Goddess Centered Practice
In the woods behind my house rest a collection of nine large flat rocks. Daily, I walk down to these “priestess rocks” for some sacred time alone to pray, meditate, consider, and be. Often, while in this space, I open my mouth and poetry comes out. I’ve come to see this experience as "theapoetics"—experiencing the Goddess through direct “revelation,” framed in language. As Stanley Hopper originally described in the 1970’s, it is possible to “…replace theology, the rationalistic interpretation of belief, with theopoetics, finding God[dess] through poetry and fiction, which neither wither before modern science nor conflict with the complexity of what we know now to be the self.” Theapoetics might also be described, “as a means of engaging language and perception in such a way that one enters into a radical relation with the divine, the other, and the creation in which all occurs.”
Poem: The Edge of Fall
Here we are at the edge of fall,
looking at the world and at our lives.
May learn from Squirrel
and gather up our resources
to store for future days.
May we learn from Persimmon
and allow ourselves
to ripen patiently
until we recognize
the perfect time to let go,
savoring the sweetness
and delicacy of our own best timing.
May we learn from Oak
knowing we belong to a
great, grand cycle
of generativity and renewal,
drawing up strength
from the earth beneath us,
stretching our roots deep,
and exhaling as we allow
the unneeded to fall lightly away.
May we pause at the turning point,
this hinge of change and choice,
to savor the good work
of this year,
to celebrate
what we have learned and made,
to honor what we've loved
and labored over.
May we open our arms in gratitude
and then wrap them
around ourselves
with compassion.
May we turn our faces to the sun,
feel the wind curl around us,
lay our hands on our hearts
and feel the connection
we always carry within.
May we set our feet to the spiral,
as the deep and powerful mystery
of being continues to unfurl.
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Molly,
That was great! It's nicely written, and at the same it challenges the reader to contemplate and be better.