To Wrestle and Churn

TO WRESTLE AND CHURN

I wrestle and churn, 

hungering for the primordial and the unmediated, 

hankering for the meaning-made-manifest 

through relationship to land and plant, 

animal and bird, 

elemental primacy, 

enmeshed belonging to the maternal matrix of Gaia, 

to embedded cosmic ecology, 

to tribe and custom and craft and way, 

the free flowing conduit between body and earth

unsevered and pure, 

the great ear of my heart bent close 

to the cascading current of co-creative arrising, 

weaving the vibrational threads of existence 

into harmony through the undulations of my vocal chords 

and the pulsation of my muscles, 

the ululating of my sinews, 

the earthquakes of my pleasure, 

as they are moved by the great dance 

of love’s living moment in cell and bone, 

flesh and organ, 

dancing, toning, undulating, 

partnering in a unified improvisation 

with the primordial web of creation, 

honing myself to source, 

stilling my mind so that the plants and the earth 

and the menagerie of living beings 

and the planets may speak to me 

of the wisdom they carry 

and the hungering at the heart of Earth

 to be received by us, 

to be reciprocated with co-mingling communion, 

receiving the magnificent bounty of wealth 

that lies at our feet in every moment, 

the vast and glorious treasures 

of fresh air and clean water, 

of fertile earth and life-giving fire. 

Even on this stolen land, 

my heart knows she is indigenous, 

that I belong here, on this Earth body, 

that Her breast is generous enough to offer me 

and my broken heart succour, 

to awaken me, enliven me, 

compost my separation into fecund belonging. 

May the rigid grids and sticky membranes 

of dominator culture decay, 

may the fear of persecution fall away, 

may the separation of my shame dissolve, 

may the illusion of my imprisoned inferiority erode, 

that I may be homed to the unified consciousness of Gaia, 

to the great cosmic web of creation. 

For so long I have been held captive in a colonised mind, 

from the cages of this linear perception, 

the wisdom ways of my people buried and lost so far back, 

in another land, a far distant time, 

I am orphaned from my power. 

I have not been taught the language 

of the ways and the medicines, 

the stories and dreams and songs and dances 

of this country upon which my body abides. 

I have lost the songs and the stories 

and the language and the lore 

that held me in the tapestry of my own ancestral cohesion. 

And yet in the great cyclic dreamweave 

my soul knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, 

She remembers, 

that my body belongs to a cosmic weave of love

more vast and magnificent than any shallow trinket 

promised by my culture, 

than any trauma my personhood can endure. 

I was there at the beginning of all of this 

and I will be there at the end, 

so much bigger and more exquisite than I could ever imagine, 

unified and vast, 

eternally nourishing, 

eternally receiving. 

Was I born here, on this Earth at this time, 

misplaced and cast adrift in a culture 

of brutal rape and devouring avarice, 

of plastic and hunger, 

colonised and dismembered, 

to endlessly drown in the wave upon wave 

of my own lostness and despair? 

Or can I weave my way home to belonging and to cohesion, 

to song and to story, 

to dance and to vibrational integrity? 

Can I leave the words of separation and division 

and brutal ownership that are a part of my cultural inheritance, 

out of my mouth? 

May they cease to move my tongue? 

May I create new words that bind and attune, 

that embrace and send out roots and shoots 

to mend and to heal, 

to connect and to re-member? 

Can I allow myself to be re-membered? 

Can I surrender the need to be seen 

as something seperate and special, 

to know myself as something vastly insignificant 

and deeply connected? 

Can I recall how to be in relationship 

with the microbiome of soil 

and the cadence of soul? 

Can I allow myself to be moved by the tide 

and rustled by the breeze, 

my boundaries thrown wide open 

to let the sunlight in and the mosquito, 

the owl and the star, 

the pulse and the spark? 

Can I be born again, 

wild and instinctual, 

primal and alive, 

tender and pure, 

listening and receptive, 

courageous and co-creative, 

to this Earth that is my home, 

this body that is my nest and my deepest rest, 

to this womb that carries the universe within it, 

to this heart that is born to sing in gratitude 

for the rain of blessings life bestows, 

to this mind that has been undone and remade

across the vast stretches of time, 

that whilst holding a leaden understanding 

of the atrocities of humanity, 

also holds within it the hologram of my own divinity 

and the birth rite of my ancient belonging 

in the ever-present ecstasy of the now.

© Lucy Pierce 2019