The Spider doesn't ask for help

Or ask consent or approval.

When the web is right to her, it's right.

The Spider doesn't join a team

Or hunt in a pack like a lion,

But self sufficiency is her only motto.

And after the ambush had taken place,

She sits back and has a cigarette,

Or maybe two, before she spins a silken egg sac

Where she will lay her eggs,

And spin and spin until another web appears,

Then retract back in the dark recesses

That the world provides

For her to think

And write her poetry.

-jenn

I am there in the room

With a bird's eye view

Of eighteen monks

Sitting round a square table.

They laugh and talk all at once

Like a gaggle of geese.

Occasionally a raucous one

Will slap his forearm 

Down in front of him,

And from there, round the table,

Random arms will flap,

As if a fly were buzzing endangered.

As I watch the motion circle the square,

And listen to the conversation turn,

A dark dot emerges on the roof,

And I climb out of the whole that it produces.

For I am not a fly on the wall,

But a spider on the great mandala ceiling.

And I am the one the monks rejected.

I am the one the world says no to,

But I am the one that spins the web for the fates.

I am the one who made the twins

And put them to singing at the poles

To keep the entire earth in its balanced way.

And I am the one who loves the people.

I am the one who saves them.

I am the spider woman,

And the keeper of the lore.

-jenn

There's a nail in the sky that the moon hangs on,

And a place on it close to the wall,

Where two grooves are worn flat,

And you and I come to sit here.

The world is going round and round.

Everything is really.

And yet it's not.

But this is the place where you live now,

And you have told me that I can come and go freely.

And so I will.

But hold me tonight in the light of this weird moon.

It shines at such a different angle from here.

I know everything will be all right

When you tell me it will,

And I know everything always is

When I'm with you.

So thank you, weird moon,

For shining so weird,

And thank you, weird nail in the sky.

And thank you, weird wall,

Whatever you are that holds this nail up,

And the wires the weird moon hangs down from.

But most of all,

Thank you,

You.

I Love You.

-jenn

I am there in the room

With a bird's eye view

Of eighteen monks

Sitting round a square table.

They laugh and talk all at once

Like a gaggle of geese.

Occasionally a raucous one

Will slap his forearm 

Down in front of him,

And round the table 

Random arms will flap,

As if a fly were buzzing endangered.

As I watch the motion circle the square,

And listen to the conversation turn,

A dark dot emerges on the roof,

And I climb out of the whole it produces.

For I am not a fly on the wall,

But a spider on the ceiling.

And I am the one the monks rejected.

I am the one the world says no to,

But I am the one that spins the web for the fates.

I am the one who made the twins

And put them to singing at the poles

To keep the entire earth in its balanced way.

And I am the one who loves the people.

I am the one who saves them.

I am the spider woman

And the keeper of the lore.

-jenn

I meditate in the middle of a meditation.

I dream I'm sitting cross legged,

And I pretend to say ommmmmm.

It comes out more like, "uhhhhhhh."

And then I see your face again,

As sweeet as honey to the tongue,

As bright as the smile of many rainbows,

As dazzling as the sun that breaks through clouds of darkest rain.

And then I wake and realize

I'm contemplating again.

Sri will chide me.

He tries to teach me how to concentrate,

Then shift the gears of my mind to meditate.

He doesn't think I'll ever make it to contemplate,

But I'm already there,

Without knowing how.

-jenn

I struggle to make myself one with the dust of the earth,

As Lao Tzu recommends

To be the primal virtue,

In perfect flow with the Tao,

And the mother of the ten thousand things.

But I fight the urge to giggle,

Until I can't fight it anymore,

And the small trickle of joy

Dissolves me into a heart of laughter.

Sometimes in my zone of effervescence,

A tiny doubt tries to take me

To a somber, more intelligent place.

But I have learned not to go there.

I've decided that maybe I was born this way,

And maybe I was born for this purpose,

And maybe here, in this silly land

Of flowers and sunshine,

I am queen and I reign with a loving scepter,

And crown all comers with a crown of many crowns,

And recognize them as dear lovers 

And fellow sovereigns.

-jenn

If you want to tell others what to do

And have them do it,

Then tell them to do what they want,

And tell them to do the best they can,

Because this is what the whole world does.

And somewhere between the tied off ends of those two points,

The arrow fits onto the string,

And in the great release of it all,

Our lives fling out together

To hit or miss the marks we've spied.

And others may have eyed our results,

And judged us to have missed the mark, and sinned,

But at least we tried,

And it may be better to try and fail

In our own dharma,

Than to succeed in something we never wanted,

And be confused by the war inside our karma,

And never to know what could have made the difference.

-jenn