Jaime Mathis and The Words

A hole in my chest where breath and beat used to be. Ashe mother, I am ready to acknowledge this love For I want to be wonder-filled Rising through mud Claiming the bud of the lotus That we may all share its Life. Family, my origin Destined to be Greatest teachers through Bruising my breast Demanding my yes, I acquiesce to learning the hard way See this scar, Not on purpose, And yet, so far beyond Your original intent. I see you, flesh and blood Heart of my heart, Bone of my yard We all try so hard to belong To sing our own song, Truth to the mother, I can love no other, Even if it means Beholding this world Without its masks Cruelty and kindness Wrapped and undressed Will I continue To fight? Warrior goddess, Priestess, mistress Of all in my domain Embracing the pain in order to Be free. I love you. And I know you love me. That’s it. Messy, hurt Dirty duty Carried into a new world Where I cut the rop...

Shasta, Uytaahkoo, White Mountain Goddess First light Presiding Between scorched thighs Rising up Robed in halos of Pink cloud and magic hour Crown shrouded As her body glows She knows the ways of men Climbing her flanks, Burning her hair Yet she ascends, Clothed in snowy knowing Silent Because there are no words To fill the gloaming Just ice and flash, Melt and flow Like the cities Like the lava Like the asphalt tar Wound about her body. Like Time She abides, Queen and slave Full, luminous, Mother

I wept as Terry Tempest Williams described watching the door open to reveal her brother’s body after being cremated for six hours.   She spoke of his ribs, broken open like wings, the bones they gathered after another 3 hours on trays and then watched as they were ground to dust. The weight of his bones was 8 pounds and 2 ounces, the weight he was at birth. “Learn from owls.”   She said in her clear, steady voice. “They have taught me a thing or two about how to navigate the dark.” 2019 has been a year full of grief. Friends have passed, leaving young children motherless, family allies have been given terminal diagnoses, parents of friends have crossed the rainbow bridge, my family has broken my heart. Many days I have wondered, “How is it possible to rise day after day when grief is like a mantle pressing me into the earth?” Sometimes, it is like a hand pressing against my breastbone, steady and deep, compressing my chest into itself. Caroline Casey, a mys...

Science is not modern Ask any Indigenous person. They will tell you the names Places, uses, and most relevantly, Numbers and Functions of the Life they live within. Pick your subject Biology, Botany, Agriculture Physics, Engineering. Thousands of years Using bodies as laboratories Memory as notebooks Story as peer-reviewed journal lit. Land was an eternal field study Annotated with bridges To span gaps Between Seen and Unseen God in forms of animal and sky Quanta dancing in Coyote's mischief They spoke our holy language Before we did. Now that we have grown Fluent enough to understand We find ourselves Straining To count the remaining whispers Of particle and wave Plant and sea. We pray they will teach us The missing pieces Before our failed experiment Implodes.

I stood at the summit of Cascade Head on the Oregon Coast, watching mist roll back from the cliffs and water thousands of feet below me. This place was important to the First People of this land. Huge Sitka spruce held court at my back, cradling ancient stumps and a steady drip of moisture rolling off their branches. Nature’s medicine is potent, and my skin steamed with the effort of climbing. I imagined the entire headland alight with fire, welcoming ancient runs of salmon home like a pyrotechnic lighthouse set ablaze by human hands. To climb, to sweat, to call out to our relatives, “Come home!” requires effort. How many times have I leaned into Life’s challenges? How exhilarating and exhausting is it to put one foot in front of the other with a vision calling me forward? A place I have never visited, a relationship I have yet to build, a world still incubating. Rain drenched the entire first section of the trail. Water cascaded down the path beneath my feet, my body sodden ...