Portals

Check out dVerse Poet Pub’s  post for May 19th and read Anmol’s post on portals, our prompt for the day. He begins with a quote from Arundhati Roy that touched me profoundly. He also includes some very interesting poems, providing a small taste of the many possibilities inherent in this prompt. So many  concepts lie embedded in ‘portal’ – home, boundary, shelter, imprisonment, freedom, etc. each with it’s own constellation of associations.

For me, doorways symbolize choice. Do we pass through them or pass them by? Do we slam them shut or fling them open? Where do they lead?

In fairy tales doorways generally lead one into a different reality, another kingdom, an alternative universe. Portals challenge us to change – our minds, our attitudes, our perceptions and assumptions. Change is at the heart of all fairy tales. And change is the core of the life force.

Portals  intrigue me wherever I travel, and show up often in my dreams, poetry, art and ritual work. Below is a collage I made for an art blog, Two Twitch a Tale, created several years ago by my friend, artist Michelle Anglin and myself as an exploration of fairy tales

Threshholds

You think Time’s Arrow only points one way?

Have you gazed into the night sky, seen

the Milky Way cobbled with suns, flanked

with far galaxies extending into unimaginable

distances, traveled only by shape-shifting photons

whose nature remains mystery?  Time was Einstein’s

doorway as it is ours, creating worlds that live, breath,

die and birth again – each story recorded in light

travelling planet to planet, filling dreams, illuminating

imagination. We only need a child’s eye to open; a hand

to lift the latch, a step to cross a threshold.