[ad_1]
For plenty of years, I’ve been staying on the St. Helena’s Island, South Carolina dwelling of Ifetayo White, Reiki Grasp, trainer of doulas, and healer in lots of modalities. I’m at all times deeply healed by Ifetayo’s presence, and by the island itself. This island close to Beaufort is the house of the Gullah folks, who’ve saved their land since Reconstruction in keeping with a authorized system known as “Inheritor’s Property.”
The spirits are robust right here, and I’ve tried to seize among the essence of the island and of Ifetayo, in these poems. Within the first, I describe Ifetayo’s fantastic therapeutic room. The second options the Grandmother Tree, one of many dwell oaks coated with Spanish moss, so prevalent within the Low Nation. The third options the Resurrection Fern, which seems brown and nearly lifeless on the limbs of the oaks, however springs into vivid greenness after a rain.
![](https://feminismandreligion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ifetayo-3_24.jpg?w=229)
The Healer’s Residence 3/1/24
Within the entrance room, the lounge,
after all! An imposing altar.
Quan Yin, Mom Mary, Yemaya,
animals of the earth and sea,
winged ones, stone folks,
arrayed across the largest rose quartz
you’ve ever seen.
Love radiates all through the home.
However within the again room, the therapeutic room…
Home windows open to dwell oaks,
“outdated greybeard” moss swaying within the breeze,
vermillion camellias, pink azaleas…
all this surrounds the souls who come right here
to Ifetayo’s desk
to be healed and made entire.
On the home windows of the expansive room,
oils for the physique, tinctures for every organ,
labels worn illegible with use.
An altar extra wild than the primary,
wands of selenite and quartz,
incense of all types, palo santo, sage…
and the therapeutic desk, so heat
the cats spend hours there.
Multitudinous feathers, Tarot playing cards,
Tibetan bowls, salt lamps,
Native dolls, tissues for therapeutic tears.
A photograph in black and white,
younger nursing college students at Penn Middle,
breathless and keen of their starched collars.
African dancers, sea turtles,
and a lady giving beginning.
A body drum for therapeutic sound,
a sistrum, a shekere, cowrie shells,
two rolling balls and a trampoline!
As I float by means of right here within the morning quiet,
gazing on the sacred issues,
Ifetayo, barefoot, walks the seashore,
recharging for the following busy day.
I too am healed.
How can I not be?
I bask within the love and heat,
smiles of the ancestors throughout.
Sanctuary.
![](https://feminismandreligion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/grandmother-tree.jpg?w=640)
Rebirth 4/1/18
After a whilst you relax.
After just a few days at St. Helena’s,
you allow the world behind,
you entrain with the deeper notes,
the infrasound round us,
these thrumming bass notes that the whales attune to,
with which the whales converse to us all day lengthy.
You breathe.
Small muscle tissue calm down in locations
you didn’t know have been tight.
Some have to be round your eyes
since you begin to see-
no, not see however one thing else-
Beings specific themselves to you, they greet you,
they’re welcoming you!
At seven AM the birds refrain,
welcoming the solar on the fringe of the ocean,
singing to the large spherical moon as She dips into the West.
“How glad I’m you’ve woke up,” they sing,
and the Grandmother tree reaches Her arms
to embrace you, therapeutic,
buzzing Her like to you
because the Resurrection Fern lifts Her inexperienced eyes.
“I’m listening, I’m seeing!” you affirm to the Heavens,
and right here on St. Helena’s all of the beings nod,
guffawing again with delight of their eyes.
![](https://feminismandreligion.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/res-fern-2-jane.jpg?w=480)
Resurrection Fern 3/2/24
Leaving Ifetayo’s dwelling on St. Helena’s one morning,
the blue jay known as to me, “raaaaack!”
“The place are you?” I known as to the winged one.
“Raaaack!” I heard once more, by the Grandmother Tree this time.
“Come over right here to me!”
I stepped into the magnetic vortex
of the massive, historical limbs.
And on every department, the greening of
the Resurrection Fern!
After an evening and day of rain,
She leafed out gloriously,
lush foliage the place solely gray had been.
The Resurrection Fern.
“Regenerate! Haven’t any concern!
Do you fathom the wonders I can do?”
Grandmother spoke to me loud and clear,
from Her huge root system and Her stately calm.
“Resurrection, expensive one.
That is what we do.”
Annelinde Metzner, St. Helena’s Island, South Carolina
[ad_2]
Source link