Author: Sydney Lynn Haupert-Lok

It is with the feeling of gratitude I present to you, a gifted poet from my Homeland of Huerfano County, Colorado.

It is a humble view,

seen from a small cottage

set in a hollow

beside a rough country road.

It is my view,

one that I alone can see,

hindered (or helped)

by my unique perspectives.

Two peaks rise on the horizon.

They speak to me.

I listen,

and then I write for you.

Other mountains dwell here.

From every direction they stare,

but I rarely hear them speak.

I listen only when they shout.

Wahatoya.

Twin Peaks.

Breasts of the Earth.

Spanish Peaks.

Names are many for my

mountains.

Like a woman;

maiden, married, divorced,

widowed,

their names change with

circumstance.

But always, they are there,

anchoring the earth

(and probably me)

as we seek our equilibrium.

My gratitude must seem

insignificant

to something so much greater

than anything I have ever known.

–More than I could be.

Perhaps my role is simply

as a mirror to these mountains.

In writing my poems I will give to

you

a gift from Colorado.

Janice Walters © September 2022

Janice Walter’s Bio

Fifty years ago, a 16 year old girl was encouraged by a Creative Writing/English teacher to put together a collection of poetry and submit it for publication. She did. It was published and a small number were sold. The girl grew older, life happened, poetry was put on a shelf and only once in a while did it beckon her. She sought to “live” poetry and not just write it. Of course, that girl was me. (Janice Walters) Today, I still live my poetry, but perhaps having a few more years than the girl I used to be, I dared to pick up my pen and write once more. I have been sharing poetry inspired by the Twin Peaks of Southern Colorado. My intention is to follow them through the seasons, take some drives with my husband, Ben and snap more photos. And of course, write more poetry. Thank you to all the Huerfano Community friends and those personal family and friends who have been so positive in their comments, likes and loves. I am anticipating a collection being put together and perhaps sent off to some poetry contests that will publish the work, if I can win. Otherwise, I just may self-publish. No one knows the future, but because of such a generous response from Huerfano County, my (new) family, and friends, I’m going to try…After all, isn’t trying the best part of this journey called life?

So, what is it?

It is the unconditional love of Source made real on Earth.

It is FELT LOVE.

It’s the love a mother FEELS when she is willing to

trade places with her unborn baby if that’s what it takes.

It’s the love a fire fighter FEELS when he risks his life to save another.

Hey, what about the other side of the coin?

It’s the remorse you FEEL when you REALIZE

you have caused pain to another. It’s the AHA moment when

you see your part in causing a disaster episode in your life

and the life of others. And then back to an airy-fairy

episode in your life: the love you FEEL when you

sense everyone and everything on Earth is you.

So why aren’t you in Heaven tiptoeing through the tulips then?

Yeah, why are you here? Come-on, there’s gotta be a reason?

Well, here you can really FEEL stuff. If Heaven is the cake, then

our feelings are the icing. It’s so delish to sink your toes

into warm sand as salty waves lick between them.

Don’t you think that God wants to FEEL that?

No, you say that Heaven is already perfect?

Yeah, but once you taste the icing, it’s like you can’t go back

to plain perfect cake again, get my drift?

Heaven is the field of potential for All That Is.

And you and me here on Earth sluggin through the traffic,

we are realizing that potential. Oh great. So when our bodies

wear out from fighting the traffic and we get beamed up, Scotty

what do we do with all this potential we face

when the elevator door opens?

I think we add an octave of felt texture to the swirling Painting.

We enliven it, harmonize something new into the mix.

Heaven grows even more delish.

Because of you and me.

Just look around at the world.

What do you see?

Sharp corners. Sharp angles.

A world built that way

because our eyes

see that way,

informed by injury.

Others are dangerous

because our eyes

see that way,

informed by injury,

entrenched in shame.

We seek the bandages of belief

in religion, political parties,

science, computer generated life,

avatars replacing organic beingness.

Our senses project ourselves as fragile,

informed by injury so we

hide behind the bandages of

suits, ties and trendy dresses.

Our senses form beliefs

informed by injury.

We dress the world in fear.

The Metaverse is here,

an artificial escape from injury,

spitting us out into a fake heaven.

Will we drown in it?

Bravely plunge off the high dive

of your experience.

You will be there at the bottom

to catch yourself.

Your soul doesn’t believe in your injuries.

It only sees your badges of courage.

Your soul reminds you that

your injuries are

scabs ready to peel off showing

new skin, new life.

DISROBE

From: Poet’s Corner/Esquina Poetica

Story Time: A musical called Gillian

Gillian is a seven-year-old girl who cannot sit in school. She continually gets up, gets distracted, flies with thoughts, and doesn’t follow lessons. Her teachers worry about her, punish her, scold her, reward the few times that she is attentive, but nothing. Gillian does not know how to sit and cannot be attentive.

When she comes home, her mother punishes her too. So not only does Gillian have bad grades and punishment at school, but she also suffers from them at home.

One day, Gillian’s mother is called to school. The lady, sad as someone waiting for bad news, takes her hand and goes to the interview room. The teachers speak of illness, of an obvious disorder. Maybe it’s hyperactivity or maybe she needs a medication.

During the interview an old teacher arrives who knows the little girl. He asks all the adults, mother and colleagues, to follow him into an adjoining room from where she can still be seen. As he leaves, he tells Gillian that they will be back soon and turns on an old radio with music.

As the girl is alone in the room, she immediately gets up and begins to move up and down chasing the music in the air with her feet and her heart. The teacher smiles as the colleagues and the mother look at him between confusion and compassion, as is often done with the old. So he says:

“See? Gillian is not sick, Gillian is a dancer!”

He recommends that her mother take her to a dance class and that her colleagues make her dance from time to time. She attends her first lesson and when she gets home she tells her mother:

“Everyone is like me, no one can sit there.”

In 1981, after a career as a dancer, opening her own dance academy and receiving international recognition for her art, Gillian Lynne became the choreographer of the musical “Cats,” both in London and Broadway. She also directed and choreographed the Vienna production.

Hopefully all “different” children find adults capable of welcoming them for who they are and not for what they lack.

Long live the differences, the little black sheep and the misunderstood. They are the ones who create beauty in this world.

“And those who were seen dancing, were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Could God have set us up to

make mistakes?

Could we have agreed to it?

Here there are weird kinds of

choices, many that are Catch-22,

slamming you between

a rock and a hard place.

On purpose, the knot just

gets tighter and tighter.

But once you stop struggling and

take your last breath,

you pop yourself out of Time,

you become a free, flowing path

and guess what,

you’re still breathing.

You see clearly now, how you tied the Knot

to plummet yourself over the waterfall

of suffocation in order to wake up

enough to remember

that you chose this imperfect stranglehold

to set yourself free.

So you would know what free means.

Mistakes and imperfection are not the same.

Mistakes grow you into the flow of realized love.

Then you can know of the imperfect perfection

of the beating of your heart.

From current Contemplative Christian Mystics:

Put on some relaxing flute music:

Sit comfortably in a chair or in lotus position or modified version of it. Sway from side to side and notice how your shoulders, torso, neck and head follow a Source Meridian movement, well known by your body. Every time you walk your hips sway this figure eight, this Golden Bow which balances all opposites. Sway from side to side noticing how you witness these golden loopings with your breath. Breathe in the voluptuous air molecules, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Release any mis-ease as it comes up from within your body. Relax into these gentle loopings noticing how you loop through Source Heart then loop into Creation as you sway from side to side. As you breathe, notice how you are the unifying factor. You are God’s Unifier, aligning Creation with Source Love. Feel your muscles stretch and lengthen. Feel how your breath becomes supple as your lungs expand and contract. The gentle flute music opens your lungs, opens your heart and opens your mind to the ambrosia of your breath which holds all mystery.

Do you hear chirping birds in the flute music? Are they singing to you of sinking into your hips as you exhale, then rising up into your chest, neck and head on the inhale. Follow this vertical figure eight, exhaling as you sink into your hips, releasing all negativity lodged in your body and mind into the recycling arms of Earth Mother, then inhaling the song of your soul as it lifts you into your chest, neck and head. Repeat for as long as it moves you to. When you are ready move the horizontal figure eight, followed by the vertical figure eight, alternating these movements for as long as it moves you to. You are etching the Cross of the Cosmic Christ. These two movements anchor and activate your Higher Self or Oversoul within the Big Heart Chakra which encapsulates the Sacral, Womb Chakra, the Soular Plexus Chakra and the Heart Chakra. Feel your Higher Self nestle into your body finally able to offer guidance that you can absorb easily. 

Now, breathing in, sink into the cave of your kundalini spine. Etch the backwards loop of the infinite figure-eight. Breathing out, push your torso forward into the forwards loop of the infinite figure-eight. Repeat this undulating backwards/forwards looping of the torso as long as it moves you to. Hear Source whisper, “As it is in Spirit, so it is in Flesh, Flesh without Fear”.

Now, alternate all three movements consecutively flowing seamlessly from one direction to the next. Relax, flowing slowly, allowing each figure-eight movement to slide and glide into the next.  The Golden Bow Movement Meditations open the door to 369 degree Consciousness, the reality where Spirit is realized fully in flesh: Heaven on Earth. 

***I can be reached at sydneylynnlok@gmail.com for any questions you may have.

Now, center yourself in stillness. You sit on the still fulcrum of the Teeter-Totter of Duality. Breathing gently, know that you hold within you Source God, Source Love. Know also, that Source Love holds you gently nestled within Itself like a Russian nesting doll.  Let your breath bring together your Heart, Your Mind, and your body as One.

Namaste.

Wahatoya, Breasts of the World

Do you see the Golden Bow pulsing from within the twin peaks of Wahatoya?

Note: An ancient culture that embraced the Golden Bow lived along the Eastern Coast of what is known today as China. One of the monks of that time I met in his parallel life as a dancer for Paul Sanasardo and choreographer for his own company, The Manuel Alum Dance Company. He was a man of few words so when he did speak, each phrase formed a simple yet profound concept. He taught me that life energy was most potent and powerful when movement was offered in subtle doses. The Pulse of Life Energy is gentle yet nothing is as powerful. Manuel bid farewell to his incarnation in his 50’s from Aids.

The Jail Door of Perfection cracks open to a golden light

lit by candle lamps holding pink and purple blooms

sitting precariously on the tilt of tree stump coffee tables

with their life rings of experience rippling out.

Precarious laughter held so tightly finally spills on my lap

staining it and I am still alive

unpunished for my display, this eruption of glee

arising from my throat.

I didn’t know this room existed.

How did I escape? 

How did I splatter onto these walls as pink and purple waves

splashing onto beige couches with plump, billowing pillows.

A dancer on stage whose shoulder strap breaks

as she quakes the stage floor with her frail strength,

a breast is exposed.

She flits away as if nothing happened.

Girls and women do that, you know.

Maybe making mistakes is how you grow and learn

to love yourself and others,

if you are not punished and derailed for them.

Could Source be growing and learning

from our mistakes, our tumbles and stumbles,

our messy imperfection?

Maybe, imperfection is perfection.

Could Heaven be right here on Earth, my grand daughter

gripping a tantrum of sand in her tiny hands?

I seep through into the room already softening like syrup.

Streaming onto the couch, sinking into the comfort,

I relax into this cloud of imperfection.

Jelly fingerprints from toddlers crumble the walls.

Crumbs from questioning child minds clutter the carpet.

Souls emerge like fingerprints from the stains.

This space lives and breathes and balances when I hold my breath.

I breathe out perfectly messy expressions and gestures.

We are just quirky souls moving quirky bodies through quirky space. 

Then time dissolves when Source embraces the wrong turn into oncoming traffic.

The Light and the Shadows are ok here.

There is nothing wrong here in this living room.

I look back without turning my head

at what was once the iron bars

of the Jail House of Perfection.

Was Perfection just a virus that overtook a Universe

and then disappeared when we weren’t looking?