All we have to decide
is what to do
with the time
we are given.

- Gandalf to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring

I have come
To tell you
Of the Way,

And the Way
Is
The Circle

And the Circle
Is
The Source

And the Source
Is
Life

And Life
Is
The Light

Therefore,
Those of the Circle
Shall drink of the Source
And become as the Light
That lives
And nourishes.

There is no Question
And there is no Answer
That is not
Contained
Within the Circle

Therefore,
Do not ask Why
For the Circle knows,
And
Because you are
Of the Circle

So do you, also, know
And yet
Do not know
Of your Knowing.

But the Circle shall turn
And, in its turning
All Truth
Shall be made apparent.


~by Joan Walsh Anglund

~Today, Like Every Other Day, We Wake Up Empty~

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~Bonfire at Midnight~

A shout comes out of my room
where I've been cooped up.
After all my lust and dead living I can still live with you.
You want me to.
You fix and bring me food.
You forget the way I've been.

The ocean moves and surges in the heat
of the middle of the day,
in the heat of this thought I'm having.
Why aren't all human resistances burning up with this thought?

It's a drum and arms waving.
It's a bonfire at midnight on the top edge of a hill,
this meeting again with you.

~Quietness~

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

~Breathe~

The morning wind spreads its fresh smell.
We must get up to take that in,
that wind that lets us live.
Breathe, before it's gone.

You're going to die a horrible death, remember. It's all good training, and you'll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind.
Take your dying with some seriousness, however.
Laughing on the way to your execution it not generally understood by less advanced lifeforms, and they'll call you crazy.
~from Illusions by Richard Bach

By definition the Symbol is magic; it evokes the form bound in the spell of matter. To evoke is not to imagine. It is to live; it is to live the form.

R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz

i was re-introduced to this poet recently, and realize that the works i read of his in college aren't the ones i am most drawn to (big surprise)...here are a few, with more to come...

~i like my body when it is with your~

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric furr, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh....And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

~i carry your heart with me~

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

~somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond~

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

~it may not always be so; and i say ~

it may not always be so;and i say
that if your lips,which i have loved,should touch
another's,and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart,as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know,or such
great writhing words as,uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be,i say if this should be-
you of my heart,send me a little word;
that i may go unto him,and take his hands,
saying,Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face,and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

Jesus, speaking to his disciples in The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Dancing is an ancient form of magic. The dancer becomes amplified into a being endowed with supranormal powers. His/her personality is transformed. Like yoga, the dance induces trance, ecstacy, the experience of the divine; the realization of one's own secret nature, and, finally, emergence into the divine essence...The dance is an act of creation. It brings about a new situation and summons into the dancer a higher personality. It has a cosmogonic function, in that it arouses dormant energies which then may shape the world.

-Heinrich Zimmer
Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization

There is a life force, AN ENERGY,
A quickening that is translated through You into Action &
Because there is only one of you
In all of Time-
This expression is Unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium &
it will be lost, the world will not have it.

It is not your business
To determine how good it is
nor how valuable
nor how it compares
with other expressions.
It is your business
To keep it yours clearly and directly-
To Keep the Channel Open.

You do not even have to believe in yourself
or your work.
You do have to keep Open & Aware
Directly to the urges that Motivate you.

Keep the Channel Open.

-Martha Graham

I perform at a professional level: hoop dance, contact sphere, staff, and as a living statue. I teach workshops in all levels of hoop dance. I also sell high-quality, handcrafted hoops through my online store. I create hoops with the intention that they bring joy, creativity, health and healing to those who dance with them. I travel all over the country and world to spread the art of hoop dance through performance and teaching. More info can be found on my self-designed website.
www.spiralhoopdance.com

Dream lofty dreams,
and as you dream, so shall you become.
Your vision is the promise
of what you shall one day be;
Your ideal is the prophecy
of what you shall at last unveil.

-James Allen