Poems and Ponderings

Free at last When you look up to the sky you'll see me in the clouds whispering 'I am free' When you feel the wind carressing your face you will hear me whispering 'I am free' When you feel the rain gently rolling down your cheeks you will hear me 'I am free' When you look up to the stars at night you will know 'I am free'   When you watch the eagles dancing in the sky you will know I am free at last! c J. Schulte-Zurhausen 2013

I sold my life, the life as I knew it with all the memories and attachment to things and left the country I lived in and learned to love despite or may be because of all it's challenges. Selling my house, my furniture, my memories, and only keeping a few necessities and memorabilia to start a new life in the country of my birth, a life without my husband who had just passed on. Feeling lost and lonely and drifting without direction and any support I wanted to make a new start in a country that was familiar to me, or so I thought. In short, I returned after only 9 months, together with my 15 boxes and my 2 beloved Ridgebacks that never left my side and started making a new life in a country that had become my home and that I love so much. It was not an easy time to start from scratch, falling very ill, unable to move at many days. The most upsetting part, which I only realized today how much it had hurt, was how I had been taken for a ride by unscrupulous people. Buying a hou...

I love writing poetry and as with my art I have my personal favorite style. When I came across this post I thought I share it here: Jane Hirshfield is the author of seven books of poetry, including most recently Come, Thief , and the classic collection of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry . Who better to ask: Why write poetry? Here are her in-depth, thought provoking answers to this two-part question: Jennifer Haupt: Why do you write poems, and why would anyone want to write a poem? Jane Hirshfield: One reason to write a poem is to flush from the deep thickets of the self some thought, feeling, comprehension, question, music, you didn’t know was in you, or in the world. Other forms of writing—scientific papers, political analysis, most journalism—attempt to capture and comprehend something known. Poetry is a release of something previously unknown into the visible. You write to invite that, to make of yourself a gathering of the unexpected and, with luck, o...

Please continue reading, further down I have added my own thoughts in bold and cursive. ... From La Loba , Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With The Wolves. Pp.26-28 ....'the one that has many names. One who knows, it is the source of the feminine. The intuition, clairvoyance, who which listens carefully and has the true heart. She is the creator of the cycles,  is the life force' (Estes, 1994). And La Loba sang louder than the ground shakes digging up a bone. And then La Loba whispered all that is lost can be found, all that is dead can be resurrected. So my first task was to learn to understand within me that I should let to live and what I should let to die.  And in the process I should walk through the inner and outer worlds collecting my bones. And when my skeleton was complete, La Loba would sing about it and bring back the creature, my soul indestructible. Many nights passed until I find all my bones. Many expeditions to the underworld. Many ...

For years I bemoaned the fact that I was not given the gift of a daughter. Don't get me wrong, I love both my sons and would not trade them for anything in the world! But I guess like every man wishes for a son I wished for a daughter. Someone I could pass my knowledge, everything I inherited from my mom, the good and the not so good... I love cooking, baking, decorating, frills and laces, the colour pink, dancing in the rain, listening to the thunderstorm, be mad and silly and everything that makes a woman... yet it was not to be. Today, whilst cleaning my studio,  I had  an epiphany, a light bulb went on... During my years of teaching I had so many daughters, sisters, mothers attending my classes. I had my sons girlfriends, and other beautiful young girls who grew up to be such beautiful young women, and all of them hold very special places in my heart! Every one was so very special and the one or other might even continue spreading a little part of me! What more can ...

I can't believe it has been over a year since my last  post. Truth to be told I did not even write much... Sometimes I would take my book and pen and sat there and started scribbling and merely ended up with some diary style writing, not what I wanted. But what did I want to write about? I don't know... there are many stories I felt needed to be told and yet, who cares? Does anyone care if the stories were written, I don't think so... So back again, why write? For the past few years my little black book was my confidant, my best friend,  my soul speaking, my safety net, my tears, my tantrums, my thoughts and prayers and sometimes the only way to keep on going....! So now after every tear had been shed, every prayer had been prayed there is this emptiness, nothing more needed to be said, it is all there in my little black books; so you see writing was therapy for me.  I needed to write in order to heal and bring perspective back into my life..  And still...

Eyes glued to the screen my heart just missed a beat or two only to start pumping again like mad, I realize I have stopped breathing, my stomach is in a knot and I feel goosebumps all over my body. Slowly I take a deep breath,  and another one but now I feel  tears welling up in my eyes, this is my boy, my big boy is looking for a home because his adopted mother for 8 years is leaving country trying to make a living abroad. Never in my life did I think I would find my big boy,  my very first Ridgeback here on the Rhodesian Ridgeback Rescue Site... For the past few weeks I had been looking to adopt a Ridgeback, in my heart I knew it was going to be someone very special, one that would make my heart beat  faster the moment I would find him,  it had to be male because I had a female Labrador already and we both felt there was someone missing, after my two  beloved Ridgebacks had passed away within 18 months... And here I see him and his companion...

Sometimes, just sometimes no matter how strong you are, if you are a man, woman or child you just want to be held knowing that when you let go you will be safe Sometimes, just sometimes you need to let go to find yourself your strength your will to life Come, let me hold you Let go and feel safe c J. Schulte-Zurhausen

My child I gave life to you; I held you in my arms, a prescious gift indeed. Everything I wanted to give to you, I wanted to do right to you! And then life happened, life with it's twists and turns... Unpredictable life, lesson's to be learned, re-acting to situations as they were thrown at me. I did not choose these lessons my child, but I always tried to do my best as I knew how. My best might not have been enough for you, but you will, may be, do everything better with your child... until life throws it's lessons at you... So when you when you think of your mother today, remember: She ALWAYS tried her best! Happy Mother's Day to all mothers! c    J Schulte-Zurhausen 13.May 2012

It has been a long time since I posted anything, I guess some time was needed to fill this creative vessel ;) This morning as I was opening my little book, 'Taking Time to Just Be' the page with this poem opened: Such words as "god" and "death" and "suffering" and "eternity" are best forgotten.   We have to become as simple and as wordless  as the growing corn or the falling rain  We must just be. Etty Hillesum I don't know about you but for me, 'to just be' is sometimes quite hard, there is always something to do, some project, some thoughts, some poem, some painting. But the moments when it happens, when I am just in that moment, everything just brightens up, there is a peacefulness within, a golden moment....

During the past few days this verse popped into my head, most of you might familiar with it: T o everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal ... a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance ... a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to lose and a time to seek; a time to rend and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. ecclesiastes 3:1-8   It very much ties in with my lessons learned these past few years... 

I was going through my books, yes I am still writing(almost) every day ;), and came across this: I have learned that every choice I made brought me here - where I am today... I have learned to have faith and trust the process (life) I have learned waking up each morning with hope is what got me going I have learned to find peace within myself I have learned  that a smile shared is a gift.... I wrote this one the other day when I was decorating my home for Christmas, the first time after 4 years, and my mind wandered, thinking of the last few years and how this process of life, and  trust and faith brought me to where I am today...

Visit this blog for some very well written Haikus, well worth visiting I promise! http://garapan-mouthofmadness.blogspot.com/p/haikus.html

Only after the last farmer has been killed When the last tree has been cut When the beasts have left the open plains When the waters are filled with toxins of the dead Then they'll turn against each other 2011, © JSZ Adapted from this following poem: Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten”. Prophecy of the Cree Native American Tribe

In case you wondered why I used  'resurrect and not rise' in my last post: last line: ...to let go and in the end resurrect like the Phoenix out of the Ashes! http://www.thefreedictionary.com/resurrect

Ode to Me I received a few emails voicing  concerns about the last line of my poem ... spread my wings and die Lets have look at the date, it is the year 2008,  as it is important to understand my frame of mind when I wrote this poem. In this Ode to Me, I begin by acknowledging that I am a strong woman and a free spirit. And then I continue to realize that I am about to, need to, change... 'spreading my wings and fly' After the first year of mourning my husbands passing it was time to leave the 'old' me behind, leaving behind the boundaries of a relationship and spread my winds...to die, which is really more of a metaphor. In order to spread my wings I need to leave something/someone behind and that in itself is a death. There is a lyric of a German song that just came to mind: Good bye is a little bit like dying... And there were a lot of Good Byes in 2007/2008 for me. The passing of my husband of 25 years, scattering his ashes, the selling of my house and...

For a long time I had this idea of combining my poetry with my painting. Today I can say  I am getting closer in accomplishing this. Here is my latest Feather painting combined with one of my poems using Photoshop. This is not yet where I want to be but I am getting there... Visit my complete gallery and online shop here: www.southafricanartists.com/home/Angelique

A poem written some time back, dedicated to all women... I am and I have been I am now and I am yesterday I have seen time passing And I have moved alongside time I have seen the world change And changed with the world I have lived my life - Not always graciously But always determined to make it And here I am now Been there done that I see the world as it is around me But it does not affect me anymore I am at peace At peace with myself and the world around me I am content And I live my life as it was the last day of my life I am here and there and tomorrow I am past, present and future I AM Freestyle © J.Schulte-Zurhausen , 2011

Forgiveness a great gift... We always hear to forgive, others and ourselves, so let me share a personal story about forgiveness: About 30 years back I had to oblige to a request of my mother to do something that was so completely against my own believe, but analytically I could understand her reasoning and as a 'good' daughter  I followed her instruction. For years this haunted me, I could forgive myself, but had the other person forgiven me??? So it came as a completely surprise when one day I received an email from that person telling me how grateful she was for doing what I did back then.  (I am afraid I can't go into details, as it involves a family member and very private details). Believe me I was first in shock, because we have never spoken about it, no one ever mentioned it again in all these years and then the tears just welled up washed away the pain that I carried for all these years. Forgiveness is a powerful gift indeed. So today phone or email som...