Poem in honor of childhood memories of the holidays, and my father, who left this world earlier this year (break from regular blog):
We used to watch thecandles burn to a tip as Mahalia Jackson melted our hearts with song, deep with longing. We used to walk to mass at midnight under falling snow because church was nature and the ritual of being together. We used to sing songs in German, English, and childlike play, my father eagerly singing Five Golden Rings because that's all he knew and it was his special verse to share. Holidays where about coming together, and slowing down long enough to let the night arrive, inch by inch, on Christmas Eve ... and never leave us.
My Novel, Child of Duende: A Journey of the Spirit, is about coming home to that place of ritual and connectedness. It’s available on Amazon at Amazon Page or at http://www.michelleadam.net. It can be ordered at a local bookstore as well. Also, watch a brief video on “duende”, “the spirit of the earth”: YouTube Video
g by the fire in my temporary Santa Fe home in New Mexico’s high desert. Back from a brief trip to California, I’m reading Malidoma Some’s book, Of Water and Spirit. Malidoma’s words transport me to his village of Burkina Faso, West Africa, where he grew up and was later kidnapped by Jesuits who attempted, unsuccessfully, to infuse their values into him before he escaped back home. I’m drawn to Malidoma’s description of his people’s rituals and their deep, deep connection to the unseen world that is intricately and magically woven into their lives. I know that feeling of running from a sterile environment that doesn’t weave the sacred into the ordinary.
the gift of a bag of condoms, of all things, and I decide somewhere during that night that I am no longer interested in having a relationship with Richard (it probably didn’t help that Richard, who drove up with Eric and his mother, actually asked Eric’s Jewish mother what she thought of German concentration camps!)
Michelle Adam 