Priestess, When Did You Lose Your Head Dress? {Poetry}

By Anita Grace

Priestess, when did you lose your Head Dress?

Beloved I have come to remind you of your internal compass,

Guiding you toward goodness.

You speak of guilt and shame, temptation and unruly thoughts.

As a child one never imagines she will end up behind bars, locked away from society—a common criminal.

You are someone’s daughter.

If your earthly parents did not know better to tell you of your royal bloodline, it should be my honor.

There is no past. There is no future. Just here and now where you make your peace, in this body you very well may abhor.

I have crept into the wilderness of your heart when the darkness returned to breathe you into newness of life. With each exhale, I, with a force and power heretofore unknown to you, release you from the ties that bind.

Emptying the trashy contents of your mind.

I have come prepared to speak words of SURETY and CERTAINTY. Without a doubt, you once walked and talked like no other, the natural one.

You did not pose, nor attempt to impress, attracting that devil named greed.

Once, you robustly sang lyrics of a long-forgotten song in a langel and doss soap shop, smelling the fragrance of the sandalwood (love) and the rose(hate), and scrunching up your nose to show exactly what you thought.

As you lay sobbing and crumpled like a page torn our of a diary, mumbling about having lost something, not sure exactly what or where, in a hushed tone I say—I see through your temporary break down and remind you that a bad day for the ego is a celebration of the soul.

I shall sing leonard cohen’s infamous tune about cracks and light and shattering and all things working toward the highest good, if only you can surrender to the pain.

This pain—name it.

It desires freedom! Exhale! Let it go…

I will you draw you into the nonjudgmental space and capture the cruciform juxtaposition of good and evil.

Where gray pervades and paints broad strokes until the time comes to step back into the light, out of darkness where dirty underground creatures dwell.

Your birthright is one of

phoenix and pegasus

star, ash, flame and all things vivid and taking flight

refusing to classify the profane as wrong

preferring crow-speak over hummingbird

prison over church

it’s an upside-down and backwards proposition

replete with lullabies and magic.

Because the darkness will revisit and you will likely forget for a while. So gaze into my soul as I whisper ‘you are a priestess.’

Pressing onward with purity of devotion

to transcend

beyond the cheating heart

and spiritual bankruptcy

you are clothed in moonbeams

and crowned in angelic halo

you cannot feel

the stardust in your veins

and so I hold up a mirror that unveils its sparkle

an invitation: place your hands over your heart

and repeat

‘this is the place where truth lives.’

Hello self that desires to FEEL—ALIVE, PASSION, Connection…these are not WRONG!

My words spin out across space and time reaching into your heart and shaking it— wake up!

You are BEATING

if i’m not a mirror then I should drain my pen

Anita Grace lives in NJ with her husband, two teenagers and golden retriever, Sierra. They live by the family mantra, “Either everything is a MIRACLE or nothing is!” She enjoys keeping life simple; filling each day with natural beauty, writing, yoga, cooking and meditation. Writing, as spiritual practice and connection has deepened the natural healing and awareness of life’s blessings. Anita Grace enjoys sharing her gifts with the physically incarcerated while recognizing many of us are not liberated from the trappings of the mind. You can find her at SmilingheartYoga.org.