Spring Rites

(turning the seasons)

Notes from the Top

It’s Spring in the Southern Hemisphere and you can feel it. There is a warmth to the air and an aliveness that wasn’t quite there a few weeks ago. What can one say?

While writing this piece, I thought for a while about the perplexity of the english language: rights, rites, and writes are all pronounced the same way which is the same as whey. And, of course, right is both directional, correctional and attributional: “Go right!” “That’s right” and “It’s my right.”

English is complicated.

Here are a couple of poems written in English kept to a fun and playful style: the rhythms of life, change begins with art and

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the rhythms of life

the rhythms of life 
are sleeping and resting
farting and burping
regular digesting!
and finding people 
who are totally interesting...

not accounting or taxes 
nor waxes or faxes,
eighty hour weeks!
exaggerated quarterly returns
and trillion dollar freaks! 

it's tasteless you know
to seek definition
by what one earns
while the world burns
when will these silly 
people learn?

for the rhythms of life
dancing, moving
walking, laughing 
joking, jesting
generally zesting
and the occasional
boundary testing

finding deep wonder 
love and happiness
pushing the limits 
within and without
delightful tantrums as 
you jump-scream and shout! 

---

Notes about “the rhythms of life”…

I think the poem says it all, don’t you?!

Unbridled joy is truly an imposition on the unhappy: Yet, life is always challenging us to come back into rhythm with it, so that we can find our aliveness.

Let’s continue.

---

for the wild children

i am a child of the water 
unfettered and barefoot
swimming in the sea
salted, wild and free

i am a child of the earth
marvelous root, stem and fruit
of mushrooms and toadstools 
grounded and happy

i am a child of the wind
rustling, swiftly, the hawk
carrying the breeze
dancing in the trees

i am a child of fire
filled with sacred desire
all consuming, wild and warm
moving in my own gyre

i am a child of grace 
carrying divinity
a coalescence of stardust
fine grains of moon rust
an expression of all elements
shaped in poetry
forged in clay
creating elemental magic
day by day

---

Notes about “for the wild children”

Love and children are the best things that we do collectively. It’s easy to forget that our children aren’t ours; they come through us just as our lives aren’t “ours” they’re temporary gifts of experience, for co-creation. At least I sometimes think so!

This last poem I wrote a few months ago, art is metabolic. Making art allows us to digest the parts of ourselves that are needing to be refined, refired, and rebirthed.

It’s how we turn pain into beauty. Time to build a new world from the flotsam and jetsam…

---

change begins with art

change begins with art
artists play their part
it’s not a question of:
how and where to start? 
it’s about the symphony
that you’ll play
before you depart
what will it be? 
wild and free!
constrained and confined?
bitterly unhappy?
for change begins with art
artists play their part
so in your quest for self-definition 
sacred trauma release 
freedom from contrition
pursuits of sweet happiness 
on a road to perdition
do us all a favour?
give your inner artist a kickstart! 

Catch y’all next month.