peaceful heart

As my dreams drift home
On multicolored wings,
My heart
Finds peace in yours.

Bobbie Brooks

extremes

On wings of sunsets
I fly the skies
Covering the earth
With feathers of night.

Bobbie Brooks

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Life can be a bitch and I don't care who reads it.
This is my third cancer in twenty years - each one attacking a different location.
I've had a tumor removed from one breast.
I have a port imbedded high in my chest.
The chemo looks like red kool-aid. It has taken my hair, my energy, and has given me mouth and lip sores, and a bad taste in my mouth.
And I just lost a nose pad from my glasses.
And I have a double mastectomy ahead of me.
Shit.

On the other hand, this is magnificent from Walter Wink's "The Human Being"…
"The disciples cannot know that the messianic powers dwell in themselves as well as in Jesus. they have been taught that a powerful charismatic leader, soon to come, will possess these power. Their job is to conform, to assent, to follow. That these powers might be theirs as well has never dawned on them. They have, in fact, been trained not to believe that such abilities lay within their reach. They have been taught not to seek power in themselves. The Powers want people pliant. The religious authorities tend to want their devotees passive. Leaders do not want empowered people; they want trustworthy followers."

Holy moly. This isn't some rednecked yayhoo wanting to prove his religion by handling snakes. This is a Biblical scholar from the Jesus Seminar. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever make it to full standing as human beings. I wonder.

Easter

An Easter duet floats the sky
On wings of color.
A promise, twice renewed.

Bobbie Brooks & Kellie McCune

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Powerful words from a friend today. No, I'm not sharing them. Just sharing that they touched me deeply. For that matter, so did the chemo. Spent most of the day horizontal. I'm sure glad horizontal exists; it would be hell to have to spend my whole life vertically! Play with that idea!

The rainbow was magnificent. A complete double. Here's something to wonder about. What if Jesus didn't rise from the dead? What if that's a myth? Would his message be less powerful? Or more? Which do you imagine he cares more about? His message of how to live? Or how we honor his death?

odds and ends

Her ancestors gifted from Turkey
In ages past,
This newborn in new-age white
Is a six fingered hug.

Bobbie Brooks

-----------------------

Do you ever read a passage in a book that jumps off the page? And, then do you go back again to look for it and can't find it? I'm continuing to read "The Human Being" by Walter Wink. It is an amazing book, one I began as the beginning to this blog. Yes, still the same book. The book really cannot be read, it has to be breathed. One paragraph at a time, it seems. As I continue to breathe the spirit of this book, this author, his study of the authenticity of the life of Jesus, I'm discovering that when I walked away from the church with a bit of a sense of guilt, I hadn't walked away from Christianity at all. In fact, what passses for Christianity in almost all cases seems to be more like a cult. The real stuff is…incredibly different.

As to the mundane, I'm still waiting for the truck to hit me, so to speak. Chemo yesterday, followup shot today, and I'm still not horizontal. Must be my sassy attitude. Or, maybe just wait until tomorrow…

tired

‘Ware!
The walls have eyes
In this jungle!

Bobbie Brooks

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Chemo today, tired tonight. However, no nausea. Not bad for this old broad, eh? I'm wondering if I have the guts to go to my next session wearing an Annie wig. Maybe?

power in purpose

Pointing the way;
Follow the dotted line
To greener pastures.

Pointing the way;
Greener is the grass
At the other end of the bridge.

Pointing the way;
Who’s that walking on MY bridge!
Ever wonder what's under a bridge?

Bobbie Brooks

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I cut my hair off rather than shed like a dog. This was the day. After dealing with the rage, it was easy to calmly cut it off. In fact, it even became fun. It was that simple. I feel very good, now, in taking what was coming at me anyway and claiming it, grabbing the loss out of fate's hands and turning it into power. Power in purpose! It is a very powerful thing to reject victimhood and own the pain.

women

Wrapped in bright colors
I walk the path of death.
In color shall I walk.

I gather ‘round me
The cloak of Summer;
The garment of brightness.

Folding unto myself
Memories of sun and rain showers.
Of stars and night breezes.

My life cloth a piecing;
A draping of layers;
A living shroud.

Bobbie Brooks

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Sometimes a poem about the death of a hibiscus is simply a poem about the death of a hibiscus.

Getting ready for the big shed, which should occur any time now. I bought a cool hat with a huge flirty brim, and while I was in the shop, another woman facing her first chemo came in. She was frightened and needed a hug. As upbeat as I was, her tears touched my own heart and reminded me this isn't a walk in the park. While I was in the shop, the nurse/coordinator spoke with me about a workshop available where we learn makeup tricks, how to wrap scarves, yada yada. I'm not sure about this. I'm already annoyed with what women put up with to make themselves attractive even when they're healthy. This annoyance isn't about cancer. It's about who we are as women in a society that still isn't comfortable with acknowledging that the sacred can be expressed as SHE.

words

A haphazard
Of stone resting
‘Neath a redrock cliff.
Messages, perhaps,
In an order pre-arranged?

Cryptic words
For those who would but read?
Nay, tis but a tumbling of stone
Drawing attention,
Gathering veils of dust.

Bobbie Brooks

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I've been called an icon, a seer, a prophet, a patriot. I'm guessing I've also been called a bitch. Is it possible to be both? Do any of these words mean anything in the first place? I suspect they inform us more of the heart of the person using these words than they do of my own heart. I suspect spirituality is like that, too. What we say we believe tells the world about ourselves rather than about the Goddess.
Ah. The Goddess. In my latest column, someone called me on using SHE for God. In a strange twist, he thought "He" was just fine, knowing God was neither male nor female anyway. He suggested I was approaching bias with counter bias. He suggested that when I said "SHE", what I was really saying was "not-HE". How very interesting. He doesn't understand, then, that to me, "HE" implies "not-SHE." The door swings both ways, my friend.

slowdancing

Black paper cutouts
Arrow their way
‘Cross the water;
Silhouettes of the sunset.

Bobbie Brooks

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I had a hard time with today's photo. Bobbie's words are good. They're always good. This photo is one of my favorites, and I wanted to put it in a digital gallery at Mytown, and that pretty much meant I needed to title it. That was the problem. How to say in words what my feelings are. The deepest feelings exist in a world not populated with words, anyway. I saw the play of the light on the water, the mix of dark and light, and I thought about duality. I thought about how we associate the "dark" with "bad", and it's not. We're so judgmental. Then I thought about the ducks quietly swimming in their perfect duckness, which seems to be a lot more authentic than our humanness. And yet as I say that I am myself being judgmental. Then I remembered something a friend and I understood. Dance is a more pure language than words. Thus the title.

creation

The landscape of a leaf;
Its soul;
Its calligraphy.
A roadmap of life.
A journal
Of living.

Bobbie Brooks

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Beautiful people all around. I saw the surgeon today. After a cursory look-see at the incision sites, we sat back and shared spirituality. No, not religion. Spirituality. We discussed the sacredness of art and creation. Speaking of which, take a look at this. Make sure you read the poetry that follows. In the creative studio where self merges with Soul, we are free to create and even the conversation becomes creation.
Thanks be to God.
Goddess.

exhaustion

A garden prepares for sleep,
Casting off
Exhausted life,
Beginning,
Renewing with death
The cycle of living.

Bobbie Brooks

-----------------------

The operative work is exhaustion. I cannot do what I used to do. I must guard my energy even against the good intentions of friends, and that is not easy. However, what got me exhausted did at least find a kicky wig style and a couple of bottles of spray color. Burgundy. Purple. And, a deeper connection with a friend. But now I know. I cannot pour myself out for others at this time.

anger

A face only a mother could love.
I admire your instincts;
To see a prospective meal on wing
Times a hundred.

Which, prey tell, is the meal
And which are the images?
How often do you dine
On fiction?

Bobbie Brooks

----------------------

Anger. it takes energy to be angry, so I guess I'm feeling good. Or something. I notice that there are a number of people not comfortable around somebody else's anger. They try to "fix" it. No, you can not fix it. Anger is a feeling, it is my feeling, and I will experience it! In the bigger picture, denial of our feelings is part of what keeps us from our deep sacred humanity. We are afraid of feelings. The church has done a good job of dehumanizing us in that regard. Until we grab that rope of a feeling, and work backwards to the very source and sit with it, we don't know who we really are.
Thus speaks pat the grouch.

through the pain and into the light

Still I stand,
Decorated with traffic signs
And electric lights,
Colorful flags and antenneas.
Older than anyone.
Remembering horse carts
And marching feet,
Cannon fire and flatboats.
Proud of my roots.

Bobbie Brooks

-----------------------------

From a note I wrote to a dear friend earlier today:

I've got some strong words about those photos. Look at the pain. Look at it. And if you look at it with your eyes and heart open, you'll see spirit behind the pain. Don't stop at the body. Get over that. Don't shrink from the darkness of pain and wounds. Get over that. Keep going, keep going, until you get to the light. Anybody who is unwilling to look at the pain outside their own personal skin is also going to be unwilling to look at the pain in their own personal path. Yet as you know it's the only way to claim the light. So this is why this pudgy 62 year old woman bares her breasts, shows her pain, and invites others to walk their own similar path. The beauty of working with Edward is this. He sees things I miss. And that makes sense. We aren't isolated bits of flotsam in this universe. We're all connected, and life and love flow on the connecting energy. It gives a whole 'nother meaning to Jesus saying where two or more are gathered in my name…

Christianity. It came so close, the truth is there, yet we're afraid of what it really means. I will spend the rest of my life on the front porch of the mausoleum of that particular institution, making noise, inviting folks to join me in the sunlight that was the original intention of a man misunderstood - fearfully and deliberately.

My hunch is there is no purpose "out there" or "preordained". Purpose is infused into the raw material in this moment. We are artists. The fabric has no purpose until we pick it up and create with it. So with our lives. They are simply raw material. we ourselves give it meaning. in acknowledging that, we are acknowledging our deep connection to the creative oneness of the universe.

it is scary living on the mountain top only if you believe the lies that you might fall off.

i need to write about that in a way that more than two people understand.

I walk with giants

A difference of trees
Grow the same wood;
Breathing the sun’s warm.
A purpose of skin
Exactly the same,
Rooted from sister seeds.
Sharing the dark earth
Roots entwining,
Growing the same wood.

Bobbie Brooks

-------------------------

How do I say to somebody that things are not what they seem? That pain is not ultimately pain? That we're all going to die someday of something, and this particular path may take me there or not, but on the path right now I walk with giants, regardless of where the path leads, and that is good enough. That is good enough.

de colores

Verdant chalice
Spills forth
Whirls of color,
Swirls of color
Spinning out
Replacing the sky.

Bobbie Brooks

-------------------

Today a complete double rainbow at sunrise greeted me. Or, I greeted it. Today a friend sent me a card showing a rainbow over Stonehenge. I am grateful for the little surprises that make the day bearable.

veins of life

Ancient matriarch
Stands the sun
Among her cast off bones,
Veins of tenacious life
Still pulsing through bent limbs.

Bobbie Brooks

advantage

A conch shell sky
Has swallowed the sun,
Leaving
A foggy yellow smear
To walk the water.

Bobbie Brooks

----------------------------

Today is a difficult day. The port feels like a railroad spike in my shoulder. The shot was a kick in the ass. Nevertheless, I still have insurance, and I have access to health care, and I will get through this. So many of my brothers and sisters don't have the advantages I do, and the advantages that have been provided to me are not because I've earned them or deserve them more than do others.

the persistence of green

Hidden meanings
Hiding in plain sight;
Green memories of summer
Bubble to the surface
Even at the waning of the season.

Bobbie Brooks

---------------------

Do you see that little bit of green still on the leaf? Green is life, and life is tenacious. Yes, the green will eventually have to let go and nourish the next generation of life. The single leaf may only know life as it experiences it within itself, unaware of the huge Life that surrounds it, nourishes it, cradles it, and carries it on to it's next destination.
I stand in awe of Life and it's grand mystery.
I am eternally grateful for my awareness of life and of Life.
Thanks be to God/dess, Life within me.