Homebound

 I have been in a long movie, day after day, looking upon the same field, the same meandering rock wall.  Watching time pass. Weather changes it from brilliantly bright to dark.  The chroma,  to the misted veil as if a theater curtain hangs between the rock face and the back of the Ponderosa pine forests.  Yet in spite of the sameness of parts and pieces, daily, nightly, at dusk, and dawn, it is magical.  Breath-taking and I can’t seem to stop noticing and writing about the wonder before my eyes.    suppose that I am expressing gratitude and love for my brilliant decision to come back and experience the wonders before me.  If nothing else, it is a feast for my eyes and heart.  And gives me joy and further trust in that intuitive knowing to return without any assurance other than I am here.  And soon the view before me will be invisible in its darkness and only my image reflected back at me through the portal before me. Now isn’t that magic?

Kat
31 March 2019



 

Mora County Residents Exert Their Rights Over Fracking

photo by Sharon Stewart

What is it that holds this county apart from other places in this vast landscape? The silence at dawn and dusk when all is still, when my awareness of my breath and heartbeat alert me to my aliveness? Is it possibly the prolonged dry and windy seasons that tear and strew everything about with hell’s might?

Or could it be the baking heat that draws insects to our parched fields and gardens when that is the last assault we can bear? Or is it the people who have lived here, then and now, who made their mark so deeply into the heart and soul of this land we call Mora County, New Mexico?
Could the land and the people be what is bringing about my own spiritual evolution and awakening my thirst for all that this community has valued for generations?

In a land of mountains, forests, fertile wet valleys and vast open plains, these Hispanic and Indigenous Jicarilla Apache people hold onto their ancestral values and nurture the old ways in spite of the onslaught of the 21st century. This has been a stunning glimpse for me into what I would call the mastery of self-determination and a healing gift for mankind.

Mora County’s population is 5,200 with 67 percent of its residents Spanish-speaking, who live in small community villages on ranches and farms. It is a place where people barter and help one another because this is a community that understands its connection to one another, as well as their relationship to the land.

All 1,944 square miles of the county’s rural landscape is unadulterated by industrial development, making it one of the last few places in the U.S. where a land-based culture has yet to look into the eyes of corporate industry.

But that is all about to change if Royal Dutch Shell has its way and industrializes this landscape for its hidden natural gas and the money it will bring them. But the citizens of Mora County appear to be aware of what could happen if the oil companies, who currently hold more than 144,000 acres of mineral leases, begin to drill.

They have heard from San Juan County, New Mexico ranchers, who like themselves, are caretakers of their ancestral lands, who have told them that if Mora County citizens “let the oil companies start their engines here, it will be all over for them” and that they would be “lucky to get a job as a dog catcher” or to safely drink their well water, let alone breathe clean air.

Most of the oil and gas wells that are proposed for Mora County would use the method of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking. Fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals are injected, under high pressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow more freely out of the well.

The outrage over fracking for the people of Mora County reflects their understanding of all that natural gas development entails. Folks from Farmington, New Mexico, where more than 14,000 operating oil and gas wells have turned their once agricultural land into an industrial zone, speak about the proliferation of prostitution, amphetamine labs, housing shortages, arrests, and high asthma and cancer rates among children. Other reports reveal that in Pavilion, Wyoming, the aquifers now contain benzene, 2-BE and other carcinogenic chemicals where natural gas drilling is taking place. In these communities, there is often a significant rise in the cost of living that ultimately displaces local people from their land.

The people in Mora County understand what is at stake. The bottom line is our knowledge that the local culture will fade as their language is displaced and their ancestral adobes are ploughed under and built over with high rises and country homes in the mad frenzy to welcome the fossil fuel development.

Not unlike other communities, there is caution about how to move forward in the midst of such an affront. However, a citizen committee presented the three-member Mora County Commission with the Mora County Community Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance in September 2011, which was modeled after Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s CELDF rights-based ordinance that bans oil and gas drilling and fracking. It contains a “Community Bill of Rights,” exerting people’s inalienable rights to clean water, air, land, health and safety. And, at the core of the ordinance, it exerts the right to local self-government and prohibits harm by industry and writes out corporate “personhood.”

This ordinance is outside the box of U.S. corporate-government intention, and today, more than 140 communities have passed these ordinances into law. With the brilliance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), who developed and crafted these community rights-based ordinances, Mora County is exerting their rights to continue to protect all that has been long valued, and to stand in solidarity with the communities across the U.S. who have passed these before them.

Will what has continued to hold the people to their rural landscape and culture in Mora County weather the onslaught of this current corporate-government siege? Will the commission exert their authority on behalf of their ancestors and children? While this land holds sacred the water, people, air and animals, it will take the courage and moral compasses of each the Mora Commissioners to protect these ancestral rights.

Kathleen Dudley
22 January 2012

New Mexico March 2019

Update

 

Back four months now, and one month living in  the PNW, December-January.  And a full moon.

What has clicked for me?  That I love living here more than I had imagined I would. That the beauty of the landscape is a joy to me every day.  The view from my writing desk, inspirational. That the isolation is only in one’s mind.  That loneliness is surmountable.  That home is in the heart.  

When I first returned, I took on a very physically challenging remodel, lifting and installing 2 x 8 x 12 rough sawn pine floor joists (that I bought from a local mile and hauled home, unloaded, stickered and stacked) as i readied to install the finish wood flooring..  I injured my back, pulled two ribs.  I had not worked into my physical body’s strength for the work.  I spent the next three months, nightly, sleeping in a hot water bathtub most of the night to ease the pain and catch some badly needed sleep.  I had developed plantar fasciitis in August and only upon returning in January was I able to finally begin running daily again.  My entire physical balance of strength, endurance, ease and integration of muscles needed realignment. It has taken until just a few weeks ago to begin to feel at home in my body again.  Working cutting wood, stacking rock, trimming orchards, hauling debris, walking inordinate distances on uneven land, etc. requires  well honed body fitness, I find.  

While I once was able to do this when I lived here prior, my last five years in an urban lifestyle that while I biked everywhere, walked and ran on the beach daily,  along with a dedicated daily yoga practice, working here, on the land, rurally,  requires a different sort of body muscle alignment and oneness with the work.  It has taken me much longer to find that than I would have realized.  However, I feel strong and healed today.  Some residual lower back issues, but I no longer rely upon a bathtub in the middle of the night.

I suppose I wondered if I could manage living so remotely and find a way to thrive.  And I have and I do.  And that is a joy.  I have found that whatever I set my sights at, I can achieve.  Which has been true all my life.  It is about realizing about intent, is it not?  As you pointed out.  And of course, I have always been aligned there.  What this opportunity allows me is to create my ideal life and live it.

As I sit typing, the wind is blowing up a snow storm.  My window to the outdoors reminds me of a large movie screen and my own personal viewing.  Nothing gets much better that what I set my eyes upon.  Nature holds me in its grip.  Stunning beauty.  And her force….well, nothing comparable.  I found that while living at the ocean and observing the Mother, daily.  Here the wind and rain storms,  and soon thunder and lightning will be thrilling me to no end.  Those 3,000 watt blips in the meadow and that roll over the heavens… my cup of tea.  smile

Of course in writing all of this, I spent enough time facing my fears of loneliness and fear not being able to thrive..  I have learned to become an observer of myself, and to stand solidly in the face of my challenges.  Being a Capricorn water dragon, I have a fair share of courage to bring to this experience.  And in that mix is a confidence that befuddles even my closest friends.  Yet comes in stride along with breath.  

With each challenge, I have figured out a solution, whether it was financial, around hauling tree limbs, fixing broken plumbing, finishing electrical—I find that with enough stillness and observation, an answer arrives.  And along with each answer, a bit more self empowerment and love of the sheer capacity within.

I melt into meditation every morning, awakening an hour later with the clarity and gratitude that refreshes me and upon which I begin my day.  

Kat

22 March 2019

Electricity is Out

The electricity is out today.  It is no more quiet than when it is on.  The mark of living so remotely. As I write this, I know folks are driving to Long Beach to convene to make music.  I note the community of musicians, fondly.  My mind gathers together all the experiences of my musician friends that I have met and shared music with over the past three years when living in Oregon at the ocean.  My heart swells as a sponge in water after being in a dry dish for too long just thinking about all the melodies that will rise up today from the passionate music-making in the gathering.

The landscape outside my window this morning moves toward me from black and white skies and distant snow covered conifers to yellow field grasses tipped in white across rock walls to red caliche exposed soils.  As if Technicolor had a distance to span before reaching my retina.  

The snow comes strongly and dotting my vision outside my window.  Then the sun begins to brighten the landscape.  Now my leaking gutters drip down in front of my window, showing me the nearing of the end of the snowstorm and the warming temperatures. That elongated dripping that slows to broken droplets to slower drips until none.  But until then, it is still dropping minute snowflakes sideways in a light breeze and the landscape continues to fill be with awe.  A view I will not tire of for my existence.

  

I am reading a book right now “Easy to Remember: the Great American Songwriters and Their Songs” by William Zinsser.   Nancy gave it to me for my birthday this year and I am glued to its pages.  Even I am finding my way to understanding the structure of song-writing without intending to do so.  I do love understanding the parts and pieces and how they all connect together in this glorious fabric of music that I am blessed to participate in these days.  

I have been asked about my plans for the future.  I have none right now.  My sense is that by May, when my six month sojourn in NM comes to an end, that I will still be here.  To have my own land, my own home, a well with clean water, gardens and greenhouses, fields and forests, chicken coop and beehives, open space and mountains….clean air and lots of room to be peaceful.  How can I leave such a place, when my heart and soul tie closely to all these gifts?  I must have been in crisis mode when I left five years ago.  And most certainly I was.  And to have come back full circle, I was obviously fed deeply by loving friends in my music and writing circles, to even entertain such a solitary existence I live today.  

I have come to accept that what is least considered possible, can become reality.  And that with an open heart and gratitude for each and every day, life unfolds and can be just as miraculously delightful as what I dream possible.  I know that I will sing and play with all my Pacific Northwest musician friends again.  Just have no inkling of when that might be.

Sending love and joy from my box canyon to my friends in the Pacific Northwest wetland.

Kat
13 March 2019

Reflections

It is a melancholic posture of the heart to know such diversity in climate, loving the extremes that draw and nourish. It is also an exciting awareness to live and appreciate these worlds so distinctly unique in their contrasts.

I am grateful to have experienced them fully.  And to delight in them deeply.  Those wild winter ocean gales and sideways rain. Already I anticipate the desert thunder and lightening that light up the llano as brightly for a second, as a 1,000 watt bulb.  And in awe, daily, in the vastness of the sky and its broad banks of cumulus clouds hanging eastward catching sunset washes, in pinks and blues.

To be alive is truly to witness, is it not?  What and how describes our uniqueness, as people.  And defines who we are through our reflections back into the world.  Not unlike that bank of clouds in the eastern sky, catching the colours of the fading sunlight.

 Kat

2 February 2019

This is Where I am Located

I am in northeastern New Mexico.  An hour east from Las Vegas, New Mexico.  An hour and a half south from Taos.  Two hours northeast from Santa Fe and three hours north of Albuquerque.  I am located in a box canyon outside of a hamlet called Ocate.  In a county of 1,944 square miles with a population of 5,200 people.  I have no sense of the number of mountain lion, bob cat, bear, badgers, racoon, porcupine, deer, and elk, let alone cattle or sheep.  But I do know that there still is wildlife, predators and prey, a mix out of balance, but lives that run freely and live off the land.

 The box canyon is called Los Hueros (the blonds, named after the Castilians).  It is about as remote as one can get in the United States, is my sense.  Rimmed by the Sangre de Cristo mountains and blessed with big sunrises washing the sandstone mesa, its sunsets tinge banks of white cumulous clouds in the east, sending god songs across its vastness. Blueness, true as Technicolor, lifts my eyes upwardly in awe of the colour-wash doming this canyon. 

When I returned for a short trip in October. I knew that I must return to live once again.   I am clearly a mountain woman seeking solitude, clear air, water, good soil, and a way-of-life that feeds my soul with nature’s bounty, pristine and intact.

I bought chickens as soon as I arrived, planted my subterranean greenhouse, which now provides my winter greens. 

It is here that I will write my books, feed my soul, and calm my inner fire.  It is a good place for humans to align in oneness with the universe.  Nature heals and can unite our disparate parts together into wholeness.  I have experienced that in the past and am relying upon it now. 

I awaken daily, with joy.  Fall asleep with gratitude, nightly.  A good prescription for this woman.   

This is where I am located.

Kat
25 January 2019

Ponderings on What Make a Community

In a whirlwind of time, my life has turned colour.  The shift of seasons from summer to fall caught me up in its kaleidoscope of inevitable change. And tripped me, tumbled me, as the winds tumble leaves and ocean waves loosen their rocks upon the shoreline, easing rough edges smooth or smoother.

Asked to ponder when and how does a gathering of people become a group, when and how does the group morph into a team or band, and when and at what point does it become a community, the answers slowly developed over a moon's cycle. To reveal the obvious through an achingly somatic experience that this cyclical process embodies a sacredness not only for myself, but for each and every person within the gathering who has become part of the group and in time, the community.

These questions, posed to me once I left my Seaside and Astoria communities and traveled northward this September to begin a new life, held me riveted day in, day out. Sensing that I could not rest until I understood the deeper meaning within this riddled set of ponderings, I came to realize that I was a part of the grand evolution bestowed upon those who come together into a group to share their passions, and ultimately morph into a community. And that I was mourning leaving behind community, connection, respect, nourishment and love for and from the people in my groups. I had no idea that leaving would would throw me into a depression.  Nor that my leaving would impact others.

To be the wayward wind, identifying with a disconnected alone sense no longer defined who I was. While I had not considered myself a group person, over time I found my writing group,  my music groups and other groups nourishing me, holding me connected, feeding my deepest passions.  Stories unexamined for too long, held in the subconscious, unexposed to the light of consciousness, can imprison us, keeping our pathologies alive rather than freeing us to live with an ease to explore maintaining continuity and connection to self and others.

 

Jill Liedloff in in her book “The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost,” writes about our need for continuity.  Comparing a stone age culture’s intact social structure and the impact upon the children, and ultimately the ease among the village, she shows us the suffering tribal members experience who leave their village to live elsewhere--their loss of connection, acceptance for whom they are, their place in the tribe and their importance as a tribal member. Ultimately, the impact upon their psyche.

True to her studies and postulating, leaving everyone and everything jolted me deeply.  There was little solace for my sadness.  The light that shone, went dim.  I withered along with the autumn leaves.  My voice grew still.  Briny tears fell in rivulets down to the Straits of Juan de Fuca, to the shoreline, commingled and became one with this tributary, taking sorrow out to the Mother herself. On down the coastal currents, into the waters across the estuaries making their way to the mouth of the Columbia, crossing the state line into Oregon, and to the shores of Astoria, and further down the coastline to Seaside and beyond.

It was through these tears and sadness that I understood the pondering riddle.  We morph from one shaggy individualistic bunch into a diversely connected passionate group and community when respect for one another, appreciation for our individual gifts and personalities, participation through our commitment to show up,  responsibility to share our creative process, and acceptance and honouring of others is maintained at the highest calibre.  The icing on the cake so-to-speak is the learning and teaching exchanged in the process.

The continuity of a group and ultimately a community is as dependable as the moon in her cycles, the tide in the oceans, the seasonal shifts from one year to the next—binding us together in a metaphorical sense of home and nourishment for the soul. Always evolving, shifting, as everything alive has a pulse, ultimately commingling into a richer gathering of people with each passing moment. As if nature’s commitment to show up, be present,  is guiding us in our own values, understanding that we, too, commit to the greater group and through that, thrive in our interconnectedness to self and others.

Kat 

12 October 2018

Ric's Poetry Mic

Hello fellow poets, inspired wordsmiths,

August nuzzles in closely to July’s foggy afternoons and evenings, well before summer has danced fully upon our ocean shores.

The relief from searing summer inland heat contrasts splendidly with sharp cool haze along the coastal band of salty brine-soaked air.  Plump ripening tomatoes, bulbous blood red beets with tops upright and glistening and bliss-sweet tasting carrots tell us that a season is maturing, waning, and that time passes in its perfect unfolding.  Sunflowers face towards the light unmistakably when the sun shines.  And when the fog holds it at bay, they stand still, waiting.

My bicycle’s chain and thinly plated metal parts rust beneath the grayed veil making what once was new and shiny, discoloured, textured with pits dislodging slivers of decaying metal.  Sheets dry slowly on the line in the misted foggy daytime-- the heavy cotton flannel that never made it to the cabinet to be replaced by smooth high thread count Egyptian cotton for those anticipated sweaty hot summer nights.

The seasons pass marked by wildlife birth and growth, garden plant's maturation and ultimate harvest.  Our need for sunshine and barefoot experiences on sandy beaches.  Everyone is changed in the presence of the seasons at the ocean. Her majesty winds into our pores, our nostrils, changing our physical composition. Our minds shift, our mitochondria register the messages she brings on a cellular level.  And those ripening scents of lavender blossom, honey-laden hives, maturing honeysuckle and browned tipped field grasses mix into her briny caldron casting spells upon us all.

To some, it registers joy. To others, sadness. And every possible variation between these extremes. The stories, brought to one another, determined by what we know, what we choose to see, feel and believe. The impact of a force great and encompassing as the ocean herself, promises transformation. This is the water's edge after all, and we precariously walk along her bounty with all her gifts before us.  Nestled in the continuum of the seasonal unfolding.

Kat
26 July 2018
Mercury retrograde

Ric's Poetry Mic

Hello fellow writers, inspired wordsmiths,

Tardiness is a curious word.  Brushing closely up against delinquency, which bears a heavy-handed connotation.  Both share a similar place at the table for the writer who dines on words from a wordsmith's perspective. Although the former, an adjective and the latter, a noun, they describe my behaviour of having missed my usual obligation of getting the timely call out to all of you regarding our upcoming writer's "Ric Poetry Mic."   I am trusting that regarding the delay, you will be able to attend even at this short notice, and accept that I have equally good reasons to have skipped a beat, as my heart is doing just that these past few months.  Falling in love can have profound impacts upon one's heart and responsibilities.  Sigh.  Smile.

The quality of writing, the camaraderie, the sheer magic of our gatherings with full-packed quarters at the enchanting setting Winecraft offers us perched on the old wooden pier outlooking the glory of the Columbia river add up to an experience, rich and satisfying.  While our gaze is fixed upon one another and the poet at the mic, I must admit, I peak a glance behind me now and again marvelling at the beauty of this provocative landscape.  Often the ocean-going barges overlap in a stream of backlit sunlight.  Creating an expansive image well beyond their normal massiveness.  Roll on Columbia.

I want to take this moment to thank fellow poet, Florence Sage, for making this venue possible. Not only is this location beautiful, but in my experience, it is in large part the reason the calibre of our presentations each month have risen exponentially.  There is beauty in poetry.  There is beauty that supports poetry.  The landscape around us can nourish the delivery and the substance of what is created.  Context matters, and the place we meet to share our stories and poems adds a supportive foundation to the words we creatively weave together.

With the forth of July soon upon us, we are about to begin summer with a blast again.  It is my pleasure to know that we will be gathering to read our writings to soften the world with our creative juices.  Let us again bring forward all we can muster in the delight knowing that words matter.

Come join us and share your creations at our 23rd "Ric's Poetry Mic".


Kat
26 June 2018

Physical Bliss

Sarah and Serre rode those peaks of physical bliss higher and longer and more divinely than most peaks dared to rise to receive such attainment. They tipped and topped and rode them into thin crisp clear high mountain air of that box canyon's mesa rims.  Their breath deep, shallow, short, long, full, soft and sweet.  Taking delivery of their souls' flights and journeys with  breathlessness  and awe of their spiritual journey. 

The peaks remained breathless.  The canyons deep and cool in the heat of passion.  Sweetness basked in their hearts as they held onto one another in the waning light.

 Kat
20 January 2015

today is spring

a master puppeteer and his marionette

he danced me about the stage 

            I, wooden bodied and jointed

gracefully matching his skill

            to dive me effortlessly to and fro

rhythmically upon the ethers in fine costume of old

            brocaded skirts full with golden trim and tightly waisted

I smiled permanently under the spell of the strings

            that moved me

and the spring scent held upon my lips

from dawn till dusk

            until he gave me rest

today I breathed in spring

briny ocean droplets

fresh cut grasses

            harkening ancestral toil with teams and ploughs from dawn till dusk

wild blossoms tenderly sweet

            young love’s lips on clear complected faces

this wafting tea, light complex, pleasuring my senses

            lifting the corners of my lips

Kat

25 April 2018

I was that, today I'm this and a bit more

I used to clean with abandon

today I love, abandonly

my house, a reflection of my knowledge

Jung’s dreams taught me that metaphor as Self

every blade of grass swept and neatly cut

now randomly sprouts seed balls in the llano

weeds once eradicated and composted today

nourish my body with their healing DNA

irritation at disorder thinned my lips, tightening my gaze

chaos abound, my mouth opens in laughter

            sealing my eyes near shut

I gathered objects of beauty reflecting form and impression

those that stole my heart hold it mightily

beauty has no expiration

loss revealed that abundance is in the heart and mind of the beholder

less is more and more is less and

beauty lies in the details

loss becoming beauty in the awakening

my mind churned to find solutions, even near perfection

today knowing I am my own limit to my own being now

            leads me free, to be

I follow my path

unafraid in love 

Kat

27 April 2018

Waxing

Daniel Lynch Waxing Moon 2018

 The wind has picked my chimes up, stirring music into the air.  The grey skies, now blackened, show no new moon or stars.  What gave me light last night, is not there now.  I find that I hold hope for those glimmers at tomorrow's eve.  They hearten me.  And I miss their brightness when they are away.  I became fixed upon their presence while in the land of enchantment.  And yet I readily moved on, to new adventures, new landscapes, knowing that I would yearn for them. And I do.

The dryness of the desert, chafing skin and ridged heels, endless skies replete with constellations— polar opposite to the Northwest’s monsoonal moisture and ever-present gray veil, whose bland wash defiantly declares an opacity that won't lift or shift. Until it does.  A permanent dye upon the land, sea and air finally giving way when we breathe our last breath of acceptance in a moment of surrender to its power.

Landscapes hold their yin and yang longer and today, appear to be establishing regional personalities rather than seasonal affairs ranging from sunshine to rain and in between, smoothly sustaining flora and fauna without stress. 

Droughts and floods, extremes concretizing polarization, bear harm on micro levels.  And that harm telescopes like a bump under linoleum.  Pushing upward, revealing discord in what otherwise could be mistaken for normal.

This shift in reality, the Mandela Effect, now topsy turvy, disrupt our knowing with early budding, late blooming, year round calving and molting.  It is good for the soul to look up.  Way up.  To notice those constellations.  The moon in her cycles.  That is real. Those glimpses through broken clouds lighten the heart.  And we remember. 

Kat

20 April 2018 

Ric's Poetry Mic

Hello fellow writers, inspired wordsmiths,

With snow, hail, sleet, wind and rain, we sally forth with words that tumble upon our pages.  Regardless the climate.  Often in spite of the weather, inside or outside.  Our own temperaments paving the way for metaphors that tickle our imagination.  The desire to share them with others whose appreciation match our own.

I took a brief detour from the Oregon coastal climate and basked in New Mexico blue skies where the sun arose daily over the Ponderosa pine tops casting a red glow onto the sandstone mesa. While not hot, it was reassuringly joyful to see the size, colour and brilliance of that sphere each day.  And to know with near certainty, that those skies would hold it again upon my awakening the next day.

As my skin began to turn from silky soft to sandpaper dry, lips chapping in the arid breeze, I could feel myself leaning evermore to the west.  Toward the ocean.  Listening for seagulls screaming over the Necanicum as they chased bald eagles up and down the tidal flats.  The absence of the ocean's roar filled the vastness with abject silence.  Sweet scent of high mountain pines, llano grasses, dried to tinder brown mixed together in a gentle wafting fragrance, stealing my heart once again.

The tear between the inland and the edge.  The yin, the yang.  The polar opposites of climates, communities, dearths and abundances.  I left New Mexico wondering how such extremes between the coastal Oregon and this inland place could both occupy my heart with such equal intensities and allow my sanity, intact.


cheers
Kat
3 April 2018

Ric's Poetry Mic 6 March 2018

Hello fellow writers

Do you ever get the sense that life has taken an abrupt change of direction?  That life as we have known it, is shifting?  That perhaps we spend more time in artificial-living with technology than in direct communication with others, in nature, with our own self?  Or certainly moving in that direction? That creating virtual realities is becoming the norm in people's lives and that reality is becoming obsolete?  Have you seen the movie,  "Obselidia?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGbbyjKUu2k

There is a ponderation walking along side me, in every moment along with every breath my body inhales and exhales.  A wondering how it is that my humanity can be usurped quietly,  imperceptibly.   Yet I do notice and my entire being bristles at the idea of my humanness being altered through falseness of news, facts, profiles,  electric and magnetic fields, artificial weather, artificial intelligence, poisoned air, water and  food.  That my mind is being altered by a reality that is someone else's.

The reliving of the well-known story,  "Emperor's New Clothes" is happening all around and no one truly saying anything.  Yet.

http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html

Thankfully we are the observers.  The writers.  The storytellers.  Poets.  Watching, listening.  Recording.  And through our own emotional wiring, noting that things that truly matter--those things that make us human, we are remembering, dreaming, and bringing into consciousness. Setting signposts--markers, that denote progress and transgressions of our humanness.   Not unlike the small child who exclaimed, ""But he hasn't got anything on."


Come join us and share your creations at our 19th  "Ric's Poetry Mic".


See you soon fellow writers.
Be well and inspired,

Cheers,
Kat

Ric's Poetry Mic 6 February 2018

Hello fellow writers

The high winds and persistent rains are lifting the darkness and opening us to the light.  Isn't it remarkable how nothing remains the same, yet familiar in each breath?  The wind is ripping against the outside of my home.  I feel a bit like the piglet in his straw house with the big bad wolf at his door.  Banging, insisting upon entering. Wanting more than just to say "hello."   Unlike the piglet, I am not in fear.  My house is built more strongly than his.

It is curious though, to hear doors rattling in rooms behind me.  We are in the midst of a mighty ocean gale and it is thrilling to say the least.

A  2:00 am tsunami alert passed me by, and all my friends as well.  In fact, I think I was dreaming then.  Counting sheep most certainly, or maybe pigs.  Head with face upward toward the sky taking in all that happened that day.  Shaping it into a conscious dream filled with gratitude and appreciation.  I always do this upon falling asleep.  I like to give my unconscious something savory to digest so that when I awaken in the morning all those sweet thoughts have refreshed centered and filled me.

Already one month has passed us by in this new year and I am not even ready to say that I am familiar with the newness of 2018.  Each year at this time I feel a bit more like Rip Van Winkle awakening from a deep sleep to  find the world around me less familiar with each passing day-- wondering whose dreams are truly creating my reality.  There appears to be no room for slacking.

I focus to create more intentional dreaming in those last awakened moments at night and with pen and paper during the daytime hours. That wolf most certainly appears to be at our doors.  And Rip Van Winkle awakens time and again.  Wondering.  Pondering what happened while he dosed for ever so short a time.


Come join us and share your creations at our 18th  "Ric's Poetry Mic".


See you soon fellow writers.
Be well and inspired,

Cheers,
Kat

the chanter

it begins with breath and

your hands upon its warmth

seeking the rise and fall

over the long smooth wasted form

each time reconnecting building

familiarity with heart and brain

those neural pathways defining newness—

union between heart and soul

breath in and out, a tantric rhythm

seducing with touch coaxing sweetly

melodic wales, haunting and taunting

spilling forth in sacred crescendo

you stand one cold fog-laden day

upon the ocean shore

her edges lap quietly at your feet

frothy and white, playfully so

and you, naked beneath the tartan

breathe into her—all rises

over ears catching the song

you rise beneath the heaviness of cloth

I wait for the day you tease and

coax the chanter to sing its songs

at the ocean edge where I will dance

in jubilation knowing you are free

and the notes coalesce in the misty brine

tears indistinguishable in the wetness

that envelope us all

in that moment we awaken

Kat

27 December 2017

Ric's Poetry Mic 2 January 2018

Hello fellow writers

In the spark of new expanding light, I nearly forgot to welcome everyone to our upcoming "Ric's Poetry Mic."    "Welcome!"

With the intention of celebrating in between the lines this holiday season, out cropped love and joy.  An expression of peace on earth, good will to men.  The outflowing of laughter, understanding, sharing, and hearts co-mingling while harmonic energies flowed abound.

Taking no extra resources to create this magic, the bells did ring on Christmas Day.  With skies clear and sun bright against the chill.  The ocean beaches shy of people and the Mother sang strong.  Her voice always there, her froth nipping at the edges of her incoming breath- spewing her foamy self.  Plump sea birds nimbly caught those wet edges toppling like ornaments on a Christmas tree in a light breeze.

Renewal present in every glimpse--blue, white, and all the shades between on Her waves forming walls of motion colliding in a festive square dance sallying forth and back.  The vastness, a Universe of will and surrender.  Of love, self-love.  Compassion.  The holiday came and went, and on its heels is a New Year.  To embrace mightily.  To sing it in with our heart's content.  This is it, fellow writers.  This is live time.  We are on air.

Wishing you a merry week and a Happy New Year celebration.


Come join us and share your creations at our 17th  "Ric's Poetry Mic".


Be well and inspired,


Kat

Ric's Poetry Open Mic 2 August 2016

Hi everyone,

With August nearly over, we are once again reminded of the passage of time--summer waxing into autumn, daylight dimming earlier, crinkled leaves and falling ripe apples amassing on parched grasses. We have thrived and survived another summertime.  And it has been heavenly.  Nothing short would be a loss for each and every one of us.  To celebrate this chaotic dance called life, we are holding our:

Third "Ric's Poetry Mic".  Please mark your calendars:
Date:   Tuesday, 2 August  2016


See you all soon.

Be well and inspired,
Kat

Ric's Poetry Open Mic 8 November 2016

Hello everyone,

The time period between our writer's readings from one month to the next has been feeling truncated with each passing month.  It is nearly November, and by the time we meet for the upcoming open mic, the "Day of the Dead--/Día de los Muertos/ " will be instilled within our global consciousness, the federal election will be at its fullest fury, and the winter solstice will be easing into our radars.

I have a sense that time is being commodified, hijacked, and it seems nearly impossible that so much living is passing before me since I last sat, listened, and read, at Winecraft just a short time ago.

At moments like this I like to recall my piano teacher's direction--"There is all the time in the world between two notes."  It calms my soul.  Deep belly-breathing does as well, and I have begun the practice, just to feel human at a time when our humanness seems under attack--under-valued, in the greatest of ways.

Yet, this past "Ric's Poetry Mic" offered some of the finest writings I have heard of late.  Thoughtful, rich, soulful pieces spun out of creative minds, truly representing how magic appears.  We are fortunate to have these writers who capture and share again, and again, and again.

Please join us for another evening of the magic created from the hearts, souls and minds of our fellow writers:

Our Fifth "Ric's Poetry Mic".

Please mark your calendars for the coming week:
Date: Tuesday, 8 Noveber, 2016

See you soon fellow writers.  Be well and inspired, and dry!!! :D

Cheers,
Kat