Touch

Touch some plants today, tomorrow

I wonder what comfort they'll whisper

You can go far

Or step just beyond the walls

That often surround you

I'm beckoned now by yellow sourgrass

Glowing through grey mist

Tart and light on my heavy tongue

Will it be fuzzy green geranium leaf

Snapped from plant neighbor

Spraying its fragrance into the

wet air at your nostrils

Or the juniper that drips beyond fences

We are what we eat

These porous bodies

Must also be what we touch

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2024

Unfurl

Reach out

Reach up

Crack open

Become

Something new

From the cold wet soppy

Soup of life

Steady does it

Take your time

Unfurling

Is an art

Emmanuel

Farm scenes earth scenes

Decay disintegration and death

Hold holy hands with life

Grow and shapeshift into

Blooms and fruiting things

Medicine 

A magical alchemy in the dark moist 

Interior underground unseen 

A breakdown

Feeding regeneration 

What if the body of rabbi Yeshua

Went back into the soil 

The torn pieces of his flesh

Feeding the olive trees of the land 

Where his body lay anointed with oils of 

Spikenard and lavender

By the women who loved him 

And treasured his teachings in their hearts

What if instead of a sky God

The stories told of an earth god 

Medicine man lover magician

What if the songs and stories of sinners and 

Saintly women were recorded

Singing of love and liberation

Integration and regeneration 

Would the olive groves stand 

Would we have learned how to share the plenty of land

Would they still have been uprooted

Would they be with us now

Emmanuel 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | December 2023

Let

Bloodletting

Griefletting

Voices letting

Themselves carry and rise

Join in murmuration

Swell with life

Power ache and moan

Circle the room

We sit in silence

Letting

Blood drip 

An offering to strangers

No one asks why

They have need

Who they love or pray to 

How they eat or who with

If they’ve ever cheated been untrue

Taken more than they’ve given

Or given more than they’ve received

Who they’ve been or plan to be

We ask nothing at all

We sit circled

In silence

Dripping 

Life giving 

Life receiving

Bloodletting

Griefletting

Circles of candle lit faces

Dripping and listening to

Voices of every day saints

And sinners

Attuned and holding

Each other suspended in air

Cascades of sounds 

From depths of guts and bones

Backs of throats and innermost

Caverns of hearts and lungs

Grief is let like blood

Giving new life

To deadness

Cleansing and dislodging the stuck things

That threaten our lives

Salt 

Oxygen

Hydrogen

Blood

Tears

Breath

Exhale 

A note so clear and pure

Held out like a gift

An offering with no question of

Whose ears it may touch

If they are deserving

Like the tree who sends medicine

Through a web of interconnected subterranean pathways

To forest strangers in distress

Because even strangers can be family

Sound waves travel ear canals

Speaking a primordial language of soul and dirt

Blood and tears and breath

Griefletting

Bloodletting

Life letting

Life out

To let life in

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | December 2023

Ceasefire

When we are raised within systems of manipulation and control

When oppression and abuse are the diet we're fed alongside claims of love and care

When text books advertisements and ancestral lore leave out the violence and the gore

When the loudest voices are convinced of their own exceptionalism

When our homes schools and workplaces reek of fascism

When that poison leaks out of mouths and hearts

When thousands of children are massacred

On this exquisite planet swirling through space

In the exact same moment that our lungs fill with air

And instead of warm tears

Deeply lodged fears

Come up with hot bile

Regurgitated to defend the vile

We are wounded children

Seeking belonging and protection

Where it can't be found

Our safety doesn't come from bombs or guns or walls or guards or prisons or control or bigness or bullies or presidents or loudness or hoarding

Our safety is in our ability to cry when children anywhere suffer

Our safety is in seeing ourselves in those children

Those children need us grown ups to stop arguing and start protecting them

even when it's complicated

Our safety is in belonging to one another

Siblings across every spectrum of difference

Stop the killing. Stop the destruction and poisoning and starving. Stop the abuses against children for power hungry tyrants. Stop the genocide. Stop allowing state governments to terrorize people, massacre children, and then call themselves heroes and defenders. Stop the complicity and enabling.

#ceasefire #freepalestine #freethehostages

Feels

fly toward what feels good

in your body

stay a while with what rests your

soul

trust the flame of longing

listen to desire

inquire into

what makes you feel whole

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | July 2023

Edds at sea

Thick warm sea breeze

Lightning strobes through

Freckles of stars

Cicada songs ride waves

While memories float wistfully

Along with hopeful dreams and visions

Children sleep heavy breath

Hearts light from ocean play

Family who stay through storms

Inner outer

Banks of feeling

Needing

Wanting

Impatient they cry their song

Shaking and quaking like cracks

Of thunder over thunderous crash of

Saline waters

We swim together

Holding wading and waiting

To come up for air

Where

Life beckons

Keep becoming

A new thing

And like cicadas we join voices

And sing

The ash of one life rejoices

Riding waves into a sunset of forever horizon

What a wonderful world

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | July 2023

for Dave Edds

Wise old women

When I find myself vacillating between feeling like I'm not enough and feeling like I'm way too much,

I think of what older me would say to me

My inner wise old woman would say

Honey, you are exactly the perfect amount of you

If you only knew how powerful you are, how powerful you are becoming

You'd lovingly kiss my cheek and you'd say,

Keep going

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | July 2023

Indoor Plant Care Attachment Theory Part 2

Overwatering your plants or relationships will cause rot. They will become waterlogged and mushy due to the sogginess, eventually falling apart. Relationships, like plants, need air. To avoid this mushy death, open up the windows, poke some holes in the soil and let the thing breathe. With a hand on your own heart, give your plant a kiss and gentle stroke of its yellowing leaves, set it by a sunny window and then walk away for a while. When you check back in a few weeks later, you may find that the soil has dried out, some mushy leaves have fallen away, and a couple of baby bright green shiny leaves are forming; signs of life. Balance has been restored. 

If you under-water your plants or relationships, they will crisp and grow dehydrated from neglect. Their soil will crust over and harden around the roots, leaves will dry up and fall off, until at last the roots themselves wither and die. To avoid this sad crunchy death, completely repot your plants in fresh nutritious damp soil once or twice a year and water consistently, when needed. To know when water is needed: observe. Pay attention. Respond. Your plants are always communicating. When you learn their signals, your dance of care and attention will feel alive and enjoyable as you attune and then witness the thriving that results. 

Disorganized attachment can work for plants, but is kind of exhausting for everyone and I don’t recommend it in the long term. Disorganized attachment is apparently the worst kind of attachment according to attachment theorists, which is a bummer for my partners and sometimes my plants, but if you’re a person with any trauma and/or experience with ADHD (hi) I find this mode of plant care mostly interesting and educational. The benefits are that while moving plants around to various windows and configurations and pots and watering conditions, you can learn a lot about the behavior and needs of your various plants, and yourself, in the process. You may learn for example that your calathea really liked it up there on the fridge and didn’t appreciate being moved. There may be no observable reason for this, and you may feel stubborn about wanting that calathea on the coffee table, but the calathea wants what it wants and so you have a decision to make. Some of your changes to your plants will produce positive results, while others will fail, thus the learning and the invitation to pay attention to what does work and lean in there. 

Over time, with attention and willingness to move toward what feels good and what produces healthy plants and people, you may find that your disorganized attachment turns into secure attachment, and a feeling of calm thriving will be the reward. 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | April 2023

Indoor Plant Care Attachment Theory

Overwatering: Anxious-ambivalent attachment

Underwatering: Avoidant-dismissive attachment

Constant moving of plants around the house;

swinging from overwatering to underwatering: Disorganized Attachment

Attuned care; Watering based on the needs of specific plants; Watering schedule fluctuates as is natural in any dynamic environment and according to each plant type, but a loose schedule of watering and repotting and fertilizing occurs based around the seasons, the light, and the behavior/symptoms of the plants themselves, rather than based on a doctrine or even the advice of plant ladies. This is plant care as an act of love and creativity and presence that inspires a beautiful dance of giving and receiving: Secure Attachment

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | April 2023

Oak

The strongest wisest most ancient of trees

Also don scars

Wounds of old visible through tough crust

One held me today

And I was grateful

For gnarly thick branches

A boundaried thing so full of life

A resting place in all kinds of weather

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | March 2023

FA L Ling 2

Am I enough?

You're more than enough.

Am I enough?

You're more than enough.

Am I enough? You're more than enough.

I'm more than enough.

I'm more than enough.

Do I give enough?

You give more than enough.

Do I give enough?

You give more than enough.

Do I give enough?

You give more than enough

You give more than enough.

You are more than enough.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | February 2023

Fa lli ng

Is it safe to let you love me?

Is it safe to let you love me?

Is it safe to let you love me?

Is it safe to let you love me?

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

Is it safe to let you love me?

Is it safe to let you love me??

Is it safe to let you love me???

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

Is it safe to let you love me?

Is it safe to let you love me??

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

Is it safe to let you love me?

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

It's safe to let you love me.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2023

On A Cold Rainy Night in January

Notice the difference

Between self-hatred

And humility

One

Masquerading as love 

Will hurt you

Over and 

Over

Round after round

It will hurt

And hate you for

Staying

And hate you for leaving

Because underneath their masks of confidence

They hate themselves

Or

Void of overtures

One demonstrates love 

You sense and see that

It feels good

Over and

Over

Round after round

Like the warmth of a mid-winter’s fire

On a cold rainy night in January

Because when falling or failing

Forgetting or flailing

Humility 

Learns to stay love and hold

(Not reject despise and scold)

Themself

First

As all us humans humbly

May choose to do

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | January 2023

Harbin

Heaven on Earth

Naked bodies all shapes sizes

Colors hair formations

Freedom to be and love whomever

One’s heart feels called to

Sacred land

Sacred community

Safety

Permission

Freedom to be

Freedom to desire

Freedom to ask

And to receive

Care nurturing pleasure

Tenderness

Freedom to let go

And be held

Invitation to plunge into

Fiery waters and emerge

Unscathed and more on fire

Courage to be baptized

Again

and again

Under icy waters

And rise

A sparkling goddess

Singing praises to

Her Highness the

Universe

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | December 2022

Last Light

Last light

Sun goes down

Another year

That was a lot

As entire years tend to be

I reflect on the natural

(Some intended

Others not)

Consequences of my mortal choices 

One or two in particular

That involved great loss

I think of my life in seasons

The this season or the that season

The season of her

The season of him

The season of them

I recall who I was

When I was with them

What it felt like

Who I am now

I wave at her

From across time

I smile at her sweet face

I see her and feel her pain

The tumult of impossible choices

I tell her that I see her doing her best

That it's beautiful

Astonishing even

How courageous she is

I don't lie to her

About happy endings

I tell her the truth

That she will always feel 

The sting of her losses

She will wonder from time to time

About the choices unchosen

The paths unwalked

I'll hold her worried gaze 

Deep inside my love-filled eyes

I'll tell her the story of how I met

The ones who healed my

Impossible wounds

Over time

How they're still healing me

How I'm still healing me

How together we heal and we hold

As we walk and stand together 

Inhale exhale

Swooshing side by side 

And the sun sets 

Through shadowy ancient redwood trees

Living

Breathing

Dying

Holding onto one another 

In holy communion 

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | December 2022

Welcome, darkness

Old friend

Your shadows lick wounds

Your stillness quiets hearts

Your skies open

And tears fall

Rinse the dry crusts from

Cloudy eyes

Soften the callouses

Worn from backbreaking journeys

Call in, call forth

Spirits old and new

Tired and weary

To in darkness be still and receive

Your rest and renewal

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | November 2022

Communion

Recognition of souls

Among us

Dead and

Alive

In our bones

Even me

Even you

Ashes to roses

To blood to wine

Dark chocolate wafers

Served by the high priestess

Mother daughter holy ghost

Amen.

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | November 2022

The Want Wants

The want wants

The truest bits

I scarcely dare 

Desire

Live somewhere pulsing

Behind my sternum

Between my legs

Deep in my gut

A fire

The want wants stay subdued

And patient 

Until they want want

What they want

Then I go quiet

Hushed and trembling

Gripped by the fear of wanting

So deeply, any thing

Small me learned to deny and resist 

My want wants

To protect myself from disappointment

Loss and betrayal

To keep me from the bad bads

When all I wanted

Was to be good

Until big me could see

Now it was me 

Betraying me

Repeatedly

Now I listen to my want wants

And I’m afraid

But learning to trust

That I want the want wants and

The want wants want me

To feel free

To choose the want wants

Indefinitely

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | October 2022

About the Fire

People say build with me

And they mean a house

A business, a family, a life

I’ve had and lost all of these

I want to know

About the fire

Could we build it together

You, searching for kindling

Expertly gathering twigs

Dry bits and pine needles

Me, retrieving a mason jar

Stuffed with my dryer lint collection

Saved for this exact moment

Would you chop the wood

And with your strength

Feel a rush of satisfaction

Would we at times trade roles

You, delicately placing kindling

Just so

Me, splitting logs with sweat

On my brow

Many homes, businesses, families

Marriages and lives

Lack warmth

Could we build a fire together

Would you lazily show up with kerosene

Boasting of transcendent flames

Just before burning my house to the ground

Would you, when winters are cold 

And embers fade

Notice

Would you blame me

Would I blame you

Or would we put on our heaviest coats

Clasp hands

Go out and pick up the pieces

Of wood to fuel new flames

Could you be glad for the pink of my cheeks

When warmed by the heat of another fire

Would you smile tenderly at the glint in my eye

Would I notice your dazzle, the tune you hum 

While chopping wood

Could it fill my heart with joy 

To witness yours

Could we meet back at our hearth

Taking turns gently blowing on the embers

And marvel at how hot 

A well-tended fire

Can become

Jaclyn Edds Konczal | September 2022