​She sits in her cave
And within her belly
She feels the birthing of clouds.
She senses them also   
Dancing around her shoulders.
 
She then feels the need to fly
And so
She spirals in forms across the sky.
 
When she wants,
Clouds spill out from her belly  
like apples falling from a bag.
 
And they are there!
 
See and wonder into them
As slowly or quickly
They shift their shapes
In elegant beauty, 
Walking or running 
Across the sky.
 
We find ourselves
in this Goddess
always more wonderful than
what we had assumed.
 
The texts point, the heart experiences.
 
She shines
In a fantastic gesture of the eyes.
No need to see
What we have felt
Others see and feel it
in on our radiance.       
 
As the clouds churn out their rain
An orphaned dog cowers under a tree.
The Goddess is there.
She also hears a man curse a hundred times
for it Is raining again
and she feels the pain of the man
noticing his feet have become damp
and his love colder
and diminished in his heart.
 
Heads nod this way and that,
Minds collide, resonate or repel
one gesture
yields a yes
the other maintains
a no.
 
Who can feel this Goddess
Shakti Kundalini?
The primordial life force.  
 
Some have a sense of her
but through fear,  
imprison themselves
in her shopfront garrisons
like mannikins, with a price tag
around their necks,
that none will come in and pay for.
 
They feel
a wind they hear
but do not feel
They know a Sun
they see
but no not see.
 
She gives and she takes.
And we toss ourselves back to the wind
and exclaim in joy,
for others there are flying!
 
Do you see them ascend the golden spirals in the air?
Dance their joy into the chambers of time?
 
Of course,
at night they also tumble down,
as do we all
back to the bed
of myrtle shade
we all share. 
 
Allotted time,
spaces we feel.
 
Forms that dance
all within this Goddesses
bright radiance. 

​









The road is long
and the load heavy
that winds
its way to Rome.

There on my bicycle
around my twentieth year
Cycling home,
Winds on my chest,
after an early shift.
Heart in pain,
My mind conjured from its depths
A mental image
of that statue,
of Dying Seneca
That stands in the Louvre.

Can you see it?
Others though think this statue
may be of an Old Fisherman.
Let’s feel its Seneca though,
Seneca Stoic Sage
Who counselled
wild ferocious Emperor Nero.
Seneca
was also a playwright
or were there two different men?

If they are the same man
some say he found a kind of catharis
Through writing his blood filled
almost blood thirsty
tragic plays- or
perhaps they were
also a needed compensation
For his calm stoic natural ethical wisdom.

For some it seems
such a different hand the author of the plays
than the calm noble wise proponent
of natural stoic wisdom.

Yet Look deeply
at Aristotle’s doctrine of Catharsis.
And the benefits of diving into and showing
Greek Tragic plays.
It would then make full sense for Seneca
to ramp up the floods of blood
for his savage Roman Crowd.

I saw something in the statue
of a man caught
in the sufferings of life though.
He seems to want to speak
but does not feel he can.
How many times must wise Seneca have
felt like this counselling
the wild murderous Emperor Nero?

I felt a little like this in that moment
flowing through the air on my bicycle.
Caught in the cycles of life, between anger, pain,
stern counsel and accpetance.
For I had felt a betrayal of sorts
Had been committed.
For my Father
Had handed over
one of my short stories
to an Aunty,
who happened to be a psychiatric Nurse
who then happened
to hand it to one of her Superiors
a Psychiatrist,
a modern so called Doctor of the mind.
All without my knowing or consent.

The purpose? Perhaps you can guess
worried people
Wanting expert insight, to check
Signs of mental unbalance in me.

The verdict?
An all clear,
a lucid and insightful work
that could be followed
from beginning to end,
not the rumblings
of an unsound mind.
Anger or acceptance?
Perhaps in those days
I suppressed overly.
The waves of life
Roll through us.
We manage as we can.
Like old dying Seneca,
or an Old Fisherman,
or Young Tom.

​The script is not written by us
We come into life as life dictates
but yet we choose
how we play out our part.
Ramana Maharishi “All is predestined”
See the blinding insight in that,
Freewill left untouched
as St Julian of Norwich spoke
"All shall we well"

​Dionysus

You are the Lord and guide
of ancient mysteries
And have drunk of the nectar
of this world’s deep wells.

Host of revelries in the warm or frosty air
Trees, sun and moon look on
As initiates are led to ecstatic rebirth.
I see you in the heart of the leader
And the one who yearns to find his guide.

You plunge into the lake in all seasons
Yet rest with the robin red breast in frost.

You dance the earth a thousand times
Pine cone atop staff
Sap moving,
charming the riddled air.

I would do well to whirl
with you around a favourite tree.
Apollo smiles as we cast off burdens
and free them into the either.

I see you, I do,
in the glisten of the eyes of revellers
As they walk home in the early hours
Arm in arm.
Who knows what passed between them?
What was felt, found or lost?

Yet in this sorry world
We trudge on through
so many lost moments.
Awareness like a fading light,
What can be done?
People take cover
inside frozen lamp posts of the psyche
Or spin and burn like moths in the flame.
Frozen or burned out,
We cower
with a paralyzed snake of fear,
tightly binding our mortal frame and mind.

Only you, oh Dionysus
have the way to charm
our snakes from us,
for you are the guardian
and way finder of our fears.

You have a way of nudging
& tipping us into a place,
An edge where we see
and feel both wall and sky,
A place of clarity of bondage and release,
where we fall, where we die.

Expanding, rebirthing, courageous
we can perhaps
lift this snake from us
& you then show us
how to take it to a rich meadow
where this snake
can be one with the earth and sky.
​
Oh Dionysus,
help us to see the sunrise and sunset again
& help us to find our lost songs.
Revive our frozen limbs,
waters melting, toxins purging
and set warm blood surging,
life tingling, life honouring,
spiralling
through our mortal frame.