Nearly full Moon,
Autumn Equinox 1986

Missing You 1996

Feeling deserted yet again .
Sitting here freezing amongst the Stones of the Ancient Mother.
Where are you, Leify, my son, gone to the Otherworld.
Are you being reborn, Sean, during your Rebirthing Intensive?
trying to get at the roots of and recover from your cancer 
Toivo crying bitter tears over an impossible love . . 
why is life so difficult for my sons?

Beverly alone at her desk mourning her lost daughter, 
What is happening to us all?
Memories of last weekend
the police invading St Pauls, our home for now, 
six hundred, or more, black-clad white policemen 
in riot-gear facing the West Indian community 
perspex-shields glinting in search-lights 
against the darkness of the night...
fear, anger, claustrophobia shared by everyone 
whether black or white, during this violation of our rights.

Soon Samhain, Festival of the Dark Mother and the living Dead.
Will you be there, Leif and Sheba, our children in other realms?
Will you be able to reach us, we who are yet so limited
in our perceptions living as we do on this Earth-plane.
So you feel as sad and frustrated and trapped as we are?

Everything has turned to dust for me 
in spite of the beauty of this living Earth. 
Oh, how I wish for you that you are now existing 
in a state of pure bliss and that you understand 
so much more now than we can ever imagine 
weighted as we are here by the dullness and cruelties 
of Patriarchal non-realities.

Sheba Skinner, Beverlys 21 year old daughter, flew into space
I love the sky, I love the sky she wrote
in her seven page farewell letter, 
in which she also talked of sexual abuse and how tired she was of it, 
and how she didnt want to live another day 
to face poverty and DHSS offices. 
She - talented, artistic and beautiful - jumped off 
the Clifton Suspension Bridge on 13th August this year 
in broad daylight, 2.30 in the afternoon. 
A suicide?

Leif, my 15 year old son, said
I want to get out of my mind all the time and by any means

Not being able to face grey mindless everydayness -
of bigoted and racist schools, my son is/was of mixed race, 
the intolerant and unloving stepfathers of this world

and mothers empowered by Patriarchy to protect their young ones -
There you lay in a pool of blood, 
your skull fractured by the wheel of a car, 
never to regain consciousness . . . never again . . . permanently out of your mind
on the road in South of France 26th August last year. 
You were growing handsome that summer and tall 
your great intelligence soaring, your quick wit a joy.

An accident?

Our beloved children . . . daughter and son . . . near adults, 
how we wish your happiness and joy in your Light World.
How we wish it were easier to communicate with you 
across the boundaries of the Realms.
How I wish to soon be there with you...

Was woken too early this morning...
another bloody ordinary day, life goes on etc. 
A mockery to me whose life stood still, 
never to be the same again, when I saw my young son
dying on that road in the Basque country last summer. 
pitch-dark despair all morning
tears near the surface
or outright crying, numb and cold.
Even when sitting or walking amongst the Mothers Stones 
in Her ancient sanctuary at Avebury
I feel tired, almost unable to move.

Only a few days from Full Moon and also the" Autumn Equinox. 
Remembering coming here another Equinox in September
 now two year ago on our way to Greenham
and sleeping in a parking-space at the foot of Silbury mound.

Another time and another life from today
when we - two women again - picnicked in that very same space. 
Remembering the dream-vision I had at that time -
of a luminous, great pulsating Being 
against the Darkness of Her womb -
which felt like a good omen and a blessing.
What did it all come to...
my work, my art, our hopes and dreams.
I no longer know.

Did it all in fact bring misfortune
and destruction on my children?

Silbury Dream 1988

We climb Silbury mound, the belly of our Mother, 
this glorious sunny day.
Had expected to feel rage and grief and had wanted to 
cry and wail at you my Mother
who I somehow felt had brought about and colluded in my sons death.

It was here on Silbury on a magic Beltane-night of womens 
celebrations that I had met Musawa, the American woman that I and 
Leif went on to visit on her farm in the South of France.

But, as I lay now face down in the grass on Her summit 
Crying bitter tears suddenly I felt only love, 
I felt a great love radiating towards me and from me 
and I knew in that moment that She grieves with and for us 
for our children and for all Her living and growing creatures 
that are wantonly killed by Patriarchy and its cruel Godhead

This was the first time during a whole year, an eternity of pain and 
numbness that Ive been able to feel love again for our Mother, 
Vibrant Earth-Spirit, in Her beauty and many shifting forms. 
I must constantly remember that my son
was not killed by Her Nature . . . not by the sea, by the mountains, 
not by the skies or the stars 
not by the moon and heavens 
not by the wind, rain or sun nor the trees, animals or plants
No. . . he was killed by Patriarchal technology. . . this I must never forget.

My son, Sean, was not reborn during the Rebirthing Intensive. 
On the contrary, this New Age capitalist Therapy 
brought about a relapse of the cancer
and my son has now some while been back in hospital 
on chemotherapy and has been hovering between life and death. 
He is slowly, slowly coming back to life.

Sean died on the Full Moon in July 1987.
Blessed be my son.