Woman, wondrous, wild
daughter of the moon,
mysterious, magnificent
fierce secret keeper
guardian of the universal key.
Author: Juliana Lightle
Home-made Essential Oil Body Butter
I use essential oils for many things and even cook with them especially cumin, lemon, rosemary, fennel, etc. I tried so many lotions and none really worked for the dry climate in which I live. This year remains exceptionally dry–no measurable moisture in over 100 days. This causes dry skin itching and discomfort. Therefore, creating my own body butter seemed a good solution.
1/3 cup oil–I use olive oil
5.5 oz. jar of organic shea butter
20 drops frankincense essential oil
20 drops myrrh
20 drops geranium
10 drops jasmine
These ingredients can be adjusted to suit your preferences or whatever essential oils you might have on hand. I always use frankincense and myrrh. The last time I made this I did not use geranium and jasmine; I used neroli and sandalwood. Find out what works for you. If the jar of shea butter is larger, you can adjust the rest of the ingredients to larger amounts as well.
Warm shea butter in a microwave but do not melt. Place in a bowl. Add oil and essential oils and whip until smooth and thoroughly mixed. I use an electric mixer just as I would for creaming butter and sugar for a cake. Sometimes in colder weather the shea butter can become somewhat crystallized. The crystals will melt in the warmth of your hands.
Your skin will love you.
Blood Quantum: A Poem for Our Time
Blood Quantum: A Poem for Our Time
My grandson cuts himself into 16 equal pieces:
4/16 Urhobo from Africa
3/16 Spanish from Spain
4/16 European–two Swiss German great, great-grandfathers
(Werth and Kaiser), Irish, English and who knows what
3/16 Mexican–whatever mixtures that may be
2/16 Navaho
Who am I? What am I?
Who are you? What are you?
Do we really know?
Who sets the rules?
white men
black
Indian
Native American
Irish
English
German
from where and for whom?
He looks Navaho:
-blue black straight hair
-pale brown skin
-obsidian eyes.
One four year old girl asks him,
“Are you American Indian?”
His six year old self says nothing.
She repeats,
“Are you American Indian?”
He says, “It’s complicated.”
The Navaho won’t claim him, too little blood.
He needs 1/4, not 1/8.
Caddy and Fort Sill Apache allow 1/16, not Navahos.
1/4 blood is for
-Sioux
-Cheyenne
-Kiowa
-Navaho
1/8 works for Comanche and Pawnee.
Some Cherokees only want a Cherokee ancestor.
But he is none of those.
Is he Navaho?
Is he white?
The old South goes by the one drop rule:
one drop of Negro…
Is a person with 99/100 per cent white
and 1/100 black, black?
Who says?
Kids at school ask, “What are you?”
He tells them.
They say, “You’re lying.”
I only know specifically about two ancestors,
the Swiss Germans.
Another great grandfather disappeared during the Civil War.
I don’t even know his name.
Who am I?
Who are you?
I think I’ll get a DNA test.
Then I’ll know how many pieces I need to cut myself into.
Note: This was originally published in my book “On the Rim of Wonder”. I had a cousin send me 75 pages of ancestry information. I looked up more myself. That one great grandfather remains a mystery. I had my DNA done. It did not match what I expected from the ancestry work.
Blood quantum is the term the US government used to determine whether a person would be qualified as an Indian. Now many Indian Nations use it to decide who can be on the tribal rolls and who cannot.
Sunday Poem–Last Day of 2017
It’s cold outside, 14.
Horse waterers frozen.
Heat water, hike to barn.
Hope horses drink it fast before it freezes.
Back inside, build a fire,
write, read a novel set in Venice,
drink tea from Ceylon,
message friends in Asia, Africa, South America,
feel grateful for modern technology.
Glad I did not live in those “good ole days”.
Look forward to another year filled with joy and wonder–
my choice.
Sunday Poem–Gifts
For many Christmas means gifts.
What are gifts?
Material things–the new toy, new technology,
perfume, clothes.
People spend hours and money
many lack to give gifts.
Yet the most wonderful gifts remain:
joy
love
beauty
birdsong
touch
wonder
peace
Jen Payne’s New Book
Evidence of Flossing, WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND provides an unexpected metaphor for individual life, culture, and so much more. Nearly all the poems are accompanied with a photograph, often of trash in which lays a dental flosser (yes, one of those instruments with which you floss your teeth) with date and location. Flossing is supposed to prevent anything from being left behind. Hence, the title brings up an unusual play on words.
The first section Damage contains more than 20 poems which are a lament about much of modern life–mass shootings, the demise of wildlife, unpleasant changes. One poem asks the question: “Would God floss?” In the second section, Contact, the poems focus on the natural world, walks in the city, the woods, beaches. The third section, Connection, emphasizes the interconnectedness of everything, especially the relationships between humans and animals and nature. There are poems about frogs, storms, birds. One called Evidence of Fairies makes the reader feel the magic of old growth forests with moss and ancient trees. In the footnote to another poem she discusses the fact that wolf spiders actually create songs to lure lovers. Then, toward the end, the Alice poems appear, Alice as in “Alice in Wonderland”. In my favorite poem Payne relates her encounter with a stranger picking oyster mushrooms near a path in the woods.
After reading the poems and comments in this book, I will never view flossing the same way again. Will I find dental flossers now, something I never even previously thought about? I use those long strings of floss not flossers. Apparently the poems and flosser photos affected enough people that some sent Payne photos of flossers they saw here and there on the ground, some of which she has included in the book.
Even if I find no flossers, now I will certainly give a lot more thought to what I and others leave behind.
About the author: Jennifer Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company in Connecticut. She belongs to the Arts Council of Greater New Haven as well as several other arts and poetry organizations. Her work has been featured in various publications, including The Aurorean, Six Sentences, and the Story Circle Network. You can read some of her writing on her blog Random Acts of Writing.
Grief
behemoth bones
bleached white
African sun
grave yard for giants
some shot
others died a natural death
the living caress
bones with trunks
six thousand nerves
sensitive, searching
for answers
Sunday Poem–Rain
It’s raining! It’s raining!
It has not rained in more than a month.
I run out the door,
spreading my arms skyward.
I laugh out loud, dancing in the rain.
A smile smears joyfully across my face.
I run across the patio,
rain drops pelleting my face, my arms.
I laugh out loud, dancing in the rain.
My dog stands, rivulets of rain running off her.
Lightning explodes, thunder booms bass,
the steel roof plays staccato music.
I laugh out loud, dancing in the rain.
From my book “On the Rim of Wonder”. This poem holds true today. After a summer with lots of rain, it quit. It is very dry with a high danger of wildfires now that the summer vegetation has dried, perfect fuel.
In the footprints of Machig Lapdron by Mary Sharratt
Reblogged because I found this to be a fascinating adventure plus love the art.
Machig Lapdron, female Tantric Buddhist mystic and lineage founder
I’ve just returned from an illuminating trip to Bhutan, high in the Himalayas. Bhutan is a Buddhist kingdom and the world’s youngest democracy.
On our last full day in this enchanting land, my husband and I drove with our guide over the nearly 4000 meter pass of Chelela and into the Haa Valley which doesn’t see that many tourists. Our goal was the Hermitage of Juneydrak, where Machig Lapdron (1055-1145 CE), the famous female Tantric mystic, master, and lineage founder, once meditated.
View original post 910 more words
writingontherim 