Goddess Centered Practice
In the woods behind my house rest a collection of nine large flat rocks. Daily, I walk down to these “priestess rocks” for some sacred time alone to pray, meditate, consider, and be. Often, while in this space, I open my mouth and poetry comes out. I’ve come to see this experience as "theapoetics"—experiencing the Goddess through direct “revelation,” framed in language. As Stanley Hopper originally described in the 1970’s, it is possible to “…replace theology, the rationalistic interpretation of belief, with theopoetics, finding God[dess] through poetry and fiction, which neither wither before modern science nor conflict with the complexity of what we know now to be the self.” Theapoetics might also be described, “as a means of engaging language and perception in such a way that one enters into a radical relation with the divine, the other, and the creation in which all occurs.”
Poem: Mushroom Hunting
We set forth seeking chanterelles,
past the barriers of thorn and bug
and into the quiet slopes and mosses
of an August wood.
We did not find many mushrooms,
but we did find:
A queen of hearts playing card
and a few steps later,
the jack.
A lower jawbone, worn and smooth,
incisors and molars
still in their places.
A turtle, once wounded,
now healed,
v-shaped crack in its shell
framing its patient
yellow-spotted face.
A copperhead snake,
perfectly patched
for patterns made by sunshine
filtered through oak leaves.
One crow feather,
a bit ragged,
and a gray feather too.
Three white-tailed deer,
startled into flight,
quick hooves clattering away
across the stones.
More spiderwebs than we can count.
The tiniest of tiny ticks,
spilling from seed head
into our shoes
and hastening our steps.
Moss with sun on it
and tufted titmice
squabbling in the hackberry trees.
A spiral shell fossil,
sparkled with dusting of quartz,
its small curve pre-dating
every moment of the entirety
of human history,
and yet here today
with us now,
reminding us that we walk across
what was once the bottom of a sea.
The sweet sensation of aliveness,
that comes with loving something enough
to give up a bit of blood and body
just to have a taste.
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Molly,
Great poem!
I hope that you and your husband are extremely careful whilst gathering mushrooms. Even people with decades of experience have been poisoned to death. May the Goddesses and Gods watch over you both.