[Editors’ Note: Learn about how the “Nine Poets Speak” series came to be in place here.]
Art, Anna Tourian, Ana Tourian Illustrator | illustrator
I stand in the dark and I breathe
Deep inhales and slow exhales
as I allow my eyes to adjust,
allow for the depths to seep
into the crevices of this
soft human body
She’s here
I can feel Her
Taste Her
Both the sweet nectar
and the bitter bile
My hand reaches out
wondering about my
surroundings, the sounds
and smells that call me
to open to the dying of
all that no longer serves
Hearing voices I slowly
move deeper into the
endarkenment that is the
Cave of Me… that place
where all my lives exist,
Past, Present and Future
Her scent grows stronger
as The Great She calls me
to open to all of my senses
Calls me to touch the cave walls
dripping with moisture,
to feel the floor under my feet
while sensing the ceiling above
She who calls me to deepen into
the knowing that I stand in the
footprints of my Ancestors and hold
their hands in the prints on the wall
She who calls me to Remember,
calls me to Surrender
Listening I realize the
voices are ALL mine,
from Infant to Young Child,
Teenager to Young Woman,
Full Woman to Crone,
Death Priestess to Ancestor
All my lifetimes and timelines
coexisting in one universal
moment of existence that is
wrapped in each small death
All my lifetimes and timelines
coexisting in one universal
dance in the fires of alchemy
that transform the me of me
into a New Being
All my lifetimes and timelines,
part of the Cauldron of Eternity,
All part of the crucible creating
metamorphosis that both calls
me to die to the old ways, while
simultaneously re-birthing
a new Woman in this time
All part of the Cauldron that holds
symbiosis between Life and Death
as I dwell in The Cave of Me
©Arlene Bailey
(Meet Mago Contributor) Arlene Bailey – Return to Mago E-Magazine (RTME)
Th multitudes that exist within the cave of self mirror those on the outside…