Photo by Marshall Hutchinson
Tallgrass Spiritual Retreat Center:
Where Women Find Their Way
1780 Thurman Creek Road
Matfield Green, Kansas 66862
620.753.3465
Rev. Billie Blair, Director
Serenity.
Seeking only small pleasure.
Discovered more.
Thanks!
Janice Levering 7-6-04
Wounded leaves.
Twisted orphaned limbs.
Windstorm's memoir.
Linda Geffert 7-6-04
written after the Fourth of July wind storms
The Tallgrass Woman
by Linda Hepburn
Behold the Tallgrass Woman.
Her roots grounded in Mother Earth,
her spirit eternal.
From deep within her, rises a beauty
that she shares with all.
The Tallgrass Woman shares the beauty
of her strength with us today,
as she did with our mothers,
our grandmothers and their mothers
before them, back to the first
Tallgrass women, our Native American
and pioneer sisters.
They may never have worn the label
or even heard the words "Tallgrass Woman,"
but through the trials of adversity
and the joys of accomplishment,
they have felt her strength.
Emerging from the prairie,
the Tallgrass Woman
shares the beauty of her grace.
Just as the tender blades renew
to sustain life, she gently nudges each of us
to embrace and nurture life.
With unadorned simplicity,
she reminds the child in our hearts,
not to judge but to uplift and love.
The Tallgrass Woman
shares the beauty of her resilience
and determination.
Trampled, abused and ignored,
her spirit springs back
undaunted and stronger.
She endures and flourishes,
bends but does not break.
She is not easily destroyed.
With arms outstretched toward the sun,
the Tallgrass Woman shares the beauty
of her courage.
Adamant that we each hold the key
to our own happiness,
independent of others' approval,
she inspires in us the courage
to continually grow,
to fearlessly reach for impossible heights
and to dream.
Grace - Determination - Courage - Strength,
the beauty of the Tallgrass Woman
beckons from the very gut of our being.
Joyously accepted
and acknowledges by many,
dormant, waiting to awaken
and emerge in others,
her spirit is with us and within us all.
Behold the Tallgrass Woman,
embrace her courage,
draw from her strength,
celebrate her beauty.
Tallgrass Spiritual Retreat Center
Where Women Find Their Way
The moon accepts me
by bj blair
The moon accepts me
As she washes over my body in the night.
White shoulders, bare breasts
Exposed to her touch of light.
No expectations, no judgments.
Easy.
Nothing to do but stand in her presence,
In the night I awake and find her still with me
And I think and I know and I feel
Her acceptance - unconditional - of me.
I watch her flow through the window
and drape herself over the top of me.
I smile. Content. In her presence.
The moon doesn't laugh at me.
She smiles, appreciatively, knowingly.
She knows.
She's seen the pain of night for me.
She loves me.
She was there.
Tears fell from her eyes to see the hurt in the dark.
Sometimes she seemed to go away,
Lost from sight.
But always, always, always,
She was there,
Caring, loving, open to who and what I was - I am.
Tallgrass
In the straight row of junipers at Tallgrass,
I am the one leaning to the left.
I am the one watching the hawk
sitting on the farthest fence post,
the one who feels the owl's wing
brush against me like a kiss.
My blue berries drop like rainfall
against the blazing sumac
and the red prairie grass.
I am the one flying prayer flags of sky andcloud,
crimson and lavender at sunset,
rose and gold to bless the next day.
The junipers stand straight as sentinels
between the farmhouse and the grain bin.
We all reach up, stretch homeward,
but I am the one leaning to the left,
wearing songbirds in my hair.
Olive L. Sullivan
