Our Words Have Wings - Artists, Animals and Alchemy

One last April morning, I entered my office for a moment of quiet. As I walked in the door, I glanced at the bookshelf and heard: "Maybe there's a poem that speaks to me."

It's only been late in life that I've paid attention to the sayings and hearings of my Inner Voice. I don't know if it's been there all along and I've been too busy to hear or if it's only shown up later in life. Fortunately dancing on the cusp of menopause has put me on pause.

From the shelf, I took "Poetry in English." Bought for a dollar at a sale, this book filled with poems some written over six hundred years ago reminds me of the young me who sat in the corner of the tiny elementary school library immersed in stories and poems especially those of nature.

Although I had taken the book from the shelf, I placed it beside me on the sofa in order to reflect on an owl I had previously come upon. I sat pondering the owl when IV said: "What if this book holds a poem about an owl?"

I turned to the index and there it was: Owl, The, p. 533 a poem by Edward Thomas* a poet of whom I had never heard but a poem that was certainly meant for me.

Three particular lines caught my attention.

"An owl's cry, a most melancholy cry....
Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice."

I was immediately reminded of a memorial in Orleans, France to the half million American soldiers who died on European soil in two world wars. The bodies of just over 67,000 of those men were never found, never returned home to family or to American soil. I've stood before that memorial while realizing we've the capacity to bring healing to the spirits of these men and call them home through intention and the vibration of love.

The night prior to this poems finding me, I fell asleep with the thought "Our words have wings" repeating in my mind. The owl's cry, vibrational wings, expressed what those laying under the stars could not.

What a beautiful example of animals and artists as alchemical vessels of healing as the author through the owl was a witness to the lives of the soldiers and poor.

I thanked the owl and poet then wrote a prayer: May my words comfort those unable to rejoice. May my heart hear their sorrow and bring them deep peace and rest.

I didn't know until later in the day that this particular morning marked the beginning of the Civil War. While running errands, I caught a radio interview with an author discussing the wars start 150 years prior.

I've never really been into the civil war. I'm not into war in general. Even today it seems to affect those referenced by the poet, the soldiers and the poor, most deeply since many people of wealth benefit from war through financial investments in the military industrial complex.

I've also never really gotten why people do the re-enactment thing. I've wondered if on some level folks are trying to reach a new conclusion to an old story. The author being interviewed spoke of commemorating those who died rather than celebrating the civil war. This was something I could definitely hold and consider.

I ran my errands along Nashville's streets reminded of the traumatic endings to thousands of lives in that four year period and how the energy of these lives lost is still held by the land, much of the land on which I was driving. Suddenly I realized re-enactments do hold the potential for reaching a new ending to an old story!

These times hold the seeds for deep re-enactment with a profound healing resolution thanks to the heart's capacity for alchemy. Just as our words have wings the expressions of the heart have wings that can change the structure of energy turning torment into rest and grief into peace.

These times offer a beautiful, grace-filled opportunity. People of heart and higher consciousness are integral in reaching a very new conclusion to an old story.

Artists, the animals and we bear witness to the depths of what's possible in the higher and deeper story.

We and memory-filled Earth hold the gold the alchemists sought. It is carried within in our hearts of gold wherever we go.

*After Story*

I just rediscovered this story after having started it nearly two months ago. I've had an extremely hard time completing it and have been so tired every time I tried. Much of my weariness comes from living with a huge heart on this dear planet. I am drained, not by sadness, but by my resistance to allowing sadness to flow through me. My heart becomes blocked and I begin to walk through my life disconnected, on autopilot.

This morning I determined to find some way to bring this piece to completion. It was only after doing so that I searched to see who this Edward Thomas man was, the man who wrote the poem that spoke to me.

Tears flow down my face now as I write because I just learned Mr. Thomas was considered a war poet. Already an accomplished British writer at a young age, he turned to poetry at the age of 36. He then enlisted in the army the following year with the Artists' Rifles, a volunteer arm of the British army, consisting of professional painters, musicians, artists and architects.

Mr. Thomas was killed in the war soon after arriving in France and was buried in a small northern French village.

This is the profound beauty of art. Thomas Edwards died yet his spirit lives on in "The Owl" and other works. Thomas Edwards died yet his spirit lives on through me.

Our words have wings lifting vibrations in the present and down the corridors of future history.

Imagine the Shift !

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 10 June 2011