Be a Leaf

2026 update: This poem is a Pagan liturgy that includes Pagan prayers. I wrote it in 2012 and posted it the day after I wrote it, though it was an early draft. I ended up never changing it. Here’s why: Over the years, I shared it with my Faerie Shamanism students and other friends to help them shine brightly, stay optimistic, keep fighting the good fight, and move forward on their goals. I repeatedly received feedback that the prayers helped with all of that, even when opposition was huge and might otherwise have won. I tend toward endless rewrites. But sometimes, the Muse grants me luck in an early draft. So the poem remains as it was.

 Be a Leaf Among All the Leaves that Have Ever Fallen from Trees
April, 2012 

My Gods, help us all shine—continue to shine, start to shine, know we shine, shine ever brighter, as the case may be.  

Naysayers are a plague of flies,
trying to blot out stars and sun.
A healing light shines,
but a fly says, “She is a fake. She has no light.” Another fly adds,
“She has no power.”
Other flies mimic and chant, “Fake! No power! No light!”  

Lies draw other flies, because fly nature is fed by offal. Slander spreads insect by insect, over the globe, because this horde of small, fearful, and jealous beings have yet to find their own power—their own enormous size and light.  

My Gods, help us all shine—continue to shine, start to shine, know we shine, shine ever brighter, as the case may be.  

Choose: Be part of the naysaying horde who hide their fear, even from themselves, hide it with disgust for those who try to make a difference. Rant against healers, be small, disguise this cowardice as a battle for truth and honor. Choose: Be covered in flies and lies so that your own light does not shine.  

Or look past them. Do you see a light, a healer?
Decide for yourself.
Only you can know whether you see a star shining.  

Be a light, a star with all the other stars in the sky, shining healing magic for everyone, you are that big already, innately, unless you lose your size to lies. Don’t lose your size by spreading lies.  

Be a light, a star from the sky walking among us as a healer, we are all stars walking. When flies say of you, “No light! No light!,” don’t let it dim you. Whatever the lies, some of us can see you anyway!  

Be a leaf, among all the leaves that have ever fallen from trees—all the leaves that
have ever blanketed the earth
with rich colors.
Turn into fragrant dark compost.
It is a leaf’s nature to fall, then crumble, it is
easy to do these things—to nurture life just
be yourself, that heals the world.  

May we all continue to shine. My Gods, help us—continue to shine, start to shine, know we shine, shine ever brighter.  

My Gods, help me find the humility to fall and
crumble to feed the lights of all.
Help me remember that, when I dissolve
against the earth, my soul goes down to be
reborn into a new self, a brighter light than ever—I  become a new leaf.
Help me have the self-esteem to recognize
the power of the leaf I am.

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For more bardic poetry, check out The Ecstatic Goddess.