Prayer of Cleansing Under the Full Moon

I stand under the silver glow of the Wesak Moon

In the cool luminosity of the soul's darkest night:

All one and alone, heart heavy yet light,

Half out of the human cocoon,

Open, beseeching.

Angels and devas and faeries and elves,

Gnomes and goblins and pixies and nymphs,

Dragons and witches and sorcerers and saints,

Mages and sages, paradise birds in cages,

Jugglers and lyrists and fiddlers and pipers,

Drummers and bummers and hummers and humans,

Princesses and debutantes and celebrity queens,

Unicorns and tadpoles and wombats and moles,

Mushrooms and toadstools by mossy banked pools,

Ladies and gentlemen, philosophers and fools!

May the soft splendor of the Wesak Full Moon

Bless us with understanding and insight

And remembrance of this sacred night:

When butterfly and baboon,

When joy and sorrow,

When the magic and the tragic

United to birth a brand-new tomorrow.

May all those happy with the world and those hurt in love,

May those with children and those who are children themselves,

May masters and mistresses meet in the Mystery of Mysteries,

And make merry around the campfire of herstory and history.

May the music take wing and uplift our souls,

May the fountain of youth and the horn of plenty

And the grail of truth lead us home to Amenti.

Behold! The Moon's silver now turns to gold!

Welcome, all ye lunatics with biographies untold!

Come forth, shy maidens, come sing songs of old;

Let's kiss, pretty miss, oh let our passion be bold!

Give us a big hug, Pheona, Ellie, Marina and Troll!

Hey, Brian and Woy and Adi and Pati and Bets!

Have you seen Kate D and Diny and Sophie and Bernadette?

Where's Grant and Patricia and Ananda (how can we forget)?

Oh, there's Elf in the pool, no wonder she's wet!

Who's that sari-clad beauty out of a Bollywood set?

How did she get here? Hand her an epithet!

Her name is Manjula and she's a real dragon cat -

But that doesn't rhyme with the other lines, oh drat!

Hello, Dr Peebles! Nice to see you here too!

Ha! There's Terence McKenna and his magic kazoo!

Bob Wilson, Tim Leary, Lord Greystoke, and Fu Manchu,

Long time no see, Inanna and Enki, how do you do?

Enough patter already, have some of this brew...

When you feel your head spin

Let the moon madness begin:

Form a circle, feel your body sway,

Dance, beloved, as the Photon Band plays!

~ The Lizard Wizard Himself ~

19 May 2000

[First posted 12 April 2025]

Why We Have Come ~ a poem by Troy Skeels (repost)

We have come because
the trees are in blossom
because the wind tugs at our sleeves
we come because the ocean has brought us here
many times

We have come because a man
once held a fresh page to the light
and declared tyranny dead

we have come because a woman
refused to keep to her place

We have come because the planet brought us
on its way around the sun

trees hold onto the sky and breathe the rooted earth
singing deep songs of oxygen

bees roam between flowers and the moon
weaving genetic strands in the ageless spiraling dance

restless elephants push against their diminishing range
tear through fences looking for food
never imagining fences.

We are people
and this is what we do

We have come to say
the planet will not be privatized
the holy ground will not be sanitized
people are not numbers to be erased

we are tired of insider deals cut in rooms
full of plush carpets and air conditioning
while families starve in the sweltering doorways

sick from the sludge of poorly digested dollars
oozing from the sewers and washing the shopping malls
in the stench

development loans that build dictators' palaces
and prison factories
while charging the people
for the chains that enslave them
and the bullets that kill them
plus interest

We have come because we have followed long trails of blood
to this place
and we are asking to see your hands

we have come because we looked in the mirror today
and we saw that you were us
and we are trying to change

we have come because we are here
because we have been taught to stand
because we were born

because an endless river brought us here


- Troy Skeels

[First posted 6 October 2007. Reposted 13 April 2017]