Red Canna by Georgia O’Keeffe

Red Canna, 1924 by Georgia O’Keeffe

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Menstruation by Marion Lawless

Jesus's mother

Buddha's mother

Mohammad's mother

Confusius's mother

Lao-Tzu's mother

Ghandi's mother

Kuan Yin‘s mother

Freud's mother

Whitman's mother

Your mother

My mother---

Without menstruation,

None of us would be here.  ~Marion, 1/11/11

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“Where you come from is gone.

Where you thought you were going to was never there.

And where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.

Where is there a place for you to be?

No place.

Nothing outside you can give you any place.

In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.”

               ~Flannery O’Connor, “Wise Blood”

~ A warrior woman I colored.  ~

We Shine Like the Sun - New Orleans Suffers...

When The Bones Get Cold  -  By Lorna Crozier

My husband sends me hummingbirds
from his eyes. Only he and I know
he’s going blind. For him, I don’t get old.
His fingers, chapped from gardening, sand my skin,
bring out the grain he cannot see.
I am made beautiful by loss. The moon, too,
grows more far-sighted. Its light compliments:
the smallest birds don’t disagree. There’s a sweetness
that comes from accepting what I am,
not a mountain, not a river, not a tree.

 – From  What the Soul Doesn't Want, Freehand Books, 2017

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Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

Leonard Cohen

The wise old Oaks in City Park, New Orleans, where more people are dying per capita than NYC.

You never know you are shining until death is just around the next corner.  Drive slowly. Know. Accept.

Do this as soon as possible.  Live your life holding God’s Hand, looking forward.  Forget your lack of a childhood due to the monster child molesters, the drunks & the neglect.

I grew this magnificent being.  How can I not love myself????????????

T. S. ELIOT, I love you.

My sweet Moon, customized from a Blythe doll by the talented Anna Bell in Prague, Czechia.

My sassy Tee Joy, customized by the amazingly creative Sandra Coe in Detroit, Michigan.

 Inga Rose customized by Gerakina Pastogianni in Thessaloniki, Greece. Purse by me.

Language gives light...

“Language is the house with lamplight in its windows, visible across fields.
Approaching, you can hear music; closer, smell
soup, bay leaves, bread – a meal for anyone
who has only his tongue left.
It’s a country; home; family:
abandoned; burned down; whole lines dead, unmarried.
For those who can’t read their way in the streets,
or in the gestures and faces of strangers,
language is the house to run to;
in wild nights, chased by dogs and other sounds,
when you’ve been lost a long time,
when you have no other place.” (Anne Michaels from:  “What the Light Teaches“ 128–9)

Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now...

Sunlight on my Roses...

An abandoned Bluebird nest...

Moonflowers, always...

For Death by John O'Donohue

Fecund life here in Swamplandia...

Comfrey transplants a month or so ago.

Same Comfrey plants this week.

Wind chimes & sunrise through porch screen.

For Death

By John O'Donohue

From the moment you were born,
your death has walked beside you.
Though it seldom shows its face,
you still feel its empty touch
when fear invades your life,
or what you love is lost
or inner damage is incurred...

Yet when destiny draws you
into these spaces of poverty,
and your heart stays generous
until some door opens into the light,
you are quietly befriending your death;
so that you will have no need to fear
when your time comes to turn and leave, 

that the silent presence of your death
would call your life to attention,
wake you up to how scarce your time is
and to the urgency to become free
and equal to the call of your destiny. 

That you would gather yourself
and decide carefully
how you now can live
the life you would love
to look back on
from your deathbed.

__________________

Thus far, my family has avoided Corona.  I hope you can say the same.  Peace, love, prayers to those who have suffered illness, loss and the death of loved ones.  I feel your pain.

xo,

Marion

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"All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live." ~Mark Twain

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"When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape."  - Anam Cara, by John O'Donohue, p. 17

Remember by Joy Harjo - For Those of Us Who’ve Forgotten

Remember by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. 

Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.

Remember you are all people and all people
are you.

Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.

Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember language comes from this.

Remember the dance language is, that life is.

Remember.

Meyer’s Lemon blossoms.

Meyer’s Lemon & blossoms

Comfrey flowers