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| Self-portraits...
Inner
changes? I'm feeling depressed, most uncharacteristically, which
implies withdrawal of energy, transformation of the depths. What I'm
feeling is a strength and a softness coming, these already as I define
myself - independent and sensitive - but more so. Whatever anger I once
had is long washed away; I am one of those people who loves to laugh.
When I took these self-portraits today, I wasn't sure who I was seeing,
pensive, yes, but lightness too.
Sunday
morning: It's passed, only an evening or so, but uncharacteristic and
thus important to pay attention to whatever newness is arising. An
older layer of thinking passing away for a newer, fresher, more
innocent self to emerge. If that makes sense! I edited the blurb to
better reflect the inner process... I like the image of going to the
depths to find the light, yes, the shamanic, visionary journey, and
each time the depths are different and each time the light is a more
complete spectrum of understanding.
There is a negative
conventional view of depression. It's not seen as part of a larger
process of the psyche in communion with its depths, nor the deep
changes that may be occurring because it's seen as a problem, as anger
turned in, that needs therapy and/or anti-depressants, and so the whole
process of inner discovery is truncated. How can we develop wisdom when
we are afraid of our shadows?
The sadness has always been in me,
it's there in my photos as a young child, it's still there. Yet I am
one of those people who loves to laugh, good deep belly-laughing!
I
think I'm moving away from any sense of judgment, of applying systems
of thought to people's actions, events, the way things are, that layer
of thinking is disappearing, dying, thankfully, most thankfully, and a
greater strength and softness is emerging.
The moment of
'depression' has passed and I'm feeling my usual quietly exuberant self
today, ready to continue manifesting my dreams.
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| Oceanic - Suite of Botticelli Venus Poems
Veils to clothe Botticelli's Venus with
A poem arises catching the energy, imparting meaning, hesitant, faltering for words, images, rhythms.
My love for you.
Slowly, through endless revisions,
shaping this love.
Disparate layers emerge, an undercurrent infiltered with strands, approaches, understandings, memories, hopes, desires,
the way the sensual mind composes.
We create ourselves through each other. It's more complete,
who I am with you.
Not a version of reality but a veil of being,
the poem of love that is
a transparent garment we clothe ourselves with,
our metaphors and concepts of a world
which resists
our gaze.
Writing is a deeply
meditative act.
A language of love.
A listening.
Oceanic
If I knew how. The swirl-over. In the bank's marble concourse, the ocean wraps you in its currents. We are never far from sea-salt, the briny wind, even inland.
The gentle breezes, long before Sandro, before she came gliding on the fan-shaped scallop sea-shell under his paintbrush.
Before we clothed her with poetry.
The birth of love in the world.
Divine Message of Beauty in the World
I write on vellum with sea-scalloped edges.
Birth blueness is everywhere, that particular nascent colour.
You bring the simplicity of writing with you.
While I wear a cloak of flowers, a shower of roses, lyrical, fragile becoming, beauty, this flowing cape of words
That the goddesses of the seasons have woven for us.
____________________
Botticelli's Birth of Venus hangs in the Uffizi, in Florence. It was painted in 1485.
birth of beauty
times of decrease, recession, turmoil, depression, upheaval, war, loss and degradation, fear and grief, the unpardonable, what can't be retracted, the birth of love borne by beauty on the waves of the sea
Savonarola's body burnt in the Piazza della Signoria, it is 1498, he who convinced you to renounce the sensual pleasure of beauty - The Mystical Nativity painted in 1500 so different to when
you and Leonardo da Vinci, a friend who you studied with in Verrocchio's workshop in the 1470s
those angelic visions
art historians speak of spiritual tautness in your work, of the grace of line and that your figures are holy heiroglyphics
she appeared under your delicate sable brushes in 1492 and disappeared for centuries until the Pre-Raphaelites resurrected her and now she is a definer of feminine beauty in the modern world
with my curls, when I was a young woman, people used to compare me to 'Botticell's Venus'; I, too, have borne her...
rising from the sea
the rush of waves in my ears
listening to you
beauty, fragile, on the lip of, edges, knowing loss's inevitability, a flower blossoms, fragrant perfume and soft vivid colour of petal drifting away, it can't remain, you knew, Sandro, and
yet, she is, borne by the Zephyr on the scallop-shell and wrapped in veils of flowers by the Horae
washes of colour, seaspray of roses,
translucent robes
poetry we weave ourselves with
_________________
©Brenda Clews, Toronto, February 2008 | | |
| DrumbeatThe palm drops
on the inside
of the skin
animal drumming
beating on the drum
drumbeating the night
beating on the eardrum
drum drumming deeply
drawing the heartbeat drumbeat.
My body is the drumbeat
drumbeating my skin
sweating, hot,
drumbeating my body's
percussion, rub, snare,
pounding, colliding of
musical pulses
lyrical sinewy
or staccato modern
or wild shamanic
hair flying
free.
Red shiny satin clinging,
wet
sweat.
The
djembe hip bag that I scrubbed, suede dyed to emulate Holstein cow
naugahyde, in black and cream, with a wild boar bristle brush and
saddle soap because of the dark streaks, smells of animal hide.
I hold it to my nose, and smell. Animal. Hide.
The drumming of the jungle.
An animal skin.
Taut.
Primal beat bounding
resonating, resounding.
You gaze at me, though you haven't looked at me.
I am in your gaze without your seeing me.
It is my hunger you remember feeding,
that you want to feed.
Our heat burns hotly.
Drumbeating
the rhythms beating in us,
the African djembes
dance us.
__________________________
Lately
I've been dancing to fabulous drumming. I'd like to thank the drummers
at Toronto Tam Tam at Xing Dance Theatre, Shara Claire at 5Rhythms, Gary Diggins, and Kwanza Msingwana at Tribal at Dovercourt House in Toronto, all in the last 3 weeks.
As
a lyrical poet, I use the I-Thou relationship often in my writing. The
"you" is a museman and doesn't refer to anyone in particular... | | |
| Tribal DanceVideo Peek, we laughed quite hard at work, and then at home again. My daughter, when she was younger, said grownups look crazy when they dance, and, um, yeah. But we're having such a great time! Delightful, Julie's Tribal Dance, and I do love to go whenever I can, and won't point out who I am either!
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| VoicingsHey, what a lovely surprise this morning! My little recording has made it to #1 at SoundClick!
# 1 in Poetry (highest position was 1). Total songs: 1,242
# 9 in Talk (highest position was 9). Total songs: 5,363
I'd like to thank all my readers and listeners for such beautiful support. Blessings all round. Love every one of you. xo
Voicings 
A recording (2:49min):
Voicings:Hi-speed, cable
Voicings:Dial-up
voices,
buzzing paths on the expanse we walk through, the dark, hoverings in
the distance like our hidden thoughts, climbing the insides of our
minds, echo chambers, repetitions, stress points, gasps, retreats,
revolving around and around, circling,
spinach and feta cheese
and pink salmon, sanpellegrino limonata, juices, absorbing, digesting,
flowing to all cells, hollow drums, rain sticks beating on the inside,
slipped discs, swollen tissue, torn hearts healing,
voices,
fragments of conversations, hearing pathways, following lines of
letters, words randomly interspersed, little collections of refuse,
humming things, what's being said and what's being thought at variance,
then laughter,
a music, endless conversations in all minds in
all buildings, streets, films, televisions, computers, books, magazines
and newspapers, sitting absorbing lying, string-theories of words
accompany the activities of the world, thought flying through the
words, fleshed words, graced words, like balls flying far beyond the
baseball bats in the floodlit diamonds, and racing running billowing in
the green grass blue sky up into outer space,
billions of
constant conversations, without stopping, the telling, others,
ourselves, reams, naked skin of words making love, a love of words,
conceptualizations, significations, words that are concrete, actual,
sensual, rolling, synaesthetic experiences, how our tongues love to
form sweet angry hot explanatory seductive smart gossipy sophisticated
kind compassionate judgmental searing truthful words just for speaking,
writing, dreaming,
and when yours and my words meet, from my
lips to your ears, from your lips to my ears, in the air trance
entrance where ringing cymbals grow ever more sweet crystal singing
sounds ethereal and divine where utterance who cares what we say
ecstatic light levitating through space our tongues interlinking the
whispering our longing our souls on fire our hearts speaking,
___________
I was describing the speaking I was listening to, oh ok partially, it was an inspiration, on Canada Live - With Patti Schmidt and then The Signal - With Pat Carrabré.
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Lifetime
