In the Center   In the center of my heart   the purest flame rises dancing.

. Beloved Mother   The Earth is my mother. The wind is my mother’s breath. Trees, flowers, birds and animals— all are my beloved mother!   The waves are my mother’s cheeks, the stones my mother’s feet. Trees, flowers, birds and animals— all are my beloved mother!   The stars are my mother's crown. Sun and moon are my mother’s eyes. Trees, flowers, birds and animals— all are my beloved mother!

Oh Goddess    Blow through me. Flow through me. Burn through me. Grow through me.

Suffering Arrives with a Gift   Suffering arrives with a gift. Suffering has a purpose. Suffering wants you to wake up.   Suffering will wait for ages. Knows what is real. Is so deep it goes all the way.   Suffering plunges into your blood. Opens your darkest closet. Waters your dusty garden with her tears.   Suffering holds the golden keys. Is devoted as a mother wolf. Watches you shake in fear and fall to your knees sobbing.   Suffering is the supreme teacher. It takes you behind the glitter. It leads you to God.   Suffering is a moody poet. Makes poetries, frescoes and symphonies of sorrow. Is a vast cathedral.   Suffering is a fast foaming river, an old workhorse, a molten sun.   Suffering dances madly with Joy. It’s the wind that sweeps your heart clean. The messenger who rides the rainbow.   Suffering is driven to find your destiny. Hungers for your burning core. Is a rugged officer of peace.   Suffering’s eyes are mirrors of mystery. Suffering washes a tiny sand dollar up onto the shore. Shines a torch in the dark.   Suffering is an amber cow going home, free of man’s ignorance. The holy wanderer who searches for your soul. Your sacred spouse.   Friend, do not waste her extravagant love.

To Life    Dear Life, oh dearest come with me wherever I go, even when I drop this fading body, come oh beautiful Life, and keep on coming, flowing, streaming, dreaming fearless, loving, wanting, sweet Life, with your magic dance of miracles juggling balls of light, your supreme womanly form laughing down the cosmos, your myriad jokes and jewels and truths, your pure happy Self that ensouls the universe. Come my Love and always be and never leave, beloved Life.

Janine Canan is the author of a dozen poetry collections which include In the Palace of Creation: Selected Works 1969—1999, Changing Woman, and Her Magnificent Body. Canan translated the German poetry of Else Lasker-Schüler in Star in My Forehead. She edited the award-winning anthology, She Rises like the Sun: Invocations of the Goddess by Contemporary American Women Poets, as well as The Rhyme of the Ag-ed Mariness: Last Poems of Lynn Lonidier, and just released, Messages from Amma: In the Language of the Heart. Her books have received commendation from Book Sense, City Lights Books, and Small Press Review. Her first collection of stories, Journeys with Justine, illustrated by Cristina Biaggi, will soon be out. Janine is poetry editor at AwakenedWoman.com. A psychiatrist as well as a poet, graduate of Stanford and New York University School of Medicine, she resides in Sonoma, California. You may visit her at JanineCanan.com. Janine has kindly contributed two episodes from her forthcoming book Journeys with Justine, a collection of short stories which describe Justine's spiritual journey. A must read. Click for Journeys with Justine

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