Run toward your creative life

Run toward your creative life with all your might
even when, and even because, tears stain the very surface,
the fiber of your creative being.

Isn’t this your truest self?
Isn’t this a pristine beach,
more wild than winter, more vast?

Doesn’t the joy breath of your inner life
smell fresher than new-washed cottons hung in the air?

When the long day finally ends,
and I come close to the inner self,
I pull back the veil.


Annelinde Metzner        
June 6, 2006

At the labyrinth

Light Center and Labyrinth

Ever, ever, She pulsates, warm beneath our feet,
our Mother the precious Earth.
Will She ever let us go?
Warmly She sings to our hearts,
“Love, love”, for all to hear,
for our walk, for our breathing, for all our being.
We are all just puppies in a pile,
one against another, opening our mouths
to find Her sweet teats right near.
Warmly She holds our hearts, with infinite love,
because we are Hers, we are of Her choosing.
In the wind I hear Her sighs, content,
as the day comes to a close.
Shyly appears the Moon, Her lover,
in immense beauty,
to spend the night at Her side.

Annelinde Metzner
Light Center
May 23, 2010


Spent a few hours today in the warm February sun, meditating and listening to the quietness of the Light Center in Black Mountain.  Spiritual seekers and world-weary beings are welcome there, 24/7.  
    I also love to play their piano!

Dome front with Peace Pole

Labyrinth

Festival of Fez

Drums in Fez, Morocco

I cannot hate these people
who opened their doors to me,
who opened their country to me,
Morocco, 2002.
Hate is the impossible word.
All I felt was love...
Children running to see us
on our climb through the olive groves
to the shrine on the hillside of the Holy City.
Our walks in the impossible labyrinth of Fez,
families at their creative work,
a father, a son embroidering,
a copper engraver tap, tap, tapping
amid the ever-present cacophony of the medina.
That word does not fit here,
in this Moroccan sacred society,
the call to prayer five times a day,
the ablutions at the ancient fountain.
The music I stumble upon,
the poet and the oud player in the riad courtyard,
among  the roses and the laughing children,
the fado singer in the museum gardens,
the women of Chechnya chanting.
Never will I hate these people,
my family of Man,
the young woman painting my hand with henna.
There is this place in my heart 
where hate can never be.

Annelinde Metzner
Fez Festival of Sacred Music
February 4, 2017

I was blessed to attend the Fez Festival of Sacred Music in Fez, Morocco in 2002.   Carolina Day School, where I taught music, honored me with a two-week tour of Fez and Marrakech run by Sufis who welcomed me as part of their spiritual practice.
     The political atmosphere in the USA at this moment , 2017, forms a huge cultural dissonance with my experience in this welcoming and highly creative Muslim country. I wept as I wrote this poem, because this chasm is unbearable.

Boy holding embroidery thread for his father

Father embroidering, Grandfather standing nearby

Three generations at a Sufi issawa, an all night music ceremony

Portuguese Fado singer in a museum concert

Chechnyan women's singing ensemble

Getting henna painted on my hand at an Issawa

Olive groves near the shrine of a saint

Tree of Life tiles at a pottery