Somewhere in the midwest, I began to understand the nature of poetry. I was on a bus from my home state of California to Albany, New York, to live with a friend of mine from college. I was just beginning to feel emotionally unwell due to events that had led me to take the trip. But I had kept with me from those experiences - on this long trip that was just the beginning of the descent to the goddess - one book: an anthology of poetry of the ages. I remember, now, vaguely, a Dylan Thomas poem about a fisherman and a mermaid, and an Ezra Pound poem that I quite liked. But it was in the nature of my state of mind - self-destructing, lost, and depressed - that opened up my spirit to the essence of poetry. My barriers were beginning to break down, and thus my ability to relate to poetry was increasing. I was vulnerable, and somehow the written word began to touch my emotions. Years later, I would find the heart of myself even more in writing poetry to the goddess.
But things didn’t go well at all in Albany. My mind, falling prey to chemistry and stress, was unwinding further. After moving to New York, I suffered from severe depression and a mild psychosis after a slow buildup that had begun in my childhood and continued in my teen years through my twenties. After six months of living with my friend and her partner, they got frustrated with my inability to hold a job, and I had to move into a women’s shelter. After some months, I was able to get an apartment with the help of public assistance. I lived a double life, though. When I was finally on my own, my mind broke down almost completely. During the day, I survived by being outside with people. But at night, I was overcome with sorrow, stress, and depression. I tried to kill myself in numerous and creative ways, but never succeeded. My spirit overcame me at the last, and somehow I was able to keep going day to day. I think that the writing of poetry before that time had begun to strengthen my inner-self, and this kept me alive despite the darkness within me.
The summer before, I had explored Albany and had found a place down the railroad tracks a little way out of town where there was a stream and some trees. My mind was aching. I was screaming in part of my mind to be free. But there, next to the stream, something was loosened. I began to feel the nature of spirit, much in the same way I had begun to feel the nature of poetry before. It had had to be tested to be revealed, and taken near death to find it. Not necessarily the death of the body, but of all the structure of the mind.
At this little place outside of town, I had begun to write the poetry that ultimately saved my life. I tried to absorb the pure beauty I felt there, where there were no reminders of the struggle to survive, only peace. I forced myself to relate to something else besides self-destruction, to relate my troubles to something else since I had no one to talk to. I began to bring a notebook and to write poetry as an attempt to connect with something that might relieve me of so much pain.
The poems from that time were quite dark and moody, despairing and full of dismaying images. But among the dark images was a hopeful aspect as well; a clarity of mind where I saw all of life flowing in all of its good and bad manifestations. It was like water flowing in a stream: clear, yet full, and with natural debris that it cleansed away. For me it was like it carried away each moment of despair I felt, leaving behind a new possibility that fought with the despair of the next moment. Somehow that made everything all right. There was hope somewhere out there with a glimmer of possibility. This “possibility” was what carried me through the darkest moments, at that time and later, accessed by writing poetry. Later I would call it the discovery of spirit.
After having lived through my time in Albany (despite my suicidal efforts), I lived in a park and four more shelters in California. The spirit that I had found barely kept me together during those times. I eventually found out about disability, lived in shelters until I received it, moved to various places, and finally settled in a bad neighborhood in Vallejo, California that I could afford.
I had written some more poetry at a previous place, but had stopped writing because of returning to college. I had finished up my community college work in the shelters, and not long after I had settled in my new place in Vallejo, I started a Bachelor’s Completion program at a small liberal and activist college in San Francisco. I was at home there. I studied with people who had also experienced some amount of hardship, but wanted to carry on with life’s inquiry in an academic setting. I found that my hard work in survival influenced the way I valued and completed my scholarly work. And as my final project, I gathered all of the poems that I had kept from the hard years, edited them, and presented them in manuscript form. The work over the years had come to fruition and made it all worthwhile.
But I wondered what to do next. The years had worn on me; I felt old, very old. I felt hard, tough, weak, and used up. The only accomplishments were the poetry, the degree, and most great of all, the sense of spirit. And I was still not ready to work; during college, I had had to take a lot more mental health medication to deal with the stress. I found, though, that I was not quite ready to finish expanding my mind. I searched among the programs at New College and found out about the Women’s Spirituality Master’s Degree program. For some reason it called to me; later I would find it was poetry and spirit again that had pulled me there.
The program was centered on goddess and feminist perspectives. It was the first time I had been exposed to the goddess, and my first reaction was that it was very different from my experiences with spirit! But, being that the entire program was run and attended by women, it touched a deep part of my inner self that needed a tremendous amount of healing. In feeling old and used - some of that left over from a few bad relationships - I found that I had lost my sense of being a woman. You might ask, what is that sense? It was wrapped up with the idea of being important to the world as a woman; and being useful as a woman; and finding one’s true gifts in being a woman; and the sense of fully being in my woman’s body. I came to realize that I had given up all that I was for the sake of trying to be more like my mother and father. In a rather neutral sense, I had forgotten I was a person of my own identity, including that sense of being a grown woman. But here, in this program, I was beginning to identify all of these things I needed in order to reclaim all that I was and could and might be.
I mentioned early in this article that I was on a “descent to the goddess” as I rode the bus from California to New York. It was a very important component in all that we studied in this Women’s Spirituality program and in all that happened. In order to discover her humanity and conversely her goddess powers, Inanna (the ancient Sumerian premier goddess) had to descend to the netherworld, the underworld, where the dead were, to experience her own death in order to realize fully the nature and gifts of life. Her guide in this time, who actually killed her, was Ereshkigal, her sister. Innana was later to be saved by a faithful handmaiden. Perhaps, in a way, due to the sisterhood of the program, we women students and professors all were Inanna’s and Ereshkigal’s and faithful handmaidens to each other. The program took us into the darkness, a place of discovery, then released us to the light and life with new tools and gifts for the community as well as ourselves, helping each other along the way. And my poetry was an expression of this experience through the vehicle of the goddess.
Judith Grahn was the Director of the Women’s Spirituality program. She suggested that I work on poetry in the program as my thesis project. I soon began to identify with the idea of the goddess, without and within, and embarked on a seventy-poem project of poems to, for, and about the goddess. I had fallen in love with the idea of the goddess and of womanhood. It was the most whole kind of love I had ever experienced, encompassing the best of myself and of the world, of my spirit and of the imminent divine. It was a love of the truest kind. It sounds odd, I know. But for someone for whom family, friends, and seemingly the world had abandoned a happy, healthy love for life was a very good and healing event - no matter how oddly (to the rest of the world) it came about. I was beginning to find the clear water of flowing spirit. I had always searched for it, but now I was looking within myself instead of without in a manifestation. I accessed it once again through poetry, which had always sustained me through all the hardships, but now was beginning to become a celebration of my new freedom in leaving the worn out, hardened, sad shell of myself behind.
The poetry manuscript I worked on is now entitled “Emergence.” In light of my journey, I thinkg this is an apt title for the growing sense of womanhood I felt during that time. It manifested itself in a direct dialogue through poetry with the goddess.
Emergence
Dance this dance with me.
Come nearer to the fire
I have built of old things.
For you, goddess, are the air
that fuels my breath,
the breath that leads me
from the ecstatic to the banal.
Fresh from the womb I have showered,
and have slipped into the nakedness of my spirit.
From your dancing body I step into the flame of your heart.
Your eyes shower warm sparks
that tell me of my creation into a wondrous woman of your word.
I am naked and vulnerable,
and I know you will tell me your fire burns.
The journey to wholeness is painful, like a fire transforming an object into something else, but made of the same stuff. I was indeed being reborn, both as a woman and a writer, like a flower in the field finally blooming.
The Making of the Rose
O Goddess,
love me as the rose bush
loves the trellis.
Entangle and entwine me
in your embrace
so that petal by petal
I know the making
and the fragrance
of your flower.
Those thorns that should draw blood
will only know of the sweet intimate kiss
of flesh not punctured by flesh.
There is no need to call me closer,
for I fall readily into your waiting vines.
Love me as I have never been loved, for
I don't have to be afraid of dreaming in your arms;
your kiss tells me I am wanted.
Goddess, rose, tell me of life as a goddess' woman.
I was now truly a whole woman. But I was not sure what the future had in store for me for relaying my gifts to the world. For most of the hard years, I had wanted to become a psychologist to give back to the community and to people like myself. It was indeed the psychiatrist I first had who pointed me to (or back to) college, and encouraged my exploration of spirit. I knew, however, that channeling the emotional energy of others in helpful ways as a psychologist would drain me utterly, leaving only a shell again.
And so, after graduating from the Women’s Spirituality program, I continued healing for nearly three years, putting aside the idea of becoming a psychologist. Last year, I gave up on the idea completely. I also did not write any new poetry, recovering from the strain of the goddess poetry project (whenever I worked on poetry, it became a huge obsession emotionally). But I now have come full circle and have decided to return to my old college for the Master’s of Fine Arts in Poetics. Though psychology has called to me, my own gifts are beginning to override that calling. It is high time I accept the path that has been created for me. It has taken many years of healing to be able to distance myself from the emotional strain of writing for the relief of inner pain, though that began healing when writing poetry to the goddess. Now everything seems to be in proportion, and writing has become a pure pleasure rather than a necessity. The goddess was a muse and she opened the door for me to myself and my gifts through a healing dialogue.
I believe I have ascended now into the light after the long descent with the help of the goddess. The journey and the poetry over the years have opened my mind, heart, and spirit to the love of the whole woman that I am. The goddess has spoken to me, with me, and for me, and I owe her the best of myself in a continued spiritual dialogue that will lead me on to learn even more. My poetry may not be about her anymore, as I have different dialogues with life to explore through poetry now, but she will forever remain that quiet and strong voice within me that urges me to love life with full and true passion.
The Weaver
You have woven me
into a fine basket
so I can contain all of woman's sacredness
until I spill over and
share your love with grace.
Let me hold your love
as a lover holds a lover
as a mother holds a child
as a tree holds its fruit
as the bee holds its pollen
for I am your vessel
to fill with maturing heart
at your whim.
Submission Guidelines
print
send to a friend
