Healing With Muses

Mind Muse

Ruminations of various forms of abuse

Of trauma

Of guilt and shame

Of the failure to listen to my highly-tuned intuition

And I learned to meditate

And imagine trees wrapping their branches around me

And imagine me wrapping my arms around trees

And I write poems about the trees

Tributes to the whirling thoughts and emotions

Stirring and striking at my conscience and heart

Incessant torment eased

By the wisdom and spirit

Of the ancient angels adorning the thickets

Of forest and fragility

And I ask the big banyan,

“Upward I gaze at you, and how may I gaze upward in life too?”

The silence of roots and the arc of bark responds,

“Root to rise.”

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Heart Murmur Muse

Born with a beat to my own drum

Doctors mark the chart

Label

Reinforce

Concern, concern, concern

Born with a beat to my own drum

I hug a birch tree

The relatives of the ones I climbed as a child

With the murmur pulsing

Pumping, thumping

I honor the rhythm my heart chose for itself

Knowing the cadence of music ebbs and flows

And I write that in my journal

And in my conscience

And in my heart

Sudden

The ebb and flow

Initiates a new beat

Murmur-less

And my heart is just fine

As fine as it was with the murmur

Because that’s music

That’s the lyric

The first line

The last line

And all the lines in between

That says

“Born with a beat to my own drum.” I write it repeatedly

The song that never ends

The song that fades the hollowness of murmurs

Murmuring then mum

Words silencing the silence

Words wholing the hole in the heart

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Asthma Muse

Baby

Lying on my back in a hospital crib

I’m cold

Wires connecting me to machines

I can’t roll over

I’m stuck

I see a light through the tears

No one is there

I’m alone without warmth and breath

I’m suffocating

Then

Inhalers in my overalls

That I wear every day

Just in case I have an attack

Lots of attacks

Lots of anxiety

Spraying into my lungs

For temporary ease

Then

I am 36 and inhalers adorn

All corners of my life

The latest and the best, they say

I enroll in a Yoga Teacher Training

I have options for my Thesis

I’m sick of the lung dope

Chronic bronchitis

Chronic discomfort

Chronic burning in chest and choice

Thesis choice

I choose Alternative Asthma Therapies

Inversions for blood flow

Holding breath on exhale for CO2 elevation

Art therapy

My lungs as wings

Wordplay for wellness

Sudden

My lungs laugh at dire drugs

Sudden

Radical intolerance of reliance

Sudden

Breath flows

I refuse to take my inhaler

On a bike ride

I have an attack

I pedal home breathless

I use yoga blocks to support

My headstand

That I hold for 45-minutes

I hold my exhales

I wordplay rhyme

I’m hung here for lungs to clear

I’m a willow tree, branches sweep away fear

I repeat

I’m hung here for lungs to clear

I’m a willow tree, branches sweep away fear

I cough out the bronchial gunk

I come down from the pose hold

And hold my journal

And write the rhyme

Again and again

The mantra, the medicine, the magic

I never have an attack after that

Ever

Inhalers tossed

Co-dependence lost

Internal validation born

The power of words, new cells adorn

All of me

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Jaw Muse

Car out of control

Hit telephone pole

Whiplash

Face had pushed steering wheel under dashboard

ER determines broken jaw and nose

No surgery

“You’ll heal on your own.”

Pain and popping

TMJ

Wear splint at night

Journal about stardust healing my jaw

No pain

26 years later

Pain and popping

Dentist says, ‘You need surgery.”

Orthodontist says, “You need surgery.”

Surgeon says, “You report no pain, so I don’t recommend surgery.”

I journal about the car accident

Dear Jaw, what do you need from me?

Dear Jess, I need for you to accept me, for you to trust me.

“Your jaw wants to be exactly as it is. It chose this path.”

I surrender

I believe

I write and connect and believe

I accept and trust

No pain

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Leg Infection & Gut Biome Muses

Bike crash

My left shin shredded in a blender

One slash is deep

I care for it

It gets infected regardless

ER visit

A double dose of antibiotics

“Uncostumary,” says the doctor,

“But in order to avoid possible amputation and save your life …”

Drugs rot my gut biome

Sudden

Anxiety

Sudden

Depression

Sudden

Insomnia

Sudden

Dark thoughts

Life-ending

I call my parents

“Save me, please.”

Flat-lined soul tone.

Self-admitted to the psyche ward

Four nights of atrocious ensnarement

Leg throbs

Mind scared

Brick walls are the view out of my room’s window

Are the view out of my mind’s window

I write that I am not a victim

That my left shin is the rudder

That propelled death in my gut

That held the hand of this imprisonment

Where I have time to rewrite

The rewriting of my physiology

Where I have time to say no to the drugs

Offered for a quick fix

Where I have time to say yes to the hugs

Offered for a slow fix

I know

That I can heal myself

And I regenerate my leg and gut my way A lilac tree seed roots in the largest scar

And sprouts and grows

Spiraling upward into my gut

It takes three years

To root and rise

To feel myself again

The story of it written

From the stars to my spirit to my stomach

The largest scar fades to nonexistent

The echo of it digested in the power of words

In the aroma of the lilac tree that blossomed year round for me

That mirror the echo’s knowing

That healing happens

Sudden

Surrender

Sudden

Seeing and believing

The remedy stirring

In the sacred medley of words said, silent, and written

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Gut In The Aftermath Muse

In the aftermath of the leg infection

I was plagued with recurring stomachaches

36 hours in bed at a time

Daggers to intestines

Incapacitated and delirious

And waiting

Time’s runt

No rhyme or reason

Except the rhyme that eases

“Soothe the smooth move”

A bowel movement, a celebration

Amidst the shadow of wondering

When the next occurrence would strike

Empowered words on page

Assonance on my side

“It’s time to emerge and eradicate.”

Alliteration on my side

“It’s time to dispel the distress.”

And the fangs of it react to the frequency

And I’m on the floor,

In the tub,

In bed,

Wretched for days

Sudden

The worst of one

Wretched for weeks this time

I spew assonance and alliteration

I envision myself cradled in the crux

Of a great white pine tree

Where the sap drips and sticks to the darkness

That swallows me from the inside out

And the exorcism completes itself

And I’m free

Replenishment on my side

Stardust in the galaxy of my gut

Where it’s always been

Just beastly enshrouded for awhile

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Collarbone Muses

I broke my right collarbone in a bike crash

And 22 years later

I broke my left collarbone in a bike crash

Oh, bikers and their collarbones

All the poems I’ve written

Commemorating the strength of bikers

And their collarbones

Bold breaks, both of them

Right healed … connected

Left healed … disconnected

But, the left one was connected in spirit

It told me in a poem at 3:00AM

So I wrote it down

Capturing its language of spirit

“Bones floating, but connected in spirit.”

Like the the limb of a tree

Struck by lightning, cast downward

To the ground, charred and limp

Yet, lying at the base of the tree

Still a part of the anatomy

Decomposition inspiration for new growth

In a new way

All in the body of the forest

All in the forest of the body

And so it is.

Like all of my wounds, my collarbones speak

And I’m their scribe

Scribing their healing vibing

Imbibing the energetic flow in the floating

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Miscarriage Muses

Two in a row

In a marriage on the outs

I am alone with the imaginary belly

Both times

Revealing in dreams

The whispers of souls

I scramble in the dark upon waking

And find my journal

With fingertips

With frenzy

I write the whispers of their wisdom

“We arrived, we stayed, we left.

The cycle of life and death.

The anticipation of our manifestation

Arrived, stayed, and left.

The cycle of life and death.

Grateful for the whisp of time

Yet, time and circumstance is a mirage, so together still.

The cycle of life and death.”

And I fill the pages as full as I am.

As full as a bulbous rhododendron tree

Bulging and bodacious like me

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Rash Muses

Tragic experiences corroding in swells

Irritated emotions sticking in cells

So, acrostic remedies

Rough skin A Sign of inward Healing outward

Ending

Symptoms when they’ve served their purpose

The letters climbing a redwood tree

Wild wordplay splashing like the sunrays

That sneak thorough the wild canopy

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

Head & Heart Muses

Soul scribing for language of spirit revelations

Dear Spirit,

Do tell me what to know …

And logic surrenders to heart

Feelings surrender to head

In the middle they meet

Where clarity resides

Where ascension guides

The wonder to intuit all that is already known

In the wilderness of the self

In the wilderness of the aspen grove

Entangled resplendently in intention and faith

And I know all I need to know.

Healed.

I always was.

I always am.

I'm Jessica Amber Barnum (Jess). I'm an Intuitive and Author.