Field notes on soul retrieval

Image by Todd Weaver

an internal coil of poise
these orientations of the heart.
a tumbling, whooping, opening
towards ripeness,

and all it asks
is patience,
loneliness.

you are here.
the centre of a prayer

turn
turn


turn again

pivot your perception
until the voice tells you to

stay

stay in the place, committed
don’t let it distract you.

we are woven into this matrix
so delicately, here
descendants of mycelium,
nomads of a sovereign sea;
complex enough in form
to experience the
ambiguous loss
of a dissolving ecology.

a micro-molecular universe of
mutual generosity.
(whisper)
“If you don’t move with the land, the land will move you.”

i want there to be lizards in the grass
in a thousand years.
i want the children of tomorrow
to know the smell of fig leaf and cypress
to feel the sting of a wasp.
to know that reishi heals the honey-bee.

-

we need nimble,
small,
creative.
we need one
another
// to lean on.

your imbalance, is a form of transference,
a reminder to
never stay too long in the centre,
you can’t feel your partner then,
this is the door you have longed to open
this is communion.
this is the place between crying and laughing
where they are almost the same.
we want to live here.

-

it is quiet now, the wind has dropped between the islands
so we minimise talking,
we communicate through
gesture
and knowing
hearing this world
as visitor

-

salt dries in swirls on my skin,
across the limestone slabs and stages
etching and licking scores
in a language almost remembered
… and it is so quiet. intuition.
it cannot be rationalised, analysed or explained,
but traces conditions of complete simplicity.

“Retrieve what was lost.”

we hold up the connective tissue between us,
this fabric of our lives
binding our stories into a meaningful whole,
and I am reminded of old dance circles
of tears, and rough palms, voices singing

“the pearls do to make the necklace,
the string does,
it’s not what glitters,
It’s what holds.”

it’s what holds.
a love that embraces that we live not
only in this form you see beside you, but in
all worlds.