“Castalian Wells”
Nature has granted that we rest and sup here tonight
to gaze out over the Phaedriades,
the caverned ravines,
all opening to these blue-domed, pilgriming stars.
See how the lightbearers who came before
have carved two floors into this stone scarp:
an upper floor where we,
beholden of travailed existence—
come to be—
living, schooling, helpmating, nursing and parenting,
making worlds
between long and silent intervals.
But here we rest and stay the long night.
All of us, entering,
the sinned against and sinning --
taking our turns at watch—
hosts and guests among walled gardens,
root - tangled, churning with indivisible life.
Do you remember coming this way before?
Below us, a connecting stairway,
descending into a yard of bones.
Before we sleep,
let us go there,
into graphite darkness,
by the light of our searching eyes
into the lowlands of shadow.
let us bare our feet
to let kiss the rippling Earth.
All about this earthscape,
in quaked shivers of jagged stone, do you see?
the forms of men, women, and children—
lunging toward life...
...waiting to be born into the new world.
Our ancestors, immersed but rising,
from their cold vaults
- as if plunged to swim in sea,
looking up into the earth’s ceiling;
twisting in olympian crawl,
mouths open, gasping for air.
For all of its apparent grotesquerie,
the air is not corrupt here...
instead, a fragrant sweetness and suspended movement.
What awakens these souls
from their stony graves?
The question gives rise to a sound—
a low, long electrical hum.
It is the Mother’s whispered words
rising and falling,
in a shuttleloom of Earthsong.
all forgetfulness recedes…
enfolded in silverblue light.
Within the hum of dance and song,
the quickening souls resign their bones
and surge forth toward magnetic ascent;
like us, they flock to drink from Castalian wells.
standing or softly treading
on the shroud of what was left behind
and the drawn dawning of gracious water.
To become the eyes and ears
and skin of the earth
is to see, to listen, to touch
the beckoned, prayerful longing
— here lit as the whole of us,
the holiest of us, in us.
Turn toward me, Beloved.
and sing that circle song of Homecoming.
Rest in breath and give way
to the secrets limned in the blood of stars and moons.
to gaze out over the Phaedriades,
the caverned ravines,
all opening to these blue-domed, pilgriming stars.
See how the lightbearers who came before
have carved two floors into this stone scarp:
an upper floor where we,
beholden of travailed existence—
come to be—
living, schooling, helpmating, nursing and parenting,
making worlds
between long and silent intervals.
But here we rest and stay the long night.
All of us, entering,
the sinned against and sinning --
taking our turns at watch—
hosts and guests among walled gardens,
root - tangled, churning with indivisible life.
Do you remember coming this way before?
Below us, a connecting stairway,
descending into a yard of bones.
Before we sleep,
let us go there,
into graphite darkness,
by the light of our searching eyes
into the lowlands of shadow.
let us bare our feet
to let kiss the rippling Earth.
All about this earthscape,
in quaked shivers of jagged stone, do you see?
the forms of men, women, and children—
lunging toward life...
...waiting to be born into the new world.
Our ancestors, immersed but rising,
from their cold vaults
- as if plunged to swim in sea,
looking up into the earth’s ceiling;
twisting in olympian crawl,
mouths open, gasping for air.
For all of its apparent grotesquerie,
the air is not corrupt here...
instead, a fragrant sweetness and suspended movement.
What awakens these souls
from their stony graves?
The question gives rise to a sound—
a low, long electrical hum.
It is the Mother’s whispered words
rising and falling,
in a shuttleloom of Earthsong.
all forgetfulness recedes…
enfolded in silverblue light.
Within the hum of dance and song,
the quickening souls resign their bones
and surge forth toward magnetic ascent;
like us, they flock to drink from Castalian wells.
standing or softly treading
on the shroud of what was left behind
and the drawn dawning of gracious water.
To become the eyes and ears
and skin of the earth
is to see, to listen, to touch
the beckoned, prayerful longing
— here lit as the whole of us,
the holiest of us, in us.
Turn toward me, Beloved.
and sing that circle song of Homecoming.
Rest in breath and give way
to the secrets limned in the blood of stars and moons.
