Dear Lake, Dear Painter, Dear Analemma,

Somewhere across the ocean there is a lake and a woman makes her way there in search of out of season strawberries and the water that holds within it her name. 

Somewhere across the ocean there is an island and a woman makes her way there leaving her paintings under the desert sun knowing they will be there for her when she returns. 

Somewhere across the ocean there is a body, a collective body and from the alternate side parking waiting game, a woman claims her spot in the arms of this body, in the heart of the earth to which we all belong. 

I lie on my bed 

Belly down 

The night creeping into the afternoon early now 

I wonder what is on the other side of this ocean

Is there a bridge to get me there 

A doorway that longs for an altar

Last week I hosted a gathering at the Poetry Project and created an altar at the doorway

White fabric and four bowls, a flower

A stone

People had to step on the fabric and through the altar as they entered

I wanted people to feel their bodies entering 

Notice their feet a the threshold 

Our lives are made up of a series of transitions

From day to night 

From winter to spring, around and back again 

We pass through thresholds every day, to leave the room

To enter the house 

And we do the same 

As we step in and out 

Through and beyond

And back again

Ceremony is meant to mark these thresholds 

These transitions 

Both the quiet ones and the ones that change everything in their wake

What ocean are you swimming in? 

What horizon do your eyes hold? 

In January I will be teaching a course through Poetry Forge called Sacred Bridge. This course will guide you through the process of creating and performing a ceremony to honor a life transition.The course will begin with supporting you in articulating your transition and intention. The heart of the course will consist of you composing a ceremony that reflects your particular needs and performing the ceremony on your own but with the support and accountability of our intimate community. Our journey will close with a space to share and time to reflect upon the experience of moving through your ceremony and being your own Ceremonialist. 

On 11/30 I will be offering time for free one on one conversations with anyone who would like to share about a transition they are moving through and learn more about this course. 

May you feel your feet at the edge of the lake 

May you feel your feet on the island of your ancestors 

May you feel your feet as you stand shoulder to shoulder with other bodies of resistance. 

I am moved by the way people reimagine the stories they have been told 

I am moved by the curiosity with which people take up their existence 

Hold it to the light 

And walk across the bridge at dawn. 

"Part of why I initially reached out to Georgia was that even though I was struggling with these feelings on a regular basis, it was hard to appreciate how real they were and take them seriously enough to set up a meaningful encounter with them. I had hoped that working with someone else’s guidance could offer a different sort of grip, and it really did. The ritual map set up a material path of writing and ceremonial action, a way to approach my feelings with gravity but also openness, and through tactile processes that I could see and experience. Alongside the notes I took before, during, and after my ritual, the ceremony also produced a few relics that remain in my life as reminders of the different things I learned through this experience."

-M. V.

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