In the distance and under the surface a portal awaits, away from the noise and daily demands. When I am ready, it will appear and open.
Hope
Author: joanvinallcox
Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, and rabid reader who has taught in both the college and university systems.
Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia.
She is a widow from a pretty happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter.
Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry.
Autumn Equinox
Alone on a dark porch, on a dark house, streetlight on a silent street. The candle sputters and dies. Emptiness.
The Silent Weeper
The silent weeper lives in estrangement, loneliness. Is there a path from solitude that doesn’t cost, that doesn’t require, change? I go down to the lake - its roll and rumble and the wind teach me about impermanence
The Long Goodbye
After happy-ever-after comes the long goodbye, wrenching and awkward. The first year is numbness, overwhelmed with tasks, and learning new ways The second is weeping and anxiety; tasks continue to overwhelm and yet soothe. A structure to the daze.
Peace
I’ve learned to notice traffic jams in my brain, and to let my mind go offline, to drift in quiet aloneness, until I am restored.
Life Question
When the cataract in my Third Eye is removed, and the clear light and intense colours are fully visible, who will I be?
The Moving Lake
Driving beside the grey moving lake that we all return to, I see it better intermittently, interspersed with green vineyards, wooded fields and others’ dwelling places.
My Father’s Other Daughter
A poem from the 1980s when I was interested in Jung and mythology. (I have no sister.)
1
My father's other daughter
has joined me.
I'd flown at the sun and been blinded:
I saw dark ringed with glory.
2
My skin was a sandpaper burn;
I wanted to sleep. I'd flown
through to the dark
but I knew I must see to remember.
She came to me then
and offered balm.
I felt blessed.
3
This happened:
she nursed me and I loved her.
When I awoke, she stood before me,
watching.
My skin was grayish and loose. I felt wonderful
and frightened. The balm didn't
always work:
(death had to be faced.)
4 - A New Voice
"My mother's other daughter has moved back in.
I hadn't seen her much since her teats grew and she
followed our father into adventuring. I'd made her
nervous, so she stayed away.
She was dying when she got here; she'd known it was
time to seek me and the wine-like milk of death,
or baptism.
She said she was grateful, repeatedly. Three times she
started to cry when she felt my hands, but I
remembered how to tease her into laughter.
She only complained when she was afraid.
I only left her alone when she couldn't see me.
We were waiting for the moon and the knife.
5 - The Other Voice
Time now. She draws a scalpel
delicately down
the back of my head,
down my spine,
between my legs,
up my belly, between my breasts,
across my lips,
between my eyes, and up
to where she began.
My right and left are separate,
joined by a thin bloody line.
She tugs gently at my hair; it falls
away from my scalp.
The cool moonlight
illuminates my new skin.
She pulls again, and my arms
are uncovered
as the glove of my old skin
drops off.
I am new and naked,
and step
into her shadow.
Whispers
The tight sky behind the dark trees holds questions; I don’t want to listen
Summer Sunday Morning Lament
The dogs are walking their owners in the rain-marked streets. The air is heavy and thick with longing and aloneness.
Learning Living 