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Animate Dust: Poems for Embodiment

Updated: Nov 4, 2020


Embodiment Poetry | Denver, CO | Fratres Dei Spiritual Direction and Ministries

This month the Fratres Dei team got together to compile poetry of our own creation about our experiences with embodied spirituality. We invite you to curl up and enjoy, and take a few moments to explore your own body's relationship with the Sacred. We also welcome you to leave a comment with your own poetry or musings.



To My Body

By Rachel Parsons, Founder


Holy ash, animate dust

Stunted conductor, demented cache


I smell the winter in your nose,

carry you from my bed,

scan the grass with your feet.


With your mouth I taste filth.


Your nerves keep me safe

and keep me awake.

You are channel and dam.


You show me cliffs

and hang me from them,

the conception that drowns

the growth and growths.


You warm

and burn


sprint, sway, float

break, infect, sprain.

You play, write, know,

block, stop, retard.


Another day.

Senses seen.

More skin to shed.

Body to be


Originally published in Spiritual Direction International's journal, Listen: A Seeker's Resource for Spiritual Direction, October 2019.



Devour

By Saint Gibson, Communications Manager


There is no greater longing than for the dissolution of the self

in the appetites of the Beloved,

no higher love than the alchemy of blood to wine

and broken bread to surrendering skin

under the hand of an agile magician.



Cathedral

By Saint Gibson, Communications Manager


Love turns some people into birds or beggars, 

but you make me into architecture,

into a sanctuary of soft and holy spaces

shaped to catch the sound of your voice.

These eyes: rose windows bathing you in li