Day Five: A month of poetry for Brighid

Scrying Pool

I speak the silence of my soul,
A language known to none but me.
I peer into the deepest hole
And see the darkness watching me.

And as I stare into the black
Twin stars out in the distance glow
Like eyes of fire staring back
From some strange mirror long ago.

My vision on the sky at night
I chart upon its astral map
The course of time in specks of light
And in the space that forms the gap.

I seek the secrets in your eyes;
The breadth of your extremity,
And with each one I realize:
All that I see in you is me.

Day Four: A month of poetry for Brighid

Visions of Otherworld
II

A slow-meandering breeze rolls past my face
To rustle in my ears a traveling tune.
It sings to me the thrill of letting go
And following where intuition leads

I ponder for a moment what it means
In slow and carefully examined thought.
Its argument exotic presses me
To ascertain how much its worth, or not.

So lost I ruminations stand I there
My legs grow root-like, buried in the ground.
No image moves me while I question it,
No progress made debating what is sound.

The wheat does wave me onward with the wind.
I protest “I do not know; is it safe?”
“You must make risks to learn, must fall to rise,
Or else become a tree, and then a stone.”

I have not time to contemplate the words
For only do they drum upon my ear
When emptying his cheeks upon my back
The Wind does blow me forward off my feet.

So stumbling I throw out my hands and feet
To try and catch myself a hold on ground,
But tumbling ‘spite my efforts I do greet
The earth and roll, world-whirling, from the mound.

My sight still spinning, swirling from the fall,
On stomach sprawled I raise my rumpled gaze
Upon a stately, cloven, blackened hoof
Whose slender sinews stretch toward the sky.

As quickly as appearing it is gone,
Vanished amid the golden stalks of wheat.
Blind instinct urges me to follow on
And swiftly gains firm ground beneath my feet.

I cut through clinking oceans of tall gold,
The shafts of growing metal scratch my cheeks.
A pair of twisted antlers I behold
And try if I can see which way it seeks.

In fixed pursuit my hot feet pound the earth
Till ground gives way beneath my sprinting frame
And into earth I plummet past my waist
And find myself in grubbing rabbit’s hame.

The figure looks at me with knowing eyes,
Full human in their shape and countenance,
No aid they offer, nor no obstacle;
They wink and vanish in the waving wheat.

Already twice I’ve fallen in this land,
And from all paths my chase diverted me.
Now I must lift me up with my two hands,
And find my way through shining lands of sidhe.

Day Three: A month of poetry for Brighid

Visions of Otherworld

I

I tread the rough path ‘twixt two hillocks green.

The air is thick with mist which hangs in sheets

Obscuring vision of the road ahead.

The moisture saturates my every breath

And coats the grass and skin and cloth with dew.

My road leads to twin monoliths of stone

That flank the threshold of another land

Through which my path if e’er I follow leads.

Each menhir a rough pillar of grey rock

Bearing runic symbols of safe passage

Deep notched in channels on each carraig’s face.

Blind to beyond, but trusting in my road

That never once has yet misled my feet

I overstep the boundary of the rocks,

Whose man or elf-marked runes invite me hence,

And pass beyond the portal ‘tween the hills

Into what land as yet remains unseen.

Now is the fog from o’er my eyes removed

And with true vision look I on the land

That stretcheth out before my thoughtful feet.

Below the hillside whereupon I scan,

Behold! A field of gleaming grains of gold;

A flaxen swath of gilded wheat and rye!

Farther thence a sapphire rivulet

Cuts its trickle through that shining land.

Beyond, a forest most majestical

Rises in green pines and hazel trees,

Whose branches overreach the quiet stream,

And trunks the height of which do scratch the sky.

What lessons here be taught I do not know,

But I will walk this world of shining lights,

Of precious metal grains and gemstone leaves,

Of colors strong and trees of soaring heights,

And glean what secrets it presenteth me,

What truths unfathomable it will show.

Day Two: A month of poetry for Brighid

Seeking Imbas

Against the cold I lay in bed awake

A mantle of darkness hanging over me

In emulation of old Eire’s filidh

Sequestered in a stone sarcophagus

Where waiting for a fire in the head

They’d sit and soak in water to the nose.

A boy steps in, his cheeks still round with youth.

His heart of passion holds his fire there,

Interred in two-fold dwelling of the dead.

A wrinkled man steps out, his trials carved

Into the features of his face and hands.

Inside and out transformed, still full of flame.

The fire in his eyes bespeaks the new song of his soul;

A song that will define him as a man,

And more than just a man; a man of art.

His own, no other’s, gifted from the gods—

A flame that burns in water, spreading forth

To fill up all his being, every vein,

Dwelling in body, mind, and his spirit;

That head which is the chamber of the soul.

His lines will fade and make him new again,

To be a man with his whole life laid out,

To do with and to make of what he can

Until his wrinkles find him once again

And mark him as a man who has known life.

It is this transformation that I seek,

But lacking a sarcophagus of stone

Or any means to soak until such time

As difficulty, hunger, and the strain

Bring on such visions and stir up such fire

That poetry streams from my fevered brain

And I return from past that land of death;

Until such time as I can do such deeds

I do my best to follow in their wake;

In dark of night, enclosed in my own space,

In semblance of sarcophagi I lay

As sleep draws near, I fill with images

And ride my inspiration into dreams.

Day One: A month of poetry for Brighid

The First Offering

I’ve writ iambic meters and rough prose,

Used metaphors, alliteration, rhyme,

Made swaths of formless dialogue and speech

And now I seek to pin one word to another

But words cramp up and muddle, sluggishly.

They clump like sludge and flow not readily,

Or else come out in stutters, tripping on the threshold of my mind.

Time and again I put my pen to page.

Time and again I wrestle with my mind.

Each thing I write reminds me of another,

Or clouds me with a haze of recollection

So that each phrase rings hollow—overdone,

But I have pledged myself to honor you

Each day this month with words that are my own,

And so I offer such words as I have

To please you in what measure that I can.

A Month of Poetry for Brighid

I have not been nearly as consistent in actively honoring Brighid as I should be. I have decided that I need something firm and, perhaps a bit drastic to change this, and to reconnect with Her.

I have decided to commit the Month of January to writing poetry. For one month, I will write a poem every single day, leading up to Imbolc on February 1st. I will post them here, and welcome any comments. Be on the lookout, starting January 1st.

Blue Fire (in the head)

After realizing how much my life needs work, I have come to one conclusion: I need to become a Faery. Or rather, Feri.

I've come across Feri in the past, and been drawn, but the time wasn't right, I suppose. I had tried a few exercises working with energy, but hadn't really given all that much time to the inner work that was so much what Feri IS.

Having gotten fed up with my own indecisiveness, with my lack of energy, of drive, of passion, my inertia and stagnation, I have decided to commit to working with Feri.

For now, I am focusing on the Iron Pentacle, the goal of which being to empower and to accept crucial parts of the personality that often get repressed.

Here's hoping for results!