In the Cave

 

waking poem

golden light dapples the shadows on the walls

the whole garden appears to be underwater

a single bird calls out the day

—Lorena

Before rising

 

Before rising

I rest held in the earth's lap

Through the window

green against white

tepozan leaves striking 

avian poses

while a cardinal red bird 

beats in its chest

then is gone

Memories and dreams

rise like vapors 

across the window

book gong drum lama

you dance

hugging the wall 

and turning flirtatiously

to be seen over the phone

as you talk to a woman in France

And here we are gazing to the end

gravity holding us

to our mortal promises

the ones we were born with

—Lorena

Sene I

 

In my dreams

 

in my dreams

I dream of being a fish

swimming in the currents

darting in and out of spirals

of water and space

letting the fluid waves guide me

into new awakenings

in my dreams I remember the wisdom

engraved in the patterns of my bones

in the clay of my flesh

nothing less than cosmic maps

the flow of all creation

animating and reanimating

each breath each tissue each cell

floating in the vast ocean of existence

—Lorena

waking poem

 

ink dark sky

pales into morning

a garden is birthed out of the shadows

the morning star's echo can still be heard

waning moon at midheaven

—Lorena

In the vastness

 

I am dancing in the vastness, in the immensity of a full moon night in the pale sand dunes of a desert valley.  The Milky Way overhead, stars shining brightly across the skydome, illuminate the ripples in the sand. The grace of the dunes has been sculpted by the wind and gravity.  The starlight that bathes the sand, bathes my skin, in a rainfall of light from billions of miles away, here on this sandy ridge.  My toes press into the warm sand, I turn and twist my feet, my spine follows, as I feel deeply into the fine grains coming up between my toes and over my feet. I cross one foot over the other and I twist forward and then back with each step. My dance embraces this place. The softest breath of air caresses my arms, mingling with the starlight and the moonlight and rising like an aroma, the aroma of space.  My own body illuminated by celestial bodies becomes another body of light exalted by shadow as the dunes themselves.  The vastness of the sky and the vastness of the dunes reach out forever.  I bath my ensouled body in the vastness.

—Lorena

waking poem

 

in the predawn

gentle sway of grey lace 

and curved silhouettes

turning green into sunrise

—Lorena

10-27-21

She dances in a red dress

Coming out of the woods

she dances in a red dress,

she and all that she is.

Life pulse stretching out through her arms,

she steps forward,

the wisdom of her years framing her face.

She has earned her skin.

She flies over the ground

in the light of the blue moon,

beaming amidst the fireflies.

She is many and she is more 

than the sum of all the faces she has inhabited. 

She illuminates the forest,

she dances the concert of her being.

—Lorena

Waking poem

 

leaves shake

wings beat emerging

a dark silhouette in flight

—Lorena

Hillman on the DAIMON

 

“Each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny. As the force of fate, this image acts as a personal daimon, an accompanying guide who remembers your calling.

The daimon motivates. It protects. It invents and persists with stubborn fidelity. It resists compromising reasonableness and often forces deviance and oddity upon its keeper, especially when neglected or opposed. It offers comfort and can pull you into its shell, but it cannot abide innocence. It can make the body ill. It is out of step with time, finding all sorts of faults, gaps, and knots in the flow of life – and it prefers them. It has affinities with myth, since it is itself a mythical being and thinks in mythical patterns.

It has much to do with feelings of uniqueness, of grandeur and with the restlessness of the heart, its impatience, its dissatisfaction, its yearning. It needs its share of beauty. It wants to be seen, witnessed, accorded recognition, particularly by the person who is its caretaker. Metaphoric images are its first unlearned language, which provides the poetic basis of mind, making possible communication between all people and all things by means of metaphors.” 

–James Hillman

"Dancing daemons"

 

Waking poem

 

milky translucent clouds

a perfect breast 

drawn above the trees

—Lorena

Inmensity

 

Inmensity—

I felt her seeing me from everywhere

even from within my smooth bones

and as twilight took hold of the sky

          her breath became more palpable

                               in the form of awe.

—Lorena

La inmensidad

 

la inmensidad

no es sinónimo de la enormidad

—cuyos brazos pesan—

la inmensidad nos lleva en sus alas

nos despierta la piel ante la profundad del cielo

lo que se ve y no se ve

lo no identificable

más allá de los elementos

más que la suma de las partes

la percibimos mirándonos desde todas partes

es su inteligencia que abraza cada partícula 

de nuestro cuerpo

hasta aue cada una se despega 

de cada uno de su apegos errados

y gira entre los astros

—Lorena

Resting earth

 

"La Inmensidad"

 

"Allies"

 

waking poem

 

tremble of tepozan leaves

emulating wings in flight

across white sky

—Lorena Wolfman

full moon

 

on the night of the full moon

when you remember to greet her luminous sphere 

your skin may just awaken

like a spirit arriving out of the darkness

sleek and perceptive

as that of a panther

listening through every pore

the slightest vibration 

felt in along the length of each hair

a concert of aliveness

shuttering in the curvature of space

—Lorena

Waking poem

 

gentle rain falling

occasional bird flies overhead

wet nopal tines

—Lorena

Layers

 

Here, there are layers—

Continents breaking apart 

over hundreds of thousands of years

into new configurations

floating across time

moved by geologic forces

rising from the molten heat 

at the center of the earth

moved by what moves through us all

the whirling skin of our scars 

is the same as the currents 

coming down from the stars

Gaia and Serius conspiring 

whisper to the air and the ocean

to become flow

the tapestry of the seasons

the rising and settings

the warp and weft of our lives 

the bowl and labyrinth of our days.

—Lorena

New Flesh

 

"Escuchar con la piel"

 

"Enmascarada"

 

Egg of Emptiness

 

Hands in Prayer

 

Sueños del mar

 

En la espera

 

Lines of pleasure

 

"Danse de l'arbre"

 

Medusa III

 

Medusa II

I am so mystified by this image... Mystified in the sense of being drawing into the mystery of the creative process, the breathing process, the process of perception itself.  This digital callage is after a deep somatic meditation where I ended up in my diaphram with a very a more subtle relationship to structure... underneath there is an anatomical image of the torso with diaphram that you might just be able to make out... it is a response to the the one of my other torsos... in which this same torso painting appears.  The title that came to me for this one is "medusa del mar" which translates to "sea jellyfish"... something else is coming into focus. It is as though I followed the tunnel in the other drawing and came into this...

 

"There's a storm coming"

 

"Medusa del Mar"

 

Healing Resonance

 

Just waking from dream imagery continues to work with the sense of the healing direction... After working so much with digital collage yesterday, as I was surfacing to wakefulness these were the elements I, my mind's eye, was playing with... There are 4 superimposed elements here... cello body, water, scar tissue and a droplet rebounding from the surface of the water creating a wake around it...

Challenge - Resource

 

Each step

—for Teresa

It is not what

or even where

but how we touch the earth with our feet

how we allow ourselves to feel 

how she touches us back 

there's a dance in each step

in each point of contact 

between our soles and the earth

stillness and movement dancing in each balance point 

along the way

in each step moving forward

our bodies bridging

earth and sky.

—Lorena Wolfman

Belly pressed to the earth

—for Dre 

Streched out 

with its belly pressed to the Earth

the serpent of life lifts it’s hands in prayer.

It gently cups the precious space

between its palms

as it sheds its skin.

As old falls away

dust and debris begin to rise

revealing the shadow. 

At times, the dark forms of it’s dream 

take on fearsome dimensions

as it sculpts its spiraling vortices,

laying down the pathways for creation.

—Lorena

Into the woods...

—for Dre

 

I find myself drawn into the woods

to take a shirin-yoku tree bath

to feel the fresh air

blessing my lungs with its green scent.

Only here amidst the leaves 

can we truely function fully

nostrils flaring to receive

the news of joyful blossoming.

—Lorena

I am incubating my Self

 

new flesh

the abyss that was bridged

with the exhausted shaky fingers

holding the world together

the seam that was stitched

with the red and white threads of the soul

still gnarled and uneven

but becoming living flesh

scar tissue with its microscopic rivulets

its minute mountains and valleys 

reflecting the rough terrains

the rough waters traversed

on life's river

springing now into new 

gnarled 

but oh so supple flesh

—Lorena