As many are aware, the period between October 31 and November 2 is that sacred moment in the year when the veil that separates the living from the dead is the thinnest. Dreams, visions, creative energy from the quantum void sways across the dimensional threshold.
Housemate Dan just told me that his friend Jacob’s grandmother let go of her life last night. I suspect she had an easy passage.
Meanwhile, we in Green Acres Village are all preparing for this evening’s Community Dinner and festivities, when we will honor the living memories of the deceased who are closest to us.. To get us in the spirit of being happy ghosts (scary ghosts at Halloween, happy ghosts at the Day of the Dead), how’s this, villager Mariella’s pinata (which she says, is for kids and adults). She couldn’t find a pinata she liked, so last night she determined to create one herself. YES!
This morning I saw on my fb feed what may be the most creative Halloween costume of all time.
And, for the most creative moment of all, I attach our wonderful former villager Briana’s latest e-zine, from which I pull out a Day of the Dead poem that one of us will read this evening.
Twixt
Ochre field of dried corn blowing
underneath a sky split open.
Riding the wind with a murder of crows
as the veil is thinning.
Meeting at the crossroads,
the dead, the living,
holding hands in a circle cast of
marigolds,
hail Marys and
papel picado.
The temporary
laughability of this flesh and bone.
The skeletons dance and we feast,
feeding sweet little things to
portraits on the altar.
Remembering the dulce of the days we spent together,
those souls on the Great Journey to
the Otherside.
New edition of e-zine: Perennial Magic
I read the rest of the poems from this edition out loud to Dan last night. We were both stunned, in awe. Briana is mining this spell of so-called insanity to hone her craft to the breaking point. Her sensitive soul opens to all feelings — no matter how contradictory or intense, and burns them into utterly precise language, each word an opening, creating space. Yes!
One more:
Lunacy
If able to control the shade
of lunacy,
I would name that
breeze
that touches the gentle curtains
separating.
You can take away
the wine but
let me immerse in the sun-soft strawberries
until the juice stains everything.
This staining is part of
the fruit of life.
How could we intend to desnude the trees?
Please let the algae bloom brain
be.
You will never understand the green,
the vitality beneath.
Soft, soft loss of self
is a high,
has a danger,
creeps to a limit.
How well qualified is anyone to manage
a madness?
Let me have this
sexual sway with the sunlight.
Don’t make me kiss it goodnight.
My friend makes wooden boxes,
I promise to put it there
when I’m done.
Dress it away with pearls
and prayers in Portuguese.
Bone marrow and blood needs it in part
because the other song can be so heavy,
forcing my tongue to form a word like
“despair”.
Let me have this day of breeze,
summer strawberry Full Moon
daytime lunacy
where the concrete seems lighter.
I promise to discipline when I am
done.
Her art! YES again!
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