Explore every episode of the podcast The Rose Compass

For the girls who need to know they can love all of themselves, even their fleshy flesh.

This is so weird but you may enjoy it. Mash-up of the lyrics to the song "The Hardest Part," sung by Olivia Dean and Leon Bridges AND (yes, AND!) a reading of "Disillusionment of Ten o'clock" by Wallace Stevens. Djs will make new things out of already good things. Please dance. (#ceintures are not #centaurs) Namaste.

Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes before a venture abroad. No dating advice though. Hmm. 🤔 Let's make all the men in Hamlet women for a while.

From Olds' collection *The Dead and the Living.*

A reading of "Strange Fruit," written by Lewis Allans and sung by Billie Holiday. #blacklivesmatter

In 1971, Anne Sexton, confessional poet suffering from mental illness and rising in fame, published "Transformations," poetic versions of fairytales she reframes for a modern ear. They are fabulous.

What does Bruno Mars have in common with Chet Baker and the poet Marie Howe and Mary Magdalene? This! My performance art! Everything comes to light! Happy Poetry Month 😘

From Erica Jong's collection, *The World Began with Yes*. This poem called "Emily Dickinson: A New Daguerreotype."

Poetry from the collection, "Refusing Heaven"

From her first collection, about her experience in a mental ward, where poetry changed her and saved her life.

The most important teaching.

A soul retreat/treat.

From her collection, The Dark Dark. A young woman and a much older man....

I found some journals.

A poem from Sharon Olds collection of poems called "The Father" from 1992.

He is called Humpty Dumpty for a reason. Would you ever want that to be your name? The name makes the man...

Blending scripture with Natalie Merchant's "Which Side Are You On," from The House Carpenter's Daughter album. Luke 7:31

Drumming and singing as the ancient ones did

A reading from my book, *Letters to a Young Woman, Lessons on Life and Love, from Paris* 1/28/2020

A little channeling helped with this one. Thanks, Maya! ❤

I let it go, you see. That's all it was. ❤

These are lines you have heard and heard, but have you really heard? Please pay attention to the bus and a purring cat (*special guest).

This poem is the first poem I used for an analysis paper in college English. It holds a special place in my heart.

Truth!

Peter Quince is a humble carpenter/aspiring playwright in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Susanna and the Elders is a classic Greek myth and story. In this poem, Peter plays his music. The story of myth and truth unfolds. It is as old as time.

This is for people who lose things.

Oh, the things women do when they are left alone. The words they speak! The thoughts they have! Those creations! Such wild dance....

Behind every weak man is a conniving woman. 

Kahlil Gibran and Whitney Houston take a little vacation.

Sheryl Crow meets Blanche Dubois. (At least that is what Katie called this.)

A reading of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats, and one of the most famous lines of literature. 

A well-known scripture from the motherlovin' Jesus, read by a woman.

Brooks says the personal is political. This poem, in particular, makes that so.

A poem by Wallace Stevens, read in a Southern drawl, 'cause there are a bit too many white men up in this joint and we gotta even the playin' field, no?

Do you know what work is?

Short and perfect and right on.

This poem is scripture. It will save you.

A woman like that is not ashamed. Nor should she be. 

An old, rhyming poem, as beautiful now as it was in the era of England's Metaphysical Poets. 17th century.

Kahlil Gibran's noted sequence of poetry in The Prophet has many gems, treatises on beauty, marriage, parenting. This one is about giving. May we all receive. 

I had a very clear image of Sojourner Truth one night over a chicken dinner, and I remembered her speech. Then she flowed through me, and we read it together. What a woman.

This poem is long and weird, like many geniuses. 

The witch archetype is buried deep in our psyches, so when a woman acts with wisdom, or shrewdness, we may call it evil. This spiritual lesson helps uncover the difference between wicked action and the wisdom path. 

This is for my biggest fan. Or foe. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. A reading of the poem, "Divorce, Thy Name Is Woman," by Anne Sexton, 1928-1974. (Momma, I feel I have a little bit of her inside me....)

Written in September 2019, this brief essay teaches women (and men) to know how God feels about their body, that their body is their own, and that their boundaries regarding their body should be respected--ALWAYS. "Your body is not an object for anyone else. It is the source of your power, and it is your church. It is your temple, your sacred altar."

An original spiritual teaching/oral her-story about lies, truth, evil, what is felt and known rather than what you are told to believe.

This is a reading of a classic Gnostic poem/revelation/scripture about divine feminine energy and wisdom. It was buried, lost. Those in charge did not want us to know.

An unnamed narrator meets a blind man and learns to see. From Raymond Carver's collection of short stories, "Cathedral."

Breath, moth, butterfly.

This Mary Oliver poem is much loved and much celebrated. It begins, "You do not have to be good."