Wild Words: Ferociously Nourishing Poetry

The Dakini Speaks

11/28/2021

Painting by Kirsten DeBoer. Used with permission.

My friends, let's grow up.
Let's stop pretending we don't know the deal here.
Of if we truly haven't noticed, let's wake up and notice.
Look: Everything that can be lost, will be lost.
It's simple - how could we have missed it for so long?
Let's grieve our losses fully, like human ripe beings.
But please, let's not be so shocked by them.
Let's not act so betrayed,
As though life had broken her secret promise to us.

Impermanence is life's only promise to us,
And she keeps it with ruthless impeccability.

To a child, she seems cruel, but she is only wild,
And her compassion exquisitely precise.
Brilliantly penetrating, luminous with truth,
She strips away the unreal to show us the real.
This is the true ride - let's give ourselves to it!
Let's stop making deals for a safe passage -
There isn't one anyway, and the cost is too high.
We are not children anymore.

The true human adult gives everything
for what cannot be lost.
Let's dance the wild dance of no hope.

- Jennifer Welwood

* in Sanskrit a Dakini is a "sky walker", a Tantric priestess of the ever-changing flow of energy, a force of truth who presides over the funeral of self-deception.

Arms Full

11/21/2021

Gratitude
bronze sculpture by Paige Bradley, 2019

Gratitude means showing up on life's doorstep,
love's threshold, dressed in a clown suit,
rubber-nosed, gunboat shoes flapping.
Gratitude shows up with arms full of wildflowers,
reciting McKuen or the worst of Neruda.

To talk of gratitude is to be
the fool in a cynic's world.
Gratitude is pride's nightmare,
the admission of humility before something
given without expectation or attachment.

Gratitude tears open the shirt
of self importance, scatters buttons
across the polished floors of feigned indifference,
ignores the obvious and laughs out loud.

Even more, gratitude bears her breasts, rips open
her ribs to show the naked heart, the holy heart.
What if that sacred heart is not, after all, about sacrifice?
Imagine it is about joy, barefoot and foolhardy,
something unasked for, something unearned.

What if the beat we hear, when we are finally quiet is simply this:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

- Rebecca del Rio

The Story

11/14/2021

Step closer to the story that scares you~
the one that has you gasping for air
in the night, searching for ground.
This one wants to take you past
the lip of the void to the birthplace
of stars, where all stories dissolve
into the blessing of original song.

Leap into the love that terrifies--
you know just what it will do.
It will un-hinge every door in your house.
It will blow in like a hurricane
and re-arrange your furniture.
It will howl like a banshee through your bones
and leave you delightfully hollow.
Without this love you are only playing
at this life– and you are so tired of that!

Turn your wild horses out
into the fields in the morning,
when first light purples the hills.
They are hungry for this earth
under hoof, this thunder of full gallop.
They may trample all the places
you have so carefully tended.
They may leave you in a cloud of dust.
And yet, this is the only way
they will return to you truly,
without a fence to keep them in.

Let the current lift you
out of the churning eddy.
There is only one place where this river flows--
through slot canyons and the eyes of midnight,
through singing valleys and greening glens.
These holy waters will have their way with you.
They are dreaming you into a body of light.
Why fight what you most long for?

- Laura Weaver

Holy Fire

11/7/2021

Painting by Erica Grimm Vance

Slow down....inside
I am right here
I am not where you are going
I am the place you leave to find me

I am Holy Fire
Do you trust me?

I am the One who makes your heart beat
and every heart beat
I am the Portal to the indescribable flame within you
I am every longing you have ever felt
and every passion you have ever suppressed

I am Aliveness
Open
Allow
Be danced
Do you trust me?

If you want to know bliss
to feel passion burn
You must become available
to be astonished and amazed
by the simplest things

Notice the way when you wiggle your toes
a tendril of joy quietly sprouts inside your chest

Notice how you can run your fingertips
on the edges of your skin
and rivers of desire become instantly fulfilled

You can take one single breath
and watch your body explode in gratitude for living

Then you can exhale and melt into the Great Fire
of life's fertile emptiness

You are the Portal

It costs nothing....except
everything you have ever dreamed you are

Your dissatisfaction is a dream
Your disappointment is a dream

I am right here
I have always been right here
It really is this innocent
Savor me
Enter me
Ignite

- a compilation of poetry excerpts by Maya Luna

The Dakini Speaks

Arms Full

The Story

Holy Fire

Archives

Categories

The Dakini Speaks

Arms Full

The Story

Holy Fire

Archives

Categories

Sign up below to receive my newsletter and updates on events and workshops.