I remember the song as a child, “She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain” and I can’t help but think that this coming to surface in my mind is a sign that my hermit ways may be changing.
When things go so far in one direction, they cannot stay that way forever, the natural inclination is for that pendulum to swing again…. I guess the speed of it determines how quickly these transitions can happen, how open we are to letting ourselves be transformed by both participation and surrender…sometimes many lifetimes, sometimes many times in one life.
I live in the paradox
I have a foot in two worlds
I love my hermit-land of absolute isolation
just the same, I loathe it, lonely and forsaken
it keeps turning in a winding-whirl
My house is a boat floating in an empty sea
Yet the emptiness is a vast bowl of potential
where abundance floats by me
I witness landscapes of prosperity
stare at me outside the window….existential
choices look down with a starry pupil
daring me to arise, an iris with hues of purple
what is a destination, anyway,
but that which sprouts up from upon my pillow
same as waving branches of a weeping willow
I’m a space station on an earthly isle
I watch leaves zoom by in the wind
crickets jump on, like a magic carpet, ride them
at the mercy of a rambunctious downwind
The world is just one big Russian doll
unpacking itself in a misty fog
boxes inside boxes inside boxes
kick down the walls, watch it all crumble
if you’re going to heed a bigger call
I think I saw a mouse on a broom
harassing me for some cheese
No cheese for you this day, dear sir
I’ve saved it all up for the geese
Maybe snow-white was spellbound
The underbelly of old fairytales
Reveal a curious hermitess
hypnotized by goodness
but why is that so bad?
Archetypes with Arching eyes
golden gates that only appear by night
mountain tops that slope up, not down
so are you really coming ‘round
soaring by descent, in order to take flight
or always winding down?
I felt a feather land on my nose
Then fell down and stopped to tickle my toe
life’s a giggle if you can interact
with that infinite squiggly signal
the light lights from the watch-tower
the tower sits inside the mire
sticky mud filled with frogs
jumping and hopping along
do you see what I mean?
Where is your imagination?
Is there a picture drawn up in your mind?
Is the mouse dressed to the nines?
Is the boat a magickal pirate ship?
What’s the hermit carrying, is she equipped?
What’s packed inside the cloak….a bucket of laughs, a scroll of jokes?
Is the light on? Knock-knock….is the firefly plugged in?
Is the fire warm? Is the tree whistling to its crackling whim?
Ah the hermit ways, always one to contemplate
Ah the hermit days, never lost inside the haze
Ah the hermit life, never a day goes by without a light
Not what you’re thinking, but the kind that glows inside
Get your mind back in the gutter, get back into the night
Blow smoke on the fire, let the spark heighten the flames
The hermit invites you to both tighten and loosen the reigns
Ignite the burn to find the way, send out smoke signals…
put your tires in chains
and keep going ‘round that mountain
keep tending to the pain
create a smoldering wilderness
walk on coals and proclaim
nothing can put out my fire
so let it rain………..let it rain!
You see, being a hermit plays with your head, sometimes in rumination and sometimes dread…but always imagination comes, it rises up it and stakes its claim, knows what’s real and what is not to be tamed, it plays in fantasy and tangibility…. for a hermit either goes mad or befriends the silence and stirs the pot…. but even still, eventually one must “retreat” from its comfy cave and emerge into a lighthouse…. on display.
If this makes no sense, read it again, for it’s not meant to be a piece of reason, but an irrational invitation to play with the imagination.
Inspired by a frog I kissed…. because that seemed like what he needed as I bid him adieu…. tell me have you kissed a frog or has one kissed you? (an actual frog, not a metaphor)
Hermit-Mode Activated : Silliness Initiated
(Right there in real life tasks lives our imagination waiting for us to find the magic in the tangible, the mundane, the doing, the being, the toiling, the creating….)
~ Angela
(p.s. first time using this voiceover function, what do you think?)