RELENTLESS IS CREATION’S VIA DOLOROSA   Relentless is Creation’s Via Dolorosa— choosing each millisecond along its ever expanding Tree-of-Life journey— emerging, purging, resurging, fragile resilience ever setting Being’s face toward new Jerusalems: galaxies swirling, atoms whirling, comets hurling, creatures toiling, humans turmoiling and gargoyling.   Relentless is Creation’s Via Dolorosa to temples of grandeur, upsetting tables of the greedy, setting up banquets with the needy, mocked, bound, beaten, crowned with corporate logos by those who wash their hands politely, litigiously while Pachamama’s precious vitality— sapped, tapped, stretched, plundered— pours black blood and fool’s gold, its seamless garment stripped, folded, and gambled for spoils, its parched sighs ignored while skies blacken, mountains shake, winds choke, seas roar, and fires scorch.   Relentless is the Cry of Creation’s Via Dolorosa— reverbera...

   A poem by Ellie Stock in the season for  Women's History Month. To Earth's (Our/My) Sisters--   Who ~ bravely dance their daily paces, shine extraordinary light on ordinary places, where others faint or fear to tread, where laughter is born and tears are shed.   Who ~ steadfast, courageously with bolding care encourage unheard voices to dare, to share-- whose own struggling and vulnerability forge the way for new beginnings and brighter days;   Who ~ spirited, passionate, seized by wonder endure times and worlds so torn asunder-- Daughters of the Universe, Mothers of Earth, Midwives of Vision contracting to birth;   Who ~ Friend of the forgotten, Madonna of the Trail league so the beleaguered cannot fail-- builder of community, hub of life, Heart of compassion, mind of delight;   Who ~ creative, innovative, for justice, for peace, no shrinking violet: advocate for the least-- doormat for none, s...

A poem written by Ellie Stock, reflecting on recent events and connecting the recent mass shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts HS with other pandemic violence plaguing Earth and all that is in it. Pachamama is a figure in Native American spirituality, analogous to Mother Earth. PACHAMAMA PONDERING, 2022   One more time the alarm shrieks! (Ironically, paralleling folks’   being attracted to Halloween week’s scary, shriek-filled haunted houses and horror flicks, and faux death skeleton and ghost yard décor, while, simultaneously, shying away from engaging with life’s real scary issues) Another mass school shooting! This time, it happened (well, it doesn’t “just happen”) in Central Visual Performing Arts HS, St. Louis, MO (still dealing with implications from Michael Brown’s death, Post WW II radiation waste contaminating Jana Elementary School and other places, and having one of the highest murder rates in the U.S.): 3 dead: a 16-ye...