Author Archives: Sarah

RAISING THE DEAD

Reflecting on life to awaken to a fuller realization of reality is a thoroughgoing and painful undertaking. But also serves to relieve and reward as it involves stripping back the burdens and restrictions of old attitudes. Writing is engaging with the Pieta Covenant1 or a relationship with oneself. It is a condition where one is held safely as the other sheds what lies in and between consciousness and the sacred experience.

Building a relationship with the sacred is signing an agreement with faith. The writer’s ego needs to be humble and loyal enough to be able to descend into the shadowy aspects of their being. Under the aegis of the unconscious, messages between conscious and unconscious material, explicated through the art of writing, function as the vehicle carrying the writer as does conversing with an analyst in the therapeutic situation. The writer’s agency, when secure enough, replaces the analyst’s guidance and ability to contain the suffering of the analysand. The writing body and scope participate by taking the form of a receptacle handling the writer’s affects.

Since the sacred delivers to us psychological facts such as dreams,2 one’s individuation journey is, symbolically speaking, contained by Christ’s mother or a loving mother figure to assist in the healing and restoration of our most natural Self. The Transfiguration of Christ, as a harbinger of his resurrection, parallels this crossing over to rebirth whilst inserting an emphasis on its reoccurring and vivifying qualities. So the unconscious, the ego and the writing enters into a dialog and an experiment with language takes place, so that messages produce meaning and in turn, release energy and a life force or entelechy.

Syncretizing these fragmented parts of ourselves which have been formerly disavowed and rejected is akin to raising the dead. In other words, writing mindfully, unlocks the true course of language that has been interrupted due to denial.3

Renewal cannot be achieved without death. Death is not a literal event. Death symbolizes an opening, a threshold, a gate or a door to a consciousness which more generously compliments one’s natural capacity whereby suffering is transformed. It is like walking through a passage or a hallway with numerous doors. Or as depicted in many dreams, an invitation up a winding staircase or down a basement. Dreams are the main portal to the sacred because they present our inner state without resistances or defense mechanisms.

And heavily depending upon the associations and experiences of the writer, this experimentation with language, reconciles the tensions within the writer by breaking down one’s too confined experience of life.4 No single formula exists, or dream book or sermon or ideology which can direct this journey because when the interfacial process of consciousness and the sacred comes into play, an internal quest which is entirely separate from the mainstream, takes hold. And the process must remain in a state of flux so one must relinquish the collective’s proclivity towards brittle logic and rationality. Because the unconscious is like a sea which fluctuates and flows asymmetrically – it is, substantially, a feminine fluidity that can only prove creational if, through our own agency, we are receptive and nurturing towards our own vulnerabilities.

And that is how the sacred or the unconscious, for the sake of evolution, communicates with and sustains the writer. Creators rotate the eternal story of raising Lazarus from the dead because it adumbrates the resurrection of Christ. This constantly reminds us how the sacred urges us to fulfil and nourish this greater circular and moving narrative.5

References:
1. Grotstein J. S. Who is the Dreamer Who Dreams the dream? A Study of Psychic Presences. Routledge, 2009
2. Jung C.G. Dream Analysis–Notes of the Seminar Given in 1928-30 (Volume One). Routledge, 1938
3. Dorpat T. L. Denial and Defense in the Therapeutic Situation. Jason Aronson Inc., 1985
4. Von Franz M. L. The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man. Shambhala, 1992
5. Liew B.T.S, Runions E. Psychoanalytic Mediations between Marxist and Postcolonial Readings of
the Bible. Society of Biblical Literature, 2016

 

Annie Blake’s research aims to exfoliate branches of psychoanalysis. She enjoys semiotics and exploring the surreal and phantasmagorical nature of unconscious material. Her work is best understood when interpreting them like dreams. She is a member of the C G Jung Society of Melbourne. You can visit her on annieblakethegatherer.blogspot.com.au and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009445206990.

Christ

 

He withdrew only to return

And plant the spirit in the bone

Of human flesh.

His followers – a different matter.

They sought the isolation of the peaks

The solitude of forests and of deserts

Above all – to escape from all too human flesh

And all too human matters.

What He redeemed they sought to punish and abhorred

What He released they sought to bind and caged

Rather than following the narrow path

The path of living in the midst of things

And wrestling with the angel when need be

For God to bless them.

 

© Irina Kuzminsky

 

Irina Kuzminsky is a widely published poet and writer; she is also a dancer, singer and composer, who has combined a life in the arts with a rigorous academic background including a doctorate from Oxford. Her passion has long been a quest for the feminine faces of the Divine across spiritual traditions  https://irinushka.net

“who is god if not my cat?”

sitting still sunning on the rug in front of the window,
he breathes in, breathes out, breathes easy.
he dreams of rabbits, maybe, but i don’t know
if he’s ever seen one; he lives his life indoors.
he’s old now so when he moves, he moves slowly.
intentionally. he knows which turns of his body
will hurt, so he avoids them.

i once had ovarian torsion but
before i knew my organ was
twisted, was rotting, he knew.
he sat on my head, purring
and purring and purring,
refusing to leave me alone.

he loves me when no one else does,
sits with me when no one else will.
what is god if not the thing
that brings you the most comfort?
who is god if not a bundle of
orange fur that yells at me for food
every morning before the sun comes up?

 

Rachel Tanner is an Alabamian writer whose work has recently appeared in Moonchild Magazine, Barren Magazine, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. She tweets @rickit.

Choreography

Frigate birds soar skyward
become specks of dust in the blue
before slow spirals toward sea
their wingspan increasing
split tails………….like swallows gliding
aerial grace………..becoming
kites on currents
floating on aqua ripples.
Sunshine warms bare legs
spread for balance on the foredeck
eyes shielded against glare
while becoming other
shedding feathers and scales
until reaching the centre
and all drops away.

 

Kathryn MacDonald is the author of A Breeze You Whisper (poems, 2011), Calla & Édourd (fiction, 2009), and The Farm & City Cookbook (1994). She publishes freelance arts articles and writes “Eclectic Reviews” on her website: https://KathrynMacDonald.com. She is a past-editor of Key to Kingston magazine and previously on the editorial staff of Harrowsmith and Equinox magazines.

Mr Cassian’s 51st Dream

I watch from the woods as he disperses
not seeds but metals and stone and some coins,
scattering them far over the spring earth
from the satchel slung over his shoulder.
And I stay to watch spring come and I see
bodies there, growing up out of the ground,
nourished by earth and ore and the noon sun.
Some come in pairs, the linked bodies of lovers
come from this celestial agriculture.
And as the year recedes they fall to earth,
bodies returned to the beneath or pecked
by the birds who have been refined in flame,
whole flocks of black stone doing their work
for another winter, and resurrection.
Decay is a tremendous smith, I said,
decay turns heaven and earth into glass
decay melts and slides and makes for revival.
My feet are the wet leaves when I find sleep,
my spirit the slime of slow rotation,
the digging, the overturned, the dark earth.

 

Tim Miller’s “Mr Cassian” poems are from a collection of poetry and fiction called School of Night. Other pieces from the book have appeared/are forthcoming in Southword, Cutthroat, and Bold+Italic. He is online at wordandsilence.com.

To Feel Transcendent

It is not taking an imaginary flight
toward stilled tarns locked in sunlight
away from stones pricking your feet under
a low brood of scudding clouds.
It is not sensing a god’s presence dimming
the trees and hills with its blinding rays.
It is catching the glint of a flock of geese
leaving no shadow over the creek
outside your window. It is standing
with a gull near you on the sand
both of you taking in the warmth
of summer air. It is filling your eyes
with the sweeping skeins of winter white
across the sky if you happen to look up.

 

Janet Krauss, who has two books of poetry published, Borrowed Scenery, Yuganta Press, and Through the Trees of Autumn, Spartina Press, has recently retired from teaching English at Fairfield University. Her mission is to help and guide Bridgeport’s  young children through her teaching creative writing, leading book clubs and reading to and engaging a kindergarten class. As a poet, she co-directs the poetry program of the Black Rock Art Guild. In  May, 2018 her poem, “A View from a Window” was published in Amethyst Review.

Air, Airports
in memory of Anya Krogovoy Silver

After that first conference,
her words still
sparking synapse after synapse,
I took off into air,
her sentences the contraband
I hid behind a skull that looked sane enough
and was, transporting sharp syllables of God
and grief beneath the thin skin
of humanness I clung to more.

She had already returned to her life
down South, but was there also,
twenty rows back from the cockpit,
on the left, stabbing the clouds that somehow,
held us up, hovering together—
fierce, fragile believers—
in a wind we could not see.
All the way home, I re-read her voice,
tap-tapping the plane window.

In between,
after the march for others’ rights,
we read near a New York altar,
she in a vibrant scarf; I in my black sweater
pulled tight when her poems hit
the vaulted ceiling, then hovered
over the nave. The chilly air warmed.

In Michigan’s spring, she read of joy,
afterwards ducking from sleet
that pummeled our heads mid-April
en route to sunny tacos and Margaritas
where four friends chatted children and students,
air and asphalt icing up as we spoke.

Days later, I detoured
around black ice, believing
I’d finally escaped the unexpected
while, closer to death than we knew,
she stood up with friends and strangers
and spoke poems into the stale air
of the Grand Rapids airport,
freely donating words to any stranded
bystander willing to look her in the eyes.

In the already-written future,
she won’t land at our planned
seashore gathering, where we won’t,
without her, toss prayers and poems
into the salty air. Or we will,
her words large, owning the ocean’s voice
while the defiant cries of gulls
keep circling.

 

Winner of America Magazine’s 2019 Foley Poetry Prize, Lock Haven University English Professor Marjorie Maddox has published 11 collections of poetry—including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation and True, False, None of the Above—What She Was Saying(prose); children’s books; Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (co-editor); Presence (assistant editor). See www.marjoriemaddox.com

Celestial Jazz

Strange bodies, celestial, cannot be contained by ropes, rules of this life unfamiliar and foreign.
How can you contain such concepts?
How do you adhere?
Floating bodies passing through a sea of ideas,
large open mouths tasting excellence.
Oh, this life has taken its toll.

Rickey Rivers Jr was born and raised in Alabama. He is a writer and cancer survivor. His work has appeared in Picaroon Poetry, Elephants Never, Marias at Sampaguitas, Crepe & Penn (among other publications). Twitter.com/storiesyoumight / https://storiesyoumightlike.wordpress.com/ His third mini collection of 3×3 poems is available now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VDH6XG5

Primarily, No Purple

“Yeah, we found people breaking this rule once. They said they were doing fellowship.” The incredulous tone of the pastor said it all. The chapel murmured and muttered into a collective laughter. “Sure you are,” the laughter said. Teenagers; naive, stupid youth; never realizing how one thing leads to another. Fellowship! as if!

But that was exactly what we were doing. As the audience and leaders ridiculed the anonymous example, I shrank back on the inside. Winter Retreat was only feeling increasingly lonelier this time. It seemed that everyone, without knowing us, made assumptions about our relationship dirtier than things actually were.

The rule was simple, and I understood in the rush of our culture why the rule existed. “Let me put it this way,” I’ve heard many a counselor say. “The boy cabin is blue, the girl cabin is red[/pink]. [A pause]. No purple.” We were a retreat of Christian youth and in our faith, love was as precious as life and as significant as death—just as you wouldn’t want to meet your maker before your time, you shouldn’t want to awaken love before it so desires. This was also a certain kind of love that everyone alluded to but never addressed, as if everyone was bound to be twitterpated in the same way. It was this kind of mindset, and almost avoidant fear, that started to estrange the kinds of friendships I had.

I grew up with a motley group of friends in church, that my mom once admired for its diversity. “I like how you’re all different ages and grades and have guys and girls,” she once said. My mom, loving me so much and knowing our group so well, threw a unique sweet sixteen surprise for me, letting these friends in on the surprise. What with games of hide-and-seek, E.T.-referencing prayers, and Wreck This Journal, it became probably the most childlike and tomboyish sweet sixteen I knew, and it was perfect. What did surprise me, though, was when I leapt to hug one of my closest friends after opening his gift. After the party, my mom said, with an awkward frown, “I know you’re excited…but no hugging boys.”

And so the differences began. I had to break it to my closest friends that as pure as our intentions were, we were never allowed to have that slumber party, even if guys slept in another room. As far as we imagined, we were just going to hang out like we always did, the only difference being the nighttime setting, allowing us to share deep discussions like in lock-ins. But apparently, not at our house, because you know, one thing always leads to another, and better safe than sorry.

I understand where this mindset comes from and I understand the concern parents have. I understand how the norm is, how society is, and I understand the Christian’s heart in valuing—and waiting for—intimacy. What I think is difficult for the community to understand, however, is that there are different kinds of intimacy besides the kind to procreate.

Julie Rodgers, one of the most authentic and life-loving speakers I’ve ever heard visit my school Point Loma Nazarene University, spoke on these different kinds of intimacy: all equally wholesome and blessed and good. While exploring her identity and the then possibility of celibacy, she expressed how humanity was not created to be alone—but even those who don’t end up marrying and having sex can wholly experience intimacy. There is such a closeness in cooking pasta together with neighbors, a pleasure in playing football with someone you share so much in common with, a depth of awe and wonder in really “doing life” with people in your church. And we miss that, sometimes as a church, when all we can think of as the end-all goal is getting married and starting a nuclear family. When we don’t need to contribute to the family that church is supposed to be, when we think having our own literal families to take care of is enough. Where does that leave people who don’t quite get that ring by spring? Are they less whole for not having found that complementary other half? Romantic love is a crazy-amazing-beautiful thing, but it isn’t the only thing.

Hearing Julie speak, I got the sense of clarity and felt less alone in the world. She gets it, I thought. I had never heard someone describe the desire of my life so deeply, fully, empathetically.

And although Julie has since grown to love and blissfully marry a woman—which I celebrate—and it turns out I am oriented differently, her advocacy for the necessity of platonic love even then still rings true for me today.

I go back to environment in the church I grew up with. My closest friends there happened to be guys, and sometimes at our church, for whatever reason, there was a segregation of the sexes. Girls happened to conglomerate here, while guys gathered over there. In youth groups, even after just a movie night, we split up by gender in order to discuss the movie. And for whatever reason (based on my ability to relate, not to be taken as an accurate picture of these individuals’ complexities), I felt I could relate better to the guys there, have soul-searching conversations about what something really meant or symbolized. After The Young Messiah, the girls’ group speeded through worksheet questions about how Jesus was so pure for not fighting back when bullied as a child (and how we should follow that example). We lightly prayed and made fun of the slowpoke guys as we got to the snacks first. Meanwhile, I saw the circle of the guy small group from afar, especially my friends, deep in some conversation. I longed to talk to them about the film. How Jesus believed the girl who killed to defend herself against a drunk assaulter to be innocent.

I get that not everyone’s comfortable with the idea of co-ed groups, but why couldn’t we learn from each other?

“Always have your best friend be the same gender as you, or else you will fall in love, and it will break you,” a Sunday School series on purity instructed us. “Also don’t date until you’ve been friends first.”

(Okay, that one I can understand—if dating was toward a goal of marriage, it was bizarre to me why anyone would date any stranger with great hair).

“Always have your accountability partner be the same gender as you—but not your best friend, or else they’ll just agree with everything you do.”

These rules were getting hard to keep track of.

Though I could see the concern about flings in our age group, how does one regulate others’ developing friendships? Though I understood the necessity of defining relationships and being on the same page, how does one prescribe a now-or-never relationship? And if the only friends who really got me happened to be of a different gender, why should the only way to pursue our Christ together follow the ways of what society has hyper-defined us as? Jesus broke all the social norms of His day and with pure intentions had deep conversations with women. Why can I not with pure intentions have deep conversations with men?

Maybe I’m not preaching to the choir but to a minority within a minority. Maybe the majority of men and women experience an irresistibility I don’t. Okay, I might be starting to sound like Max the “airhead virgin” in Hocus Pocus who lit a candle because he didn’t heed warnings what it would bring. I can’t speak for everyone, I can’t speak for the guys, and I’m not here to prescribe to you any certain lifestyle.

But I think back to the night we broke the rules of Winter Retreat. We were wrestling with questions of faith, doubts, and identity. We tried to have conversations in our separate gendered small groups, but as friends our motley crew met up afterwards. A cabin game of mafia turned into a light in the darkness, when we shared about real life concerns in a space of true empathy. The next night, after 10pm praise and worship, we approached each other naturally.

“Are we doing the thing?” “Yeah, we’re doing the thing.” We knew where to meet, and we sat on the cold wooden floor and just talked. My friend, whom I’ll call Diaval, had even brought along a new girl, new to our churches, new to Christianity, really. (Let’s call her Kiara). Then and there we showered her with our raw thoughts about our church, about what was awkward and difficult and yet what was hopeful and good and kept us believing. A Winter Retreat of equally lamenting in doubts grew into a reminder of why we still had our faith. That night, we even referenced Harry Potter’s discovery of identity in magic as a way of describing to Kiara the powerful identity of being children of God. Caught between wanting to listen and wanting to talk, I could barely get a word in. A little annoying, not gonna lie, but that was how passionate our circle was to jump in and speak truth. Diaval then asked that we pause, and Kiara said she was overwhelmed at what all the community in this faith means.

Suddenly, the cabin door barged open on us. “OH MY GOD!” someone yelled. A bright light flashed in. A cluster of adults and another girl were waiting outside. We were busted.

Not only was it late, but turns out they had been going around from cabin to cabin in the snow searching for Kiara. They had all been so worried about her. Their focus, of course, was her safety, and this fear that she had run away or come to harm. There was such relief that she was found. In the arms of the girl who led the search, Kiara cried. She hadn’t intended to “run away;” she didn’t realize people would care so much about her missing. Inside I started to worry how the search group saw us, this late-night group of teenagers snuck away in a cabin. Did we look like we kidnapped her—or worse, led her astray?

Well, I guess the following year at Winter Retreat, when the pastor made an anonymous example of us, I got my answer. Luckily none of us had gotten into trouble, and luckily we weren’t called out by name, but sadly people didn’t believe we were sincerely trying to do fellowship in the warmest setting and most platonic sense. The adults seemed to believe teenagers were only thinking about one thing all the time, maybe even especially the guys.

I think back to that secretive, hideaway night. That night we were Lost Boys in a fast-growing world, falling and trying to find our happy thoughts again. We were Wild Things as a forest grew in our room, and we wanted to be where we were loved most of all. And we just talked. We were so real, and contemplating, just contemplating, what it means to hope.

 

Ellen Huang holds a BA in Writing and a minor in Theatre from Point Loma Nazarene University. She has pieces published/forthcoming in HerStry, South Broadway Ghost Society, Moonchild Magazine, and Gingerbread House, among others. She lives in San Diego with queer Christian friends. Follow her creative work: worrydollsandfloatinglights.wordpress.com