Alla Bozarth Words and Images Welcoming Light in the Wilderness: The Great Communion~ Why We Exist, and She Who Watches

The Great Communion~ Why We Exist

Cosmic Nest

About the above image from the Hubble Telescope News Pages:

"Called a light echo, the expanding illumination of a dusty cloud around the star has been revealing remarkable structures ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002." This Light Echo is around a red supergiant star named V838. The Red Giants are the oldest stars in the universe, and from them, stardust made its way to Earth in the form of minerals that are essential to human life, vital contents of our bodies, potassium, calcium and iron. They also give us gold.

Cosmic Child

Worldflesh—

My bones
Bones of the old
Red Stars!

Alla Renée Bozarth
Stars in Your Bones,
North Star Press of St. Cloud 1990
and Moving to the Edge of the World,
iUniverse 2000.

The Bosom of Heaven

Why We Exist

Before the Beginning

there was only the

One

And the One

said, “I’m bored.

And lonesome.

“I think I’ll break

into a googolplex

of pieces to infinity

and give Myself amnesia

in some of those pieces

and then see what happens!”

And that is how

the Universe came

to be —

This sweet excitement,

the divine breaking

that allows

a lonesome God

to relate, relate,

relate to an infinity

of diverse beings,

each of whom is trying

to remember something

terribly important

about itself.

Some succeed better

than others.

And quicker.

Sometimes this leaves

us howling in agonies

of forgetfulness and

separation.

But sometimes we remember,

from tadpoles to comets,

and we wag our tails.

Alla Renée Bozarth

Accidental Wisdom
iUniverse 2003

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/james-webb-telescope-images-released/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0Zy6V3cng_40G1PLi5wLzpWkcUaL2g6Yh8xNW5fo7i52f4fa_Qq2SB7uw

http://bearblessings.com/products?keywords=holy+nativity

Painting by Andrew Wyeth

Belonging~ Stars in Your Bones

The small plot of ground
on which you were born
cannot be expected
to stay forever
the same.

Earth changes,

and home

becomes different

places.

You took flesh

from clay

but the clay

did not come

from just one

place.

To feel alive,

important, and safe,

know your own waters

and hills, but know

more.

You have stars

in your bones

and oceans

in blood.

You have opposing

terrain in each eye.

You belong to the land

and sky of your first cry,

you belong to infinity.

Alla Renée Bozarth

From the audiotapes, Dance for Me When I Die and Reading Out Loud to God {under the title, “Stars in Your Bones,” from which the book of poems and paintings was later named}, Alla Renée Bozarth, Wisdom House, copyright 1990; Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys, Alla Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne, North Star Press of St. Cloud 1990 {out of print}; This Mortal Marriage: Poems of Love, Lament and Praise, Alla Renée Bozarth, iUniverse, copyright 2003. All rights reserved.

The poem "Belonging" was put to music along with William Stafford's poem, "Ask Me," by St. Paul, Minnesota composer, Steve Heitzeg, commissioned in 2000 by the people of Grand Forks, North Dakota for a ceremony of healing following the destruction and rebuilding of their town after the catastrophic Red River flood of 1997:

What the River Says [the album]
Composed:	1999
Duration:	15 min
Instrumentation:	SATB chorus, piano and percussion
Text:	Alla Renee Bozarth, Steve Heitzeg, William Stafford
Commissioned:	The Grand Forks Master Chorale through a Continental Harmony Grant
First Performance:	Grand Forks Master Chorale; James Rodde, conductor, Grand Forks, ND, 27 February 2000

"Belonging" was presented as a reading in Aurora Chorus's winter concert, "Stars In Your Bones," December 2007, in Portland, Oregon, titled after a beautiful phrase from this poem and the book by the same name. Late in 2016, composer and conductor of Aurora Chorus, Joan Szymko requested and was granted permission to compose music for "Belonging," and on May 21, 2017, she directed the premiere of her musical composition for piano, strings and voices of "Belonging," as sung by Aurora Chorus in a concert called, "A Place Where You Belong." The music was stunning! The pianist replicated the Big Bang of the universe being born from all the keys of the piano by sliding her elbow across the keyboard~ and it went forward from that breathtaking beginning. Here is part of the program:

"Our 25th Anniversary concert season soars to a close with two world premieres! Renowned composers Carol Barnett and Joan Szymko have created works that honor and celebrate the circle of love and life that is our Aurora Chorus community.

"Aurora commissioned renowned composer Carol Barnett to set poetry by Wendell Berry. "The Larger Circle" is an excerpt from Berry's "Healing." Joan Szymko adds to the legacy of music she has lovingly composed for Aurora Chorus by returning to the poetry of Alla Bozarth. "Belonging" (aka "Stars in Your Bones") will feature string quartet accompaniment. Aurora looks back to our rich past and balances these exciting new works with some of the most compelling music and words from our 25 years of being a place where you belong ~ a choral community where women find their voice And a place where joy and grief and tears of hope all flow together in the concert hall."

It remains an indescribable honor that my poetry was coupled with the sacred words of the great poet of the land and its people, Wendell Berry. This year, the composer who created music for Berry's "Healing" excerpt has put my poem, "Dance then to Everything" to music. I wish that I could post it and last spring's performance of "Belonging" for you. The acoustic brilliance that Carol Barnett has added to the poem invites, no, it compels the soul if not the body to dance in all kinds of ways. The rhythms that Carol draws from the text astounded me. Thank you, sister artists, musician/composers Joan Szymko and Carol Barnett.

Joan Szymko, Renowned composer and Aurora Chorus Conductor

Renowned Composer, Carol Barnett

Composer Carol Barnett with Conductor Glenn Gregg

of the Kirkland Choral Society after the May 19, 2018 Concert

Dance Then To Everything

Music is everywhere

music is in sound and

music is in silence

Therefore I dance

to silence I dance

to tears I dance

to laughter I dance

to groans and moans

I dance to Rachmaninoff

and Bach, to Beethoven

and Dylan, to Carole King

and Marvin Gay and to everything

composed, harmonious and played

Dance then to birdsong and waterfall,

to the spring scented forest and garden,

to snow and the rain, to river and ocean,

with desert or mountain, I dance

For the dancing mind can dance

forward or backward in time and space also,

indeed to outer and inner dimensions uncommonly known

I dance with my eyes,

I dance with one hand,

I dance clapping,

I dance with one foot

or one shoulder, my hair

dances with wind

I dance to poetry while hearing it,

I dance to poetry while reading it

aloud to the tree for whom I wrote it

As I dance around the lovely thing

with my hand or arm encircling

As Rumi danced his grief

and finally his joy around

the cool, smooth, sacred stone

until he warmed it with longing~

As Rumi danced around the pillar of loss

when his beloved teacher and friend

called Shams, The Sun, had died—

He danced to call back the Light

from the belly of darkness

that had swallowed the sky,

as now the Sufi dance after him

For Dance is the Song of the Body,

and Songs are the Dance of the Voice~

as both Move, Utter, Outer the Soul

I dance to the gospels

I dance to the psalms

I dance to a friend

I dance mostly and always

to God

Don’t let the limitations

of your body deter you,

dance with your mind,

dance with your soul

across great distances

of space and time

and dance on your own

Feel free to

Dance all by yourself

so no one will know

but you and the Beloved,

in whatever form you

experience the Beloved,

and let the Beloved

dance with You

Alla Renée Bozarth ~ From the poetry collection in progress,

Going to Church

Lovely stone structures

that enshrine the God-given

talent of the human mind—

hand-built, soul-infused

works that say Thanks

in the direction of heaven

above—gorgeous glass

jewels of deep light,

carvings of wood

and marble,

icons of gold . . .

Here we gather

for respite and

renewal,

consecrate our cares,

find shelter in beauty,

intercede together

and for one another.

I go outside to the Source,

embrace the ancient

pear tree in the orchard,

lean against standing stones,

take sanctuary from the night,

drink in the colors

of sky and wild meadows,

bathe myself in gold

sunlight, bless and give

Thanks all around,

touch, with my hand or eye,

heaven within each presence.

We, living here, with each kind,

unself-conscious act, offering

innocent, grateful awareness,

attend God’s own service.

Alla Renée Bozarth ~ From the poetry collection in progress,

Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

Heartland

All of Earth is holy ground,
and beneath our feet throbs
the heartbeat of our loving
Mother with such sweet power
that the stones themselves laugh
for joy, they sing, they leap
from mountain fires, they float
in sculpting rivers, by sun and moon
light revealing shadows, reflecting
the cracked and jagged, the broken,
smoothed, and soothed, the surprising,
the countless shapes of every creature’s
deep, divinely dreamed and lively, most
sacred, secret heart.

Alla Renée Bozarth
Diamonds in a Stony Field
©2016

Click on the image below or any of the images to enlarge.

You can view all the images on this post as a slide show by clicking on them

from the Enlarged mode. Click on the darkest outer border to return here.

http://bearblessings.com/

A Creature’s Prayer for True Community

O Mysterious One,
You who longed us
into reality, guide us now
into its fullest and best.

O Lonely One,
You who desired us
into our being, bless us now
with kindly kinship—

Let there be between us
and growing among us
that trusting spirit
of true cooperation,
whose creative power springs from
mutual good will,
reciprocal expression
and convivial intention—

and manifests in that luminous outcome
that is Your Own dream coming true. Amen!

Alla Renée Bozarth

From The Frequency of Light, copyright 2014.

A true story of altruism in humpback whales. "Altruism is a true act of kindness (when you protect someone) without asking or expecting anything in return." Here is an astonishing true story about altruism in humpback whales. Thanks to Peter Converse for sending this to me. Peter wrote, " Encounters like hers reinforce my belief that we are all one, that we are our sisters' and brothers' keepers, no matter the species. That whale knows it too!"

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2952158198417736

Love. Awe. Happiness. Gratitude. Bliss. Bonding. Belonging.

The Red Mountain of Creation, in Hebrew, El Shaddai, meaning, among other interpretations, the divine breasts of Mother God.

Here depicted as "Sophia," this 2016 painting by Minnesota artist Jeanne Wiger:

Invocation to Sophia

All you powers

All holies,

All things come alive,

All spirits of play,

All ancient sources

Of wisdom and song,

All creatures’

Choirs invoke you

God of Living Things

God of words alive

In our flesh--

Sophia/Wisdom

God, Hokmah, Bride

of the Beloved, Balance,

Power of Breath, Neshamah,

Life Breath of Soul, Holy

Wisdom, the Way of Knowing

Based on Love, Sophia—

Today we call you down:

Touch us with tongues

That leap into flame.

Today we call you up:

Circle and center

Among us,

Teach us

The Dance—

Teach us the magic

Deep Reality that

Renews our spirits

Transforming the face

Of the Earth.

Come up from within us

Come out from among us

Poets of the dance

Of colors and clay

Of cloth and food

Of animal joy

And labor of bones—

All graces

All dreams

All somber

And sillinesses

We offer--

The Wisdom of Poetry,

The Playmate of God!

Alla Renée Bozarth

This is My Body—

Praying for Earth, Prayers from the Heart

As the Hebrew words for the Divine (Feminine), El, and breasts, Shaddai, from the plural form, Shadayim, may refer to the Divine Breasts, while in another interpretation the mountain of Hebrew or Greek feminine Wisdom words, Hokmah and Sophia, is the pregnant womb of Mother God. Breast and womb are both associated with the transformational fire-flowing mountain, especially the volcano, as an inverted chalice or caldron of the Divine Mother in ancient iconography.

Time for a visit from the Divine Feminine~ Adam reaches for the blessing of Mother God ~ Michelangelo take note, with apologies and Thanks!

"Reconciliation" by Josefina de Vasconcellos

Coventry Cathedral Courtyard, Coventry, England

In Their Own Image~ Grandma and Grandpa God, Tears of Joy God

Today someone sent me a portrait of God the Grumpy Geezer.

I did not think much of it, except, “Poor Guy.”

Looks like God’s kids don’t call

and the pension check doesn’t

cover much of anything.

He’d probably have road rage behind the wheel.

I used to just dismiss the fellow,

no matter how much good press he gets from

God-knows-who, given the way he’s said to treat

his friends, and foes need not apply.

He’s been shown too long and too much as a big bad version

of humanity’s worst traits: immature, petty, spiteful, judgmental,

sulking, mean-spirited and downright violent, not to mention

prone to child abuse. God is Love is Right, but this is no portrait

of the Real God I know and love.

That wonderful Jewish Rabbi Yeshua who showed so much

divine transparency has been treated badly, too, made out

to be the Palestine Pansy when he’s really so direct it’s daunting.

“Judge not or you’ll be judged,” he said, but most people

ignore that and judge away.

I’m taking a turn of conscience today. I feel so bad for the persona

in this postcard picture of him on my kitchen counter that I’ve decided to spend

some time cheering him up. First, I’d bake him some cookies, which is

really something because I’m no baker. Better make him a cherry crisp.

I can do that! I’ll whip up my special whipped cream with

vanilla and orange extracts to go with it and watch him purr

when he smells it fresh from the oven and gets a look at

the beautiful pie cherry color, then takes his first bite of it

with a big dollop of vanilla orange whipped cream.

After that he’ll feel relaxed, and I’ll start telling him jokes~

the penguin joke is good, but maybe he’s heard it too often.

Lena and Ole are always winners.

Then I’ll give him a blanket and show him the chaise

in the spring garden so he can take a nap under

the cherry tree and inhale lilacs and roses, and drift off

to the lullaby of water falling over rocks and birdsongs.

I’ll tell the birds to keep their serenade melodious and

gentle, not as raucous as it sometimes gets around here. . . .

I’ll bet he hasn’t had a time like this in millennia.

After awhile I’ll wake him up with a big loud kiss

on his furrowed forehead. I’ll ask him to tell me his dreams. . . .

I’ll listen with all my heart. Then I’ll ask how the Beautiful

Lady I know as God is. . . .

I do just that, and God’s husband says, “She cries tears of joy

and empathy every day, which doesn’t look or sound happy,

but she says they’re way past happiness into feelings

she can only express in a river of love.

“She says there is all the anguish of the world in them,

getting bathed and balmed, all the things she can’t prevent

because of the way the universe is made with every creature

freely becoming itself, everything mixed in and tumbling,

but we love it all the more.

“She tells me I need to step back and let people hear her

firm but gentler voice. They seem to relate better to her.

She is breathtakingly beautiful, that’s a fact.

“She reminds me that fire is our firstborn child, the stuff

we used for the stars, that water came next, and air, then

the dark matter of space, and finally things cooled and

settled here and there, in space pockets of places,

to make the most interesting forms, some of them

teeming with life, like yours.

“Of course, I know all this. We did it together and are

still doing it, and anyway, we don’t really look like this,

but you humans seem to relate best to those you understand,

so you make us over into your own image in your minds, and

that’s how we come out in art.

“Even this business of “We” is strictly human.

You, We and I are the same here in God Town.

This whole conversation is just for your benefit, Child,

but I’m enjoying it, too. You had a good point.

“We went along with your ancestors and overdid that

God the Father image, and look what happened.

Men behaving badly, thinking they’re being ‘godly,’

lording it over everything and referring to me as ‘Lord,’

too. Do they think I’m an Englishman and a member

of the Peerage?

“Now there’s a rowdy bunch.

What goes on in the House of Lords

would never pass for Paradise.

“Well, Honey, Thanks for the great afternoon.

I’d better go see what your Mama God wants me to do

for her. Maybe we’ll show up together in a beautiful flower

in your garden tomorrow, and see if We/I/You can do

something to help that sick silk tree of yours. It’s already

bloomed for you for 30 years past its life expectancy.

“But you and the tree love and appreciate each other

so it sticks around, even diseased and wounded,

forgetting its suffering for love and letting your

grateful tears of joy water its roots

as deep as deep can be.

“Thanks for shedding them.

Mama God loves you for it.

So do I.

“I’m not really such a bad guy.

I really am full of love.

That’s all I am, really,

but love is big as Infinity

and has so many forms,

also to Infinity.

“I hope humans in general really, really get that,

and inspired young or old painters keep on painting me

as other things besides themselves or others on a bad day

or in a sappy mood.

“Here in the garden with you, sharing my dreams

with a good listener, I’m feeling some tears of joy

of my own coming on. Maybe it’ll rain soon.

“Grandma God, now she’s the real gardener.

She says, ‘Gramps, you’re an old fraud pretending

not to understand about feelings sometimes.

When you let them come,

your tears make beautiful rainbows.’ ”

Alla Renée Bozarth

http://allabozarthwordsandimages.blogspot.com/

These Are the Realms of Becoming

Thanks to Casaundra Williams Bennett for the metaphor,
     “the Great Cosmic Pouch.”

The Great Cosmic Pouch holds
and carries and is forevering the worlds,
while we within them are mere time fetuses
forming ourselves to be born.

  Alla Renée Bozarth

The Frequency of Light
Copyright 2013

Spacetime~ A Womb with a View

We are time fetuses,
wrapped in the sphere of mortal beings,
crowded among others also here, unaware 
of the More around us, the reality Beyond, 
the Greater Life that awaits us~ as the fetus 
is unaware of older relatives, history, color, landscape,
the patterns of geese in flight, mangoes, movies, music, 
geometry, logical positivism, the smell of grass and the ocean, 
the sensations of surfing or flying an airplane, grief, laughter, 
its mother or father as human beings (or hummingbirds or trees 
or microbes or elephants or moons or stars)~though, as an embryo 
in a woman’s womb sometimes, without understanding language, 
responds warmly to the sound of its father’s voice crooning to it, or
reading Winnie the Pooh or Shakespeare, or as it may recognize 
its sister’s poke in the ribs and shouts of greeting, and distinguish 
between its mother’s indigestion and elation~ so we have fleeting 
moments of feeling, inklings suggesting Something More beyond
our knowing, and that is when souls in the Great Communion 
are attending us, as flight attendants on an airplane attend
a pregnant woman with fresh pillows and orange juice 
or tea, and through her comfort, the future child 
is also pleased, though not even the mother
knows the names or anything about
her kind helpers. 

To say that after we die from our present identities we will be 
taken up as by a cloud, met by old and new friends, taught 
the ropes of Paradise~ Well, how could a fetus know 
what to expect, the Wonder of it, for which there is 
no translatable description? How could 
anyone know?

Still, Eternity is always pregnant with us, always loving us,
preparing surprises beyond our imagining for us, and meanwhile 
feeding us all the means of health and happiness that it can, and 
letting us know that we are already part of it, that throughout 
our mortal lives, every moment and all the time,
we belong, are known, and are necessary
to something more than ourselves.

Alla Renée Bozarth

The Frequency of Light

Time Party

Life is a party.

People arrive

and are introduced.

Things happen.

Conversations begin.

Future contact is planned.

Alliances form.

Some people dance.

Some are too shy

to engage.

Some mingle with everyone.

Some take refuge in one

or two intimate encounters.

Some tune out with toxic

substances, publicly partaking

in slow suicide.

Some play the fool.

Some take care of others.

Outside, weather happens.

The world continues

with its own silence

and noise. Children are born

and begin their own party.

Later, some of them

will come to this one.

Inside, the party goes on.

Some people

have a good time.

Some people

have a bad time.

Some leave early.

Some wait for the dawn.

Sooner or later,

everyone goes home.

Alla Renée Bozarth

The Frequencies of Sound

Time Gives

Time gives itself so
that we have it
to use well

Create lives and

shape destinies

Develop our talents

and use our skills

for the greater good

Grow into our true selves,

learn to be kind, learn to be

still, learn to move gracefully

Whatever remains unfinished

that cannot be finished by others

will be translated into some other

form in time in this universe or

another

Whatever unhealed wounds

cannot be seared or closed

gently can be healed in another

life or eternity

Whatever injury or illness

cannot be mended or cured

will be mended or cured

by oblivion or Heaven

Time heals all,
at least when it ends.

Alla Renée Bozarth

Time and I

It is four days past Christmas

and I feel finally ready for the Fourth of July,

or maybe merely the middle of June

approaching a midsummer dream.

How am I to keep from despair, knowing

as I do that I will never catch up again?

I am the child left behind empty-handed,

and time is the older child running ahead

on the beach with the kite.

Perhaps I shall sit down and watch,

mouth open in awe at the beauty of it,

the colors, how they change and gleam

as the wind dances them upward and the sun

glistens in play . . . And my eyes kiss all of them,

these three, time and the wind and the sun,

and I am happy to be here, seeing everything

there is to see in the world right now.

And suddenly, I am the kite in the scene,

and I am perfectly happy, joyous, knowing

that I am now carried where I could not plan

or decree, and the design as it happens

perfectly suits me. And the singing and laughing

burst out of me as tears sting on my cheeks

in the salt air, and I do not care if I shall ever

be on time for anything less important again.

Alla Renée Bozarth

Diamonds in a Stony Field

Biodance

                                      Everything bears the property of Love

                                  Sitting on a rock in the Salmon River
                                      watching first leaves fall.

                                      From sunhigh mountain treetops
                                      upstream the rapids carry
                                      old branches to the sea,
                                      their leaves landlocked already.

Why so soon?
Not soon at all —
your time is complete.
And so is mine.

You rest in sunlight
before transforming
into earth and air.

You dissolve your leafy form
and recompose into a thousand bodies.

Nothing ever ends.
Everything is always beginning.

Shall I find myself tomorrow
shining in a waterdrop
on a piece of moss
on the bark of a tree
that once was you?

Green into burntred,
old leaf, our biodance began
millennia ago, but today
I am glad to see you clearly
for the first time
with just these eyes,
my changing
partner!

Your bronze body turns
to powder
with a crack
beneath my foot.

Part of you has already become me.
You are on your new way.
You will be back.
And so will I.
So will I.

Alla Renée Bozarth

From Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys, Alla Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne, North Star Press of St. Cloud 19990; and This Mortal Marriage: Poems of Love, Lament and Praise, Alla Renée Bozarth, iUniverse 2003.

Click on any image to enlarge it or view a slide show of all of them on this post, enlarged.

North face of Mt. St. Helens, with wasteland desert where forests once were,

around the heart-shaped Spirit Lake in the center.

The Interior Landscape

Desert

Beloved—
in You I am lost,
desolate, not knowing
where to focus, and no place to hide—

then slowly my eyes adjust
to Your subtle shapes,
Your toned-down colors
and see You as both
rest and the struggle
to learn how to endure
You—

I will not live in You
through lengths of days
but I will visit You
fearlessly in times of
wilderness emptying—
Then we are one.

Forest

Beloved—
oh, deep heart of myself,
the streams of sunlight to warm the soul,
the shadow places to hide in,
the wet, mossy places to rest in,
the emerald places, the jade places,
the teal places, the brown places
and places blackened with ash,
oh, home of the Great Mother
where sanctuary lives—
where the wild gardens of God thrive

I trade the breath of life abundantly with Your trees
and the holy ground of Your vegetation—
So we are one.

Ocean

Beloved—
oh, Great Seas, Grandmothers
of all species, we human beings
in all our colors and voices
travel across Your waters
guided by stars
and play on Your shores—

From You we all come,
we Earthlings— we bless You,
and we are one.

River

Beloved—
flowing, always
flowing on, sight seer
and life giver, singing
Your song, forever,
we are one.

Alla and the Salmon River, flowing from a Mt. Hood Glacier.

Mountains

Beloved—
great high places
that bring up
what nourishes us
from the deep places,
that awaken and frighten us
and remind us to make room,
that teach us to be respectful,
generous with places to fix the eye,
Your great hard, solid mass a mere
window to Heaven—

You inspire everything in me
to lift and to lighten and be
unafraid for all to see—
I grow and we become one.

Mount Hood, in itself and in my soul.

Grasslands

Beloved—
the living room of the soul,
the place of home, of crops
that feed the masses,
of flowers that feed the senses,
and the senses are open doorways
to the soul—
where we are forever one.

Alla Renée Bozarth
The Map of Longing in Quartet © 2016

Scroll through this link page to see "Bare Heart" and "Heartland" as well.

http://bearblessings.com/products?keywords=heart

Graphic art by Susan Lind-Kanne

with selected poems by Alla Renée Bozarth

at Bear Blessings Soul Cards.

Below~ Spiral Galaxy from the Hubble Space Camera.

* * * * *

She Loves It All

when god was a girl she loved
to play dress up with hydrogen
and nitrogen, she wiggled her hips
and blew kisses from her voluptuous
lips and wiggled her fingers to toss the stars~

she juggled them and tied ribbons on them
when she wanted to create new dimensions,
to open all the directions she hurled them like a salad
that no one told her not to play with, so she giggled
and played until all the ingredients stuck on the ceiling of sky,
but then she’d coax them back into action and let them decide
where to go and how far and when or if to land, and

she would go far out, way, way out to play
with her dolls, the gaseous, luminous balls of delight,
hold them in her cool hands for a millennial minute
to turn them into planets and things of that sort,
with what we call substance, solid stuff

but there was precious little of that compared
to the zillions of light years and miles of raw energy
she stores in those closets disguised as nothingness,
dark matter if it’s just out there and going nowhere
(we think), and dark energy if it seems to push
the many verses ever outward from each other~
for epic cosmic poems gone lyrical and operatic wild

there is always music as silence and vice versa
going on in the movement between beings~
and yes, she likes those comets, never lost
her taste for new things, plays with galaxies and constellation
of beautiful toys and wears them like jewelry in living colors,
lots of necklaces and rings, baubles on Christmas trees, then turns them
into mirrors of herself, better than hot melted many-colored glass spinning
in the fire~ though sometimes she is shy and covers them with night invisible,
that brilliant dark country that covers the map of heaven, and she does it
the better to show her curls, her graceful arms, her reach into fire for love,
her laughter-made comets~ and sometimes she braids their tails

and sometimes she says, you are simply gorgeous,
delicious as roses on a birthday cake, scrumptious
as a coarse lemon poppy seed wedding cake with
thick passion fruit frosting, with gold leaves and silver
bangles and pearls, with marionberries and cream

and she then gets distracted and remembers it’s lunch time
and she cooks up something new to serve variously
here and there around the place~ and to her, the future
is not in front or ahead or out there but inside, always
inside everything, where the past is pretending to govern
what we call the present but she calls Beloved, and where
nothing yet imagined is just about to happen

next week we’ll talk about when god was a mountain,
then how all the kinds of rocks became her feet
until she wanted to run again with a bird’s eye view
and became a baby giraffe
and later, about how she tried on the whole zoo,
and then settled down for several millennia
as an entire evergreen forest, yes,
the ancient sequoias, the redwoods mingling
with blue spruce, and then she became an etude,
a fantasie-impromptu, a symphony, a garland
of roses, a garden of petunias and pansies
and marigolds which she served in salads
to strengthen the blood of her mammals,
and dandelions, which doubled as tonic and
oh~ maybe she’d like to be a mermaid
and swim all the seas, yes, that would
be fine, she says

and about then god the old woman decides it’s time
to figure out what to do about all the beings who suffer
in pain, sorrow, confusion, anger or fear, which she knows
from being all of them, and asks us please to pray for her . . .

Alla Renée Bozarth

Published October 27, 2013, on feminismandreligion.com/2013/10/27/she-loves-it-all-by-alla-renee-bozarth/

Hubble Space Camera and USGS Images are from the Internet. Grass heart and ocean poster images were photographed by Alla Bozarth. The Ocean poster with Goethe quote, "As soon as you trust yourself you will know how to live" is on the Wisdom House Chapel wall.

She Who Watches

Inspired by the Image and Experience of poet and Nature Scout, Judy Todd, who generously shared the story and photo of her pilgrimage into the Columbia Gorge on the Washington side of the river across from The Dalles, Oregon to see the pictograph She Who Watches for the first time.

When Judy sent me the photo it took my breath, as she told me it had taken hers, and the only way I could respond was in the stuttering speech of poetry.

As with all the images throughout, click on the picture to enlarge and see it better, then click on the black border side area to return to the page.

Visit Judy's website and blog at NatureConnect Excursions~
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/

Meeting by Judy Todd, Columbia River Gorge 2011~

Shown with gracious permission.

She Who Watches Shows Herself . . .

Opens Her Eyes to Me Now

breath suddenly
taken, my mouth opens
wider and wider
as wide as Her Eyes
i see what She sees forever

coming around the corner
of my tiny life
then drawn into Her
as if She has taken
a cosmic Inbreath
to bring me here,
and having succeeded,
inhales me Whole

wedged between camouflage rocks and wild vegetation,

She sits watching over the river and all the living,

holding place for the spirits of those who have died

Eyes in Her ears, great lakes in Her eyes,

a face part starving child human,

part Great Mother Bear

She with the eyes of ten open suns
and the ears of ten mountains
has opened Her Self

to Earth, Spirit Protector and Witness,
and Seeing my molecular readiness
She has taken me into Her Soul

may i, by all means, help
to dry Her tears
and comfort Her broken Heart
from the Inside and Out

my eyes keep opening wider and wider
so does my mouth, breath nearly not at all,
how can one see Her seeing her or him and breathe,
yet She is the Giver of breath
and one must continue to breathe in order
to serve Her

my mouth then continues to open
in order to be with Her in Silence

and later to speak without ceasing,
to express Her horror at the self-wounded sorrows
of humanity, that animal species no longer One with itself

or Earth or Her, hardly worthy of the sacred name,

animal ~an embodied soul~
and also to express Her and my own
still undared but almost hope

Alla Renée Bozarth

See Photos from the blog of Tom Foster, Pasco, Washington

http://iceagefloods.blogspot.com/2009/04/dalles-and-she-who-watches.html

See close-up by Steve Plattner
http://www.pbase.com/image/55410029

A Way of Waking

The mountain lifts itself
into a gold-rimmed shadow
through a sea of purple fog.

In my mind, I walk the great stone bridge
that spans the world through the colors of dawn
until I forget what I am doing, and
fly into the tasks of the day.

By then, all the birds
of the hemisphere
have awakened.

On the most daring
and beautiful of days,
this is how morning
begins.

Alla Renée Bozarth

Image: West face of Mt. Hood at dawn with the St. Johns Bridge over the Willamette River, just before it flows into the Columbia, and they continue on their way westward as one, to the great sea, the Pacific Ocean. As seen from North Portland in Western Oregon, photographed by Steve Schwindt.

St. Johns Bridge with Mt. Hood by Steve Schwindt Photography, Portland, Oregon

The Great Communion~ Why We Exist, and She Who Watches

What the River Says [the album]