At the stillpoint of the turning world - there the dance is...(TS Eliot)

"Birth. Childhood. Puberty. Maturity. Death. The dance of life in five movements. Life is a work in progress, performance art, ritual theatre, an epic poem, and we're not called on to be only spectators and listeners but the artists of our own stories, the creator of our own lives. What role are you playing in your life? Why? Do you have a choice? Yes!"

(Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy)

The hot desert winds have left me agitated. Something has got under my skin and is scratching from the inside to get out. Life is turning again, and I do not yet know where or how. I just know it is and I accept this, though it scares me.

This is always my most difficult time, the time when I struggle to know when to sit and be patient, and when to move and take action. I am aware something of deep significance in my life needs to be released, or taken hold of, that the choices I make now are important and not to be hurried by panic or lust. I sense that a change of shape is happening in my own being as I unfold into a new state. But I have no idea what that is, or where I am moving to.

That is the thing about living life in constant motion and discovery. There are no set destinations, no established conventions. Just the movement of the body, heart and spirit, expressed through my being, in this lifetime, as I journey to understand who I am, what this path is, and attempt to keep my eyes open to the magic that is all around. And I keep on dancing, because that is all there is.

September calls in all the year

Next week I turn 35. I am wondering where the years went. The last three and a half years seem to have been swallowed in grief. In 2003, I lost the child I was carrying. Yet in the act of giving life and carrying death, I was connected to something much older, much deeper than any 'reality'. Before I knew I was pregnant, I started to dream my child. Before I knew the child was going to die, I dreamt the goodbye. Before I got to name my child in life, I knew my child was named Rowan, the tree of night and secret wishes. The poem below is one I wrote in my daily journal, 2 weeks before I 'knew' I was pregnant. I have continued to write a poem a day since this time.

That loss, and the subsequent trauma of health difficulties, left me exhausted. I shouted at the moon for this loss and wished it were different. Now, as I surface from the grief and feel myself re-entering the world, I know that the loss has left me forever changed but also grown. To love fully means to accept that we, as human beings, also lose. We must always let go. I still wish for that child, and do not know if I will ever have another, but the gift of that loss is the treasure of love. September is here, and I turn another year. A hot wind blows across Cumbria, from a distant and unknown land. It feels strange but right and as the new moon enters, I sense a new journey unfolding.

Poem 1 (3rd May)

In the warm of our bed, I give birth to giant turtles,
carve myself a coracle in which to sit,
my desperate attempt at foiling them.

I could be your mother, I whispered, knowing I lied
yet, even this hardened shall, this sharp
beak and claw can give food.
My black tongue darts in and out,
delivering green mucus, food of the slime gods.

Eat, my children, eat to grow strong,
so that you can swim and become invisible,
so you can become sea-invisible

as the half-light of morning makes this invisible,
eliminated by the kiss of the moon and sun.

As day rises, I slip away into the water,
hiding what I have become.

I'd rather live with rose-tinted spectacles...

I found this poem today, a translation of the Sufi poet Hafiz. Recently, I have been following the scent of St. Francis and I find this instinct true - there are many resonances between Francis and the Sufi poet seers, and a number of words written on this subject. In the end though, it is not words that I feel, but the stirring of the heart, of Love. Where will it all lead? Wherever it leads, keep laughing!

Someone Should Start Laughing

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:

How are you?

I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:

What is God?

If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,

If you think that the Sun and the Ocean

Can pass through that tiny opening Called the mouth,

O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing –Now!

There are many name-robbers in the outer world...

A State of Emergency

For this
I will risk
everything.

I will kill the despot in my head,
let my body riot for independence.
Before long my blood will break from its cells
and storm the walls of my heart.
Lights flash behind my eyes, warning ships
away from the needle-cliffs of my bones.

Wreckers strip these shores. They’ve looted
the stores, snatched words from silk pouches,
stolen the eyes of memory and left
the sweet smell of narcissi in the air.

People are frightened. They hide behind closed doors
whispering my name. They want to send in the police,
take charge before it becomes dangerous.
All those men and women, busy watching
from their window-boxes,
terrified of civil unrest.

I will do my best
to give them
what they expect.


(from Byron Makes His Bed by Victoria Bennett, due for release from Wild Women Press October 2006. First published Orbis Magazine, 2002)

Everything symbolic must begin with the literal...

Even a fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it won't keep the wise from trying.
Harry Anderson

The Fool's Path is largely directed by the freedom of the wind. Recently, I found myself having to wave goodbye to a couple of wonderful and exciting opportunities, opportunities I had worked hard towards and imagined to be the next step in my journey. This was not the case and, like many times before, I found myself having to step back and accept that my idea of the right direction may differ wildly to the twists and turns of the path I am actually on. This did not cause me to feel too sad. Yes, I felt deflated, but underneath that, I sensed that something else was in the wings, something I had yet to envisage.

A short while later, I came across an old journal entry, from my time at Crossbush Convent an in it I had written down my wish to travel to Assisi - both the birthplace of St. Francis and also a central point for the Troubadours. I called up Angela Dickson, and we both agreed that if we could manage it on our incredibly small budget, we would go. We also remembered that we had said to Brother Andre, a visiting Friar at the time, that we would one day travel to Assisi and perhaps meet him there!

That was a week ago. Since then, a number of wonderful things have happened, from the accidental email contact with a property owner turned spiritual healer and writer, who happened to have the same surname as me, that took us to talking, that led us to find a fantastic place to stay with CEFID - a Franciscan run centre in Assisi. On top of that, the only dates we could get ridiculously low flights from Liverpool took us to Assisi on 3rd October. St Francis died on 3rd October, the day we arrive and the Feast of St Francis, a major event in Assisi and in the Franciscan calendar, happens on 3/4/5th October. Not only that, but we are staying in the town the same time as a pilgrimage is being led by Brother Andre Cirino and Brother Murray Bodo - who have both been wonderful support in the production of Fragments, and the subsequent experience of TV exposure.

As a confirmed opposer of organised religion and a serious questionner of the Catholic Church, it might seem strange to have my life path tied into the path of St Francis, but it does not seem so to me. There was something in the words of Murray Bodo OFM, in his book St. Francis: The Journey and The Dream, that struck me when I read them for the first time in January, though I have different ideas about God and all...

"Francis determined always to be on the outside what he was on the inside...some of his brothers felt he overdid this obsession with sincerity and wholeness but Francis feared duplicity and hypocrisy more that anything in the world...and Francis was sure Jesus would never speak harshly against anything unless it spoiled the human heart...he prayed that God would give all people the courage to be themselves instead of what others expected them to be..."

Just as I had once declared my path as a Troubadour, so I felt connected with this eccentric, obsessive and incredible man and as I read more, I began to understand why. His path and mine, though very different, share threads of Love. It is all part of the same unfolding.

Like I said, I don't know where this journey is taking me - or rather, the understanding or meaning is always obscured in advance and relies simply on trust. I trust that for some reason I am meant to be in Assisi, with Angela, and at that time. If I had secured the previous work offer I had so wanted the week before, I would not have the opportunity to go.

Some people may regard this way of living as irresponsible, lacking committment, feckless. It is not. It requires a steady vision, trust, willingness to fall and fall again and get back up again, tenacity and a heart that is always willing to choose love over security, inspiration over acclaim, freedom over ownership. I do my best to live that way. Sometimes I manage it, sometimes I get caught up in being all too human.

The last few years have been tough to live through - and grief was thicker than the blood in my veins, but it is all part of the journey. It took going into a catholic Convent (bizarre! I wouldn't have predicted that one!) to accept again and celebrate my path as Blissfool. I have no idea where it will lead or why, but I trust that in releasing to that wind, that spirit and letting it flow, life unfolds as it is meant to, and all good surrounds.

All creative dreams become possible in such air.