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I was pleased to write an endorsement for the new book, Home to Her, by Liz Kelly, forthcoming from Womancraft Publishing. Pre-orders are currently open for the book. (Side note: I was interviewed by Liz about Walking with Persephone last October.)

Home to Her is a compelling narrative at once personal, herstorical, mystical, and exploratory. Liz’s voice is both gentle and fierce, weaving an engaging book that draws from personal experience—both mundane and mystical—family and ancestral experience, and the work of other foremothers, wayshowers, and theorists from years gone by. 

Willing to wrestle with complex topics such as the legacy of colonialism and European appropriation of indigenous land, voices, stories, and traditions, Home to Her skillfully guides the reader across a multifaceted landscape of experiencing, questioning, exploring, and coming into relationship with the divine in our lives and our world.

Home to Her is a love song to the Sacred Feminine, in her many forms and faces, past, present, indwelling, and strong.

On our morning walk,

two hawks,

It’s hard to write poems
in the oil change bay,
White Stripes on the radio,
thin and grubby men
with their hands deep
in your engine,
the sounds of cars
rolling by behind you.
I wonder things about them,
like how much they get paid
to go in and out
of this pit in the floor every day,
about the one drinking
Monster Energy
at eight o’clock in the morning,
his black-stained fingers
slowly dipping a breadstick
into pizza sauce
as he leans under the hood.
“It’s hard to have a conversation like this,”
my husband says,
“Shhh!” I say,
“I’m writing a poem about it.”
We affix the sticker
to our windshield
and slowly roll back
out onto the street,
shafts of sunlight
cracking through
the clouds to illuminate
the way forward.

#30DaysofGoddess happens everywhere, even at the Jiffy Lube, with a prayerbook on your lap. The prompt on this day was “Illuminate.”

Here you are,
in-dependence
with all things.
The land is threaded
with rivers
that connect your body and blood
to the sea.
There is salt both on your skin
and in the distant waves,
and there is lightning
slicing from rain-thick clouds
behind the vultures coasting over the mesa.
The wind
against your face,
the same air that carries the
monarch butterfly
to desert milkweed,
that lifts the ravens’ wings
over the ruins of
the Hohokam,
that has kissed
the cheek of a thousand
generations.
The earth is made
of days
beyond count
and roots beyond question.
The fire in your belly
is that which whirls worlds into being.
There is iron in your blood,
iron at the planet’s core,
iron in the stars,
iron in beak of hawk
and eye of crow,
and iron in the red rocks
beneath your feet.
This air you breathe is
river woven,
lightning laced,
tear salted,
iron eyed,
earth kissed,
raven winged.
Wait,
let this breath expand
your chest
and know:
here you are,
today,
in-dependence
with all things.

Happy In-Dependence Day! May we each remember that our well-being is interwoven with the well-being of every strand in the web.

I wrote this poem on the 4th of July last year while traveling in the desert. A video reading version of it is available here.

Today, I gathered five candles,
some sea salt
in a small dark cauldron,
a lighter in a starry brass holder,
a rattle made of gourd,
a singing bowl,
a crow's feather,
and my determination.
I watched the candles flare
and called in inspiration,
for the faith to keep on going
in a world that too often
feels crumpled with despair.
I planted my feet,
reached out my hands,
and lifted my voice,
believing with everything
I have left
that no matter how many stories
have been told to us
about brokenness,
we're here anyway
still whole.

This past weekend I held a small summer solstice retreat with six friends. It was supposed to be larger, but people kept cancelling. It was supposed to be at the river, but risky heat indexes put us inside. It was supposed to be cooler inside, but the AC went out and we were relegated to the basement. And, it was perfect. It was just what I (and we) needed. Something that I remembered after the retreat was over was of the importance of paying attention to how you feel after something is over. Let those moments teach you.

I've been thinking and writing recently about reorienting our lives by joy and steering away from obligation. How we feel after something is over can tell us a lot about whether we are steering our lives by joy or obligation.

It is now that the hydrangeas 

are in bloom,