Note to Self: Poetry for Changing the World from the Inside Out by: Jamie K. Reaser

to

Note Self

Also by Jamie K. Reaser for Hiraeth Press Huntley Meadows: A Naturalist’s Journal in Verse Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with Reptiles and Amphibians with Susan Chernak McElroy Courting the Wild: Love Affairs with the Land

to

Note Self

poems for changing the world from the inside out

Jamie K . Rea ser

Hiraeth Press Danvers, Massachusetts

Copyright Š 2011 Jamie K. Reaser

All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages.

Hiraeth Press books may be purchased for education, business or sale promotional use. For information, please write: Special Markets, Hiraeth Press PO Box 416, Danvers, MA 01923

First Edition 2011 Cover and text design by Jason Kirkey Cover photograph: Š Elena Ray

ISBN: 978-0-9799246-9-9

Published by Hiraeth Press Danvers, Massachusetts www.hiraethpress.com

For those of you who want to change the world for the better and have the courage to start from within.

Note to Self

Contents A Note from the Author From the Inside Out Introduction

viii xi xii

Severance Be Brave Callings Doe, A Deer House of Cards No Fear Purging Anger Remove the Shackles Stop Holding Your Breath Stop it Now The Crayfish The Hook The Meadows of the Dead The Price The Puppet Master Understanding When Dreams Dry Up

3 4 7 11 14 17 21 23 25 28 30 33 36 38 41 43

Re-Membrance Awaken the Dead Blue Feathers Courting the Viper Emergence Mada-Rua – Red Fox My Voice Pandora’s Box Quietude Receptivity See Kayaker Seeing The Ache The Door Way vi

47 49 52 55 58 59 61 65 66 69 72 75 77

Jamie K. Reaser

The Moment You Have Not Been Abandoned

79 80

Devotion Be-Loved Gaia Bird at the Birth of the Sun Bless the Children Departing Rome Parental Advice Pipe Dreams Singing to Monsters The Candle Snuffers The In-Between The Totem Pole What I Do Know

83 84 85 88 91 92 95 98 102 105 111

Celebration Are You Ready?

Becoming the Next Me Bloom Courageous Vulnerability Daffodil Note to Self Praise Solstice Moon The Beloved’s Breath The Hickeys on My Cheek The Rising Times The Time Will Come The Unveiling The Wind and the Young Heart Warrior

115 116 118 120 122 123 125 127 130 131 134 137 138 139

A Special Note of Gratitude Acknowledgments Dedications About the Author

142 144 145 146 vii

Note to Self

A Note from the Author If you have picked up this book, chances are that some part of you is deeply longing for more. Not more as has been defined by the constructs of “western civilization” – more possessions, more privileges, more power over others – but more in terms of a greater sense of authentic personal expression, of belonging, of being intimately connected to something far greater than self. If this is indeed the case, it is you these poems have been seeking.

The process of becoming fully human is a risky endeavor. It is a journey that requires Homo sapiens to cross long-held boundaries, descend repeatedly into darkness, face countless fears, and sever ties to everything that no longer serves the evolving Self. It is a journey of deaths. And, if one “dies” well enough, it is a journey of births – a process of emerging again and again on the other side of the trials and tribulations with a more open heart and mind, as well as a greater sense of inspiration, creative force, deeply rooted peace, compassion, and an unyielding desire to celebrate, to court, Life.

Our indigenous ancestors held initiation rites – trials of the ego and soul – in order to facilitate the transition from adolescence into an authentic adulthood. Elders provided guidance to the young people. Today most of us in “western civilization” lack true elders – people who have traveled far enough along their own human journey to have embodied the wisdom and skills necessary to guide others, individuals or communities. We have to find our “soul guides” in other ways.

My soul guides often emerge out of The Great Mystery as poems. Sometimes the poems show up during meditation, sometimes in dreams, often like lightening bolts that demand everything else be immediately put aside. Each poem in this collection has been a soul guide for me. Some of them, Callings for example, have been guiding me for nearly a decade, unveiling new insights over time as I grow in my capacity to receive them. This is not a collection of poetry to be met with the intellectual mind of reason and English viii

Jamie K. Reaser construct. It is a collection of poems to surrender to. If you are lucky, these poems will work their way beneath your skin and pry you loose from your old form of being.

Nature plays a fundamental role as conversationalist and mirror in many of the Note to Self poems. Not only does this reflect the depth of my personal connection to the natural world, but I believe it is imperative – that is to say that humans cannot become fully human absent a conscious relationship with Nature. It is my hope that as you embark upon your own journey, you will increasingly make a place for the other-than-human in your life.

The attentive journeyer will discover unique gifts, deeply hidden within, along the way. It is the process of offering one’s gifts – devoutly – in service of something greater than Self through which we can change the world from the inside out.

And so, these poems are an offering…

Jamie K. Reaser

ix

Jamie K. Reaser

From the Inside Out SEVERANCE Letting go of what no longer serves RE-MEMBRANCE Recalling and embodying the core truths DEVOTION Living in service of something greater than self CELEBRATION Rejoicing in The Great Mystery

xi

Note to Self

Introduction Sit down and cordially introduce yourself to the one you have been running away from your entire life.

That is how to begin.

xii

Severance

Severance

Be Brave Die to what you believe in.

Sob your final goodbyes onto the red clay, tear after tear.

Step up.

Put your one true Life on the line.

Wiggle your mud-caked toes above the precipice, and look down.

The dark abyss longs to free your essence from its small storied form.

Step off the edge.

Let yourself fall, heart first, into your fear of falling.

Your future will catch you.

I promise.

3

Note to Self

Callings Do you hear yourself being called to places that are far away, beckoned by landscapes intimately known and unimaginable?

Does it feel as if only strangers can speak your name?

You must leave home.

You must leave HOME! Escape the walls of your upbringing any way you can.

Caterpillars do it.

Travel far and wide, get lost, be robbed, over and over again, realize that the world is big, you are small.

Forget who you believed yourself to be , who you thought others thought you were.

4

Severance

Become someone who can’t answer simple questions like, “What do you do?”

Fail.

Totally and completely fail to reach your intended destination, though carrying a map and compass.

You are where you need to be the moment after you give up on all the landmarks.

Sit down and cry out all of your laments.

Cry out the laments all your ancestors feared to cry.

You are indeed walking in circles, downward, inward, along a path marked “Grief and Despair” that leads directly to Soul.

You have arrived.

5

Note to Self

Arrived at the place you began that it killed you to leave.

There is no entrance, nor exit.

Never was.

When people ask you to tell the story of your travels, your journey, of the road you have taken, do so by living your Life, Ecstatically.

Now you are human.

6

Severance

Doe, a Deer Doe, a deer, a female deer standing in ironic be-wild-er-ment amidst a still-screaming clear cut.

Have you seen the big yellow monster that destroyed her home?

Blades that have never known the ethics of a Ninja.

She now has PTSD and is too numb to grieve, to dash, to join the stumps in their collective shrieks of amputation.

My eyes catch a glimpse of a single flower that made it through – Podophyllum peltatum – Mayapple.

Eternal hope.

I’ll ask you again: “Have you seen the big yellow monster that destroyed her home?”

7

Note to Self

It dwells within you, you know.

The Destroyer – That part of you that takes more than you need.

That takes everything you need.

Look! She’s moving, shifting her head so that her big brown watery eyes meet your eyes.

She can See that you are human, but she just doesn’t get it.

And neither do you – And neither do I – despite the long practiced walk and talk.

How is it that even those of us who have awakened to the consequences of our actions still largely partake in hypocrisy?

It’s all about the fuel that goes into the Big Yellow Monster of You and Me:

8

Severance

Insecurity, Fear, Loneliness…

These things drive the harvest rates of that which is Beautiful – both within us and outside us.

So, it is time All, that we call for an alternative energy source: Compassion, Love, Unity…

We start not by monkey-wrenching The Destroyer, but by bringing The Destroyer into ecstatic relationship with The Creator.

I’ll say it again: “We start not by monkey-wrenching The Destroyer, but by bringing The Destroyer into ecstatic relationship with The Creator.”

Her udder is becoming painful as it swells, and there will be no relief.

9

Note to Self

The twins were dismembered and disembowled as they did what ancestral memory told them to do – place your lovely white spots in the glitter of leaf-sieved sunlight and be still.

Two Mothers will mourn and someone else will refer to these and other casualties simply as “negative externalities” of Progress.

Look within.

Go within.

Redefine Progress for yourSelf and for our species before you fuel your next outward step.

10

Severance

House of Cards Let go, It wasn’t meant to last – Nothing but true love is.

The instability that you’ve been witnessing is a sign – Gravity wants to help you out…

It’s time for The Descent and grounding.

Fall to your own knees if you must – Humus, humility, and human share the same origin.

Oh, please – Be the wind confident across your lips that says, “I will honorably destroy that which I created and bare witness to this loss with the fullness of my heart.”

11

Note to Self

Only the Creator has the Universal Blue Print – This you should Know.

Let your personal house of cards come tumbling down in majestic chaos.

Yes, Garner the courage to turn your tethered struggle into a holy offering – Candle light, glitter, and a nice glass of wine – Feed the Holy your untimely attachments and you’ll both be fully satiated.

I want to watch your heels fly high as you dance the mythos of security to death – like a passion-drunk dervish.

12

Severance

That’s right.

No more investing your energy in the fallacy of indefinite stabilization, snatch the most pivotal card and invite the child of you to toss it in uproarious play.

Be sure, absolutely sure, to revel in the multi-story crash – For a long while if you will…

Bring your tears and party hats.

Severance, my friend, is a passageway to Joy – This you should Know.

Let go.

Let go, It wasn’t meant to last – Nothing but true love is.

13

Note to Self

No Fear I don’t want to live in fear – To give credence to the voices of other people that have been circling me with warnings of loneliness, suffering, poverty, and annihilation since the moment of my conception.

In so many combinations of words and accents they all say: “Stay small.”

“Don’t take risks.”

“Never let yourSelf be seen.”

Like cages, Like ropes, Their beliefs about the world entrap and suffocate.

“Life is dangerous,” say the so-called living.

14

Severance

No more.

No more!

I want to roam and breathe.

I want to dance naked in a public square until everyone there has counted all of the moles on my body, twice.

I want to warble my True Name from a branch of the oldest tree on Earth, and then I want to ask it what it has to say about standing up straight and tall, about unabashedly offering its services to the multiple generations of frightened humans who have sat in the shade it has gifted.

Homo sapiens: The most self-terrified species.

15

Note to Self

Ah, What is this the bold wind offers?

It is the sound of leaves rustling in a far off land.

And in the way that the words of the wise always out-travel and out-live their speaker, I hear the Elder tree say, “Just keep reaching for the light.�

16

Severance

Purging Anger Witnessing Sin, the forgotten Sacred Truth of Self and Other.

Toxins in the water supply and coursing the blood of humanity embodied and spilled.

A turning back.

Failure to see, listen, touch.

Suffering as an addiction or currency.

Ego’s insatiable consumption.

Waste.

Insecurity of any kind.

The man, woman, child, who takes dictation and acts upon it.

The man, woman, 17

Note to Self

child, who dictates and sacrifices others at the altar of his or her own neediness.

War as a pathway to Peace or anywhere else.

Conditional humanitarianism.

Love withheld.

Color sightedness.

Mimicry.

Gas prices as a measure of the quality of Life.

Numbness.

TV: a companion.

Judgment.

The concepts of possession, disposability, and disobedience.

18

Severance

Friend-Stranger-Enemy.

Fear as the basis for decision-making in any context.

Hate crimes.

Heart crimes.

Criminality.

Caging.

Death and Life as penalties.

Unforgivable.

Shameful.

Impatience.

The lack of apology.

A lacking apology.

Apology for lacking.

Lack of acceptance.

No choice.

“No.” “Can’t” and “Won’t.”

“Should” and “Must” and their opposites.

19

Note to Self

“Please� as a grovel.

The wealth of poverty and the poverty of wealth.

Aloneness in a world of six billion and counting.

A perception that isolation and solitude are one, the same.

The domestication of Spirit.

The silenced voice of Soul.

My own hypocrisy.

Bless me with a heart big enough to love my way through.

20

Severance

Remove the Shackles It’s time to remove the shackles.

The angel at your left ear finally reports: “The bindings have reached their expiration date.�

Free your Self.

You are not the property of others, of culture, of dogma, of your limiting beliefs and fears.

Stop volunteering to wilt in the dungeon.

Let the gallows be nothing more than a guano-encrusted pigeon perch.

Give the heavy, cold chains that have weighed you down back to the wounded-child-Master link by link, like prayer beads intended for a long meditation on compassion.

21

Note to Self

Refrain from thrashing yourself with shame for where you have been.

Instead, release yourSelf to live, from this moment forward, in communion with empathy and joy.

Turn towards the tens of millions still bodily enslaved and so many more indentured in soul.

Become an abolitionist of what no longer serves.

I know, You now know how to set Humanity free.

22

Severance

Stop Holding Your Breath Stop holding your breath.

The one laying there next to you, back at your side, hogging all the covers, that one doesn’t have to offer what you are looking for, doesn’t even understand that you are looking, Seeking.

That one prefers to remain asleep, eyes closed.

Stop holding your breath.

That unmet longing that has you ceiling-staring has nothing to do being completed by another.

Nothing.

That unmet longing is the yet-to-be-had, never-to-be-ended conversation between your Soul and the Spirit that unites us all.

And, “Why yet unmet?” you ask.

Because you cannot truly engage in any dialogue while holding your breath!

23

Note to Self

Part your lips, open your mouth, and release your inflated cheeks and fears.

Breathe.

Inhale Life. Exhale Love.

Inhale Life. Exhale Love.

It’s time to do what you’ve known it’s time to do.

With utmost intent, it’s time to enter into The Sacred Marriage.

With utmost compassion, it’s time to love yourSelf enough…

Breathe.

24

Note to Self

Acknowledgments Deep gratitude to Jason Kirkey and L. M. Browning for serving as the heart and hands of Hiraeth Press. Your colleagueship and friendship are greatly appreciated. Thanks also to a gaggle of dear souls who have blessed the poems in this collection with their heartfelt presence and words of support: Nuzhat Ansari, Beth Anne Boardman, Joel Clark, Michael Clark, Sarah Dawson, Vara Dionne, Andrea Freeman, Richard Heilbrunn, Brandi Katherine Herrera, Dana Levy-Wendt, Cia Malia, Mirela Matecic, James McDowell, Mary Ocampo, Frank Owen, Todd Akira Morikawa, Peggy Peterson, Ky Woolf Scott, Uma Sivaprasad, Maggie Stultz, Jane Vieira, Alyce Walker, Stacy Stall Wills, and Bob Wyfells.

Jeanine Canty, Bill Plotkin, Larry Schweiger, Nina Simons, Andrew Soliz, and Christopher Uhl read advance copies of the book and kindly offered words of endorsement. I am so greatly honored by your contributions, and your presence in my life. Each one of you is a source of inspiration.

Doe, A Deer and Be-loved Gaia were first published in Written River: Journal of Eco-Poetics Vol. 1 No. 1, pages 10-11.

144

Jamie K. Reaser

Dedications Cia Malia The Ache Kari Ardolino Rutgers & Cheri Goldstein Bless the Children Dana Levy-Wendt House of Cards Frank Owen What I Do Know Courageous Vulnerability Joel Clark See Kayaker Ky Woolf Scott The Totem Pole Todd Akira Morikawa & Vara Dionne The Meadows of the Dead

145

Note to Self

About the Author Jamie K. Reaser has a passion for bringing people into their hearts, inspiring the heartbeat of community, and, ultimately, empowering people to live with a heart-felt dedication to Mother Earth. She received a BS in Field Biology from the College of William and Mary and her doctorate in Biology from Stanford University. She has worked around the world as a biologist, international policy negotiator, environmental educator, and wilderness rites-of-passage guide. She is also a practitioner and teacher of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), ecopsychology, nature-based spirituality, and various approaches to expanding human consciousness, as well as a poet, writer, artist, and farmer. Jamie makes her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Please visit her poetry blog at: www. talkingwaters-poetry.blogspot.com/. We invite you to follow the blog on the Talking Waters Facebook page.

146

We are passionate about creativity as a means of transforming consciousness, both individually and socially. We hope to participate in a revolution to return poetry to the public discourse and a place in the world which matters. Of the many important issues of our times we feel that our relationship to the environment is of the most fundamental concern. Our publications reflect the ideal that falling in love with the earth is nothing short of revolutionary and that through our relationship to nature we can birth a more enlightened vision of life for the future. We believe that art and poetry are the universal language of the human experience and are thus most capable of transforming our vision of self and world.

Visit us on the web at: www.hiraethpress.com info@hiraethpress.com P.O. Box 416 Danvers, MA 01923