Alchemists Journal

08/27/2026

The end of a long and very important crossing...

and arriving at the other side...

08/26/2026

Always a good reminder...

08/25/2026

I woke up talking myself into desperation,
picking at the wallpaper inside my skull,
scraping crusted paste,
cracked like elder skin,
better left alone…

all while the sunrise prepared its return,
a gaudy show of exploding, stampeding light hooves,
storming the ten thousand acre forest I call home.
Each step, a volcanic bloom of hope life yields to,
rising with ancient grace,
offering everything up,
as did the first life that ever took root,
at that newborn dawn.

Stop thinking about how the light ends,
instead let it be a river's many feet running through you,
splitting you into muddied timber shards,
until you have no vessel left
to hold fear in.

Give yourself to this sunrise,
say yes,
hold nothing back.

08/24/2026

Poetry matters.

08/20/2026

My courage arrived when I didn’t leave,
revealing itself at the center of a blossom that love began,
unfurling,
seducing my attention,
saying yes again and again,
opening
until all petals fell away,
and only the memory of us was left in that place of glory.

My courage found purchase in the unmapped land between life and death,
family dissolving,
sure tenderness giving way to the absence left by the living
when they shed their body
for the next journey.

My courage revealed itself,
whispered in the liturgy of compassion I sweetly sang my children
when I had no other honest thing to give,
huddled in that place of loss that felt so vast,
yet lived only in us.

My courage resides in me,
warm timber that can still be supple
when needed,
that doesn’t prefer rest or labor,
that always says yes,
again and again.

08/18/2026

It's not all chaos, cackling and celebration,
sometimes we have to meet the day with empty bellies and heavy hearts,
unsure of what will come.

Just before dawn Coyote's conversations were full of mournful complaints
shouted between a dozen empty mouths.

Calling in the new Sun with uncertainty is not a good thing.
This day will be wary,
made of unsatisfied, skulking hunts,
mistrustful of what the dust reveals on empty trails.

Every pack shares hard times -
songs gather more stories of loss in their weave,
deepening tones,
feast and famine share the chorus.

There will be another time for celebration some day,
but now
all are familied together in hunger.

08/14/2026

Father wanted quiet,
it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal,
but I was full of play and couldn’t be stopped,
so he backhanded me to the floor.

With every strike I lost a small portion of play allotted me by life,
until the hitting years slowly wore themselves out,
and I grew angry enough to hit back.

I was expert at hiding,
making myself even smaller than I already was,
so quiet I could never be found out.

Now all I want to do is build dancing looms
that unfurl beauty - unkempt, inappropriate, unwelcomed,
things that can’t be unseen,
that must be celebrated.

Violence is the inability to see into the soul of things.

I have become a remedy for that.

08/11/2026

We’re camped out in the living room,
me bedded down on the floor,
Daughter taking the high ground of the couch.

We live in the fine style of daily adventures,
be they at home or in the wilds of the world.

Plates click against each other, cabinets close in the kitchen,
Son is making himself a midnight dinner,
because the first was not enough for a lanky 18 year old body.

Time to nourish himself in a silent house,
being his own man,
held by the bounty owed the young.
He still grunts like an animal
when he comes across an especially satisfying bite.

Daughter blessed me with the elder stuffy,
the grandfather of her crew,
my guardian monster.
I’ll wake and sleep, wake and sleep,
as Dog and Cat, poke at me with bored interest,
dishes land in the sink,
the great slumber ship wends
its way,
slowly,
to a blurry sunrise.

She started this playdate 13 years ago when she first arrived,
never a breath without seeking joy,
even through the sudden shocks of childhood,
and the great, endlessly echoing loss of Mother.

His meals are a reminder that he’ll leave home soon,
and she and I will continue this playdate until it’s her time to make midnight bites and remember
when an old man who cuddled stuffed animals was her best adventure friend.

08/10/2026

All the gadgets in the world don’t amount to the majesty of one seed bursting open.