BitterSweet
BitterSweet
I’m not here to do the easy stuff
To skim the surface
Talk about the weather the furniture the best breed of dog
I mean of course I’m here for that…
But it’s not what makes my soul catch fire
I’m here for the hard stuff
The bone grinding deep diving
Ancestral anthropological stuff
The bone dust medicine
Tinctures of femurs and essence of auditory ossicle
So we can walk their paths and hear their songs.
I’m here for you to tell you to sleep with their pictures
Tucked neatly under your pillow
To place one, tiny, dried mushroom cap into the folds
Of the white cloth you wrap them in
Medicine for the dead.
And when you wake and find
Who it was that needed the medicine, you may also find
That they have spoken to you in your dreams.
I’m here for the hard stuff, for the story
Of your 10th grade sweetheart, first boy you ever kissed
And who later married your best friend.
She died, years later, in his arms. No one knows why.
The autopsy said nothing. She just died, too young,
Still in love with him, and you, and with life.
For the stories so intricate and entwined
They they are like the English ivy twining up the
Walls of old Southern plantations
Where the whispers of the ravening dead
Sometimes overlay the voices of tour guides talking about
Plantation life and how nice it was and how the owners
Treated the slaves like family, how everyone
Was happy there.
Even the living can’t sleep after hearing lies like that.
I’m here for those sleepless nights
When the intergenerational pain creeps up on you
Like fog from the bayous
And wanders across your skin
Whispering
Like the voices of those long dead people
In the unmarked graves out back
Of the kitchen house.
Yes, beloved, I am here for that.
I am here for your shame stories
And your pain stories
And for your hard-fought wins,
To cheer and congratulate you
When you arrive, every time you arrive.
I’m here to have your back when the monsters come out
When the monster is you and you are terrified of it.
I’m here to support you when you excavate
That closet rattling with old bones
Old bones that rattle and slam, old bones
That clicky clack and beat out an ever escalating heartbeat rhythm
That keeps you up at night considering every mistake
You ever made. Every poor decision. Every time
You smacked your child’s bottom or yelled when you know
Now
That compassion would have been the better option.
I’m here to stack those bones of old ivory
And parchment skin and the bitter cobwebbed shreds
Of flesh and then to offer you the tools you need
To reflesh those hidden things, to bring them back into
Holy and beautiful being. Tools like the sword of truth, and
A brilliant light to shine into the darkness.
Like an old cardboard box for the cast offs
And herbs and flower essences and deep, dark,
Red roses, so dark red they are almost purple
Like heart’s blood to lay on the grave
Of every single damn thing you are ready to let go of.
I’m here for that.
I’m here to crawl the mycelial networks
Of your DNA, of you lived life, with you. To reclaim everything
Deep and dark and fecund and Feminine
Everything Sacred and Holy and fertile
That has been buried in the Earth, the very body of the Mother,
Which we are told is dirty
Just like our own bodies.
I’m here to examine with you the way you link up
And sync up with the World
The ways your body is the perfect vessel
For anything and everything you ever wanted to create
For the Shamanic Journey of your Inner Life.
I’m here for the Underworld Journey
The Journey of Inanna
The times when you lose your crown and your breastplate
And everything…everything else
And are hung up on the meat hook and left
Forgotten
Until by your own devices you are resurrected
And reclaim every single piece of your birthright.
Someone else can read your cards
And tell your fortune
And massage your body
And do your nails.
You need those things.
A break, some fun, something
Given where you can receive simply.
I love these things…but they are not what I do.
No honey. I’m here in the cauldron
Have been so long, so deep in its waters of
Birth
Death
And Rebirth
That the boiling no longer feels anything but good
And right and normal.
Come. I will give you the first
Bitter
Sweet
Drop.
© Bettina Colonna Essert, Feb 2022
