skinny dipping…

Skinny-Dipping in Vathy
by Barbara Quick

Above the azure inlet of the sea,
the path was steep, carved out between
the thistles, thorns and wind-blown rock.

He left her at the top to find a sheltered place
they wouldn’t be seen descending to the shore.
She waited, fully clothed there,
till, looking down, she saw his gleaming skin
and upturned face above the churning deep,
as if he’d changed from man to seal
and loved this transformation.

She shed her clothes and picked her way
as far down as she could on tender feet—
then took a leap of faith, exchanging rock
for empty air, a rush of cold and bubbles
in her hair. Her toes touched seaweed
as she swam toward her selkie mate.

Two naked, slippery people,
seventy and sixty-five,
feeling so alive and filled with joy,
treading water side by side in the extra-salty,
turquoise blue Aegean Sea, rich in iodine,
with the power to heal
all kinds of wounds.

They tasted salt and kissed,
two shipwrecked sailors
who’d managed to survive.

Barbara Quick, “Skinny-Dipping in Vathy” from The Light on Sifnos. Published by Blue Light Press. © 2021 Barbara Quick. 

It’s the birthday of the man who said, “Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink the wild air.” That’s Ralph Waldo Emerson (books by this author), born in Boston (1803). His father, who died when Ralph was eight, was a Unitarian minister, as were many of Emerson’s family members before him. He was a quiet and well-behaved young man, not an exceptional student. He graduated in the middle of his class, studied at Harvard Divinity School, and got a job as a ministerial assistant at Boston’s Second Church. Not long after his ordination, he was married. He was happy at home and in his work and soon he was promoted to senior pastor.
Two years after Emerson was married, his wife, Ellen, died of tuberculosis at the age of 19. He was devastated. He began to have doubts about the Church. A year after Ellen’s death, he wrote in his journal, “I have sometimes thought that, in order to be a good minister, it was necessary to leave the ministry. The profession is antiquated. In an altered age, we worship in the dead forms of our forefathers.” He took a leave of absence and went on vacation in the mountains of New Hampshire. By the time he returned he had decided to resign from his position as minister.
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

The Poetry Almanac 5/25/21

The Purifiers

The exorcist-The destroyer-the liberator

The purifiers – the exorcist, destroyer, and liberator archetypes

– all work in their unique ways to purify our being.

In this four-part audio course on “The Purifiers,”

Stacey Couch explains the exorcist, destroyer, and liberator archetypes.

All three archetypes clear out the status quo to make way for an expansive, naked awareness. They purify us along the spiritual path and address the fears we encounter.

The exorcist transmutes demons into allies and separation into union.

The destroyer embraces the cycle of destruction to unlock hidden potential.

The liberator uses wisdom to free us from attachment and suffering.

From Caroline Myss

the Howl by Allen Ginsberg

 

Allen Ginsberg was made famous by his poem: “Howl” in Octobet of 1955 in

San Francisco.

 

“Howl,” at the Six Gallery Reading —

the poem that begins with the lines:

 

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,

starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn

looking for an angry fix,

angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

 who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed high sat up

smoking in the supernatural darkness

of cold-water flats

  floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El

and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement

roofs illuminated.”

Terror

Sheri Holman

.
“Spending time on the pediatric cancer ward

among dead and dying children

will make you question just about everything you’ve ever held to be true,” she  said.

“Especially long-cherished beliefs about control;

the ability to choose correctly and thus guarantee a good outcome for your life.

This sense of powerlessness —

not the delicious, tingly vampire-novel chills, or the kind of sexy-scared way we feel when we’re falling in love —

but naked, raw What-is-the-Meaning-of-Life anguish,

is at the heart of terror for me.”