Oh wow Deborah! Thank you so much for connecting with the great mother and her song. Poetry just arrives! As Neruda said “Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river.” Something definitely here- is speaking through us. To us. I love how the soulchroncity speaks through a few of us at the same time here. I love Avebury. It’s amazing what finds us when we allow it. Just to show up not searching. Spirit made manifest. Thank you for your vulnerability in this space of swelling ripples out on the edge of a widening circle. We show up here. We share our words. We never know what it means. All we know is that in this poetry something on the far side of the moon will find us. They’ve always been walking us home. Big hugs! You are an inspiration. You happen to people Deborah. Thanks for being a poem 🙏❤️
Jamie, I’m ab-soul-utely thrilled that you connected with this! Before I left, I wandered through your poetry hedgerows, carrying the quiet intention to 'become the poem'. I had no idea how that would unfold - especially after leaving my notebook miles away in Devizes - but somehow, it happened. I drifted toward those sacred roots (the same trees on the back cover of my first poetry collection) and let the moment shape itself.
The words felt unfamiliar, almost as if they weren’t mine, yet they rose with a certainty beyond thought. The chorus surprised me, too - perplexing, yet deeply known. It’s amazing how poetry arrives, just as Avebury stands in its presence, waiting for those who listen.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a Hang drum or handpan before, but its sound is so otherworldly - fluid, shimmering, like breath turned into music. I've linked a video (if you click on the word Hang) so others can hear it too, as 'drum' doesn’t quite capture its essence.
Thank you so much for your incredibly kind-hearted words, for sharing in this space, for poem-ing alongside me these past months in what I can only describe as 'poetry heaven'. I came here searching for kindred spirits, and I found them - but even more, I found this 'soulchronicity' you speak of, this weaving of unseen threads that tie us to each other and to something greater.
That Neruda quote captures it so perfectly - poetry doesn’t belong to us; it moves through us, speaking to us as if guiding us home. Your presence, your reflections, your rhythms remind me that poetry is never 'just' written - it’s lived, breathed, discovered in the hush between moments.
I’m so deeply grateful to be part of this 'widening circle' with you, where words arrive as they will, carrying their own deep knowing. Big hugs and endless appreciation for being here, for showing up and most of all, for being the beautiful, soulful poem you are. 🙏❤️
Thanks Deborah! In an old poetic inquiry called It’s A Question of Time- 2023. You will see Avebury show up as a pic! Yes am a stone circler. Sitting in the middle. Sensing. Inviting. Allowing. Am in awe of how poetry opens up doors where transformation is possible. In-quiry. Living in-to the Questions. Cuore-osity! I’ve never heard a Hang Drum in my mind yet I just sensed this soul around me smile. I have found very few people who truly let poetry meet them. Always trying to analyze a poem. Poetry is what poetry brings. Into-me- I-see. Intimacy. A journey into the inside. Fools journey. I love how tarot fits. Something tells me that Jung in all of the archetypes was being written by cosmic poetic energy. Creativity. It’s definitely nice to find kindred spirits who can meet in the spaces around the words. In that very place, we may even meet our own authenticity. Happy to keep meeting between the words. Thank you so much for meeting me there! 🙏❤️
Jamie, you know this conversation feels like I’m sat inside a sacred circle with you, a place where poetry, presence and magick meet. Thank you so much for sharing this space, for recognising that poetry isn’t something to be dissected but something to be felt - to meet, to move through, to allow.
I love your reflections on inquiry, on living into the questions, on cuore-osity. And how ab-soul-utely fitting that Jung’s archetypes, tarot and creativity all align within this ‘cosmic poetic energy’, unfolding like the Divine Fool’s journey. I think you're onto something there, I really do!
I went searching for "It’s A Question of Time" but couldn’t find anything – though I did come across other articles I’ll revisit later. For now, I’m enjoying reading a poem most nights from your beautiful book, "Cuoreosity: The HeArt of Being" a soulful collection I wholeheartedly recommend to all poetry lovers. 🙏❤️
For a few moments, this piece took me to an expanded way of being I've sometimes visited--always in tree-filled wildernesses, always when I was alone with myself--but never been able to put into words. Thank you for the words and memories. And for the majick you conjure up from the depths and share so generously.
Dear Jeanie, I’m so happy you enjoyed this one! What makes it even more special is that every bit of this actually happened. Admittedly, I was momentarily frustrated when the CD wouldn’t play - but within minutes, I was laughing, knowing the musician / magician had worked his magick.
And then, just days later, as I sat down yesterday to write, something clicked - I found the shape of my mosaic memoir: story, poem, haiku. As you can imagine being a writer yourself, and one of my favourites, I'm so thrilled! It feels like I’ve discovered my own secret recipe - pure alchemy!
Thank you so much, Caroline, for such a beautiful response! Once, and only once before, I was alone on a local beach when a song rose within me. It must've been in my early twenties, before I had children. I didn't know why or what I was singing, but the memory of it stayed with me. I never imagined it could happen again, but last week, forty years later, it did. 💗💗💗
Hi, my angel. I see you have another part of your cherished memories, filled with such excellent and wise words and beautiful poems. As I read it, I was reminded of an article by Marion Woodman from my friend Lewis. So, I thought I would share the link here. Take care and enjoy yourself. Sending my best regards. 😊💖🌹
PS: The captivating images by Lin have genuinely rooted themselves in our minds. 💖🌱🍃
Thank you so much, my dear friend, for your kind and generous words! Yes, Lin took this photo at Avebury just a few days ago - I’ll be sure to pass on your compliments. It was glorious there, and the musician was seated right at the very edge of this grove, adding to the magick and mystery of the moment.
I really appreciate you including the link - I’ll visit later and read Marion’s foreword. In pure synchronicity, a couple of Jill’s books have been sleeping and dreaming on my wishlist for a while now, and perhaps this is the gentle nudge I needed to finally place an order. 🌹😊💖
What a wondrous, uplifting experience. In this place, this moment. The music and the words in you exalted, all inseparable, all one, magical. I love the haiku. Thank you for sharing.
This is so lovely Ralph, thank you so much! A few days later, when we arrived at Stonehenge, there was another young musician standing beside the stones, playing either a clarinet or an oboe, I couldn’t quite tell. But his presence, his music, made me laugh with joy.
After reading this, I was thinking of how poetry finds you and not the other way round. I've never considered myself a poet as such, but over the years on the odd occasion when I've been inspired to jot down a few words into a little ditty, Mother Nature has always been my muse. These moments could happen at the oddest times. The words would cone in a kind of compulsion and I had to somehow make a note of them as soon as I could. If I left them floating in my head as the day went on, I'd forget them, like they were a dream. So, yes, this inseparable bond between poet and poem makes a lot of sense. It happens when it happens and only then. Thank you, again. (PS and caveat -un this I make no claim to being any kind of great 'wordsmith' ☺️). Brightest blessings.
Ralph, your words resonate so deeply! Indeed, poetry has its own quiet rhythm, arriving when 'it' wills (so often not when 'we' will it), weaving through our lives in so many unexpected moments. The way you describe Mother Nature as your muse - how words come like a compulsion, fleeting like dreams - feels so true to how inspiration moves through all of us. I love that rippling feeling when the 'muses' arrive and I'm reaching for my pen, Lin, her camera.
And on that note, I think the same must be said for you photographers, too - that it’s your imagination alone that fires the shutter, not just your hands. I truly believe that there’s something so profound about being 'open to receive', to let the 'words', or the 'images', arrive when they will, always trusting their timing. Even if we have to write the words down on a serviette in the middle of dinner. Yes, it happens to me, often!
Whether or not you call yourself a poet, your connection to language and the world around you is 'poetry' in itself. Thank you so much for sharing all these rich reflections. Bright blessings to you, too! ☺️
Thanks Ralph - they are a very sacred spot on top of one of the many burial mounds in the area, known locally as 'hedgehogs'. In quiet moments they feel like a portal creating a deep connection to the 'oneness' of all there is. Such a healing place for the mind, body and soul. 😊
I can imagine, a wondrous place to be. Apologies, too, for somehow missing your comment here. It certainly wasn't intentional. Luckily I've finally caught up! 🥴😊
Don't worry Ralph - I find it really hard to keep up. I don't know how everyone stays abreast of the notes section either...I get on there maybe once a week if I'm lucky! 😊
How beautiful Deborah, the earth sang her song through you and from there emerged an offer of words, and a blending of her other being’s expressions of connectedness, each a verse of the universal song. Our body, the portal for the fluidity of soul - a remembrance among the sacred landscapes. Just beautiful ❤️
Oh Simone, your words move me to tears - in the best way! Thank you so much for these beautiful, soul-stirring reflections. Indeed, Mother Earth sings and when we really listen, we become part of Her song. Your words resonate deeply, reminding me that poetry, presence and the sacred landscapes we walk are all expressions of the 'symphony of the soul of love'.
My deepest gratitude goes out to you for this shared moment, for that recognition of something beyond words that moves through us all. Thanks for seeing, for feeling and for holding space for all this unfolding. ❤️
You’re welcome, I am off for a briny embrace this morning and play with the water sprites 🌊🏄🏻♀️💙. I think there are healing properties/enegeries that Mother Earth provides us when we connect 😊
I hope you enjoyed returning to Her living waters. I think you’re right - both the musician and I were sitting upon Her living roots. And you've gently nudged a childhood memory back to me: barefoot in long, soft green grass, stopping to kneel, pressing my ear to the earth and telling my mother - I was listening in. 💚
I did thank you 🌊 💙. She was wild today, what we needed 😊. Yes, we can hear nature speaking when we pay attention. I think we are so in tune with nature when we are kids, we are just remembering 🌱 🧙🏻♀️. Perhaps you might write a story about it. 😊 Have a great day 💚
Ah, perhaps I might dear pokeress of stories and poems! I just noticed what I did there, Mother and mother. One and the same, I now realise. Have a wonderful, bewitching evening yourself, Simone, aka Fairy Crone. 🧚💚🌱
Pokeress of stories and poems — 🤣 💚. I have giggled so much today, and this is just making my heart sing. I had the beach, then home to meditate — something is brewing 😊, then strumming with a couple of local gals here at my place🔥 🪕 , and your heart felt message — mothers 🙏. My cup is overflowing with love. Thank you, what a brilliant end to the day. Love Simone, the Fairy Crone — of the whimsical kind 🥰
So incredibly lovely, Deborah! You connected deeply with Mother Earth and let yourself be sung by her. You at last found your belonging, your connection to her. It will be easier and easier to let yourself be sung by her over and over and over. I love this so much.
Things are revealed when you are ready for them. Then and only then. They don't need to be repeated or heard again. What you heard the first time was correct. Going back and trying to listen again would only confuse the original message.
I'm so glad you wrote it down so that you will have it the next time it happens. It won't be the same replayed message, it will be a new one, that weaves into the first and, of course, weaves its magic in you and though you. You ARE the poem now! Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us! What a blessing!! XO
Thanks so much for your love-filled reply, Danielle! Unplugging for those eight days was just incredible. It was a musical week all around as a couple of days later, we arrived at Stonehenge only to be greeted by another young man playing a clarinet or oboe right beside the stones. And then later that week, as we wandered through a field of stones we saw another young man playing a saxophone. Three musicians, three instruments and music weaving through it all.
However, it was the hang drum’s music that captured my heart and soul. Indeed, the chorus felt odd, out of place in the poem … it felt more like an undertone of something deeper. A call to ‘unite’ with the Great Mother, to be drawn into Her family, which kind of arrived through Her roots, travelling up them so to speak. Separate to the spoken poetry if I think about it now. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this feeling of the Higher Self speaking to you and then an even larger Self begins speaking to you ... but that’s what it was like.
Everything you've shared makes my heart smile, especially the thought of being sung by Her. Only the chorus remains clearly in my memory, just the melody. And you were right, the next time I heard the music, the clarinet/oboe and sax, the feeling was different. There was no channelled message. Thanks again for holding space and ‘seeing’ me. It was a remarkable experience, beautiful and soul-deep. One in which I learnt how words find us not the other way round. Big love! XO
Mmmm...how wonderful. Sounds like the Universe "orchestrated" your entire trip, and peppered in these musicians to help you take note that you were exactly where you were intended to be. This is probably a dumb question because I music is the ultimate time machine no matter who you are, but has music been an important part of your past? Makes me wonder how their three songs would weave together.
It does seem like everything that happened was meant to draw you in closer so that message could be dropped. Like the rest was intended to take you into a deeper mindset so the message could be received. You were a receiver. The music was the amplifier. The more I think about it, the more that sounds right. You followed ALL the invitations, regardless of how bizarre or strange they felt and it led you right where it was supposed to so you could receive. That's profound. And beautiful!
I do have feelings of a Higher Self speaking to me and through me. And thank you for asking! It seems to happen quite a lot when I am around others. I say something to someone and when they repeat it back to me, I feel dumbfounded and I think where on Earth did THAT come from? Because it usually doesn't sound like anything I would say. So, yeah, the words found me. Such incredible experiences. And I guess why I tend to run towards something I shouldn't: because there is always a message, something to be found and uncovered.
Thank you. For stirring all this up in me, for the tears and warmth I always feel when we're in contact. It's lovely. Sending love and hugs. XO
Oh Danielle, how did you know?! Although music isn't so much a part of my life, both my parents, now passed, loved to sing, write songs and perform for us kids. Sadly, alcohol was involved but they were fun times until they weren't. In fact, my parents wrote many songs and sold them, mainly to America. They even wrote a top hit back in the day. I have no idea what it was called but my music teacher played it once during lesson as they had the music written too and it didn't sound bad. I'll ponder some more on this music connection, I'm sure there's more there.
Thank you so much for helping me unpack this mystical experience and tuning into your Higher Self who so obviously asked me the musical question. You're obviously naturally intuitive and know things that others don't. I remember once with a client, for some reason I started calling her by another name. She burst into tears and told me that was the name her mother used for her and I thought to myself, wow, how do I explain this to her, and myself. It's just this deep knowing isn't it. Some call it Soul, others Self. Whatever it is we all have access to it, if we learn to listen in. XO
Music sounds like a pretty vibrant thread that runs through your life, at least while you were growing up and, even though you may not have followed exactly in your parents' footsteps, that is bound to play a role in some part of your alchemy. Music and sound can do so much to open us up, too!! So the whole thing is so surreal.
What a wonderful story about your client and the name you intuited. Thank you for sharing that. Those kinds of events are equally surreal, but they happen!
Yeah, we do all have access to higher knowing, we just have to tune in 😉 XO
What an incredible conversation! Thank you so much, Danielle for asking the music question and for helping me connect to my parents in ways I haven't thought about for years. How intuitive you are!
My father painted, my mother wrote and in yesterday's post, I've just realised, this is how and perhaps why they came together. Wow! What an insight, for they were 'the marriage of word and image'!
And then there's me, a poet, who marries a photographer, again the coming together of word and image. Oh my goodness, what a revelation!
That is pretty fantastic!! Threads are woven into and through us and connect us to others. So incredible that you just now realized how your relationship mirrored your parents. Beautiful! Perhaps, in some small way, you are healing that past narrative by your mirroring parts of it in a healthy way now, even if it was unrealized. What a life you've had and made!! XO
Thank you so much, Sam. I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced this 'becoming', it’s only happened to me twice - the first time over forty years ago. Finding the words to describe it has been such a challenge. I couldn’t put it into words back then, but this time, I was determined to try. So your feedback means so much to me. 🙏
You became the poem, Deborah, and you are indeed a mystical vessel. What a sacred experience. Thank you for sharing it in three ways--a story, a poem, and a haiku.
I've never been to Avebury, but I know the mystical power of the Great Mother who is with me in silence in the Great Oaks and in the Bluebird nesting outside my office window. She's also with me in rejuvinating sleep and dreams. Yes, "thanks for being a poem" and for sharing those mystic realms. With love from a tense land across the sea.
Dear Elaine, it was ten very magickal and mysterious minutes! And in pure soulchronicity, (thanks Jamie!) last week I posted my 'Lord of the Greenwood' poem and I've just this minute realised 'ten rays of sun' (a line in the poem) now feels like I was uttering a sacred spell as ten minutes later the musician / magician got up and left! How does this stuff happen?!
Thank you so much for honouring this whole experience with me and for seeing its sacred unfolding. Avebury is a place filled with ancient whispers, much like all stone circles. It's also where our croning ceremony took place last year.
Yes, the Great Mother is everywhere, isn't She! Woven into the quiet presence of the Great Oaks, the soft flutter of a Bluebird’s wings and the deep stillness of dreams. She finds us in all the spaces betwixt and between, in the hush where poetry lingers, waiting for us.
I hold your words close, my dear friend, and send much love and light in return - from one soul listening, sensing and allowing to another. May the poetry of the world continue to find you, even in the midst of tension, wrapping you in its warmth, beauty and quiet grace.
Quoting the poet to herself --ha! But where else to begin? You know what you wrote and now I feel it inside of me too, that poetry lingering in the hush. I once taught a class for teenaged girls living in a group home. One of them wrote a poem about dance and the final line of the poem was "I become the dance."
It's a transcendence to "become," to drink from the sacred well of knowing. Jung said, "Self-knowledge reveals all things." Your poetry is a grace of self-knowledge, not just to you, but to those of us lucky enough to read it, and become it with you. Great Mother marry me is the longing I feel too as my country stumbles from crisis to crisis. Being in the presence of poets; being in the poetry of poets; this is balm for my sorrow.
You constantly amaze and delight, Deborah and I am one of the lucky ones. I get to read and breathe in your words, your experience, your grace and then be reminded of what lives inside of me too. So thank you. Thank you for unwavering commitment to the beauty of soul. With love and gratitude, always. ~stephanie
Dear Stephanie, your words hold such depth, reverence and truth - they wrap around me like a quiet embrace. Thank you so much for sharing this moment, for reflecting back what poetry does when it finds us, how it lingers in the hush and lives through us.
The story of your student’s last line, "I become the dance" following my experience last week, is ab-soul-utely breath-taking. That’s it, isn’t it?! The moment when we stop reaching out and simply ‘become’ - when our words, movement and breath all dissolve into something larger. Your thoughts on self-knowledge, the Great Mother and poetry as solace in uncertain times resonate so deeply.
Moving me to tears because, as I was writing this yesterday, I hesitated - just for a moment - I thought, maybe I shouldn’t include the chorus, maybe no one will understand. But then you said you did ... and never has the taste of salt felt so sweet. Love and blessings.
Well, I must say, I'm tickled over the synchronicity. Here I am, soon after you read about my love of hangdrum music! 🤯I mean, of all the posts I go to!
I love that you had this fairytale-like moment of hearing the music at Avebury! His CD didn't play, but did you ever look him up? It wasn't Malte, was it???
Oh Deborah! This so perfectly describes the experience of finding yourself in the current of sound and the beauty and truth she is! Thank you for sharing your experience and poetry of finding yourself in inbetween the notes, words, the breath, where poetry and music live. I loved reading this! 🙏🏼💜💜💜
Ah, I thought you'd like to read this! Earlier, when I was listening to your beautiful, soulful singing, I was instantly brought back to the trees and the young man with his hang drum. Have you ever heard the music? It's incredible Lana. In my story I've hi-lighted the word 'Hang' at its first mention and there's a link to take you to YouTube where you can listen at leisure. Thank you so much for sharing the music and the love. Blessed Be. 🙏🏼💜💜💜
Oh my goodness, yes! I have actually listened to his YouTube recordings Playing in the background before, and they are so soothing and beautiful! He is one of my favorites!
Oh happy days! I had a feeling you might've of listened to Marte before. So pleased you enjoyed. His is the gentle kind of music I can write stories and poems with. 🥰 🎶✒️
Thanks so much Jo for adding these beautiful lines and reassuring me that the verses will find me - whether or not a gorgeous young drummer appears or not to set the tone!😄 'Becoming' is beautiful work. Poetry doesn't wait for the drummer, I realise, it beats from within. 💜💜💜
What a profound experience! I feel the same, that poetry is there waiting to be heard. When I first started writing poetry I felt like I was simply taking dictation, or describing the images in my minds eye. The words and images just appeared, "I" didn't create them. I didn't even feel like I could edit them because I didn't feel like "I" had written them. It's still like that, but I've learned how to find the meaning in the words, then revise and edit to bring that meaning out more clearly.
That’s beautifully expressed! Thank you so much, Kristi. I love how you describe poetry as something arriving beyond the 'self' - like the poet is taking dictation from something deeper and greater, then shaping and refining it to find meaning for both self and soul. The idea that editing is less about control and more about listening resonates so deeply.
Because I had a similar experience in my early twenties but never wrote about it, I was determined to try harder this time. Back then, I was alone on a beach when a song just flew out of me - I had no idea where it came from. So when the poem arose last week, I knew I had to capture it and give it form before it too drifted away like that song had years ago.
Thanks so much Sarah, for your kind-hearted reply. To my knowledge, it was the first time I'd heard a hang / handpan (drum) being played and the sound was utterly beautiful. I’ve linked a YouTube clip to the word ‘Hang’ (at its first mention in my story) in case you haven’t heard this kind of music before.
Ah, I’ve never seen a busker using one. How lucky you are! I’ve been listening to Malte’s beautiful music for days now, brings such joy to my heart, instantly transporting me back.
Oh wow Deborah! Thank you so much for connecting with the great mother and her song. Poetry just arrives! As Neruda said “Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where it came from, from winter or a river.” Something definitely here- is speaking through us. To us. I love how the soulchroncity speaks through a few of us at the same time here. I love Avebury. It’s amazing what finds us when we allow it. Just to show up not searching. Spirit made manifest. Thank you for your vulnerability in this space of swelling ripples out on the edge of a widening circle. We show up here. We share our words. We never know what it means. All we know is that in this poetry something on the far side of the moon will find us. They’ve always been walking us home. Big hugs! You are an inspiration. You happen to people Deborah. Thanks for being a poem 🙏❤️
Jamie, I’m ab-soul-utely thrilled that you connected with this! Before I left, I wandered through your poetry hedgerows, carrying the quiet intention to 'become the poem'. I had no idea how that would unfold - especially after leaving my notebook miles away in Devizes - but somehow, it happened. I drifted toward those sacred roots (the same trees on the back cover of my first poetry collection) and let the moment shape itself.
The words felt unfamiliar, almost as if they weren’t mine, yet they rose with a certainty beyond thought. The chorus surprised me, too - perplexing, yet deeply known. It’s amazing how poetry arrives, just as Avebury stands in its presence, waiting for those who listen.
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a Hang drum or handpan before, but its sound is so otherworldly - fluid, shimmering, like breath turned into music. I've linked a video (if you click on the word Hang) so others can hear it too, as 'drum' doesn’t quite capture its essence.
Thank you so much for your incredibly kind-hearted words, for sharing in this space, for poem-ing alongside me these past months in what I can only describe as 'poetry heaven'. I came here searching for kindred spirits, and I found them - but even more, I found this 'soulchronicity' you speak of, this weaving of unseen threads that tie us to each other and to something greater.
That Neruda quote captures it so perfectly - poetry doesn’t belong to us; it moves through us, speaking to us as if guiding us home. Your presence, your reflections, your rhythms remind me that poetry is never 'just' written - it’s lived, breathed, discovered in the hush between moments.
I’m so deeply grateful to be part of this 'widening circle' with you, where words arrive as they will, carrying their own deep knowing. Big hugs and endless appreciation for being here, for showing up and most of all, for being the beautiful, soulful poem you are. 🙏❤️
Thanks Deborah! In an old poetic inquiry called It’s A Question of Time- 2023. You will see Avebury show up as a pic! Yes am a stone circler. Sitting in the middle. Sensing. Inviting. Allowing. Am in awe of how poetry opens up doors where transformation is possible. In-quiry. Living in-to the Questions. Cuore-osity! I’ve never heard a Hang Drum in my mind yet I just sensed this soul around me smile. I have found very few people who truly let poetry meet them. Always trying to analyze a poem. Poetry is what poetry brings. Into-me- I-see. Intimacy. A journey into the inside. Fools journey. I love how tarot fits. Something tells me that Jung in all of the archetypes was being written by cosmic poetic energy. Creativity. It’s definitely nice to find kindred spirits who can meet in the spaces around the words. In that very place, we may even meet our own authenticity. Happy to keep meeting between the words. Thank you so much for meeting me there! 🙏❤️
Jamie, you know this conversation feels like I’m sat inside a sacred circle with you, a place where poetry, presence and magick meet. Thank you so much for sharing this space, for recognising that poetry isn’t something to be dissected but something to be felt - to meet, to move through, to allow.
I love your reflections on inquiry, on living into the questions, on cuore-osity. And how ab-soul-utely fitting that Jung’s archetypes, tarot and creativity all align within this ‘cosmic poetic energy’, unfolding like the Divine Fool’s journey. I think you're onto something there, I really do!
I went searching for "It’s A Question of Time" but couldn’t find anything – though I did come across other articles I’ll revisit later. For now, I’m enjoying reading a poem most nights from your beautiful book, "Cuoreosity: The HeArt of Being" a soulful collection I wholeheartedly recommend to all poetry lovers. 🙏❤️
For a few moments, this piece took me to an expanded way of being I've sometimes visited--always in tree-filled wildernesses, always when I was alone with myself--but never been able to put into words. Thank you for the words and memories. And for the majick you conjure up from the depths and share so generously.
Dear Jeanie, I’m so happy you enjoyed this one! What makes it even more special is that every bit of this actually happened. Admittedly, I was momentarily frustrated when the CD wouldn’t play - but within minutes, I was laughing, knowing the musician / magician had worked his magick.
And then, just days later, as I sat down yesterday to write, something clicked - I found the shape of my mosaic memoir: story, poem, haiku. As you can imagine being a writer yourself, and one of my favourites, I'm so thrilled! It feels like I’ve discovered my own secret recipe - pure alchemy!
Beautiful work, Deborah. It is wonderful (and very rare, for me at least) when inspiration arrives in this way! Blessed be 💗💗💗
Thank you so much, Caroline, for such a beautiful response! Once, and only once before, I was alone on a local beach when a song rose within me. It must've been in my early twenties, before I had children. I didn't know why or what I was singing, but the memory of it stayed with me. I never imagined it could happen again, but last week, forty years later, it did. 💗💗💗
Hi, my angel. I see you have another part of your cherished memories, filled with such excellent and wise words and beautiful poems. As I read it, I was reminded of an article by Marion Woodman from my friend Lewis. So, I thought I would share the link here. Take care and enjoy yourself. Sending my best regards. 😊💖🌹
PS: The captivating images by Lin have genuinely rooted themselves in our minds. 💖🌱🍃
https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2025/05/27/woodman-19/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup
Thank you so much, my dear friend, for your kind and generous words! Yes, Lin took this photo at Avebury just a few days ago - I’ll be sure to pass on your compliments. It was glorious there, and the musician was seated right at the very edge of this grove, adding to the magick and mystery of the moment.
I really appreciate you including the link - I’ll visit later and read Marion’s foreword. In pure synchronicity, a couple of Jill’s books have been sleeping and dreaming on my wishlist for a while now, and perhaps this is the gentle nudge I needed to finally place an order. 🌹😊💖
Thanks so much Aladin - these really are sacred trees with so much healing energy within them. 😊
What a wondrous, uplifting experience. In this place, this moment. The music and the words in you exalted, all inseparable, all one, magical. I love the haiku. Thank you for sharing.
This is so lovely Ralph, thank you so much! A few days later, when we arrived at Stonehenge, there was another young musician standing beside the stones, playing either a clarinet or an oboe, I couldn’t quite tell. But his presence, his music, made me laugh with joy.
After reading this, I was thinking of how poetry finds you and not the other way round. I've never considered myself a poet as such, but over the years on the odd occasion when I've been inspired to jot down a few words into a little ditty, Mother Nature has always been my muse. These moments could happen at the oddest times. The words would cone in a kind of compulsion and I had to somehow make a note of them as soon as I could. If I left them floating in my head as the day went on, I'd forget them, like they were a dream. So, yes, this inseparable bond between poet and poem makes a lot of sense. It happens when it happens and only then. Thank you, again. (PS and caveat -un this I make no claim to being any kind of great 'wordsmith' ☺️). Brightest blessings.
Ralph, your words resonate so deeply! Indeed, poetry has its own quiet rhythm, arriving when 'it' wills (so often not when 'we' will it), weaving through our lives in so many unexpected moments. The way you describe Mother Nature as your muse - how words come like a compulsion, fleeting like dreams - feels so true to how inspiration moves through all of us. I love that rippling feeling when the 'muses' arrive and I'm reaching for my pen, Lin, her camera.
And on that note, I think the same must be said for you photographers, too - that it’s your imagination alone that fires the shutter, not just your hands. I truly believe that there’s something so profound about being 'open to receive', to let the 'words', or the 'images', arrive when they will, always trusting their timing. Even if we have to write the words down on a serviette in the middle of dinner. Yes, it happens to me, often!
Whether or not you call yourself a poet, your connection to language and the world around you is 'poetry' in itself. Thank you so much for sharing all these rich reflections. Bright blessings to you, too! ☺️
Thank you! Btw I love Lin's 'roots' photo at the top of your post - beautiful.
She (Lin) says, "that's lovely, tell him I said so!" Me too, I'm thinking. Me too! ☺️
😀
Thanks Ralph - they are a very sacred spot on top of one of the many burial mounds in the area, known locally as 'hedgehogs'. In quiet moments they feel like a portal creating a deep connection to the 'oneness' of all there is. Such a healing place for the mind, body and soul. 😊
I can imagine, a wondrous place to be. Apologies, too, for somehow missing your comment here. It certainly wasn't intentional. Luckily I've finally caught up! 🥴😊
Cool! 😎 I'll let Lin know, Ralph. Thanks so much, again.
Don't worry Ralph - I find it really hard to keep up. I don't know how everyone stays abreast of the notes section either...I get on there maybe once a week if I'm lucky! 😊
How beautiful Deborah, the earth sang her song through you and from there emerged an offer of words, and a blending of her other being’s expressions of connectedness, each a verse of the universal song. Our body, the portal for the fluidity of soul - a remembrance among the sacred landscapes. Just beautiful ❤️
Oh Simone, your words move me to tears - in the best way! Thank you so much for these beautiful, soul-stirring reflections. Indeed, Mother Earth sings and when we really listen, we become part of Her song. Your words resonate deeply, reminding me that poetry, presence and the sacred landscapes we walk are all expressions of the 'symphony of the soul of love'.
My deepest gratitude goes out to you for this shared moment, for that recognition of something beyond words that moves through us all. Thanks for seeing, for feeling and for holding space for all this unfolding. ❤️
You’re welcome, I am off for a briny embrace this morning and play with the water sprites 🌊🏄🏻♀️💙. I think there are healing properties/enegeries that Mother Earth provides us when we connect 😊
I hope you enjoyed returning to Her living waters. I think you’re right - both the musician and I were sitting upon Her living roots. And you've gently nudged a childhood memory back to me: barefoot in long, soft green grass, stopping to kneel, pressing my ear to the earth and telling my mother - I was listening in. 💚
I did thank you 🌊 💙. She was wild today, what we needed 😊. Yes, we can hear nature speaking when we pay attention. I think we are so in tune with nature when we are kids, we are just remembering 🌱 🧙🏻♀️. Perhaps you might write a story about it. 😊 Have a great day 💚
Ah, perhaps I might dear pokeress of stories and poems! I just noticed what I did there, Mother and mother. One and the same, I now realise. Have a wonderful, bewitching evening yourself, Simone, aka Fairy Crone. 🧚💚🌱
Pokeress of stories and poems — 🤣 💚. I have giggled so much today, and this is just making my heart sing. I had the beach, then home to meditate — something is brewing 😊, then strumming with a couple of local gals here at my place🔥 🪕 , and your heart felt message — mothers 🙏. My cup is overflowing with love. Thank you, what a brilliant end to the day. Love Simone, the Fairy Crone — of the whimsical kind 🥰
You and yours in words, a given... the trees gather us for a song.
Aww, that's so kind of you, Philip - thank you so much. Those four ancient beeches are among my favourite trees in this whole wide world.
So incredibly lovely, Deborah! You connected deeply with Mother Earth and let yourself be sung by her. You at last found your belonging, your connection to her. It will be easier and easier to let yourself be sung by her over and over and over. I love this so much.
Things are revealed when you are ready for them. Then and only then. They don't need to be repeated or heard again. What you heard the first time was correct. Going back and trying to listen again would only confuse the original message.
I'm so glad you wrote it down so that you will have it the next time it happens. It won't be the same replayed message, it will be a new one, that weaves into the first and, of course, weaves its magic in you and though you. You ARE the poem now! Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us! What a blessing!! XO
Thanks so much for your love-filled reply, Danielle! Unplugging for those eight days was just incredible. It was a musical week all around as a couple of days later, we arrived at Stonehenge only to be greeted by another young man playing a clarinet or oboe right beside the stones. And then later that week, as we wandered through a field of stones we saw another young man playing a saxophone. Three musicians, three instruments and music weaving through it all.
However, it was the hang drum’s music that captured my heart and soul. Indeed, the chorus felt odd, out of place in the poem … it felt more like an undertone of something deeper. A call to ‘unite’ with the Great Mother, to be drawn into Her family, which kind of arrived through Her roots, travelling up them so to speak. Separate to the spoken poetry if I think about it now. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this feeling of the Higher Self speaking to you and then an even larger Self begins speaking to you ... but that’s what it was like.
Everything you've shared makes my heart smile, especially the thought of being sung by Her. Only the chorus remains clearly in my memory, just the melody. And you were right, the next time I heard the music, the clarinet/oboe and sax, the feeling was different. There was no channelled message. Thanks again for holding space and ‘seeing’ me. It was a remarkable experience, beautiful and soul-deep. One in which I learnt how words find us not the other way round. Big love! XO
Mmmm...how wonderful. Sounds like the Universe "orchestrated" your entire trip, and peppered in these musicians to help you take note that you were exactly where you were intended to be. This is probably a dumb question because I music is the ultimate time machine no matter who you are, but has music been an important part of your past? Makes me wonder how their three songs would weave together.
It does seem like everything that happened was meant to draw you in closer so that message could be dropped. Like the rest was intended to take you into a deeper mindset so the message could be received. You were a receiver. The music was the amplifier. The more I think about it, the more that sounds right. You followed ALL the invitations, regardless of how bizarre or strange they felt and it led you right where it was supposed to so you could receive. That's profound. And beautiful!
I do have feelings of a Higher Self speaking to me and through me. And thank you for asking! It seems to happen quite a lot when I am around others. I say something to someone and when they repeat it back to me, I feel dumbfounded and I think where on Earth did THAT come from? Because it usually doesn't sound like anything I would say. So, yeah, the words found me. Such incredible experiences. And I guess why I tend to run towards something I shouldn't: because there is always a message, something to be found and uncovered.
Thank you. For stirring all this up in me, for the tears and warmth I always feel when we're in contact. It's lovely. Sending love and hugs. XO
Oh Danielle, how did you know?! Although music isn't so much a part of my life, both my parents, now passed, loved to sing, write songs and perform for us kids. Sadly, alcohol was involved but they were fun times until they weren't. In fact, my parents wrote many songs and sold them, mainly to America. They even wrote a top hit back in the day. I have no idea what it was called but my music teacher played it once during lesson as they had the music written too and it didn't sound bad. I'll ponder some more on this music connection, I'm sure there's more there.
Thank you so much for helping me unpack this mystical experience and tuning into your Higher Self who so obviously asked me the musical question. You're obviously naturally intuitive and know things that others don't. I remember once with a client, for some reason I started calling her by another name. She burst into tears and told me that was the name her mother used for her and I thought to myself, wow, how do I explain this to her, and myself. It's just this deep knowing isn't it. Some call it Soul, others Self. Whatever it is we all have access to it, if we learn to listen in. XO
Music sounds like a pretty vibrant thread that runs through your life, at least while you were growing up and, even though you may not have followed exactly in your parents' footsteps, that is bound to play a role in some part of your alchemy. Music and sound can do so much to open us up, too!! So the whole thing is so surreal.
What a wonderful story about your client and the name you intuited. Thank you for sharing that. Those kinds of events are equally surreal, but they happen!
Yeah, we do all have access to higher knowing, we just have to tune in 😉 XO
What an incredible conversation! Thank you so much, Danielle for asking the music question and for helping me connect to my parents in ways I haven't thought about for years. How intuitive you are!
My father painted, my mother wrote and in yesterday's post, I've just realised, this is how and perhaps why they came together. Wow! What an insight, for they were 'the marriage of word and image'!
And then there's me, a poet, who marries a photographer, again the coming together of word and image. Oh my goodness, what a revelation!
That is pretty fantastic!! Threads are woven into and through us and connect us to others. So incredible that you just now realized how your relationship mirrored your parents. Beautiful! Perhaps, in some small way, you are healing that past narrative by your mirroring parts of it in a healthy way now, even if it was unrealized. What a life you've had and made!! XO
i love this: Words rose | not written not composed | only spoken
Thank you so much, Sam. I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced this 'becoming', it’s only happened to me twice - the first time over forty years ago. Finding the words to describe it has been such a challenge. I couldn’t put it into words back then, but this time, I was determined to try. So your feedback means so much to me. 🙏
You became the poem, Deborah, and you are indeed a mystical vessel. What a sacred experience. Thank you for sharing it in three ways--a story, a poem, and a haiku.
I've never been to Avebury, but I know the mystical power of the Great Mother who is with me in silence in the Great Oaks and in the Bluebird nesting outside my office window. She's also with me in rejuvinating sleep and dreams. Yes, "thanks for being a poem" and for sharing those mystic realms. With love from a tense land across the sea.
Dear Elaine, it was ten very magickal and mysterious minutes! And in pure soulchronicity, (thanks Jamie!) last week I posted my 'Lord of the Greenwood' poem and I've just this minute realised 'ten rays of sun' (a line in the poem) now feels like I was uttering a sacred spell as ten minutes later the musician / magician got up and left! How does this stuff happen?!
Thank you so much for honouring this whole experience with me and for seeing its sacred unfolding. Avebury is a place filled with ancient whispers, much like all stone circles. It's also where our croning ceremony took place last year.
Yes, the Great Mother is everywhere, isn't She! Woven into the quiet presence of the Great Oaks, the soft flutter of a Bluebird’s wings and the deep stillness of dreams. She finds us in all the spaces betwixt and between, in the hush where poetry lingers, waiting for us.
I hold your words close, my dear friend, and send much love and light in return - from one soul listening, sensing and allowing to another. May the poetry of the world continue to find you, even in the midst of tension, wrapping you in its warmth, beauty and quiet grace.
"Poetry lingers in the hush
between words
between footsteps
between the stones
And sometimes
when you least expect it
it finds you"
Quoting the poet to herself --ha! But where else to begin? You know what you wrote and now I feel it inside of me too, that poetry lingering in the hush. I once taught a class for teenaged girls living in a group home. One of them wrote a poem about dance and the final line of the poem was "I become the dance."
It's a transcendence to "become," to drink from the sacred well of knowing. Jung said, "Self-knowledge reveals all things." Your poetry is a grace of self-knowledge, not just to you, but to those of us lucky enough to read it, and become it with you. Great Mother marry me is the longing I feel too as my country stumbles from crisis to crisis. Being in the presence of poets; being in the poetry of poets; this is balm for my sorrow.
You constantly amaze and delight, Deborah and I am one of the lucky ones. I get to read and breathe in your words, your experience, your grace and then be reminded of what lives inside of me too. So thank you. Thank you for unwavering commitment to the beauty of soul. With love and gratitude, always. ~stephanie
Dear Stephanie, your words hold such depth, reverence and truth - they wrap around me like a quiet embrace. Thank you so much for sharing this moment, for reflecting back what poetry does when it finds us, how it lingers in the hush and lives through us.
The story of your student’s last line, "I become the dance" following my experience last week, is ab-soul-utely breath-taking. That’s it, isn’t it?! The moment when we stop reaching out and simply ‘become’ - when our words, movement and breath all dissolve into something larger. Your thoughts on self-knowledge, the Great Mother and poetry as solace in uncertain times resonate so deeply.
Moving me to tears because, as I was writing this yesterday, I hesitated - just for a moment - I thought, maybe I shouldn’t include the chorus, maybe no one will understand. But then you said you did ... and never has the taste of salt felt so sweet. Love and blessings.
Well, I must say, I'm tickled over the synchronicity. Here I am, soon after you read about my love of hangdrum music! 🤯I mean, of all the posts I go to!
I love that you had this fairytale-like moment of hearing the music at Avebury! His CD didn't play, but did you ever look him up? It wasn't Malte, was it???
Oh, I just assumed you had already read this one Lana and also loved Malte's music! 🤯
Wow! I love it when synchronicity happens! No, it wasn't Malte, himself, unless he's grown his hair long and its blonde.
Thanks for much for reading and restacking this one! Avebury is such a beautiful place of tree, stone and song. Hope you're having a lovely weekend.
Oh Deborah! This so perfectly describes the experience of finding yourself in the current of sound and the beauty and truth she is! Thank you for sharing your experience and poetry of finding yourself in inbetween the notes, words, the breath, where poetry and music live. I loved reading this! 🙏🏼💜💜💜
Ah, I thought you'd like to read this! Earlier, when I was listening to your beautiful, soulful singing, I was instantly brought back to the trees and the young man with his hang drum. Have you ever heard the music? It's incredible Lana. In my story I've hi-lighted the word 'Hang' at its first mention and there's a link to take you to YouTube where you can listen at leisure. Thank you so much for sharing the music and the love. Blessed Be. 🙏🏼💜💜💜
I did love your piece Deborah and I'll have to find the link you put in there so I can take a listen! Thank you 💜 😊
Thanks again, Lana. Hopefully this YouTube link will work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwEaQk5VeS4
Oh my goodness, yes! I have actually listened to his YouTube recordings Playing in the background before, and they are so soothing and beautiful! He is one of my favorites!
🥰 🎶
Oh happy days! I had a feeling you might've of listened to Marte before. So pleased you enjoyed. His is the gentle kind of music I can write stories and poems with. 🥰 🎶✒️
I totally agree! 🥰
This is beautiful Deborah! I have always dreamed of coming upon a young man playing the drums under a tree who inspires the poetry in me. 😄 💜💜💜
You are connected. You are the poem, you are the flow. xxx
Thanks so much Jo for adding these beautiful lines and reassuring me that the verses will find me - whether or not a gorgeous young drummer appears or not to set the tone!😄 'Becoming' is beautiful work. Poetry doesn't wait for the drummer, I realise, it beats from within. 💜💜💜
What a profound experience! I feel the same, that poetry is there waiting to be heard. When I first started writing poetry I felt like I was simply taking dictation, or describing the images in my minds eye. The words and images just appeared, "I" didn't create them. I didn't even feel like I could edit them because I didn't feel like "I" had written them. It's still like that, but I've learned how to find the meaning in the words, then revise and edit to bring that meaning out more clearly.
That’s beautifully expressed! Thank you so much, Kristi. I love how you describe poetry as something arriving beyond the 'self' - like the poet is taking dictation from something deeper and greater, then shaping and refining it to find meaning for both self and soul. The idea that editing is less about control and more about listening resonates so deeply.
Because I had a similar experience in my early twenties but never wrote about it, I was determined to try harder this time. Back then, I was alone on a beach when a song just flew out of me - I had no idea where it came from. So when the poem arose last week, I knew I had to capture it and give it form before it too drifted away like that song had years ago.
That’s amazing, what a gift💕✨💕
So gorgeous, ethereal and at the same time grounded, Deborah. What a gift you received. Thank you for sharing it with us all.
Thanks so much Sarah, for your kind-hearted reply. To my knowledge, it was the first time I'd heard a hang / handpan (drum) being played and the sound was utterly beautiful. I’ve linked a YouTube clip to the word ‘Hang’ (at its first mention in my story) in case you haven’t heard this kind of music before.
Beautiful! I've seen buskers use them sometimes and it's always mesmerising.
Ah, I’ve never seen a busker using one. How lucky you are! I’ve been listening to Malte’s beautiful music for days now, brings such joy to my heart, instantly transporting me back.