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This issue of Goddess Pages is dedicated to the memory of Patricia Monaghan: 1946 - 2012


 

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When the Azaleas bloom
Issue 21 Summer 2012

by Annelinde Metzner

Image by Annelinde Metzner

When the Azaleas bloom,
don’t they grab you, reach deep into you,
say, “Slow down, stop here,
stay with me, look at me,
I’m the pinkest creature you’ve ever seen!
I am a flamboyant Madam in Paris perfume.
I am every little girl’s Easter dress.
I am big and fat as five frangipani leis around your neck.
I bedeck the temple altar of Aphrodite.
I am the petaled carpet strewn before Our Lady.
My pink stamens reach for you, trumpets of your awakening.
Each of my green leaves shouts ‘New!  Begin anew!’
In my deepest recesses are gorgeous patterns
of darker pink against light.
Fat bees are engorged on me.
My blossoms crowd onto my stems
like a thousand virgins of Artemis
laying holy wreaths in our paths.”
The pink azalea says, “Here we are, perfect and whole,
powerful, adaptive, ready for change,
offering beauty, open as a thousand yonis.
Stop right here, and love me!”

Annelinde Metzner
April 14, 2011


Annelinde Metzner

Annelinde Metzner is a poet and composer living in and inspired by the Blue Ridge Mountains.   Her nature poems have been compiled in the self-published chapbook, “In Love with the Rooted Earth”, and in her poetry blog with photos and links, http://therootedearth.blogspot.com/.  She writes of the world’s inspiring women and men in the chapbook and poetry blog, http://isntitallofus.blogspot.com/.

Annelinde has founded two women’s choirs in the Asheville, North Carolina area: Womansong in 1987, and Sahara Peace Choir, which she currently directs.  She composes solo songs, chamber and choral music devoted to the Goddess and produces concerts of her music and poetry including dance and puppetry. She has recently completed a songbook of 21 songs for the Goddess called "Lady of Ten Thousand Names". The songbook plus CDs and DVDs of her concerts are available at her new blog - Annelinde's World.

Annelinde can be contacted at annelinde@hotmail.com

 
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Brighid in Sweden

 If you enjoyed Kirsten Brunsgaard Clausen's article about Brighid's Runes in Sweden, in our Winter 2011 issue, you might like to see this video - the celebration of Lucia in a Swedish church ceremony last December.

 


 

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