Full Moon Coming – Cycles and Spirals

Full Moon Coming – Cycles and Spirals
By Ti Klingler

When I read Mary Schilder’s poem, Full Moon Coming, I was struck by the contrasts and how she ties them together. The light of the moon draws out the darkness within her and the crows and vultures, traditionally depicted as harbingers of doom, help bridge the darkness of night and the illuminated release of the poem’s central character. While most of us use sunrise to mark a new day, Mary uses moonlight to call forth an internal “new day”.

Mary’s poem and her bio are both testaments to cycles, how energy rises and falls and seeming losses lead to creative breakthroughs. Sometimes the only difference between a downward spiral and a creative cycle is the way you frame and express it. Is there a spiral in your life that could be transformed by framing it as a cycle? What darkness can you lighten and explore through creative expression? Let Mary inspire you!

More creative expression from Mary – her painting “Sophie Rose” from the Legendary Life course!

Full Moon Coming
by Mary Schilder

Full Moon coming
pale outline rising
over the hills
I feel the excess energy
and darkness rising
from within me
another day or so
it will be completely full
another cycle completing

the crows gathering
high above in branches
dancing in the wind
they too seem restless
several turkey vultures
soaring through the sky
making patterns in the
early stages of darkness

the light of the moon
touches the prisoners
held captive in my soul
illuminating, reminding me
the generosity of forgiveness
of self and others,
the need to be free
from living from fear
free from carrying the
burdens of the past

time for restoration
for opening up to love
building bridges
creating community
environments of trust
opening to possibility
creating beauty
forgiving debt
starting over
it’s a new day
each and every day

Mary’s Bio: I started painting with Shiloh Sophia McCloud about a year ago and art has transformed my life.  I am so grateful for the circumstances that led up to my unemployment because I got a life!  I
have never known such amazing, talented, dedicated people and I love that I finally found my tribe.  I love to paint women and because of the teachings, love, and support I have received I am putting my artwork out into the world, which was unimaginable a year ago.

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Ti is on the lookout for Cosmic Cowgirl poetry she can feature in this column. Won’t you send her your poem?

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

On Never Becoming a Better Person

On Never Becoming a Better Person
By Ti Klingler

You will never be who you want to be.

That strong statement, which contradicts reams of advice from self-help gurus and coaches, flooded me with relief and grinning rebellion when it emerged in the below poem, written after a Cosmic Cowgirls Magazine staff meeting a few months back in which we discussed the fence posts (my Cowgirl phrase for tenets) that we will explore in this and upcoming issues. It is fact, challenge, and a direct result of the Legendary Life workshop I took in 2009.

It was a shock to discover, as a self-help junkie and writer who wanted to paint, that I wasn’t expected to become an artist or better person. Instead, my teachers shared their simple belief that who I am is inherently creative and good. It frustrated me at first. Couldn’t they see that I wasn’t a visual artist, that I needed an algorithm to unlock the mysteries of composition and technique? I thought I couldn’t be trusted with a paintbrush and pigment. I was wrong. In a few months, I went from a woman who had never painted or sketched the human figure to an artist who lived in the context of legend and was able to confidently speak about her painting during a group art show.

I hope that my story and poem awaken in you some questions about who you wish you were. I’d love for you to consider how much juicier and fun it is to just be who you are, every moment, knowing there is no final fixed identity at which we arrive. As the poem continues, “You will never be who you want to be. It is much better than that…”

Amina Returns, my painting from the Legendary Life class

Identity
There is no way to get there
Except starting here: the
Middle-aged woman who has
Done something new to her
Hair and feels foolish and free;
The young man with a feather
Where his father, grandfather,
Wore stripes; the old woman,
Who never let herself dream
Of a red dress, painting
Her lips and nails crimson.
Be clear: you will never
Be who you want to be.
It is much better than that;
You are who you are.
Consider the miracle of two
People converging to create
This impossible collection of
Angles, desires, despairs, and
Raw hope that is you; never
Before, never again to be.
If I, all love, could help
You to shed just one
Thing, leaving space in
Your arms for happiness,
It would be this cruel myth
Of becoming. Who you
Are is more precious, is
Your one true gift.

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I’m on the lookout for Cosmic Cowgirl poetry I can feature in this column. Won’t you send me your poem?

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

On Valentines Day

On Valentines Day
By Ti Klingler

When Colette Filatreau sent me this poem, it stood me still. I didn’t release my breath until after the last line. It is this sort of simple, forceful unfolding that makes me love poetry. Part of what makes it so effective is its specificity. She doesn’t discuss abstract notions of Love, Mother, Hurt, Distance, Sorrow. She shows us specific moments in time, actions and reactions, in which any of us who were children or have lost someone can find a bit of ourselves. If there is one thing I know about poetry, it is that the more specific you can be—hopping hearts!—the more people you will reach.

What stories do the objects around you tell? Right now I’m looking at a complicated purple and lilac doodle I made with Sharpies and a green check written in the precisely slanting cursive of an 84-year-old woman. Those two objects each tell me something about the woman who sits at this desk. Keeping your writing anchored in specific moments and objects allows others to meet you halfway with their feelings and creates true connection. That’s what Colette has done here and why I’m so thrilled to share this poem with you.

 On Valentines Day
Her mother used to send her cards,
With little hopping hearts.
She always sighed,
Too cool, and said,
So dorky,
Please, stop.

Her mailbox that first February,
With all its bills and junk,
It crumpled her, boneless,
A snipped marionette, to
Piles on ragged lawn.

The people who tell her
The Hurt subsides, as time
Etches lines in her face,
She thinks they must have loved the cards
With little hopping hearts.

Colette with Anais

Colette’s Bio: I am a writer of literary fiction and creative nonfiction living in Washington, D.C. with my beloved cat and boyfriend.  I was born and raised in San Francisco and went to college in New York City, where I double-majored in English with a concentration in Writing, and Art History. After graduating, I worked for four years for a start-up internet company, saving up money to write full time.  I did just that last summer, and have been building my fiction portfolio ever since.  I also have a part-time job in childcare and am trying to make as many inspiring connections as possible, to keep the cabin fever (and stark raving madness…) in check.  When I’m not doing those things, I’m reading, strolling museums for hours on end, going to plays, walking aimlessly and blissfully around D.C., hiking in the trees of North Virginia, scooting off on weekend getaways with loved ones, or just cuddling up at home with a bottle of wine and a movie.

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I’m on the lookout for Cosmic Cowgirl poetry I can feature in this column. Won’t you send me your poem?

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

Hearing a Poem

Hearing a Poem
By Ti Klingler

When in doubt, ask your friends. I’ve written over a thousand poems since I began my poem-a-day adventure back in 2009, so choosing one to feature can be a bit daunting! So for this month’s column, I asked my friends what poems stood out for them. Thank their generous hearts, they remembered! I found out my poems are being taped to mirrors, read to schoolchildren, and sent in cards. Isn’t that lovely? (I’m sure my friends who want me to publish will read that in horror. Sorry, dears, but free distribution makes me glow.)

My friend Kate suggested this poem. As I read it, I felt such affection for this woman. The people who populate my poems are very rarely people I’ve met. They are more often sent to me by the Muse and I meet them in the writing. This poem started when my heater whooshed on and I wished I had my sweetheart there to spoon. I let that thought rest in someone else’s head and the poem emerged. Listen for a moment, now, to the everyday sounds around you. What happens when you imagine that familiar element as heard by someone else?

Some seasons are internal.

She Thinks of Spoons
Lying on her back,
She thinks of spoons as
The heater talks itself
Into starting, loud
In winter quiet.
Sure as a friend, the
Doorframes creak before
The rush of hot air.
She has never thought
Of tropical life
Until this last year.
Without him, more than
The air is cold, more
Than her taps freeze on
Crystal dark nights. It
Is time for a new
Season; calendars
Lie more easily
Than flesh.

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Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

Three Little Things

Three Little Things
by Ti Klingler

I met Effy Wild at Cosmic Cowgirls Creativity Camp, a place where anyone who wants a regular creative practice is given tools, prompts, and a lot of encouragement. As we played on our online campus, we each contributed to the “Poetry Pile,” a collection of poetry that ranged from the sublime to the truly ridiculous. This piece stood me still with its honesty and vivid images. It was so inspiring that a bunch of us wrote poems that began with the same first line. I encourage you to do the same. Let yourself tell the real truth that lies below the lists we can rattle out about what people should know about us.

Effy is currently sharing her journal art project and inviting others to join her for the Book of Days project. You can find it at http://wildpreciouslife.com/book-of-days-2012/. You’ll get regular prompts and videos that document Effy’s practice. If you would like to see how an artist sustains creative momentum, or just get a peek inside a truly wild and beautiful mind, visit the page and sign up. (It’s free and FUN!)

The Book of Days project with Effy Wild

Three Little Things

Three little things you’d know about me if you fell madly in love with me.

When I’m overwhelmed
I tuck my thumb between first and second finger
and sit cross-legged like a child.
I don’t know why, and I don’t even notice.

But you’ll notice
and when you see that thumb tucked in
like a bird under the wing of my hand,
you’ll hold me.

I don’t ask for a lot.

You’ll notice that, too, and
wonder if I need you
or even want you.

Maybe you’ll ask
and when you do, I’ll whisper this story
into your ear:

I almost drowned once

Someone pushed me into the deep end
and I couldn’t swim.
I held my breath and stared up at the surface,
willing myself there.

There was an ankle within reach
but I couldn’t bring myself to grab it
for fear of the consequences.

I want you. I need you.
But I’m afraid to do either.

You’ll hear me, and over time you’ll grow
to know that the best response
is to be a bull
in the china shop of my solitude.

And I will thank you for it.

I can’t be anyone else.
You will recognize this before too long -
How even when my life depends on it,
I can’t make the shift required of me.

I’m stubborn as winter.

And you will love me anyway.

Hello! My name is Effy Wild and I am the pajama clad mystic den mama of Wild Precious Studio (http://wildprecious.com); a beautiful on-line community of spiritual creatives for whom the process of ‘arting’ is more important than the end product. I discovered art journaling in early 2010 after a long spell of creative blockage. As a poet and a writer, I felt desperate to reclaim my creativity after a period of family upheaval that left us all raw and feeling empty. Art journaling seemed like the perfect way to crack me open and get me writing again. Funnily enough I discovered that beneath the poet and writer was a secret artist just waiting to be born! You can find me on Facebook (http://facebook.com/effythewild), on Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/effyswild) and on my blog (http://effywild.com).

You can find more information on the Cosmic Cowgirls Creativity Camp and other courses at http://www.cosmiccowgirlsuniversity.com/. Not a Cosmic Cowgirl? Not to worry! Courses are open to all.  Cosmic Cowgirls are invited to submit their poetry for the Wide Open Words column to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words and include a brief bio and picture.

"Don't wait for inspiration to strike; write no matter what," says Ti.

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

This is YOUR poem

This is YOUR poem
By Ti Klingler

For my last column of the year, I ‘m going to try something different. I’m going to write a poem right now, so you can see the process. I used to think I needed a grand idea and rock solid technique before I could write. Then, one day, as I sat under a tree in the park near my house, I heard a poem. It was spoken to me as if the tree itself was telling an old story. I went home, wrote it down, and stared at amazement at what had emerged.

What will emerge in this writing? I know I want to include an image with this column. I look at the paintings I did in the Cosmic Cowgirls Medicine Wheel workshop. The one that catches my imagination is called The Siren of Stew and represents the direction South and the concept of Feeding. So I begin:

My original painting, The Siren of Stew

It matters less what she feeds me
And more that she’s noticed I’m
Hungry. Not yet starving, still able
To hold a spoon.

Writing that much, I notice that the negative space to the left of the body forms a spoon. The negative space below her body looks like a ladle on edge. Is there something about that I can add?

It matters less what she feeds me
And more that she’s noticed I’m
Hungry. Not yet starving, still able
To hold a spoon. Every good Muse
Has a ladle. Hers is made of rich
Thoughts calcified into wood, no
Longer living but servants to new
Broth.

Well, that’s interesting. I fear calcified thoughts, but it seems they can serve as sturdy containers for fresh nourishment. I’m intrigued. I don’t know what else she has to tell me. I don’t know what the broth is or how it will feed me. At this point, I’m hooked. I want to know what happens next! Let’s get back to writing and find out.

It matters less what she feeds me
And more that she’s noticed I’m
Hungry. Not yet starving, still able
To hold a spoon. Every good Muse
Has a ladle. Hers is made of rich
Thoughts calcified into wood, no
Longer living but servants to new
Broth. We eat as the wind kisses
Her brow, teases me with a cold
I no longer feel. The point is not
How thin I’ve let myself become;
The point is how much and what
I am willing to let fatten me into
Strength, what my strength will
Ask of me, who will stand with
Me when I am afraid of myself.

Damn. Who knew all that was in there? I didn’t know my strength scared me. Do you see what looks like a figure kissing her brow, the lips made of her earrings? This poem feels nearly complete. I’m going to finish it now, trusting that the meaning will come in words that fit its rhythm. (The rhythm is primary. Trust me on that.)

So…I’m stuck. I want to write a neat ending. The only true line I can find is “I am always afraid of myself.” Does it end there? Perhaps. I am distracted by people asking me questions, the sharp knock of a folding machine, the door slamming. If you’re going to create art every day, you’ve got to tune in fiercely despite distractions. Okay, here I go! Instead of copying and pasting, I’m going to type the poem out from the start and see what happens.

It matters less what she feeds me
And more that she’s noticed I’m
Hungry. Not yet starving, still able
To hold a spoon. Every good Muse
Has a ladle. Hers is made of rich
Thoughts calcified into wood, no
Longer living but servants to new
Broth. We eat as the wind kisses
Her brow, teases me with a cold
I no longer feel. The point is not
How thin I’ve become; the point
Is how much and what I am
Willing to let fatten me into
Strength, what my strength
Will ask, who will stand with
Me when I am afraid of myself.
I am always afraid of myself,
No longer afraid of my
Appetite. We eat well.
We eat long. We eat,
Together.

I tightened a few lines in the retyping, then let my fingers carry me to the end. It turns out the poem isn’t about what I’m fed by the Muse or where my strength will take me. It’s more about trusting my hunger. At least that’s what I get in the first read-through. What do you think? This is your poem, too. I wrote it with you in mind, to show you how poems grow and shift. Trust your hunger to create. The Muse sent me that message for YOU.

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I’m on the lookout for Cosmic Cowgirl poetry I can feature in this column next year. Won’t you send me your poem? I need only five contributors, but would be happy to have more!

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

Pear or Person?

Pear or Person?
By Ti Klingler

We are not simple creatures. We can strive for simple lives and live by simple rules, but being fully alive as a human requires us to accept that we are constantly thinking, feeling, choosing, sorting, labeling, and revising. The wisest among us know that this complexity is our birthright and learning to dance within it, our task. The rest of us, often, are tired. If not tired, confused. While tired and confused, occasionally angry, sad, frightened, happy, or some stunning swirl of emotions that has no neat center or definition.

I have a new practice of welcoming each emotion as the gift it is. Anger helps me set boundaries. Fear tells me action is needed. Sadness tells me something must be released and something renewed. (Great thanks to Karla McLaren for her book Emotional Genius, which helps me understand and channel my emotions into greater vitality.) But there are times I envy what I perceive as the simpler creations of Nature. This poem came out of that feeling of envy. The last line surprised and delighted me. For if we can be swamped by sadness and struck still by fear, we also have the capacity to be transported by joy.

What emotions are forbidden in your life? How would your life contain less joy if you neutered yourself emotionally and felt only the “fun” emotions? Would you rather be a pear or a person?

Emotions are succulent! (BestPhotos.US)

Pear

Contained, complete, no emotions
To swirl at severance from source,
The pear rests on grass, yellow
Against green, curved on straight.
To die releasing nothing but spent
Cells is not our journey, beasts
Complicated by language, strange
Insistencies, myths of forever and
Never. We will never be simple in
Beauty like the pear, whose dry
Slices burr my tongue, fueling my
Multiplications of joy.

(You can find more information about Karla’s work on her website: www.karlamclaren.com. Karla is not affiliated with the Cosmic Cowgirls…yet!)

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

The Clairvoyant

What excites me most about this month’s poem, from Cosmic Cowgirl Caron McCloud, besides its rich images and strong story, is the question that it poses: When do our gifts become our weaknesses? I feel like I could keep unpacking this poem for a long time, finding more questions and revelations. What are my “precious cobwebs” and how do I use them to fasten myself to old ways of being?

This is a wonderful poem to read aloud so you get the full effect of the word and sound choices. Let those delicious sibilants slide across your tongue, then dance through the Ds and Ls. Reading your work aloud can reveal where it flows and where it falters. I know you’ll find this poem a riveting river of wordplay and wisdom. Enjoy!

THE CLAIRVOYANT

Worn out with astonishment, 
her gaze is easily fastened
by whatever chance happenings
wander across her visionary screen.
Seeing trails traced by times lines, 
she is hypnotized
by diagrams drawn in dust. 
She weaves them into dreams, 
gives them away on street corners, hoping
to save the children, comfort
the lonely.

Amazed, she worships openly,
an embarrassment
to family, friend and 
passerby. She struggles to disengage herself,
but, slipping on sin’s sorrows, she
sinks into the souls of strangers.
She takes them home with her.
Sometimes she marries them. Sometimes
she simply stands and serves, but most often 
she becomes a coffin
for their pain. And then
she becomes the furniture.

Occasionally, she lifts up her life
like a cross. She gets good at it.
Good enough to get by, or get rich,
or get love. Or even better — get free!

But then, even as she flies,
another random spell, like some hobo,
hitch-hikes himself upon her hump.
Then, unpacking precious cobwebs,
thin as time, she settles in, captive
to the next enchantment.

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Caron McCloud is a poet, writer, and artist residing in Port Townsend, Washington with her partner of fifteen years Jim Wilson. She has one son, two daughters, three granddaughters and four great grandsons. She has published a book on Old Testament women “RACHEL’S BAG In Search of the Qabalah of Our Mother’s”, and a dozen chapbooks of poetry which she is currently preparing for a collection “NEON CUNEIFORM”.

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Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

Ti Klingler

"Don't wait for inspiration to strike; write no matter what," says Ti.

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

The End

Whether it is a peaceful death at the end of a seventy-year marriage, a bitter or baffled divorce, or the laughing agreement that the time has come, every relationship ends. We know that, in theory, but often cling to the belief that certain relationships are different, are so special that they should last forever. I’m surrounded by engagements, marriages, new loves, and breakups right now. It seems that everyone is in flux. Have you ever experienced a time when every relationship around you is changing? Has it ever made you wonder about yours?

I think wondering is a good thing. I think we need to choose our partners again and again, not just once at an altar (or bar, for some of us!). We need to choose our friends, and be ready to end friendships or relationships that turn toxic. This week’s poem is about the demise of one of those relationships everyone thinks is too special to end, and how the only relationship we can save is our own. As you read, ask yourself which relationships seem special to you. What might that be telling you about what you desire in your own relationships?

Is it time to stay on the dock or time to sail?

The End
“My orange changed into an
Apple mid-bite” is how she
Explains the end of a six year
Affair that had all of us believing
True Love exists, albeit in the
Odd shape of a fifty-seven year
Old lawyer and a thirty-two
Year old jack-of-all trades.
“Master of none,” he would
Say, but you could see in her
Eyes there were whole worlds
He’d mastered, see in his face
That she lit up the room so
Brightly he could barely sit still.
So it’s over, never ours to start
With. He’s laying low and she’s
Being her usual self, everywhere
And everything to everyone who
Counts to her heart. This is the
Love that pushed me off the
Dock and back into the water;
With its demise, the boat
Bottom seems awful thin,
The waves higher than I
Remember. My co-pilot
Leans his strong shoulder
Against mine. We sail.

~~~

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

"Don't wait for inspiration to strike; write no matter what," says Ti.

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.

The Journey of Truth

Poetry is a practice that asks from you nothing but truth. Truth can be beautiful, sparkling, and joyful and truth can be painful, rough, and sharp. Turning our truths into legends allows us to move our lives into a new context, one in which we can be unapologetically and proudly ourselves. Corby Caffrey-Dobosh’s poem is an honest exploration of a journey that includes anger, hurt, and ultimately, determination to be the hero of her own story.

Is there a way you can redeem the painful chapters of your legend by coming to your own rescue, securing for yourself that which you wish others would provide? Can you join or form communities that support legendary growth? (I believe so, which is why I’m a Cosmic Cowgirl!) Take this journey with Corby and see what it sparks in you.

Fatted Calf

"...return drive, swigging hot steamy tears..."

Short brief visit to birthplace home

Return drive
swigging
Hot steamy tears
I refuse to cry
Replace instead with
anger jealousy rage frustration despair

34
Still hoping wanting craving
YOU
Attention interest appreciation
LOVE

She’s so independent
She never needed us to do stuff for her
She’ll never go hungry
She’ll work any job and survive

Yeah

Duh

Hmmm

Perhaps I had to
Perhaps no choice was handed to me eldest of four
Perhaps I learned early my place
Was the prodigal son’s sister

The one who wanted to ask
“Where’s my fatted calf???”
But was afraid to be
Laughed at scorned refused ignored pitied denied
So she stood
Allowed other brothers sisters to feast challenge deny repent
Still wanting to ask
She hints
Sneaks to listen
Hears them answer – suck it up, be happy your siblings have returned!

So I say
So I think
So I want to believe

So the fuck what

I still have these feelings thoughts troubles
No one dares care about
I refrain from acknowledging because
Ashamed
I know better I should not be this girl
The sister of the prodigal one
She who needs reassurance

But I do

But I am

And so I swig my tears
Bitter
Because when I share

I regret the space that transpires between me and the other
Be it my husband, my sibling, my parent, my other personalities

I’ll go get my own fatted calf

________________________________________________________________________

Corby and her daughter (and cowgirl-to-be) Ruah

Corby Caffrey-Dobosh: I hold many roles, my most cherished being Finnegan’s, Caleb’s, and Ruah’s mommy – and Doug’s soul mate wife.  I am a sister, daughter, gardener, mermaid, punk, poet, healer, and musician.  I try to be a socially conscious and idealistic girl.  I counsel children who live on the margins of life, struggling to make their way in an unsafe anti-child world.  I teach neurological psychology, family, social problems, and introductory sociology at our local university.  I am committed to change and acceptance.

~~~

Cosmic Cowgirls can submit poems and a brief bio directly to Ti at ti.cosmiccowgirls@gmail.com. (Submissions may be edited due to space constraints. Please limit submissions to 250 words.)

"Don't wait for inspiration to strike; write no matter what," says Ti.

~~~

Ti Klingler

Ti is an Intrinsic Coach® and artist who lives in the East Bay. A graduate of Shiloh’s Legendary Life and Medicine Wheel mentorships, she has been writing a poem every day since April 1, 2009. Ti enjoys coaching others to find their best thinking and is passionate about women seeing their own beauty and trusting their desires.