Monthly Archives: February 2015

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Demon Chainers

And you thought the hard work was over
Finding your demons
Facing them
Adopting them
Comforting them
Learning to love the parts that no one loved
That you hid as a child
Mothering your own unloved self
Fathering the parts he couldn’t love
And to surface knowing that you are a child of God
And lovable
Only to be attacked
With a concerted effort
To return you to what you were before

Don’t be frightened enough to give up
You are right
You are still a child of God
Lovable
In your wholeness
Talents and faults

Those who attack
Feel their demons
Clamoring at them
Clawing
When you learned to love your demons
Theirs want to be loved too
So badly
But their keepers are frightened
They are pressing their demons back into the depths
Desperate
Attack you for you have made them feel their sorrows
All unaware

Seek those who have also
Dealt with their demons
And they will welcome you
You are not crazy
To feel the euphoria
Of surfacing
But do not get carried away
And be kind to the demon chainers
Remember where you were before.

8/16/05

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Trust in the dark

Writing201’s prompt today is trust. This article in the NY Times about how there is no right way to grieve moves me: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/getting-grief-right/?_r=0

Trust in the dark

Oh Beloved
   Help me to trust in the dark
      Help me to take each step
         Down into grief
            As needed
Oh Beloved
   Help me walk in the caverns of despair
      Each step slow
         As if I walk through molasses
            The air is thickened
               My chest hurts
Oh Beloved
   Help me to trust you
      That just as I descend into grief
         That just as I move through despair
            That the steps will someday lead up again
               That I will rise and spring will come
Oh Beloved
   Help me to thank you
      For tears and joy
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Angel Witness

Sometimes
Even as you make
The same mistake
Cross the threshold
Open the door
Lift the glass

You feel the presence
Of angels
Drawn by the seriousness
Of your decision

Present
Not to pull you away
From the cup
The drug
The wrong man
The dire pattern
You feel their intensity
The presence
As if outer space
Has clung to their wings
Or motes from heaven
Alien
The weight of their gaze
And their interest

Sometimes
Even as you make
The same mistake
It’s not the same
To sense an angel
Witness

previously published on an obscure writing site

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Family rebels

On my father’s side, his father’s branch are English. Most families would boast of the illustrious ancestors, but mine boast about the black sheep. I am related to the last man to be publicly hanged for poaching in Sherwood Forest. My father’s father’s sister’s child, who is my age, went to Nottingham to check this legend and said that it appears to be true. I do not know his name. After his hanging, there were still hangings but they were not public. You couldn’t gather up your children and a picnic and go to see the punishment and gruesome death.

My father’s mother’s side are the Scots. My greatgrandfather is in the 1901 census in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in his late teens, with his father, a French stepmother and many half siblings. He played saxophone in John Phillip Sousa’s band and toured the world. Links in the Sousa website lead to a book with my greatgrandfather in the index. I have a very newsy letter that he wrote to me in the early 1970s.

My mother’s grandparents were Congregationalist Ministers, at least the males. The women were ministers’ wives. They were in Iowa and one was part of the Iowa Band, a group of twelve ministers from Andover that went to the wild frontier to spread the gospel: the frontier was Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. They started Iowa College that later became Grinnell. I have lots of relatives that went to Grinnell, including a first cousin. My mother’s mother’s father went off to Turkey with his family to help start Anatolia College, that moved to Greece at the start of World War I.

morris temple and cornelia

The photographs are Cornelia Temple and Morris Temple “about 1860”. They were in my mother’s father’s lineage, and my middle name is Temple.

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Those Elks…

The photo shows part of the ceiling decoration in the Sentinel Hotel in Portland, OR, which was built in 1923 as an Elks’ Club. I have some questions about those Elks…..

This week I was in Portland, Oregon for a Primary Care Review put on by Oregon Health Sciences University. The conference was held in the Sentinel Hotel. It has high beautiful decorated ceilings and walls. In the afternoon there are break out sessions, which are held in the Library or the Billiard Room. We need a candlestick, a wrench and Colonel Mustard. It is a little bit surreal to be in this gorgeous setting and then hear lectures about complications of diabetes and the United States obeisity epidemic.

Our last breakout a few days ago was two hours about addiction medicine, held in the Library. The photo is of the frieze just below the ceiling. There are cupid satyrs with weapons and horses. Some are nude and they are definitely male. They are not engaging in activities like the brothel wall paintings in Pompeii, but it does make me wonder about those Elk members in 1923.

I asked a person at the front desk about the building and she said that it was only an Elk’s club for a few years, because of the depression. I asked what else it had been used for and she looked rather severe and said, “other things”. There are naked women and cupids around the frieze in the lobby: I will try to get a decent picture of them, too.