spell casting

what is your creativity made of?

suspensory behaviors

salt flats and brachiation. branching fingers breath river spilling into night sky. prayer. fire. things that come in threes. reaching, always reaching. the earth, the sky, things unknown & unknowable. the thing that happens when i close my eyes.

prayer. please, please, please.

cave paintings and rituals dangled from trees. the water at night, fog, the fire started from nothing, three fossils and a yes. follow the path, lick the salt, open my legs, open my heart. eyes, mouth.

say it. say what it is. and again: say what it is. and again: say what it is.

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three things the same, earth, sky, salt. brachiation, breathing in, out, branching and reaching and it is tree bough, lightning storm, blood through veins, dried and aching riverbed. it is prayer. it is telling the things again and again until they settle into the soil and then become stardust and no matter what else happens, someone somewhere will breathe it in, will breathe in the thing, and it is no longer just a thing i know, it is no longer just a way of keeping track.

it is dust in lungs and salt on tongues. it is prayer and incantation. it is fossils in the creekbed, unexpected and surprising. it is child swinging from a tree, it is nebula, it is deep sea unnamed creature, it is unknown and curious and the things i have to say are the air i breathe and the fires we set and the fingers that touch our skin.

it is fucking and laughing and dying and confession and the long journey down the dark mossy road. water cupped in my palms and my eyes adjust to any light and my feet touch the ground.

my feet don't touch the ground. my feet are tools, my feet are diggers. i am a digger, my stories are diggers and there is a moon in the sky and creatures i have never seen and what i will tell you will be carved into the soil. the things you want to know get planted deepest and steep through the long winter until we are hungry again and remember to reach out our hands.

 

freewrite: what is your creativity made of? 15 minutes.)

leave me to pray

you know. you know.

you know, as far as your eyes can see. you know. windswept plains, cityscape, subterranean cavern, cumulus cloud, as far as your eyes can see, you know. the i-5 corridor, parking lot, hawthorne, lumbering jet, rental car.

there is ice forming. long thick forearms of ice bulging from the eaves. blue sky, grey sky, night sky, northern lights. northern lights. new planets, dying planets, ringed, space debris. you know. you know. polar bear, flock of geese, girl child with frog hat, red cheeks, it's so cold. paw prints, snow. branch bending bending and you know.

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this horizon. this landscape. build me a shack and leave me to pray. fly me to the moon. take my hand. kiss me in the rain. smile at me like i am the most special thing you've seen all day. build me a shack and leave me to pray.

leave me to pray holy holy and thank you god and thank you mother and thank you swirling planets, unfurling plants, bear tracks, blue sky, thank you.

leave me to pray and i will turn my head east for rising sun, south for dark shadow noon. turn my head west and i will prepare for sleep. leave me to pray and i will turn, every time, i will turn north and say thank you thank you thank you for this gift of facing death and trusting in my rebirth. every time, i will turn my face north and trust in my rebirth.

you will know me then, upon my rebirth, and you will know me then, you will know me then.

build me a shack and leave me to pray. face toward the sun, moon, shooting stars. you will know me by the iron honey of my my rebirth. you will know how desolate the landscape.

(freewrite: you will know how desolate the landscape, 14 minutes)