mythology – C.M. Rivers

Dragon Gates

While drinking cold tea from a glass jar and dividing your thoughts between Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Neruda, you cut a kiwi in half the long way and consider the oval ring of black seeds at its heart. You always see Our Lady Of Guadalupe there, proving that eating a piece of fruit can beContinue reading “Dragon Gates”

Old Inuit Song

I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big, for all the vital things I had to get and to reach. And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing. To live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.Continue reading “Old Inuit Song”

Joseph Campbell quoting Heinrich Zimmer

“My friend Heinrich Zimmer used to say the best things can’t be told, because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood, because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can’t be thought about, and one gets stuck in the thoughts. The third best are what we talk about.” –Continue reading “Joseph Campbell quoting Heinrich Zimmer”

The Encounter

I stood in a glass house at the edge of the sea. I watched as the tide rose, gradually swallowing the house, waves breaking against glass walls, and over the glass roof, booming, rattling, trembling. Seaweed, rocks, shells, too many fish to count, so many colors. Then came the crabs, starfish, anemones, cephalopods, sliding, clickingContinue reading “The Encounter”

Omphalos

My fires are so thirsty, the hunger drinks itself. Transcendent wheel turning, at once groaning and soundless. I speak the language of rounded stones, spoken at the navel of the world. At times I cannot even reach you. At times I scoop you up to ride across the world in the cups of myContinue reading “Omphalos”

Minnows

Again, the whale descends, the tidal current pulls away. The microcosm of Us gravitates to center. We touch silence with our collective identity, the Self that is linked to all things, the part that knows it’s not alone, that knows it is a splinter of consciousness, that knows it is born again each morning. ItContinue reading “Minnows”

Awakenings

We can see so much more with closed eyes, as if in closing them we are truly opening them. We see our story, the story of ourselves, our human-animal birth, all the way through to the opposite gate. It’s not in color or black-and-white, but some strangely familiar quality of light, striking chords and nerves,Continue reading “Awakenings”