Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Solstice Poem


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Eyes of the Goddess

From a journey to Newgrange
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The poet waits for me in his countryman’s cape
And shows me the map in the gateway stone:
Twin spirals to get you in, and out, of the place of bone;
Wave paths to swim you from shadow to dreamscape;
A stairway of stars for when you are done with earthing.
I am here to practice the art of rebirthing.

She calls me, into the belly of the land that is She.
But I play, like the poet, with the shapes of time:
I am a swimming swan on the River Boyne;
I am a salmon, full with the knowing of the hazel tree;
I wander with Angus, and know the girl I have visioned
in gold at the throat of a white swan, beating pinions.

Drawn by the old perfume of burned bones, I go down
and doze until solstice fire, bright and bountiful
quickens me for the return of the Lady, lithe and beautiful
In the form she has taken, flowing as liquid bronze.
Her face is veiled, so the man-boy called to her side
like the red deer in season will not die in her eyes.

I see beyond the veil, for I come from the Other.
Oh, I yearn for the smell of earth and the kiss of rain!
I leap with her on the hallowed bed, coming again.
She knows the deer-king, as I am child and lover
Her eyes are spiral paths; the gyre of creation whirls
And sends me in green beauty to marry the worlds.

17 comments:

Alice Finnamore said...

Love this poem, Robert, having been there myself, but not on the Solstice.

Happy Solstice and Merry Christmas!
Alice

Robert Moss said...

Joyous Solstice and Merry Christmas to you, dear Alice!

selena said...

Hello Robert! It's Ioana from Romania. I love this poem and was wandering if it were ok with you, if I translated it into Romanian.
Have a Merry Christmas!
All the best,
Ioana

Robert Moss said...

Buna ziwa, Iona! It's lovely to hear your voice. By all means translate my poem into Romanian, as long as you send me a copy and promise to recite it - or better yet, sing it - when I come to Romania next June. Perhaps you'll find the right music to turn this into one of those beautiful doinas that haunt me.

Merry Christmas, Joyous Solstice!

Unknown said...

With a little detective work I was able to find out more about the Wandering Angus. My people are from Angus Scotland, and still live there. Robert thank you for an idea for me to journey home.Laurie M

Robert Moss said...

"I went out to a hazel wood/Because a fire was in my head". Yeats' version of Wandering Angus is one of the great shamanic poems of Western literature, and - as I read it - a story of shamanic soul retrieval.

Angus, in Ireland, is a god of love and of dreams. I'll be interested to hear what you find in your quest for the Angus clan in Scotland. May the wind be at your back!

Trish and Rob MacGregor said...

We posted a synchronicity on our blog today that relates to your Indiana Jones story in The Three "Only" Things. Hope you'll drop by for a look.
Best -
Rob and Trish MacGregor

Savannah said...

Beautiful, Robert. As I mentioned on email, the golden foam dancing in the cave brought back to memory the sufi whirler from Monday's solstice celebration, who inspired this short poem:

I am light convulsing at the edge of time
rocking turning twisting into spiral bells
spinning
I am brow split with sorrow with surrender
heart split with flame with water
spinning
I am white waves drunken reaching
like space ruptured folding up and far away
spinning
I have slipped out of darkness and
hugging the sun to my heart
dancing the eye of fire
am blinded by
sun-seeing
searching.

Happy Christmas!

Robert Moss said...

I love this, Savannah. Here's to hugging the sun to our hearts.

Zalig kerstfeest!

Unknown said...

To marry the two worlds....that's what the human heart is for.

Glowing and luminious poem, Robert. Thank you.

My heart is so full, looking at the night sky full of stars, cold and dark and full of life.

The passionate heart flies upward, marrying the two worlds.

Happy Solstice and Merry Christmas to you Robert and to all here.

Patricia said...

Hello Robert,
I came to re read "becoming an eagle" and felt rather anchored and at home with it. Then I read this beautiful poem and am wonderfully humbled again. I love how you weave words and understanding. I enjoyed reading Yeat's Angus and wave paths are forming cool meanings in my dreaming.
I can just touch upon what it means to come from Other, from my dreams and what you say here. In this moment of understanding it means at home and humbling and beauty and at times a big Yes. I know that yearning of earth and rain and the smell of green. I wrote the spell of green first. Sometimes it's just a dyslexic slip and sometimes it's not. Discerning the two is a work in progress.
I have been reading through journals and see how my writing often does not bring through my dreams. I'll get there one day.
I wanted to say thank you for walking ahead. But then in dreaming what does that mean?
Patty

Nicola said...

I loved this very beautiful alchemy of mating with the ancestral goddess of the land in her many eternal guises and the multiple animal and bird forms that the copulating cosmic couple take in their renewal of life.

There is a deep longing in me to reunite with my other half; being the land that has birthed me; so much so that seperation is becoming increasingly unbearable.

On a lighter note; sounds like you had a rather more pleasant experience visiting New grange than I did waiting in a que of over 100 people in the rain and then being stuck behind an enormously obese man in a squeeky plastic coat and a huge vidio camera trying to squeeze and squeak his way through the narrow passage that forms the entrance/ birth canal.We had about 3 mins in the main chamber crammed full with at least 20 people.
Though I can't complain as ive been fortunate enough to have visited most of the burial chambers and stone circles in the UK totally alone or with just one other and to linger in the darkness undisturbed.
Nicola

Robert Moss said...

Thanks, Nicola. Actually, there was quite a crowd around when I visited Newgrange too. Fortunately, I've been able to revisit the site through astral travel, and the "journey" that produced the poem was actually a group journey to Newgrange, at the Winter Solstice, undertaken with an excellent company of our frequent flyers, powered by shamanic drumming. The scene inside Newgrange in an early chapter of my novel "The Firekeeper" was inspired by an earlier, personal journey of this kind.

Robert Moss said...

Thanks Naomi and Patty!

Trish and Rob - thank you for your posts about "The Three 'Only' Things". I'll look forward to sharing more about synchronicity. Navigating by synchronicity, as you know, is the dreamer's way of operating 24/7.

To all - may your best dreams come true in 2010!

Nicola said...

Hi robert
Just coming back to the theme of vibrational pollution, I think that Newgrange is a good example of somewhere that has become a tourists "bus station" and I do wonder about how this affects the energy of such special places long term.
Im rather enjoying the knowing that there are humans such as yourself and your dreaming groups visiting such places within the invisible realms with a sense of reverence and perhaps bringing with them some high vibrational energy as an offering back to the poor old over trampled place.
nicola

Nicola said...

I just wanted to add; anyone who is keen to visit NewGrange, it is truly the most spectacular burial/birthing chamber I have ever visited ( Feeling paranoid that I have put people off)
In part, it has been reconstructed, but within that the original stones and interior, esp the scallop shaped breasted vessels and the hypnotic spiraled entrance are truly splendid. It certainly deserves the fame acredited to it,and is a place to not be missed.

Unknown said...

Hi Robert, Here's my Dream Journey to Angus: I am at the bend of a familiar Scottish river. A man in a tweed suit and reddish beard shows me a cave with some ancient spirals scratched on the walls. Then I am in a little fishing village (also familiar)I lean over a cement wall and see 2 seals in the water on a rock. I lean over and one of the seals says "good job" and jumps up and gives me a wet kiss on my nose and face.

I met my husband in a dream about a month b4 I met him in real life. Always wondered who tipped me off. Now I have a strong feeling Angus had something to do with it.

Thanks for sharing your vast knowledge!