I would like to share with you the list of spiritual goals we were given at the ceremony. They are well conceived and relevant. This is the time to evolve again. Evolvegan.

2010 Sacred Reminders

• work together to make a better world
• honor the light in all beings
• take turns leading
• be grateful for the wisdom you receive
• celebrate the wonders of nature
• take care of the children
• laugh, sing and have fun
• have faith in the higher plan
• bring in the magic
• revitalize your life with healthy food
• rejoice in the passion of love
• dance with all of creation
• remember our celestial home

May you all have a meaningful new year, centered in the now, with your hearts open. This is a strange and important time to be alive. Make it count.

pigs are magnificent, intelligent, and beautiful. anyone who tells you different has an agenda.

this poem is my gift to you
in this prelude to the new swine flu
we all feared, but who really knew?

who knew these sweet and noble beings?
live confined in their own shit and vomit
on concrete beds beneath artificial light?
thank god they can not think and feel
like we do.

well who really knew?
it did not say so on the pinkish styrofoam
or even on the news.

if i said i knew
you would hang me from the highest tree
for lying to your children.

if i said i knew
you would put your hands around my throat
and choke the words inside of me.

in this time we have to dance tonight
in this sweet twilight of an era
i will say that i forgive you
and tell you that i love you
and that is the truth.

this way has been passed down
from mother to baby
father to child
like faery tales of santa clause and jesus
we flash our funny little teeth
and pretend to be carnivores
something about killing someone else
makes us feel immortal
something about someone else’s flesh
can taste like heaven for a moment.

the world is alive
her strangled seas
her burdened air
her sweet pigs
most noble and loyal of creatures
sweet sweet pigs.

who knew the consequence of commodifying sentience?
pigs so different from us on the outside
but to a virus perhaps not so different
from the impoverished worker
who had to kill mothers and babies
over and over until he was de-humanized

who knew that even a penny of our purchase
went to the man who came home with a pandemic?
it didn’t say so on the cellophane
dripping with blood
it only said cook to a proper temperature
and everything will be all right.