this body
in the soft folds of kimono
also creases
gently
without resistance
to earth and to drifting stars
this body breathing, obi-bound, is a delicate dance
like butterflies in the wind
like waves of the ocean
rising and falling
weaving together all the days and all the nights into one endless strand
step after step
fold after fold
crease after crease
this body is singing
and dreaming
is birthing
anew
worlds of beautiful
empires rise and fall
and the world’s great cities are built to someday crumble back into the earth
as landmasses collide and drift apart
the stars, in brilliant constellations, climb up into the night sky only to disappear again
buried somewhere beneath the horizon of day
and we come and we go, again
and again
and yet
we dance, again
all the while we dance
again
in these eternal arms of love
i want to fly with wings
like the angels
full of light and love and peace
beautiful
and in the divine wind, dance
like the starlings
precise, purposeful, impeccably wild and free
in spite of all these tears
the hardship and the heartache
in spite of our wars and endless trauma, catastrophe, disaster and destruction
i want to fall
again and again
like the drunken fools
madly in love with this world
while the world carries on
with its wars
waging in the hearts and minds of legions
and for eons
without, seemingly, an end
while the sun toils on and the moon weeps
for all our innocents buried underneath the trees
i want to stay here softly
in the darkness and in the silent night
i want still
in light of the shadows
this dance
my heart
today
has no words
only fire
in this body burning
sacred
holy
and
divine
❤️🔥
my heart today has no words only love for you for your love for me
ありがとう is arigato, “thank you” in Japanese.
On the last day of my visit home to see my mother, I took one last sunrise photo—my heart filled with gratitude for her return from the hospital and steady recovery… My heart overwhelmed with gratitude for the doctors and nurses, the friends and family who prayed for her recovery, for the ability and support I received from my work to abruptly drop everything and fly across the Pacific to be with my mother, for the healing she received and for her own strong will to heal, for time with my family and our cat, for the ever deepening awareness of just how precious this life is… My heart flooded with the beauty of each and every new sunrise.
The following poem is inspired by and written for my mother, who enjoys gardening and playing the lyre, who loves harvesting the blueberries and baking bread, who delights in feeding the birds and fish and all the little creatures… for my mother, who is a poet and is poetry… for my precious mother, who is the sunrise…
I came to realize that my mother is the sunrise. That it was she who created me, and that it was her love that brought me into this world. A fact so simple and so obvious that I had failed to notice it before. Like the air we breathe needs no explanation; we simply breathe. Suddenly, I came to know Gaia. Changing Woman and the beauty of Kinaaldá* came running home, light-footed and swift, to me. The sacred fire of Amaterasu danced inside of me. Women are creators. We are life.
In the beginning, my mother created me.
Each day my mother was in the hospital, I took a photo of the sunrise and sent it to her. It was only after the third or forth day that I realized what I was doing and decided to continue until she was strong enough to come home. And she did come home, finally… after being on the brink of ICU, after IVs and antibiotics, after nasal cannula and swollen legs and a pain which she described as the devil dancing in her body. After she heard a woman’s voice saying that she had come to get her…
But my mother is home now and recovering. And she is rising with the sun each day.
On the first morning my mother was back home from the hospital, I took a photo of the sunrise and sent it SMS to her and then went downstairs and walked into the kitchen. There she was, looking out the window into the garden and enjoying the same sunrise. I gave thanks for her life, and for mine together with hers.
My mother is the sunrise.
*Kinaaldá is a coming of age ceremony in Navajo culture in which girls come to embody the life-giving and healing qualities of Changing Woman (Asdzáá Nádłeehé); they become Changing Woman herself.
I wrote the above haiku and reflection below about two and a half years ago. With the recent outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, I thought it apropos to share this again. May a world of peace for everyone dawn—pink and soft light over the horizon of darkness.
From Aristotle to Einstein, philosophers, artists and poets over the ages have spoken about the power of imagination. In some regards, it is lamentable that we often perceive knowledge as an accumulation of so-called objective “facts”, and imagination as a kind of unreal world of dreams. But the creation of anything and everything always starts with the imagination. So what then actually, is imagination? Is it not the source of everything?
Since its creation in 1971 by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the famous song “Imagine” has been invoked worldwide in a shared desire for humanity to transcend differences and to live “life in peace”. You may say that imagining world peace has not created it; however, in the act of imagination, in stating and singing and sharing the dream, are we not creating the real experience of peace within our own hearts and together with others? When we imagine peace, we experience it. Likewise, when we imagine violence, we experience it. What we imagine, we experience. What we imagine, we become.
We are all dreamers—it is our birthright and our true nature. So why not dance and dream together, for a world of peace? We are our dreams. May they be light.
Michiru Adrienne 