The Weaving Wisdom Garden: Embodied Reception
A Collaborative Publication Pollinating Poetic Expression
Summer Spiral: Embodied Reception
June 21, 2023
Thank you for bringing your Heart to receive the Weaving Wisdom shared through this Garden of Poetic Expression.
Enjoy the works of heart contributed by inspired Weavers and follow your curiosity to explore their personal realms of creativity through the links provided with their names. The deepest intention of this publication is to strum resonance through nourishing expressions and enliven the ether as we cultivate connection with one another. We would love to listen with your reflections in the comments and spark inspired conversations that ripple the medicine in all directions.
© Alison Blickle
Website: ALISON BLICKLE – Artist
IG: @alisonblickle
Word
I.
The world
pregnant with language,
thoughts were carried
as heartbeat and breath
~ feral knowing ~
by scent,
a slight breeze
ruffling feather and fur.
Language rumbled up alive
hiccupped out in mirth
whistled high pitched
and nasal in warning,
cooed in need,
keened in sorrow,
carried in bio-chemistry and
synaptic electricity.
II.
When we birthed
human words
they were beings.
Alive, sacred
they shaped the world.
Filled with intelligence of
weight, volume
fingertips in sand
soft belly or
flexed knee
full of vision
and dream
words were always verbs
enfolded in primal activity
ever becoming
unfurling
exchanging
luminescing
Words were children
of an animate earth:
electrons flashing
in and out of orbit
strands of DNA spiraling
coding for existence
stones broadcasting
electromagnetic voices.
Words born
of wind-sculpted
red rock bluffs
of warmth bubbling up
from volcanic springs,
they instructed
a new naked
creature: vulnerable,
eyes shining with
new light.
III.
When we chained words
made them slaves of concept
they became nouns.
We lost our way.
Words livingness denied,
we exclude ourselves
from conversations
quacked
growled
whistled
honked.
We no longer twine
in creative passion
with a breathing
emerging earth.
Humans behind screens
we hold words behind bars
reduce life to things
declaring we alone
have voice and
agency.
IV.
Reimagine words:
Listen for meaning and mood
as wind rustles dry grass
and mice rattle seed-heads.
Understand the beat of wings;
dawn geese rise
from mist-laden pond.
Now land will sculpt mind
as water carves
sandstone canyons.
Mind
listening to coyote song
and owl speech
will sprout
softly velvet new antlers
or become
a chambered nautilus.
Know the way out
is the way in:
retrace recent steps
return to
where-we-went-wrong
make reparations
so our words
our stories
can return to
the great conversation
among elements
and beings.
Together as one
we will sing the world alive.
Again.
© Sharifa Oppenheimer
Website: https://sharifaoppenheimer.org/
Threshold of Breath
To be human is to embody two worlds at once: the physical plane of existence and the transcendent dimension of spirit. Earthly life was designed to be sustained by this intangible realm, just as the cadence of the invisible breath interweaves the workings of spirit, soul and matter.
Breath is the connection point, the nexus, the unseen umbilical cord that joins the inverted, mortal anatomy of the body with the endless, eternal space of the inner being.
All bodies exist upon the threshold between the manifested form and that which is immaterial. Your breath is spirit embodied, the formless in form.
Be reminded of your essential nature: that you exist at the crossroads of inhalation and exhalation; that you are poised upon the endless ebb and flow of eternity; that you are a bridge that straddles the visible and the invisible realms.
Receive what is given to you, for it is yours.
Share what is yours, for it belongs to all.
This is the rhythm and promise of life.
You are made of the breath of the cosmos, breathed into being by the universe itself. Your body and your beingness bring the infinite to the ephemeral.
© Stephanie Zabel
Website: www.flowerfolkherbs.com
IG: @steph_zabel
Discovering Embodiment Through Breath
“When you own your breath, nobody can steal your peace.” – UNKNOWN
We live in a world that only sees black and white-there is no grey-no middle ground of being, just the emphasis on doing. However, in healing and in nature there can be a lot of grey if we choose to look for it. In the grey we can find what we came here to embody. I find when we can get outside and use all of our senses to appreciate what She always provides for us; spiritually, emotionally, energetically, physically and mentally embodiment comes easier.
Summer is a perfect time of year to experience the majestic and magic that Mother Nature provides by stimulating all of our senses. I spend a lot of time in the garden witnessing and enjoying Her beauty while taking deep breaths of Her sweet aroma. I stop to hear the bird song, to feel the cut grass beneath my feet and to bask in all that I have co-created with Her.
I have found breath to be one of the ways for me to shift easily and quickly into embodiment without having to learn a new school or leave my home. Breathwork is always available to us and has no rules, I say anything goes. Practicing breath allows us to drop into our higher selves and have a calmness fall over the body as a whole. Life may appear to be going our way again and we can begin to connect to new ways of being that better serve us.
Breath has a unique way of uniting the mind, body and spirit together easily and effortlessly. The hard part for us as humans is remembering to intentionally breathe in a way that is supportive to our bodies. When we are stressed and overwhelmed we unintentionally breathe shallowly or even hold our breath starving our organs and cells of life.
Breathwork is a skill that can serve you in so many different ways and on so many different levels-spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically and energetically. Try taking few deep breaths in this moment and witness the magic that can occur when you connect back in....
© Amy Stein
Free Guided Breath Session: https://mindbodyspiritbreath.ck.page/freebreath
Substack:
EMBODIMENT
My deepest longing is not to know where I am heading.
But to relax into each moment, being informed by what is unfolding.
My deepest longing is not to be free from difficult feelings.
But to meet every sensation without judgment, welcoming it as a guest.
My deepest longing is not to be on top of things.
But to tenderly loosen the tight grip, a willingness to be vulnerable.
My deepest longing is not to know all the answers.
But to reside in the question, in the liminal space of the paradox.
My deepest longing is not to know truth.
But to be Truth, embodying its precious wisdom.
My deepest longing is not to seek acceptance nor approval.
But to receive myself fully including the brokenness, caring for the hurt places.
My deepest longing is not to be someone special.
But to fully be this unique expression, within our inter-dependence.
My deepest longing is not to be loved.
But to live from the deepest embrace, as Love itself.
My deepest longing is not to know my purpose.
But to intuitively listen, hearing and responding to the call of my soul.
My deepest longing is not to know the meaning of life.
But to humbly receive and follow the pointers and clues along the way.
© Julie Schmidt
Website: https://www.liminalwalker.com/
Substack:
Butterfly Invitation
Why does summer at first overwhelm me—with its gushing of river and color, its bursting fruit, its great shag of green weighing down the gentle trees, its violence, its fecund, insistent drum? With its productivity and demand? Why do I first quail before its giant feeling, my senses sensitive, tightening the cords of my cocoon?
Because, I realize—as soft-flying air opens a white path in the yellow field before me, unlatching feathery windows in my chest, trembling me to lovely little pieces—because I am a butterfly.
Let myself be Butterfly, and I am freed. Winds cannot shake me; I am in between them. Unseen, unheard, unnoticed by raucous, busy crowds. I fly not hard and fast, but as a butterfly goes, with a flapping that is more a flicker of happiness than a definitive motion toward anything—oh, I am never going anywhere, but only opening and closing and opening again. With spiral tongue wound. Tilting thus, and thus, in no kind of straight line, lazier than a thought. And if a color should beckon, and if sweetness be my depth, I shall lift without thinking, not because I intend it but because my natural state of being is the air; the air is my mountainous billow, my breast and my fountain, my infinite habitation. It is the landing that takes intention, but the most delicate of intentions! A wayward inspiration that attracts one flower to another. Petal and wing.
As I grow older, wearied by the pains of this world, it will be harder to believe in spring and summer, harder to believe that hunger’s fulfillment can be enough to make us whole again. But what emerges with the butterfly is the secret lightening of age. An abundance that is weightless, and the heart’s wings only wafers of colored light. And desire that is not for meat but for nectar, a passion without stress or urgency that alights trustingly upon its own mirrored beauty, like a smile.
To be able to love the world like a butterfly, without hurting it! But the butterfly, too, was a child once, helplessly hungry, who destroyed with her every bite. So there might yet be hope for us. And even in summer’s night there are other kinds of butterflies, furred and fleshy, powdered and secret, who hunt by intuition and moon, fronded antennae and dewy pheromonal longing—who need no food at all now, who hunt nothing so definite as answers.
They flap at our evening windows in a desperate silence of beauty. If only we will turn off our lights, and trust in nature, and let them go.
They are meant to be out searching for our souls.
© Mindi Meltz
Website: http://www.mindimeltz.com/
EXCERPT FROM THE SOULFLOWER PLANT SPIRIT ORACLE
Forget-Me-Not • Awareness
(Myosotis arvensis)
Forget-Me-Not wants to raise your awareness of your connections, not just to loved ones but to all beings, in all realms, including yourself. When you can understand this connection, you can let go of your fears of loneliness, isolation, and separation, because you realize the true, immortal nature of your divine soul.
Forget-Me-Not says, “You are not alone.” Not in your thoughts, not in your experiences, and certainly not in your connections to all beings, seen and unseen, that are sharing this beautiful Universe with you.
We are taught early on in life that there is a difference between what is “real” and what is “make-believe.” As we grow up, the characters of our beloved fairy tales become dull and fade, as we no longer buy into their magical presence; however, most adults would concede that there is often some grain of truth hidden within the myths and stories. We can’t exactly put our finger on it or verbalize it, but we can feel its presence—we are aware of it.
Awareness is a deep resonance within our hearts, a knowing, that bubbles up into reality through the power of our intuition, our thoughts, and our dreams.
There is a freedom that comes from the awareness that there is so much more to our “reality” than we can possibly perceive or understand with our human senses. Think about how we know germs are there, even though we cannot see them with our naked eyes. And modern science, which once discovered microbes, is now showing us through quantum physics that reality changes based on who is viewing it.
It’s like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but so, so much more!
When you become aware of this truth, you can remember the tree that the paper you are writing on came from, maybe even sense the birds that nested in its branches. Or recognize the shaft of wheat that once swayed in the summer breeze under cloudless skies, but that now is on your plate, toasted and dripping with butter—butter from the cow waiting to be led out to green pastures, swatting flies with its tail.
Can you see how your thoughts can build awareness of the depth of your connections to all beings, in all places, everywhere?
Every thought, every action we take, radiates out into the world like ripples on a pond. Awareness of our personal ripples comes through trust, humility, and a curiosity and willingness to explore each moment with childlike wonder for the mystery of it all.
What magic unfolds when you unleash your imagination, fueled by your heart and powered by love? What nightmares unfold when you unleash your imagination, fueled by your fears and your pain?
Affirmation: I am aware of the power of my imagination to fill my world with wonder and connection.
© Lisa Estabrook
Website: www.MySoulflower.Love
Mighty Network: www.CommUNITYGarden.love
Stories from Stones
Day 1
The river glowed today
her face freckled with sun
she hummed and bubbled with a new song
She etched her name in circles on the rocks
laid her bare belly across their backs
and they drank the sorrow from her bones
What’s underneath all the sadness? she wonders
What pulls everything into this dark eddy?
She touches the sadness with her finger
peels it away layer by layer
until she finds a young child
sitting alone on a rock
a full moon rising in her face
starfish growing in her hands
her heart longing for love
She teaches the child how to sing
to the music of the river
how to listen to the stories from stones
she shows her how to place her hand on her heart
and pledge her love to life
The wind blows through the child’s hair
each tendril turns into a striped snake
that sings in its own language
Crickets gossip
the sky turns to smoke
slips into the water like a fish
It weaves a cord of copper rope
the child catches it
and spins like a dervish
The first star sparks the sky with flint
she breathes its white fire into her belly
bats swoop in jagged angles
above her head
The rocks lift their wizened faces to the sky
their eyes glinting with gold
She sleeps with the moon
curled on her side
her light spilling over
Day 2
It’s after midnight
when they finally climb across the rock
into each other’s bodies
between them grows
that glow iridescent
in the moonlight
The creature catches a falling star
on the tip of its tongue
They sleep beneath the eyes of the stars
while the water creature
mumbles prayers
into their ears
Day 3
Morning wakes them
by strumming a few chords
of color across the sky
Tall pines breathe above them
the river roars with joy
Her friend slinks up the canyon
leaving her in the bright hands of morning
She swims in the river
the sun drinks water droplets from her skin
like a child licking an ice-cream cone
She melts into the granite boulder
that holds her against its body
like a lover
Just me and the river, she thinks
the air humming with dragonflies
the only words left in her mouth are:
Thank You.
Day 4
All night and all morning
the river and I flow downstream
sharing love songs
Under water, stones gather
in patterns of sacred geometry
pushed and pulled
by the magnetics of their minerals
aligning along invisible threads
that hum with life
Yuba River
your veins filled with gold
you lick me with your mossy tongue
your own skin rippling
as I lose my edges
dissolve into the sun
come out the other side.
© Meredith Heller
Website: www.meredithheller.com
Book: Write A Poem, Save Your Life
Poetry Collections: Songlines, Yuba Witch, River Spells
Sensory Alchemy
At the edge of perception there’s a liminal space, a black, endless womb of silence, undulating with rich potential.
The Bardos, the Threshold, the End of the Road.
It is the Void of One that became the All.
A playground of myth and the birthplace of magic, a space of endless possibility where the ordinary is transformed.
It’s soil is rich, seeded with tapestries of symbols and secrets.
From the silky depths of Consciousness, I call on the Chrysalis to guide me on this journey of incarnate reception.
I close my eyes and surrender.
Physical boundaries blur in the dark and the membrane of perception dissolves.
Energy courses through me, each jolt is a code to be deciphered.
The breeze carries soft whispers of forgotten freedoms, of ancient longings and sacred connections just beyond my limited sight.
I go INside my body, deep in and into this physical vessel of spirit.
If I listen closely, I find a language waiting to be understood. The aches, pains, twitches, tremors grow louder.
They call to me, begging me to hear their stories, seeking the unconditional love and acceptance that is a fundamental human need.
Tension in my shoulders reflects the weight of unresolved emotions.
My racing heart screams with the urgency of unfulfilled desires and the fleeting nature of time.
And in the stillness between breaths, I glimpse an ocean of peace just beyond the illusion of everyday existence.
© Kelley Murphy
Substack:
Email: kartist31@gmail.com
Thank YOU for TUNING IN with these beautiful Poetic Expressions.
Your presence is deeply appreciated. We would love to hear what was strummed in You. Give a moment and share in the comments!
The Weaving Wisdom Garden is published monthly and themed to support remembrance of our cyclical nature by following the Seasonal Spiral.
Brewing in the Creative Cauldron for next month:
Protecting the Heart Sanctuary
publishing July 26, 2023
This creation is woven through your participation. Please consider sending in your creative works of heart! Stay tuned for an exploration of July’s theme, publishing next week. For details about the theme, the guidelines and the contribution process, visit:
https://www.weavingwisdom.love/pollinating-expression
Love,
Rhiannon
Thank you for sharing these beautiful reflections! The first poem reminded me of a passage from The History of Love about an imagined Age of Silence when all our words were embodied motions and gestures of love. 💗
It's always so good to be reminded of how powerful breath is. What a stunning collection of work.