Unburdening! Easing the Load

le Enchanteur has been checking travellers and has discovered that many are still carrying heavy loads, burdening donkeys and themselves. Some things simply have to be left in the gate-house outside the House of the Serpents. What will you leave behind?

Map of the heart

I was setting at my desk thinking about this project and just started doodling.
this is the end result.

Interior Cartography: A Descanso

Gold Light

In my mother’s chair I bask at ease
in a square of orange light and hear
magnolias applaud with breeze blown leaves
their farewell dance to Persephone.

Caught in rods of amber light,
dust specks float above the door
refracting sparks of diamond white,
gold squares stretch across the floor.

No hoary frost garlands the jack.
No maples burn with autumn fire.
Just golden light to break the back
of scathing summer’s brazen ire,
While I recline in deceptive ease
to mourn the death of Persephone.

Poem: Lori Gloyd (c) 1996, 2006
Image: Lori Gloyd (c) May 20, 2006

mapping the heart-breaks 2

When I was around the age of 11, my brother, whose Jewish name was Simcha (meaning celebration) was diagnosed for the first time with cancer. He was just 13 months younger than I was, and we were very close.

Our life with our father was not easy. Dad had escaped to England from the holocaust, having lost all his family, and he took out a lot of his anger and despair on his family. We, the next generation, had another burden, being named after dead ancestors. Somehow, we were expected to replace them and more, but we were always being found wanting. It is an impossible burden to place on children.

I have taken a mirror on this quest. I always thought that in the mirror stood the real me, who had seen the horrors of the war, whose spirit had perished in a gas chamber. Most of my life has been a search for meaning and identity….

So my brother and I were close, guardians of cruel family secrets. When he fell ill, the effect on the family was profound. I remember the sessions of radiotherapy and chemotherapy as he battled with his primary cancer, and then the long battle with secondary cancer which killed him when I was just 13. Nobody thought to tell me that my beloved brother had passed away – I found out by sitting on the stairs and listening to a conversation through an open door….I still miss him, still mourn his loss.

Later that year my mother had a baby boy. He lived for 24 hours and had an inexplicable cot death.

I became an old woman at the age of 14. I had started to learn to play the piano and buried myself in music making. This was to be my salvation eventually.

On The Road To Find Out – Walled Garden Meditation

Positive

Negative

Positive

Negative

My meditation proved to be revealing,

as Belenus had said. The way, what I

know is choices, but what I didn’t know

is that I didn’t have them. Better

the open mind, better the bright

picture. Victorian corsets kept things

in check. But now I am free of them, and

I can breathe and make choices. The

picture I found on the floor of the old

Victorian Mansion told the whole story.

I was glad I had kept it.

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Interior Cartography #4

Interior Cartography #4– Third Descanso (of four).

The pain of loss comes in many forms…………..

Image: Lori Gloyd (c) May 19, 2006

Diluted Sunshine – Forgetting What I Know

From reading the other’s posts today, I feel I can share some of the feelings.

I seemed to have developed a great sadness inside me that I could not talk

about. It wasn’t acceptable to, and even if I did, I never got a solid answer.

Something always happened to curtail the sunshine, so it was wise to not

be too idealistic, yet, inside the idealist is alive and well, that wants everything

perfect. And it is also wise not to dwell, but to gain understanding. Also, I have

no power over other people’s choices. So, when I was 15 or so my godfather,

only young, was hit by a car on a morning ride and fell into a coma, and died

not long afterwards, leaving a young family. He was a lovely man, and I have

had to go within and heal my feelings of injustice over this event, that happened

a long time ago. Then a couple of years later, my grandmother, who lived with

us, died very suddenly from a stroke, just before my cousin’s wedding, that she

was looking forward to very much. I was so upset at the funeral, and I missed

my grandmother, who was always full of uncommon wisdom. Then not long

after that my parents split, so there was a bit of confusion there, too. During

this time one of our friends took his own life, so this was another source of

confusion. This confusion, the diluted sunlight, has occupied my thoughts for

years. Part of me blamed myself for not being there, or being able to prevent

these things that seemed to happen so carelessly, as acts of God. Which of

course was a simple answer at the time, that did not serve me well as the

years went by. My idea of living and life has changed. Now I have to make

sure I don’t forget what I know now, which is a lot different to the thoughts

I had back then, which were typical possibly, for my age. And I don’t “blame”

myself for stuff as much anymore, but this would go on the map of the heart,

I think.

copyright Monika Roleff 2006.

Breaking Free

As you map your hearts be assured that the ropes that bind and constrain will be released.

DONKEY SONG

So, we are just sitting round the fire,
toasting marshmallows –
(donkeys are not good at this),
and I suggest that Cher-lynn sing a song.
Whoo-eee!
I didn’t know I was creating a problem –
seems no donkey has ever sung
at a Bardic Circle before,
and most folk can hardly deal
with donkey-talk
no less a melody.

I guess I don’t understand people
vary well at all –
it’s alright to use a donkey to fetch and carry,
and even fly you to tomorrow quick,
but then you just let them sit there,
instead of dancing or singing
or playing a fife and drum.

So here is a song,
whether you want it or not –
and then its your donkey’s turn

EVER MIST DOWN

Come down to the meadow — the meadow my love,
Where the seeds wait the kiss of dawning.
When the mists swirl ‘way in faerie dance,
I’ll finally see the soul of your yearning.

Refrain:

For the mists are down while the heart is lost,
And your dreams will never be found —
Come dance with me in everbe
And hearken to the ancient sound.

Come ye down to the sea — the soft sea my love,
Where your fears will wash in the foamin’
The mists will rise up from the churning depths
To come down on the meadow at glommin’.

Refrain:

Come up to the mountain — the mountain my love
Where the music is found ever more.
The fiddle will play and the harp will sing
To the beat of the waves on the shore.

Ever down She comes and down once more
To rise up with yer dreams and prayer,
You’ll nay miss the mists of memories
When you sing loud the music of ever.

Refrain:

Mapping the heart – breaks 1

The first break occured when I lost my beloved auntie to cancer when I was only 7 or 8 years old. The results for our family were catastrophic. She had three children – my first cousins – and throughout my early childhood my mother and my aunt were almost interchangeable. When my auntie died, my uncle remarried and my cousins got the stepmother from hell. She was an unbelievable monster, cruel and vindictive, making the girls wear headscarves in the house so that her own daughter’s “beauty” would be apparent. What was even worse was that she would not allow us to visit them, and they were forbidden to come to our house. My cousins – almost my sisters – were lost to me.

The close family unit that had survived the holocaust to arrive in England was shattered irrevocably by this outsider, herself a refugee and survivor, but so so damaged.

Shortly after her death my grandfather died. Two major losses in one year. Two pieces of my heart broken.