Author: ANGorniak

I am a clinician, a writer, and an educator who finds meaning in facilitating the healing and transformation of others. I am a Brigidine and a Druid practicing mostly within the framework of Ár nDraíocht Féin. Scholarship is important to me as one way of knowing, but it is not the only one that informs my life and work. Certainly, my devotional relationships and engagement with my ancestors, the persons (human and otherwise) who surround me, and my gods do as well, often in ways that can be difficult to articulate but which I value. I reside in Texas, a land whose beauty echoes in my blood and bones. I am a former foster youth, queer, and learning to live with rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. My clinical and research work as a psychological professional focuses on trauma and its sequelae, on healing and post-traumatic growth for people and families and systems, and on working in ways that are Pagan and LGBTQ+ friendly. In my free time, I read voraciously, play tabletop games and DnD, enjoy classic cocktails, study herbalism and garden, bake, play with fiber arts, and enjoy exploring with my husband and pups.

Away

The heart sees in it's own rhythmsYou have to learn to listen to the way your flesh prickles in warning, in anticipationTo the subtle difference between desire and fear as they run up your spine, speaking through each otherPierced, sweetly speared by sudden stillness, now a cup, a fulcrum, a falling into beingYou have to … Continue reading Away →

Ripening

I will not apologize for being,for belonging to the fathomless.There is a succulence in woundedness that ripens into flourishing in secret places.There is a seeing like glancing blows, a flinching at the edges of all we are,Retraction as communication furled against the world.I would offer you instead a gentled invitation,the Nourishment arising from the poison … Continue reading Ripening →

Transliteration

It is not that I am somehow unbroken.I have shattered a thousand thousand times,becoming dust, a fine-grained cocoonreshaping the world one tender touch at a time.It is not that I am somehow unwounded.I bear the marks of a thousand thousand hurts,at my center that healing pool, sanctuarybounded by the sharp edges that hold you safe.It … Continue reading Transliteration →

Imbolc Offering

I was a bit uncertain when Brighid requested that I record some of our poetry to celebrate Imbolc this year. Still, it is important to give what is asked of us and so I give this to Her, and to you. It contains a thread of poems from what Brighid and I refer to as my "Apprenticeship." Blessed Imbolc.

Situated

I have been engaged with Erin Aurelia's Imbolc Advent. As part of that, and as part of my larger work and play in the worlds, I have been germinating the Word I was given last Sunday. Tonight that all wove together, words as container, or perhaps as the wild tendrils which slowly reach from within the seed, seeking light. It holds within it all that has arisen in and been shown to me these last weeks, and these many years of joy in Herself.

Making a Cros Bríde

As a Brigidine, making this was a small offering to Herself, and to you my community. I am not Irish. The traditions of honoring Brighid are alive and well and deeply meaningful there and I encourage you to access content from those sources. I find they bring me a kind of quiet gladness when I … Continue reading Making a Cros Bríde →

Tender Mirror

Perhaps it is ok for me to be what I am, mixed up and striving, settled into root and soul, unfurling, sometimes frenzied, always profuse.I have so often been given to understand there is something slightly obscene in it, the way I moveand speak and sink back into silence to my own strange rhythms, never … Continue reading Tender Mirror →

Ursa Major

I feel if I could touch my heart, my hand would come away bleedingA mighty claw hooked free that core of poison given as medicineBy ones who would have loved me if they couldIt did not want to come free so much so that I could not tellWhether I clung to it or it to … Continue reading Ursa Major →

Barrow-wight

Some days I stand empty, silenced save for the ghosts wandering my halls running chill fingers through the dust layering heart and spleen and the edges of my eyelids. Some days it is hard not to linger, listening to the spidery whispers of all my wrongs recited like a litany of healing though the wounds … Continue reading Barrow-wight →

On Sinking Back in Service of Flourishing

I've been thinking a lot about growth and growing in this season of our lives... We are in a time that involves many stressors, adverse conditions that reduce our access to the things that nourish us: relationships, physical contact with other living things/people, genuine leisure time, a sense of basic safety in our environment and … Continue reading On Sinking Back in Service of Flourishing →