In Blackwater Woods...More Mary Oliver

Yellow godlight from a neighborhood tree... This is for you... ;-)

In Blackwater Woods By Mary Oliver, from "American Primitive" Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Interiors by Stephen Dunn

Shadowscapes Tarot - The Queen of Swords (Artist:  Stephanie Pui-Man Law)

 

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"With her blade the Queen of Swords slices through lies and deceptions to the heart of truth. She is honesty and inner knowledge, sending forth her winged seekers into the world. They are an extension of her being and her soul.   The blinding white is the color of purity, honesty, clarity, uncompromised balance; but also of distance, and sometimes death, for sometimes to get to truth one must cast off the old to discard pretense and guile.  The Queen of Swords is an intelligent woman, loyal, witty, and humorous in her forthright way. She is valued for her accurate perceptions of the world around her, and her experiences.  In the language of flowers, purple dragon lilies are symbols of inner strength, and white chrysanthemums of truth." ~from Shadowscapes.com

 

Shadowscapes Tarot - The Hanged Man (Artist:  Stephanie Pui-Man Law)

 

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"Letting go and surrendering to experience and emotional release. Accepting what is, and giving up control, reversing your view of the world and seeing things in a new light. Suspending action. Sacrifice." ~from Shadowscapes.com

 

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Interiors

By Stephen Dunn

In New Orleans, a Bed and Breakfast in a seamy part of

town.  Dentist’s chair the seat of honor in the living room.
Dark, the drapes closed, a lamp’s three-way bulb clicked just
once.  I’m inside someone’s version of inside.  All the guests
looking like they belong.  Muffled hilarity coming from one
of the other rooms.  Paintings everywhere, on the walls, the
floor.  Painted by the proprietress who, on the side, reads the
Tarot.  In her long black gown she doesn’t mind telling me
things look rather dismal.  Something about the Queen of
Swords and the Hanged Man.  I wake early the next morning
for a flight.  5 A.M.  She’s sitting in the dentist’s chair, reading a
book about the end of the century.  Says a man like me needs
a proper breakfast.  Wants to know everything I dreamed.
This, I tell her, I think I dreamed this.
 
From:  “Good Poems, American Places” selected by Garrison Keillor, page 125

 

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Shotgun House, New Orleans

 

 

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Me:

 

 

Heartbreak & betrayal.