Thursday, April 23, 2020

everyday is Earth day


“Tara with the Sun and the Moon”

By Toni Truesdale

In the beauty above us are the Sun, Moon, and Stars.

In the cities we forget the multitude of the universe,

for the light, noise, and pollution veil the night.

This firmament is so huge,

we cannot but feel the joy of creation

and the awe of our own smallness

compared to the infinite.

Yet each of us are part of this whole.

The sun lights our day and nourishes all life on earth.

The Moon illuminates our nights

and creates cycles by which we live.

Water listens to the changes of the Moon.

It is no wonder, all people have

told stories about heavenly beings,

the constellations have the history of

humanity just in their names.

When we climb the mountain,

is it not to feel close to the creator?

Gate to Heaven is above us.

Some of the indigenous people say,

this gate is a dwelling place way up in the sky

where our souls pass into the next world.

In the Christian world there is a

gatekeeper that judges each person for the

good they have done in this life.

For most people we tend to renew our contact

with our spiritual selves when we remind

ourselves that there is something much greater than we



T.Truesdale copyright 2000


Monday, April 20, 2020

tears for those that have left too soon

From my pandemic journal 4/20/2020:

Layers of grief already lay buried
in this land.
Added now so much new death and dying.

Not enough time nor ritual to ease the passage
or to help heal those crying.
How can we not feel the omnipresent fog of grief
passed each to each
 As each soul passes often anonymously,
 Without the comfort of family?

It is time to witness again
 Unnecessary and premature deaths.
Now hundreds of thousands.

The dancing prayers bring pause;
Sung psalms may ease, 
As we search for meager blessings in solitude.

Light a candle today
Offer a prayer for those we do not know,
Do a kindness for anyone.
Acknowledge the suffering disparity of people of color.
Vow to do better to fight for truth and injustice.

Honor those innocent victims;
Honor yourself with service to others even in the smallest way.

Each small step towards a better world brings us closer together;
 Away from the solitude of the grief we may deny hovering all around.
 Each hour is a death toll to our negligence.

My tears salt the earth today as so many before.
Let's be the country we all need it to be
Truth, Justice and Equality.
  
 



Monday, March 30, 2020

Deep peace to you

Deep peace I breathe into you,
O weariness, here:
O ache, here!
Deep peace, a soft white dove to You;
Deep peace, a quiet rain to you;
Deep peace, an ebbing wave to you!
Deep peace, red wind of the east from you;
Deep peace, grey wind of the west to You;
Deep peace, dark wind of the north from you;
Deep peace, blue wind of the south to you!
Deep peace, pure red of the flame to you;
Deep peace, pure white of the moon to you;
Deep peace, pure green of the grass to you;
Deep peace, pure brown of the earth to you;
Deep peace, pure grey of the dew to you,
Deep peace, pure blue of the sky to you!
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the sleeping stones to you!
Deep peace of the Yellow Shepherd to you,
Deep peace of the Wandering Shepherdess to you,
Deep peace of the Flock of Stars to you,
Deep peace from the Son of Peace to you,
Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you,
And from Briget of the Mantle
Deep peace, deep peace!

Celtic Prayer of Fiona McLeod  


Thursday, March 19, 2020

Spring Equinox 2020


“Mother and Daughter”

by Toni Truesdale



In Ancient times the matriarch passed sacred knowledge

to the divine daughter;

Daughters reciprocated with offerings to their mother.

The legend of Demeter and Kore is

One of western cultures oldest myths.

When the daughter Kore was abducted,

Demeter searched for her daughter as all life on earth wilted.

The formation of the seasons was the resolution.

The daughter becomes Persephone;

Returning to the mother during spring and summer;

Descending to her husband, Hades, for fall and winter.

For Demeter is Mother Earth.



Copyright T.Truesdale 1990

ToniTruesdale.com

Thursday, March 12, 2020

Respecting the elder women as keepers of knowledge


My Grandmother’s House



Archaic little female figures unearthed all over the world;

Reveal the complex spiritual nature of the early matrilineal societies.

These ladies are significantly beautiful.

The striking similarity of small clay fertility females

Of early civilizations: The Indus valley,

Mesopotamia, Palestine, Southeast Asia or Ancestral Pueblo.

Mark the path back to the source, the beginning…

To our DNA ancestress,

The mitochondrial Mother who gave our hereditary patterns, genetic seeds

That are contained in the roots of a world culture, indicating

The imprint of our human species is,

As are all metaphors for the planet, female.

-Toni Truesdale

copyright 2009


Friday, March 6, 2020

International Womans Day March 8th 2020

Remembering All the Women who have suffered, then now and Future through Wars of Men

Carnage:
There are imprints on the land;
Of grief and pain.
I see this, feel this, hear the tears, sometimes.
It overwhelms me.
It took me until my teens to realize everyone else didn’t feel the
Agony of others;
Past, Present, Future…

It’s in the cities.
I could not bear the frustration and anger
Imparted unknowingly.
I wore the pathos of children’s lives,
Unable to thrive in daily fear;
Too acutely in my heart.
Tears in my body, tears in my art.

Over the plains one day
I just started to cry for hours,
Fragments of feeling left on the land.
Filled me with mourning…
Ghosts of beautiful people, animals..
A land now devoid of life.
For even shrubs cannot grow in grief.

These silent emotions,
I know them as my own.
I can almost touch the transparent memories
That are so real to me.
How can others not perceive?
It is so loud, so clear;
This song of sorrow.

Because these imprints
Unfelt by many,
Still sleep in the unconscious
And filter into lives unknowingly,
To harm us all.

Just to verbalize,
This is what went weeping
In despair…
Those unswift deaths;
Lives that were stolen,
By history celebrating conquest.
That caused such human suffering
Fresh and old;
Blood still lies on the land.

In the strokes of human gain,
People died and survived a terrible pain.
Now all over our suffering earth
Our Mother World grieves
As I do.
And anyone that can hear this carnage still;
Speaking so loudly in silence.

T.Truesdale copyright 1998

Painting copyright 1976


Sunday, March 1, 2020

Themis: Earth Justice


Circle of life.

Season’s Endless Cycle,

Clockwise and counter.

Wind patterning the rhythms of eons,

Waves breathe in and out.

Rumbling fissures erupt

Changing the tissue of Earth.

Timeless elements; All



Spiraling generations

Crossroads point to visions

Ancestors share.

Ladders of consciousness stair

Ascent and descent;



Center of the Earth.

Enclosed in the Universe.





Four Directions,

Cross;

Healing Medicine,

Red, black, white and yellow

 The races of Humanity.

Roots of the Great Tree of Life;

Linking humanity, animals,

Plants, birds, insects

To the oneness of all things…







All things are connected-

T Truesdale copyright 1996 revised 10/17