Shedding it’s slippery red silk,
It came.
It came after a dream
That opened the gates
Of my body
Through my mind.

Drawing me into connection
Wth my tides.
The moon inside me
Awakening to a new call.

I called and it came.

My belly has known
The ripening and spilling
Of its fruit.

Now, with each pearl of red,
It remembers the journey
From the first rumbles of motherhood
To the healing after birth.

Sisters of mine,
My support beams
Of light.
You feed and nourish me,
Bring me to wholeness;
To live in my fullness.

In your hands
I blossom in self-love;
Throw myself into the winds
Of this journey’s song

Near and far,
I feel your presence.
The unspoken connection,
An essential, indispensable life force.

I extend my gratitude to you.
I place my hand in yours
That I too can support and hold you.

This is the story of women
Unbound by time.
Universal.
We open our hearts to one another.

Step with me into the haven
Of that red, velvet womb.
My heart, abundant with the blessings
That your sisterhood brings.

This token I offer
Without shame or fear.
Trusting you will hold it close,
That it will bring you sustenance
When you need it
And joy when you can revel in it.

This – a token of my love and longing.

Moon Mind
Stars look like birds

Feet tread softly
Walking the night path

Whisper of wind urges me on.

The muggy afternoon invites the evening in
For its release

Heavy, ripe clouds long to burst
And spill their pearly fruits
On the city.

Thirsty soil and twitching grass.
Eyes search the darkening sky,
Wondering when the showers will come.

Until the low rumble,
The spitting and spotting
Of fat drops on the pavements

Becomes a gushing monsoon
That washes the sweaty heat
Into the gutters

Leaving the smell of hot wet roads
And damp leaves dripping.

Pebble on my path, you trap my toe and make me question which way I am going.

Pebble, you set me free – my fingers curl around your coolness, which sips the warmth of the sun.
When I hold you, I am taken into a quiet place beyond myself.
In and around myself, an openness that is always there but hidden by the noise.

Pebble, take me to the seashore: the edge of the land, where the water licks the sand.
Your home, you are set there in stone but move in strong tides, rattling over your brothers and sisters.

Pebble, I keep you on my desk where you remind me of what it is to be quiet and alone, without questions or solutions.

I write because when I write blood runs on to the page and forms rivulets that merge into an ocean. A sea – a jumble of words with all their twists, turns, curves and corners.

Words that sit together comfortably like old grandmothers. Words that curl around each other, scaly like lizards’ tails. Words that talk, words that sing. Threads like guitar strings, each a unique note that resonates on the page.

I write because I need to, because my heart beats louder when I think about it.
I write because writing is my romance, the love affair I have been engaged in since childhood.

I write because it’s magic, because I weave a tapestry of words and images that weave their own stories.
I write because it is how I connect to my inner source, my creative consciousness, the essence of the universe, the hidden within, the core.

I write because I love the flow of the ink from the nib, from my fingers, from my arm, from my brain, from my heart.

I write because I love it… because… because…

I write because I am writing, I am spilling, I am bursting through the present moment and pushing into the next. The edge of this moment stretches like a piece of elastic that splits and the next moment is born – a painless labour.

I write because it’s a thread that has run through my life – one I always pick up again, each time with a renewed intention and inspiration.

I write because this is how I have recorded my life – through volumes of journal that I have kept since I was young. The books I have filled in the last 8 years chronicle the journey of my life as a seeker, a spiritual practitioner, a lover, a wife and a mother.

I write because I want to share my dreams and my inner world with my future self and with whoever wishes to tune into my radio.

Prologue:
As I walked up Gray’s Inn Road, the rain came down in thick streams. The dampness working its way through the inadequate jacket that I had borrowed from my Mum’s coat rack.

I heard a slap and looked down to find the box of overpriced, organic salad that I had bought at the train station had fallen through the bottom of the paper bag, its contents of grated beetroot and carrot spilling on the paving stones.

I was late. I was hungry. The baby strapped to my chest had raindrops running down his cheeks. And, I was on my way to have root canal surgery for the second time in a week.

———————

Heavy swing of doors
Shoes squeak on lino
Low buzz of voices

Papers rustle as he scribbles notes
With a fountain pen

My clothes slide on the vinyl
Chair reclines to horizontal

“Just a scratch”
Needle pierces my gum
Ice spreads through my jaw

“Have a rinse round”
I wash out the metallic anaesthetic
With powdery, pink swill of mouthwash
From a plastic cup

Rubber sheet fitted over my tooth
Gags me like a hostage
Smells strangely sweet
Like shopping mall cookie dough

The microscope looms over me
A large, staring, electronic eye
In the corner of my vision
Black and white x-ray films
Illuminated on a light box

The strip light overhead has fused
A large round clock marks
the slow
minutes
passing

Metal instruments glint
Lowered into my mouth
By latex-gloved hands

The ultrasonic drill squeals
Like a knife edge on stone
Files inserted and turned
With a squeaky
Rough
Twist

Chlorine smell of the injected liquid
“Paper points – Size forty”
In out, in out
Jaw aching
Drilling
Hydrochloride
“Paper points”
In out, in out
Again and again
Again and again

Until
Furrowed brow
Hushed words over radiographs
Shaking heads

“Dress the tooth”
Concrete paste smeared into the hole
Chair raised to vertical
Head prickling
Throbbing

“I’m afraid it has not been possible
To locate the canal.”

Swans glide, wings beat deep and wide – carving their migratory path through the south sky. Sparrows dive in the wind’s slipstream. Beaks pierce the clouds like the skin of a dream.
Soap bubble floats up high. Round window of rainbow light.

Tree branches finger the sun. At their feet, a thinker bends his mind in on itself until it finds the Oneness. His toes in the grass, clutching the dew. His eyes turn inwards and follow the ghost’s footsteps into the dark cleft of the tree trunk.

His heart beats with no surrender. His heart was once tender but his eyes are blank as a dartboard bullseye. A melody finds its way to his pursed lips and, without a kiss, he begins to whistle. Soft was the song, with notes sweet and long like drops of honey.

She sits, dipping into the quiet spaces that dwell between the thoughts – collage of sounds and pictures that clutter the cerebral walls.

The quiet spaces – cool refreshing pools formed by the rainwater that falls, sometimes a trickle, sometimes a torrent, on the earth.

Where the water falls, seeds planted lifetimes ago find nourishment and begin to sprout and grow. Eventually to flower – petals spreading like flakes of coloured light that catch the Sun.

Petals, like invisible velvet to the fingertips – disappearing between the skin – soft, yet almost imperceptible. Their colours gold and fuchsia, deep poppy red and cornflower blue.

Early morning sunlight enters the window panes. She opens the windows and smells the air – grassy, sweet, fragrant with flowers, alive with birdsong.

The sunlight warms her eyelids, burning away the sleep of night.