doves whispering/ as they rest their wings/ in the rafters your silent sanctuary
― Kate Mullane RobertsonA song waning through old trees,
The length of eternity in her eyes,
Dreaming the world into existence.We sat with broken wings,
Licking our wounds,
And watching the ancient sun rise.We sat with mending hearts,
Finding strength in the wind,
And learning to fly again.In dream-
The uterus of the universe
Unfolds its flower to us.Nimble and scarred,
We drink from its nectar,
And place our hearts here.Moments are where we hide,
Where we grow,
Where we die,
And where we learn to live.The shadows of limbs,
Broken and dropping the leaves of fall
Drip on the peripheral landscapes of our inner worlds.A sanctuary of rebirth.
© Si Matta
Tag Archives: Personal
The Mask Maker
“behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire.”
— Paulo Coelho
He peels the bark
slowly from around
the knots.
And dreams of the all
the eyes that will
peer through.
Shape shifted
and dreaming.
The dance continues.
© Si Matta
The Birds Whispered My Name
Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all.- Stephen King
The birds whispered my name,
As I fidgeted on a cold chair,
Learning of a god dressed in thorns.
As they talked in righteous dictation,
I would pull thorny brambles from dirty hands-
Finding god in the splinters.
I remember how the rain tasted-
Dry in safe beds made from synthetic fibers.
Yet I could hear the birds whisper my name,
Telling me stories,
We forgot to tell ourselves.
© Si Matta
Fire
Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can’t strike them all by ourselves― Laura Esquivel
I use to dream,
but my well
has ran dry.
Like cottonmouth.
I often cough
on words and
pass the torch.
A flame.
© Si Matta
Sinew
Never lost/ Fading slowly to Silence/ By infinite degrees”
― Ashim Shanker
The sinew of
the moment led
us to this
leather of silence.
Sometimes I forget
your name, but remember
the taste.
A distant drum-
Your heart.
© Si Matta
Indigo
“His eyes were that colour you can’t see in the rainbow. Indigo.”
― Rainbow Rowell
I remember turquoise,
it tasted blue
in my mouth
as he shoved
it down my
throat.
He gushed in
my hands, unaware
of the water
I held.
© Si Matta
death sinks uneasy in the appetites of the lost
“Sleep apnea is a plague in the western world.”
― Steven Magee
She passed out in
a cacophony of memories.
All the pretty dreams,
Dissected and worn.
She fell asleep to
the sound of old records.
All the pretty covers,
Creased and torn.
She curls her lips
to the worlds she dreams.
All the murmured words,
Bathed with scorn.
She walks unaware of
the stilts of gravity.
All the heavy faces,
Draped and creased.
A mask now covers
her mouth, as her
eyes attempt the
words
of sleep.
Sometimes death sinks uneasy
in the appetite of the lost,
A ritual with
no rite.
It has been since time
that plagues feel the
urge to breath,
eyes blink uneasy
behind
concealed ironies.
© Si Matta
redemption from the plague
‘The vision, however new and culturally unique, is translated back into a traditional oral format: the new within the old, reflecting the tenacity of oral tradition.’
“Magic in the Mountains: The Yakima Shaman: Power & Practice”, by Donald Hines, 1993
Grandma Shirley and the songs of forgotten dreams.
Grandmother’s voice was golden—a place where she tucked away her secrets. She was a siren, luring you across a smoke-filled room with her sultry sadness and rough-around-the-edges charm. She found God in the holy waters of honky-tonks, at least until children and the rapture of everyday life claimed the sanctuary of her dreams. She traded in “Strange Fruit” for a father she thought she’d found in the dogmatic catacombs of Kingdom Halls. Still, she always shared that part of herself with me. She told the racy stories, grasping her hands like prayer, a nostalgic exhale slipping through the blinds. With me, she felt safe—a place to whisper her discontent with choices that turned her from the Old Ways of our blood. She saw the fire in me and tried to pass on the Ceremony. I ended up finding it myself. I found it in metal.
Laying down screams for my band, Cathartes Aura in 2019. [/caption]There’s resonance in the tonsils, a release of primal force summoned from the swamps of modern life. Here, a feral wind releases its shadow, storm clouds clash against the shores of volcanic words, and violent air rushes through smoke-strained cords. The buzz of amplified sound becomes a harbor for Armageddon, spinning chaos into a kind of bliss. The drums thump, quickening the trance—an anxious war waged on flesh and heart. This is what metal means to me: a padded cell of my own, where trauma is brought to the chopping block for visceral release.
When I was young, my world seethed with the wonder of nature—the gilded peaks draped in mist, ancient trees resisting the chainsaw’s hum, rivers meandering in dramatic silence as forests fell like rain. These landscapes were soundtracked by stereo speakers blasting Black Sabbath, by motorcycles, Iron Maiden, skateboarding, and punk rock. I’d listen to quaking mountains scream like thunderbirds in 4/4 time and distortion, summoning visions through a haze of psychedelic experiments. (I believe my ancestors used mushrooms as a kind of message in a bottle—or, more accurately, a cap.)
I felt the anger and confusion of being cut off from my ancestors and the spirit of place, forced to bow to an anemic god who never had our Mother’s best intentions at heart, feeding us a diet of forgetting. Old stories would rise up, speaking of days lost to the corpses of progress and manifest destinies, as sweaty bodies slammed together in a prayerful trance. It was redemption from the plagues—at least for a little while.
Check out our band, Cathartes Aura.
Landscape of Visions
This is a photo of my hometown of Carson, Washington taken in the year 1925. The domed mountain in the right hand side is Wind Mountain. 
Growing up, I could see Wind Mountain directly from my bedroom window. I would get lost in daydream, which is a pretty common occurrence for me, and wonder how my ancestors revered and interacted with this landscape. What was it about this mountain that made it holy or sacred? Was it because of it’s stand alone features in the middle of the Cascade Mountain range? Was is it because of the sacred mineral waters that bubbled and boiled in her shadows? Or, was it because it could have been where the actual land bridge, known as the Bridge of the Gods, could have crossed the mighty river? – And Who had the first Vision on her lofty peak? Was it Coyote?
Mornings
The Stellar Jays raise up their chorus through the mists, beckoning the sun in the breaks of rain. Ravens rise with the Eagles as I sip my tea from the edge of the world, longing to dance. The slow hum of the wind winding up the canyons and valleys, washing the fresh rain upon the thirsty ground.
© H a v e n