Crystal Visions

He had the look of sailor

Bushy trim, inbled ink

Lips to liquid elegance

Gave me cause to think

I saw his soul


People passed in passing

As they passed and passed on by

I was caught from passing

By reflections in his eye

I saw his soul


In vino told his verity

Crystal goblet crimson stained

Identity invisible

Absent but for pain

I saw his soul


He mused of distant lands, he spoke

Of places he had been

Of service, home, his children

And a wife he’d hardly seen

I saw his soul


He told of losing hope and faith

Of wishing death’s release

Of deepest well he’d ever known

Of falling to his knees

I saw his soul


I asked him frankest questions

And he did not balk from truth

He analysed and after thought

Depicted foolish youth

I saw his soul


He did not ask, I never said

His wine was eloquent

I lived a little of his life’s

Redemptive glass, a gent,

I saw his soul


He gave me food for future

In the telling of his tale

I gave him gloves and scarf, a coin

And wished him fair thee well

I saw it all

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Big Bit Beautiful

Recent hist’ry, further back,

Nothing born of chance,

Entwine threads and treasures found,

Conjoined in life’s dance.

Ghosts of words, mem’ries bound,

Ugly turns to dust,

Ethereal, spiritual, one love

In which we trust.

Haunted notes from music box,

Motes that swirl from lid

Raised reveal of velveteen,

Box’d coffin where we hid.

Hand to cover, prised, released,

Hinges rusty creak,

Ballerina, beautiful,

Pirouettes, she speaks,

Seeks the treasure,

Finds and shares,

Gifted girl, soul-gowned,

Energy with him reclaimed,

Twin-tuned from Underground.

 

Random click on open mail,

A moment glimpsed in time,

Comment came from words read there,

Here developed as I find.

Grave reminders, must we all

To humility subserve,

But, building up and strengthening,

Big bits of beautiful, all deserve

A second song from music box,

Reminders when we fall,

Composition, love created,

Biggest beautiful of all.

 

In The Cloisters

One of my nieces graduated yesterday from Glasgow University, a beautiful young woman now independent from the hallowed halls of a structure of sublime architecture. My camera phone does not do the cloisters justice but I hope my words may. There were tears of pride and happiness as the 100 or so new graduates from the Veterinary School took their Hippocratic Oath and tears of familial love as the sworn-in veterinarians applauded their family and those who had guided their path for their five years of study. It was very moving. I slept for 10 hours straight when I came home!

 

The cloisters

 

Under shelter’d walkway ’round the courtyard of my soul,

In custom-built protection I may stroll

Some time or two, meandering in seclusion,

In contemplating fragments of the whole.

 

Colonnades supporting covered arches, portico to all that lies beyond,

Finger’d thoughts meander deftly, softly, touching swaying ferns and synapse’d fronds,

Face uplifted to the filter’d breezes,

Spirit sails on sun-streaked golden pond.

 

Arcade where columns peak to vaulted vantage, background buzz of bees and dulcet drone,

Nestled hemisphere of hermit’s haven, causes sought beneath a hallow’d dome

Where intersections advocate for essence,

Intercede and plead my way back home.

 

In teardrops’ rain a moment of calm capture, the briefest sort of pleasant reverie,

Infused prayer, exhaled from central solstice, length of one, eternal brevity,

Whose hush of rapid rapture leaves me breathless,

Gasping for source-poured liquidity.

 

In quiet cloisters fit for pensive purpose, open galleries portray their ancient frames,

Past and present catch up to the future, in cathedral’s mind where echoes may be tamed,

Till tumult teems again ‘mid errant pedestrian,

But solace sought in silent space still reigns.

 

Rebecca’s graduation coincided with her dad’s – my brother –  34 years ago and the Independence Day celebrated by Americans everywhere. I hope your day of gratitude for liberation was as special as that of my niece’s. I hope your future shines from cloistered thought.

Soul Seekers

Yesterday the only blogger I’ve ever collaborated with…sounds rude, doesn’t it?!…reblogged our collaboration and inspired me to ask for more. Watch this space!

In the meantime, one of my other favourite people, Mark, wandered out from Australia’s bush territory, haggard and drought-ridden, in need of nurture by a Scottish handmaiden – ok, get with the programme, it’s not called poetry for nothing! – and has been settling in to a new way of life with the promise of his healing gifts being used for the benefit of many.

We got chatting…as you do.

And lo and behold, something he said triggered a response in me that led us to this collaboration in the comments section! I’m chuffed as f…anything. There’s a little magic in the moonlight and some wanderlust in souls that seek to find.

Soul seeker,

journey far in waxing, waning moon…

 Heart healer,

words of healing, life in tune…

 

Believe then, in magic,

writ by silver’d stars…

 And belief within,

Life open, without bars…

 

Hush, spirit, listen well,

heed that aching need…

 To find the truth,

the beginning of a seed…

 

Be still, in the knowing,

Let silence fill your mind…

 A gift from up above,

a wonder you will find…

 

No magic be cast here,

Mere souls in perfect tune…

 With love and a sharing,

Perfect harmony with the moon…

 

Be faithful to the aching…

The voice that cries within…

 For in that understanding,

is a love that’s always been.

 

May Music, Day 24 – Wild Abandon

The seventies were notable for a few trends in music and style that now leave me shaking my head in wonder at what we, as teenagers, must have looked like to the adults of the time.

Twindaddy’s asking for his 24th question which song we remember dancing to with our best friend.

Going to the dancing was a very mixed experience. Some places favoured punk rock and the patrons embraced that with weird and wild piercings and multi-coloured hairdo’s of high jagged proportions.

That wasn’t me.

A few venues catered more to glam rock. ‘Poseurs’ strutted their stuff with every imaginable make-up and clothes combo, hair sprayed into full flamboyancy or left to hang moodily over one eye. Guys too.

Not my thing.

If you wanted soul music you could have that in abundance too at dedicated clubs.

I never did.

Glitz and disco glamour pervaded many places and spangly jumpsuits weaved their work on the dance floor.

Never owned one.

In and around the streets of Glasgow – as so many other places – a veritable Hallowe’en parade of styles could be found wending their ways to rock, pop, mod, punk, glam fests, all sporting the look that best suited their musical tastes.

I just liked dancing. As did my best friend. Weekends were for dancing and we tried out various places before opting for ones that catered to eclectic musical tastes.

With this in mind we could be found dancing to heavy rock, pop, punk or whatever. So long as it had a good bass or drum beat we were on the floor.

As for our style. We favoured a more arty, hippy look – long flowing skirts or dresses to go with the long flowing hair. I cringe now at the scarves or love beads wound around our necks and the scent of patchouli oil still lingers in my olfactory memories.

Our dancing then quite often reflected that look and the song I can see us both letting go to is ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush. All wild abandon. When questioned what we were on, our honest answer was Coke – as in Cola. We just didn’t seem to need any stimulants other than music and life.

My passport photo from that time reflected that look and I had to live with it for 10 years – long after I’d abandoned being a pretend hippy. Thank God, though, I hadn’t been a punk.

Right

When the upsurge

Rises,

Spurts!

And truth explodes

With meaning,

No argument

Or reasoned clause

Subverts

That inner

Feeling.

Acknowledged worth

Of human brain

With heart

And soul

And might

Embraces freedom,

Humanity;

Instinctively

Knows what’s

Right.

Discovery

In dreams

I find the answers

To my searching,

In scenes

Depicted of

Another world.

On waking

I redeem

My body,

Reclaim my soul,

Exposed,

Quite unfurled.

Travels

Of a weird  and

Winding nature,

Travails

Enacted in

Etheric plain.

With smile

On lips

And laughter

Surging upwards

I rejoin life,

New perspectives gained.

 

Give Over, Woman. That’s Mince. Or Not?

There is no knowing on the soul’s flight exactly where you’ll end up. Just because your soul seeks something, an answer, doesn’t mean that it will direct itself to the correct place. Mainly because other souls are doing the same thing. And they may miss each other, like ships passing in the night or one firework zipping into the sky while another is already in full bloom elsewhere.

The great thing is, though, with souls that a momentary lapse in judgement or direction can be corrected and redirected without waiting days and weeks or years. With its ability to hop through space and time, it manages to keep up with more news and happenings than its counterpart, the mind, can do in everyday life.

Like astral GPS of a higher standard, soul may move and flit from time to time in past, present and future. Glimpses of life lived and still to be lived on earth can etch themselves on spirit, embed into the core and be filed on return to the body.

When I say return I do not, of course, mean that the soul has left the body to lie dead in the world. Rather it has unravelled the umbilical cord that keeps it so attached to the human and exerted its right to travel but still to return.

In endless hours of sleeping while body rests and mind grasps the realities of day, creating wondrous images, soul vacates and explores, transmitting messages through the umbilical connection while mind incorporates such visions into dreams and weaves a tapestry of seen and yet to see, of been and still to be.

Soul exists apart from body, simply encased for the duration of one lifetime but always and ever present and alive to soul self.

One lifetime on physical, planetary plain could never really be enough to learn all we need to know, to understand in order to one day rejoin the communion of souls. By the essence of spirit and the journeys they are capable of, greater enlightenment may dawn in the everyday existence in more fuller measure than would otherwise be possible.

Those moments glimpsed by soul in time and space and recollected in odd waking human moments are what, I believe, deja vue to be. Already seen, yes, but not by human eyes in another lifetime. But by soul’s illuminated vision as it flits through dimensions unknown to us. Life glimpsed and lodged in subconscious until the moment arises and we may say, ‘I’ve been here before.’

I find this a great comfort in life to know that I have arrived at a time that my soul visited. Like I’m on the right path of my journey. Or one of the many right paths.

In parallel plains of time running concurrently it may be there are many lives being lived by self, each one born and directed of different choices taken in time. Past, present and future creating a gigantic loop, concentric circles connected by radii that make all lives possible.

The visual image above may be, in astral reality, an all-encompassing universe, the radii being worm holes that allow soul’s journey in and out through time and space. No need for soul to don travel gear. Simply extend the cord, ensure attachment and soar freely into other worlds of reality.

For many years now, at least 20, I have been haunted by the idea of this outline as an explanation for so much. My explanation. And, quite possibly, off the wall when it comes to ‘real life’. But it fascinates me as an idea and as a possible/probable reality in the spiritual field.

Light, photonic elements, become part of the all and a rejoining of light to light explains to me what heaven may be. Some sense of spiritual communion with the source of all light in a non-physical, analytical way. Merely a connectedness of all in spirit and light.

Is this a possible book? It’s an outline. Every time I try to work on it I get lost in the permutations and my mind goes in and out and sideways. I would read a book like this. I’m just not sure anyone else would. Unless they were allowed to remove their strait jacket to turn the pages. Lol. My husband has just informed me that he wouldn’t.’ Get to the point, woman,’ is really his way.

I’ve come at this from various angles over the years. Then stop. I just can’t seem to grasp the right approach to it. But I can’t let it go. Help!

My opening line remains the same every time.

‘Rachel travelled through the night, destination always unknown.’