when fall begins to crystalize, like any change, the first real storm front moves in, the leaves which scudded about yesterday are frozen to the sidewalk, gathering in browning-yellow scrolls, little edicts of what is to come, they thaw and scatter again across streams and gullies where the thin water still wants to feed the living thing before being silenced in ice, or leave monochrome sepias on pavement, the Hunter’s moon, high and bright illumines the grass, reedy wisps along the midnight walk, the dusty path where the air cools, snappy, crisp, that breath of winter’s coming, flora seized red in its death, clinging to branch and vine, each day more dried and dead, ruffled and flurried by immediate breezes, sounding like Japanese paper fanfared by a round and excited toddler, portents of the next season soon to fall in golden droplets of summer’s dreams the ocher aspen leaves, in sheets and flakes of fiery autumn light dazzling and freshly disconnected from their source right before they meet the dust and decompose
Sun, Sky, Beach, Life. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.
Strength
Growing is a season of its own, one of loving kindness rooted in faith one of far-seeing vastness, while standing in sacred spaces. For whatever waves, winds, and ways that will ever-continue to toss and take their course, stand in your gifts and rest in fullness, plentitude. Delight in bounty and abundance. Move from ire to the rich roundness of the good in all living things– circles of true compassion and empathy which connect all creation– human, animal, plant, living, all animate with atoms as the entire universe speaks the soundness of its existence, the tenor of being, the voice of living and the lived
Ocean, Tide, Tree, Coast. Oregon. Image, my own.
Point
when i am in my brain and heart i realize this is the goddamn point
Woods. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.
Conscious Living
What is it to be alive? In the rich, abundant world A sterling jay’s deeply Decked sapphire feathers crested head nestled in the magnolia bush outside my window the air as thick as dew, yet moving as if on an unheard music suspended by the wind’s unseen breath
and ocean spume, spurl, churn TO be part of Earth’s respiration tide, current, wave, flow, coast where Earth’s breath meets land-sand, rock, tree, stone every piece of physical particulate of the confirmation of all alive and breathing beings, being moved smoothed, rocked, waved, rolled over and over in the sea’s bosom
Stones and Seal Carcass. Oregon Coast. Image, my own.
Ocean
I used to think I wasn’t an ocean person. But these rocky, cliffy, craggy knobs of sea-shorn trees, smooth stones and crusty conglomerates crab shells, jelly-fish skeletons, strips of kelp carcass, and clings of driftwood really wrap me into the rhythm of the tide
Milky Way Galaxy looking into the arm, High Uinta Wilderness, August 2024. Photo Ryan Moat.
Pluto
It stands that astrology could all be bull shit But so could a lot of other concepts offered in the universe of human understanding or misunderstanding Do you really know? Do you just believe? These are two different things
Air and Space Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., sometime in 2008, and Pluto had been stripped of Planetary status. I was sad. For no reason other than “My very educated mother just sent us nine Pizzas” wouldn’t be a thing anymore. I’m not Sure what about this ninth rock being demoted
depressed me, but when we entered the hall of Planets, the original installation next to Uranus Had not been taken down yet. It was only Inconsiderately draped with a huge swath of Gray fabric. You could still see Pluto’s form Lumped with, Charon, his major moon bulbing up
Under the gray canvas. I was sad. I am woman of faith, despite my unknowing And when my horoscope explains that Pluto is finally leaving Capricorn after fifteen years, it makes complete sense to me, I’m not saying that the information is designed
For anyone else on planet Earth, but, damn, if I don’t feel this revelation like fire Like second chances, like all explanations that are explainable and can and cannot be explained Adios, Pluto. You were downgraded from Planet status a long time ago.
Comet C/2020 F3 (Neowise), Mirror Lake, Utah, December 2020. Photo Ryan Moat.
Für Beethoven
I finally get it I understand How L. v. Bthvn Knew the whole Of life and love Because he felt it So poignantly So achingly So intimately When he writes Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (Für Elise) You can Literally sing The notes to The night music– Frogs and crickets Streams and rain Stars and bats Nocturnal rodents– Keeping melody, But poor Mozart His night music is All pomp, all praise And glory And that has Never been what Night is about I suppose Mozart Will never know
Andromeda Galaxy, M31. September 2021. Photo Ryan Moat.
Dying
it was the time of dying yet color still held, sunflowers paused grass, variegated green rest was coming the fall, the browning leaves and roots stems bore that truth the mountain, dusty gray yesterday was dressed in snow again today pinking wreaths of clouds and icy indigo striations of oncoming dusk some death is good the power of it real and raw, and magic turning over seasons the smell of fires, newly burning
Almost New Moon. April 29, 2020. Photo Ryan Moat.
Transformation
Truly time for a transformation, the season to greet the New Moon
at her best, she needs time to shed the old skin and celebrate the ruin
time to peel back old eyes from the clay of stunted vision, bright and clear
her future from the death of many miracles, the rivulet won’t
wait, it is time to flow with strength and abandon with knowing and grace
Orion Nebula. Big Cottonwood Canyon. January 30, 2021. Photo Ryan Moat.
Scire (ski:re) to know. Latin. for Starr
To know Time is to begin to understand the mortal drum of the Universe
The thrum of blood coursing through your veins, narrative in your head, bringing you closer to Death,
but to know Life is to know the thousand Drums cacuophonizing consciousness Beating,
to know to see to love to joy to song to peace
Yes, to tragedy but, to know the Infinite is to know that a star is birthed in an unfathomably incandescent act of fusion
Bed of a nebula beginning of Everything, Creation– calamitous, cataclysmic formidable, entropic where one star died, another reborn
In the End, we’ll remember this bead to celebrate one life, it returns us to our original scire– to know– all love
Autumn, overlooking Midway, Utah. Image, my own. September 2024.
Respiration
autumn of last year, I found myself watching my babies breath, in sleep, in dream
deep, cadenced pulls of oxygen fueling all parts of their frames, their beautiful hearts keeping time
children’s eyelashes soft, curled the color of milk chocolate, individuated so perfectly against the
delicate skin of their cheeks, I wept as their chests rose and fell at the joy of watching them breath
constant, paced, churning, these fist-sized hearts, muscling, pushing life-giving nutrients through their precious, peaceful forms
at night, it gave me peace, the assurance that everything was alright, the play of pulmonary veins filling
with nitrogen, argon, all mixed in with O2 being sent to the heart from the lungs hearts filling the upper left atrium
the heart, house of refreshment, dispersing the blood rich with food back into the body through the lower left ventricle
this circle saved me, literally, again and again imagining how the autonomic, metronomic rhythms of the heart allowed them to rest
into dream, into sleep, into measured breaths, into the rising of the inner oceans, breathing peace
Brain, Lightbulb, Plush Chair. Image, my own. May 2024.
Hippocampus
When my students check out a book from the library I often encourage them to make a bookmark Any ratty scrap of paper will do, a plus if it is neon pink We use this slip of paper to mark where we have Read, where we are reading, where we have been, Where we are going. The brilliant thing is that having A placeholder, having a signpost, having a demarcation To show how far you have come and how far you must go Is another kind of marker. It is a memory marker. In print, In pulpy bound cellulose and black ink, hold in your hand, Sniff with your nose, the real goodness of paper is that The brain creates even more memory pins for this Medium. So now, you are reading a book, but your Brain even remembers, memorizes, the geography Of the page. Where did you see that perfect sentence, At the top of page 67, How far into the book was the Rising action, the falling sequence, your brain takes in the Terrain of the page—the paragraph, the thickness of the Pages you’ve consumed thus far, becomes another kind of Topography. So intricately is our existence connected– Touch, sight, smell, taste—all being remembered Brain cells, neurons, communicating with each other Regarding the climax of the story, through an elegant Electrochemical system. A change in the electrical charge of One cell as you read and integrate the signs and symbols On the page into a larger story, triggers the release of Chemicals called neurotransmitters across synapses. The neurotransmitters are then taken up by dendrites of the Neuron on the other side of the synapse where they Trigger electrical changes in that cell. The geography that print books, and bookmarks represent only strengthens This circuit, a story arc sweeping into the hippocampus as a Permanent resident in some synapse of your 100 billion neurons
Crane House Stained Glass. Image, my own. August 2024.
Heart “So much held in a heart in a lifetime.” -Brian Doyle
I won’t ever be a surgeon But sometimes I imagine a heart beating in a human under the purposeful glare of a surgical lamp. And I have a moment to inspect this beautiful organ with my own eyes as it pushes blood throughout the body I can visualize the thick membrane of the ventricular septum– lengthening and shortening in precise time, the casing which divides the right and left heart, the chambers, the heart walls, muscles, really, that send the blood coursing through your body with constant contract-relax reflexes a miracle with every beat
Jean-Michel Basquait, Tuxedo, 1983
Nervous System
I am trying to get my words wrapped around my autonomic nervous system I am trying to describe how it feels to see a photo where I once existed and have been erased I am trying to describe the pang, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to As Hamlet intoned, unlike Hamlet, I’m not trying to leave this life. Here’s my stab.
When I’m in fight or flight, it is harder for me to wrap my words around my nervous system. It’s those moments when I could really just use a hug– skin to skin, arms enclosing my body, keeping me safe and calm, a quilt. Instead, in flight I feel as though the part of my body that is involved in the flying or fighting is nearly numbed, gone, absent
For example, if a man walks in on his wife making love to someone else, his brain, right behind His eyes may become so activated that it feels as though a horse bucked his skull from the Inside, like eating far too much pea-colored wasabi paste in one bite, which actually happened to me, I’m sorry to return to sushi, but it was my first time, and BAM!
Right between the eyes, if I believe that I am being abandoned, left, discarded, my entire lower gut is activated with one million energy worms, I crawl with that nearly breathless, tingle that radiates Through the rest of my body as I try to wrap my words around my nervous system for safety But, in fact, I should probably lean in. Accept. Sit with it. Just the other day, when a pang really
Struck me, took me by surprise, in my solar plexus, and then the breath catching, the spin, And the whole system, consciousness, in shock, straight from the amygdala, I thought, well good, I think this gives me the chance to decide what comes next. The brain through the body gets first dibs on the experience, but I am learning to quiet my reaction, trace the source
Of the shock, I am trying to get my words wrapped around my autonomic nervous system And what I am telling you is that I am trying to describe how it feels, so that I can hijack my hypothalamus, but that is impossibly ridiculous, that my wish is that no will ever have to feel this way again, which might be the end of our species, so let’s keep flying out of our bodies
Autumn, Wasatch Mountains, Image, my own. September 2024.
See
Have you ever watched someone learn something closely? With your raw, open eyes, irises spiked wide with color, this is where miracles lie. In my classroom, students flow in and out of the physical space all day. Water. But there are moments that transcend the quirky ephemera we plaster the walls to increase engagement. Air. Like the quiet that falls on the room when you discuss the concept that maybe Thomas Aquinas was right, and you could come face-to-face with the divine on the pages of an essay you read in English class. Mountain. Perhaps you witness the that burst of energy come across someone’s being when they lift the palm sander at the finish of the final face of the joinery for their rustic bureau in woods class, when the firing is finished in the pottery studio, when the piece of silver has been hammered to perfection. Fire. Those words and worlds and ways will always be part of your fiber, your sinew, your resilience, your learning in a sorrowful, beautiful world.
Peaches. Farmer’s Market. by Quin Olpin. September 2024.
Benediction
Candlelight wavers in the silent brush of the ceiling fan Night air sinks into currents of cool water brought up From the little creek, the smell of river paired with even More oxygen lifts and falls on a fleeting breeze, fresh and sweet
Whatever music and magic there is to be had in The universe is happening right here inside my home At my table, it happens in moments like these, in every Pocket of the world tonight– right here, right now, breath easy
Big Dipper. Again and Forever. September 2024. Image, my own.
Horǎ
In dream, the night is thick with cricket symphony the grass stalks golden, long and chilled in the meadow, above the sentinel oak the stars prick blackness like reverse needle-work intricate dance, flowing and fire, thousands of light-years away yet seemingly so near
The tent is simple and the lashings have been tested in a storm that whipped through an hour ago, howling at the white flaps of canvas, smattering rain onto the party but the air now returns to dark stillness. Lanterns, re-lit, quiver and sway in simple atmospheric breaths
I hug my sister close, smile at a friend across the way, eyes connecting and story-telling for just an instant and then I am physically swept away, time suspends its relentless snick, and in that instant we spiral as one
Limbs outstretched, grasping and firm as we reach for one another, smiles, countenances as wide and open and awed as galactic arms around and around We swirl in an ancient pattern of love, mirrored in the heavens templated by earth and actioned by humans
Under the open-sky, beneath the tent, midst the lanterns, our heat rising in healing, and celebration, and joy, an eschewance of hatred, a ceremony of transcendence and light through the ages
Plexus no. 34. Gabriel Dawe. Amon Carter Museum, Austin, TX.
Peach
Oh. My. God. Let the sweet nectar drip over your lips and down your chin
Why contain this experience, the velvet skin, the wet flesh
The fruit of summer realized, the sweetness and pleasure, stunning
Grosa & Nebulosa. Galaxy.
“We have to beware of the extent to which liberal individualism has actually been an assault on community… when the genuine staff of life is our interdependency, is our capacity to feel both with and for ourselves and other people.” –bell hooks
Interdependency
Oldest: “Mom, mom! You’ve got to come look at this moon!”
Youngest: “Mom, let’s dance to this song right here in the kitchen.”
Oldest: “i love you” “u r srsly weird”
Youngest: “don’t die”
Oldest: “goom, can you send me five gold dubloons for wendy’s?”
Youngest: “Hey, do you know where my hazmat suit is”
Peaches. Claude Monet. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
With a new moon and the beautiful transition to autumn upon us, some poems for your week, month, moment. XX, Megan
September
draughts of cool morning air carried on dry-sighing leaves respirate, whispering: rest, stay, plan, see, manifest, begin, in every breath the order and organization of Earth are upon us as gardens bear fruit, hay is left to cure, baled in sun waning warmly in late afternoon fields of golden bristle, summer to fall, denouement to eight months of moons new and full and new again transitions cyclical, circling in the darkening sky just after the last gasp of cerise light crests over the western mountains at sunset wind chimes low and resonant toning oooooh-aaaaah, bracing rush and sweep of air transmits that ocher timbre of September
Wasatch Mountains, September 2024. Image, my own.
Temple for Danny and Kat, with love, M
Come into the temple of my love for I am sure about its beauty and its strength
Come into the temple of my love for strength can also mean softness, stillness, peaceful respite, home
I’ve learned that lives change so quickly, so surely, that surety is difficult to process, to prepare
But one thing I am sure of is that as the sun sets and the stars rise, I will love you
Through the night, and as the sun rises on the next morn, in communion with the coming day
In shelter of our shared humanity, loyalty, commitment, love, and serenity we weather storms
Of life together, centered as we enter into the temple of our love
Refined + Rugged 