Four Ages Of Skin, Waboose - 24" x 48", Acrylic on Fir, $3,700

The Fourth Age of Skin, Waboose

In the time of midnight, in Waboose the time of the North; Winter and White

We have snow upon our hair as newborns come to life

In the time of seeds frozen within our Mother, it is an energy for the next season

When things seem to be sleeping yet it is a lie of energy that burgeons beneath her skin

In the time of the North, Fourth age of skin

When our bodies slow and take the silence of wisdom into our night

Into the darkness of our quiet dreams, then feast them on tomorrow’s happenings

Like seed pods of our minds, slowing frozen seeds into the resting place

For growing into knowing of another new day

It is a time of peace and a time of power for our Spirits

A time of forgiveness and a time of compassion for our hearts

For all around is the surrender of small pieces of ourselves in body and mind

As the Spirit grows stronger in visions known into dreams

And our hearts grow passionate knowing the imperfections

That delineate in shadows one thing from another

Waboose is both the ending and the beginning of the great circle of life that continues the cycle

Influencing all the moons of the northern quadrant, from December to March

Even though she appears to be dead, she is merely storing the energy for new life

For when we are infants we give away all the love we gained in the world before life

Like Sweetgrass seeds grown from the deep riches of  Earth

Soaking up the deepest parts, crack open then wave to the sun

Braided as mother’s hair, burned into smoke calling on the good ones

The power of Waboose is knowing

From girl to woman to mother and grandmother

As my body goes into the earth and my mind waves into the sky

A progression of  wisdom covers me since my beginning

Grandmother Moon, Mother Earth, Women are relations of Creation

Creators into the Spirit of the South sharing her beat that travel in seeds

Across the lower spectrums, like a heartbeat, a pulse connecting us

Till Grandmother moon holds up a hand and tells us our Creative time is done

East through West controlling our tides

In a circle of her hand she stops what she began

My body as child, youth and adult, has shared this skin and hair now fading to white

In Sweetgrass braids I witness my night, in this spirit I’ve known my whole life

I will return from Waboose in the time of midnight

With visions of women who dream in the North but wing to the West

We are in the time of measuring our journey in feathers as we prepare for our leaving

When our body becomes the Earth joining with a Mother who fed us, we are again what feeds others

Into this circle of giving back we become the cycle of what is new in the hands of Spring

As we melt into the earth our life dies to live on into another’s new cycle

That at an age that pines for the East with the power of seeds, Creation sees how far we’ve come

From that time of an egg to a heartbeat that flew out from her shell

Transforming many times inside my same skin, I never lost the love of my horizons 

For who could not love the journey and the in between questions  Of; What was dreamt and what was given, what have I done and where have I been to: The journey’s not over and where am I going?

LauraLee K. Harris