Magdala, Tower

Mary Magdalene by Brother Robert Lentz

Magdala, Tower, queen of my days,

You are not Spirit, not Ether, not Will ‘o the Wisp.

but flesh and blood, a woman like me,

and my teacher.

I see You in burgundy-red, the Blood-Root flower,

the Wake Robin, deep red trillium of the mountains,

the royally curled and woody flower of the Spicebush.

You are so real.

And when You walk on Earth,

the steps of Your beautiful feet are firm.

Priestess, daughter of Isis,

Well-trained in lore and wise,

how I crave the touch of Your oil upon my face.

MM is here!  Mary Magdalene,

here for Her own millennium,

and the voice You bring has no shame in who You are,

who we all are, Woman, strong, deep,

burgundy-red and sexual.

You walk in the power of the Sacred Night,

here to walk wherever You must,

through Love, through Transformation,

unto Union with the Divine.

With Your powerful arms

and Your dark-red hair glinting like amber,

You guide us all through these darkest of days.

Mary Magdalene, You stand grounded

even as we hang in torment,

with Your strong and womanly Priestess arms

ready to carry us through.

Annelinde Metzner

April 17, 2012

Mary Magdalene by El Greco

Mary Magdalene by Carlo Dolci

  

Medieval Mary Magdalene

Mary Magdalene by Carravaggio

Mary and Jesus stained glass in Scotland

Malala's Birthday Speech

Malala’s Birthday Speech

“In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful...”
          Malala Yousafzai in her birthday address to the UN Youth Assembly, July 9, 2013
 
A pink lacy shawl frames her dark hair and determined face.   She is sixteen!
Confident and convivial, she commands the podium in front of the world’s leaders.
Sixteen!   Malala has survived a gunshot at close range,
on her schoolbus in Pakistan,
a target of the Taliban for speaking her strong mind.
She has survived!

“Respected elders, and my dear brothers and sisters,  Salaam Aleichem.”
 
She fingers her delicate shawl, bequeathed from Benazir Bhutto,
one woman to another, a gift of strength from across time and beyond the veil.

“This time, we women will do it for ourselves.
Thank you to God, for whom we are all equal!
I speak so that those without voice can be heard.”
 
Her mother wipes away tears.
Men in suits stare, making space in their consciousness for Malala,
for this empowered young woman who has enraptured the world.

“Weakness, fear and hopelessness died.
Strength, fervor and courage were born.”
 
The room breaks out in emotion-filled applause.
Imbued with ahimsa, forgiveness and non-violence,
her strength uplifts us all.





Annelinde Metzner
July 18, 2013



Listen and watch as Malala gives her Birthday speech to the UN Youth Assembly.

 

The elders act

Arrested at Moral Monday

Arrested at Moral Monday

Arrested at Moral Monday

NC Citizens amass on the State Capitol lawn

The elders act

She chose the long walk, at age 92,
to the State House in Raleigh to be arrested there.
“Because I’m tired of all this goin’ on,”
she exclaimed, with a pointed look and a twist of her head,
a middle-aged son trailing her walker behind her.
On to the NC State House, where each district
has been bought and paid for by the fat cats
and the masters of greed
who fear for all they have.
Big money paved the way
for tiny town after tiny town in North Carolina
to fall to the one with the millions, the self-appointed Pope,
and our liberal enclaves were horribly gerimandered.
And so, Moral Mondays, where people like us
go to Raleigh at last, to make our voices heard.
The 84-year-old from here in the mountains,
also tired, and valiantly walking:
“I’m here for my conscience, my community and my children.”
In a few short years, this bunch, scared and rich,
has legislated cuts to earned income credit,
Medicaid and unemployment;
cut Pre-K programs, lowered taxes for the rich,
and suppressed voting in every way imaginable.
Following Dr. King and Gandhi, 17 ministers and rabbis heard the call.
The number is now in the thousands, every Monday,
Moral Monday, to bring us back to our senses.

“Do what's right by the poor, do what's right by the sick, do what's right by women, and do what's right by workers,”  says Reverend Barber, the first to meet on that lawn.

When the elders act, beware.



Annelinde Metzner
June 26, 2013






Read and see videos about North Carolina's Moral Mondays at The Nation.


See a report about Mountain protestors traveling to Raleigh. 

Ministers pray at Moral Monday

A NC protestor being arrested

Banner

Purify me

Purify me

Let me be humble in Your presence, Mother,
Your mysteries, my precious Goddess.
Let me be humble.
In Your pristine silence, in Your crystalline sacred energy,
let me bow my head and gather stillness,
gather stillness into my heart,
so that oneness, connection is all I feel.
Let me find You everywhere!
Let me walk beside Your golden manifestations,
as if beside a deep pure lake,
surrounded by silent mountains.
O my Mother, take my breath away!
Purify me now, make me ready, open me.
Leave me expectant, my heart on fire,
knowing You and Your divine energy
lay just around every turn.
Lead me to you, oh my beloved Mother,
lead me beside Your still waters.
Let me await, pure enough to see,
to feel You everywhere
as You lie golden before me.

Annelinde Metzner
Folly Beach
June 10, 2013

Invocation

Cullasaja Falls

Invocation  

Come be with us,  Mother Gaia.
Come be with us and among us.
Do not hover around us like a pale mist.
Do not settle on our shoulders                          
as though You’d fasten wings on us.
Do not dare us to fly.
Instead, grow infinitely slowly, from below.
Come to us through the soles of our feet,
from the souls of our beings.
Come up from ten thousand leagues,
from Your own source, Mother,
from the imagination’s fire, beyond perception.
Come up from Your flaming furnace, vermillion molten lava.
Radiate into our souls cell by cell,
so that walking is a pleasure,
so that leaping is a joy,
so we walk in beauty, connected to You,
returning when we will,
empowered with Your being,
earth made, dust to dust,
loving You, never to part.

Annelinde Metzner
June 28, 1992



From this invocation which I created in order to called forth the presence of Mother Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, I have taken some of the lines as lyrics for a choral piece, "Come Breathe With Us Gaia."   Watch and listen as my medley of three Goddess songs are beautifully performed by Womansong of Asheville at her 25th anniversary in 2012, with wonderful dancing by Shelli Stanback.


These songs and many others are available here on this site.   The songs in print, and including two CD's with the songs in parts, are in my songbook, "Lady of Ten Thousand Names."    Beautiful CD's and DVD's of our concerts are also available.  
       Simply click on the "BUY" tab above to access these items with Paypal.

Community garden

Community garden in Black Mountain NC

Community garden      

Do you love your little patch of Earth?
Does She feel you kiss her warm brown skin as you step?
Every day, do you thank Her for how she feeds you?
Go to the garden, and sink your fingers into Her living soil,
her rich humus full of life, and giver of life.
Plant some plants, plant some seeds!
What is a seed, what is it for your life?
Are there seeds, small sprinkles and dark, firm pods
planted in you, in your mind, in your heart?
Go to the garden, plant and share!
Watch each day for the new surprises She has in store.
Greens and all colors, and all for you to eat!
Grow just enough for yourself, your family,
and give some away.
Give some away until the joy of Her, of our Mother Earth
drips from your fingers like the juice of new grapes,
‘til the joy of Her sparkles in your eyes.
Give this away too, so whomever you meet
feels that energy, the energy of Her,
of Life, of resurgence and rebirth,
of all that returns when we bend just a little,
and plant.

Annelinde Metzner
Community Garden
May 23, 2013

Broccoli

Hoop garden

Herbs at the community garden

Gardeners hard at work

For all of us

Chickweed

For all of us

From our perch beside the little branch
behind boulders and an ancient root sculpture
in the brilliant new green of May,
we sit and see what there is to see.
Lichen of all colors,
flowery and tenacious,
spiderwort, chickweed (yum!)
and mean old poison ivy,
saying “hi” from the rock face
right behind our heads.
Though we are each sixty,
the boulders laugh out loud
at our foolish youth.
Watching and watching, we wonder
who in the woods is watching us?
Straight and low, a pheasant flies,
annoyed by our disruption.
I gaze and gaze, and suddenly there appears
a yellow trillium, the wood’s own gold,
singing her own song in the moist humus,
for nothing, for no one,
for all of us.

Annelinde Metzner
May 4, 2013
Little Pine

Red trillium (Wake Robin)

May apple

Red Oleander

Red Oleander

Red Oleander                                        

A salamander pale green as the new leaves of May

opens its orange lung-sac, brilliant, to the sun.

Three times at every pause!

In the breeze, red Oleander bends on her long stem, celebrating.

I am drawn down a quiet lane by the scent of jasmine

beguiling my heart, a path toward joy.

The dear Earth wafts up into me,

warm as fresh-baked bread,

filling my womb with Her love.

With my feet in the sand,

I pull Her love up into me,  to power my days.

Mother holds me tenderly, the mourning dove

in her palmetto-basket nest, giving, giving,

we Her babies, Her vast dream,

we Her future and Her now.

The black fin of a dolphin arises from the sea, ancient as days,

loving Her into the fathomless tomorrow.

Annelinde Metzner

Folly Beach

May 2010

Spring in Appalachia

Alchemist

Christiane Taubira, French Minister of Justice

Alchemist

In the cantankerous, impolite grounds of the French Parliament,
debate was raging over same-sex marriage.
Emotions ran so heated, bloody violence
had spilled over into the streets of beautiful Paris.
Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira took her place at the podium.
The alchemist!  So filled with humanity, warmth and charm,
deeply herself in any milieu,
she melted hearts with her insight and vision.
Alchemist!   Looking back over time,
how often has the right to marry
excluded any and all outcast groups,
Jews, Protestants, lapsed Catholics, actors?!
The question lingers:   who are we allowed to love?
Christiane reminds the world, there are children,
children like any other, laughing, crying, skinning their knees,
“children who detest broccoli, who drive us crazy.”
With these few words, she, the alchemist,
reminds us of what is at stake.
How much of our humanity do we want to risk?
How wide a swath of ourselves is it possible to hate?
Christiane, the alchemist, changes the world,
“transforming the metal of politics
into the honey of poetry,” (*)
leaving the stunned group with the words of Tagore:
“where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way....”
She smiles her deep disarming smile, and leaves the podium,
the world irrevocably changed in her wake.

Annelinde Metzner     
(* quote from Paula Di Perna, Women’s E-News)
April 26, 2013


Click here for a full article about Christiane Taubira's historical speech at the French Parliament, inspiring full legalization of same-sex marriage on April 23rd, 2013. 

Sunrise on Lakey Mountain

Sunrise on Lakey Mountain  
                      
A few claps of thunder,
that sudden shocking thunder
that bursts out of the silence of Spring,
a sudden downpour of early morning rain,
and then, the sun!
It’s Spring on Lakey Mountain.
She giggles as the new green leaves
burst forth in her forest cover,
tickling their way up her legs.
In the warming sun,
the rich smell of newly warmed earth
sinks into my winter-frozen soul.
I can hear worms in there, awakening too!
Horses nibble casually at the brilliant greenness,
as if they purely deserved this beauty,
as if this happened every day.
They shake their manes and tails,
just for the sheer beauty of it.
I am thawing too,
opening to the expanse
as the Earth embraces me once more.
Lakey Mountain giggles like a maiden
as the new greenness tickles her knees.
I hear this song of softness,
and I am well once again.

Annelinde Metzner
Lakey Mountain
April 18, 2013

Red Bud

Red Bud

In April bare grey trees remind me that this is no dream,

this everyday, this every new day-

The cherry blossoms, first to bloom,

then scattering in breeze, reminding of snow,

and now today, lush and greener by the hour,

intent on producing sweet red fruit.

The hummer’s return, a long, long drink,

fitting for one returned from Guatemala!

And then, ecoutez!  Welcome the wood thrush,

her deep multilayered melody guiding me back.

Welcome thrush!  Welcome me!

My eyes dilate, hummers buzz, and the chickadee not two feet from me,

cocking and cocking the wee head, seeming to want my finger for a perch.

A bluebird, shy as Spring’s first new,

and cardinals, and goldfinch!  A riot of color!

I can’t translate this, I can’t write it!

Along the banks of the river, red bud, misnamed in her purple gown,

paints filagrees in the forest canopy, here there and everywhere,

suspended in a perfect ballet, sucking my breath away.

The new dogwood, still clinging to green,

not yet ready for the full openness of total white.

I can’t translate, I can’t write.

Pale yellows and greens creep tenderly up the mountain,

a turkey buzzard gliding on the thermal winds.

A great peace relaxes me all along my spine,

up to my tippy-top, my eyes dilate, for the everyday of this,

it won’t go away, tomorrow and tomorrow, hooray and hooray,

here’s my world come back again, this day, this day, this very day.

Annelinde Metzner

April 21, 2005

Muso Koroni

Can we live with all her power?
The wide, curved hips, knees to the ground,
armbands high on the rounded limbs,
courage in the shoulders,
the babe cradled in the strength of her arms.
And her head!
Three ropes of hair,  the crown so high,
a consciousness wide as the whole village,
a knowing big as Earth herself,
full of song, stamping, full of dance.
Muso Koroni, the earth goddess of the Bambara,
“pure woman with ancient soul.”
And what if whenever you came to your village,
she greeted you?
Her greeting:  You have power too!
Woman my own, my future, you,
womanchild for whom I suckled babes,
fruit of my breasts, child of my pain,
daughter of my countless days,
You!  You have this power,
and I’m here for you still.
I, who have given birth to all life,
mother of all things, both tame and wild,
Babe, I suckle you. Know this!
All the power in these muscular thighs
you carry with you still,
daughter of my tears, gem of my years,
progeny of the yet-to-be,
rooted, earth-bound, dark-eyed, wild, wise.




Annelinde Metzner
April 15, 1996


Listen to a live performance of "Muso Koroni" from Annelinde's concert, "In the Mother Grove" (2009), available for sale at the Buy tab.  The poem is read by Deb Scott with marimba accompaniment by Sue Ford.