We are the altar.

The greatest threat to women these days is our continued and relentless obsession with external beauty and our lack of attention to inner spiritual peace. This affects women in that we have forgotten our sacredness; the beauty of our spirits and the amazing capacity we have to give life and love. Instead we obsess over the size of our thighs, our waist, our breasts and how all these fit into the latest fashion. We feed our one-sided notion of ourselves to the other half of the population and are bound to externalized and unattainable images of what a woman should be. The only way out of this maze of shallowness is to begin with loving our hearts, minds, spirits and bodies and claiming them as sacred, to turn our eyes inward and love who we are.

We are the altar.

Birth of a Star

I am not a star;
my teeth are crooked, my hair is grey,
I have a weak chin.
I am neither polished nor fine.

Yet I have been known
to dance in the rain,
in the early morning before sunrise.

Sheltered by darkness, under the cedars
I have spread wide my arms,
spun gently round, swaying to music
made by the wind.
I have danced with bare feet on wet grass,
mud oozing between my toes,
arched my spine, thrown back my head
savoured cool rain drops on my tongue.

I have heard the song of my soul
carried on the laughter
that has risen from my belly.

I have danced for Spirit in the rain,
jumped and leapt a vigorous jig,
waltzed with the cedars and my own heart,
bowed to the rising sun
and the applause of chickadees.

I have come to know beauty;
as the rain has soaked into my hair.
Despite rivulets trailing down my back,
I have glowed like enduring embers.

I have shone so bright that I have
touched the edge of darkness,
and bravely entered there,
igniting places never seen
warming spaces never loved.

I am a star
My teeth are crooked, my hair is grey,
I have a weak chin.
I am polished and fine.