fury

Needing a Thesaurus to Express My Emotions

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

This Poem May Be a Cheat Because I Leaned on the Thesaurus
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Oooh, I got a lotta big, big stuff to feel now, Babes.
I needed a thesaurus to find me all the names
for the shades of rage I’m roiling through. Here goes:

acerbity, acrimony, agitation, animosity
apoplexy, bitterness, blowup, asperity,
bluster, choler, convulsion, eruption
dander, exasperation, excitement, explosion
ferment, fireworks, furor, ferocity
fury and gall and heat and frenzy
hemorrhage, huff, hysterics, indignation
ire and madness, mania, irritation
obsession, outburst, passion, paroxysm
rampage, raving, resentment and spasm
spleen and squall, temper and storm
umbrage, uproar, upset, tantrum
wrath and vehemence
havoc and incandescence

Whew! That feels better.

Gratitude List:
1. How that golden boat of a moon rested so gently on the sea of the southwestern ridge of the hollow
2. People gathering to share their stories and grief and outrage
3. How momentum is gathering at the grassroots to protect and empower people who are vulnerable to the impending fascist threat
4. How being with others helps me to gather my own energy for the work ahead
5. Powerful, strong, compassionate, and wise women
May we walk in Beauty!

“Tyrants fear the poet.” —Amanda Gorman

“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.” ―Brian Jacques

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
Toni Morrison

“Men find it easier to believe they have been swindled by a witch than outwitted by a woman.” —Amina Al-Sirafi (in the novel The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty)

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” ―Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” ―Rumi

“Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.”
―Bob Dylan

“To open our eyes, to see with our inner fire and light, is what saves us. Even if it makes us vulnerable. Opening the eyes is the job of storytellers, witnesses, and the keepers of accounts. The stories we know and tell are reservoirs of light and fire that brighten and illuminate the darkness of human night, the unseen. They throw down a certain slant of light across the floor each morning, and they throw down also its shadow.” —Linda Hogan

What do you do
when the gods of the dreamings
offer you maps for the journey?

How will you answer
when the night-folk cry out:
“Give us the hope of our meanings!”
―Beth Weaver-Kreider

Bringing Each Other Back

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

I’m exhausted with this grief and fury and disillusionment and shattered hope. I want to curl up into a ball and sleep for a week. Yet there are also small joys and wonders in the midst of the agony. Here is a cloud that looks like a bird that brought me joy today.

And a rose that a colleague gave me this morning.

Bringing Each Other Back
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Give me a word that means something akin
to the feeling of finding yourself safe in a cave
at the moment the heavens explode
with lightning and thunder and rain.

Tell me a story so shining with wonder
that foot-weary travelers and lost souls
gather in the shadows around us
to be warmed at the fire of your telling.

Spin me a strand long enough for my weaving,
rich with color and hints of bright sunlight
so that I may make a cloak to protect us
and keep us from harm in the shadows.

When you look into the eyes of strangers
let softness come into your gaze
sweep tenderness through
the glaze of anxiety, fury, and grieving.

Gratitude List:
1. A gift of a rose when my spirits are tattered
2. A cloud in the shape of a bird
3. Chocolate as medicine
4. How people circle around and care for each other in times of crisis
5. How music soothes the soul
May we walk in Beauty!

“The practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination.” —bell hooks

“People who love the divine go around with holes in their hearts, and inside the hole is the universe.” —Peter Kingsley from the Dark Places of Wisdom

“When men imagine a female uprising, they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women.” ―Sally Kempton

“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.” —Mae Jemison (Astronaut/Medical Doctor)

Adrienne Rich: “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility of more truth around her.”

“Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains – a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.” —Henri Frederic Amiel

There is a legend that has its roots buried deep inside the prehistoric culture of these lands. It is a myth that was seeded before the stories were anchored onto the page, before rigid systems of belief tied gods and spirits into names and form, even before the people were persuaded from paths of individual responsibility into hierarchies of power. This story has been fluid and flowing, changing shape and growing over many thousands of years. It is a story of ancestors and a deep relationship with the ancient land. It is a story of memories that permeate stone and wood to rest within the body of the earth. This legend is too old to be defined by history and therefore we are not limited in our own remembering of it; creative recollection lies at the heart of our very best tales.

Memory may arrive at odd moments and in unexpected forms. Recognition may unravel along strange paths. Wherever the wild reaches through the land, we may touch the edges of this story. We start to tease out a thread, then pick and pull until first a fragment of colour, then a whole strand of story, is revealed. Now we peel away the layers, glimpse the traces of a design, watch a pattern grow until an entire story emerges, then a cycle of stories, and now we are unwinding the fabric of our ancestors’ lives.” —Carolyn Hillyer

Thorn in My Side

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s Poetic Asides Prompt is to write a poem that is a dedication, or a poem with a dedication.

Thorn in My Side
to my Gadfly

Here’s the thing:
The outrage dissipates so much more quickly now.
There’s the kick in the gut when I see your name
there on the email, and I think, “Here we go again,”
and then a moment of panic, another of anger,
and then, this time. . .

I sat there just watching what was happening
inside my head, expecting the roaring in the ears,
the tunneling of vision, the white light blinking
in the back of my brain. And there was nothing, really.
And then, what I didn’t expect: gratitude.
Quiet, twinkling gratitude, and steady purpose.

That shocked me. I’m so used to the exhausting fury,
the worry and self-righteous indignation.
But this time I may have begun to pass the test,
to rest a moment in my breathing, then focus on my center,
to enter–finally–a space where I can see myself,
and you, and shift the focus of the attack.

The thing is:
You have been a better teacher
than you could ever imagine,
and likely more than you intend,
and I have been a less than willing student,
too eager to defend my ego
in the face of your attacks.

You’ve taught me to be curious
about the fury that you send my way,
to stay within my heart-space,
even to offer grace in the midst of your rage.
I have found safety that you cannot touch,
your cages will catch me no longer.
I’m stronger now, and I can hold the net
you toss my way, and turn it
to a golden thread.

Maintaining Balance

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

The gypsy wind came rattling through at 4:30 this morning.  It raised gooseflesh on my arms and the hair on the back of my neck tingled.  No more sleep.  No more sleep.  Down the stairs, some quiet reading, a little coffee and then some yoga tree poses.

In six months of regular morning tree poses, my balance has improved considerably.  I’m happy enough in my body, don’t get me wrong, but physical balance has never really been one of my strong points.  It’s a little startling to me that I can get this rather unathletic middle-aged body to pick up a new trick.  And it’s odd to me how place-oriented my balance is.  When I try the poses somewhere other than my kitchen, I teeter and totter and tumble all over the place.

On the internal front, I have been living with a low-grade fury again.  I have allowed this government shut down to throw me off my internal equilibrium.  I can’t seem to maintain balance,  to keep myself upright.  I want to rant and call names and burn bridges.
Somewhere I’ll find the poetry for this, the way to speak the need for justice in this story.  Right now, it’s still a little blind and crazed.  One thing that seems to help me hold my morning tree poses is the mirror in my kitchen.  When I look into my own eyes, my body suddenly remembers its upright nature and I stop thinking about falling.And oh.  I have not been writing gratitude lists.  I have stepped out of my space, walked away from my internal mirror.  How could I expect to keep my balance?  Here, then, is me back in my place, practicing my balance postures:

Gratitude List:
1.  A weekend with thoughtful, hopeful women.  All the grandmothers we carry with us.  Open hearts, open eyes.
2.  Dragonfly
3.  Autumn bird conversations.  Mockingbird is back at it after a summer of quiet.  Screech owl and great horned owl have been calling  even after dawn has brought the day.  Phoebe is moving through again.  Robin hordes have been amassing in the hollow every evening, and they begin the mornings with a deafening chatter.  I have even heard the kingfisher’s fussy chitter along Cabin Creek.
4.  A community of rebels
5.  Morning solitude

May we walk in Beauty.