1. Calculate

I plan ahead
Preparing for the best outcome
and defense
I stay alert for the minotaurs
that live in my maze
Each day I puzzle and calculate
But in the woods
I wonder
Why do my decisions come so easily?
Trusting
I step off the trail
feeling my way around
Prickers
Thorn trees
Barbed wire fences
Picking up deer trails
I follow them without knowing where they’ll take me
Walking into their back loops
and dark groves
up and down ravines
I know I could get lost
out there alone
But this is not what I fear
Back home
I go back to
my strategies

2. Gravity

I don’t believe in passive vs active
Or feminine and masculine
As essential forces of nature
They are symbols that reflect culture
Not the universe
There is nothing passive
It is all moving
even down to
subatomic particles
In string theory
the smallest unit of life is a pulsating
ecliptic
thread of light
A hot moving
radiant
band of space and time and frequency
Circular bonds
that vibrate together with other strings
into fractal multi-dimensional structures
that contract and expand
Invisible doesn’t mean non-existent
It means we can’t see it
I believe
in gravity

3. Underground tunnels

I overheard someone say
there are underground tunnels
beneath our city
where the mafia
escaped through and
moved contraband
I thought of my great-grandparents who lived there
trying to speak English
denied loans
which was better than fascism
And I said out loud
“We need to bring those back”
I could tell by everyone’s expression
I had made a mistake
“What?”
Too late
I must explain
The world needs
more underground tunnels
and pathways of connection
Networks that run under walls
Supply lines
Conduits of communication
Escape routes
Mycelial runners

Lisa is a multidisciplinary folk herbalist in the areas of Traditional Western Herbalism, Italian Folk Magic, Astrology, Ancestral/Lineage healing and recovery, Flower Essence therapy, and has been in practice as a clinical herbalist for 19 years. She holds a B.A. in Psychology with Master’s level studies in Chemistry, Botany, and Environmental Science. She is the mother of 4 children and lives in the Adirondack foothills upstate New York. She is the founder of The Root Circle: a cultural center and herbal education school that seeks to reclaim and promote plants and plant medicine as an integral component of healthy human community, therootcircle.com

Cover photo credit: Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash