Losing you feels like my body ripping at the seams
(Losing you feels like birthing a new purpose)
Losing you feels like the cry of an abandoned babe
(Losing you feels like a new search is beginning)
Losing you feels like foundation crumbling in my fingers
(Losing you feels like rebuilding myself)
Losing you feels like all the pain of a lifetime bottled into a single jar
(Losing you feels like love is present everywhere now)
Losing you feels like a rage from the core of my being
(Losing you feels like making every action purposeful)
Losing you feels like breaking everything I once deemed as sacred
(Losing you feels like now I understand what it means to hold something as sacred)
Losing you feels like the sky will always be black
Like it will always be raining
(Losing you feels like a new duty has been cast upon me from the heavens
Like the feeling of rain on my skin)
Losing you feels like the burning
Like the old scars no longer matter to me at all
(Losing you feels like the fire is now warmer
Like there are new wounds scaring over)
Losing you feels like gasping under crashing waves
Like drowning
(Losing you feels like every breathe is important
Like the first gasp of air)
Losing you feels like a forever famine
(Losing you is like planting a single seed to feed a million)
Losing you feels like a life long battle
(Losing you feels like an initiation to become a warrior)
Losing you feels like the universe is void
(Losing you feels like you’re filling all the holes inside of me)
Losing you feels like a death of my own
Like I will never be the same
(Losing you feels like an opening
Like life has taken on new meaning)
Losing you (is gaining an angel)

day light will be new -
the way it will rise from the infinite night sky,
promising that i will see you.
that moon in a blue sky,
the reminder that what illuminates darkness
can never fade.
always, i will become full again.
the pain will wax and wane,
the tears will swell and pour out.
i will collect them in the deepest fallows of my heart
and my body will flood,
will shed,
will empty and become hollow.
from a void vast and powerful,
matter will slowly form again,
lie a single silver egg,
from it an entire universe of stars
and love will birth.
i will believe, still.
i will trust even when the pain torments each corner of my mind.
i will rise.
i will rise for your body that is weak and dis-eased.
i will form a new self,
one that will know daylight and darkness not as duality,
but forces of great mystery.
death, i will not fear you,
but honor you.
i will bow down and offer my prayers to your majesty.

The Hanbleceya.
The cry for a vision.
The Vision Quest.
The space between worlds.
In the presence of the Great Mystery.
I went down to the fire,
and she, the self I aim to be,
was not there.
I became her.
And maybe just for that moment on my blanket because I needed to be her.
She is on the eternal quest.
Forever in search,
forever seeking.
That magic I was hoping for did not emerge in the way I believed it would...
I let instead the Earth, and only her,
hear my screams.
Hear some deep agony within me,
maybe not even completely of my own.
Maybe the ancestral pains of the women who carried lives before me.
Red is the road to my heart,
is the color that bled out of me on the way up.
Dripping prayers down my legs,
each step became even more sacred.
Together, we sang our warrior song.
They are my amor, my comfort, my shelter, my warmth.
But on your blanket in your circle of prayers,
there is only you and the Creator.
You and the Great Mystery.
You and your fears, your pains, your demons.
You and your truths, your reasons, your prayers.
It is your choice whether to feed to thirst and hunger in your head,
or the hunger in your soul.
There is no greater pain than a soul not enacting its purpose,
its duty, its agreement with the Divine.
No greater pain.
And those screams that emerged from me,
from depths vast and deep,
was everything I ever let block me.
When we are broken open,
when we cry that deep soul cry,
we are breaking to let love and truth in,
we are watering our gardens.
So what magic am I believing was not present?
A vision may have not been shown to me,
but the courage of a single moment was.
To decide to not shut my eyes,
but to pray.
To offer compassions back to the Earth and take less for myself.
To not **** a single mosquito,
but rather walk off that blanket four days later marked with their persistence.
I watched their points enter my flesh
and saw their bodies fill with my blood.
Maybe they were extracting from me all that I no longer need.
And what itch is worse?
That of a red bump,
or that of the soul's need to incessantly scratch through its flesh suit to get to the core of its truth?
There were hours upon hours I let myself fall silent.
Listened to the sound of the woodpecker,
watched the spider crawl,
saw the turkey run.
They know how to be at home here.
And it is nothing grand that they do,
but they understand their purpose and place and they do not strive to feed and ego.
They do not "Ease God Out."
They are of God,
they are a God of their own.
So how do I remove myself from all the ******* of this world
if I do not place my being into the womb of Creation and sit?
The layers strip down,
the sun rises and sets and does so again.
I began to know before the sky would lighten that the morning was coming soon just by the sounds of the forrest.
The great trees barely swayed and the Earth was uprooting.
What am I doing here?
The days were long and hard and filled with a frustrating buzzing in my ears.
Buzzing like all the nonsensical thoughts we have on a daily basis.
If only our ears would buzz and ring every time we had a thought that backtracked us from our truths
and the inherent love that is within our beings.
If only we had the persistence of the mosquito that does not,
will not stop until it is filled with the one nectar it was meant to live on.
There were moments of bliss and moments I felt anxiety bubble up within.
Such a rare form of myself,
a piece of me I do not know too well.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin and be gone.
Be wind, be ether, be smoke.
Be gone.
And then they came,
bearing compassion.
Just a single sip of water.
Just a little.
They handed me that cup and I just cried.
Cried from the depths of my being.
"Do I even deserve this?"
And I let some moments pass,
held that cup in my hands and prayed in the form of tears.
That water,
that precious gift bearing life,
it touched my lips and made its way into my being.
And all become calm.
I am here for a purpose,
on this blanket, I mean.
I am here and meant to be no where but here.
And gently they spoke of the 6 pointed white star flowers surrounding me.
Not to me,
but a message for me.
A reminder of the beauty all around,
if I would only just look.
There I was,
sitting upon the hands of Creation.
If I had just stopped to listen,
stopped to breathe,
maybe I would have understood that on my own.
But that is why we tie that red prayer hung to our Ancestors.
He said,
"that prayer is your reminder to come back."
So for the next 360 days until I sit upon my blanket again,
the only prayer is to remember what I learned on that Mountain.
To remember what a blessing it is to drink a sip of water,
to be alone,
to look not into the eyes of another,
but only see the beauty of Creation.
I went out there wanting to be silent.
To just listen to what the world had to speak to me,
to shut out the voice in my head,
but there were moments that I could not hold back the words and prayers from my throat,
moments I needed to send my voice up or else I swore I would get up off that blanket and just walk away.
Moments I swore I would have filled the Earth with my screams again.
And when I spoke,
it was with such softness.
Maybe to not disrupt the frequency that Mountain has known long before Creator ever chose that spot for me to pray.
Maybe because when I spoke I barely recognized my own voice.
Because when you speak to Creation,
it is the truest version of yourself whose voice rises up from the very depths of your soul.
This is the voice that Creator knows.
And I just need to say I'm sorry that if for any moment I used my voice not pray
or to talk myself back into my heart and out of my head.
I'm sorry if I wasted a single moment on that Mountain.
The minutes seem so long when you're out there,
but now as I'm back home,
I'm wishing I could have just a few moments back on my blanket.
That I could have just one more opportunity to pray.
I would say to the Creator my name,
I would say please help me because I am struggling.
Please help me because  just want to make the best out of my life.
Please help me because I want to make sure I am on the right path to my purpose.
Please help me because I never want to know a life without you,
without prayer, without this Red Road.
Just one more time I want to speak those truths and let my tears become offerings of myself to the Earth.
But that is why we tie that prayer in Red.
Because I can go back.
I will go back and again be given the holy space to send my voice up and pray,
to cry,
to fall into silence,
to watch the sun set and rise again.
And I can stop now and breath.
I can stop and close my eyes and be on my blanket.
I can smell the freshness of Earth and the copal cloud of smoke.
I can pray and cry with myself on that blanket,
because there is a piece of me that will always be there.

Through the silk screen window
he sees her sitting under the morning sunshine.
He's not sure if she came from the stars or
if she will return into the water-
is she even real?
But what he really wants to know is why she's there...
There is nothing new about today to him,
to hands old and overworked.
Nothing new to him about the well worn path of branches fallen and sun dried leaves,
her footsteps are soft and will soon become a memory-
the skin on her soles tender from home.
He has seen the sun rise many days,
watched as the space in his backyard accumulated.
He resonates more with sunset now.
She is still trying to learn how to be that sunrise
and to shine like the glistening reflection of the light
on the warm gulf waters.
The smell of morning Earth is still new to her here,
an aroma he no longer notices flowing effortlessly through the backdoor.
The butterflies and wind carry the spirit of her Grandfather -
she has never felt him quite like this before.
With arms raised and eyes closed
she knows the only thing that feels right to do
in this moment is pray.
And now she knows,
she knows the waters and they know her,
she knows her angel is ever so close.
Yet he has absolutely no idea
that his photograph of her
sitting by the water
captures all of this.

My bones, my bones-
the keepers of my soul,
in tending to you
I am singing a song so old.
Older than Oak,
older than the stories carved in
the walls of caves,
older than the Grandfather stones.
I sing the song that formed the Universe,
that brought eternal warmth to the sunshine,
that shook the Earth with such power,
she created mountains.
This song lives in the river beneath the river,
in the first beat of a heart,
in the world of dreams not
yet dreamt.
This is the song of the Goddesses
and the Warriors.
This song is what the wolves hear
when they are howling at full moon.
This is the song that heals,
that mends the broken heart,
that makes the motionless and tired body dance,
that lets the soul avow its truth.
This is the song that creates undying love.
I heard this song first,
not when life was sweet like the nectar of flowers,
but when my bones were shattered
like a star dying in the cosmos;
when everything I had ever known
burned to dust in the palms of my hands.
I sang this song first
when I had no choice
but to begin piecing myself back together again.

I've reached the house that once was a speck
within thick layers of a forrest no longer visited.
Its red clay walls were cracked and crumbling,
ready to become a pile of dust and ash-
remnants of a place ignored and long forgotten.
The roof was caving,
tiles missing or rank with mildew,
and consumed by tiny holes that let flashes of sunlight break through.
The foundation of this red clay house
was weak and tired,
barely able to support the deteriorating red clay walls.
A cobblestone pathway,
walked upon daily many moons ago,
led me to the door.
Of all the decay and ruin that plagued the red clay house,
the door remained firm,
and the lock thick and strong.
It's been long since entered.
Such a strange little key hole,
such a foreign yet familiar place.
I circled, circled, circled
the red clay house,
searching for the key,
or any way in.
So barren the space around the red house,
just dirt and little pieces of fallen clay.
Not a place to hide the key,
not a crack big enough to enter.
I went to my knees, and prayed for an answer,
     I knew this was my home.
Tears fell from my eyes
as I pleaded for my life.
They hit the sweet Earth,
and I watched a miracle occur.
Where my prayers had fallen,
I found the answer.
A pool of wet red clay had formed of my tears and Earth.
I took the hands which have shaped my life,
and dug them deep inside.
I carried that red clay to my home,
and began repaving the cracks in the wall,
carefully examining the damages,
finding the causes,
and forgiving myself for all the years I spent without a single visit.
The cracks take long to repair,
consistent care,
touching directly the spaces that hurt.
From the foundation, to rooftop I work and work,
watch the house reshape day by day.
Still,
I must fall to my knees and pray for the answers,
let my tears fall to the Earth
and create medicine.
Everywhere I step now,
flowers sprout from the ground,
vibrant colors shining in the sun,
I water them daily,
the work is never done.
I am still reaching my hands in pools of red clay,
and paving the cracks that will always
find their way up from the depths.
I have unlocked the front door,
found the key under my tongue
the day I prayed to be let in.
Oh, how the light shined so bright inside,
not through tiny cracks in the roof,
or cracks in the walls of red clay,
but in my hands
when I stepped through that door.
The hands that paved the cracks,
the hands that reached up to the Sky
and asked for rain
on the days that my tears could not create enough clay
to fix the cracks that threatened to tear down
all the work I had done.
The hands that replant the seeds after a harsh winter,
and unlocked that front door.
The hands scarred and callused
that will never stop paving the cracks.
These cracks are no longer ominous,
no longer chooser of my homes destiny,
for when the home is found,
it can not be forgotten,
and when the door is opened,
it can not be locked again.

Dark of night ignites moonlight.
Ancient self awakened.
New eyes peer into the vast and open.
Nature is alive and dancing,
Yet my mind is silent and still.
Words have escaped me,
Only instinct remains.
Like breathing for the first time,
Forever I am changed.