I have a feather tail. It is long and delicate and soft. It emerges from the base of my spine and floats gracefully behind me as I move through the world. Occasionally it stretches out behind but mostly it is upright. The tip hovers over my shoulder in a gentle arch. As if it were peering at the situation before me, Continue reading
(inspired by Eddie Harran and first performed at Chronference: an experimental pop-up time travel symposium follow link to storify)
“I’m interested in time.” You said.
“Deep time, time literacy, wild time, modern time”
You had me at time
The nature of time
The construct of time
The experience of time
Slicing up our lives into years, days, hours, seconds
An assault on our being,
A straight jacket for our rhythms and pulses.
My time is measured differently
A deep breath, in and out
The space between heartbeats
The length of a warm embrace
The depth of a meaningful conversation
The quickening of a smile between strangers
The rhythm of my womb and the moon
The pause at the end of this line.
Someone once asked me how long it takes to write a poem
There are few things in my life more satisfying
Than gently coaxing poetry from my heart into the world
How long does it take?
5 minutes and 35 years
Everything I am, and have ever been
Culminating in a moment of stillness and careful attention
The thread of feeling must be wooed
Courted, encouraged, delighted in
Allowed to reveal itself in words
It doesn’t take time, it takes a particular quality of being.
This is the sacrificial blood that coats the hands of our clocks
This quality of being cannot be measured or named
It only exists in surrender
Outside time’s controlling glare
A gateway to eternity
My soul is timeless.
I’ve had the most amazing weekend. On Friday I performed at Mother Tongue, a women’s spoken word evening. On Saturday mrA had his last circus class of the year and we hung out with some new friends. Then on Sunday I ran Our Earth Our Self.
It was a weekend of belonging, of being in community with other people, being held and holding space for meaningful conversation. Listening and being heard. The poem I performed at Mother Tongue was about the feeling of being called, of having a spiritual epiphany and then being overtaken by ‘ordinary’ life. It was also a fairly grand statement of my purpose in life. I was nervous beforehand not in fear of the audience response (it is an incredibly supportive crowd) but of making such a strong statement about myself. It paid off, the audience responded warmly and I had this incredible feeling of liberation.
It felt like that was perfect preparation for Sunday’s workshop, it left me feeling whole and strong and replete. I was able to bring that sense of myself as part of something greater to the workshop and it helped me hold the space. The workshop was small but lovely. It, too, left me feeling connected and alive. Most humbling was the fact that my parents chose to come. I never would have thought they would be interested but they were excellent contributors, whole hearted and authentic.
This time the numbers were touch and go right to the end, it was only my determination (and my parent’s decision to come) that meant it went ahead. A number of people dropped out at the last minute all for very valid reasons but I’m left wondering what more I can do. I’ve asked some questions in the evaluation about how people would describe the workshop and its benefits to see if I can improve the way I’m marketing it. Although the work that reconnects is designed to inspire and sustain action for social change, I can’t help but feel that it could have a much broader appeal. Don’t we all need safe spaces to feel our pain?
Humans are nature 