Directive

 THE KITES of olden times, as well as the Swans, had the privilege
of song.  But having heard the neigh of the horse, they were so
enchanted with the sound, that they tried to imitate it; and, in
trying to neigh, they forgot how to sing.

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”

“If you want to create, you have to sacrifice superficiality, some security, and often your desire to be liked, to draw up your most intense insights, your most far-reaching visions.”

“When women open the doors of their own lives and survey the carnage there in those out-of-the-way places, they most often find they have been allowing summary assassinations of their most crucial dreams, goals, and hopes.” (p.53)

The Lake

By Rosanna Warren

You stood thigh-deep in water and green light glanced
off your hip hollows and stomach which is where the pilot light
flickers in ancient statues of Dionysus,
and for a moment as you strode deeper it seemed as if
this water might rinse away the heaviness
of your own seasons and of illnesses not your own: it was a caress
cool and faithless, it lapped against your waist,
it took you in its arms and you gave yourself, a little,
only a little, knowing how soon and how lightly that touch would be withdrawn,
how soon you would be standing again on the rootwebbed shore, drying, restored
to the weights and measures, pulses, aches and scars you know by heart,
the cranky shoulder, cramping heel tendons, bad knees, bad dreams
you would recognize in the dark, anywhere, as your own;
and you knew, too, how those you cannot heal would remain unhealed
though you reach for them, kiss them on the forehead, and they stare back out of the drift;
and you knew the mountains would continue their slow, degrading shuffle to the sea
until continental plates shifted in their sleep, and this whole lake was swallowed
in earth’s gasp, ocean’s yawn.

by Kim Van Voorhees

So this is what the ocean has been pushing across the table at us
all these years—

the dry, white spot that opens like a moon at the back of the throat
the quieted tongue, the last of all words.

Our ever-faithful dinner guest—who kept her wet fingers lined up at the edge
of the world, who politely folded and refolded her napkin—stops
passing the peas, leans back quietly into her chair to watch

what we’ll do now. She’s done, the sea quits, stands without comment on the shore, is
just another dumb, beautiful animal considering the cliff, the final leap
back into itself.

At least say we were among those who kept the conversation up for so long—
you and I handed always and never back and forth again and again

while our arms distressed the surface.
Let’s just say the table was too large, that we lifted the heaviest dish
and got tired—

that only the ocean knows how to spoon salt over a great distance
under any kind of light.

A result of energetic imbalance between chakras is an almost continuous feeling of dissatisfaction. When the heart chakra is agitated, people lose touch with feelings and sensations, and that breeds the sense of dissatisfaction. That leads to looking outside for fulfillment.

Wherever My Dead Go When I’m Not Remembering Them