Christiana saves the world

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of UNFCCC

“What if we don’t succeed?”  is asked of Christiana Figueres,
months before the climate summit.
Tears well up in her blue and hazel eyes.
“Ask the islands. Ask Bangla Desh.”
Here is the woman charged with saving the world.
Chairing the world climate summit, fearlessly taking on
almost two hundred world leaders-
with her emotions intact, with her tears and her laughter,
her deep hearty laugh always at the ready.
And she succeeds!
O Christiana, with your well-trained sense of respect,
wanting no supremacy of one culture over another,
not needing to make anyone take the blame,
the anthropologist ‘til the end.
With her staff of five hundred, the Secretariat,
she rips off her formal jacket 
to dance.
Fending off global collapse with international agreement. 
Nothing is impossible!
Christiana travels the world, pulling, pulling,
pulling us all together.  We are inextricably linked,
“consciously uncoupling” our growth from our emissions.
“This is your moment,” Christiana tells the ministers.
The agreement is emerging, a new child,
a new kind of child of the world’s making!
Christiana, how we hold you up in praise.
Christiana, go ahead and cry your tears!
Those big, healthy tears for us, for our world,
that yes, you have helped so much to save.

Annelinde Metzner
December 14, 2015 



        This week, we've had the glorious news that the climate change summit in Paris has come to an agreement accepted by almost 200 countries!   In this poem, I give thanks to the woman who pushed, pulled, persuaded and corralled all these disparate peoples so that we may all survive.
     For an excellent article about Christiana Figueres, see Elizabeth Kolbert, "The Weight of the World," in the New Yorker, August 24, 2015.
      Here is a short clip of Christiana from December 9th.

UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon and Christiana Figueres.  It's time!!

Be proud, Christiana!

I Have Sworn to Protect Her

"Healing" giclee by Autumn Skye Morrison

I have sworn to protect Her!           
Miracle blue-green jewel of all the worlds,
ancient blue mountains, vast golden deserts,
hummingbirds in the jewelweed,
black bear in the raspberries.
I speak for Her!
I howl for Her!        
I howl, “Beware!”
to you who remove Her sacred mountaintops
torturing her body to get at Her coal.
I howl, “Beware!”
to you who go deep within her mineral layers,
scraping away at her core
for your own gain.
But no one gains by this.  She feeds us all.
I have sworn to protect Her,           
this day that She needs us,
when even Her vast blue-green oceans, teeming with life,
are tainted with blood, the black oil of power and greed.
This is the day, this is the hour.
She, long-silent, awaits our voice.
The signs of Her anger are everywhere:
desert, flood, tornado, wildfire, earthquake, typhoon, tsunami.
I howl for Her!             
I love my Earth as my own body!
I have sworn to protect Her!

Annelinde Metzner
July 31, 2011


As I turn the page to "December 2015" in my We'Moon wall calendar, I come upon an excerpt from my poem above, with fabulous art by Autumn Skye Morrison.  You can see her wonderful giclee, "Healing," as well as other art pieces at her website here. 

     I send out my poem once more as a prayer, to add to so many others, for divine wisdom to come through and among the many world leaders courageously meeting this week in Paris for the World Climate Summit of 2015.  May we all protect our Earth, our beloved Home!!   May we love Her more and more each day!!

Delaware River, Margaretville, New York

  

Sacred mound, Blowing Rock, North Carolina

The Magic Pouch

"Don't Tread on Me," by Jenifer Mokren

I have released my magic pouch.
Fathom this- the miracle sac nestled in my abdomen
where spirits come to Earth and find their destiny.
This wondrous space that grows exponentially
to accommodate a new human being!
I have released my uterus!
Here I am to honor you, oh alchemical gift,
carrier of the species, deliverer of DNA.
Oh place of pure regeneration!
Miracle tubes where fertilization occurs;
Ovaries, hatchery of the round perfection of femaleness,
oak-split egg basket 
where my mother and grandmother
held me tenderly too;
cervix, precious tunnel that, entranced,
widens a thousand times for human birth.
Oh wine-sac, imbued with love,
Oh world gift, numinous as the stars,
womb of all creation,
meeting place of divine spirit and blessed flesh,
welcome center for all our souls.
With this release I honor you, magic sac,
locus of intense and sexual feeling,
dark cave I have loved and honored all these years.
Woman’s divine chamber
which we must guard from violation,
our own and our sisters’,
which we pray for and protect
throughout our lives.
Sanctuary and cauldron of mind, spirit and flesh.
In letting you go, I hold you up,
I see you now for what you are.
I prostrate myself before you.
Oh womb who has made of me a shaman,
as all women are!
I have offered my body for the incarnation of souls.
If women deem it right and good
for all of us and for ourselves,
we will usher in a life.
Oh magic sac that made me
a conduit of the divine,
I hold you now in my open palm,
acknowledging your perfection,
astonished as, like a butterfly just emerged from its cocoon,
I open my hand and let you go free.




Annelinde Metzner
October 26, 2015


On October 19th, I underwent a successful laparoscopic hysterectomy.   I then realized I wanted to write this poem honoring all that my uterus means to me.
     Here is a wonderful blog by watercolor artist Helen R. Klebesadel of Wisconsin.   In 2012 she collected many examples of women's art, many of them in textiles and embroidery, featuring the artist's very personal relationship with the uterus and the freedom that implies.  The resulting exhibit was called "The Exquisite Uterus Art of Resistance Project."  
     When I began this poem, I didn't realize how my creative process would take a turn toward our need as women to protect our uterus all our lives, and to be solely responsible for what we create with it.


In her studies of ancient Goddess art in Neolithic cultures, anthropologist Marija Gimbutas repeatedly pointed out the resemblance of the uterus to the head of the bull.  Thus, the bull became a symbol of the Divine Feminine.

Minoan bronze bull figurine

Surgery

Metzner family, 1957, at the Catskill farm.  I'm in the middle holding Keith with Tante Elsie holding me!

My blessed ancestors walk with me
to one of the edges of the world.
Oh you who now walk balanced,
one foot in each plane of existence!
I inhale your fragrance.
Your reaching hands pull me,
pull me upward, toward you, beside you,
pull me forward to your place between the worlds.
Oh Nana, your warm soft skin, your welcoming smile!
Oh Mama, your soft tender caress!
Oh Daddy, your chuckle and a chuck under the chin.
Oh Peter, my son, your helping hands always.
My ancestors, your power so strong now, near Hallowmas,
your nearness almost audible, your fragrance all around,
you guide me back, back to this life,
back to this exquisite sparkling world we once shared,
and still do.

Annelinde Metzner
October 23, 2015

Dad and Peter

Mom and Peter

Nana

Stay

Don’t run
Don’t do this and that
Don’t get your camera
Turn off the phone.
Stay.
Feel a little uncomfortable, antsy, but stay.
It’s quiet now, but soon
the world begins to reveal itself to you.
The oriole is leaping, up and down, up and down,
over dried seed pods.
The hummingbird finds each and every flower
of the brilliant jewelweed.
The warning call of the raptor,
and the pale-winged osprey
flies clear across the open field, north to south.
Stay.  Grow as slowly as a hawthorne.
Ripen one thing a day.
Be Still.  
Stay.

Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
August 3, 2011

St. John's Wort

Goldenrod

The long haul

Butter-and-eggs

“I think of the long haul”
says the sparkling jewelweed outside my window,
curling her brilliant orange flowers
into tension-sprung seeds, so sensitive to passing touch.
“Do you feel it on the breeze?”
I feel it on the breeze, a quiet zephyr,
luxuriating across the wide meadow,
heralding icy months not far away.
“We’re in this for the long haul,’
say the hummingbirds, quite relaxed,
zipping from blossom to blossom,
storing up energy to fly,
to fly! across the Gulf to Mexico.
“Think of the long haul,
the wide expanse of time,”
says the barn owl, spotting a wee mouse.
“It’s our time, and guess what?
It’s your time too.”
Late at night, heat lightning explodes,
incandescent over the horizon, without a sound,
reminding us to paint our lives long and wide.
It’s time, it’s our time,
the long haul, long and wide,
you and I.



Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
September 4, 2015

Milkweed for the monarch butterflies

Yarrow and strawberry

My Go Fund Me campaign: "Annelinde's Music and Medicine"

Please consider helping me in my Go Fund Me campaign while I'm dealing with a number of health challenges.   Also, planning on a new CD with Kim Hughes!  Listen in the video on the Go Fund Me page.    Much love and thanks to you all.

September light

Goldenrod

The light in September!
As if She were a lover,
tender fingers on the lover’s soft cheek,
as if for one last time,
as if tomorrow were goodbye,
the Sun floods the leaves bountifully
with September light.
Still green, the leaves turn to Her, adoring,
knowing this day will never come again.
September, the last hummingbirds drink and drink
for their impossibly long flight.
So quiet! but all is changing,
transforming, metamorphosing,
intimations of new colors to come.
September light is a radiance,
a golden honey, still warm in the hive,
pleading, admonishing, 
“Turn your faces to me!”
knowing soon we will drop
to the ground.

Annelinde Metzner
September 19, 2015

Reaching

In the morning stillness, clouds in the valley,
each mountain a Lady’s breast,
I feel Her body, Gaia’s self,
speaking, speaking.
These mountains here in New York State
reach out to my Grandmother, far to the south.
And Denali!  Chumalungma!  Kilimanjaro!
Her grand body speaks, one to another,
mountain to mountain, radio towers,
sister to sister, across the aeons,
reaching, reaching, holding.
I look around and think,
“and this one, too!,”
this old home mountain on which I stand.
She who has fostered me well through the years,
She who has given me courage and strength.
This one, too, speaks across the world,
breast to divine breast,
sighing, holding,
holding us, Her wayward brood,
reaching.

Annelinde Metzner
Catskill farm
September 5, 2015

Evening Sonata

As the long winds of evening come,
the dove purrs herself to sleep in the barn.
In fading light the hawk spreads her wings,
catching more wind, more wind.
Her breath takes her higher, a wider flight,
big as night, old as dreams.
Seems every night, thunder plays with wind on the horizon:
orange, yellow, surprising shapes!
In the long winds of evening,
whispery wands of dandelion seed hold just a little longer,
on the edge of their big drift.
The sun mixes gray and green with night 
on this edge of the earth.
A blue paler and paler, and a lustrous streak of white,
the mountain “sundown”.
A play of sound like Brahms, rhapsodic, contrapuntal,
the changing paths of wind.
Voices cross the hills every which way,
searching for their dreams,  already going deeper,
drifting off into night.

Annelinde Metzner
Catskill Farm
July 16, 1995

New to the World

My great-niece, Ivy Mae, a few hours old

“What do you bring us?” ask the villagers,
to the babe still in the womb,
coming from afar, from the world of spirit.
“What does your soul wish for here?”
In Mama’s womb, all at peace,
the little one, new to the world,
sleeps with one foot in Spirit.
“I will remember” swears the Spirit,
though much will come of the world,
so many inviting paths to ponder.
“I bring you the light of the stars”,
says the little one,
“to warm your winter nights,
and to cradle your days with love.”


Annelinde Metzner
August 29,  2010




I'm thrilled by the birth of Ivy Mae Metzner Benjamin, my great-niece, to Emily Metzner and husband Jaron Benjamin on August 9th, 2015.   Welcome to our world and our family!

Jaron and Ivy Mae

Emily and Ivy Mae

Roller Rink

Kendall and Steve's pond

Elbows out, hunkered down,
the blue dasher dragonflies spin across the pond,
on rollerskates, an inch above the water!
“Hey, you guys, look at this!”
they yell back and forth to each other,
showing off, dodging their brothers and sisters,
speeding across the pond in magnificent synchrony.
Now and then, a water bug
scoots upon the surface, making arrow-shaped ripples.
Tadpoles watch, disinterested, from the shallows,
unaware of the metamorphosis awaiting them up ahead.
The big whitetailed dragonflies float above it all,
grand and elegant, at their own slow pace.
The airborne roller rink is a bright blue shout of “fun!”
Toss yourself into the fray,
go for the speed, and just go!

Annelinde Metzner
Kendall and Steve’s pond,
Fairview, North Carolina

Pond through the trees

Path to the pond

 

Yemaya Knocks Me Down

Mother Ocean and three dolphins

She will bowl you over!
Leave too many salt tears,
and the Voodoo women say,
she will pull you in
to join your salt with hers forever.
But you can cry to Yemaya!
Whate’er your sadness, large or small,
she pounds the shores ever again,
in rhythms as old as Earth,
waxing, waning, high tide, low tide,
sister of the moons, pulling as she pulls on our blood,
the other salt sea we carry within.
Whate’er your sadness, she pounds our shores
as though our misery were just another tortilla,
and she is huge, and warm, and she smiles very big,
and without knowing, we reach for her,
the salt sea rises and falls with her.
She rocks us in her huge arms, wherever we are,
around the world she rocks us to sleep,
high tide, low tide, dreaming of the moon,
minnows in her pockets.

Annelinde Metzner
June 24, 1995

      Yemaya (Yemoja, Yemonja) is the Yoruba (Nigeria) Orisha or Goddess who represents the Ocean and all salt water.  She is a huge Mother figure of great compassion for all Her living beings.  She is the center of worship in Brazil, Cuba, New Orleans and many parts of Africa.

     This poem is one of mine that has been chosen to appear in the We'Moon Datebook, a wonderful compilation of women's art and poetry, for the 2016 edition.

Loving July

Blue and black butterfly, photo by Chuck Wilkins

                                                 
I’m just here to love July!
It’s summer, and the in-your-face red, white and blue
has faded now, mellowed here
to the pink of mimosa, the cream of Queen Anne,
the lavender-blue of cornflower.
Wispy and bending in the breeze,
the colors blend delicately,
the flag of some other world,
my world.
I’m just here to love July!
The days are long, languid.
It’s so silly to be in a hurry!
The heat comes in clouds, wet and heavy.
Rose of Sharon blooms, in Her purple, color of thyme,
color of my fingers after blackberries,
flower of Magdalene, Her feast day nearing.
And butterflies! Hovering over the blooms,
blue and black, limenitis arthemis-
they teach us how to float and taste.
The mockingbird improvises all night,
courting his beloved with music.
How can I resist?
The breezes lift each branch slowly in the heat.
Their coolness soothes my skin.
I’m just here to love July.

Annelinde Metzner
Little Pine

Many thanks to my dear friend Betsy Murray for giving me her country cabin in Madison County to rest and write.