A shocking and difficult Authentic Artist workshop for me last weekend. On the workshop I met a poet who told me about a book with the same name as my exhibition, Wild Life.
I ordered it, and when I opened it, this was the first poem that I read:
Emergence
It is time.
Crawl up from the underworld.
Depart your long stay in
thick darkness and clay.
Find your roots.
Find your roots.
Follow - straight or
spiraling - to the surface and
into the humid,
star-storied night.
Proceed, slowly, yes,
but with the unyielding intent
to become the amazing thing
that you have never before
seen.
Can you feel your soft, tender body
up against the inside of your
dry, tight, skin?
The edge. The tightness.
It tears you apart....
this back-splitting longing to
be larger than that which has
contained you.
I know that dream.
The one about having wings.
So, find that place where you will,
consciously,
take the last step
as who you have been,
unfold your future,
and cast the old story behind you.
Emerge. Break free.
Surrender to your destiny,
lifting your long struggled form forth
onto a tree trunk,
or a flower stalk.
The moistness.
It is always there -
conception, growth,
birth, life, death.
Notice the eyes.
Red.
Let the soft dawning breezes
caress your sensitive nature,
as you unfurl lacy,
iridescent dreams.
So clear.
Now firm in the daylight.
You are seen.
Listen.
The world is calling to you.
Let yourself be heard.
Trust in what you have been
gifted.
Trust in what you have been
gifted.
Take flight -
with this core truth:
Where you land
and what you do
will determine
how well grounded
we are in the future.
Jamie K. Reaser
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Last night as I sat at the computer, I looked over at the front hallway and noticed that our local possum was quietly eating the cat's food. Then I noticed my cat about three feet away, totally unconcerned about sharing. As the possum left, the grey feral tomcat came up the stairs, the two of them passing politely while my cat watched. Then the feral calico cat stopped by and waited for the grey to finish. In the middle of the night, a couple of raccoons started fighting over the few remains.
ReplyDeleteThis morning as I did the dishes, I could see chickadees, a stellar jay, blackbirds and mourning doves eating the birdseed along with our grey squirrel and a pair of healthy rats, all side by side. Wild life has it's own etiquette. Darwin said something about how there weren't so much different animals as different degrees of animal.
Last week was Moth Week, where up to three dozen moths would do their kamikaze circus around the full-spectrum lamp until they could give no more. In the morning there would be these beautiful carcasses on the floor that I'd give to the birds. Studying them with a magnifying glass revealed a spectacular and beautiful architecture that puts the Taj Mahal and Chartres to shame, even more so since Chartres doesn't have to fly and feed itself. WIld life is so unnecessarily beautiful.