Poetic Musings

Bright Lights

I dream of you and see you smile:
No greater balm, this man of style.

Instinct drawn forward by your name –
Not because of money, looks, or fame.

You’re like me where heart beats new
Infused enthusiasm in all that you do.

Your wiles in growth beat back all miles –
Redeem impetus where became exiled.

Sometimes I rail and cuss at your vanity
Because I cling to your visage for sanity.

When I try to forget and go paths alone,
A song comes on – heart opened atones.

What we are to each other is yet to be:
You inspre my desire for pure synergy.

Compositions

French Cuisine

When I briefly lived in Santa Barbara, California, and was pregnant with my eldest, I got to attend the city college where the open green looks out upon the Channel Islands’ Pacific Ocean.

There, I could plan anything from exploration of evolution on the islands, to Marine Biology and Ethnomusicology at the university, to film making and photography – even acupuncture in Chinese Classic Medicine should I care to invest the time and procure the funding to pursue these dreams.

I felt that I had happened upon a rare find of energetic synergy and that I was tapping into a source that could propel me to new levels in healing, creativity, and educational expansion.

Glorying in the feel of the cool cement parking structure and then wending my way through the mazes of campus rooms and buildings, I longed to dig in and settle deep into subjects of language, music, and art. I felt an amazing future opening ahead of me where I could swim in and indulge in Culture.

But, as my mind lulled into the sensuality of learning the piano, creating imagery with my hands, and fashioning exotic articulations from my mind and mouth, the world-traveled French professor’s luring us further into experiencing senses of capturing the essence of each moment catalyzed an epiphany.

I realized that I could not have this dream, yet. I was at a crossroads, and my choices must be sound.

I walked away from everything that made my heart, mind, and spirit personally satiated to embrace the souls to which my life was bound.

First, I must ensure that they could also have a bright future to look toward and be able to count upon.

Stream of Thought

Honesty

I know that there are times where absolute truth is not always necessary, such as when your best friend feels bad about their hair that got cut too short, and you help lessen the mishap’s impact.

But, it seems to me that with the basic truths that are most important, if we all did our best to ascribe to their values, the bad times and parts of life would be less horrible.

Stream of Thought

To Be Known

Last night, a sense of deep anxiety hit me so hard that I almost folded.

I mean quit everything here, shut down the site, “locked up shop.”

Why?

Because I was taught to hide myself, and I guess the more I share the more danger signals blare – real or imagined.

But, the problem is that as a society we are told to only show each other snippets of our truth, and to conduct our public personas by prior-approved sound bites.

I am tired of marching to this tune – where there isn’t really the chance to know and come to care for anybody.

Stream of Thought

Kind Regards

“Hi, thank you for leaving the note on my car. That was very kind. It’s a older car and I don’t see much of a mark so no need to worry about getting insurance involved. I appreciate you letting me know.”

“This is so kind of you – thank you! I know how upsetting someone dinging my car and then leaving has been for me, so I did not want to do that to you.”

Stream of Thought

Retraction

When I was outside in my car, resting at the gym, the wind suddenly gust-blew hard, pushing and slamming my open door into the neighbor’s passenger side panel

I took pictures and proof data for my records and eft a note for the owners on their windshield under the wiper if they wanted to contact me.

Then, I changed my voicemail to anonymous with just the number stated in answering because I am tired of people finding reasons to take advantage.

Compositions

Happy Misery

I try to be content with my delayed advances. It’s a matter of constant negotiation with emotions.

Mostly, the response to pain and inflamation plagues like Job’s lot in the Bible stories. This causes my system to dip into the abyss of longterm carried frustration.

(How does one purge this from their system if circumstances keep pile-burdening?)

Most recently, the muscles in my upper right thigh attachments have seized into a movement-limiting severe torsion.

I still walk with grace, but in a controlled limping gait of strong intention that makes me swagger and puff out my shoulders like a warrior.

Not intimidating at all to prospective suitors.

I suppose it’s to be expected that my body parts take turns spasming because I am often realigning my approach to life’s situations.

Thus, I am pushing at old holding patterns that push back, attempting to keep me stationary, while I extend my efforts too far forward to overcompensate against the suction from the maws of entropy.

Stream of Thought

Crimped

I apologize for not always catching my spelling mistakes.

I try – I really do.

However, between fighting the auto-adjustments in this program, my touch screen’s slurring, and my shifting vision, some mistakes keep slipping through.

This is why I posted the “heads up” in my profile regarding revisions.

If I can’t depend upon consistency of compensation for hindered acuity, I can’t accept pressure of critics expecting perfection from me.

Compositions, Photography

Spirit Of The Walnut Tree

We had a huge one growing in our back yard when I was a teen.

We’d gather all the nut packets as they fell: the once green and plump outer skin now blacken-shriveled and yielding the hard-shell encased goodness within upon cracking.

I have always felt this type of nut tree to be a bit magical…protective and nourishing, as if an emissary from the Spirit of Mother Earth.

I was given a seedling one by my mother-in-law a few years ago, which I took as good fortune and dearly appreciated.

I later chose to give it to the man who helped us survive on the mountain, as I gave him most of our fruit-bearing plants and trees, as well as some of our first and favorite chickens when we were moving.

He’d always presented as rough and jaded with the world, and it melted my heart with prideful joy to see him treat these gifts tenderly.

I didn’t want to let the brave seedling go, but it had already weathered a rough journey.

We took it as a good sign when we found our current rental that there is a huge walnut tree just outside our back living room window.

I noticed yesterday a small, eleganty-leaved plant growing in the grassy walkway outside our dog pen where the area gets mowed weekly.

I thought it might be a rose from seeds sprouted where I had hosted ours temporarily.

But No!

It”s a seedling walnut from the mother tree!

I will be digging it up to save it from the choppers and to carry forward this felt harmony.

Athena Stairs, June 21, 2022
Stream of Thought

Static

Upon deep introspection, it is likely best that I don’t seek out relationship.

The kind of connection I have been questing for is something beyond the normal base most people are willing to settle for.

In trying to figure out what kind of a personality would match me, it was suggested I could be paired with another artist – like another writer or an actor.

But then, if they are already established (which I would want so we could have a base of stability), you run into the “fans and societal judgment factor.”

I have yet to meet a man who does not bend his soul to these things.

Compositions

Ambiversion

I love external expression and play. It just hasn’t been safe for me.

When I loved full well and heartily, others conspired to chop down love’s tree.

Though I remain “standing,” I no longer know what I can trust around me.

I have this dream someday I’ll meet the right One for me, who would understand and help me embrace life completely.

I know – I am relearning how to find my own happiness.

But, it just isn’t the same as the magnificence you can experience by co-creation.

Inside, I still feel as alone and isolated as I did when in my childhood.

At least now I have the power to positively impact the world around me.

Compositions

A Lifetime Of Resistence

No wonder she was exhausted and her adrenals were blownout flat. No wonder she would sometimes respond automatically to negativity toward her in a ptsd-type reaction.

When positivity continually meets resistence from other minds, hearts, and spirits firmly bent upon recreating levels of hell she had already come through, messaging over time sinks in to breed thoughts like “she’s the one who’s crazy.”

No wonder she would drop “friends” in an instant if their behaviors or beliefs trended back toward that direction.

No wonder that she preferred the solitude of her own company as she worked to unravel internal tangles, over the company of those people outwardly distracting and entertaining.