Initiatus

Initiate
Initial
Initiation

Originate

A beginning
An entrance

Rite of secret
Wisdom

One who undergoes
Passage

Initiating
Initial
Initiation

Go Fuck Yourself

Someone once told me
“Go fuck yourself.”
Of course, at the time
It was an insult
Yet these days
I would take it as
A compliment.

Yes, I’ll go fuck myself
Make sweet love
With the honey of my own
Heart, a petal upon
The flower of my body.
I’m not talking about
Masturbating--
That would be boring--
I’m talking about
The kind of sex
That makes peaches
Out of pits,
The kind of passion
That leaves me feeling
Like I tasted the greatest
Secret
Secretion
Of my own sap,
Like a tree
Free from want,
Just watching myself
Growing.

The darkness

Just now, the darkness was a cave.
Outside, up the hill
A light shone from out a window,
Flying fast like light does.
Then it got cozy in the madronas
And paused by the grass,
Deciding it was too tired to go on.

The darkness was a cave behind me.
A dog in the distance barked a litany,
More like an announcement,
Declaring the depth of this cavernous dark
Echoing through the trees
Off the hill
In my skull.

That dog made me feel the aloneness.
The world slept while it barked
And I heard it
But didn’t call back.
I knew the darkness would swallow my voice
Just like it was eating that light.

I question why I must look in order to see.
I think sometimes I learn best
Ambling around in the dark
Relying on instinct.

Salmon People

Certain fish swim upriver
And plant their flesh
In the bones of the water:
Shimmering life givers
Bleeding their essential sacrifice,
Blessing
The belly of creation.

Forests become metaforms,
Life forms around the sea
And her metamorphic fish
Spawning in swales
Nursing in headwaters
Feeding in deltas
And maturing in the sea’s bosom.

For any animal that eats
Or is eaten
The smell of blood is paramount.
When mountains bleed their
Vital sediment, the scent
Of ancestral burial grounds
Sounds the season of winter’s egg.

Salmon people are like nails:
They hold this temple together.
Forever their blood is in our veins,
Rivers coursing to seas receding,
Revealing bleeding dirt
Birthing forests that make rain
For this peninsular altar.

Black Bear Cubs

Silas for silliness
Trillium for feeling this
Life expanding,
Handing down tools
Building
Flowering buds
In a black bear den.

Smiles come when
Smiles should:
All the time.
All the time in the world
For laughter
Unfurled
Like petals unfolding.

Uncommon kinship
Is a common virtue
For two peas
In this pod:
A clan destiny
Masked
Like raccoons.

The world is an oyster
And palms are for pearls,
Fingers curled, cupping
The sea
Carefree.
The earth is an altar
And children are candles.

There is an invisible mirror
Reflecting their likeness
Like myself
Distilled,
Filled with wonder.
So I ponder their nature:
They are completely natural.

There is no greater gift,
No greater joy
Than my twin boys
Sleeping, waking
Running or walking,
Talking in tongues
Teaching me about life.

My Mothers

I have mother issues
So I live by the sea
Surrounded to east, west and north.
My mother lives to the south.
I am surrounded by
My mother,
The one with many names.

My first mother
Had no name
No face
No specific shape,
Just a quiet liquid
Darkness.
Her primal
Primordial
Uterine waters:
Blood with purpose.
She is called womb.

My second mother
Brought me forth
From the depths.
She had the shape
Of a river with
A persimmon floating,
Flowing downriver.
And her hair was like seaweed,
A nest.
Sometimes I think I’m still in it
Somewhere.
She was a tiger
Wearing mouse fur.
She is called Marie Yoko.

My third mother
Had a dozen names
A hundred talents
And a thousand petals.
She grew like a scrubby oak,
Bent and contorted:
A subject of life in the old days,
Subject to the elements.
She was a woman
In a male-dominated century.
She was a woman
Who made her own damn world
Defied custom
Outran bullets
Married for love’s sake
Hand wove rugs
Spoke nine languages
And was 4’10”.
She could have conquered the world
If not for arthritis.
That’s my grandmother,
She made my second mother.
She is called Jigar.

My fourth mother
Is constantly pregnant.
She is continually
Nursing
Her countless children.
She is beyond description....
Her blue becomes green
Her green becomes brown
Her browns are yellow
And red runs below.
Her blood refreshes,
Her blood fertilizes,
Magnetic and dense,
Floating
Through the Milky Way
The Hammered Bracelet
The Path of the Ancestors.
She is a fertile egg,
A cloudy womb.
She is called Earth.

My fifth mother
Is a mirror,
She is what I would be
Without skin.
She is dressed in scales
Wearing seaweed for hair,
Her eyes are pearls
And her sex is apparent
With receding tides.
My mother is a storm
Turned upside down.
She is what defines
The land:
She has yielded
The firms
And blessed us
With salt.
She calls me daily
And she surrounds me.
She is called the sea.

My sixth mother
Gets between my toes,
Under my nails
And stains my pants.
She is playful
Childish
Wise
And ancient.
She teaches me
With leaves and feathers,
Her text is stone
And her words are spoken
By trees.
One would think her sad
With these rains of sorrow...
Few understand
Her need to quench this thirst
For remaining
Eternally green.
She is this land,
She is a dragon.
We’ll call her that.

I have mother issues
So I live by the sea.
I live upon a dragon’s scale
I ride a serpent
Surfing a planet
Walking a path
Strewn about the ancestral sky;
And this Earth,
Like me,
Emerging within
The shapeless
Primordial darkness:
This universe
The eternal mother.

I am not

I am not what I say I am
I only have what I possess
I
Am
Not

There are secrets of self
That remain hidden
For a purpose
There are secrets of self
To keep hidden
In order to believe
I am this

Long ago this happened
Yesterday I believed I was that
Today I remembered the truth
I am only what I tell myself
I am
But I am
Not that man

I am not that man
Who left as a boy
And emerged with a broken wing
I am not that man
Who was a forgotten bystander
And unwilling victim
I am not
That man since
I possess the truth

I am merely human
Driven by my mind
And its illusions
I am merely human
Guided by my heart
And its intuition

Let’s forget the old story
It always had a sad ending
Let’s pick up the new story
The one with the unfolding path