In the Days That Follow
Imagine the wrongs made right, the crooked made straight
the middle way the means to hold the center strong
the point to rise again to choose again
to act with love, to be kind.
Invoke the wisdom of ancients, angels, and ancestors
with wild words of song, and prayers whispered
over a cauldron wrought of shadowed griefs
fired by our righteous rage.
Mix equal parts beauty, truth, and justice into
an elixir made in paradox, luminescent in the dark
heaven sent on the more-than-human breath
earth bound on waves of sand and water.
Elemental formula with sacred geometry
to bravely mend and steadfastly restore
our broken hearts, a torn country,
the exhausted planet.
A work in progress, this poem coalesced the day following the US election. Like many around the world, I awoke to the news I’d hoped and prayed would be different. A brief scroll though social media and a friend’s post of an image – no words – of a tear falling down a woman’s cheek said it all.
Last night, I began reading The Dreaming Way: Courting the Wisdom of Dreams (2024), the latest book by Toko-pa Turner. An internationally recognized dreamworker and one with whom I have personally studied, Toko-pa writes, “As our dreams nudge us in step with the larger intent of nature, we grow to see how necessary we are to these troubled times.”
Describing the Dreaming Way as the practice of choosing to live in reciprocity with the inner and outer worlds, she encourages us to regularly shift our attention away from our modern, external life of reason and rationale to take seriously the imaginal world and dreaming. By doing so, we are contributing to the shifting power in the world and enacting a revolution from within.
My poem, sourced from and steeped in the richness of the imaginal world, is a homage to knowing, trusting, and valuing the necessity of walking in both worlds, my long-time way of being. Now, I recommit to paying more and regular attention to my inner life, a takeaway from my most recent long walk, and the boon of living in my eldering landscape. My life and our world depend on it.
Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.
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A Wabi Sabi Life 
Thank you. Perhaps it is the elders who must hold the center now, gather in the hurting world, rather than shutting out the noise to protect ourselves. I don’t know how to do that. But, yes, attending to our inner life, invoking the ancestors, breathing the trees. Others will need to be active, we can be the breathers. There is a place and a need for us all. (Not at all sure what I am saying/thinking/feeling here, but you touched something.)
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And your response is touching something in me. To be the breather…slowing down, walking alone-together with others, thoughtfully, looking around and seeing with gratitude, with a lighter pack. My long walk lessons applied. Thank you.
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Beautiful. Thank you.
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