‘Shamans are healers, seers, and visionaries. .. they are in communication with the world of gods and spirits. Their bodies can be left behind while they fly to unearthly realms. They are poets and singers. They dance and create works of art. .. they are familiar with cosmic as well as physical geography; the ways of plants, animals, and the elements are known to them. They are psychologists, entertainers, and food finders. Above all, however, shamans are technicians of the sacred and masters of ecstasy.’
Joan Halifax, Shamanic Voices , E P Dutton, NY, 1979.
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JUST ANOTHER DAY
Ushered suddenly from a familiar resting place
Dreams rudely interrupted
Timing is right
A run of green light
A good omen?
As if the planets are in alignment
After the rush, comes the push
Space claimed as mine, for a time
Control relinquished (not easy for Capricorns)
Hand over to fate
Cautiously at ease with new surroundings
Many souls, same journey yet not acknowledged
Gently at first, aware of the movement
Alongside
Above
Below
Crawling, nose to tail performing an elegant dance along the network of arteries and veins leading eventually to the heart.
Rocking, swaying, dark and warm
Cocooned, I am drifting
Feeling the metronome reminiscent of the heartbeat whose company I used to keep
Hearing a cacophony of muffled voices as communicating data blips uninvited into my consciousness
Neon reflections repeat left and right and back again projecting onto the still black night a hundred spaceships, come to observe
Slowly, daylight yawns its way through greying skies and reveals itself reflected in the part filled hollows shining like diamonds
The pace quickens, hours pass
The final tunnel is the signal
Action
Anticipation
Machines silenced
Limbs unfurled
We have arrived at our destination.
A new day is optimistically born as the 7.05 emerge onto the platform to begin another day killing the earth.
© Rita Verity 2009
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THANK YOU
A roomful of Nigels.
Maybe 70 in number
Maybe 70 in age or just look it
Maybe 70 won the bingo and had food for another day.
A camaraderie from which I was excluded, hugs, laughs, a secret language
United in their survival of this jungle
The magic delights of the snowflake went unnoticed as they inspected the gifts of gloves and hats to protect them from it.
A bitter sweet beauty depending on perspective.
A scene much like many others today. Crackers with jokes, turkey, the Queen.
A night much like any other tonight. Cold, wet, no queen, no turkey, no joke.
Thank you they said!!
For giving up your Christmas day for us.
I came home, lit my fire.
Thank you, I said.
© Rita Verity 2009
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AGE
A word, ‘age’.
What it means is,
a way to act,
to behave,
a means of describing,
a judgement
……………….it can be derogatory or complimentary but it’s meaningless
pah!!
I like this person I have become,
I thrill at the prospect of speaking my mind………. if I choose to. No longer afraid
I enjoy dressing in creased clothes, forgiving myself for the years of pointless ironing.
I am safe in my solitude knowing that all the happiness I need comes from within,
I am still that 8 year old with confusion, but with the experience it gave me, digested, processed and now understood.
Download of update in progress
rita
age 0
© Rita Verity 2009
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Its funny, this rhyming
It depends on good endings
The timing has to flow
Words in the right places like noses on faces
Or sending it’s not worth the effort
( a good example of a bad rhyme)
Tiny yellow daffodils
Decorating windowsills
Your eyes and heart it fills
Mother Natures happy pills
( a good example of a good rhyme)
© Rita Verity 2009
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FRIENDS OR SOULMATES
Down the street we see them hobble,
Careful, not to cobble wobble
eyes fixed firmly on the ground
unaware of what’s around.
Holding hands, but just to steady,
Nothing else, they’re just not ready
Twas t’internet that brought them here
there’s trepidation, touch of fear
They’re searching for some common ground
this twosome that the ether found
With awkward starts to conversation
maybe mileage in the railway station?
Heading down toward the park
he glances up and sees the mark
”ooo look at this, the shop’s fair trade
it’s all to do with how they’re paid”
“I know” said she “it’s what I use,
it helps the farmers buy kids shoes
and build them schools and wells, and clinics
lot’s of other stuff, it’s good innit”
“I use it too, I have for years,
so did my wife he said through a tear
till she ran off with a younger bloke
who offered her fondles when I had a stroke”
“I buy it now” she said ”cos I can
my husband complained, he gave me a ban
not understanding the difference it makes
but happy to spend on a few more cakes,
we parted of course, he just didn’t see
why buying fairtrade was important to me
it wasn’t just that, but an indication
of me, my values my inclination.”
So, a small thing but something linking their souls
they soon were discussing other goals
a desire to travel and see for themselves
the products and how they arrive on the shelves
They forgot all the worries and previous fears,
felt like they’d known each other for years
Planning as though they were actual lovers
lost in a future they noticed no others
Shortly to befall the fate
of coordinating clothing with their mate
matching rucksacks on their back
(warm having previously shared intimate moments involving
fiery jack)
A fairy tale this may have been but
probably does describe a scene
acted out in my little shop
it’s fair to say.
That that’s yer lot
xx
© Rita Verity 2009
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Pen-y-ghent is my lover
Unlike any other
He’s my teacher and shows me how
To love without pain, embrace wind and rain
He taught the same to my mother
Always present and throbbing with life and with mirth
He’s also sobbing for his own mother, earth
Not many a day alone will he be
So many lovers he has, besides me
He’s stable, stuck fast
His love, it will last
On this I can depend
He’s unlike all the others I’ve had in the past
They all let me down in the end
But wait, nothing’s certain
Till the final curtain
A twist in the tale can be found
I go to him but he’s gone for a burton
And left a great hole in the ground
I stand there in dismay, my love’s gone away
Alongside me, there stand many others
All staring in awe, for the space that they saw
Is filled with their sisters and brothers
Each looked to him to provide, what’s already inside
He offered them endless pleasure
But the secrets within
If you’re willing to give
Love will always return without measure
©Rita Verity2009
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ODE TO A SHRINE (haiku)
No second wasted
Unerring, my saviour waits
Praying caught in time
© Rita Verity 2009
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Someone else’s words…( I wish I could write like this)
“A Singular Metamorphosis”
We all were watching the quiz on television
Last night, combining leisure with pleasure,
When Uncle Harry’s antique escritoire,
Where he used to sit making up his accounts,
Began to shudder and rock like a crying woman,
Then burst into flower from every cubbyhole
(For all the world like a seventy-four of the line
Riding the swell and firing off Finisterre).
Extraordinary sight! Its delicate legs
Thickened and gnarled, writhing, they started to root
The feet deep in a carpet of briony
Star-pointed with primula. Small animals
Began to mooch around and climb up this
Reversionary desk and dustable heirloom
Left in the gloomiest corner of the room
Far from the television.
I alone,
To my belief, remarked the remarkable
Transaction above remarked. The flowers were blue,
The fiery blue of iris, and there was
A smell of warm, wet grass and new horse-dung.
The screen, meanwhile, communicated to us
With some fidelity the image and voice
Of Narcisse, the cultivated policewoman
From San Francisco, who had already
Taken the sponsors for ten thousand greens
By knowing her Montalets from Capegues,
Cordilleras from Gonorrheas, in
The plays of Shapesmoke Swoon of Avalon,
A tygers hart in a players painted hide
If ever you saw one.
When all this was over,
And everyone went home to bed, not one
Mentioned the escritoire, which was by now
Bowed over with a weight of fruit and nuts
And birds and squirrels in its upper limbs.
Stars tangled with its mistletoe and ivy.
— Howard Nemerov
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Patiently you bide your time, anticipation stirring as I approach,
false hope cruelly offered through a fleeting glance before I choose your rival.
Day after day, night after silvery night.
Seasons drift by
You are imprisoned, locked, fuelled only by past encounters,
encouraged by the promise of more.
Remember this, it is with you I lay my head
It is to you my thoughts turn when I desire escape,
my travelling companion in the too few hours or days of delicious freedom
Together we delight in exploring the unknown,
familiar places take on a new, more intimate meaning.
Wrapped in your embrace I am safe, secure.
Heading for a secret destination known only to us.
My souls desire you hold like no other and my life is enriched,
secure in the knowledge that you and I share the same dream.
Adventure is ours for the taking, an endless and amazing road awaits.
So, maybe tomorrow my friend.
Maybe next week, next month, next year.
Until then your very existence sustains me
Be happy, and while I may drive another
know that I love you more
my own dear, delightful V W camper.
©Rita Verity 2012
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.Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others
Marianne Williamson
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