Publication Alert: "Cornerstones of Wisdom"

Hey everyone! My essay ‘Cornerstones of Wisdom: Poetry, Permanence and Wildness in Gaelic Polytheism’ (p50-53) was published in the latest issue of Written River. Hope you guys will take a look :) Right now it's only available in online viewing, but soon there will be print copies to order, if you'd rather have a hard copy.

Oíche Shamhna sona dhaoibh!

Scél lemm dúib:

dordaid dam,

snigid gaim,

ro-fáith sam.

(Translation: I have news for you: the stag bells, winter snows, summer is ended.)

in honor of mí dheireadh fómhair

In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfies
See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
the grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all,
Flowers in the summer
Fires in the fall!

-- "Autumn Fires" by Robert Louis Stevenson

"There is a true yearning to respond to the singing river and wise rock." 

— Maya Angelou

Lá Lúnasa sona daoibh go léir!

by OeilDeNuit

Lugnassad, luaid a hada

cecha bliadna ceinmara,

fromad cech toraid co m-blaid,

biad lusraid la Lugnasaid.

Lughnasa, its dues for telling:

In every distant year,

a taste of every fruit with flame,

a meal of vegetables on Lughnasa.

Lá Lúnasa is fast approaching

And so my thoughts are turning towards the harvest season ... corn is growing tall in the fields of our local farmers and we've already harvested about a cup of blackberries from my grandfather's brambles but sadly the kiddies ate them before I could get a taste. Our tomato plants are finally beginning to yield fruit and though the persimmon tree (see the photo in last post) won't be ready to harvest until early autumn, fruit is steadily growing on its branches. And not to mention all the flowers in the garden, particularly the zinnias. As soon as the heat allows, I'm going to check our wild blackberries, cherries and bilberries to see how their progress is coming along. This was our first year trying strawberries but the deer are eating most (though they are turning out rather weensy anyways)...

Aside from how the garden is progressing and all the rain we've been blessed with, I've been spending lots of time with family (Fourth of July was great, despite some drama from a certain family member who looks for every opportunity to blow things out of proportion), working and writing. One book is in second draft stage with the betas and another is the entering planning/research stage. I also submitted a 12-photo digital portfolio to Written River: A Journal of Ecopoetics and I'm pondering on sending in a few poems. So overall, things are oddly quiet and busy all at the same time.

And thus I leave you with a photo I took of the absolutely stunning sunset we had here on June 9th. Moments like these almost make me forget about the humidity ... almost ;) How's summer treating everyone else?

"Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry."

— Mark Strand, "Eating Poetry," Reasons for Moving, 1968

"Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay."

— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

I know that it is poetry

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

— Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson: Selected Letters)

I love not man the less

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more...

— Lord Byron (excerpt of There Is Pleasure In The Pathless Woods)

sharpens the senses

"Shaping spiritual practice requires effort, and work itself is an honorable spiritual activity. Poetry's role in this work can determine in large part the depth and range of practice, for it is poetry that most deliciously sharpens the senses, heightening awareness and presence in the moment."

— Robert McDowell, Poetry as Spiritual Practice, pp. 57