Fellow interfaith practitioner, island neighbor, spiritual poet extraordinaire, and – best of all – friend, Emily decided a year and a half ago to write a few poems that she paired with my visual creative work. We’re thrilled to be collaborating in this way, and we’ve continued into 2024. We want to share our work with you again. This is our sixth pairing.
When Emily gifted this poem to me the other day, she said, “This image of yours, although not an octopus, visually stimulated this poem about sentience…
Sentience**
By EmilyJane Mockett
Octopi flit & float
In seas of consciousness
Merging insight of touch
Flushing through them
As if inks touch to page
Casting words to mind
Seeps into hearts space
From sensations beyond
The ocean we swim
Oh octopi
How I understand your
Curious ways of knowing—
Clairsentience
Oh how I didn’t have words
As a child for this
This creep, sweep,
flushing, brushing
Of colors in my belly
Filling me with fluidity
Insight of Divine creativity
Flitting & floating
my feelings of Aliveness
Oh octopi how I wish
to ask you to dance with me,
in squirts of purple
leaps of indigo
Deep diving with spirits unseen
** noun. the state or quality of being sentient; awareness. sense perception not involving intelligence or mental perception; feeling.
