Words Dancing On The Wind

sometimes
i’m just trying to keep
my head and my heart
from tearing me apart
remembering to breathe
in the cyclone
thoughts whirling
doubts swirling
fears wailing into the winds
emotions like a hurricane
tears a deluge of rain
sobbing thunder
with each lightning strike
i hold on tight
to the shutters
cling to the center
as best I can
the storm in my mind
throws my heartbeat out of time
i feel the tower walls shaking
my heart breaking
to the rhythm of the pounding
voice in my head
telling me this storm too
shall pass
but first
it’s going to hurt
alot

~ aurora winddancer
june 7th, 2021

i have learned well not to grieve
that which is not meant for me
the world is filled with so much grief
i need not add to it when i can just release
instead be embodied of love and peace
tasting the joys of all life’s beauty
choosing what is also choosing me
the flower does not grieve for the bee
that does not visit her petals or leaf
she knows her scent and necter are sweet
and there will always be another bee

~ aurora winddancer
june 1st, 2021

we may only get a moment
in this perfect space
before time moves us forward
to a different place
so here and now
in this infinite grace
come home to my heart
and I’ll come home to yours

let our souls touch
in heartfilled embrace
as a chorus of angels sing
i will touch your face
our eyes will see the sacred
as we retrace
a lineage of lifetimes
we have danced together

come home to my heart
my weary traveler kin
allow your self to rest
oh sacred bard, oh divine musician
your journeys will continue
but take a breath sweet cousin
and lay your load at my feet
i will heal your heart with kisses

for the healer too needs healing
the musician to hear a song
a love that is a steady flame
in the hearth while you are gone
a filled cup waiting, a meal still warm
an eager ear and smile for a night long
filled with your epic stories
your heart held in the welcome of home

~ aurora winddancer
june 1st, 2021

Everything stops

When he holds me in my dreams

I sink into a deep Earthy warmth

My nerves stop firing alarms

My vagus nerve relaxes

As I breathe deep

I’ve never really been able to sleep

But when my head is against

His chest my being softens

A heavy weight lifts off me

I feel like I can stop sprinting

With the world Atlas’d

On my shoulders

I let go

And everything settles

Into a deep Earthy warmth

That holds me safe in my dreaming

In a peace deep enough

To be planted in

1. Foster kids don’t unpack
2. Not ever
3. Not even in their 40’s
4. When they’re paying rent
5. In a house for five years
6. They live their lives out of boxes
7. Totes and bags
8. Never putting pictures
9. On the walls
10. Or putting down roots
11. Because no place is ever “Home”
12. And nothing is ever permanent
13. They move from place to place
14. Like they did as children
15. Unable to settle in
16. Feeling secure
17. Is such an alien concept
18. They know the next forced move
19. Is just around the corner
20. The undropped shoe
21. On their temporary happiness
22. That will uproot them again
23. When they least expect it

1. Foster kids don’t get attached
2. To material things
3. That can be taken from them
4. Forced to leave behind
5. What they briefly came to cherish
6. Who they briefly trusted
7. A series of losses and betrayals
8. The framework of their memories
9. Leading them to hold on
10. To whatever they can
11. While simultaneously able
12. To walk away from it all
13. At a moment’s notice
14. One pair of shoes
15. Hand-me-downs and too tight
16. One change of clothes
17. Thrift store finds
18. What can be stuffed into a backpack
19. No stuffies though
20. Teddybears are dangerous
21. Attachments are vulnerable
22. Spines must be steel
23. And skins must be thick

1. Foster kids lose everything
2. More than once
3. Over and over again
4. Until they Learn not to give a shit
5. About any Thing
6. Not to get comfortable anywhere
7. Because comfortable is weak
8. Trust is vulnerable
9. Hard to earn
10. Easy to break
11. Impossible to regain once lost
12. Experienced duality
13. Of being simultaneously poor
14. While also the source of income
15. For “parents” who often
16. Don’t actually care about the children
17. Placed in their care
18. Six traumatized girls
19. All shoved in one bedroom
20. Each wondering if the next knock
21. On the door will be their caseworker
22. To move them out
23. Or another kid moving in

1. Foster kids grow up
2. But they never forget
3. That their families were so broken
4. Their homes so dangerous
5. That somehow being bounced
6. From foster home to foster home
7. School to school
8. Was somehow still better
9. Than the parents they were born to
10. Foster kids are rarely chosen
11. By anyone
12. Rarely adopted, wanted or loved
13. So when we grow up
14. And we Choose our Family
15. That is Sacred to us
16. When we Choose to love
17. Our loved ones are precious
18. When they love us back
19. It takes years to believe them
20. When we lose our Family
21. It is devastating
22. Nothing is more important than “Home”
23. To those who grew up without one

1. Foster kids don’t unpack
2. Our memories stay tied up in boxes
3. Inside our heads
4. In the storage room
5. In the backpack
6. In the filing cabinet
7. Inside our minds
8. Where the notes of lived trauma
9. Can be read like a newspaper
10. Stories that happened
11. To someone else
12. Detachment is our saving grace
13. Dissociation our salvation
14. Swiss cheese memories
15. Years missing contexts
16. Security question triggers
17. On every website log-in
18. Don’t ask me about my childhood
19. You don’t want to know
20. I don’t want to remember
21. Let it stay in the dusty attic
22. Where the forgotten broken things
23. Are left unpacked

~ aurora winddancer
April 23, 2021

If I die tomorrow
Would I be content
With the lives I have touched
With the kindness I’ve given
To those I have loved

If I die tomorrow
Has what I’ve done and given
To the world been sufficient
Have I accomplished my missions
Can I justify my existence

If I die tomorrow
Have I Healed more than harmed
Given more than taken
Provided some inspiration
Helped others to awaken

If I die tomorrow
Knowing the world is not yet
That “Better World” we dream
Have I done my part to help
Continue the Great Healing

If I die tomorrow
Will the Beloveds I’ve left behind
To continue the peaceful fight
Have what they needed from me
To fully Shine their Lights

If I die tomorrow
Can I step into death with Grace
Knowing I’ve done all I could in this lifetime
I’ve left Humanity better than I found it
And perhaps the world a better place

If I live tomorrow

If Death puts down Her tea
If She smiles and chuckles at me
And leaves me yet to breathe
How can I love and live and give best
With the time I have left

So when she visits me next
I will know I am ready to go
If next time I must die tomorrow

~ Aurora Victoria WindDancer
© April 6th, 2017
#WordsDancingOnTheWind
#Poetry #Mortality #Mindfulness

**Original title Tea With Mortality – gratitude to my friend Logan for the amazing new title 💖 **

i love rainy days at the coast
the perfect excuse for doing nothing
they’re so quiet and unassuming
they never insist on “doing something”

just rest, relax,
take a load off your shoulders
breathe in the clean air
listen to the birds sing their rainsong

this is not a day that makes demands
the sun is not shining, the air is not warm,
there is no pressing need
to make the most of it

this grey delightful day
has no desires to be seized,
just a book that wants a good read
and a bath that promises warmth

a cup of coffee with no motivation,
a sky that drips,
“you didn’t really need to go anywhere…”
a sigh that exhales it agrees

~ aurora winddancer
march 18th, 2021
wheeler, oregon

This came up in my FB memories today. My son Westley wrote this poem about me for a school assignment in Jan 2018. 💖😭💖

Poetry assignment for class:

Westley Black
English 10
1/22/18

My Mother

My mother is a goddess
She is the rain, and the sun
The moon and the stars
A mother to a child is home
The first arms you ever laid in
The first house you ever lived in
Her body is a temple like yours and mine
She taught me the power of “No”
And the strength in “Yes”

Her heartbeat is like the drum of the world,
It moves to the sound of the universe
She is a mother, and a sister
An aunt, a friend,
A witch and and a priestess.
A playwright and an entrepreneur
She is strong yet gentle,
She is powerful and yet humble
Her life flows like the river
Rushing and rapid, then calm and deep
She is a child and woman,
A leader and an anarchist
She is all of these things and more
Because she struggled
Her life is neither all dark,
Nor all light
But she is light
Because she chooses.

Frida Kahlo told her husband,

“I’m not asking you to kiss me, nor apologize to me when I think you’re wrong. I won’t even ask you to hug me when I need it most.

I don’t ask you to tell me how beautiful I am, even if it’s a lie, nor write me anything beautiful. I won’t even ask you to call me to tell me how your day went, nor tell me you miss me.

I won’t ask you to thank me for everything I do for you, nor to care about me when my soul is down, and of course, I won’t ask you to support me in my decisions.

I won’t even ask you to listen to me when I have a thousand stories to tell you. I won’t ask you to do anything, not even be by my side forever.

Because if I have to ask you, I don’t want it anymore.”

Today was not my day,
and that’s ok.
It didn’t have to be,
it didn’t owe me anything.

Today was not my day,
but I’m ok.
It’s nothing a bit of comfort food,
and a cup of tea couldn’t fix.

Today was not my day,
and the world’s not ok.
But perhaps tomorrow,
will be better for us both.

December 15, 2020
~ aurora winddancer