Breathe Deep. Breath Slow. – A Mantra (2020 Re-post)

© RedCat

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Breathe deep. Breath slow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Take your time to inward go.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Cultivate space to grow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Investigates what lies below.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Release all that keeps you low.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Accept all there is in the now.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Connect to life force flow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Listen to your higher self say so.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Learn what wisdom want you to know.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Changed awareness new seeds sow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Let the winds of change blow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Trust your soul your path to show.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Bathe in inner divine glow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Let the universe its love bestow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.

© REDCAT

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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Re-post comment:

For tonight’s Wandering the Archives Wednesday.
I’ll share this meditation mantra.
I think of it whenever I feel I need to calm and center myself.
I might not repeat all the lines, but enough repetitions of just
– Breathe deep, breathe slow –
works just as well.

Enjoy!

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Photo by DTS VIDEOS on Pexels.com

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I like repetitions and rhymes. I also like meditation and mantras. :-)
“Breath deep. Breath slow.” – was the first meditation poem I wrote. Which coincides with the first day I started to seriously meditate. Right now I’m thankful for the fact that I managed to make it into a habit before the pandemic started. Without that daily dose of peace and grounding. Without that self-care, I think my depression would have bloomed right now, fueled my the ongoing catastrophe.

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Photo by Magicbowls on Pexels.com

Firework by Katy Perry – Saturday Song

Firework by Katy Perry

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After writing both As I Reap The Dreams That I Have Sown and August Approaches yesterday, I decided that tonight’s Saturday Song had to be one about overcoming obstacles, adversity, challenges and hard times. About not giving up, even when that’s all you feel like doing. I found this list of songs about all that. So I started to read lyrics and the choice fell on Firework by Katy Perry. 

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from cavin’ in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep?
Six feet under screams, but no one seems to hear a thing

From Firework by Katy Perry

I know exactly how that feels. But now I have to get away from that, find my voice, develop my passion and allow my light to shine bright.

Enjoy!

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Firework – Lyrics

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag
Drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
Like a house of cards, one blow from cavin’ in?
Do you ever feel already buried deep?
Six feet under screams, but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there’s still a chance for you?
‘Cause there’s a spark in you

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

‘Cause baby, you’re a firework
Come on, show ’em what you’re worth
Make ’em go, “Oh, oh, oh”
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you’re a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make ’em go, “Oh, oh, oh”
You’re gonna leave ’em all in awe, awe, awe

You don’t have to feel like a waste of space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow
Maybe a reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will glow
And when it’s time, you’ll know

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

‘Cause baby, you’re a firework
Come on, show ’em what you’re worth
Make ’em go, “Oh, oh, oh”
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you’re a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make ’em go, “Oh, oh, oh”
You’re gonna leave ’em all in awe, awe, awe

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
It’s always been inside of you, you, you
And now it’s time to let it through

‘Cause baby, you’re a firework
Come on, show ’em what you’re worth
Make ’em go, “Oh, oh, oh”
As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you’re a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make ’em go, “Oh, oh, oh”
You’re gonna leave ’em all in awe, awe, awe

Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon
Boom, boom, boom
Even brighter than the moon, moon, moon

Source: LyricFind
Song writers: Esther Dean, Sandy Julien Wilhelm, Tor Erik Hermansen, Mikkel Storleer Eriksen, Katheryn Hudson
Lyric to Firework © Peermusic Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc, BMG Rights Management, DistroKid

Firework by Katy Perry

Firework photo credit: Photo by Ray Hennessy on Unsplash

Tessellation of Mind Space

Tessellation in the Alhambra. This was one of the tilings sketched by M. C. Escher in 1936.
From Wikimedia Commons

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In the tessellation of mind space
Each experience its neighbours face
Their colour and mood blend and interlace

Piece by piece building a personality mosaic
From the ethereally numinous to the utterly prosaic
Always growing and evolving, never static

Each piece slotting snugly in place
As mortal life the eternal soul encases
With the tessellation of mind space

©RedCat

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A Penrose tiling
From Wikimedia Commons

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Written for Sammi Cox’s weekend writing prompt. 

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Wall tableau of a tessellation by local resident M. C. Escher on the Princessehof ceramic museum, Leeuwarden.
The tableau appears to be based on the ink and watercolour Regular Division of the Plane Drawing #47,
a study for Verbum, 1942.
From Wikimedia Commons

The Garden – A Prose Poem

Photo by Cosmic Timetraveler on Unsplash

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For many years the garden lay neglected.
Fallow,
overgrown with sorrow weeds and thorny trauma brambles.
Creative stream choked off,
the source strangled by fear.
No longer filling the deep story pool.
Unable to attract sparkling dragonflies of fantasy,
buzzing idea bees or paradise birds flights of fancy.

The weeping willow shedding its leaves in grief.
Becoming naked skeleton of raking nightmare fingers.
The starving muse wilts and fades.
Retreating into dark amnesic mist under the onslaught of anxiety rain,
depressive storms.

A bolt of awakened lightning sheared through the bruised cloud cover.
Putting the strangling weeds in flames.
Rekindling the suffocated creative fire.
Birthing a fierce Phoenix from the flames.
Rousing the sleeping muse with a song of newfound life.
Hailing the first ray of kind sunlight.
Praising the smatter of nurturing rain.

Now the garden blooms and grows.
Tended by the muse and the soul Phoenix.
The brook babbles and laughs as it flows.
The air is filled with fragrance,
the sound of wings of every shape and size.
Safe in the knowledge their host will never again,
let anything her creativity compromise.

©RedCat

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Photo by Jie on Unsplash

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Written for Poetics: Garden(ing) at dVerse. As I took my evening walk, thinking about gardens and gardening. This is what came to mind. Following a thought about one of the first writing communities I found “Imaginary garden with real toads”. A place that made me feel welcome and a place who’s kind encouragement kept me writing through all my doubts, making me think that I could do this. I know many of you might have a hard time believing it. But I’ve been writing poetry for less than two years. I’m still finding my way and my voice.

This is not the first and probably won’t be the last time I’ve written something very personal to a prompt. My writing is both pent up creativity poured out, and a form of dealing with and working through everything that’s happened to me.

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Photo by Jeff Finley on Unsplash

A Trip To The Wild Side! – A Trimeric(ish) Poem

The Sunday Muse

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– Welcome my lady!
I’ll be your chauffeur to the other side.
Where you’ll meet your parts called dark and shady.
The ones you hide because they’re deemed too free thinking and wild.

I’ll be your chauffeur to the dark side.
Fasten your seatbelt, it’ll be a wild ride.
No need to blush, we all have sides we hide.

You’ll meet all your parts called dark and shady.
Those you dispatch to your mind’s darkest alleys.
The ones you think will make you less of a lady.

Hidden because they’re deemed too free thinking and wild.
Thoughts and notions that might brand you a flower child.
Things you fear will make you from polite society exiled. 

– Welcome sweet lady, to a trip to the wild side!

©RedCat

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Photo by Saffu on Unsplash

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Written for this week’s Sunday Muse. 

Inspired by the prompt photo, and the comic Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl that for some reason popped into my mind as I started writing. Can’t find it now, but I think a picture with Lenore might have been the first time I came across the “Come to the dark side, we have cookies” meme. The Lou Reed song didn’t turn up until I wrote the last line. 

I’ve played around a bit with the rules, hence the Trimeric(ish). But otherwise this is my second use of the form first tried in Guarded By The Unicorn.

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Read other responses to The Sunday Muse here.

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Arcane is your path — Let some light guide your way.
Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

Galaxy of unknown stars

Artist impression of a firestorm of star birth deep inside core of young, growing elliptical galaxy.
NASA, Z. Levay, G. Bacon (STScI), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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Sailing towards a galaxy of unknown stars
Space full of still unexplored planets
Dreams of visiting unseen worlds
Fantasies of learning yet unheard words

Only the travellers self doubt exhilaration mars
Fears streaking by like comets
Old scars chafing like forming pearls
Nightmares circling like buzzards

Following the call of twin hear-soul lodestars
Drinking the mead of poets
Freed imagination new star sparks swirl
Awakened inspiration newfound stories herd

Sailing towards a galaxy of unknown stars
Newly discovered hopes skyrocket
Dreams of visiting unseen worlds
Fantasies grow wings and soar like spacebirds

©RedCat

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Colossal hot cloud envelopes colliding galaxies
Smithsonian Institution from United States, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

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Written for this weekend’s writing prompt by Sammi Cox. The word is galaxy and the word-count is exactly 92 words. 

The rhyme scheme is ABCD. and the first A and C line repeat in the last stanza.

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Read other weekend writing prompt poems by me here.

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Souricette-du-13, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Multicoloured Gem

Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash

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Multicoloured many faceted gem
From which arcane teachings stem

Lens through which I learned to cross boundaries
To search deeper than the eye sees
Listen to how the heart breathes
Seek and look beyond approved windows
Search out that which sets the soul free

Shifting hypnotic kaleidoscope
The portal that leads to multicoloured hope
To words that helps me cope
Spelling the message that even for the queer there’s hope

Swirling mystic door
That illuminates the hidden inner core
Paints landscapes never seen before
Leads to uncharted shores
To soul realms yet unexplored

Glyph showing knowledge rest not only in the words that get heard
True wisdom is found in the silence spaces between words

©RedCat

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Also shared to Open Link Night – How’s your remodeling going? at dVerse.

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Photo by Christian Liebel on Unsplash

The first warm sun (2020 Re-post)

© REDCAT

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Re-post comment:

Looking for what to re-post for today’s wander in the archives this meditation poem gave me strength and peace of mind. Hope you can feel some of that too!

Enjoy!

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The first warm sun rays of spring
Warm upon my cheek
A breeze turns it into gentle caress
Brilliant light dances behind closed lids
First spring touch kiss my lips
Natures warm embrace surrounds me
Comforting, healing
Life affirming

The Goddess gently touches
Starburst erupts
Showering me with universal love
Connecting me to me
To every living thing
Assuring me there will be a way
A path out of darkness
My trek dotted with oases of calm
Peace, connection, love
Moments of bliss

Secure points in a bewildering maze
Built of old and new trauma
Fear, sorrow, dark despair
Life-ending depression

Inner trust and faith will guide me through
Inborn strength a given armour
Intelligens, wit and wisdom deduce true from false
The quest might be lonely
Yet aided by care and love
Freely given, by friends yet to be found

Breathe
Be still
Accept
Give thankfulness

Use your pen
Jot both now and then
Hone your craft
Draft by draft
Writing will illuminate
Meditation germinate
Revision concentrate
New life emancipate

© REDCAT

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Today again the will to make poetry out of my meditation overtook me soon thereafter. :-)

Also posted to earthweal open link weekend #8.