Unseen as a Lone Queen

When I was growing up, trees were our favorite hideout. They provided a high perch to see but not to be seen and we spent hours there along with birds and lizards. Nestled in the crook of a branch when I was small, I was the queen of the forest.

Find a nice branch and lay down in comfort and shade, bring a good book and life up there rivaled the luxury of a home. We were small and my friends and I loved trees.

The tree across the street is almost greening, something that happened almost overnight. A sign of what is to come: Spring, this indecisive time here when snow mingles with days of warmth and sun. My neighbor cut some of the tree limbs and this gives me an open view but I miss the great canopy of green that swayed with the wind and kept our neighbors life private.

In the back, beyond the deck, the aspen is growing long little pods of brown and small pendants, soft with a white fur, ready to open and show me the leaves. Our two collard doves prune their wings and stare at each other. Oh the love they express … their sound brings me to heaven as they fly in the Aspen.

All over town the trees are starting to bud. Very shyly at first but later on they will graciously extend their umbrellas and their call of the forest. My friend lives in LA. She raves about one tree facing the window of her apartment. It is her connection with the gifts of nature and she tells me “The tree is happy now to be green.” Its presence as she comes home from work and opens her window is at the root of her joy.

All over the world, trees are big or rachitic, full of shade or full of insects, full of birds or full or animals, tall with a life that started so often before ours. Some trees on earth witnessed our beginnings and still sing it seems, moving with the moon and the breeze.

They rise above us, all alone or in enchanting forests. They supply dead leaves to protect the roots of our plants in winter, timber to build with; and rise in the sun, each one a lone bearer of life for a shady rest on the road or a place to hide if you want to be queen but not to be seen.

Copyright Micheline Brierre 2010

A Bunch Of Contented Monkeys

I slept at Lisa's, my daughter's house the other night and we woke up early, ate, packed a bag of fruits, some hard boiled eggs and left. The kids were excited and so were we. All along the way, beyond Divide, CO, a magnificent heavy carpet of snow covered the land. You could only see the evergreens along the way and rarely some bison and some cows and some houses that seem to be swallowed by the snow; green over the white with some speckles of black here and there. I am sure it would take some snow shoes to go over the countryside looking so very white and pristine as far as the eye could see.

When we arrived at Buena Vista it was snowing over all the Collegiate Peaks like a light veil over the mountains behind the city. It was eerie and gray at times with the sun still shining between the clouds.

We went to Mount Princeton and arrived at the hot pools with the hot river along one side. I was surprised to see so many cars, but my daughter reminded me that it was spring break and that so many people traveled then. Once in our bathing suits, with a locker rented for our purses, we went into the hot pool and it was heavenly! So warm so calming and so soothing.

It was great to stay there like the enduring but contented monkeys ... but the kids were starving. You can tell they are hungry, growing boys at their age, being eight and ten. Lisa had done all the driving and it was time to eat. Someone told us of a good restaurant and we figured we would come back to the hot waters. The girl working there fixed around our wrist a bright orange bracelet that showed we had paid for the day and off we went to town in search of food, fortunately with everything we brought with us.

Lunch proved out to fill us to our total satisfaction and we headed back home instead of going back to the hot pools. As we traveled, we could see the snow falling all around us on the different peaks, but we made it back to Woodland Park and the little snow we encountered was not much. We stopped to eat some ice cream and the man was so great as to give Lisa some extra bites in a dish as we left, this was beside her regular cone. A gift. Maybe it was her reward for driving all of us for so many hours.

In Colorado Springs, it was raining more that anything else and we were pleased that we had such a different morning filled with the beauty of the countryside and the hot bath that left us rather limp and happy like a bunch of contented monkeys.

Laughing, Up River

It infiltrates itself like water into sand and like a current of strong muddy slush, it undermines our joy and shapes our lives.
Pain is like a neglected sore and an assault over our sense of well being. It comes stealthily in our psyche and forges our best traits but can also reveal our worst nature.

My childhood was full of enchantment. Life at the top of the tallest trees, books in my hands, dolls made alive with will and love, colors to paint, and a family to enchant with tales and history. I was alone on my hill retreat and my rare friends called me “the lone light of Debussy,” our neighborhood.

I drew maps of the trees for the other children, led them up the mountains, gathered butterflies and let the blooms talk to me. It was a silent language that I could understand. Life on top of the hill was magical. Poetry was normal.

Until the government was ousted, my uncle, a secretary of state then, had to go into exile. Duvalier the dictator came into power and all I knew just died, along with so many people, family members killed or disappeared. Our family was shunned. Life became a never ending session of survival and fear. Pain was asserting itself and I had no defense.

That was my first great encounter with pain. I shoved it in dark boxes where the sun did not appear and the light of stars let it show its head, but I was young and strong and acted a fancy front as if nothing really bothered me. People around me were dying but I survived and eventually, I escaped the country.

Was pain the winner? I never grieved openly. I could not cry. I learned to live with my will, my courage, my strength. Pain had shown me the power of its forging qualities but I was left so vulnerable, alone inside and it took time for my joy to emerge in the course of the days. It took time for me to listen to my inner voice and lead a life of pride and humility. It took time to heal and to speak of the past and its history and bring my love to the surface where it lives now.

I learned. Pain has been assaulting my life ever since showing its head where I do not want it, but I practiced what I learned: give it time and let myself experience all of my feelings of sadness so that pain, the tears, the harm, the destruction can slowly go down the flow of life and leave me whole, laughing, up river.

Copyright Micheline Brierre 2010

Since yesterday we saw a strong storm come into town and leave trails of snow drifts everywhere. Our cars are looking like cream puffs on the driveway and I stare at this extension of winter and wonder if the winds from the North will ever let go of their grip over the city.

So I wrote this earlier but it fits the white world we are all looking at.


The Land Lost Its Colors

The land lost all of its colors
to shiver under a tight cover of white

The snow last night got into most crevasses
and filled my night with unremembered dreams.
But at dawn I was rubbing my eyes
and the earth had lost its colors.

Some birds traveled in the gray of the sky
unimpeded by the trails of white

they leave behind and that wraps
around my neck like an invoked
infinite and light crocheted shawl.

My smile is inward
and my song is chanted to no one.
I am thrilled with the sight and
watch, as the earth and sky merge.

Copyright Micheline Brierre 2009

 

I Am Grateful!

Thanks so much for all of your presence, my friends and family. I now have a real audience and I can write to my heart content! I am thrilled!
Micheline

A Dance Accross The World

A Dance Across The World

When I lived in Bogotá, Colombia, I was closely acquainted with a great artist, Marlene Hoffman. She had a gallery where I showed my art and her employee served a fragrant Orange tea, hand-brewed in a crystal clear teapot. You could see the leaves and buds floating unopened in the water and that vision would make me dream of my childhood where flowers erupted everywhere.

More importantly, Marlene was a highly talented fiber artist and one day in her studio, I saw for the first time baskets and baskets of handspun wool and horse hair, multicolored yarn of alpaca, cashmere, and many more wools from all over the world that she used to weave into her fantastic tapestries. I fell in love. I crawled all over her baskets…internally I raved! Wool and fiber were in my life to stay.

I never realized that countless hands made yarn happen. Hands from a Turkish man may have sheared the sheep, while other hands off the Falkland islands or the highlands in Peru knitted it; the fine yarn from India or Pakistan or China all were nurtured carefully for our delight. Twice a year the sheep were sheared. More did so in Europe. Angora rabbits shed their wool for the shade of red that I crave. Yarn is often a hand to hand connection as if it was spun across the world in an unbroken thread, felted at one point then passed from one person to another and honored along the way.
For a long time, machines have taken over some of the job and give us skeins of acrylic or blends that are very easy to fall in love with.

But these blends do not have the presence of the noble yarn still patiently gathered, spun, died, woven and knitted by many hands. Many animals were led under the sun and stars and herded by knowing dogs or cared for by loving owners to give us yarn.

All over, people work with the soft stuff and it is worn and reworked at times by many generations. Young people, old people and people of all ages in between love it and use it. Unless you are in the field you do not plunge your hands into the yarn; yet you admire it made into garments that attract and seduce you and your skin. Like a friend used to tell me “Some days I have to spin!” I remember many Peruvian highlanders who pierced their precious alpaca’s ears and like long earrings, the wool dangled from them. Quite a sight!

If I extend my body from the Colorado mountains, catch the yarn dangling in the wind, unseen to you, it will dance over the peaks and weave softly many times around the world.

Copyright Micheline Brierre 2010

A New Year

It is supposed to be the first day of Spring tomorrow but it snowed here so I want to post the first poem I wrote earlier this year as it was created in the depth of Winter and the depth of my creativity.


A New Year

Full of mystery and wrapped up
in unknown but tempting as a new gift
on the breast of an esoteric dancer
the year beckons and calls me
on its path, whispering its promises.

But who is to preview its possible sadness
its quirks and its joys, its folly and its remorse’s
who is to know its games and its delights
the shape of its days
and the night of
its whims?...

The year will die but will bud in our minds
it will trace many stories for many lives
and seal the fate of many more in death
and the solace of remembrances.
The year will dance on our trails
bury its stories and memories
and open like the stillness
of recollections
like a coveted book.

A new year is like dawn
or a winter sunrise,
rich in reds, full of light and
silently bringing the promise
or the threats of an unfolded day.

Copyright Micheline Brierre 2010

Howling Under The Moon

Like coyotes sitting and howling under the moon, we are all witnesses and participants of the magic of groups.

There is a group for everything, every whim, every inclination, every taste, every dream and every skill. We are drawn to groups for an infinite number of reasons but the most powerful, I think, is the sense of togetherness, the feeling of belonging and becoming part of a larger family of our own choice.

Groups exert a potential catalyst for change and help us find like-minded people to share the journey of life and inspire us while we inspire them. They also offer us a number of individuals to bounce off our ideas and watch them take or be rejected.

Think of the person in your group that you do not seem to like no matter what they do or say. Groups offer endless possibilities.
Besides all else, groups offer us mirrors and create leaders and their supporters; they show us what we left behind and dislike seeing now in others. They reflect many facets of us.

I have been a part of many groups and being together brought the element of change and the element of patience. We have the opportunity to turn up our patience for what we see and do not want to espouse anymore so that we can grow from the experience.

Groups offer a unique dynamic that can be both satisfying and humbling. In front of a group, we have to leave our pride aside.

So we group together on Earth or in offices, under neon lights or under the sun as we did for eons of time. We group for joy, for war, for peace, for finding our family of choice, ready one day to exchange it for another one.

Humans tend to congregate not necessarily to howl, but we know there is room between the coyotes as they gather under the moon.

How to Become a Follower of this Site

Greetings!

If you would like to be a follower of Micheline’s blog, here is how:

At the top left of her page, click on “Follow”
Then you will be presented with another page, where you need to log in using an existing account you may have. You can choose from Google, Twitter, Yahoo, AIM, Netlog or OpenID. If you do not have one, then you can create a new account with Google. It is free to do this. Simply create a User ID and password.

You can also just enter a comment on her site by filling in your comment in a comment box underneath the post you would like to comment on.

If there is no box there, then you will see underneath each post something that says “0 comments” or “3 comments”, etc. Click on this and it will reveal others comments and also a box for you to enter your comment.

You will also need to select your profile from the drop down menu. You can enter Google, or Anonymous, or Name/URL, etc. I tried it with my name of Barry and my website, www.bdkphoto.com, and it worked.

If you use an account like Google and you are not already signed in to the blog, it will prompt you for your User ID and password.

When you go to post it, it will also require you to enter the code that is presented. This is to prevent automatic spammers from working. Simply enter the code and your most welcome comment should post.

Also, if you are a follower, then when you come to Micheline’s blog, in the upper right hand corner, you can “Sign In”. If you do this, then if you want to make a comment, it will remember who you are and automatically enter your profile in the drop down menu so you do not have to do it.

I know this sounds pretty complicated, but it actually sounds harder than it is. Good luck and if you have any problems, e-mail me at barry@bdkphoto.com or call me at 719-392-5995 and I will help you. Once you get the swing of it, esp if it is your first experience with a blog, it is really pretty simple. Thanks for your persistence and patience.

In light and love,

Barry

Woman of the Seven Veils

Woman of the seven veils
woman of the seven words
my semblance and my mirror
woman who dances with the scepter
the flame, the sphinx and the pauper
you are my eternal self, my hope
and my strangled fear, the treason
of my imaginings
and my redemption
at the edge of my day.

Battles were won in your name
towns feasted on your flame
and your desires, you walked on Frangipani
and sheets of music, with cymbals fluttering
in your ears. You were queen and slave
you smelled roses in the garden of heaven.
You fought endless battles and walked
in many homes, revered for your intuition
while you absorbed many secrets
and opened many paths.

You ventured in dark spaces where
light was negated yet your spark thrived.

You were a part of me for eons of times
sprinkling words over my steps
and singing the new incantations
to make me strong as the wind
to make me wise as the old sage
to sing with me now
as we peel the veils
one at a time.

Copyright Micheline Brierre 2010

A Dream Come True

A dream come true! My own blog to communicate with you, to grow with you to go on the incredible journey of life together. Sign up, and get on board!

I will give voice to your inner self, your concerns, your memories, our connections, your roots, the infinite possibilities of us. Become a follower, not because you are, but because I, with you, also follow my own intuition as I write. I have always believed that any creative form is the result of all the participants. So send me your comments, be a co-creator in this process and let us go together on this trip of self expression.

Winter is losing face and the plants I surveyed yesterday in my garden all have some green at their roots. The doves that enchant me all morning creep into my paintings and from the paper they salute me in my studio.

I am missing the time of quiet and peace when I can retreat within myself and pause, as the world of winter follows me. The early morning fog, the cold outside and the white mountains created a cocoon of grace and creativity that has given birth to quite a few poems that I will share with you.

Now, will come a different time pleading to speak to us with a different voice. And our words will echo back.