Blessed are the crones
For we have lived the paths
Others have yet to walk
< > < > < >
Lighting the way
Like Hecate
Brandishing
Twin torches
She of the Moon
< > < > < >
As the Universe
So the Soul…
< > < > < >
© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Hecate & the Night Sky
Get me outta here spell good for those looping times spent in the time machine when the mind takes you back to the past and you’ve been obsessing about terrible events that happened decades ago and what can you do? There is no real time machine but you can’t go back and change anything anyway, so hop on your broom and take yourself outta here.
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Reward yourself instead of looping in the primeval soup of our own personal Big Bang when we slid out and walked across the linoleum of our parents’ homes.
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Nothing says “domesticity” like a broom!
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My two favorite Slavic house spirits love brooms but for different reasons: Kikimora, spinner extraordinaire, is mean and demands a clean home. But Domovoi, the one accepted by my family, at moving time merely requires a loaf of bread, a tub of salt, and a broom. Yeah, sweep the floor but it’s really used to pound the wall and demand that the previous house spirit leaves, follows his people, and makes room for our protective domovoi.
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Welcoming our house spirits is an easy spell (feed them) but climbing on the broom and flying away from pain and sorrow is a bit harder. We can do it, though, especially as a lone practitioner, not into too much ritual. But you can buy a Pagan broom, fancy with cinnamon or rubbing oils, or just use your dollar store broom, as I do, spider webs, Gulf sand, and all.
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Hold that broom (or sit on it like a vintage hobby horse) and fly. Close your eyes because it’s dizzying, at first. Zoom through the sky. Tell the wind you want those thoughts swept out of your mind.
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See the lightning traveling from cloud-to-cloud. Tell the fire to crisp away the negativity today and continue to fly until you find a cloud-to-ground bolt of light.
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Splash into the ocean and ask the water to wash away any thoughts remaining, paining you.
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Then walk upon the earth, bare feet grounding you with the sweet dirt, moving through grass and leaves from cooling trees.
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Thank your broom for the ride of your life and release. Hear that trumpet and gravelly voice? Satchmo singing “What a wonderful world”!
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And it is…
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© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Broom, Baritone, Domovoi
Outside at 5 a..m. this morning to see the 5-planet alignment and instead captured this in the Western sky over Florida! According to YouTube videos, it is a meteor fireball. Spooky and awesome…
(Thanks to JP Hawk for the poetry prompt)
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Sometimes we’re on a road
AC/DC-ing a Highway to Hell
Exuberantly singing
Or we’re speeding too fast
To notice the DETOUR signs
Yet, feeling we’ve made
All the right moves
But after braking
We wonder how we got here
And we’re lost
<> <> <>
And we just can’t get
That compass
To point the way
So we stop
Before we stray
But it’s getting dark
And we can’t stay
<> <><>
Our eyes suddenly see
We’ve awakened
But we came so far
Sleepwalking through
The roads of our lives
Distracted by what seems good
Defeated by injustice and lies
Yet we keep moving
No longer exhilarated
Merely aware of that place
The DETOUR
And there are more
Not just the one
So it’s a maze
Are we used to it?
Are we unfazed?
Because we can’t go back
Anyway
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And we just can’t get
That compass
To point the way
So we stop
Before we stray
But it’s getting dark
And we can’t stay
<> <> <>
Like wild animals
Leaping over
Fleeing from
A forest fire
Mindlessly searching
For a safe spot
A place to breathe
Cool down
A place to think
Plan
For the next step
Like wild animals
We Limbically move
Toward the faraway
Fantasy
DETOUR
Before
We find that lost home
At the end of the road…
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© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Arrow & Guitar, I Stock Photos
FOR MAKE MUSIC DAY 2022 (JUNE 21)
Make Music Day 6-21-2022 http://www.makemusicday.org/
C/Never been in love or D7/loved
D7/Struggled to stay C/afloat
C/Can any man be so D7/perfect
D7/As a series of musical G6/notes?
F/Something primal G6/making it sing
Em7/Slapping bongos or F/tambourines
F/Skin aglow D7/feeling the sting
C/Fantasy in D7/chords of blue
D7/How will I ever Am/find you
C/Flavor of a D7/good man
D7/Like eating chocolate C/Ice cream
C/As taste buds revived D7/deliciously
D7/In a piquant G6/dream
F/Something primal G6/making it sing
Em7/Blowing horns hot as a F/thermal spring
F/Pumping blood rides D7/an upward swing
C/Fantasy of D7/honeyed kiss
D7/Craving a present Am/life of bliss
C/Longing for a D7/reality
D7/Consigning all the C/nightmares
C/Back to the D7/dreaded past
D7/Of implacable ghosts of G6/despair
F/Something primal G6/making it sing
Em7/Fast picking of guitar’s F/heart strings
F/Spiraling out on strong D7/beating wings
C/Fantasy of love D7/in the now
D7/Intending to live the Am/myth somehow
© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja) words and chords
Amateurishly Written for Baritone Ukulele or 4-string Tenor Guitar (tuned DGBE)
ALSO, HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE TO THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE
6-21-22 (5:14 a.m. DST)
This Muse to Life
The Center of our being
The Sun
Radiating health
As a life-affirming carnival
Because the darkness
Never lasts
Because the darkness
Eventually lightens for all
And it is up to us
To embrace it while we can…
❤ ❤ ❤
© 2021 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Morning Sun on my Live Oak Tree
There are just too many
Magical objects
Ideas
Crystals and sigils
Candles and poppets
Word squares and numbers
Essential oils and waters
Tamatas and Milagros
Pendants and rings
Shouldn’t magical moments
Be merely composed of
Healing herbs
Symbolic cards
Sun and calendars to
Orient time and space
Moon for phases
Stars for direction
Branches for wands
Trees for shady comfort
Birds for music of the spheres
Natural Nature
No more hoarding
Buying into the stuff
I could never afford
When younger
Now I have books for this and that
When I could just as easily
Write my own
Inventing my own spells
My own arcane language
(Abracadabra is so old-fashioned)
I’m overwhelmed by stuff
Back to basics
Back to Thoreau’s pond
Back to Nature
As we said in the Sixties
I long for simplicity
Or a larger house to store it all
My soul is aching to be
Feng shui-ing to Minimalism…
© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: A Tsunami of Stuff
Roomie called it a blind
I called it a lodge
Appearing two days
After the surveyors left
It was a lean-to
Built on the other side
Of our fence
From slender trees
And palm fronds
New neighbor bought
The woods adjoining our yard
We’d been spoiled for years
No neighbors
Just swamp
Woods
And someone across the road
But now a land invasion began
Took quite a few photos
But all blurred
In an other-wordly way
As the glimpses of the builder
Young and determined
Tried to hide our messy yard away
After a few days
Dogs barked crazily
Only to see
Surveyors back
Lean-to disappeared
Not even a sign of the palm fronds
Scattered on the earth
And then the surveyors gone
All looked the same
Except for a small clearing of trees
But we rubbed our eyes
When we realized
Something skewed reality
Because, the next day,
A tiki hut appeared
Looked like a pool bar to me
But no, it’s a ticket booth,
Said Roomie
Tickets to come see
Rednecks like we
Living on the swamp
LOL, said I
But then
Maybe
Maybe Roomie
Is right
And we’re the sideshow…
© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Lean-to building & a new tiki hut
Not quite a free spirit
Because the Moon rules
Endlessly forcing her
To the waiting shoreline
Compelling her to remain
On a chain
Of Tide and Time…
© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Dawn’s Enslaving Moon
Pulled that piece of fabric string
Unraveling
The tapestry of our
Very brief history
Held together by a random
Collection of words
Proving to be
Merely meaningless
In the skein of time and space
A non-meeting of minds
Doomed to meander
Down our own dark paths
Silent farewell to a wisp of a wish
Blown beyond the days and nights
Never to bloom…
© 2022 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: Spilled Hearts
poeturja 