I AM Love

© 2017

I am a cat stalking along city rooftops
independent and free
nobody owns me

I am a swan dreaming gently
in the pale gold reeds at the lake’s edge
sheltering for the winter

I am a dragon soaring high overheard
roaring flames to protect Her land

I am a deer trembling
in the misty purple heather
I quiver,
every fibre of my being alert to the sound of Him
coming through the deepening Dusk

Inchnadamph, Assynt, Scotland, 2002

With all of my heart and soul

with every atom and particle
along every string and wave in the multiverse
I love the King Stag

I feel His love in the heat of the sun warming me
I see His power in the strength of the eagle’s wing as He glides overhead

my heart breaks for His nobility as He dips His antlers
to Her full light rising
a pale circle like a fat dew drop on a green leaf in the deep forest

I am a spider spinning my web
new and glistening each day
trying to tell Him in a different way
how much I love Him
I spin a story
just for Him
about my conversations with Night
just before Dawn broke

I am in the silent pool
a reflection just waiting
for Him to see me

Glen Helen, Isle of Man, 1999

I do not wish to join the river
for it will carry me away from Him
I want to stay here forever
below the secret high places
just waiting
to see His proud silhouette
against the twilight sky
as He steps regally down the valley

every breath I draw
is one of longing
and hoping
and dreaming

my heart is full to bursting
of knowing
Love

I told my secret to the breeze

tickling me softly at midday

the breeze told the clouds

that quickly blew my way

they shook themselves empty

of their clean, clear rain

and I was waiting,

just hoping

He would come to drink again

The stars tiptoed out

through the heavy velvet sky

and took their places one by one

as planets wheeled by

I lay so still

just drifting

quietly in the Dream

as a leaf gives up Will

and floats

trusting down the stream

He was wild

He was roaming

the lonely vast free

and my heart was roaming with him

as the shade is to the tree

Assynt, Scotland, July 2002

By Christine Jordaan, 2013
© 2017

Mozambique 2016

Wow that was a bit of an emotional trip back to Santa Maria, Mozambique last week.  In October 2013 I left, after ten years there, and returned to South Africa. 

Luckily the bay was calm on the way there.  (NOT the return trip).

Maputo Skyline

Dhow

Mr Dick Nhonguane

Inhaca island in the background

Meeting with The Boss - Nkosi Zacarias Nhonguane

Love the licence plate

Sandbanks at low tide

Catching up with my dear friend Abel, now in his 80s








Beach Bar

A Lesson

Today I met with Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, President of the Inkatha Freedom Party.

It's the third time I have had the privilege but the first time he brought me to serious (secret) tears.

I had asked him a question about his memories of lions, and if increasing urbanisation of his people had somehow bought a disconnection from Nature... a kind of spiritual vacuum.  But the magnitude of his answer only really hit me when I was back on the very windy 15th floor rooftop parking of the Royal Hotel.

He had explained to me, briefly and gently, that it was very difficult to see lions during the years of apartheid because the game reserves were exclusively for white people. And that the first time he saw a lion was as a trophy in the United States!

I cried into the hot wind and watched the harbor for a while from the rooftop with this sharp pain in my heart.

I wondered if the extremely high levels of violence we experience in South Africa could come from this enforced disconnection from Nature... about the loss of folklore - if the children couldn't even access the areas where the wild animals were, how did they relate to their own mythology and worldview?  And then I remembered my good friend and Comrade, Xolanie Khumaloe, saying recently that at thirty-something years old he had just been into a game reserve for the first time in his life and seen rhinos. 

Perhaps the people shouting that black Africans don't care for wildlife might stop for a second and consider that for so long indigenous Africans have been deliberately excluded from their wildlands… the sacred spaces that root them in Mother Africa… where they could otherwise find comfort in their ancient songs and rituals in an increasingly fast-paced world.  Perhaps the desensitisation to violence that we see increasing could arise from being lost in their own homes?

How can we expect people to save the animals if they don’t even know them?

So I must thank You, once again, Your Excellency, for your unfailing commitment to preservation of our natural heritage, and also for the deep lesson of today.  My last thought on the windy rooftop was that You remind me of a lion… blazing brightly, a shining Star to follow, and inspire us.  And I remembered too, that Darkness always tries to destroy the Light.  They tried to destroy You.. but they never got it right – You’re still burning brightly.  I pray, really, really pray, that the Lion too will continue to blaze for future generations, as will Your legacy.  A Light to hold onto when it seems as if the World is falling into Darkness.

I will leave it here with a quote from Hon Narend Singh on the CITES Conference currently running in South Africa.

"Why do we continue to choose destruction and indiscriminate killing over conservation…?”

Why indeed Minister Molewa and South African government?

What legacy are you leaving?

Captured

© 2017

As the Light grew, the Dark became jealous,

prowling at the edge of her Psyche,

whispering, tempting,

seducing with pretty promises and luring lies

Feeding off the Shadow,

hidden and hurting,

twisting and tricking,

until her Soul, distraught,

torn apart by anguish,

sought refuge in the Void,

giving a last regretful look before turning away

and stepping off the Edge into the Abyss

There in the icy Wasteland Souls hover,

frozen inside,

they know that they died a long, long time ago

Whilst outside, the human predators stalk and trap,

and Gentle is shackled in Bluebeard’s castle,

blindfolded, bound,
lost in the mists,
cold steel at her wrists,

drifting in and out of the Real,

keeping the panic at bay and the ghosts away,

by withdrawing and refusing to feel

Until one day all is flames and searing pain

as her Soul awakens again,

Realisation slams her head into the wall,

and the Long Road back begins

through the Underworld to seek what was lost

amidst the still smouldering ashes of the past

Standing once more before the dreadful door

that she was too afraid to open before,

there are no shortcuts or detours,

it’s the only way out

through the City of Ugly

back up to the Light

From the icy Abyss

through the Fire

down into Hell,

the Ego and pride is fractured,

fragmented,

broken,

to purify and strengthen the Soul

by Christine Jordaan 
09 June 2016

© 2017

Who is Dreaming Me?

Who is dreaming me?

that I’m tossing around on this black raging Sea?

and I am journeying the Wastelands

instead of home safe and warm,

buffeted by gales and devoured by Storm,

travelling the inner ways under dark-shadowed Sky,

        Whose dream am I?

This notion of Fate being woven by the Three,

do we not have any say over our Destiny?

who is singing my so-called reality?

       Who is dreaming Me?

Are they objective, subjective, loving, stern?

is the pain and the suffering the lessons we must learn?

and who are the combatants of this war raging within?

        Am I an Angel or Original Sin?

March 2017

This quest to know Truth,

these glimmers that tease me,

through this Dark Night,

this Long Night,

       Who is dreaming Me?

For surely we are the dream and Source is the Dreamer,

We are the tapestry and Spirit is the Weaver,

We are the Smile She laughs when we play,

We are the Tears He cries when we stray,

And the Path home,

the long road that we all walk alone,

is the Quest of the Seeker

as we reap what we’ve sown

Thus Earth is the school and Life is the stage,

where we act out the Mystery through each passing Age,

when we’ve learnt all our lessons and passed all our tests,

tripped up and messed up, and given it our best,

        do we get to wake up and dream our own dream?

        perhaps answer the question 

            Who is dreaming me?

If the Sphinx is the image of the God at the time

represented by the Sun, 

and Heart spells Earth,

is it the Quest of the Grail to rebirth ourselves,

so our Souls can descend and the Lion-God return?

Thus the long road, the dark road,

upon which our Spirit is grown

is through the Heart of the Son (Sun) 

           when we love All as One!

Christine Jordaan 06 May 2016

© 2017

Credit:  Kriss Kringle

The Mirror

I look in the mirror and see…
a child with a gun
staring at me,
a body lying in the sand
killed by lies,
and swarming with dirty, black flies
and I know that part of me pulled the trigger;

I look in the mirror and see…
a starving dog bleeding in chains,
and my hand is still holding the stone
as I kneel in the dirt all alone;

I look in the mirror and see…
a woman bound, hurt, and enslaved,
and I know that I have the key
tucked away safely,
I could set her free;

I look in my mind and see
all the anger, the doubts, and the fears

I look in my heart and hear
the whispers of a million dreams,
secret hopes and unshed tears

I turn back to the mirror
and reach through the glass to the child,
I have to love him better to have a fairer world,
and I have to love him better
because he is me.

Christine Jordaan

05 May 2014

© 2017

WE NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS WORLD WE ARE CO-CREATING, WHETHER WE ARE DOING SO CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY!

Will You Cry for Me?

© 2017

When the forest falls silent of chattering birds
and the Moon shines down on empty glades,
when the Earth no longer shakes under the migrating herds
and the trees are felled where the cheeky apes played

         Will you cry for Me then?

Maputo Special Reserve

When the ice melts and grasslands turn to sand
and the gentle humble giants no longer roam the barren lands,
when the setting Sun is pining for the lion’s mighty roar
and the sweet sad sound of the night jar’s call
    Will you cry for Me then?

When flamingoes no longer grace the mirror-like pans
and no coucals joyfully herald approaching soft rains,
when no Mahogany tree lends his shade from the burning Sun
nor their pods crunch underfoot in late summertime
    Will you cry for Me then?

When the lonely wind carries just a memory of a mighty eagle soaring,
and an echo of a dreamtime with soft water falling,
and the ground is soaked in blood of humans’ pointless warring,
pause then,
listen then,
    can you not hear Me calling?

When there is no relief from the Long Dark Night
because you’ve blocked out the pain and blinded your sight,
you’ve turned away from the agonising screams
and traded in the Real for fake gold and cheap dreams
pause then,
weep then,
    can you not feel yourself falling?

When the last rhino’s horn has been ground into dust,
and we’ve betrayed and we’ve broken the last animals’ trust
and you awaken to a grey land of emptiness and dread
don’t cry for Me then,
for I am your Heart
     and I will be dead

by Christine Jordaan 

02 January 2016

© 2017

Maputo Special Reserve