Phoenix (Draw a Bird Day)
blood of water, woods, earth–
birth in death
breath transforming air into wind, wild
child of the dawn,
eons compressed between
unseen boundaries
freezing in hard fire, ashes becoming
humming sounds, wings
singing legends, serving the sky,
high above the morning star glowing
blowing currents ancient, storied–
blood of water, woods, earth
I don’t have any new bird art, but thought I would do a post on the Phoenix, as I knew I had a few pieces of both art and poetry that feature this mythical bird.
The Phoenix is most associated with Greek mythology, though firebirds are features of cultures all over the world. Some think the Egyptian Bennu bird, a manifestation of the sun god Ra, is the source of the Greek myth. Other related birds include the Chinese Fenghuang, the Hindu Garuda, the Jewish Milcham, the Slavic Firebird, the Persian Simurgh, and the Native American Thunderbird. Early Christians adopted the Phoenix as a symbol of the immortal soul and the resurrection of Jesus.
There are a few variations of the myth. They all agree that the Phoenix is long-lived, anywhere from 500 years to thousands. It resides in Paradise, or nests in the Tree of Life, or lives in the City of the Sun. It always rises from the ashes of its predecessor, but often it first builds a nest of herbs and spices that is ignited by a spark from the sun. Sometimes it sings a haunting farewell song. And in some stories it constructs a cremation egg and puts the previous Phoenix’s ashes inside.
I did two posts on the I Ching Hexagram #30 (Fire/Clarity) which both referenced the Phoenix, although in the second collage I represented the rising bird with an owl.
#30 Li Clarity
“Shed your light into the darkness of other lives—with joy accept the connection with all things and be a part of it.”—dreamhawk.com
To enter
you must meet, then turn
back. You must
return and
then leave. You must find words that
disconnect meaning.
Now burning,
now drowning, the waves
washing pure
energy
down dark deep, spiraling wheels
across the cosmos,
Unbridged nets
capturing sudden
stillness—wings
emerging,
multiplying time with fire–
opening beyond.
I also wrote a Phoenix haiku for the Pure Haiku theme of Celestial Bodies in 2018
Your ashes illume,
cradled beyond day and night –
great is the unknown
As a symbol of regeneration and spiritual renewal, the Phoenix represents the ideas of time and eternity, and creation and destruction. It is also thought to be a guardian of sacred sites, and a protector of ancient wisdom.
Spinning
This week’s Kick-About played around with tops.
Nnenna Okore
Wonderful art from the Kick-About inspired by new-to-me artist Nnenna Okore
Murmuration (Draw a Bird Day)
the way excess
thought leads
to starlings
a geometry
taking wing
–Peter Gizzi, “Suddenly”
I’ve done posts about both starlings and their murmurations before, but I never really did much research about either one.
Starlings are an introduced species to the United States. One story has it that they were released in Central Park in the late 1800s in an attempt to populate it with all the birds mentioned by Shakespeare, but that has never been definitively proven. Another theory is that they were brought here in an effort to reduce insect pests, which they are very effective at doing.
However they arrived, being adaptable birds, they now number in the millions across the North American continent. Starlings are considered an invasive species and are reputed to compete with and displace many native birds, although the Cornell Bird website said that a study done in 2003 shows little effect on other bird populations. Despite the beauty of their murmurations, they can be pests, both because of the sheer size of their flocks, ant the fact that grain crops are a favorite meal.
Social and gregarious, starlings often forage with other birds, including, as I know from my own observations, sparrows, pigeons, robins, grackles, and crows. They are great mimics, as I also know from experience. One of my apartments had a kitchen window right above the roof next door, and every morning they would serenade me with their repertoire of songs. Evidently they can also recognize other individuals by their calls.
A few other things I learned:
–The males build and decorate nests with ornaments including flowers and trash to attract females. They also add herbs to repel insects. Once mated, pairs are monogamous, devoted parents, with both incubating the blue eggs. They nest in cavities–tree hollows or man-made structures.
–They grow new feathers every fall with white tips that make them appear spotted. Over the winter the tips wear away and in spring their plumages appears darker and more iridescent and the reflected colors intensify. Their beaks also become brighter yellow.
–Starlings migrate. I did not realized that as, like robins, many hang around the city all year.
The murmurations are truly wondrous things of beauty. As Wikipedia notes “the flock moves as each individual synchronizes with its nearest group”–thousands of wings creating patterns that appear both random and choreographed.
I’ve written several starling poems of my own–here’s one.
wings scatter in light,
a mystery, their mission
illegible to
human eyes–tantalizing
visions of layered
complexity, a mirror
reflecting the wind–
following a rising path
toward the Seven Sisters
Picture Yourself (Thursday Doors Writing Challenge)
Alone with creation
my mind processes the color the form the medium–
I do not include any part of the world outside of
the tentative frame
Do I enter?
sometimes maybe always—but I do not always find
what I seek on the speculative journeys my mind takes
looking for essence
Perhaps vision is
only an accident, a chance intersection with the singing
portal–the one that exists inside the current of
the cosmic chord
it’s why you love every copy of nothing
I wanted to squeeze in one final entry to the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge–I could not resist the door above provided by Resa which immediately sang to me.
Odyssey (Thursday Doors Writing Challenge)
My mind discusses possibilities with itself, running continuous films of monochromatic narratives without chapters or sequences, captioned with words too blurred to read. The past is always fast-forwarding, as images and dialogue unravel and recombine in ways both mesmerizing and terrifying, full of could haves, should haves, and what ifs.
I feel sometimes as if I am already a ghost—not who I think I am—and who is it I think I am anyway?—existing nowhere I can locate in this world. I have already moved far beyond it, or perhaps I never arrived. I am governed by screens that stand between me and me, that render my actual position unknowable.
Am I astronaut, explorer, pilgrim, avatar? Or am I but a mote of dust in the eye of the shadow of a consciousness that contains no self at all?
drifting in landscapes
of lost memories drawn in
faded black and white
Teagan’s art appealed to me because it seemed to contain so many stories. I started off thinking about my childhood (that car looks so familiar), but when I began writing it became something else. Best to follow the muse I find. And I know Teagan’s also been considering that nagging question: Who am I?
My second offering for the Thursday Doors Writing Challenge, open for the entire month of May, and hosted by Dan Antion. Anyone can join–you can see all the doors available to inspire you here.
Spiritual (Thursday Doors)
How many doors must I enter to find
myself? What universe exists between
open and closed? Is it a sacred space?
Is any space sacred? Is nothing? If I
cross the threshold can I return? Where
is sanctuary in this disintegrating world?
I am looking for a circle, an ensō left open
to the free exchange of every kind of light.
The shadows make shapes that try to pull
me in. I can neither hold onto earth nor
rise into the heavens. I am caught, neither
conduit nor messenger. I contain too much
emptiness, both living and dying I do not
wish to reside in the hallowed spaces of
deities in which I do not believe. Yet I am
surrounded by currents of invisible forces.
I am looking for a circle, an ensō left open
to the free exchange of every kind of light.
And so I stand once again before another
doorway, a vestibule which contains
another passage to another closed door,
uncertain of my context, unwilling to embark
upon another journey that leads to an en
closure where the only exit available is exile.
I am looking for a circle, an ensō left open
to the free exchange of every kind of light.
My poem was inspired by some writing I did, after reading a post by Rajani Radhakrishnan that started with Monet and his painting of the same landscapes over and over and spilled into writing four different poems in response to the same thing. My response was to take the same image and write about it seven days in a row. I chose the Ansel Adams photo below, Church, Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.
My approach was different each day, yet somehow I kept coming back to spirit. And so the Murisopsis prompt for W3 this week, to write about spirituality in a form that included a refrain, was perfect for combining my different observations about these doors into one poem. I looked at a lot of forms that included a refrain, but settled on the Bop, because of its affinity for questions.
And of course I am always photographing sacred spaces and their mysterious doorways.
My answer to the prompt is that I keep asking questions. Still, I know what I’m looking for.
I am looking for a circle, an ensō left open
to the free exchange of every kind of light.
Read about the ensō here.
And be sure to visit Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion, for more doors from all over the world.
March 2025
The path the earth follows chooses itself. The
imprint it leaves becomes something else. Perfect
metaphors decompose and then transition
into new patterns
remembering where they have traveled, marking
the way they have gone while gathering inside
the circle of return. The dark silences
hold the essences
of growth–seed, flower, fruit–messages written
in the spaces between, where being threads
itself through woven correspondences on
invisible wings,
on land-bound bodies, rocks altered into cairns,
fragile bridges. We dig to reclaim our blood
lines, opening veins that sail the earth, vessels
currented with light.
What we thought was lost echoes us back, rooted
into the center of the earth’s ancient womb–
Do you remember? Can you see now? it asks,
all at once alive
A sapphic stanza chain for the new month, inspired by Kim’s prompt at dVerse to write about one of the four elements. No matter what humans are doing, the earth will follow its seasons.
I also wanted to note that my poem “Undocumented”, inspired by the work of Jacob Lawrence, was published this week in Collaborature. Thanks Melissa! You can read it here.
Nowhere To Go But Around/Thursday Doors
Time changes space.
Space revises what is unseen.
Time changes space.
Circles mirror, echo, retrace
here into there and then between.
Waves spiral, wheel, return again.
Time changes space.
I recently went to the Guggenheim Museum to see the Orphism exhibit. Robert Delaunay’s circular canvases were a highlight. But the museum itself is such an interesting building, and of course I had doors in mind.
One of the side galleries had a small Mondrian exhibit, tracing the evolution of his painting. That’s his photo on the right, and an unusual landscape I had never seen before flanking the exit on the left.
Every layer you spiral up inside the museum gives a different point of view into what is below. This is the gift shop with the exit door from two different vantage points.
I’d never gone into the Ada Simon Reading Room before. On the left is the entrance, and on the right is the entrance/exit from inside the room. It once was a storage room, but is now an interactive creative space.
There were two scrap poetry boards, and visitors were invited to add something of their own. I added two words to “open sea illuminated”–“in peace”.
I was pleased to see Chagall’s “The Great Wheel” in person–Melissa used it for a W3 prompt, and I did my own interpretation, on the right.
And there was also a wonderful Mamie Jellet painting, below, in the Orphism exhibit. She was the subject of a Kick About prompt, for which I did a circle response, although I had not seen this work before. That’s my collage, on the right of the painting.
Of course I have a lot more photos. There was really too much art for me to take in all at once though. I think the exhibit is there for awhile, so maybe I’ll get a chance to go back.
It’s finally looking and feeling like winter. That’s Central Park, viewed from inside the museum.
My poem is a rondelet, Lady Lee’s W3 prompt form for this week.
And look for more doors, as always, at Thursday Doors, hosted by Dan Antion.
method two madness 
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