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Photo by Bessie Senette

What if we could see the future before it happens?  Would we run from it, try to change it, or prepare ourselves for what’s coming?

“Seeing is believing,” they say, but there is more beyond the veil than our limited vision can ever bring into focus. Imagine if we could see it all!

Soul Sight

The canopy between heaven and earth

Splits atoms until it disappears

Beyond the veil is unknowable

Learn to love the mystery

Confusion is not your enemy

Challenging the fog will only increase its density

Instead, empower wonderment

Observe what you can

Learn what matters — if only to you

Leave the rest to God

© 2016 Bessie Adams Senette

 

The Ultimate Oxymoron

Is there really such a thing as completion? ” Cutting the Clouds, A Bayou Mystic’s Poems, Musings, and Imaginings,” is finally ready to publish after more than 9 years of effort. This project has had its share of starts and stops and many synchronistic movements that led me through door openings of miraculous possibility. But is it finished? Of course not! Now the marketing begins.  Those of you who have followed my journey with this book know that it has been a labor of love and I thank you all for your encouragement. Now (as I am found of repeating) it takes a village to raise a Bessie, so I still need you all to help this healing book thrive. Soon I will be offering opportunities to host readings, workshops and retreats.  Check out the Engage Me Page and I will keep you posted on available dates.

Engage Me

This face doesn’t disguise easily,

Showing always

My thoughts, my feelings,

Heart-on-the-sleeve reality.

 

Who could guess that I feel shy sometimes?

Inferior, insecure

Showing confidence could be play-acting

Always questioning

Have I loved enough?

 

Sometimes I mistake confidence for arrogance,

Or is it the other way around?

I’m not sure I know myself well enough yet to discern which is which.

Yet, when I speak to gatherings

From center stage

Transformation happens.

 

No longer doubtful,

Absent childish wounding,

I am whole again.

It’s how God made me.

It’s why I’m here.

So engage me and watch me shine.

 

© 2016 Bessie Adams Senette

 

When was the last time you had a deep, sustained, belly laugh? I remember when my boys were infants they would laugh at a funny face or an unexpected sound I made. I have friends who make me laugh, but more often it’s just a chuckle. I miss that side-aching, tear-inducing, loud laughter. When did I abandon that childlike state of being? I long for the voice of my inner child to sing nursery rhymes and tell knock-knock jokes and play silly pranks. It’s all in good fun after all. Fun is under rated. When you next see me, tickle my funny bone to see if I have remembered how to laugh out loud. LOL

 

Image credit to shan1711.tripod.com

Cosmic Child

She channels love energy through her eyes,

Her heart, and her hands.

She opens her mind, body, and spirit

To the wounded souls who are lucky passers-by.

She is the Cosmic Child

Sent to point the way,

Though few understand where she is pointing.

Her blood is the blood of a savior.

Her bones contain the memories of creation.

She bleeds into our hearts and the memories flow into our marrow,

Granting us a glimpse of our original face —

The child of wonderment.

 

If we listen closely

Songs of the first sequoias,

The lost worlds,

Atlantis and Lemuria,

Oceans before Pangaea,

Rise and fall

Through her lyrical breasts,

Nourishing our infant souls,

Inviting us to join our corporal

Yet-to-be form

Reforming the bindings into

Remembered laughter.

 

When such a Mother calls

Run, don’t walk

Into her arms!

Follow her heartbeat back to joy

Let the new song play

Double Dutch,

Patty Cake,

Ollie, Ollie, Outs in free,

Hop the scotch,

And let it be.

© 2016 Bessie Adams Senette

Photo by T Senette

I sometimes let my self get caught up in dooms-day rhetoric. Woe is the world! I forget to look past the ignorance into the heart of the matter. What is really happening? Systems are failing. Belief is informed by circumstance. What can we learn from our mistakes? Are we wise enough to rebuild systems that work for everyone? Can we be peacemakers in spite of the rhetoric? Is God at work here, giving us a chance to press the restart button?

May Day Prayer

May the day come when

All that May Day heralds is

The blooming of the human spirit,

Not the booming of warship cannons and

Bombastic politicians.

Let the celebration of sacred creation

Inspire our dancing.

Let the lilies and roses

Plaster a new path where

Common, human decency

Reigns queen.

Let the sonnet be

Written in love letters not

Gutless, bathroom stall insults.

May Day!

May Day!

This ship is sinking.

Where are the Peacemakers?

Still dancing around the Maypole.

© 2016 Bessie Adams Senette

THE VOICE OF LONGING

Sometimes I long for things I did not get and wonder how different I would be if I had gotten what I longed for, you know, the what if’s.  I suspect that the mystery will always take precedence over the knowing. But longing is the energetic force that dreams are made of so, whatever the evolution of my experiences, I continue to long and create more dreams. I believe that is humanity’s divine design.

REBIRTH

Above my reach

Looking into the womb space of a giant oak

Long ago a felled branch left gaping.

An infant could cradle there.

 

Must and mites invite my longing child.

Fill the emptiness,

Spirit of mysterious hope,

With the wonderment of not knowing.

 

Why and how disintegrate.

So many new lives thrive inside the rot,

Feeding on the sorrow of lost dreams.

Look higher into the dappled light

Through spring green,

There are dreams yet unfolding.

© 2016 Bessie Adams Senette

A Listening Sanctuary

In this cacophonous world perhaps it is necessary to cultivate a sense of heart listening, creating a space for re-sensitizing  the connection between our ears and heart. The planet is filled with such places. One doesn’t have to travel far or at all to see beauty that stills the heart and awakens wonderment. Be still and know…YOU are all that; the cacophony, the stillness, the beauty, the heart that listens!

God’s Software

Let’s download the upgrade.

This binary code universe could use some jazzing up.

He rested on the seventh day, so the story goes.

Still he sleeps.

What will it take to wake him up to bring about the eighth day?

–A barrage of prayer

–Another atomic blast

–A single original thought?

Perhaps if we stop the cacophony of his creation for just one minute,

Silence would wake him.

But can we live without

–Birdsong,

–Baby laughter, or

–Brooks babbling

For even one minute?

No, the eighth day won’t come until our hard drive

Is made compatible with God’s software.

© 2015 Bessie Adams Senette

 

LONGING TO SPEAK BUT FIRST LET’S LISTEN

 Active listening is the skill set of a mature spirit. How many times have I been guilty of interrupting someone, convinced that what I have to say is more important? Cultural influences play a role in the development of listening skills certainly, but what responsibility do I have in developing greater listening skill? Technology is creating an environment that seems to approve of poor listening. We can now shout out our opinions anonymously to a global audience and choose not to listen to arguments against that opinion with one keystroke. What am I missing when I refuse to listen?

Lightening

The Lightening Rod

Catches the Lightening.

 

Be careful what you write,

Someone might read it.

 

Be careful what you say,

Someone might hear it.

 

Be careful where you go,

Someone might see you.

 

Be careful what you think,

It could lead to action

Bringing down the lightening.

 

Listen first, then

Take a chance,

Be the Lightening Rod!

© 2015 Bessie Adams Senette

Presently, our world is experiencing so many tragic deaths from natural disasters, war, famine, disease and senseless violence. It seems rare for someone to die of natural causes    and perhaps more rare to die in one’s own bed with the loving care of family members. Both of my parent lived long, full, lives and were cared for at home until their last breath.

For 61 years 5 months and 16 days I could identify with the role of daughter. Being parentless does not leave me feeling orphaned. Instead, I feel accomplished, the role of daughter is complete. I am still a wife, a mother, a seeker of a deeper spiritual identity. I was blessed with two loving parents for a time and barring an unthinkable tragedy, I will leave behind two sons one day. I do wonder how they will identify me then and if they will feel orphaned or accomplished.

 

Musing: Recognition                   Excerpt from, ” Cutting the Clouds…”

 Identify Me

There is a tiny birthmark on my left foot about an inch above my little toe–just a dark dot about the size of the head of a pin. I see it every day when I bathe and I wonder if anyone else has noticed it.

In Haiti, a man on a big machine lifts the bloated bodies of earthquake victims into a trench for mass burial. Does the man wonder if one of these is his neighbor or perhaps even a relative? Is there a unique birthmark visible that could identify them? For these precious ones there will be no chance for identification. No burial with friends and family to share a memory, or pray a blessing or cry their grief into the funeral clothes of the loved one.

These thoughts make me want to show my birthmark to everyone I know, just in case, you know, to identify me.

© 2015 Bessie Adams Senette

A Wellness Exercise

Can you remember the last time you felt truly joyful and carefree? How old were you and what were you thinking or doing at the time? How difficult is it to recall that joy and how long can you hold your focus on the memory? Do you know that focusing on a joyful memory can release the same endorphins as though the event were happening right now? Restorative healing can happen when we let go of the woeful stories and embrace our blessings.

 

Original Art by Sara Blair McNally

The most profound loss of my life has been the loss of myself. Wanting desperately to feel loved and avoid rejection, I molded myself to please others. Indeed I became a shape shifter. If you were an owl I would be a field mouse, allowing you to devour me, solely to please you. In this way, I lost myself, one little field mouse at a time. The ghosts of all those mice haunted me until I began the inward journey to reclaim them. It was grueling to get all those owls to regurgitate those tiny bones and even harder to remember the particular characteristics that would flesh them out again. Still, I persevered. It became an expedition. Having gathered and fleshed out all those sacrificial mice, I was still bereft of identity; all those mice, but no life in them. Reclaiming wholeness while identifying parts seemed an impossible task. Then, I remembered one characteristic of the owl that helped: long-sighted vision. I had to step back and get a broader view. Following the guidance of my inner owl, one by one, I swallowed each mouse and once again they were alive and reanimated aspects of me long forgotten. Inside me now lives an owl and many mice.

© 2016 Bessie Adams Senette

Photo by David Senette: “Christmas Flowers”

Prodigy Envy

If everyone could know at a young age what they were destined to become, would it change all of our social systems? A child prodigy not only excels at a particular skill but is driven to perform that skill and never seems to tire of it. It is more than just being passionate about something. It is that they are created for it. It’s in their DNA.

Statistically, what is the number of people who have college degrees, even post-graduate degrees who are actually working in their field of study? How many people have worked years at a white color job, even excelled at it, only to discover that they really just wanted to be a farmer? I sometimes envy those who are certain of their identity. It seems to me that knowing what your purpose and value is to humanity sooner rather than later can be both rewarding and treacherous. It took me a long time to be comfortable in my own skin. I suspect I share that sentiment with many others.

I am What I am.

Does the seed wonder what it will become?

If it’s a daisy, does it want to be a bean instead?

When it becomes a beautiful flower,

Does it think that its roots are too short,

Or its petals are too far apart,

Or its color is a shade too flamboyant?

 

I watch a bird pecking at something

Perhaps a bug or a worm

In the cement birdbath that we grew tired of cleaning

Resorting to using it as a planter instead.

 

I wonder if this is the same bird that

Bathed in the sun-warmed water last summer.

It doesn’t seem to care that the water isn’t there.

Perhaps it’s a different bird or maybe it has

Already forgotten what used to be.

I can relate,

What I am now is far more interesting.

 

I look in the mirror and smile.

What an absurd creation I am,

As though source of creation

Thought it might be fun to use only spare parts from

Leonardo da Vinci’s atlas of anatomy.

I no longer care that my legs are short

And my wrinkles are deepening,

I still have a twinkle in my eye.

Like Popeye,

I am what I am.

 

© 2015 Bessie Adams Senette