Today’s poem is based on a daily meditation I have been doing with my rosary. I think of each decade as representing one of the elements–Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Spirit–and I map those elements onto the pentacle points of my body: left hand is Earth, left foot is Air, and so on. During the past few weeks, I have been visualizing flowers at those points, as I visualize myself opening to what the day will bring to me.
Meditation by Beth Weaver-Kreider
My left hand holds a stone bowl of rich dark loam and a green shoot that breaks from a seed, emerges, grows, blossoms, fruits, drops seed, and dies only to emerge again, a surging and an ebbing.
A witch hazel tree grows from my left foot, strings of yellow blossom teased by breezes, fruits rattling in the the wind, dragon mouths snapping open
My right foot is on fire with a flamboyant in bloom, the tree’s red petals blazing and alive with bees, the hum of bees like waves of crackling flame flowering into a raging bonfire of blossom.
A blue lotus floats in the pond of my right palm, its single stem anchored deep within me, enchanting blue nymph, serene in her bowl
A field of purple cosmos bursts from my brow, opening my third eye, the home of spirit, petals opening to the sun, gathering the light.
Gratitude List: 1. Flowers 2. Meditations 3. Bouncing back 4. The fierce delight of Middle Schoolers playing gaga ball 5. Doing Crossword puzzles with my seniors May we walk in Beauty!
Oh, goodness. I am exhausted tonight. Here’s a placeholder poem. One of my rules is that the poems don’t have to be polished. I go into the month knowing, especially in November, that I will have some evenings when I struggle to function, and can only publish a little bit of fluff.
How the Day Closes In by Beth Weaver-Kreider
my brain is fogged in caught in the mists not even the foghorn not even the lighthouse not even the grim shadows can guide me tonight my ship is enharbored for the foreseeable future
Gratitude List: 1. Cats who want to be next to me 2. Thanksgiving Break is coming up 3. A brisk after-dinner walk 4. Salmon patties 5. The satisfaction of a good stretch May we walk in Beauty!
Yes, I know I wrote a “Spell to Tumble the Tower of Patriarchy” just a couple days ago. So?
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Heal the girl inside you. Remake the stories, and reel them back and back into time, where the girl, enthralled by Beauty, (not in thrall to power) enters the mouth of the earth, where she chooses her pathway, following the red flower of her own truth, her own permission, her own purpose into the heart of her own realm.
Give her agency. Give her choice. Honor her and listen to her voice. Look into the shadows through her curious eyes. Feel her power rise within you.
This time, when the gods come ravaging, rise with her in the door to the cavern, summon the tribe of fierce mothers of fearsome and raging cave bears, morning sun glinting on your ravening teeth.
Be the raven who guards the boundary between, become the hunter of the predators, take vengeance into your jaws.
Look for the terror to rise in their eyes. Growl. Give chase. Howl. An older magic than theirs lives here. A wilder wisdom feeds this older story.
They may not pass into your secret places. They may not enter your guarded door. Their reign of terror will shatter, shards scattering, raining down upon them.
Gratitude List: 1. Laughter 2. How my succulents are growing even in the dark season 3. The sun through clouds 4. Colored pencils 5. A little full-spectrum light to tide me through the season May we walk in Beauty!
Such a wind. Such a wild, wild wind. Corn husks spiraling down out of the sky, leaves rising in my rearview mirror like something out of a German luxury car ad, that move-along shove from behind as you walk from the house to your car.
A devil-may-care wind, a witches-are-passing wind, a scouring, powerful rowdy wind, the kind that could blow down the towers of injustice, pull kings from their thrones, and lay waste the structures built of lies. No house of cards can stand in the face of that wind.
Gratitude List: 1. The softness of milkweed fluff 2. The view from my parents’ new apartment 3. Rest 4. Smoothie for supper 5. Reminders to seek joy May we walk in Beauty!
Hiking the Chestnut Grove Trails by Beth Weaver-Kreider
It is both disconcerting and charming, the soft grassy pathways disarming the sense of disquiet, the riot of goldenrod, foxtail, and milkweed, native plants seeded along the human-formed hillsides
the wide expanse of grasses, ponds, brambles, and shrubs with scrubby trees and a diverse plantation of oaks. The smoke from farm and industry jar the view, but here too you can see the River, and an eagle gliding,
riding the thermals along the opposite ridge, can see almost as far as the bridge, and down to the dam, more emblems of how humans have transformed the landscape, bearing witness to hundreds of years
of human interference, how it all settles uneasily into these spaces of wildness and cultivation.
Gratitude List: 1. Good brisk walking on the hobbitiest of trails 2. The Susquehanna River 3. So many varieties of oak! 4. Time with a friend who understands my language 5. Cheese on toast May we walk in Beauty!
My friend Mara has challenged her online community to write a sonnet on the 14th day of the month. I will definitely try my hand at something more traditional some month, but today I was feeling experimental, and I read an interesting abecedarian today, so I thought: Half of 26 letters in the alphabet is 13, and if I emphasize the last two letters by giving them their own lines, then I’ll have the 14 lines necessary for a sonnet. Read across? Read down? Read on a downward zigzag? You choose the pathway.
Gratitude List: 1. Weekend–my energy for the work week was definitely flagging 2. A good long walk (on the treadmill, because darkness and cold) 3. One of my colleagues complimented my sweater today by saying I was rocking the 80s vibe, and I feel Seen. 4. Water–nothing like a cold drink of water when you’re tired 5. Experimentation and wordplay May we walk in Beauty!
He’s sure working hard to suppress the evidence of his presumed innocence.
What possible reason could there be, if he is guilt-free, to keep it hidden?
He’s bidden his stooges to silence, riding his sycophants for their loyalty,
expecting to be treated like royalty, trusting his privilege to keep him free
from the consequences of accountability. But the truth is circling ever closer
and he knows although he won’t admit that every century is lit up with the fires
of dictators and strongmen, tyrants and would-be kings spiralling down
to their inevitable ends, their deeds laid bare in the glare of a new-risen sun.
Gratitude List: 1. Re-establishing helpful practices, like making gratitude lists 2. The crescent moon in the sycamore tree 3. Soup 4. Tea 5. Big warm sweaters May we walk in Beauty!
Spell to Tumble the Tower of Patriarchy by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Say: We take back our agency Say: The daughters will be avenged Say: The predators have become prey Say: We predate the predators and we will rise again Say: We stand with the ancestors, the women who died on your fires the women who drowned in your waters the women you thought you had buried deep in the mouth of the Earth the same Earth who loves us the Earth who holds the dead dearly the women you set swinging in air
Say: Our mouths are filling with fire and we will burn it down Say: The water within us is rising and we will flood and we will flood and we will flood Say: We are a tremor, we are an earthquake, and we will shake down the tower of power and domination
Say: We will blow and blow and blow We are hurricane We are tornado We are the wind that they call “The Witches are Passing”
Say: The rosy fingers of Dawn rise above the new horizon Say: The ancient Goddess is returning Say: The new story is beginning
Gratitude List: 1. russet ocher burnt sienna yellow gold orange chestnut walnut 2. How sunlight in autumn opens a door to another world 3. When the poem just comes 4. ReGenAll’s Climate Summit today, knowing that people are doing the good work 5. Finding time to write May we walk in Beauty!
In the past decade, I have often thought of Uncle Mordecai’s advice to his niece Queen Esther. I paraphrase: “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
And here, thousands of years later, are we, in the generations following the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. Here are we, who have been raised on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and his vision of the smallest and most vulnerable-seeming ones taking up the hardest task simply because it was laid on their shoulders. Our books and movies have been filled with people (often teenagers) taking stands against tyranny, fascism, Imperialism, oppression, and cruelty.
We’ve been primed and educated for the coming days.
Here are some of the things I am telling myself: 1. Limit your news intake to a few trusted sources. 2. Unplug as much as possible, especially from the dire and angsty and shrill. 3. Post and share images and stories–actual and fictional–of people resisting Empire. 4. Watch the inauguration or don’t watch the inauguration–do what your heart needs and don’t apologize to anyone for the choice you feel is right for you to make. 5. Differentiate between thoughtful satire and unkind snark. 6. At least, don’t punch down. Punch up. And keep it classy. 7. Express your feelings. 8. Listen to others expressing their feelings. Don’t minimize or explain them away. 9. Commiserate without contributing to negativity and panic. 10. Keep reaching out to your friends. Keep checking in on your friends. 11. Build larger and larger circles of community so no single person has to have the burden of holding you together when you fall apart. 12. In a time of destruction, create things. 13. In a time of cruelty, be inexplicably kind. 14. In a time of rampant lies, speak truth from your heart, and honor integrity. 15. Who do you admire? Emulate them. 16. Breathe, and breathe, and breathe. Stretch and breathe. 17. Use your power and privilege to shield and protect those with less. 18. Stand in the gap. 19. What are you willing to put on the line for others? 20. Do not let your voice be silenced. 21. Do not give money a voice. 22. stay grounded. Every day, meditate or pray or make a magic spell that goodness and peace will prevail.
Gratitude List: 1. Such a beautiful snowstorm (hmmm-I accidentally write snowstory, and I want to make that an official word, please) 2. So many circles of dedicated souls ready to stand up and speak out 3. Tea 4. I have finally found a tool that is helping me with task initiation and task completion. I am feeling so satisfied, and much more full of energy 5. Great horned owls calling through the darkness last night. May we walk in Beauty!
“Things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” —Pema Chödrön
“How will we ever reconcile with those from whom we feel so estranged? How will we forgive the wrongs we believe have been done? How will we be able to trust one another again? Those are the kinds of profound questions that many of us need to have answers to…but the hurts are so new, the pain so fresh, we are not sure when or how we will ever come to a point of healing. To be honest, I do not have answers to any of these questions, not right now, but that does not trouble me. Why? Because I know, over time, the Spirit will bring us to the answers we need. She will show us paths to healing we never imagined. I am confident she will slowly guide us to wholeness in a manner that is most just and most empowering for us. Therefore, I do not feel anxious about how I will forgive or rushed into relationships I am not ready to embrace. I may not be able to trust others yet, but I do trust the Spirit, and that is enough for now. I will follow where she leads and when she leads, knowing that what I cannot comprehend now, I will understand later.” —Steven Charleston, 2021
“The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage. (They also have a sound—a fact the linguistic positivists take no interest in . A sentence or paragraph is like a chord or harmonic sequence in music: its meaning may be more clearly understood by the attentive ear, even though it is read in silence, than by the attentive intellect.)” —Ursula LeGuin
“Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear Makes you move.” —by Rumi (Barks)
“I think pleasure is really the gateway to feeling connected and inspired.” —Dreamwork with Toko-pa
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ―Mary Oliver
“Now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just. Now is the time to speak up and to wear as a badge of honor the opprobrium of bigots.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Our lives are a partnership with Spirit. We can choose to be active in this partnership or passive. We can opt out at any time, but we can also increase our involvement. We can grow, change and learn. We can do more good than we ever imagined possible. The key is in the relationship we have with our partner.” —Steven Charleston, 2025
“A common woman is as common as a common loaf of bread, and will rise.” —Judy Grahn
“The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.” —Laurence Gonzalez
“I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing that like being for the first time see, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells un-flamed and disappeared. I was still ringing.” —Annie Dillard
“When you walk a path you love, there is something deeper calling you forward on it, like a beautiful question that can never be answered.” —Toko-pa Turner
“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” ―Lisa Kleypas, A Wallflower Christmas
“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism” —Martin Luther King Jr.
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles. Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“We are all silent witnesses to the drama of our own lives. We see behind the curtains. We know the origin of our story, the characters who fill its pages, and the main events that have carried us over perilous seas to where we find ourselves today. Only a small fraction of this saga ever gets told, even around the firelight of family, but we keep it in our hearts the way books were once written by hand. The story lives within us and finds its completion through us. We carry it forward in sacred procession, not knowing when our own role will end, but bound by faith to take our part for as long as love allows.” —Steven Charleston
“How will we ever reconcile with those from whom we feel so estranged? How will we forgive the wrongs we believe have been done? How will we be able to trust one another again? Those are the kinds of profound questions that many of us need to have answers to…but the hurts are so new, the pain so fresh, we are not sure when or how we will ever come to a point of healing. To be honest, I do not have answers to any of these questions, not right now, but that does not trouble me. Why? Because I know, over time, the Spirit will bring us to the answers we need. She will show us paths to healing we never imagined. I am confident she will slowly guide us to wholeness in a manner that is most just and most empowering for us. Therefore, I do not feel anxious about how I will forgive or rushed into relationships I am not ready to embrace. I may not be able to trust others yet, but I do trust the Spirit, and that is enough for now. I will follow where she leads and when she leads, knowing that what I cannot comprehend now, I will understand later.” —Steven Charleston
A new Netflix show that makes me want to walk in the treadmill (’cause that’s when I watch shows)
Layers: colors, clothes, ideas
Challenges: Can you read X number of books in a year? Can you consciously eat your five servings of fruits and veggies in a day? Can you up the amount of time you spend moving your body every day?
Mockingbird Chronicles 