poems – Alyssa Kanitsch

Tears Like Myrrh

Published on February 12, 2022 by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

She can gather up all the fragments.
All the failed lives
And all lives have failed.
We all cast a shadow.
I don't know the magic she weaves,
where tears become sacred drops
Like myrrh bleeding from a tree.
And the upside down way
feeble knees and broken feet
are the very vehicle 
by which God travels the Earth.
They say our hearts must crack open like a seed.
Head first in the ground we go.
Then we become like that Myrrh tree,
with branches too beautiful to be seen with human eyes.
Our senses have become dulled,
through fighting endless battles with fickle tides.
One day we will see the illumination.
With clear eyes, 
see how our wings have formed, 
how love has transformed our lives.
For love has shaped us.
And love tends to us,
from seed to sapling to tree.
With branches like arms reaching upward, 
and our blood, our tears are Myrrh.

The Serendipity of Dreamwork

Published on January 6, 2022 by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

Something is calling me towards re-engaging more fully with my dreams.

What started as decluttering my house led to a kind of decluttering of the mind: holding on to the valuable, letting go of the things that had been weighing me down. I found long-forgotten treasures like dream journals, some from recent years, and others from many years ago.

I want to follow the staircase down into my dreaming world because I believe the unconscious has new and wonderful offerings there for me. Wonderful, in the sense of revealing both shadow and light. But it seems to me that one cannot feel joy unless there is a willingness to dive into the shadowlands too. After all, that is how we become fully human.

I’ve been researching, as is so easy for us, when we find a subject of interest. There’s a plethora of information out there to be had on everything, and dreams are no exception! I zeroed in on the work of Carl Jung. He’s always fascinated me, especially in the way he fleshed out the idea of archetypes and used visual art extensively to explore dreams.

According to Jung, dreams are revelatory. In other words they present content that we are completely unaware of in the daily chatter of our conscious minds. This may seem obvious at first to those who have dabbled in the practise of dreamwork. However, when you think about it, having an idea or concept presented to us, about us, which is outside of our inner dialogue feels miraculous. We are lifted away from the physical entanglements of our material existence into the unknown of the Divine.

Our dreams have an eternal quality- dreams from long ago can evolve in meaning. Rather than being like deadwood of the past, dreams are more like facets of a diamond ever revealing different aspects from the deep waters of the psyche. This is why it was so serendipitous for me to re-discover old dream journals and the artwork I did around them.

This piece ‘Feather’ was a collage around a dream character from more than 15 years ago, when I was studying counselling. When I found it, I felt compelled to do some more work around this drawing by asking questions and writing intuitive insights down. Not surprisingly, I found these archetypes just as relevant for me now as they were then, and the meaning has deepened and developed.

Interestingly, the owl-like creature represented God for me, which is comforting now as a mother who has lost a child. I see my heart being held in this picture. Not long after he passed, my angel son Jordan sent us many signs in the form of owls. Because of this, it speaks as reassurance that just like the girl in the picture (an aspect of me), his heart is also safe in God’s care. It’s hard to describe the utter wordless wonder I feel in my soul with these deep symbols. They tell a much larger story.

Our lives, all of our lives, are truly a labyrinth of treasure.

I wrote a short poem about this dream character, which illustrates one aspect of the Jungian way of dream analysis. Unlike Freud, who used free association to decode dreams, Jung’s method is a way of bypassing the logical mind by trying to examine the images and archetypes as if you had never seen them before. As if you are trying to explain something to an alien or a small child.

Feathers are light
They are lifted by the air
They are soft to touch.
With feathers, a bird can
fly and enter into the 
heavenly space.
They shelter and comfort gently,
so quietly.
God has wings, too.
We gather under,
allowing them to enfold us,
Like a Mother Hen.

Pond Days

Published on December 20, 2021December 20, 2021 by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

On days that are cloying,
When my ears protest with ringing
When my brain has decided to
blanket itself with a heavy haze,
Blurring my vision
And
Aching my bones...
The Spirit and I agreed
We should sit together 
and watch fish swim.
And side by side there,
just try to be.
She tells me my scattered,
anxious thoughts
Will entice me 
To coil up all my energy
and release it like a spring;
Only to find I become weaker still,
Snapped and broken.

I tell her:
"I'm glad you are ok with weakness.
And I'm glad that's where you work best.
I'm complex like a fractal,
And you knit everything together so well
Even when it looks so feeble and fragile."
So, she sets aside these little pond days for me,
Where we spend some time gazing at the fish,
And I'm learning how to just be,
I in Spirit and Spirit in me.


_{My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:}_{9 MSG}

Wild Goose

Published on November 30, 2021December 2, 2021 by Alyssa Kanitsch1 Comment

She is untamed chaos
Fierce in her protective gaze.
An enigma,
A paradox,
A joyful mystic,
A volatile conductress.

Surrender to the wild Goose
Melt into her terrible embrace.
She beckons you to cast off from the shore.
Your feeble tin boat bobbing in the wind,
the humming splash of water it's keeper.

Let it float untethered.
Let it drift and wobble.
Toss aside your anchor;
Abandon it, discard it, into the waiting sea.

Surrender to the Wild Goose.
'Till the land becomes a distant haze;
And you are given over to the spiralling adventure,
the swooping whirlwind
Under her Great Wings.

Poetry, prayer, Spirituality

Enchanted Forest

Published on November 7, 2021 by Alyssa KanitschLeave a comment

Deep in the forest amongst leaf, wood and shrub,

There is a place where the light plays tricks.

As if it were a small child finding joy

in hiding things

amongst branches;

And creating puppet-shows

in the shadowy patterns of the trees.

So a story unfolds,

where heroes and heroines spring from the most unlikely places.

Like the reassuring orb of the moon

Like the movement of a grey cloud

Like the distant chatter of a bird.

And then, in the space between moments,

you glimpse something in the corner of your eye

Tree spirits, angels, faeries

(It’s only a glimpse).

And a story unfolds still

Because, even amidst the infinite possibilities

of the tale;

There is a presence in the silence.

Enchanted light and stillness,

Weave it’s transformation, til

It is no longer a secret place, but rather a place of communion.

Even so, a Soul can be unaware of the Silent Witness.

Mistaking the loud stillness of the forest, for solitude.

A lonely journey,

A palpable aloneness,

A hopeless isolation.

But it was just an illusion.

The shadows were playing tricks.

If you listen, the air has this sort of hush you can feel

because it is damp with water droplets (and you are thirsty).

And the scent of the earth are a jumble of woody spices,

and leafy aromas,

which join hands with you

In solidarity for each and every breath.

And not a single leaf falls unknown.

And in every shadow there is a song.

And the Child laughs with joy.

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