Category: Healing

Pain, The Poet
Audio · Digital Art · Ekphrastic Poetry · Healing · Original Digital Art · Poem · Poetry · Reiki · Tai Chi · Uncategorized

Pain, The Poet

extraordinarysunshineweaver21 Comments

Pain, the Poet

Those who forgive,

Can they be poets,

For where is the poetry but

In released pain?

Pain, the fire breathing mist

Rising to rain.

Pain, the reddening blood

filling the veins,

The river of the soul.

Pain, the rooting to the sacral tree,

Birthing stories and songs,

Creating new souls out of barren wombs.

Pain, the cries from scattered tribes

Reaching for limbs and branches,

Anything to hold onto until dawn’s light.

Pain, the songs of ancestral curses

Clinging to the cells like webs

To be cleared in spring.

Pain, the dead rooting of loss

Blocking the secret chamber of the heart,

Where peace resides.

Pain, the tenant evading eviction,

Holding truth hostage

From inner sight

And auric brilliance.

Pain, the dirges and the hymns,

The shadows, dislodged and

Transmuted but not forgotten

In the poetry of forgiveness

And the forgiveness of poetry.

 

©2017/11/07 Barbara Harris Leonhard @extraordinarysunshineweaver.wordpress.com

Image: Digital art “Out of Darkness, Light” ©Martha Harris See Martha’s Artistic Flarings @artisticflarings.blog

 

 

 

No Escape
Audio · Digital Art · Ekphrastic Poetry · Healing · Original Digital Art · Poem · Poetry

No Escape

extraordinarysunshineweaver2 Comments

This is an older poem but a more descriptive image of and by my sister Martha suffering her Multiple Sclerosis pain. Many suffer from this horrible disease, and I pray a cure can be found.

No Escape

It slithers in as

Snakes mating pain,

Pain entwined,

Breeding this labyrinth of

No escape.

No way out of this writhing mass,

This mass, secreting away Light.

This pain, eating the Light,

Our stars of many colors,

Forced as lanterns for

The rising heads of the serpents, or

Our souls, are they in formation

To defeat the onslaught?

Pain, this confused muddle

In the line of the Fire of the stars,

Blazing through the delirium,

The Light in the void,

The Fire in the pit,

Consuming the venom.

For pain,

No escape.

Copyright © 2017/10/10 Barbara Harris Leonhard @extraordinarysunshineweaver.wordpress.com

Image: “Living in ‘It’” ©Martha Harris (my sister) See Martha’s Artistic Flarings @artisticflarings.blog

 

 

 

Entwined Spirit: Me, Myself, and I
Bagua · Ekphrastic Poetry · Healing · Original Digital Art · Poem · Poetry · Reiki · Tai Chi

Entwined Spirit: Me, Myself, and I

extraordinarysunshineweaver16 Comments

Entwined Spirit: Me, Myself, and I

 

Let me introduce myself

This poem is about me

Inspired by my sister’s art that

She created from a photo of me.

She calls it “Entwined Spirit”

 

I am an entwined spirit

A composite of hues

Swirled to create a

Kaleidoscope of soul

A patchwork of many

Places and adventures

As we moved many times

I am a composite of Midwestern roots and accents

Giving sustenance to my many roles

As daughter, sister, friend, wife,

Teacher, friend, colleague, healer, poet, writer

 

I grayed young

The silver threads have bound

The quilt of my life

And kept people’s gaze

Off my hips and thighs

And kept the attention

Of my many international students

Who valued my wisdom

Though I was just a young woman

Who knew the English Language

I am retired now and feel

I lovingly earned every gray hair

 

I have many scars

As many women do

And we often compare our rites of passage

From maiden

To sage and goddess

One is carved down my abdomen

Another on my throat

Two cancer scares

That came with a surprise appendectomy

Pending a septic explosion

Needless to say,

This all led me on the path of the wounded healer

 

Another scar is down my right side

The entryway for a new hip

The idea of losing my flesh and bone

Terrified me, but

Like many my age

I am now bionic

And the energy of my missing organs

Is still there for healing

For healing is a journey

And my scars create the journal

Of my womanhood unfolding

Into and out of chaos

Forming my “charism”

My grace

 

I have many faces

Aside from my social roles

Childless, I have mothered

My siblings and students so

“Mother” is my main archetype

As is my role as “Priestess”

For poetry is prayer

I am a “Sacred Companion” to the dying

I am a “Light Worker/ Healer” and have taught many

On this path

I started by healing myself of measles encephalitis

When I was 7

But that’s another poem on my blog

I really think I survived a

Near-death experience at that time

Because my entire view of life changed

And I wondered why

I couldn’t read minds after that

 

I have my shadows

I give to the expense of loss

For it is better to give than to receive

So I often feel like a candle

With no more wax

I sometimes feel abandoned and

Invisible, so entwined am in my soul

That I am a prisoner to myself

Introspective and more a listener

Than the life of a party

Depression made me ill and gave me

Those scars from surgeries

As illness finds a home

In a tortured soul

 

I constantly seek to transmute grief

To the light but

I have been unable to cry out loud

Since my mother died, so

The wells of tears are thirsty

Only my heart is wrenched open

When I feel suffering

And I feel my blood flood my chest

 

Despite all this

I am quite happy

Actually

I love my husband, home and cats

I love my sacred places and treasures

I love my rituals that begin and end my day

I love playing Tai Chi Chuan and Baguazhang

I love my Reiki clients and students

I love writing poetry and recording it

But wish I could publish more

I just haven’t tried much

And fear success and pressure

And I have been a bit lazy

Since my retirement

 

So looking back on my life

Has been a joyous experience

After all

I am not used to revealing my

Entwined soul to an audience

Although it is hidden well

In my other poems

I prefer to keep it a mystery that way

But now that I have spilled my guts

We are closer

Which is good in this life

Who am I really?

As the Mayans said, “In La’kech” (“ein lah kesh”)

“I am another yourself”

 

©Barbara Harris Leonhard @extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog

Image “Entwined Spirit” ©Martha Harris  See Martha’s Artistic Flarings @artisticflarings.blog

Healing
Healing · Micropoetry · Prose · Quotes · Reiki

Healing

extraordinarysunshineweaver2 Comments

The Light is coming in to heal the curse of Ego. As we stand aside, we feel the mighty force of Cosmic Light. It feels like we are losing our minds or that our faces are being shorn off.

This is a painful, visceral upheaval. We feel turned inside out and upside down. We are so dizzy we can’t stand up alone. The battling vibrations of Ego and Light are rocking our souls. We scream and cry out. We hurl our food and creep under the covers, hiding from the shadows.

Out of fear, we just want to die to stop this agony as all is being revealed, the pus of our gross illnesses is emerging. We suffer dysfunctions socially, politically, and environmentally. We have screamed out our prayers for comfort and healing.

The Earth, as well, rages with floods, volcanic eruptions, fires, Category 5 storms. But Mother knows the Light is here. We see it in the firefighters, the rescuers, the soldiers.

The healing is evident. Out of fire comes new growth. Out of eruptions come new lands. Out of storms comes renewal. Floods carry away the past.

The Light is here. It’s in our voices and our intentions. It’s in our manifestations. We wanted this healing, and we are getting it. We prayed for salvation and victory, and so it is. We think this pain is against us, but it is for us. It is answering our prayers.

This is Cosmic truth. Laws prevail. The universe is orderly, and equilibrium must be sustained. God maintains the balance of all life in all dimensions. The pendulum never swings in one direction.

A healing always feels worse before health is restored to wholeness. The wounds cry out until scabbed over. We’ve spilled our blood and sacrificed our limbs. How can we ever become whole again? It would be so easy to curse our condition! Damn this life! Why us!

In our victim stare, we hide in addictions. We bully. We put ourselves ahead of others. We lie. We seek revenge. In so doing, we become what we hate. Anything to mask the agony. We are so powerless in this state.

Little do we know, this is cosmic healing. It is God Force healing involving a huge upheaval of forces involving universal truth. Love will prevail. It always does, especially if we all participate as we are the shamanic link between Heaven and Earth. We are the healers bringing in the light.

Have faith. We are a strong force battling Ego so as to heal. Whenever  we stand together and speak up, rest assured that Ego never wins, Ego never wins, Ego never wins.

Love prevails. Nothing can block out the Light. Have faith. Stand aside. Let in the Light to answer your prayers. Become one with the Light. Be the prayer! Make it so!

 

©Barbara Harris Leonhard @extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog

 

 

Audio and Thoughts: Do Unto
Audio · Essays · Healing · Original Digital Art · Prose · Quotes

Audio and Thoughts: Do Unto

extraordinarysunshineweaver6 Comments

Last night I published a poem on this blog called Do Unto. I have completed the audio. It was challenging to express the hate and fear depicted in the poem out loud. More and more we see posts on social media of people going off on others, especially those perceived to be immigrants, and other people of color. Trying to capture this reviling tone while speaking the poem was difficult.

It seems like civility these days is dissolving into a swamp of fear and hatred. We are here on Earth with the privilege to love and through our love to cocreate wellness and peace. We aren’t meant to bully and to demean each other.

As Caroline Myss states, “Our biography becomes our biology.” That is, negativity of any kind contributes to illness in the individuals who are spewing hate and to social contagion as groups rise up to scapegoat and to repress others. The way to heal fear is through nurturing compassion and empathy.

Masuru Emoto showed in his experiments with water molecules that if hateful words are directed toward the molecules, they become distorted and malformed. However, molecules that receive positive vibrations through words of love, form into beautiful crystals.

This short video demonstrates how sensitive water is to our thoughts and words. We are made up mostly of water, so if we exhibit or experience racism, imagine how that interaction affects our spiritual and physical bodies. Notice in this short video how ugly, distorted, and ill the water molecule becomes with the words “Adolph Hitler”. Yes, our biography becomes our biology if you consider the effects of hate on our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being. The result is often illness.

 

 

Moreover, fearful thinking can become habitual, making it difficult to let go and allow others’ needs to come first. People cling to dogma, which is habitual thinking, to justify their fear-based actions. I think every holy book has the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”  But it seems that value has been lost to many lately, and sadly, the holy books are sometimes used as weapons to perpetuate fear and dependency. I think many writers on WordPress are addressing the social, economic, and political issues that seem to be making our society sick. I can see it in the poetry, essays, and art. It’s important for us to continue to speak up about love, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and other positive values, as these concepts are powerful medicine.

Most importantly, we each need to nurture and love ourselves, for if our cup of love has run dry, how can we possibly be there for others? Self-regard is a positive attribute if it doesn’t become narcissistic or self-serving and manipulative, using fear to control others. Therefore, the ego must stay in check as we grow into our powers.

All change begins in oneself.  Love in one resonates to all just as hate in one resonates to all. We each have a choice as to how we want our heart to sing and our souls and bodies to heal.

Love and Light!

 

©Barbara Harris Leonhard @extraordinarysunshineweaver.blog

Digital Art “Dancing Daze” ©Martha Harris