Harvest Moon Transformation

Transformation // Wendy Page 2003

Temple Poem

I thread my way, carefully, toward Temple.
I, and sister travelers – ahead, behind—
Quickly, here is a path

disappearing in tangles of history

There, make a new one

close at hand, close to home.

I, quietly, by the thousands,
step into a shrine of my own making.
I, and the multitudes of women who have slipped
silently away from the man’s ceremonies.

We dare to come
right into the heartbeat of Love
naming it Woman, calling it Holy.
We decorate the altar with mirrors
dance praise to breast and womb
as it was in the beginning.

As it is now,
the tabernacle is invisible
to those who cannot read our codes.
Sister pilgrims file into the circle,
a throng of worshippers.
We speak in tongues of song and drum

reverent before our own images

jubilant to invent our own litanies.

I have peered behind the inmost veil
and discovered a myriad of me,
spinning life and death,
mapping new ventures of soul.

I, and all these tribeswomen,
charmed with power to fire galaxies
spell-bound to each other and to the earth
as it evermore shall be.

--Bethroot Gwynn 1982