Heart of a Gladiola in my garden
of Rosa Mystica at Wisdom House.
of Rosa Mystica at Wisdom House.
Photo by Alla Bozarth
LET US SEE
LET US DISRUPT
LET US ACT
LET US SEE
LET US DISRUPT
LET US ACT
LET US DISRUPT WORKS OF MALICE
LET US REBUILD BROKEN SOCIETY
LET US BE IN SOLIDARITY
LET US BE IN PEACE
LET US REBUILD BROKEN SOCIETY
LET US BE IN SOLIDARITY
LET US BE IN PEACE
There is an alternative to despair. There is an alternative to fear.
There is an alternative to helpless rage. There is an alternative to
giving up. And that alternative is to act from the depths of hope and do
what you can to create positive change, without being discouraged or
stopped by naysayers, including yourself, who would be dismissive of
hope. Does it take courage? Indeed, yes, and that's what we pray
for~Give me Guts and Strength, O God~ occasional "chutzpah" as needed.
Hope needs faith and love to complete it. Faith and love are the wings
of hope. That's where Divine Mystery comes in. Part of courage is a
balance between the polarities of conviction and detachment~ to be as
sure of what is right as can be, while remaining open to ongoing
revision as things change, and having no ego investment in what you are
doing or its outcome, which is true humility and a divine gift. God
alone has the full picture of anything, but as we are given glimpses of
corners and pieces of it, we have moments of neural recognition that do
not come from conscious opinions but seem inspired. Those are the
moments that launch us into action. God, go before me to prepare the
way, God be with me to bless what happens, God come after me to correct
my errors. And God bless the cowering hero in all of us. Amen. Alla Bozarth
"The cowering hero in all of us" is from the opening leaf of
WOMANPRIEST~
A PERSONAL ODYSSEY, revised edition, by Alla Renée
Bozarth, Luramedia, distributed by Wisdom House, 1988:
"This book is
dedicated to the cowering hero in all of us."
Read about the book here: http://allabozarthbooks.blogspot.com/
Order Womanpriest here:
http://bearblessings.com/products/womanpriest-a-personal-odyssey-revised-edition
Photo: CIVIL RIGHTS TREE OF SOULS by Anne Shams. Follow the link below to read the artist's explanation of this magnificent painting, a true Icon of Courage.
More of Anne Shams' Fine Art
Read about the book here: http://allabozarthbooks.blogspot.com/
Order Womanpriest here:
http://bearblessings.com/products/womanpriest-a-personal-odyssey-revised-edition
Photo: CIVIL RIGHTS TREE OF SOULS by Anne Shams. Follow the link below to read the artist's explanation of this magnificent painting, a true Icon of Courage.
Most of the poems below are from the Women Peace Laureates blog, and other posts listed in the margin of the link provided, where you will find many inspiring stories of women whose lives are dedicated to the creation of justice and the restoration of right relationships of humankind with the Earth and other species, and with one another~ women with men, adults with children, and mutual respect within diversity of thought in religion, politics, philosophy and ethics. http://allabozarthwordsandimages.blogspot.com/p/women-trees-and-sacred-earth15-women.html
If a book title is followed only by a copyright date, it is still in process and not yet published. Some of the poems below are from published books referred to on this page: http://allabozarthbooks.blogspot.com/
Published books and art cards can be purchased here: http://bearblessings.com/
See links to all my single theme blogs as well as the main one, "Welcoming Light in the Wilderness," by clicking "View my complete profile" in purple below the text in the right hand margin.
For sections that seem too small, remember to enlarge to your comfort by pressing Control (Ctrl, far left of lowest row on the keyboard) and the plus sign (+) on the far right of the numbers row at the same time, repeatedly as needed, and reduce the size by pressing Ctrl and the minus sign (-).
I wish you well-being, wisdom and light!
With love and deep blessings~Alla Renée Bozarth
The rose, "Heirloom" in my garden
of Rosa Mystica.
Photography by Alla Bozarth
For Antonia Brico, pianist and conductor, who was the first woman to conduct the New York
Philharmonic in 1938. I wrote this poem as a tribute to her on my
thirtieth birthday, four decades later, three years following my
participation in the group of eleven Episcopal women to break the
male-only barrier to the priesthood.
* * *
I have been asleep for ten years of my life,
but today am waking, waking~~
Aware of the seahorse
alone in his quiet lair,
the male mother who gives birth
laboriously in salt water, and
Aware of the male nanny grebe
who cares for the kids
while mother bird tests
her wings against the sun
for food to feed their young~~
Aware also of the countless gifts
of female energy that would surely
explode the world if they were known,
and go wasted, as if to spare the planet,
but instead, the plant dies with them~~
Aware of the beauty of old women’s
hands on young women’s shoulders
who take to the fluid process of science,
clay, bronze, steel, paint or poetry, or pound out
their magic music on primitive drums, on strings,
through horns, sending their lusty wail—
To Life! To Life!
Aware of these forces I wake
out of my middle years
to look into the infinite
eyes of my sisters, daughters,
mothers, Grand-and-Godmothers,
caught in their endless circle of energy,
created anew in their nurture, begin to see
the vast deep roots of my woman-nature
reaching around Earth and held in their
circular fire with great white waters
running under~
And wonder, for wonder,
how I shall ever sleep again—
Alla Renée Bozarth
Love’s Prism, Sheed and Ward 1987; Womanpriest:
A Personal Odyssey, revised edition 1988, Luramedia
and Wisdom House; Water Women, audiocassette,
Wisdom House 1990 and Stars in Your Bones,
Bozarth, Barkley and Hawthorne, North St. Press of St. Cloud 1990
Purple Irises and Coral Azaleas in my Garden of Rosa Mystica.
Photography by Alla Bozarth
Photography by Alla Bozarth
Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, 2004
“In the course of
history, there comes a time
when humanity is
called to shift to a new level
of consciousness, to
reach a higher moral ground.
A time when we have
to shed our fear and give hope
to each other. That
time is now.” Wangari Maathai, 1940-2011.
Wangari Maathai
Unbowed toward men
she bows only to Earth, our Mother.
She speaks truth to men with brutality
in their brains and they beat her and
imprison her, but while her body heals
her mind grows stronger and
her voice grows freer.
She continues to speak.
She speaks for our Mother
in a clear mother’s voice:
Harm not the Earth
nor Her children.
The men with brutality in their brains
beat her again when she demands
that they abandon their insane plan
to tear up a garden in the city and
replace it with another phallic skyscraper.
She wins that one.
Victory after victory, Earth wins
through her persistent labor.
She shows how poverty and the degradation
of Mother Earth and the oppression of women
and children are one crime against God the Creator.
She dreams of trees and plants them.
She dreams
of trees and plants them.
But it is not enough. She dreams of poor women
throughout the land receiving livelihood and
planting trees. She calls the women into
alliance— The Green Belt Movement.
She gives them momentum
and they do not stop moving.
Professor of veterinary science
and champion of all living beings,
she pays a small stipend to poor
women to plant trees.
One by one, the forests return to her homeland
of Kenya. She remembers the spirits of rivers
and streams she loved as a child.
She remembers how Mother Earth
used to be before the greedy men
with brutality in their brains
assaulted Her.
When personal and professional attacks come,
she runs for Parliament as candidate for
the National Rainbow Coalition and wins,
defeating the ruling party.
She is appointed Assistant Minister
in the Ministry for Environment
and Natural Resources. She founds
the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya
to allow candidates to run on
a conservation platform as modeled by
the Green Belt Movement. It becomes
a member of the Federation of Green Parties
of Africa and of the Global Greens.
When the people of France award her
the Legion of Honor in thanks,
the men with brutality in their brains
try to beat her.
When the world gives her
the Nobel Peace Prize for her work
to make peace between humanity and Earth—
the foaming-mouth men with brutality
in their brains try to beat her with words
and false accusations, but her Truth wins out.
She has left us now, but her Earthmother’s voice
rings loud and clear. Her true-speaking voice
rings loud and clear. She can be beaten no more,
and her spirit still speaks.
For all we who have heard and
been blessed by the truth
are her voices now. Inspiring
each other, we sisters and brothers
who hear and speak out for the future
give strength and hope to our children,
who will also speak out.
All you who hear today,
make it so for tomorrow—
Alla Renée Bozarth
Diamonds in a Stony Field
Copyright 2012.
Unbowed toward men
she bows only to Earth, our Mother.
She speaks truth to men with brutality
in their brains and they beat her and
imprison her, but while her body heals
her mind grows stronger and
her voice grows freer.
She continues to speak.
She speaks for our Mother
in a clear mother’s voice:
Harm not the Earth
nor Her children.
The men with brutality in their brains
beat her again when she demands
that they abandon their insane plan
to tear up a garden in the city and
replace it with another phallic skyscraper.
She wins that one.
Victory after victory, Earth wins
through her persistent labor.
She shows how poverty and the degradation
of Mother Earth and the oppression of women
and children are one crime against God the Creator.
She dreams of trees and plants them.
She dreams
of trees and plants them.
But it is not enough. She dreams of poor women
throughout the land receiving livelihood and
planting trees. She calls the women into
alliance— The Green Belt Movement.
She gives them momentum
and they do not stop moving.
Professor of veterinary science
and champion of all living beings,
she pays a small stipend to poor
women to plant trees.
One by one, the forests return to her homeland
of Kenya. She remembers the spirits of rivers
and streams she loved as a child.
She remembers how Mother Earth
used to be before the greedy men
with brutality in their brains
assaulted Her.
When personal and professional attacks come,
she runs for Parliament as candidate for
the National Rainbow Coalition and wins,
defeating the ruling party.
She is appointed Assistant Minister
in the Ministry for Environment
and Natural Resources. She founds
the Mazingira Green Party of Kenya
to allow candidates to run on
a conservation platform as modeled by
the Green Belt Movement. It becomes
a member of the Federation of Green Parties
of Africa and of the Global Greens.
When the people of France award her
the Legion of Honor in thanks,
the men with brutality in their brains
try to beat her.
When the world gives her
the Nobel Peace Prize for her work
to make peace between humanity and Earth—
the foaming-mouth men with brutality
in their brains try to beat her with words
and false accusations, but her Truth wins out.
She has left us now, but her Earthmother’s voice
rings loud and clear. Her true-speaking voice
rings loud and clear. She can be beaten no more,
and her spirit still speaks.
For all we who have heard and
been blessed by the truth
are her voices now. Inspiring
each other, we sisters and brothers
who hear and speak out for the future
give strength and hope to our children,
who will also speak out.
All you who hear today,
make it so for tomorrow—
Alla Renée Bozarth
Diamonds in a Stony Field
Copyright 2012.
MAGNIFICAT!
Magnificat~ A Latin word, in its usual context of the Song of Mary,
translated from the Gospel According to Luke and given the Latin verb ending of
"she, he or it," meaning, "My soul~ It magnifies," not only
in the sense of enlarging the thought or image of something (the Holy One in
Mary's case), but also of enlarging one's own soul by honoring another.
Magnificat~ An Homage
To Our Sister, Corita, and to Countless Women,Creative and
Intelligent, Who Follow in the Traditions of Expressive Artists, Knowledgeable
Scientists and Gifted Teachers in All Professions, with Dr. Wangari Maathai
representing her sister scientists and Earth Justice activists; and Women Who
Serve as Just and Wise Leaders in All Branches of Governance, and Who Strive
for the Restoration of Justice Rather than the Repetition of Primitive Revenge
in Law, Women Who Sit on Judges’ Benches in the Tradition of Deborah, of
Ancient Renown.
Now let us all magnify the memory
of those valiant women who came before us
and stood strong and tall in their womanly godliness
against the sputtering of hostile men who would
demean their dignity, cover their very faces
to keep them unknown and unthanked,
hidden in the kitchens and laundry rooms
where no egotistical man would stoop to go
lest his fragile, sometimes brutish
manliness be compromised.
of those valiant women who came before us
and stood strong and tall in their womanly godliness
against the sputtering of hostile men who would
demean their dignity, cover their very faces
to keep them unknown and unthanked,
hidden in the kitchens and laundry rooms
where no egotistical man would stoop to go
lest his fragile, sometimes brutish
manliness be compromised.
Those men still live, or their
sons live, who,
with grating blasphemy, carry on the tradition of hate
in the name of Christ or Allah or Gott or Dieu or Dio
or Dios, male versions of their truncated notions of God.
with grating blasphemy, carry on the tradition of hate
in the name of Christ or Allah or Gott or Dieu or Dio
or Dios, male versions of their truncated notions of God.
As their male-constructed god is
fearsome and
punishing toward his servants, so bigoted men
in his tyrannical image will allow women to exist
in service to their egos or appetites, women who
can be used for money, sex, cooking, cleaning,
childcare and social prestige, and some
for sadistic pleasure.
punishing toward his servants, so bigoted men
in his tyrannical image will allow women to exist
in service to their egos or appetites, women who
can be used for money, sex, cooking, cleaning,
childcare and social prestige, and some
for sadistic pleasure.
Reactionary senators have voted
against a bill
banning violence against women,
while respected male celebrities betray women
with dozens or hundreds of hollow seductions,
or rape them outright, cheered on by their brothers.
banning violence against women,
while respected male celebrities betray women
with dozens or hundreds of hollow seductions,
or rape them outright, cheered on by their brothers.
Those prestige-and-power-seeking
men who practice
the religion of suppression dismissed Sister Corita
when her bold art splashed loving colors all over
their cold gray world, and brought life into worship
and work, for her works shone with a vivid illumination
that made music of mere revelation.
the religion of suppression dismissed Sister Corita
when her bold art splashed loving colors all over
their cold gray world, and brought life into worship
and work, for her works shone with a vivid illumination
that made music of mere revelation.
Sisters, be true to the Wisdom
tradition
of womankind. Be faithful to the world come awake
because our mothers and sisters have called it by name,
Beloved of God, and shown it the beautiful souls of things.
of womankind. Be faithful to the world come awake
because our mothers and sisters have called it by name,
Beloved of God, and shown it the beautiful souls of things.
Malice met them in the male power
palaces because
the truth-telling of women frightened the brothers,
threatened to expose their abuses toward women
and children, threatened to reveal the hollowness
and absence of color which abusive men feared
to be the truth deep down in the void where their
shriveled and craven souls should have been alive
and large in their health and open generosity,
full of peace and joy, and not the self-pitying
desperation and resentment that drove them
into their dark and twisted places of pain.
the truth-telling of women frightened the brothers,
threatened to expose their abuses toward women
and children, threatened to reveal the hollowness
and absence of color which abusive men feared
to be the truth deep down in the void where their
shriveled and craven souls should have been alive
and large in their health and open generosity,
full of peace and joy, and not the self-pitying
desperation and resentment that drove them
into their dark and twisted places of pain.
But as artists show us, once the
world or
a single child has learned to see,
the spirit cannot fail to see, and in the seeing
to bring fresh air, both to compassion and
righteous anger for injustices done, blasphemies
committed by men and male-identified women
in the confusion of themselves with the male god,
and their subsequent demand for absolute obedience
to the old men and boy gods in clerical costumes
and their female lackeys, when they told women
and girls to be quiet, to stop learning, not to aspire
to~ or to get out of~ the professions, and when male
so-called colleagues tried and still try to castrate
the intelligence and undermine the earned and
rightful authority of women, and misogynist
cultures mutilate their bodies to serve the insecure
male ego’s insatiable lust for power and possession—
a single child has learned to see,
the spirit cannot fail to see, and in the seeing
to bring fresh air, both to compassion and
righteous anger for injustices done, blasphemies
committed by men and male-identified women
in the confusion of themselves with the male god,
and their subsequent demand for absolute obedience
to the old men and boy gods in clerical costumes
and their female lackeys, when they told women
and girls to be quiet, to stop learning, not to aspire
to~ or to get out of~ the professions, and when male
so-called colleagues tried and still try to castrate
the intelligence and undermine the earned and
rightful authority of women, and misogynist
cultures mutilate their bodies to serve the insecure
male ego’s insatiable lust for power and possession—
And when men of all classes and
cultures rape
and beat and sometimes murder their one-time
sweethearts and wives and do terrible things
to children, including their own—
and beat and sometimes murder their one-time
sweethearts and wives and do terrible things
to children, including their own—
Or when they imprison or bury
alive
the successes of women such as Rosalind Franklin,
the molecular biologist who discovered DNA and
was robbed of credit, and Nobel Peace Laureate
Wangari Maathai, the doctor of veterinary medicine
who restored forests and the economic independence
of women in her nation, or when men tell women
to forget about being priests of the Holy Mysteries,
to go home and be docile servants to their husbands
and families, or quiet and obedient nuns instead—
and above all, to banish, to squelch, to deny their visions
and dreams for a better world, and their determination
to come out of the darkness and make their authentic
and therefore dangerous, joyous visions into gifts of wonder
and wisdom which could enrich the whole world—
the successes of women such as Rosalind Franklin,
the molecular biologist who discovered DNA and
was robbed of credit, and Nobel Peace Laureate
Wangari Maathai, the doctor of veterinary medicine
who restored forests and the economic independence
of women in her nation, or when men tell women
to forget about being priests of the Holy Mysteries,
to go home and be docile servants to their husbands
and families, or quiet and obedient nuns instead—
and above all, to banish, to squelch, to deny their visions
and dreams for a better world, and their determination
to come out of the darkness and make their authentic
and therefore dangerous, joyous visions into gifts of wonder
and wisdom which could enrich the whole world—
And their minds and souls~
instead of being told
what to think and not to feel~ could grow and thrive
and lift their heads to the sun and sing the world
more alive and more in love with God, the Holy One,
and every living being, seen and unseen, because
they, because we, would be free to be ourselves
and to love whom we love and do and be
what we love, and so, in shining integrity,
live out our lives.
what to think and not to feel~ could grow and thrive
and lift their heads to the sun and sing the world
more alive and more in love with God, the Holy One,
and every living being, seen and unseen, because
they, because we, would be free to be ourselves
and to love whom we love and do and be
what we love, and so, in shining integrity,
live out our lives.
Alla Renée Bozarth
For the work in progress,
The Frequencies of Sound
Copyright © 2020
Circle of Fire
For the nine million women killed
for having too small feet, marks on their
bodies,
natural religion, desire toward their God,
love of each other, ancient wisdom; for
disobeying
husbands, for thinking for themselves, for
mystical
flight; for not cooking/speaking/sewing
pleasingly;
for keeping silence; for not keeping
silence; for
refusing the use and abuse of their bodies
and souls;
for healing with herbs by natural laws;
for ecstasy
as witches
for six hundred years in the Modern Era
And the more they killed
us
the more
WE GREW
When the mother goes out When the grandmother goes out
to her fields of wheat to her colors of amber
to her fields of maize to her colors of gold
to her fields of buckwheat to her colors of black
to her fields of rice to
her colors of crimson
to her fields of flowers to her beautiful rainbow colors
when the mother goes out when the
grandmother goes out
will she return will she
return
And
the more they killed And
the more they killed
us
us
the
more the more
WE GREW WE GREW
When the daughter goes out When the
sister goes out
to her paths of honey to
her wide roads
to her paths of brick to
her yellow roads
to her paths of labor to
her roads of diamond
to her paths of play to
her roads of coal
to her wonderful path of work to her
roads of cement
when the daughter goes out when
the sister goes out
will she return will
she return
And
the more they killed And
the more they killed
us
us
the more
the more
WE GREW WE
GREW
When
the friend goes out
to
her mines of emerald
to
her mines of tin
to
her mines of copper
to
her mines of amethyst
to
her mines of bodies
when
the friend goes out
will
she return
And the more they killed
us
the more
WE GREW
The priests and
prophets: We honor
The healers and
heroes: We honor
The farmers and
gardeners: We honor
The midwives
and miners: We honor
The judges and
geniuses: We honor
The astronomers
and physicists: We honor
The teachers
and poets: We honor
Their holy
lives: We honor
Their courage
to deviate
from
the subhuman norms
expected
of them:
We
honor
Their unjust
deaths: We honor
The
women accused: We remember
The
women burned: We remember
The
women shot: We remember
The
women torn: We remember
The
women pierced: We remember
The
women beaten: We remember
The
women flayed: We remember
The
women left unburied: We remember
The
women buried and forgotten: We remember
Until They Live Again
Nothing Will Grow…
Through
every devastation
We
endure
Through
every desecration
We
endure
Through
every destruction
We
endure
Through
every desolation
We
endure
Through
every dishonor
We
endure
Through
every despicable
MURDER
We
endure
Through
every horror
We
endure
Through
every harrowing
We
endure
Through
every blood-letting
We
endure
Through
every soul-spilling
We
endure
Through
every utter holocaust
We
endure
Through
every hidden history
We
endure
Through
every outrage of thunder
We
endure
Through
every circle of fire
We
endure
Unto ages of ages
We endure
Our
blood endures
Our
body endures
Our
soul which is One endures
Our
spirit and will endure
Our
minds endure
WE ENDURE AND ENDURE AND ENDURE
When
the living blood goes out
When
the blood of holy women goes out
When
the blood of happy women goes out
When
the blood of nurturing women goes out
When
the blood of needed women goes out
When
the blood of beloved women goes out
When
the blood of brave women goes out
When
the blood of harried women goes out
When
the blood of horrible women goes out
When
the blood of wise old women goes out
When
the blood of fierce young women goes out
When
all the light in the world goes out
When
the blood goes out of Us
WE
ENDURE
and
WE
SHALL RETURN
Alla Renée Bozarth
From the books,
Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys
by Alla bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne,
North Star Press of St. Cloud
1990, and
Accidental Wisdom by Alla Renée Bozarth
iUniverse 2003
All Rights Reserved.
This piece was scored as a cantata by Minneapolis composer Paul Boesing
in 1979 for a performance by Calliope Chorus, conducted by director Nancy Cox
at the Women's Art Registry of Minnesota~ WARM.
The Black Madonna of the Naval Cathedral of St. Nicholas, St. Petersburg, Russia
The Black Madonna of the Cathedral of Chartres, France
Black Madonna ~ Notre Dame Sous Terre
In 1793 the French Revolutionaries burned
the ancient 11th century Black Madonna
in the crypt of the Cathedral at Chartres
and made her cathedral a temple
to the goddess of reason.
the ancient 11th century Black Madonna
in the crypt of the Cathedral at Chartres
and made her cathedral a temple
to the goddess of reason.
Up in smoke.
What were they thinking?
Those men dedicated to reason,
replacing my body with hers —
defiling my body’s temple
that had endured five fires
and was rebuilt by angels.
So much for enlightenment.
The light my body gave them
when they put me in fire —
No illumination there.
Pear wood smells sweet
when it burns.
After three thousand years
I became incense,
the incinerated Goddess.
I was Auschwitz, Birkenau,
Cambodia, Hiroshima.
I was every evil conflagration
invented by man.
I was woman at the stake,
child in the ovens,
mother killed in childbirth,
grandmother gassed or shot down.
They could not sufficiently invade
my sanctuary of color and stone
until they burned my dark body
of earth. I was fruitful,
even in fire.
The hissing, crackling charred
cinders soared and so I ascended
into heaven, in the form by which
this church still honors and holds
me dear, not assumed, but ascending
on my own.
Yet I rain down sparks of myself
into human memory. I go deep.
Earth holds and hides me.
A hundred years later the tree
yielded me a new body.
Daughter of that same pear tree
gave me back to my people,
Our Lady of the Pillar.
Notre Dame Sous Terre
is my real name.
One day she came,
the one who knows me
from my roots.
She waited, then
the doors down below
were opened and she made
her own divine descent.
Down into Earth she spiraled
after me, knowing instinctively
where I waited, my pilgrim daughter
followed the labyrinth flower
down and down and all ways around.
She found me, stood where I live
underground. I felt her eyes,
her loving breath and gave back
breath and love.
At my Holy Well of the Strong
she stood in my strength and bent
down to receive my cool breath’s kiss,
to listen to the voice of my living
water coursing through Earth’s veins
like blood through the womb, like love
through the chambers of the heart.
There in my luminous darkness she prayed
by the fire of one candle where
water meets fire and both live.
Daughter, bring me back to the air.
Take me up with you into light.
Help me ascend to topsoil
and heal the world.
Heal the world with me.
Alla Renée Bozarth
The Book of Bliss, iUniverse 2000 and
This Mortal Marriage, iUniverse 2003.
This Mortal Marriage, iUniverse 2003.
Pear Wood
Every August, late,
or early September,
I walk, basket in hand,
down into my orchard
to gather pears.
The smallest of trees
is always most generous,
always bounty, abundance,
no matter what — drought,
blight, or barren neighbors.
She gives and gives forth fruit,
imperfect and blemished outside
but exquisite and fine within.
She is Empress in the garden,
providing both food and
sweet pleasure.
When the juice of pears
bathes my hands, seeps into my
skin,
the smell of pears fills the
house,
I thank her.
Peeling and cooking her juicy
gifts,
I understand why the ancient
Black Madonna at Chartres
is made of pear wood.
Its fruit is the shape of
woman-giving-birth, with its
body and soul
it creates miracles of
generosity.
It is often overlooked,
its gifts fallen back
into the ground.
It is faithful absolutely
unto death.
It is Earth at her best.
To taste it is joy.
Alla Renée Bozarth
The Book of Bliss
iUniverse 2000
iUniverse 2000
Visitors under the bountiful pear tree in my wild garden and orchard~
Photography by Alla Bozarth
The Spirit of Sojourner Truth as a
Preacher Today
For Pauli Murray and Barbara Harris,
with references
to Sojourner Truth’s famous speech delivered
in 1851
at the Women’s Convention in Akron,
Ohio, and also
references to Pauli Murray’s poetry
collection and autobiography,
Dark
Testament and Song in a
Weary Throat.
Among Sojourner Truth’s successors in our times—
Pauli Murray and Barbara Harris . . . black female
Episcopal priests
who know how to flex their brain muscle in the face of
white male
domination, and produce their Dark Testament of
suffering and
sing their song in a weary throat, saying “And Ain’t I
a Woman?”
to the white world, in hopes of giving it a little
healthy color,
and bringing back the commandment of Honor Thy Mother
to rescue wayward sons from self-made hells.
Do the right thing is what they mean.
The doors that were slammed in their faces
became the work-out equipment for their souls.
They pushed hard against them, and relentlessly,
and down came those doors for their daughters
like Joshua’s walls of Jericho came down
at the clear trumpet’s voice.
Mighty is the voice of a bright woman’s mind,
great are the words of a Spirited woman’s soul.
Heed them. Heed them all, for these our sistsrs
are as we, flesh of woman’s flesh, human child
of love gone wild in demand of freedom
for those born of her labor—
flesh of woman’s flesh, soul of woman’s soul—
and they shall not be bound.
They shall not be bound again on this Earth.
Let their sons dream dreams and their daughters have visions,
and let them work effectively and sing harmoniously
together,
in strength and respect, to restore conscience, truth
and hope,
to transform all the bound and broken world.
And as their sister, I accept my proud place behind
and beside them.
Gratefully, I follow them into the future, flexing my
soul
and lifting my voice with theirs to sing out freedom,
for Ain’t I a Woman?
Alla Renėe
Bozarth
From Diamonds
in a Stony Field © 2014
Pearls
You are pearls.
You began
as irritants.
The ocean pushed
your small, nearly
invisible
rough body
through an undetected
crack in the shell.
You began
as irritants.
The ocean pushed
your small, nearly
invisible
rough body
through an undetected
crack in the shell.
You got inside.
Happy to have a home
at last
you grew close
to the host,
nuzzling up
to the larger body.
You became
a subject
for diagnosis:
invader, tumor.
Perhaps your parents
were the true invaders
and you were born
in the shell—
no difference—
called an outsider
still.
Happy to have a home
at last
you grew close
to the host,
nuzzling up
to the larger body.
You became
a subject
for diagnosis:
invader, tumor.
Perhaps your parents
were the true invaders
and you were born
in the shell—
no difference—
called an outsider
still.
You were a representative
of the whole
outside world,
a grain of sand,
particle of the Universe,
part of Earth.
You were a growth.
And you did not go away.
In time
you grew
so large,
an internal
luminescence,
that the shell
could contain
neither you nor itself,
and because of you
the shell Opened itself
to the world.
Then your beauty
was seen
and prized,
your variety valued~
precious, precious,
a hard bubble of light~
silver, white, ivory,
or baroque.
If you are a specially
irregular and rough
pearl, named baroque
(for broke),
then you reveal
in your own
amazed/amazing
body of light
all the colors
of the Universe.
of the whole
outside world,
a grain of sand,
particle of the Universe,
part of Earth.
You were a growth.
And you did not go away.
In time
you grew
so large,
an internal
luminescence,
that the shell
could contain
neither you nor itself,
and because of you
the shell Opened itself
to the world.
Then your beauty
was seen
and prized,
your variety valued~
precious, precious,
a hard bubble of light~
silver, white, ivory,
or baroque.
If you are a specially
irregular and rough
pearl, named baroque
(for broke),
then you reveal
in your own
amazed/amazing
body of light
all the colors
of the Universe.
Alla Renée Bozarth
"Pearls" is in these books and audiotape, Womanpriest: A
Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978; revised edition Luramedia and Wisdom
House 1988; Water Women,
audiocassette, Wisdom House 1990; Stars
in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys, Alla Renée
Bozarth Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne, North Star Press of
St. Cloud 1990 and Accidental Wisdom,
iUniverse 2003. All rights reserved. For more information or permission to
reprint, write to Alla at allabearheart@yahoo.com.
Impression~ Sunrise, by Claude Monet
The Morning When the
World of Art
Was Awakened to Light
No longer, if ever, seduced
by convention or competition,
serene in the gift of eccentric vision,
the painter went out in a tiny
studio boat with his box of colors
and his roll of canvas, to paint
light on the water— on the water.
Monet left Paris to the Academy
des Beaux Arts and went home
to the port town of Le Havre
on the sea and sat afloat
in service to beauty.
With every nerve he desired a new way of seeing
as the hungry cry of gulls circled over the harbor.
Then, divine inspiration saw
his soul and eye laid open, and entered.
Earth wrapped him and his little boat
in her best light of morning.
She sang to him as if angels carried
pure and naked color itself to his eyes
in the fast-shaping music of light.
In the color of first break of morning,
splendor alighted as wonder.
Quickly, quickly, fast as you can
dove his brushes into the blues, the whites,
the fleeting coral fire of the sun and laid them
as on a three-way seeing mirror to water and sky,
full and spilling with dimension— the background
harbor,
a few other small boats out early on the Seine where
it fell into the wide embrace of the sea.
Human presence implied in the clutter of smoke stacks
straight up in the sky over land, but even they were overtaken
by bluewhite morning in a radiance of sunlight.
Two boats. Two human beings in one,
a fishing crew in the other, perhaps,
as if stilled by wonder, caught
forever in awe of the moment,
or perhaps, simply inured and unable
to see where they were, to be in the light,
to become that broken blue, that unbroken white,
the dazzling red-orange sun scattering itself,
penetrating cloud and current and the seeing eye,
falling in love with a world first born and reborn in light.
A man in his early thirties saw and his hands
flew like racing birds with the current of vision.
He saw and felt the impression so keenly
he called the painting Impression:
Sunrise.
He gave us the gift, the work, the moment,
to see us through our own dark days and gray evenings.
He gave us dazzling bright morning,
the essence of water, the heart of the sun.
Alla Renée Bozarth
The Frequency of
Light
Copyright 2016
The Winter Egg by Carl Fabergé
The basket of flowers was the surprise inside. This is signature for Fabergé eggs, always a significant surprise to be discovered upon opening the beautiful egg, as happens when a bird's egg cracks open to allow a new life to emerge.
Muriel Rukeyser said,
"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open."
From her poem about Kathe Kollwitz
The basket of flowers was the surprise inside. This is signature for Fabergé eggs, always a significant surprise to be discovered upon opening the beautiful egg, as happens when a bird's egg cracks open to allow a new life to emerge.
Muriel Rukeyser said,
"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open."
From her poem about Kathe Kollwitz
For All the Women Who Did Not
Throw Themselves Under the Train
When Judy sent me the photo it took my breath, as she told me it had taken hers, and the only way I could respond was in the stuttering speech of poetry.
Purgatory Papers
Too many books have been written by men about women who
killed themselves one way or another~ Tolstoy’s Anna, who took
a dive onto the train tracks as dirty steam and shrieking whistles
for too little wherever she’d tried to make her life a gift and it was
received with presumption or contempt, as merely a disposable function.
This prevented her from being alive with the one person
who loved her without masks or complications~ her young child.
Then there was bored Madame Bovary, whom Flaubert poisoned
with gruesomely slow hemorrhagic arsenic after years of bad choices
for something, anything that would make her feel alive.
Sylvia Plath lived out her death at the oven
while her sick children slept like drugged angels.
Kate Chopin wrote her own account of a woman’s desperation
and blank, mute despair, and she wrote of strength along
the bayou trails of survival. Tony Morrison channels haunted
spirits from slavery, and her witness is a victory that is theirs
and ours, as we increase our ability to hear and receive,
and to say No More, not only with words, but tremendous
acts of faith in our own and each other’s risky actions.
Louise Erdich demands love in the midst of struggle,
and shows how it’s done, loss, grief and all. Love Medicine
begins with a woman named June freezing to death on her way
to the reservation, then the story completes her intended journey
and reveals reservation life, where people find strength drawn
from love of the land, enduring through poverty, addiction,
the full spectrum of human desperation, with hope and humor
shimmering in the dark.
The Beet Queen moves out into the heart of a German plains
white town where loss, abandonment and familial dissolution
backdropped by a coming second world war affect people
across ethnic borders, revealing the power of forgiveness
to heal, to restore lost dignity and mend the broken.
Anneliese Frank, Edith Stein (Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross)
and Etty (Esther) Hellisum went down among the six million Jews
in the Holocaust, leaving their gifts to history, our gifts now,
the wisdom, courage and power of testimony.
Whether a gifted ordinary girl of 15, dreaming of love
or helping her mother with Shabbat celebration
as quietly as possible in their secret attic hiding place~
or a Jewish philosopher/contemplative Carmelite nun
whose doctoral dissertation was called, “The Problem of Empathy,”
and who was once denied a professorship because of being Jewish~
or a young woman on the move and writing her heart out
to keep revising the story as war events worsened~
they did not go down willingly.
All of them were murdered in Auschwitz.
They understood the monumental impact of each small,
individual life in the midst of colossal shared tragedy.
Their gifts are among our tools of transformation
as we relentlessly strive to overcome human evil.
Enough. Enough waste.
Enough abuse.
Enough neglect.
Enough cruelty.
Enough militant ignorance or merely blind unknowing.
Enough already.
We women have to let ourselves be vulnerable to inspiration,
to get busy, organize ourselves, exert more leadership to address
the anguish of the world, by example to encourage all the women
of the world with their three billion pairs of hands to use them
compassionately and efficiently, to believe in their own intelligence
and competence and put their minds to use, many of them writing
and sending emblems of hope out to the angry, the wretched,
the hungry and homeless, the rich and cultured, the uneducated,
the illiterate, the poor, the anguished billions.
Truth is the antidote to war, and to hunger and homelessness.
More women need to speak it, write it, drench the fabric
of human experience with it so people can know they are
worthwhile, even in confusion, loss, devastating illness
or injury to body, mind, soul or lifestyle.
For everyone who goes under, hundreds, then thousands must live
to tell the stories and suggest a solution. I know women doing so right now.
Their efforts are generously, massively, cooperatively
brought to realization— their art, their voices, their minds
are unstoppable in telling the truth about the hidden lives
of despair and unsurmounted courage all around us—
under bridges, in doorways and alleys, in churches
and synagogues and mosques, in schools and
union meetings, in kitchens and bedrooms and
tents, and under the open sky of sun and stars.
One is an actor, writer and filmmaker, one an investor,
one a photographer, several are painters, many are teachers,
several are rabbis, priests and ministers, more are lawyers,
judges and scholars~ one is a singer and one is a dancer,
many are poets, one is a shuttle bus driver, one a community
organizer, one a transportation manager, one a travel agent
for social justice and medical aid, one a physician, one a nurse,
one a therapist of mind-body medicine who helps restore hope
and teaches reconciliation and stress management in countries
of conflict or those hit hard by natural disaster.
Many serve others in shelters.
Most are mothers, some are nuns, many have never known
a day of hunger, some have been half-starved.
What they’re doing is too diverse and too dynamic to describe
on a single page. But I am telling you, they are alive.
They need our solidarity, our help, our presence
and participation. They need whatever we have to give,
beginning with our attention.
They are giving themselves to good work.
Day by day, one act of faith and courage after another,
they are saving the world.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Diamonds in a Stony Field
Westwood Publishers 2022
From the post, "All Poems Pray~ She Who Watches" The picture below inspired a collaboration of image and word through the experience of Pacific Northwest Nature Scout and Sister Poet, Judy Todd, who generously shared the story and photo of her pilgrimage into the Columbia Gorge on the Washington side of the river across from The Dalles, Oregon to see the pictograph, She Who Watches, for the first time.
From the post, "All Poems Pray~ She Who Watches" The picture below inspired a collaboration of image and word through the experience of Pacific Northwest Nature Scout and Sister Poet, Judy Todd, who generously shared the story and photo of her pilgrimage into the Columbia Gorge on the Washington side of the river across from The Dalles, Oregon to see the pictograph, She Who Watches, for the first time.
When Judy sent me the photo it took my breath, as she told me it had taken hers, and the only way I could respond was in the stuttering speech of poetry.
See the poetry of Judy Todd in her amazing first collection:
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/NaturePoetry.html
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/files/Chapbook_Order_formV3.pdf
As with all the images throughout, click on the picture to enlarge and see it better, then click on the black border side area to return to the page.
Visit Judy's website and blog at NatureConnect Excursions~
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/files/Chapbook_Order_formV3.pdf
As with all the images throughout, click on the picture to enlarge and see it better, then click on the black border side area to return to the page.
Visit Judy's website and blog at NatureConnect Excursions~
http://www.yournatureconnect.com/
Meeting by Judy Todd, Columbia River Gorge 2011~
Shown with gracious permission.
She Who Watches Shows Herself . . .
Opens Her Eyes to Me Now
breath suddenly
taken, my mouth opens
wider and wider
as wide as Her Eyes
i see what She sees forever
coming around the corner
of my tiny life
then drawn into Her
as if She has taken
a cosmic Inbreath
to bring me here,
and having succeeded,
inhales me Whole
wedged between camouflage rocks and wild vegetation,
She sits watching over the river and all the living,
holding place for the spirits of those who have died
Eyes in Her ears, great lakes in Her eyes,
a face part starving child human,
part Great Mother Bear
She with the eyes of ten open suns and the ears
of ten mountains has opened Her Self
to Earth, Spirit Protector and Witness, and
Seeing my molecular readiness
She has taken me into Her Soul
may i, by all means, help
to dry Her tears and comfort Her broken Heart
from the Inside and Out
my eyes keep opening wider and wider
so does my mouth, breath nearly not at all,
how can one see Her seeing her or him and breathe,
yet She is the Giver of breath and one must continue
to breathe in order to serve Her
my mouth then continues to open
in order to be with Her in Silence
and later to speak without ceasing,
to express Her horror at the self-wounded
sorrows of humanity, that animal species
no longer One with itself or Earth or Her,
hardly worthy of the sacred name,
animal ~an embodied soul~ and also
to express Her and my own still undared
but almost hope
breath suddenly
taken, my mouth opens
wider and wider
as wide as Her Eyes
i see what She sees forever
coming around the corner
of my tiny life
then drawn into Her
as if She has taken
a cosmic Inbreath
to bring me here,
and having succeeded,
inhales me Whole
wedged between camouflage rocks and wild vegetation,
She sits watching over the river and all the living,
holding place for the spirits of those who have died
Eyes in Her ears, great lakes in Her eyes,
a face part starving child human,
part Great Mother Bear
She with the eyes of ten open suns and the ears
of ten mountains has opened Her Self
to Earth, Spirit Protector and Witness, and
Seeing my molecular readiness
She has taken me into Her Soul
may i, by all means, help
to dry Her tears and comfort Her broken Heart
from the Inside and Out
my eyes keep opening wider and wider
so does my mouth, breath nearly not at all,
how can one see Her seeing her or him and breathe,
yet She is the Giver of breath and one must continue
to breathe in order to serve Her
my mouth then continues to open
in order to be with Her in Silence
and later to speak without ceasing,
to express Her horror at the self-wounded
sorrows of humanity, that animal species
no longer One with itself or Earth or Her,
hardly worthy of the sacred name,
animal ~an embodied soul~ and also
to express Her and my own still undared
but almost hope
Alla Renée Bozarth
Purgatory Papers
The Annunciation
The Annunciation, Cortona Altarpiece by Fra Angelico, c.1433
Call
Inspired by “Mountain Moving Day,” 1911,
by the Japanese Feminist Poet, Yosano Akiko.
Composer/Conductor Joan Symko's choral setting of "Call" by Alla Bozarth was performed by Aurora Chorus in the Portland, Oregon area at these concerts:
The artist had broken canon law forbidding
anything holy to extend beyond the borders.
When the angel’s
wing stretched
effortlessly
Past the borders
of the picture,
beyond the icon’s
Frame, into the world
freely, and
the woman listening
Smiled, she smiled
openly, shamelessly,
fearlessly,
And women seeing
her smile
smile back
And suddenly discover
they are incapable
of submitting
Any longer
to soul-killing
control,
And feel something
within them
stretching,
Wanting to laugh
out loud
in the dead-still church,
Wanting to dance,
lift their skirts
and see what
Is being born
from within them
in that moment,
What holy wonder
is coming forth
from inside
Their tired old
caved-in
hearts,
Then it will be
the second coming
of Creation
And Christ will live again
in every woman’s
resurrection.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Accidental Wisdom
iUniverse 2003.
The Annunciation, Cortona Altarpiece by Fra Angelico, c.1433
Call
Inspired by “Mountain Moving Day,” 1911,
by the Japanese Feminist Poet, Yosano Akiko.
There is a new sound
of roaring voices
in the deep
and light-shattered
rushes in the
heavens.
The mountains are
coming alive,
the fire-kindled
mountains,
moving again to
reshape the earth.
It is we sleeping
women,
waking up in a
darkened world,
cutting the chains
from off our bodies
with our teeth,
stretching our lives
over the slow earth—
Seeing, moving,
breathing in
the vigor that
commands us
to make all things
new.
It has been said that
while the women sleep,
the earth shall
sleep—
But listen! We are
waking up and rising,
and soon our sisters
will know their strength.
The earth-moving day
is here.
We women wake to move
in fire.
The earth shall be
remade.
Alla Renée Bozarth
Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey, first edition Paulist Press 1978; revised edition Luramedia 1988, distributed by Alla Bozarth at Wisdom House; and Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys by Alla Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne, North star Press of St. Cloud
1990; and the audiocassette, Water Women, Wisdom House 1990.
"Call"
has been put to powerful music by composer Joan Szymko for Aurora
Chorus in Portland, Oregon, and was premiered at a concert in 1997 and
reprised at the International Women's Day "Dare to Be Powerful" concert
in 2015. It is on the album, Human Family: Celebrating Community in Song, produced by the Concord Community of Choirs. Or you can listen to it here: http://aurorachorus.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/web-sample-Call.mp3
To order the tape, Water Women, or the revised edition of Womanpriest, write to allabearheart@yahoo.com
and add "Order Womanpriest" or "Order Water Women." To request
permission to reprint, write to the same address and type "Permission to
Reprint" in the subject line. The poet will respond with details. Order
Stars in Your Bones at your favorite Internet bookstore.
Composer/Conductor Joan Symko's choral setting of "Call" by Alla Bozarth was performed by Aurora Chorus in the Portland, Oregon area at these concerts:
1. "Circle Me Sisters," premiere performance, Aurora Chorus Fifth Anniversary concert, February 1997.
2. "The Beauty of Your Dreams" Aurora Chorus spring concert, May 2005.
3. "To Sing is to Fly," Aurora Chorus spring concert, May 2010.
4. "Dare to Be Powerful," Aurora Chorus International Women's Day concert, Sunday, March 8, 2015.
4. "Dare to Be Powerful," Aurora Chorus International Women's Day concert, Sunday, March 8, 2015.
Aurora reprised their 2010 performance at a Sisters Singers Network choral festival in Chicago in July of that year.
Bakerwoman God
Bakerwoman God, I am your living bread.
Strong, brown Bakerwoman God,
I am your low, soft and being-shaped loaf.
I am your rising bread,
well-kneaded by some divine
and knotty pair of knuckles,
by your warm earth hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
put me in your own bright fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard,
brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.
Break me, Bakerwoman God.
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice, swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
I fall up, in a red pool in a gold world
where your warm sunskin hand is there
to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God, remake me.
Alla Renée Bozarth
"Bakerwoman God" is in the books, Womanpriest: A Personal Odyssey Luramedia, revised edition 1988, distributed by Alla at Wisdom House; Stars in Your Bones: Emerging Signposts on Our Spiritual Journeys by Alla Bozarth, Julia Barkley and Terri Hawthorne, North Star Press of St. Cloud 1990; Moving to the Edge of the World iUniverse 2000; and This is My Body~ Praying for Earth, Prayers from the Heart iUniverse 2004.
Composer
Rufino Zaragoza arranged piano music for "Bakerwoman God" to accompany a
sacred dance interpretation of the poem, performed by Martha Ann Kirk
and Kimberly Connelly for a video, "Daughters Who Image God, Weep with
God and Sing God's Praise," in 1987:
http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/81838280
To listen to the musical composition of "Bakerwoman God" by retired Northern Illinois University of professor of music, Tim Blickhan, performed by the Augustana College Jenny Lind Vocal Ensemble, Michael Zemek, director, on All Saints Day 2013, go here:
http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/81838280
To listen to the musical composition of "Bakerwoman God" by retired Northern Illinois University of professor of music, Tim Blickhan, performed by the Augustana College Jenny Lind Vocal Ensemble, Michael Zemek, director, on All Saints Day 2013, go here:
www.mediafire.com/listen/3nrh3kt1a03u6q7/2012+Bakerwoman+God.mp3
Still watching--
For those loved ones who have gone back into God recently~
Still watching--
