Motheroot

by Marilou Awiakta

Creation often
needs two hearts
one to root
and one to flower
One to sustain
in times of drouth
and hold fast
against winds of pain
the fragile bloom
that in the glory
of its hour
affirms a heart
unsung, unseen



I've been thinking lately about getting a tattoo.  Don't get too excited because I expect I'll just be thinking about it for quite a while.  I would want a tree with roots.  Something sort of like this...

To me it is a beautiful symbol of the connection between self and creation... in a lot of different ways.  Anyway, this poem is in an amazing book I'm reading called Revolution from Within written by the one-and-only Gloria Steinem.  To me the poem goes with the tree thing enough that I spent part of my time on BART today doodling how words could be incorporated into the tree.


ps:  I love this:

bread of life

she just got news: she passed away.
it had been coming. (it always is.)
I didn’t know her, but I see she’s alive.
here.  in this house.
a reincarnation in this generation.
she kneads and kneads and needs the dough.
beaming with the smile, the joy, of life.
she’s coping, she says.

a body has passed but souls live on.
souls within bodies. and without.
souls who know no greater joy
than to nurture and nourish the bodies
still living.

“it’s ready”, she says,
and we gather together,
companions together,
to share in this bread.  
Pan de Vida.  Bread of Life.

“doesn’t it feed the soul?” she asks.
and it does.
feeding Life to these souls,
to these bodies,
and those passed.

with love and gratitude
for aly and her grandmother

and to dominique
for being there for the sharing

I will choose

preparing for twenty-twelve

There is a moment during the last couple days of each December when it dawns on me that a new year is about to begin, which means.... I need to find the perfect calendar book.  Choosing a calendar book feels like a pretty substantial commitment.  Somehow it has to be exactly the right size and shape, have enough space for me to write, have a binding that I consider to be functional and durable (read: no metal ring bindings!), and (most importantly) be representative of all of my hopes, dreams, and ambitions for the coming year.  Truthfully, I spend more time finding the perfect calendar book than I ever do thinking about New Year's resolutions (perhaps because I know the calendar book will actually last the entire year). 

In 2010 I had the perrrfectttt hardcover Georgia O'Keeffe calendar book that I loovveeeddd.  Somehow looking at page after page saturated with the chaos of life felt a lot less intimidating/nauseating/unbearable opposite something like this:

So, I would have continued on with Ms. O'Keeffe (despite a deep-rooted belief that the new year requires/deserves new art, new energy, new life), but in 2011 the powers-that-be only published an O'Keeffe calendar book with a metal ring binding which obviously cannot withstand 365 days in my life/purse without getting horribly misshapen and squished!

After several hours of shopping last year (in actual stores, not on my couch) I more or less gave up and ended up with this.  I was mildly satisfied with it, but it just didn't live up to everything I want my calendar book to be...

Which leads us to 2012..

After about ninety minutes of browsing the interweb I found the One!!  I feel very good about this.  In August I almost bought a print of this for our new house, but instead bought The First Supper by Jane Evershed, which I think looks stellar above our kitchen table.  

The painting's called Unity and it's by an Oakland artist named Monica Stewart.

Here it is:

May we all find a source of inspiration, hope, optimism, and joy for the coming year.

(Even if it's just a calendar book.)

hold me together

For all of us wandering around with a little baby Jesus inside!!!

(That's all of us...)

breath of heaven

hold me together

be forever near me

breath of heaven

breath of heaven

lighten my darkness

pour over me your holiness

for you are holy

feminist non-fiction

I just stumbled upon this list of 100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time on the Ms. blog.

It's worth sharing.  I'm not too concerned about the ranking of the books (although I agree with bell hooks as #1!), but I think it's a good, fairly comprehensive list of some of the most influential feminist writing of the past several decades.

It's a necessity for me to surround myself with people and ideas
that inspire, challenge, motivate, and comfort me.
Many of the books on this list are on my bookshelf for that reason.  Enjoy!

consider the lilies

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly God feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  And why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will she not much more clothe you-- you of little faith?  Therefore do not worry, saying 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?'  For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly God knows that you need all these things.  

But strive first for the kingdom of God and her righteousness 

and all these things will be given to you as well.  

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.  

Today's trouble is enough for today."

Matthew 6: 25-34

This is a reminder to myself.

And to you if you need it.