In Conversation and Poetry
Poetry is leading the way for me at present. Calling me in the night and early morning—a conduit for the various layers of undoing, sense-making, ritual practice, deep listening, being and giving that this life has offered up… especially recently. I joined Asher Packman from The Fifth Direction on Monday 22nd August, at 7:30pm.
This was one of the poems I shared with the listeners.
Vulnerability
It can swoop like a magpie—knocking you off kilter. Or dart about like a yellow-throated thrush in the grevillea. It sighs on the breeze like an eagle circling warm currents. Or ascends heavily, like a black cockatoo caught off guard ripping apart a banksia head. Sometimes wisdom feels more like fear than grace—a sick feeling in the belly, a sudden sense of threat, a burst of anger, tears, fight, flight.
Kestrel hovers close:
Intimate, raw. Prey, your heart
Frays, your mind’s in fright.
But how would it feel to meet vulnerability as friend, not foe—listen to what whispers or screams for attention? Listen and hold the shifting ground. Wait out the weather and, like the weather, change.
On the crag, the bird
Splays its wings in the dry squall
And waits. Cormorant.
If not a friend, then a door that opens to a friend. Teachers, storytellers, poets and elders know vulnerability as a door, an opening of the self into knowing. Baffled, bow deeply into the mystery—this trembling uncertainty, this shameful embarrassment, this late-at-night cacophony of concern, these demons, a knock down, a calling in or a calling out. Offer no defence. Fall. Lose your footing in the awkward beauty, the ache, the unseen epiphany—vulnerability.
Pelican takes off
Long and slow, but air lifts her
Like a feather weight.
The imagery created by the various birds in movement created the Cacophony of life…
The birds chosen… are rich and so in nature……free and wild… and their movement are likened with vulnerability… so so well put…. ripping apart a banksia head…. frays Intimate, raw……preys your heart …………hovers close……………. circling warm currents………… splays its wings………… swoops…………darts……………ascends heavily… so so reminds me of my tryst with vulnerability!!!
And it does feel like I’m on a squall…. being vulnerable have triggered all these bodily sensations ……a sick feeling in the belly, a sudden sense of threat, a burst of anger, tears, fight, flight……I have been caught off guard……I have been baffled, have been scared to bow into the deep mystery— trembling with uncertainty, experienced immense shame…… a lot of embarrassment……
And so so need to lose my footing… let go…take a free fall…… and just BE!!!
Then like the Pelican takes off ……Long and slow, air lifts her like a feather weight……. it’s a huge weight off my chest!!!… I am ME…!!!!
And then there such a connection ………with ME FIRST…… relief and pride…. of being courageous to be HONEST….and the CONNECT thereafter is worth every single effort……………..
……….. vulnerability… there is a way through it….no paths around -under NOR -over it…. just through it…………
Thank you, the imagery will stay with me, whilst being vulnerable…making it easer for my Pelican to take off!!!