Miraquill
Lesson from the Winter Solstice at Newgrange
Like the darkness inside the neolithic tomb,
the misapprehension is profound.
The star that lights this room
knows nothing of our needs, of our constructs.
It has no sense of its power, of how much we crave
and depend on its warmth and illumination.
It does not know that we have always been
sun worshippers. And are still.
Fall backwards in time a thousand years.
And then do it again four times more.
And still it is not enough to see the forming
of the stones that lie here still.
The magic of this place casts a spell.
It is a vortex that draws us to its prehistoric song.
Its mystery invades us and erases us from time.
And on the day we are furthest from the source,
the dial moves a single click,
and this lithic chamber of deathless dark
is consumed by light.
Does the star burn any less bright in that moment?
Is its power any less?
The ancients roll their eyes like stones over a hill.
We don’t need all the light.
We only need a little.
©darared
darared
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You're There
It is dark but I feel your hand on me.
I hear you breathing as your fingers
rest gently on my arm.
I lie beside you and do not want to move.
This nothing touch is nothing you
are capable of any other time.
Its rarity moves me.
Sometimes I chase this flicker fruitlessly,
a will o’ the wisp that cannot, nor will not
be caught.
But tonight I am happy to be still,
to be grateful for this sleep-filled reprieve,
to be reminded.
There was a time when it all came so easily.
There was a time when it was all we could do
not to devour each other.
Our days and nights were light and fire.
Love was something we tasted, drank and breathed.
We let the river take us.
But over time the light was less
and the woods were more. The fire grew small
until it was barely there at all.
But every now and then – a flicker in the dark
that beckons me to move through the woods
to find the way out.
Your will o’ the wisp leads me. Or deceives me.
It may be nothing, or it may be everything
we have.
You lie heavy and very still. Your fingertips
on my skin touch me. I drift towards sleep,
the river, the past, a future.
©darared -
Time to Get Off the Fence
Perhaps men who have considered themselves to be pro-feminist have never fully understood that simply standing out of the way doesn’t make you a brother-in-arms – it makes you a spectator.
And if you open your male mouth to express solidarity but your words betray your fence-sitting, then it amounts to the same thing; you are no more than a witness, a bystander. You just ‘happened to be there’.
Stop doing the dance. Get off the fence. Start representing a better version of what a man can be.
Don't just say you support women.
Do it. Live it. Be it.
theClearOut.com, January 2018 -
Happy Place
A love affair that started
with an unspoken pact.
I would watch
and you would act.
Such drama! Such heroism!
And writ so large. No bigger
screen than the one in my head.
Eyes and smiles the trigger,
the ignition, the tinderbox.
An extended hand, an invitation -
"Come with us, you're welcome."
Mouth agape, eyes transfixed,
mesmerised, struck dumb.
Lost in bliss, lost in their world,
I was erased, removed, effaced.
I had travelled to the sublime,
I had found my happy place.
©darared -
Inked
The implication was
it wasn't for me.
When pressed, it was
to be removed
from my hands
like an inappropriate
thing from a child.
"Ah-ah - not for you!"
I learned afterwards
it was a female text.
The mystery!
The great unknown!
Like discovering sex,
it was only going
to make me wiser,
more worldly,
and more in love with the other.
Their mark was upon me
long before they were forbidden.
©darared -
The Violence
Drop cloths.
Turquoise through the window.
A million pots, a million dots,
streaks, splashes, splodges,
splurges, irruptions, coffee rings
and biscuit crumbs
and discarded butts
and orange peels.
She waits
and feels.
She opens herself
to the thing. And listens.
Listens. Listens.
Her ear is bent to the whispers of her soul.
It comes and she sees it and she knows.
She knows. She knows.
Alizarin. Cadmium. Cerulean. Phthalo.
Seizing the beasts of colour,
her war cry lets them know she is coming.
©darared -
View from Space
It's quite pretty.
Look again.
Oh dear. Are they...?
Yes, I'm afraid so.
Humans!
I'm sorry.
But they've completely ruined it!
You're hardly surprised.
No, I suppose not. Disappointed.
Humans are disappointing.
Gross. It's completely infested.
Yes, they get under everything.
No one would want to live there.
Except them.
Ugh, it's vile.
Yes, but it's their natural habitat.
Right. Where to next?
©darared -
Read More
#fear #strength #vulnerability #wellness #resilience #understanding #self-care #insight #theclearoutpodcast #irishpodcast
By unknown writerOpen
I think we live with a lot of closed doors. These doors are connected to our fears and our pain. They are connected to what we believe to be true about ourselves. They are connected to what we believe is possible for ourselves. They are things we treat as if they are dead and buried. They are our wraiths of hope and love. They are our demons of self-doubt and recrimination. If we can open and step through those doors, we can engage and become comfortable with what lies behind them.
By not opening those doors, we are limiting our existence to one of reduced dimensions. We are narrowing our vision and allowing our world to be defined only by the things we choose to look at. If we are willing to embrace the idea of being open, and that by being open, new existences may become possible, we can radically alter the scope of what we feel is possible for us.
theClearOut.com, October 2020 -
Materials
Not an engineer
Not an architect
Not a builder
But bricks of understanding
Girders of will
Mortar of blood and tears
Have made the many bridges
I have walked upon
Peered across
Leaned over
Passed under
To get to my many selves
And you
And her
©darared -
Storm Warning
The further out I went, the more vulnerable I felt, but I kept throwing one arm over the other, trusting both history and the mechanics of my body, even as my brain objected, triggering a contradictory fugue state of heightened awareness and total dissociation.
Upon my return I rose and fell as I urged myself onwards, buffeted off-course constantly and constantly correcting for it.
I reached for the vertical steel steps that allowed me to pull myself up out of the water. I looked back out at the churning, slaloming sea. It had drawn me under its spell.
theClearOut.com September 2019
