Bianca Schrader
Ojos de Dios
Acrylic on wood
Inspiration piece

Eye of God Watch Over Me
By Fernanda Valentino
Response

Along the path that is this life
Our journey winds and turns
As we pick up fragments of tiny lessons learned
Ojo de Dios watch over me

When hope’s light wanes
And courage fails
When winter’s crushing weight prevails
Ojo de Dios watch over me

When darkness looms
And tears well up
When inner faith is not enough
Ojo de Dios, watch over me

While in this deep uncertainty
Each fearful step is taken
When confidence is shaken
Ojo de Dios, watch over me

“Nieriya”; to see and understand
Beyond the realm of human sight
To trust the living, guiding Light
Ojo de Dios, watch over me

Under God’s protective gaze
Yearning to comprehend
The mysteries and power that we cannot transcend
Ojo de Dios watch over me.

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Jone Rush MacCulloch
“Portals”
Inspiration piece

Jane Rennalls
Mixed media
Inspiration piece

Rituals for the Living
By Lisa Deshantz-Cook
Response

Promise me these things. No, wait. Promise yourself these things:

That you will celebrate the raucous and impossible colors of spring, the pinks and purples and green-golds and you will be giddy, and hopeful.

That when the earth thaws around you you will sit still under a tree and hear its song, or the wind rush or the root hum or the crow call or the earth teeming with insects, whichever sounds come to be heard.

That you will slow your stride and stuff your face into the inner workings of a lilac bush, a honeysuckle vine, a night-blooming jasmine and you will breathe in the sweetness.

That you will let the sun caress your unadorned face and let the wind have its wild way with your hair.

That you will sit in a garden close your eyes and by listening intently forget what species you are, for just long enough.

That you will tune out the voices of humans to hear night animals, and that you will call back to them in a voice you won’t recognize as your own, but is.

That you will use this voice to howl at the full moon, or a sliver of moon, even the new moon, and you won’t worry that people hear you (but hope they join you, because a group howl is a more potent howl).

That you will find a body of water and immerse yourself, naked, never mind that your body is old, or bony, or difficult, or wrong because no bodies are wrong, especially when embraced by a body of water.

That you will do these things because you are young, or old, or ancient, and you are alive, and the world is still turning even if parts of it are on fire.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Jane Rennalls
Mixed media
Response

Ode to a July Moon
By Lisa DeShantz-Cook
Inspiration piece

I love you better in the empty sky, in bones of rivers,

spiny drops of lake spray in the wind,

shards of green-silver where sound could be but

is not, where no one but the dreamers venture and

I’m half here right now, half dreaming

But the me in swoony, churlish love is the me that wanders

off trail at the scent of earthy mushrooms, the me that

dances deeper Into the woods hoping to get lost,

the me whose foot leans harder into the gas pedal

as if I were still young, still racing

This is the me who is waiting to remember her favorite color.

I’m sure I knew it once but, like the sphinx moth whose

shape I’m determined to see, holding my breath still,

eyes trained, at dusk among the wildflowers yet

continues to escape me

I cannot make up my mind anymore, like the

drunken bees that bumble-hover clumsy between the

blooms at high summer, when everything feels like a dream

because It is a dream, or it was, anyway

who can choose just one bloom?

But you draw a line to me now, on the blackened shoreline

windblown and dizzy, your perfect silver, dancing nearly too

bright on the night waves, effervescent, holy, where we

are upended and then put back together

not tidier, but more ourselves

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Jennifer Fendya
Response

Olympic Skate
By Kathleen Finn Jordan
Inspiration piece

Slide, glide, Twist and leap
Ice crunches bends are deep
Stepping free and music sings
Skaters fly on cashmere wings
Silken costumes sharp knife blade
Spangles, angles, turns and grades
Crowds cheer and coaches clap
Careers build or life dreams snap
Olympics soar and winter breathes
Gold smiles through ice-laced trees.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

“Laundry Song in G”
By Amy Rogers Nazarov
Response
Capo 4, C position

Verse 1

C G D G
That bulb burned out last winter

C G D
The dust is piled high

C G D G
My broom reaches every corner

C G D
Of earth and sky

Pre-chorus oooooh
C G C G C G D D

chorus
G D C D
Then I’ll pin up the sky
Hang the sheets out to dry

Verse 2

C G D G
Reaching up I tipped the moon

C G D
Back into place

C G D G
Hung the wet things on the line

C G D
Saw that lunar face

Pre-chorus oooooh
C G C G C G D D

chorus
G D C D
chorus X2
Count the stars in the sky
Hang the sheets out to dry

Pulling down shades of night
It’ll all be all right

alternative final couplet:

Once the rooms are swept clean
There will be time to dream

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When Spring Comes, She’s Like the Aunt Who Visits Once a Year
By Angi Lewis
Inspiration piece

With skirts bustling,
she sets herself to all the housekeeping
that hasn’t been done in months:

the bulb that’s been burned out all winter
and the white sheets draped over the furniture

all the rooms are swept clean
the sky scrubbed and pinned to dry
green curtains hung once again in the windows

she straightens the moon where it hangs askew
stretches the night taut, like a coverlet
smooths each wrinkle

and as she takes off her shoes
she looks up and sees
constellations of silvered threads
catching the light

I suppose I’ll leave those, she thinks
and sets her broom back in the closet
for another day.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

“Tower of London” (Click link for YouTube)
Music by Amy Rogers Nazarov
Inspiration piece

Life and Art
By Angi Lewis
Response

First, there’s this:
a journey, a setting out
Then
the rhythm of walking
Then
some wrinkle
some tangle
some knot to untie
Then
a crack
a gap
Then
flying through light
clear as the first notes of morning
Then
a line
Then
a circle
Then

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Betty Nichols
Inspiration piece

Vilomah
By Ash Martins
Response

Aila knelt, weeping with the ancient willow tree. Her hands clawed at the musty soil. Gingerly, she lowered the tiny form, deep enough no creatures could reach. The empty-handed mother replaced the soil. She never learned how many weeks along she’d been, but knew it would take years to recover.

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
Untitled
Pencil
Response

Black Space
By Darice M. Jones
Inspiration piece

My people are the cool dark vast
The clap and clank
of tom drum
and tambourine
across time and interstellar truth

We rhythm not as entertainment, but as life
We sonic not as a precursor to your clapping, but as soul reverberating
We display not for your amusement, but to remind each other exactly where we’re from

Look way up and to the left as far as your neck will crane
in the deepest part of late night
Telescope this vibe

Osekꞿ be the 12th galaxy if you tilt to the left at the 3rd sun
Come get you some greens in portal pots and find out the family secrets your great, great, grandmother
flung into the sky for safe keeping

She knew one day you would come
All the way out to the way out
Sick and tired of being played on the blue orb
And made to sing songs of lesser energies, written for you by immature despots

She pinned an invisible note to the cloth diaper that was wrapped around your tiny brown frame on day
one by the ultimate midwife
“Don’t get played baby
You ain’t nobody’s instrument
You ain’t nobody’s game

You are sound itself
You are the creative spark
And
You are many more futures than their algorithms can build rules for or their satellites can reach
You are expression
That thing that makes matter, and light, and sonance get busy mingling together and making new
worlds”

We are all so grateful that you got curious
You broke through the conditioning that made you feel like anything less
Than the rhythmic power of life manifest with a purpose
To emerge as the most fully realized version of You
You, child, are my people

And

My people are the cool dark vast
The clap and clank
of tom drum
and tambourine
across time and cool cosmic truths.

Written by Darice Marcella Jones
In the Year of Toni Morrison ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Quinzee the Artist
“Aunti”
Graphic art
Inspiration piece

Emergence
By Darice M. Jones
Response

I came forth from the deep, dark, cool blue(s), purples, and teals of an asylum orb up in the stars. The orb provided a safe space for beings when they transcended identity on any planet. I emerged today just for a little while, to tell you how I got to my current digs out in the galaxy with others who are transitioning from bodies to interstellar beings. I had lived a life from birth to transition amongst the colorful and insolent people of Earth for a little over 120 years.

I was one of the privileged who lived in relative peace by the time I was 12 decades in, which gave me some space to contemplate my existence and just existence overall. Global societies were seriously messed up on the one hand, controlled and manipulated by people, hoarders, who believed they had not only a right, but an obligation to rule over the masses. They maintained their tenuous position at the top of a very shaky hierarchy through violence alongside the constant threat of violence, through spreading miseducation about both current events and historical ones, and by training people to have loyalty to various religions, countries, pop culture icons/brands, ideas of wealth (or resource hoarding) as an indicator of intellectual strength and overall rightness. Anything but loyalty to each other. Anything but loyalty to life itself. Because of all that, being a person was exhausting, even if you didn’t live in one of the poverty traps or in one of the war-torn places.

On the other hand, there was a global awakening taking place. With all its problems, some technological advances had acted to connect people on the planet like never before. The trifecta of travel, the internet, and the realization in many parts of the world simultaneously that spirituality was more than any one religious practice was having a strong effect. People were realizing that there were many paths to truth and that controlling others was not one of them – nor was being controlled. People were realizing that working together to achieve a higher aim, a greater good, was more important that projecting some supposed superiority or sense of power over another. Beautiful humanity was returning to its knowledge that all things were connected and all life was meant to fully blossom.

On Earth I had many labels. Because of the wildly uncouth social structures, those labels determined many of the opportunities or lack thereof in life. I was a member of many socially disrespected but spiritually powerful groups. I was descended from the first peoples on the big continent who had retained our melanin, my skin was a deep brown, I was Black. I was one of the life givers – a woman. I was one of those sent to bridge philosophical gaps – queer. And the social structures made all those identities mean something in the daily work of staying alive, clothed, housed, fed, and connected to other beings. Simultaneously, everyone on the planet knew there was something more.

What they didn’t know was that often, when people discovered their own ability to totally transcend the forced density of being bound to the details of an incarnation – we would simply leave the earth. That’s what happened to me as I was approaching my 123nd birthday. I was healthier than ever, joyful despite feeling awkward in a job that didn’t hold much meaning, and I was very entrenched in a community of fellow plant parents who traded secrets of growing lush plant babies and delicious, organic, nourishing foods.

My life felt full of learning, family, friendship, connection to the earth, and through a year of consistent meditation – a connection to the ethereal. I had long been comfortable with, even proud of my identities. Then, one day I ran across and listened to a podcast on visualization. It had only a few hundred followers, but as soon as I heard the host’s voice, I felt at home. She sounded very much like my high-school choir leader, Mrs. Jeffries. So much so that I looked up her picture to confirm it wasn’t her. It was a silly thought, considering my age. Even if she were still around, it was unlikely she was podcasting. Anyway, the actual podcaster’s cool tenor voice vibrated with knowing.

She led what I would guess is the most powerful visualization exercises ever enacted anywhere. I should have known it was something different when she started with so many warnings, disclaimers, and rules. For the visualization exercise to be effective she said, we’d need a quiet space, comfortable loose clothing, something from the natural world touching us (like a pebble or even sunrays), and we’d need to be willing to release our attachments. That last one, about attachments, felt way too broad. I chalked it up to her being an amateur podcaster. But, since her voice was both inviting and comforting, I followed all of her directions. Even the one about release to undefined attachments. She asked us to sit with her for 15 seconds in silence, despite the fact that dead air was a big no-no for podcasters, clubhouse chatters, and radio personalities worldwide.

During that 15 seconds, all we heard was her breathing. It was slow and steady and just as comforting as her voice. For me, that 15 seconds felt as though I had just received the best massage. My whole body relaxed. I felt no tension within myself. I felt no pain. No need to be anywhere or doing anything else. It was really something. Then her beautiful tenor voice returned.

“Close your eyes.
Breath in connection.
Breath out discontent.
Know that you are loved.
Know that you have always been loved.
Remember yourself as a baby.
Allow yourself to be small and naked and new.
See yourself emerging from an inner sanctum.
It does not matter if your mother was able to be healthy while incubating you.
You came from the loving cosmos and your mother held you as best a being could for those months.
Remember yourself as new.
Now, See yourself as a toddler.
Breath in connection.
Breath out discontent.
Know that you are loved.
Know that you have always been loved…”

And she went on like that through the different stages of life all the way up through elderhood. Was I an elder, at 122? I had to laugh at myself. Child! If not now, when. I giggled heartily. Other than that fleeting inside joke moment, I stuck closely with her through the long exercise. Once she’d gone through all the stages of life, she got to the part about release.

“While you can inhabit your body and practice many identities and experiences based on the body you have and how you choose to cultivate it – you are not your body. You are pure consciousness. You are a whole vibe. You are the energy that determines how a thing feels, but you are not the thing.

You are not your hair. You are not your skin,” she said. (I thought briefly of India Arie)

“You are not your size. You are not your physical ability. You are not your mental ability. You are not your attractions. You are not your birth order. You are not your astrological or numerology . You are not your education or income. You are not your job or jobs. You are not your neighborhood. You are not your talents. You are not your diagnoses, physical or emotional. You are not your personality. You are not your addictions. You are not your accomplishments.

I want you to take another few breaths with me. Breathe everybody. Breathe.”

She spoke as if the whole world were listening. I felt as if the whole world were breathing with me at just the pace she’d set. Then, her magical voice returned to us.

“Now, I want you to see yourself.
Visualize your physical body sitting on a deep blue sofa.
Now visualize your spirit sitting next to your physical body.
You may be asking yourself what your spirit looks like. Well,
Remember, you’re a whole vibe, and energy, a feeling.
So your spirit may be multicolored and bodyless and floating vibrations
Or maybe it is a thousand sparks of light dancing around each other in the same little space
Energy moves, so your spirit body is likely swirling with motion, dancing within itself.”

The crazy thing about it was, I could see everything she was saying. And as I looked at my physical body sitting next to my soul body on a deep blue couch in my mind’s eye, I felt more connected to my soul than to my body. I realized that the consciousness that was me was so much more. I found myself suddenly thanking my physical body. Thank you for being tall, dark, brown, curvy, with amazingly stylish naps on our head, and for walking me through the lessons being a daughter, a sister, a friend, a student, a parent, a neighbor, a teacher, a healer, a person sometimes without money, a person sometimes without a place to stay, a queer person, a person who was sometimes sadder than sad, a person who was sometimes more euphoric than happy…

I went on and on like that, thanking my body for all these different elements of my journey, for reasons I couldn’t place. I could barely hear the podcaster that sounded like Mrs. Jeffries anymore. I saw my body blow me the fondest, most thrilling kiss, and then I couldn’t see her anymore either. I couldn’t see my soul body either. I couldn’t see the blue couch. I couldn’t hear anyone breathing. I had what could only be called an emergence.

All I could hear was a whole vibe, an energy, an atmosphere that sparked things into being. I realized that I was somewhere else entirely. And that I couldn’t see the soul body because I was my soul body. And, having been way out here some time now with others like me, I know that I am here for my own safety to continue to release all that doesn’t proliferate the expansion of life in the universe. And I am here to get ready for my greatest adventure yet. I’ll tell you all about that one when I get there.

By Darice M. Jones
In the Year of Toni Morrison ©2023

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Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.