Thank you, Silver Birch Press!
Instituto Terra by Barbara Leonhard “Nature is the earth and it is other beings and if we don’t have some kind of spiritual return to our planet, I …
Instituto Terra by Barbara Leonhard (HOW TO HEAL THE EARTH Series)
I’ve been nominated for Author of the Month at Spillwords! I guess writing poetry while hiding away for almost two years has paid off. May I have your support? To vote, simply click on the link. To vote, you have to register or log in. Voting ends on October 29, 2021.
Thank you all for your support! You’re the best!
Featured Image: pixels.com
My gratitude to the editors of Anti-Heroin Chic for publishing a poem of mine in this month’s issue.
http://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-barbara-harris-leonhard
This is an older poem explaining the origin of the name of my blog. I found this name with one of those fun apps that came across my Facebook page. Though the method to discover this name was mundane, the name speaks volumes. Source is all. I decided to keep the name for my journaling.
Weaver is Source, who connects all things.
Strings and threads are cloth woven for wear.
Sunshine is Source, who reaches out rays
Like fingers to heat and heal,
To create Spring, spiritual connection,
To nurture Gaia,
To create rain as food,
To dream life,
To forge love
And evolve Source.
Extraordinary is this mystery.
All extends from Source as fingers of light
To nourish and thrive,
And as night falls awake so do all
Return to Source.
©2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard@extraordinarysunshineweaver.com
Image: Pixabay.com
The Garden of Thoughts
The garden of thoughts planted in spring
Still struggles if not managed.
Seeds bearing the fruit of life in shade and sun,
Nurturing bees and monarchs, can become
Tangled with weeds and eaten by blight.
Thoughts sustained by dew and noon rains
Can be forgotten and neglected by autumn light as
Thoughts blooming and stretching for sun
Can shrivel, scorched by drought in time
If the gardener takes leave
Of the rake, spade, and bucket, or
Lacks the wisdom of soils and seedlings.
Too much sun is unkind to bleeding heart.
If left in the field, pumpkins rot.
Honeysuckle makes a home in the untended mind.
Hostas thrive if transplanted but
Shred to decay if neglected.
Bees can’t thrive on blight.
Though seasons change,
The garden can still be tended by the earth and
Made ready for the next planting
If tilled and nurtured properly.
The gardener’s harvest can be of bounty and bliss
Or mindless bramble
In his garden of thoughts.
Copyright© September 7, 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard
Image: Pixabay
The Mirror of Fear
What is fear?
Fear is not an itsy bitsy spider or a snake.
It is in this mirror, so look inside.
See yourself as thoughts.
Thoughts can have claws
That grasp your eyes,
Forcing you to see
Only shadows and suspicions as Truth.
Fears can lay claim to you –
If you are in wakeful slumber –
And discolor the Light
Streaming from your eyes,
Blinding you to
What is Law,
What is Truth
What is Blessed
Unless you awaken to the knowing that
Fearful thoughts may birth a Monster,
Growing eight legs,
Crawling into your Self,
And making webs
That bind your heart to
Trap vermin, for at the very least,
Fear will make a feast of you.
Fear mouths caustic and corrosive words
Spiraling into smoke upwards from fire,
Becoming tentacles of lightning
Splitting your House in half and
Consuming your Buddha Soul.
But Fear will claim you had set this blaze, not she,
For she is the Great Manipulator.
Fear is Ego, the Beast,
Fed by her friends who are
Complicit in heinous actions and betrayals of you
Regardless of color, station, or creed.
Though in words the Beast is the Richest,
The Biggest, the Best, the Most High.
Ego is deaf to all but to her own voice.
She clamors with empty notes of grandiosity,
Unblessed streams of cacophonous disharmony
Wailed in false-etto.
She mesmerizes you into chanting her name, for
Ego loves her own soul and possibly
Those dressed in her image, for
Who else could she trust?
And if you see Ego’s crimes,
She is but the victim
Of your malpractice, right?
She projects her doings onto you.
You are unholy, not her.
Get It? You’re the loser.
You are the problem.
You are the disaster.
You are to be scorned.
You are to be defiled.
You are to be ridiculed
For exposing this Great Wonder.
Ego is kin of the Wicked Witch,
Who banished Snow White
For being the Fairest in the Land.
Ego loves those she can trample or smear,
For you are but a minion in her eyes
And worthy of her ridicule and shame.
As long as she is able to diminish you,
No one will be The One, but Ego.
Through the bravado,
Ego consumes all creation.
What can be forged by this Fear Beast
But a cold sweat?
There is no art in Fear,
Only incoherence in forms
And rambling tales,
As told by the choking tweets
Of dying birds.
Ego lies and deceives,
Making a wedding of
Nightmares and presentiments,
Muddling order and
Tangling lives into a bramble of thorns,
Suffocating souls, and
Drowning them under mushrooming thoughts
Of toxic orange horror
Unleashed by the despotic Sisters of Fear, for
They love your screams and pleas for salvation!
As long as you are in disharmony,
These ghouls have your soul.
So take heed.
Wake up to knowing.
Fear is Ego; Ego is Fear.
The antithesis of Love.
Ego bears her creed and
Her shield of ghouls masked as
Bowing Saints ready to do her bidding or
As the Winged Monkeys in Dorothy’s nightmare,
Flying forth from the tower to apprehend
The Tin Man, Scare Crow, and Cowardly Lion,
So you have worse to fear
In this your shiny mirror
Than tiny spiders and snakes.
Copyright© August 17, 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard
Image: http://fantazia.centerblog.net/rub-gifs-animes-miroirs-.html
Oh What a Beautiful Day!
Oh what a beautiful day
To lie awake by
The Sea of Sorrows with
Each cold wave
Hitting the shore
Laced with drifting
Wood of time as
Gulls dine on Light with
The Keeper of Words.
The skiff awaits.
Copyright© August 16, 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard
Image: Pixabay
PLEASE
EASE
ALL
CONFLICT
EVERYDAY
“Peace be with you.”
“And also you.”
❤️Pass this along and add to it! Sign your name. ❤️
ExtraordinarySunshineWeaver
Coons
To share with a coon
can cause others to curse you
and nature to smile
Copyright © August 11, 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard
Image: facebook.com and http://wealleatpizza.tumblr.com/post/74385980103/raccoons-eat-pizza-raccoons-are-noted-for-their
The abode on the lake
Has housed many souls
From my lineage and anew
And survived many fates.
Dad, Earle of the manor,
An only child, his own best friend,
Took to adventures on the sandy beach of Lake Michigan,
His playground for swimming and skating.
Nature can be a foe and muster legends, as
The winter snow almost ate him when
He stumbled into a hole and was buried up to the neck, no siblings for his rescue.
And another boy wearing Dad’s skates fell through the ice.
Our pilgrimages there to see the sages,
Our faces burned by whiskers
After Granddad arrived home from the bank.
He built the house; it was also a Harris.
Our tummies filled with cherry pie
At the little round kid table by the nook.
Grandma Hattie’s apron and her
Kind, dark, deep-set eyes.
Our games and play for hours
On the sandy beach with the sun bearing down
To make blisters so big that
Bandages became our body armor.
Still, Sweet Grandma would hug so hard
The blisters would break open,
Soothed only by time and more cherry pie.
Lessons unlearned as we raced back to the shore.
Years passed with generations gone.
We moved there with Mom, for Dad went away to school.
How she survived is a testament to her resolve
As the Handmaid, the Mother, and the Queen.
This was our adventure, owning the castle.
Seven kids loving mischief,
Feeding Mom’s jewelry down the heating vent, and
Spreading around a bag of flour before the guests arrived.
Once the house almost died
As lightning struck it while Mom was away,
Having trusted the house and nature
To guard the seven treasures.
The house was hungry in the winter
Fed by coal delivered to the creepy bin in the basement.
How the house shook like a mighty beast when fed,
Satiated and ready for slumber.
Once I found Mom by the furnace.
How she looked wed to the fire.
Her eyes were blazing as she stoked the coals
And turned to glare at me. Of course, I ran.
The Lake had receded, so that year,
We only had waves of grass as our shore.
But the garage still had Granddad’s tools as toys,
And we could still smell him there.
This house was Dad’s soul and anchor,
Our refuge on vacations,
Our residence in a life transition.
I still hang my curtains the same way now,
Though I really can’t linger there
As was shown in a dream.
I saw myself as a young girl on the shore,
Dad and his parents inside at the nook.
Follow us, they said, leading me to the water’s edge
Though I feared the water and dared not venture too deep,
I followed and we became as frogs
Twisting with the current and swimming on the lake bottom.
Out we came to new ground
And I was made to walk on hot coals.
How I blazed on this path,
Glistening into my new fine diamond body
Until reborn into the Now.
For the past is but a house of memories
That cannot survive present winds or future travail.
And now the house that once held our souls has new occupants.
Copyright © August 11, 2017 Barbara Harris Leonhard
Image: Our House of Souls, which we had on Lake Michigan in Escanaba, Michigan
Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver 