The Path Of The Rose Bard

The Path Of The Rose Bard

A Rose Bard is a keeper of the gates between life and death. A lullaby crooner on the nights when satellites are too lazy to give light to the crevices of the dream. An ambassador of the secret whispers who illuminate the mysteries bridging the realms. One who lives, breathes, feels, and dreams deliberately and collaboratively in a dance of erotic communion with all of life.

A Rose Bard is a Devotee of the Creative Spark. In a sacred covenent with the muses of discovery and exploration. To unfolding the gift of one’s innate genius and aliveness as an act of truth. Learned in the ways of the storytellers, the passers of wisdom sigils between allies in neighboring lineages, the doulas of mtyhos, the midwives to magic.

A Rose Bard is wise in the ways of the bud and the thorn, the cycles of blooming and decay. Refiner of speech light. A rhapsodist of canticals for the ectstatic. The sacred and profane. A holder of the paradox. An advocate of the emergent.

A Rose Bard is a poet, medicine maker, artist, womb temple enthusiast. Steward of the Revered. Courter of the Muse. Dancer through the Veils. Student of the Sage. Learner of the inside jokes between the shadows of falling stars and the moon. Decoder of the Debaucherous. A Mortar and Pestle Mind Magi. A Lead into Gold Spinner of invisible Threads that weave the fabric of the great dream.

We are the path-layers of the petals for the ones who walk before, the ones who are to come, the ones who stop to smell what life is truly made of. Ancestral melody keepers. Inner alchemy sonograms recorders. Rememberers of the songs before time. Rhyme Benders. Elemental Undulators. Tap-dancers on prophetic diamonds. Tenders of the Fire in the Ruby.

Burning Ash Bloomers.
Poutpouri collectors.
Velvet Petal Inscribers.
Satin Womb Bone Dreamers.

Sounders of the Tone inside the Tone.

Photo:

Tessa Shields

Somedays

Some days

I forget for a moment
About the interconnected wonder garden living within me and around me

Some days

I work hard to train myself out of believing every little thing my mind says, a devotee in the practice of construct awareness- lest I be fooled by delusions appearing as narcissistic vanity grasping and savioristic trauma bonds.

Some days

I miss the little hints- winks of serendipity that might flutter hummingbird style over to my willowing heart, thirsty to sip of sugar water, opening from the mists of ever present wonder

Some days it hits me out of the blue, an un-ignorable jolt from the subterranean mother god, lovingly roaring in my blood - that I would not fall into the habit of deconstructing every miracle that arises in my dreaming body, such that I would miss the gift of having a body at all

Some days

The presence of synchronicity shakes me from getting too comfortable thinking I know how it is, worlds upon worlds, time collapsing into petals blowing off the cherry blossom tree- kissing me back into lucid communion with springs tender growth- whether or not I understand the complexities of nuances abound

Some days

It’s more than I can bare-

This daily surrender into passionate mystical love raging through and through, the way it does every time my breath is taken away by Love showing its face through the veils, and through you.

Beautiful Randomness

my mind
is not what it used to be
weaving transfigurations
alongside echos of silver linings
reaching for the fading faces
just memories away

you + me
the nothing we became
our missed song
rose petals falling
silently unseen

and so these arms
raise liltingly in devotion
moving with
a sky dancers gesture
for a chance at perceiving
that which arises
from their most fortunate view

prismatic configurations
alongside quiet undertones
ever giving my heart away

still
To find myself
basking in a dripping surrender
to the riddles found in such
beautiful randomness

Is a treasured gift of this
fragile fragrant
human dream

A Heart Breaks In Many Ways

photo: Violet Visions

A Heart breaks in many ways

Some break rapidly

An all at once ocean parting, rushing to the land,
destroying all in its path before
quietly receding back to sea

Some break slowly

Unseen
barely felt
an earthquake deep
in the rumbling underground
with aftershocks that whisper
and quickly pass disregarded

With no apparent damage to the structure of the house,
all seems well. Life moves on. Seasons change.
The memory of the event fades like a dream.

Until suddenly years later the shelves fall rambunctiously off the walls,
quietly cracking under the weight of
barely holding it together.

The instantaneous crashing of vases on tiles surprises
even though we know it’s been ages since tectonic plates slid into position.
Echos of despondency rupturing at a speed most human.

Delayed reaction is common,
especially when a heart has been taught they were supposed to be
strong enough to withstand the shaking changing
groundlessness of impermanence

Yet the shelves still fall.
Books fly off the walls.
Every scripture once elevated
Now lays a broken mess of words on the floor

And there i find my hands clutching
a note i wrote to myself
Covertly slipping out
from one of the pages

It reads:

‘there’s nothing wrong
with the way you love,
the pace with which
your grief breaks ground,
the time it takes to feel the loss
Nor the style by which
You recover form
from all the beautiful
shattering pieces’

Devotion With

Working in a devotional way with the Muses is a form of soul retrieval and alchemy for me.

The more powerful the Muse (the more visceral and multi-layered aka the more obsessed I am), the more of me she requires to awaken and birth the vision. Which sometimes translates to an intense and ego shattering journey to reunite with the aspects of self who weren’t yet integrated for her arrival.

Every large creative undertaken I’ve thrown myself whole heartedly into has destroyed ‘me’ in the best possible way. With every creation all the way birthed, I’ve experienced a certain kind of annihilation of self in order to free and heal aspects of myself which were frozen in time, fragmented from trauma, or underdeveloped from insecurity and neglect.

While the miracle and grace of inspiration summons me into devotion and invokes my resolve to somehow keep moving the thing forward, often it’s simultaneously quite the psychedelic ass pummeling. Disillusionment occurs, clearing space for a new version to arise from the churning of it all. And ultimately there is somehow an increasing wellness and inner stability that transpires as a result of going through these initiations with the Muse.

Transformation is inevitable.

Sapphire might be the most true and full spectrum creative endeavor I’ve experienced of this nature, especially when it comes to the reunion of inner and outer spheres of Muse as aspects of embodied self.

I thought I was going to be telling a story from my future self of an Ecstatic Grief and a magical time traveling song capsule, where I was reunited with some deep mystical code of eternal remembrance of love to be freed up from the haunting of the grief of ages and distortion of power.

What actually happened was a process of being tested at every psychic and subconscious obstacle I have to experiencing spirit fully embodied as truth and presence, which denies no part of my humanity.

I pray to keep being called to the altar of the Muse, no matter how many little deaths it takes to fully realize how amazing it is to be alive.

Reflections on Thawing

When ‘Sapphire’ came into my life, she came like a lightning bolt out of the deep blue glacier heart of forgotten song. I didn’t see her coming. She cracked inspiration over my head, and broke my heart open into a story that would mystically unfold for years to come.

She spoke to me in dreams, in waking life, through friends, collaborators, my Beloved. She visited me through students and mentors alike, through whispers in body and writing, through my anguish and tears.

Fever. 
Devastation. 
Dissipation. 
Bliss wisdom.

The ecstasy of the river losing itself to become the sea.
She spoke from hidden parts of me I exalted yet felt disconnected from;
through sacred parts long forgotten in the ice-y caverns of my heart.

She spoke through euphoric moments, grandiose visioning,
time traveling avalanches of soul recollections,
through ruptured dreams
deflating under the sobering light
of saturnian reckoning with neptunian disillusionment.

She forced me to grow. 

To outgrow my old life and step boldly into new territories. 
New relationships. Hard conversations. Profound Alliances.
She spoke to me in the voices and insecurities surrounding the preciousness of my biggest artistic dreams.

She simultaneously fulfilled them
and tore them out of my hands.

She gave me hope to become more of myself in this world, to give more, to tell more of the truth. She left me naked and terrified of my own voice, out in the rain, shivering,
waiting for me to remember just how much I love to dance beneath waterfalls. How water only excruciatingly cold until surrendering into it awakens the warmth from within, thawing all of the frozen parts of the soul disorganized and lodged in other dimensions of time.

She spoke through telepathy and soul guides, unborn spirits knocking on my womb, trying to get my attention and open to become a portal for their incarnation (Not yet my dudes)

She spoke through synchronicities, conspiracies, and unbearable reflections. Through my worst fears of myself coming to light and fading away like a mirage ghosting in wind.

She spoke to me through visions of a more mature embodiment, tending to the inner romantic, my aching 14 year olds reaching heart, still broken from whatever flavor of unrequited love she acquired from the cultural trance.

She spoke through epiphanies and past life remembrances, multidimensional cluster-fucks, awkward clunky moments of dismantling the golden shadows at every turn of the kaleidoscope of returning to Love.

She spoke as soul fragments coming home to me through the gates of the mouths of my magical kin. She spoke in wonder and awe. Through ice sculptures, crystal caves and thunderstorms.
Through big sisters and tough love. Through the voice of the innocent one who knows for certain that magic is in tact, and there is a reservoir of alchemy within, if we only sit still enough to allow this essence to distill into its unmistakable nourishment.

She spoke through opalescent invigoration, and collaborations of the highest caliber. through the wisdom of the one I am walking toward. She spoke through me as a self-less self reflected in the mirrors of time. She spoke through the echoes of the song I’ve always been listening for as I have been learning to sing myself home.

She Spoke, and I responded.
And 'Sapphire' is the art we made along the journey.


photo 

Rob Ball

Chasing the Sapphire Muse

I’ve been Chasing
A Sapphire Muse
From the Shimmering Realms
of distant lifetimes
At the edges
of most exalted memories
Seeping in
Like snow melt Dripping
in underground crystal caves
Filled with secret gemstones
Containing the essences
Accumulation nectars
of cherishing wonderment

•

I’ve chased her
From Glacier Deva dream songs
Suspended in Ice
Frozen and disembodied
As The untold language
in the hidden chambers
Of An old Gaian prophecy
thaws crystallized subtle bodies
Unlocking codes
of original tones
bursting into rivers of freedom
filling empty cracked clay beds
in sudden monsoons of renewal

•

I followed her
From the inner landscape
of rage filled tears
Devouring discontent
bleeding reparations
From the sides of broken cathedrals
Surrounded by mountains aflame
As the parched desert
Of my scarred earthen bones
Recollect the fragments
of her ecstatic Sapphiric song

Dream Song

i dreamed i wrote a song last night
i wonder how it goes
it slipped away beyond the veils
its cryptic telling prose

i reached out for the tail of her
to draw her back to me
but when i looked down at my hands
like sands, she passed unseen

these moments now, they rise and fall
emerging light does fades
just when i think i’ve got it all
fate swings her fatal blade

her ashes fall on garden beds
in awe, I take my leave
poetics of this life and death
inhale, exhale, breathe

a parable, this passing life
where nothing stands to hold
I dreamed i wrote this song last night
in wonder of how it goes

Of Wanting

Photo Penny Slinger

Sometimes
You get
the thing you wanted
And it’s not at all
what you want

Because
What you really wanted
Was the feeling
Of wanting

Freedom Chasing The Echo

photo Sydni Indman

I’ve made my offerings 
to the hungry ghosts
of unrequited love
burying my bundle of poems
confessions and sorrows 
lifetimes of wishful thinking
anguished believing
lodged in a womb
of generational deceiving
distorted longing 
aching for the sun
to rain the return 
of an ultimate reunion


with myself


I gaze into Love’s eyes
they say
‘Who are you running from’
as I feel the bliss of witness
a thrashing passion
ripping me to shreds 
unfolding in a light
burning through all the masks
ive surrender
preparing to become 

the sky

filled with wonder
for the miracle engraved
in each grain of sand
recklessly covering my bed sheets
evidence of the after math 
of freedom chasing the echo
who came to warm my cold heart open
only to leave me 

naked

before the mirror of time
baring the treasure chest of nectars
my human flesh
dirty gemstones indeed
nothing centuries of 
inevitable tears won’t restore
to their indestructible nature
layers of soot wiped clean
patterns of broken dream
harmonize and redeem
dissolving into true loves winds
stirring in the eternal muse
where the Sage lives on 
in the seed of every name 
spoken into being
dancing me as the wise Beloved 
memorizes each of my holy songs
singing me forth in every moment
if I only would

listen

remembering
this perfect note
humming at the root 
of ephemeral arising
all frozen meanings
melting and offered 
to the roots of the tree 
of eternal aliveness
of the Great Love overflowing
upward through this shelter body
yielding the harvest of a lifetime of tasting
the wisdom gathered
from a heart learning to 
truly love 

again