© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Created around 2001.
Author: sharonstjoan
Poet, writer, and advocate for wildlife, wild lands, and the earth. President, Forest Voices of India - a U.S.-based group which aids charities in India that further education, culture, the well-being of women, children, and animals, and the restoration of sacred groves.
websites:
https://wordpress.com/view/forestvoicesofindia.com
https://wordpress.com/view/echoesinthemist.com
https://wordpress.com/view/wildvoices.world
book: Glimpses of Kanchi
https://www.amazon.com/Glimpses-Kanchi-Sharon-St-Joan/dp/1982901179/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Glimpses+of+Kanchi&qid=1581769003&sr=8-1
Before the moon will write
Gone
Now, the cloud-wandering
Of the winter night,
Before the moon
Will write
Her comments
Across the pale
Rock
Invoking
Those untraveled moments
Yet to be, when soon
The silver, ambling feet
Of quail
Will flock
To greet
The sky-winged
Innocence of dawn.
Written around 1990
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Before and Again
Do you hear
The standing stone that sings
Again, as it did in the shining days
Before time eclipsed the starstrands
Of eternity?
Closed now the crypts of concrete flowers
Papered
With the dead photos
Of gray kings
Winding up their own
Long, white-wintered
Year.
But out through the windows
Past the gates
Lie far, fair lands
Of bright bells
Which ring,
Triumphant always
As the sunlight and the shadows
Fall
Along the hawthorne tree
There the mist encircles the hills
Where the great-pawed panther dwells
And gaily plays
Gathering spells
Amid the wildrose bowers,
While red-winged blackbirds call
Forth anew those long-lost
Powers,
The angels of ancient hours
And goldfinches fly, exultant, like petals tossed
And blown
On waves of rain showers,
And, out there
The king of apple blossoms waits
For the day of spring
Holding moonbeams in his hands.
Written around 1988
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
More about praying for rain and the nature of the universe: a prophecy
Sometimes one must pray for rain for days and even years.
God Is not limited by our time frame. He/She does not abhor death – beyond death there is peace and even joy.
God exists within, around, and beyond the universe. A small part of God is the universe. The spiritual exists – it is unseen because it is not a material thing. It is spiritual. The physical world comes into being – but unfortunately, the physical world then sometimes runs amuck in all directions all by itself – and hence there is pain and evil – because of the separation and alienation from the spiritual.
The physical universe comes into being when a division takes place. Suddenly, there is more than one. There are two. This second entity may not really be real because only the One is real (think of the Hindu concept of maya). Yet physical reality has appearances – Newton’s apple falls to the ground — in the sunlight, it is red; it is heavy, and it falls; one can watch it fall and hear it hit the ground. To us, it is solid and real, one can even taste it. It manifests as physical. Yet it is missing something; it is not spirit, though spirit may be within it and may dwell within it – and may even be trapped within it – according to the concepts of the gnostics.
Because there is division – there arises incompleteness – a lack of wholeness. If you divide the train from the engine, something important is missing. Some essential things have been left out. From this lack arise the deficiencies of the physical universe – pain, suffering, harm, death, illness, and evil. These arise from and are the consequence of the separation – the division that has taken place in order to bring about the universe – the separation (leading to alienation) between the spiritual and the physical. The wildflower is very beautiful, but after summer is done, there is no ongoing source of life and nourishment, and the flower dies. The life within it has gone. It cannot exist apart from the source of life which sustains it. (I do not mean that dead flowers are not beautiful; certainly they are, but theirs is a different beauty.)
When the physical universe – especially as the world of nature – is still inhabited by spirit – still in touch with its essence and its soul – it has profound beauty – the flowers, the majestic rocks, the ocean waves in their endless patterns, the grace of animals and plants. (The ocean and the rocks are also alive.)
The living beings of nature are subject to pain because of the separation that brought them into existence as separate beings – no longer entirely whole – apart from the original unity – which is God. The farther removed one is from the spiritual – the greater the chasm – the more prone is the physical world to suffering and disaster.
With the arising of the mental plane (which can be useful, but which is mostly an agent of disruption), there is further separation and further evil – such as we see in the modern human world. – war, chaos, hatred, injustice, disease, tyranny, and cruelty – and an irrepressible drive to rise above and dominate the earth. But, one may say, these things have always existed. But think for a moment – that is not so. Think of the innocence of deer, of flowers, of the rolling hills – who all existed before human beings. The natural world can be dramatic, even destructive, but it is not cruel. Even tigers are not cruel; they kill only when they are hungry or to feed their young, out of fear or defence sometimes, but never out of malice. The tiger is as innocent as the deer.
Only human beings have the capacity for intentional cruelty, and cruelty is intentional – the word itself implies intent. As human beings, it is our task to leave behind the tyranny we exert over the natural world – and instead to bring about a re-unification of the physical with the spiritual – in union – to re-unite that which has drifted – or exploded — apart. We must learn to perceive once again the true reality of the natural world – it is inhabited by spirit. Nature is an expression of God.
The mistaken assertion, espoused in the Old Testament that “man was made in the image of God” is a false teaching and goes along with much of the rest of the Old Testament that portrays God as a tyrannical being. If you don’t think so, you may not have read it lately. Parts of the Old Testament are soaringly beautiful – such as some of the psalms and parts of Isaiah – these express the true wisdom of these people, but the rest was written by somebody else. It all contrasts sharply with the portrayal in the New Testament of Jesus as a teacher of love and kindness. The Old Testament prophets spent quite a lot of time persecuting the Canaanites who followed the old religion and were always going up into the hills to worship trees — as if worshipping trees were a horrible thing to do. Unfortunately, much of the underpinning philosophy of our culture derives in part from the dominance expressed in the Old Testament. We have lost sight of this, but it is so.
Worshipping trees, who are sacred beings, is actually quite a good thing to do.
Nature is a part of God, and when we are able to become ourselves a part of this truth – truly able to perceive it – then we perceive the original peace of the unity of the two halves that seemed to have been split apart (though this was always an illusion). The physical and the spiritual will be brought together again – will be one. This is the mystical truth. It can be glimpsed distantly – intellectually. It can only truly be seen mystically.
This is the truth of mystics the world over. We can discover this by looking to the ancient worldviews – the knowledge in the traditions of the ancient land of India, the cosmic understanding of indigenous and tribal peoples all over the earth. They hold the remnants of truth that our modern world has left behind and destroyed. We must once again look to them for the truth – and salvation.
The genocide of the earth’s native peoples – like the war against nature (it is the same war) — has been a scourge attempting to kill truth and beauty in order to make way for a force, alien to nature, that seeks only dominance.
It has run its course. Many of those who might once have perpetrated the lies supporting this war have now turned against it.
For those ancient peoples of the earth who have guarded fundamental truths over so many eons – for them, along with their brothers and sisters of the natural world, and the earth itself, there will come again the brightness of the light and the dawn ahead.
© Sharon St Joan, July 2021
How to pray for rain (and other things)
You can do a rain dance. Sing to the rain. Write a poem about rain. Read poems about rain. Visualize rain. Remember rain.
One of the best ways to pray for rain is simply to pray for rain. Ask God or Buddha or Jesus or the rain spirits or the Great Spirit – or whoever you pray to or talk with – to send rain. It can also be your grandmother who has passed on, your guardian angel, your animal spirit guide, or the rain itself, the clouds, or the sky.
One way to do this is to talk with the land itself. Here in the west, it may be the land and the rock cliffs that we see on the horizon. Ask the land and the cliffs to call the rain. Clearly, some communication has broken down somewhere, so it would be good if they get back on speaking terms again.
If you live in the eastern U.S. or elsewhere in the world where there is an abundance of rain, probably the last thing you would wish to do is pray for more rain. One can pray for sunshine too!
In the case of the western U.S., many living beings need rain — insects, baby birds, the wildflowers that have not bloomed at all, and the trees that have grown brown patches. Trillions and trillions of beings all over the western states are profoundly in need of rain. In some regions, this is the worst drought ever recorded.
(If you find prayers to be nonsensical – please just take it easy! Billions of people have already said at least one prayer already today. This has been happening for hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of years. It’s okay for people to have differing points of view.)
So – to continue – when praying for rain or anything else, some ways of going about this really help and others are a hindrance.
For example, listening to a negative inner voice that repeats endlessly “This isn’t working. See, there’s no rain.” “This is very silly.” Or imagining what things will be like in five years or even next year without rain. Or dwelling on suffering.
Our mind is not always our friend. Often our mind is a chatterbox, filled with negative gossip and irrelevant, even harmful thoughts. This is just a fact. Our mind announces to us that it is a superior being and that it knows best. It takes us away down very negative paths where we do not wish to go, all the while insisting that it is being “reasonable” and “rational” – “more intelligent” than you are and vastly superior. The human mind has its uses, when working out technical problems and other mental tasks, but it is not actually the essence of our being. The mind is not our truest reality or our innermost spirit. We can see this for ourselves just by watching where the human mind so often takes us. If we are not watching carefully, our minds take over the intuitive part of our being, and the mind issues proclamations which tend to be negative – fears, doubts, ridicule, depression, and derision. Unfortunately, this is compounded by our modern worldview which tends to discount any sense of the sacred that comes from our innermost being – and instead elevates the human mind.
Our Innermost being is often more perceptive than our mind. Fortunately, many people do know this, and with practice, we can learn to be in control and use the mind as a tool, while not falling prey to its compulsive tendency to babble negativity. Be vigilant. Remind yourself that there is no obligation to listen to your mind’s negative chatter. This chatter is not the truth. The truth lies within the higher, truer realms of your being, is intuitive and tends to be more perceptive, more peaceful, and more observant of the reality that lies in the present moment – not the past or the future, neither of which are really here now.
Our innermost being is open to great knowledge and clarity when we do not let the cobwebs of the mind get in the way. This doesn’t mean that we should forget the intellect and try to be stupid. Not at all, our intellect can be enormously enlightening. The intellect is not the same level as the mind, which can be just negative, and we can notice this distinction very easily once we get the hang of it.
So, when praying for rain – or anything – instead of allowing our mind to try to keep tabs on “Is this working.?” “Why hasn’t it rained yet?” just remind yourself that you are under no obligation to listen this voice. Prayers can take time. Communication with the beings of nature doesn’t always go according to our desired time frame. Our mental demands are not helpful; only our love and reverence for the sacred spirits of the universe and nature — and God — are beneficial and helpful.
When we are on the path of walking within the mystical reality of being, of being in touch with the leaves of the trees, the mist in the mountains, and the creatures of the earth, we just need to keep walking, resolutely and unwaveringly. If we have been slowed down somehow or even stopped, or if we find we have fallen off the path and ended up in the brush down a ravine somewhere, then we need to get up, get back on the path, and walk on – not turning aside, and never, ever, giving up.
God (in whatever way we may see Her or Him) always answers prayers. It’s not our job to figure out how or when – only to be in alignment with the beauty of the universe – to stay on the path, in reverence, trusting in grace, grateful for the Presence that walks with us.
© Sharon St Joan, July 2021
Stars and rivers
You are,
And you become still,
The white star
Cast in the slivers
Of the ashwood tree
And the Black Madonna
Who swings on the gold swing
Of your rose-ringed car,
Carried through cities old
As the emerald wings of time,
Unbent.
Where are you in the wandering
Whisper of the canted
Tide
Along the rock-cut
Ghost-shelled
Shore,
When only
gulls can hear the ringing
Echo
Of the soft-belled
Singing
And the murmur
Of the many-lilied morning,
Of the waves that tiptoe
Back into the sea?
Forest voices, green-mossed, among the damp sod,
There you unfold
The unsuspected peace
Of the day
Of clouds,
Of gray
And wind-boned shrouds,
Of rain, from where bands
Of brave geese,
Hurtling,
Climb
Above the northmost hill
The blue Himalaya.
In the winds, you stir
Beside
The ever-present,
Southern rocks of Arunachala,
The mountain that is God.
The quick-footed magic,
The dragon-bright beauty
Of the cosmic
Dance of Nataraja,
And the truth of all that ever is or could be,
All are held
Then and now, and evermore
In the starsent,
Moon-enchanted
Rivers
Of your hands.
© Sharon St Joan May 18, 2013
Hanuman, you are there
Hanuman,
Eyes of the green-rolling ocean waves,
Eyes of the beauty of peace, blue
Essence of being,
Your world is true.
Then, we knew you before,
And remember you from when this earth began.
You ride on the wind,
Through the star-
Bending branches of destiny.
Your heart braves
The upheavals of all that should not be.
You – the soul of all being.
You are the iron-gray rocks of eternity,
You sing in the sky;
You shine, effervescent, In the sun.
You walk in the moon-winged, far-raining
Night of gossamer petals.
You fly,
On bright sandals,
Hanuman, son of the wind,
Soul of eternity,
Near the hawk, sharp-shinned,
Hovering to scan
The long, winding shore.
Where
Would you go, Hanuman?
There, in the great-souled trees of all-being,
Among the startling leaves – green in the spring.
Always, you are there.
Never far,
Always there,
Hanuman,
Son of the wind.
Always there.
In the sharp wind that runs by the circling sea.
© Sharon St Joan, June 2021
Hanuman, son the wind
Hanuman,
Son of the wind,
Forest-eyed,
Sent to free
Entangled innocence from rusted snares,
From the bitter clawhold of Ravana,
To guide the gold-winged butterfly,
The shy, dawn-eyed doe,
The nagalinga tree
Of skylit flower,
The brave host of bears
On the oak-hallowed hill,
The bright-songed messengers, in flight,
The belled, meandering cow,
The redwoods of ancient girth,
The moon-
Finned
Minnows
Of silver gill,
Out from the chasms of desolation
Of a world gone awry
Back to the far, far
Reaches of the beginning – before ever time arose
Back to the shining lake of the mountain height
Hidden unseen in the green land of the star
Where mists of joy run
Like horses on the white river, wide,
Where the spring cactus unfolds gold and red.
A day to bring the innocent out, away
In the boat of the canted bow
That fled
Across the storm-bent sea
In the gale-churned hour.
Do you remember your flaming brand
And the fire that went up to swallow
The iron-souled city of Lanka?
Hanuman,
Savior of the innocent, hero-son
Of earth and star,
There – hear the call of the raven chime
From the canyon of ill-kept time.
Soon
Hanuman,
Son of the wind,
Breath of the earth.
© Sharon St Joan
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After a while
Tall,
To the sun
And the moon they rise,
Pillars
That hold up the land
Of the stars,
In the early morning
Of time.
Where the chime
Of butterflies
Rings in the mist
Of clouds,
Where the horses of the wind climb
Archaic hills, peace settles,
Free from the shrouds
Of thought bewildered.
When the grinding wheels
Of the rattling cars,
The careening cart,
Of the manic race of beings that never stops
Have stopped, unspinned,
And fallen down
From the lofty wall,
Their memory lies
Quiet,
Dimming,
In the cheerful company
Of ghosts,
In the sooted
Shambles of empires
Cast
Under the snapping heels
Of fate.
Then
The coyotes
And the ever-knowing raven
Will run again
In gladness,
Across the red rock sand.
The wild hills, free now,
As the lilies
Of eternity
Who bow
In the wandering wind
By the bright
And undiscovered
Sea.
After the horns
Of many winters
Have fallen silent,
The husk
Of time
Discarded,
The aspiring rose will lift
Her head again
Among the rocks, resilient,
In the ice-enchanted
Spring.
The wind will sing.
Stones
Will shine, blessed in the twinkling
Emptiness
Of night.
The crow
Hops
In black
Clouds that inhabit
A sky of joy;
Coyotes laugh last
In the dance of the dusk,
And the ancient,
Earlier folk
Walk
To take back
The sacred mountain
Stolen
So long ago,
Now that the age of the unholy
Will be ended and done,
Gone
On the smoke
Of the fleeing mist.
Under a delicate crown
Of forest
Leaves, mice play
Among their catch,
The silver
Trinkets of the dead,
And talk
A while of feats of yore.
Herons glimmer,
One-footed,
On the green, tree-
Shouldered river.
Such an ill wind
That blew
Into the bones
Of the soul
Of men,
And stayed, corroding
The core
Of history,
Such a grim, unseemly game,
Like thorns
Lodged in the heart,
But when the scales fall
Away,
One by one by one,
Then
In the end there are only
The plain, rain-lit,
And the rose that flowers anew,
The innocent petals
Of nevermore,
And the farmer’s boy
Who whistles
In the strawberry patch,
By the lop-sided shack,
Where the corn stalks grow,
His blue
Hat adrift
On his head,
In the town
With no name,
Where the raven rules, with the snow-
Winged geese.
The sun holds the empty bowl,
Blessed be his ashen fires.
Agni, the one
Who returns
All
Back to the beginning.
Set the burning
Lanterns
Out and wait
In peace,
From within the rock and mist
To hear a killdeer call,
To sail away
To a far and luminous shore,
Known so well from long before,
On the flaming ships of dawn.
© Sharon St Joan, 2021
Orioles Closer~ —
If you live with, very shy migrating birds, they remember you, from season to season, based on the consistency of your behavior, and quality of your snacks! Cheers to you from the very wise, and very hungry, orioles~
Orioles Closer~ —