Hierophant
Editor’s Letter by claude joven
Creature Comforts 2 by MP Vare
The Beginning by Kayla O’Meara
Let Me Snack in Nature with My Friends Forever by claude joven
The Charles on Marathon Day by Kayla O’Meara
I Went to Bohemian Switzerland by Katie
Another Branch by Emma Paulini
And 2morrow (Fractions of my Future) After 2Pac by Cara Morgan
Editor’s Letter
This editor's letter is best read whilst touching grass.
How stubborn is life that it keeps coming back even after death? How stubborn is the land to return lusciously to us, and with flowers, after the drudgery of winter? How the grass gets taller and thicker with the tears of spring.
And how stubborn are the students of the covid-educated generation to miss both their high school and university graduations? To harness the dramatics of our mass loss and sling-shot it back to the institutions that would like to rot in a crumbling normal? All students become teachers and teachers must always remain teachable.
How stubborn are we that we dream borderlessly together across a cyber web of horrors and fantasies? How stubborn are we to watch everything our grandparents built crumble and burn before us while also living out their greatest, liberated dreams? We will laugh and sing knowing that future generations will do just the same on our behalf.
We hope that in the maddening fodder of constant and violent endings, we create new beginnings defiantly only to be forgotten again encroached by ivy on church-like structures crumbling silently in countrysides. There is power in knowing we will be forsaken by the earth's indifferences to meanings we create to make sense of a mad world. The earth is humanity's wisest teacher.
Embrace madness, follow your desires, listen to your body, and feed your soul unbridled hope by witnessing the relentless perseverance of nature. Today, we hope you embrace the decadence of today knowing that all we may leave behind is our creative sentiments as our remains become sedimentary. Opal Age hopes to create a flourishing record of our time, knowing that all we have is the present. Our art and memory are our weapons to endlessly rewind and reimagine our truths, to be viscerally felt by generations to come. Art exists infinitesimally throughout time in an unimaginable amount of nows.
Everyone born to this time comes here as a steward to a land wounded by humanity. We come with our own inherent healing capabilities; traumas, wounds, hopes, and dreams. How profoundly hurt we all come arriving to each other. How expansive the power of loving is to healing a wounded world. How stubborn are we to think we can understand the power lying beneath our feet? May the earth be our teacher again.
In solidarity with the past, present, and future, please join our efforts to keep the spirit of Gaza alive through the art of Baraa Alawoor, a children’s illustrator, and her family as they rebuild their future in the place they call home, Palestine. We encourage you to donate, share, and hold hope for her community’s future.
With the brilliance of stars and the stubbornness of bulls,
claude joven
Co-signed by the editors of Opal Age,
Katie Harrison and Peter Rogers
Creature Comforts 2
by MP Vare
they/them
The Beginning
by Kayla O’Meara
she/her
I had no idea the trees would be budding
on the morning when I packed my bags to leave.
At first there was nothing, then suddenly green!
It feels an insult to leave behind
this year’s spectacle of growth —
ten thousand tiny buds just coming to their own,
to take a plane towards foreign land,
to sip their bitter coffee in the breeze,
to lay my eager hands on tiled walls,
and hope there all the while
I come back as something new.
4/16/24
Let me snack in nature with my friends forever
by claude joven
he/they
The Charles on Marathon Day
by Kayla O’Meara
she/her
swims with lovers and joggers
on its gentle banks, soaking
in the bounty of the early sun.
Today is that first sip of wine,
chilled at the corner store and ferried
to the park in its own paper bag.
There’s strawberry, apple, citrus —
slate from a country far up in the hills.
The rosé lingers, smooth on the palate,
summer’s fruit now blooming on our lips
while across town runners in their lemon
bibs form a river from the start.
.
Here we watch two young geese graze,
ambling in the dappled sun,
happiness coming easy —
not a marathon or sprint,
but a drink straight from the bottle.
4/15/24
Dena’ina
by Ash
she/her
For as far as my memory allows, I’ve felt a pull towards the natural world. Increasingly curious about what it can teach and show me. Eager to understand how it can heal, but also its depths and secrets. Over the years, slowly learning what plants can do. How certain parts of devil's club can be made into a salve, or picking fiddlehead ferns in the Spring while they’re still coiled up are great to jar/pickle.
Such solace I was able to find amongst the trees and fields, water and small creatures. There is little this world can offer me in terms of the peace and content nature does. I’ve never felt more alive than when I’ve stood atop the mountains in the valley.
To see the frogs hopping along the path to the small lake at my grandparents, or the rare sighting of a fox in the woods. These moments are when I feel the most fulfilled, for I am rich in memories. We used to play this game growing up, whenever we would head south out of Anchorage along the Seward highway, my Mom would always try to get us to spot as many sheep along the cliffs as we could. We would play the same game whenever we’d drive along the hay flats, trying to spot as many moose as possible.
The thing about Alaska is there is hardly any degree of separation from you and nature. You grow up understanding the risks weather and animals can have, and oftentimes, a deep appreciation for nature emerges from this.
For most of my childhood, every July I watched the sunset on the same beach. It’s the same place that’s seen me at every stage of adolescence. It watched me as a young one, exploring parts of the sand and water I had never seen before. This beach saw the accident that left me battered and bruised, but also showed the kindest side of humanity through the people who saved me.
How fragile this life is. It’s seen me sobbing so hard, the tears now carried to all parts of the world that unknowing strangers have walked upon and the waves have lapped up. These places, in many aspects, raised me; and I’d like to believe the land holds the memories, for I have not forgotten the lessons learned. Something about returning to the same place after years is so startling. The land itself hasn’t changed, but you’ve arrived in a new light, no longer the person you were. Sometimes it’s the land that changes you though. Growing up in one of the most serene and untouched places, I didn’t realize how much I took that for granted until reflecting back on memories of these places, and feeling so homesick for a time that no longer exists.
These moments in the past, where I watched a sunset in Hope with someone whose soul is just as beautiful, or shown to a friend from Arizona around one of my favorite state parks, and saw her in complete awe of how beautiful the place I call home is.
These were all moments that made me realize that just because I’ve left for a while, this land and I have a connection, and I will never be away for too long.
Sacred Pause
by MP Vare
they/them
Smell your children’s hair, marvel at the sweetness there
Accept an invitation to curiosity, reverence, attunement
Coregulate with trees poetry p l e a s u r e
Revel and rest, dear one
Explore your desires, assumptions, expectations
Do not fritter way this occasion demanding the loose threads weave together
Pause your becoming to linger for this time play be in
Awe of the transition, co-create with your adoration and attention
Unravel, unleash, upgrade
Show up for the ordinary and mundane beauty of your life unfolding incubate
Enthusiasm, harness your vitality
Origin Story
by MP Vare
they/them
on my child’s birthday my mother-in-law wishes me
happy birthing day i rejoice
that I don’t have to push my child out of my body into the world every year though
perhaps there is some future day we will celebrate nudging my sweet baby from our nest
for several days my tiny beloved has been telling me the story of their birth
last night when we were at the water beach i fell down into your belly and it was so fun
when you were born
yeah then you fell down into my belly and it was so funny
i think of the odd knob that crusted in their early days where we’d been joined
a smile sneaks across my lips i’d marveled the first time a dear friend invited me to visualize
the echoing wave of humanity’s ancestral lineage my palm cupped over my middle
during a belly button meditation she foretold how everyone on earth was is will be connected
by this common location where we were are will be nourished
she stretched the words an offering look to your belly to know we are connected
I Went to Bohemian Switzerland
And almost didn’t come back
I am being dramatic
by Katie
she/her
To get to the Pravička Archway you need a train and a bus from Prague. It’s only a couple of hours on the cutest train ever. There’s orange accents and the seats are spaced out nicely. The views are beautiful, passing by the river dividing the Czech Republic and Germany.
The forest is still mostly burnt from the fires, but it’s beautiful anyway.
I don’t know why, but I didn’t anticipate it being such an uphill climb. The view is worth it, though I didn’t have enough coins for the bus or phone service to pay with a credit card. I thought we might need to stay there forever, or walk a million hours back to Prague. A run to the ATM and cell service in Hrensko saved the day. The same bus driver who dropped us off picked us up.
Another Branch
by Emma Paulini
she/her
My dreams grow on trellises,
wrapping their tendrils around the wood
like blackberry-stained fingers grasping the handle of a gathering basket
covered with a tea towel to keep their tenderness fresh
Like summer hands closing around the prized branch
with its rosy fruit hanging so shapely from the bough
My dreams slip just below the soft dark soil
and shoot a stem up above ground to orient their leaves, pale with youth,
towards the gaping sky
opening their mouths to heavy pellets of rain and gulping down sun rays
that drip from the watercolor-smeared clouds
The ones that drop from the vine and find themselves untouched in time
gently and quietly melt back into the accepting ground,
decomposing to nourish the others
that will come again in their due time
And 2morrow (Fractions of my Future) After 2pac
by Cara Morgan
they/them
“What does it look like, that healed future?”
-my therapist
1. Hello, World!
Fuck off, sheets!
Here it is: my body.
Whole in its crookedness.
It has been decided.
2. I’m gonna glitter bomb myself
right here.
So you’re stuck with ME.
Bits of ME in the carpet,
buried beautiful things.
And everywhere will be
yellow yellow yellow.
3. You can find me in the garden,
singing to squash bees and pruning leaves.
Composting hair from my comb
and eggshells from breakfast.
What I grow grows me.
4. The chickens don’t mind my
pajamas and Bean Boots.
They feast on watermelon rinds.
5. My hair is shorter now.
I’ve shaved it out of my face,
for function. Even still,
yellow yellow yellow.
6. When it’s warm, I walk barefoot on the garden stones
to feel the sun on my feet. I fill the birdbaths with water,
and feed the critters mealworms, blueberries, and seeds.
7. My body stretches when I ask
and instead of saying thank you
I keep moving.
8. I feel my most powerful during sex.
Feeling my body — just as it is —
pleasing another.
Most devilish, most divine,
when my skin intoxicates.
When my kiss elicits soft moans
and we giggle in the dark.
Changing tempo, pausing.
9. In June, I take my morning coffee (decaf) by the feeders
and listen to the hummingbirds fight, and watch their silly tongues
sip the nectar from my kitchen.
10. I cook food from my garden and the farm stand.
Local game and honey. Roasted Maine potatoes and beans.
Homemade cookies and pies. My belly is full and loved.
11. A witch and a wench live down the road.
They bring me gifts on Thursdays like ritualistic ravens.
A joint, a tarot card, a stratified rock.
My collection is overflowing.
There are no more loveless things.
12. I had planned to spit on their graves
but I piss instead.
13. The fight is over.
The curse has lifted.
Untied knots yield tender ropes.
Those frayed ends have healed to a magnificent scar.
Beautiful trauma, hard and smooth.
14. I feel.
Unashamed freedom, uncontained joy.
Dancing in the wind, alive with the grass. Rooted.
15. Hope has found her way home.
A late traveler sweetly perfumed
and cloaked in queen’s colors.
She rests for a while and leaves me with these:
A teacup with a lipstick rim and a looking glass.
Tomorrow is a promise I see in my reflection.
木漏れ日
Lessons from Perfect Days: On Unclehood, Trees, and Being an Analog Dreamboat
by claude joven
he/they
I spent my birthday alone for the first time this year. I guess that’s just a sign of aging, or rather a birthday that lands on a Tuesday this go around the sun. What’s a guy to do but go to the theater for some wisdom? After all, theaters are the ultimate chasms of knowledge on human emotions.
Upon first glance, Perfect Days seemed like a title that would turn the birthday blues around. A tale of Tokyo’s Toilet Cleaner, Hirayama. An uncle of serene refuge, amateur arborist, and connoisseur of analog media. Honestly, low-key my dream man. Being delusional as I am, when Patti Smith’s Redondo Beach played on his radio, I knew I was meant to see this film. My papa was a janitor, maybe these were his messages...
Though Hirayama is a man of few words, not a yapper like me, he drops some heavy uncle wisdom that weaves the beauty of life into the glorious mundane of routine. You, the cinematic voyeur, follow Hirayama throughout his days and dreaming nights. In the stillness, you witness all the little magics around him. A kind and gentle life of soft solitude. Things that would make others cringe like crying babies and messy washrooms delight Hirayama because he sees life in all of its motion. Just like a tree, it’s not the emotional connotations, but the intensity of the feeling Hirayama reacts to.
今は今。」
Ima wa ima.' - Now is Now
One day, his routine is interupted by his niece, Niko, who runs away from home from her well-to-do mother. Hirayama and Niko drink canned Boss coffee together, clean the lous, and take pictures of the light coming through the trees. While precious for the love they share, it gave me pause in how silly it is that old heads and youngins don’t take the time to understand each other. How each generation pokes fun at each other for doing the same things in different ways. Intergenerational understanding makes my heart SWELL.
Ever since watching this film, I take a few more seconds each day to appreciate the beautiful mundane; little snails crawling in the dirt, twirling leaves, people being people even if they are hurting. It makes lifes big beautiful moments even more glistening.
木漏れ日
“komorebi”
is the Japanese word for the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, at that moment.
“tree” 木
“to leak” 漏れ
“sun” 日
This film also inspired me to live my analog dream life that day and go get a $1 book from the thrift shop. Follow your whims, says Hirayama, live in the moment, he insists! Although this landed me an hour-and-a-half-long conversation with a random man claiming to share a name with me professing his love for Joel Osteen, I would still recommend you follow this advice.
Life happens, be there for it.
Anyway, go watch this movie for some sobs and stillness.
Read This Now!
🔎 The Not-So-Hidden Climate Risks For Gaza’s Displaced by Amali Tower published Jan 11, 2024
Suggested Reading on the Eco-cide worsening with time in Palestine. Note that this article has even aged within months.
🌳 “The point is, war is problematic - least for climate reasons - but it is often the chosen outcome of a political system that fails to center human life.”
The Hierophant edition seeks to make teachers and students of all of us, primarily listening to the earth as our guide. 🌍
Continue to make noise about the multitudes of injustices Palestinians face, including the destruction of their ancestral lands - their livelihood and home.
For the Family and Future of Baraa Alawoor
Baraa’s family, consisting of twelve members, is currently in Gaza, confronting unprecedented challenges. They are in desperate need of your assistance to facilitate their safe evacuation.
Baraa Alawoor ,a children's book illustrator from Gaza, is faced with the devastating loss of her home and art studio due to Israeli airstrikes. She is currently stranded outside Gaza due to the war conditions, moving from one country to another, while her family remains trapped inside Gaza amidst continuous bombing and ongoing danger.
Now, her family is homeless, in urgent need of donations and financial support. The Israeli forces have compelled her family to evacuate their home to the south, and now they are displaced for the second time, heading to the farthest southern regions.
“My wandering books, illustrated with vivid and imaginative drawings, have spoken to the souls of children around the world, touching their dreams with joy. Yet, I find myself now homeless, suspended in the borderless sky with no wings to soar.”
- Baraa Alawoor
