“The Spiral of Our Days”

On the Sunday of Labour Day weekend this year (September 6) I led an informal worship service at Unicamp (north of Toronto in Mulmur, Ontario, on the Bruce Trail between Shelburne and Creemore) on the theme “Circles, Cycles and Labyrinths.” Unicamp is a Unitarian Universalist camp and conference centre on 50 acres of beautiful, varied terrain which includes forest trails, meadows, streams and springs, limestone caves, and a fantastic swimming pond.

When something is ending (such as another summer), we tend to reflect on the cycles of life. The symbolism of labyrinths is associated with cycles, including death, rebirth and metaphorical rebirth into new awareness, as well as with the circle, symbol of eternity and continuity.

As part of the service I read my poem, “The Spiral of Our Days,” written at a time when I was thinking a lot about the complexity of all the different facets of our lives. It is also a poem about walking a labyrinth – and particularly the labyrinth at Unicamp, where at some times of the day you walk one half, the half closest to woods and trees, under the shadow of the trees and the other half through sunshine in the proximity of wild flowers and the sound of a nearby stream.
THE SPIRAL OF OUR DAYS

never finished, going nowhere
the endless snake, always winding,
spiralling ever higher, the magic barber-pole –
the fascination, spun from childhood,
of carousel horses & ferris wheels,
of maypole stripes & the endless journey
to the tree at the centre of the world.

it looked simple then –
the certainly of elevators & dinner-bells,
the waiting & the barber-pole,
the world an elevator
with delineated floors –

before the jungle swallowed,
before the labyrinth
showed us the puzzle
of the facets of our days –

the labyrinth swallows
& promises
to spin around the spirals of our days,
with a raven’s wing & a turtle’s flower,
with the maypole dance in its widening orbit
around the morning star.

slowly we start to weave
ourselves into the path,
to engage the spiral of complexity –
perhaps we can trust these perfect circles
in which the world reveals itself,
half in shadow, half in doubt,
sometimes bent with anger or sorrow,
but with the full jewel of its promise:

yet another perfect maypole,
each year the strands weaving differently together,
each year equally whole.

© Helen Iacovino

For Ostara/Easter – A Labyrinth Poem

For springtime (which seems rather delayed this year) and for the new life of Ostara/Easter, this is a labyrinth poem. I am fascinated by labyrinths, and the insights that walking a labyrinth may bring – and also sometimes frustrated when, expecting insights, none materialize. In downtown Toronto, even the labyrinth outside the bustling Eaton Centre (in Trinity Square, immediately west of the Eaton Centre) is an oasis of calm despite the bustle and building-fans that surround it. This is a powerful labyrinth, with wonderful energies.

 

THE 4 DIRECTIONS IN SPRINGTIME

my life is full of mirrors,
both created and natural –
from the jumble of questions
I wade through each day,
to the shopping mall glass
that catches fleeting light.

I bring my incompleteness
to the labyrinth –

in the east the birds
& hope ever rising,
wild geese calling in spring,
the view from a windswept mountaintop,
& clear bells ringing new through dawn.

fire in the south, & all things small & green,
bringing warmth & a cat’s sleek fur,
the noonday sun at his height,
the wise chariot, the salamander’s glory,
& close down by waving grasses
the first dandelion.

from the western bear I need
the introspection of the waterfall,
the flowing cup revealing invisible worlds,
the refracted glass of a mind’s eye,
the scent of apples ripening,
the reflection of the sunset,
& a kaleidoscope’s broken glass
in its ever-shifting beauty.

the earth of the north,
the while buffalo goddess,
I bring you my own center,
I bring an acorn seed,
my feet are attached to the ground
where new spring trees are growing.

I wonder if I’ve ever dared
to perform a cat’s calculated leap
over any threshold,
into the depths of being,
one with the spinning world.

the labyrinth’s path continues
& I’m on the crossroads
with Coyote & Owl –
I want all paths to be easy.

Coyote tells me
no path is ever easy,
& we don’t find the puzzle –
we create it.

© Helen Iacovino

 

 

Tarot Collection – Published by North Wind Press

Here is a link to my collection, “Poems From the Tarot,” as published by North Wind Press on their website:

http://www.northwindpress.ca/nuggets/tarot/index.html

The site also features Tarot artwork by Mary Bennett.  One day Mary and I were talking, and when she discovered that I had written Tarot poetry and I discovered she had created Tarot artwork, we decided to collaborate, and this web publication was the result.

Also from the site, here is my statement about this poetry collection:

Tarot is a way of knowing, and a way of seeing and understanding the world. The 22 Major Arcana represent cards represent a journey towards self-realization, starting and ending with the same card, The Fool – after which the journey can begin all over again.

My interest in the Tarot began some years ago.  After participating in a Jung Society workshop on Tarot, I decided to begin meditating on the Major Arcana cards, and then to write a poem about each one.  In a fascinating and unexpected way, each card opened itself up to me and led me on a path into its world.  Some were more difficult to approach than others – but this is to be expected.

I favour Jungian interpretations of Tarot as a rich symbolic system, a system of images, and a springboard towards being more in touch with the unconscious and the collective unconscious – where a wealth of images and archetypes reside and float up.   This realm is also accessed through dreams, myth and folk tales.  In a world without fixed answers, where, in fact, none are expected and we are responsible for discovering our own truths, Tarot is a part of that search and reflects that search.  It is non-linear and non-rational; it is open to interpretation and cannot be pinned down, but this quality is what makes it dance. It is a pathway to the unconscious, and provides glimpses of the inner wellsprings that we all look for and gives us a sense of the unity of the cosmos.

Currently the cards I am most drawn to are The Hermit, The Star and The Moon.  These cards are about inner knowing, focusing on the internal life.  This, too, will change – at different points in time, different things speak most ardently to us.  In writing the poems, I allowed the characters or images on the cards to speak and to reveal themselves; many of the poems are written from the point of view of the character on the card.  This collection has at least one poem on each of the Major Arcana cards, and a few cards have two or three.  It also reflects my Unitarian Universalist world view ( http://www.cuc.ca    http://www.uua.org)

Poetry is a calling.  I recognized many years ago that I feel called to crystallize the explorations of the spirit in words and images, and offer this as my contribution to the world. What I am attempting in all my poetry is to explore these realms, let it resonate with the reader or listener, and to communicate through symbols and images things that everyday language cannot easily express.

© Helen Iacovino

A Taste of Tarot

This poem is from my series of poems inspired by the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck. It is an invocation of sorts – the second invocation of the series.  The Magician is Card #1; however, the deck begins with Card 0, The Fool.

I           THE MAGICIAN’S INVOCATION
                   (Card #1 of the Tarot pack)
I am the world in the fire of my knowledge                                  

O holy white pentangle
show me your points;
do not hide from me
your true & awesome power,

but let me blaze
in this dry air
through my tools & brains
with all your spirit’s fire.

Red & white – above & below
the table I unite
these colours to run as one
in a never-ending moebius strip –

moon & sun quiver together,
blood & soul this instant are one –
& I – I am catalyst, Maker –

greenhearted, I hold
this knowledge emptied into me,

I am an overflowing vessel,
I am paper about to ignite,
I am the flaming salamander
sprouting wings
before the opening of the golden door,

& I am
renaissance man
spreadeagled in the doorway –

& I know I will never
walk this world the same.

© Helen Iacovino

 

Coyote in the Spaces Between

Winter can be a time for deep reflection… especially the natural world in winter, the frozen world.  Written at a Unitarian retreat in the Hockley Valley north of Toronto several years ago.

winter’s empty spaces,

the fading of the christmas lights

into the long spaces & states between things –

water emptied of its wetness,

now only numb & frosty

as the stream makes its paces between snowdrifts.

 

a time of dying down

into essential states:

a stasis of a sky

that only winter offers:

one huge cloud enveloping

the world, swallowing the ground,

the hibernation,

the pulling back, the deep burrows,

dreaming of fires & sunlight, experiencing

the shadow world like never before.

 

I call to the shadow world,

to encounter it, embrace it,

& call to Coyote to emerge,

sure-footed Coyote, who knows

how to tread in all the spaces between,

depending on Coyote, clever,

with those ears against the outline of sky,

to show me how, to lead,

to go with me into this new world,

a world reborn every solstice, every sunrise,

showering me with surprises to fathom.

 

Not wanting

to ignore the depths, I want

to dive in but know where I’m diving –

off the snowy clifftops, through the new air –

what’s the difference between a dangerous leap

& being a dancing coyote,

explorer of night and shadow,

a beast returning to the depths, sinking into

burrows under snowdrifts,

looking for winter’s purest light?

 

© Helen Iacovino

 

Welcome to 2014 – A New Year’s Poem

A PERPETUAL FRESH START

(January 1)

                  “The past is a different country.

                   They do things differently there.”

                                      – Harold Pinter

 

the past where they do things differently

& the future we’re ever forging into 

meet on the cusp of another year

as it slips into memory –

 

but we need to dredge it up, to keep it,

this precious cargo from the past,

unbound & carried with us

in all its overtones & shadows,

in the memories that tear us apart,

& the longing for what is gone

& the obsession with what could have been.

 

we need to hold our memories,

to float them on the ether of our brain cells,

let them settle onto our skin

& become part of our own dust,

for they’re our only possessions

as we travel with unrecognized luggage

along these strange new roads

where time is never in our grasp.

 

the past where they do things differently,

the continuous cusps, the waves

breaking wearily behind us,

the wake along the water, the undertow beneath –

 

ever walking on the cusp,

like squirrels balanced on power lines,

some days more fully the best of ourselves,

we turn our expectant faces

distinctly to the future,

like flower petals at their peak,

& still manage to feel the rumblings

of all the tunes we’ll never forget.

 

© Helen Iacovino

At pow-wow in Toronto, June 2013

To start my new blog, which will focus primarily on sharing my poetry, I decided to begin with a family photo.