Phoenix

There are so many excellent essays here at Docudharma:

davidseth’s: Remembering Dr. King’s True Legacy

NLinStPaul’s:  A Better Way

OPOL’s:  A Gentle Reminder

Jimstaro’s: Peace History – This Past Week

are a few I read this morning.  Please check out the list on the sidebar, this weekend’s been a all-header for stories.  @;-)

I am taken with the ideas, experience and hard truths that are offered here as a matter of routine.  There aren’t often essays calling for someone else to provide “leadership;” there are however many essays about “calls” that individuals have answered and are in the process of answering. Just as in the Hero’s Journey stories of myth, only right now- real people- in real time.

I am struck with how much work is being accomplished as much as I am struck by the enormous amount of work there is yet to even begin.

So, in the spirit of encouragement, I offer a poem that I wrote (and was fortunate to see published) in 2001.  It is the story of the bird of rebirth, the Phoenix, who rises from its own ashes on the fabled Ben-Ben stone only once every 500 years.  In most myths, the bird is solitary, he/she has no leader, has no followers, has no companions.  I like to think that we all are our own Phoenix, but while our journeys are often conducted alone, we now have the opportunity to share the inspiration from our own experiences of ‘rising out of the ashes’ with other Phoenixes from not only around the country, but from around the world.  I like to think that the millions of us on our own journeys see each other, flap our wings, and know that individually together, we are changing our worlds.

In honor of your own Phoenix:

Flight

Red-feathered head –

you fly the Royal Road,

drop fire seeds

along ley lines like

jewels stolen

from Dragon.

In time of dark light

I follow you:

Find wings

of dark rain lace,

place them

over my shoulders,

fly the gentle curve of moon –

bones of your memory

now pearls.

KJ, 2001