Under the Radar

January 8, 2026 By in Poetry 2 Comments

~

Under the Radar

~

Softening their intelligence

they meandered

through the maps of their minds

transparent as water and air.

~

While walking deftly

under the ladders of hierarchy

They circumnavigated

the solid grid of references

unwinding the edges of illusion.

The flight of their passions

exploring the complexities,

of new insight.

~

Their cadence syncopated

by raindrops and birdcalls,

they resonated as bells ringing

weathering the storms

of this new vulnerability.

~

Each of their words

now flesh of their hearts

their ageless spirits

carrying loss

as kites in the wind.

~

While planting bright seeds

in fecund dust

Where some may grow

under the radar.

~

I often consider that poems are like messages in a bottle washing up on the shore….whether a new poetic reflection or an older contemplation returning.

This one is an older poem, but its contemplative energy remains ageless for me, a reminder and impetus for the coming new year.

There is a “layer of being” I address here. It is a prayer encompassing the word

“WITH”

and the verb words

“We ARE…WE ARE….WE ARE”

~

Painting and poem © Jana White

Instagram @ Jana_h_White

 

Winter Solstice

December 20, 2025 By in Archetypal currents, Art, Painting, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

~

Ouroboros

~ 

The moon shivers silver and stirs

As the branches of Life’s Tree, kiln dried,

Spark and Ignite in the cauldron of a Dragon’s exhale

As still holding the Center

The Dragon pauses before its first next Breath before Flight

As the Vesica Pisces, resonating through eons

with the Triangle of Light’s Blessing,

In quantum symmetry smiles

And Mycelium dance in prayerful delight!

~~~~~~~~~

” There are two ways of sustaining something. It may either be carried, or enfolded by creating an unbroken circle round it to prevent its falling apart.”

The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols 1996 addition… by Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant under the category “Serpent”.

~


(Adieu to the Chinese “Year of the Wood Snake”)

~

I was a child with dreams of becoming

Now that I am older

The same dreams of being hold

Like a snake shedding it’s skin

While spitting out it’s swallowed tail

Returning and turning

Always the same

In all ways transformed

~

Happy Solstice!

~

Painting and poems © Jana White

Instagram @ Jana_h_White

Enigma

December 11, 2025 By in Photography, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

~

Rooted in the Greek word for riddle

I steady myself

in the middle of the stream

So much rain

my toes search for purchase

as I move along in the strong current

~

But I’ll not wander in the side eddies

where the slickest algae

coats the surface of the stones still idling there

passing time as if singular

feigning reflection

~

An intoxicated accumulation

of over fertilized organic matter

girdling themselves

as if they could hold on to the ground

~

My days have been emptying

full of the feeling that I’m living in two separate realities

~

More than a waiting game

too much hard evidence

~

Carrying a pack that needs to be cleaned out

and made into a traveling case of essentials

fit for traveling in even faster flowing water

~

I’ve been carrying these stones around with me for decades. The one with the impressed shells is from the Northwest Pacific coast and was gifted to me. Its partner once dwelled further south, somewhere along the coast by Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco.

They traveled with me when I returned to the waters of the east coast, after my sojourn with the Pacific.  The stones always hold a corner of one of my gardens, along with a bowl of water for the critters and birds.

The poem inserted into the photo arrived out of the blue, as many poems tend to do. It came as a puzzle and I chuckled as I considered who it could be referring to.

That is until…. could it possibly be “water”?  And partner with the poem “Enigma”?

~

Poems and photo © Jana White

Instagram @ Jana_H_White

Perfect Landing

December 9, 2025 By in Archetypal currents, Art, Painting, Personal Journal, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

I step lightly between the landing of the animus

The muse that comes lifting honey from the hives

Pollinating words penetrating through veils

Boundaries permeable by light

Still feeling the sinew and bones of intention

Smiling around dark corners

Unabashed!

 



Painting and journal entry © Jana White

Instagram @ Jana_H_White

Dengue Diary

December 4, 2025 By in Art, Pencil Noir, Poetry Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

~

Becoming

~

Even substance

can not slow to definition

The holiness

of momentum

~

Weather

~

It’s called the “Bone Crusher”.

At the end of 2019 and five days into a month long artist residency in Mexico, I fell into a deep viral vortex known as dengue fever. As the virus rummaged through my physiology, the microscopic mutants concentrated in my skull. My brain swelled with a pain so focused that I couldn’t open my eyes and for days I lost all sense of whether it was day or night.

All I remember of this time is literally having no other choice but to surrender to the pain. Finally, within this weird dark place I “saw” what I remember as an image of the archetype of Mary, which I held on to with the thought that perhaps I wasn’t being swallowed whole afterall.

Shortly after the pain subsided, and other than the bones in my head being tender and my lungs congested, I slowly re-entered the day to day world of the rest of the residency.

The canvasses I had prepped were all ready and hanging on my working wall. My paints were arranged on the table, but I found that I could not tolerate color! Light also bothered me and I was unable to look at a phone or computer screen without feeling some internal wires were being crossed. My original intentions disrupted, I sketched instead in black and white trying to express the experience and make something of the residency.

Even more disconcerting was how it felt simply inhabiting space. When walking there was the feeling of riding up and down an elevator. For months afterwards I would have to stop to steady and ground myself….in a panic. Since this feeling was this side of actual dizziness or vertigo, it took months to understand my eustachian tubes had been permanently altered. Finally allergy testing confirmed this and also that my body remained on high alert. I continually exhibited allergic reactions, and I became a human barometer of weather and environmental and seasonal changes. It took years to convince my neurology that neither hard wood trees, nor a new weather front, would upend me.

I was finding that I was having to come into perceptual relationship with everything around me…in a deeper way. This relationship wasn’t a new experience. I had been relying on nature for a sense of wonder and relationship, but also emotional regulation, since a child old enough to wander alone in the wildness of it. This is where I found true beauty in the rhythms of life, sometimes death, and learned to trust change.

Considering the archetypal image of Mary that I saw during my dengue episode? It has become clear to me that this was the Earth herself….in one unbroken seam.

~

Drawings by Jana White ©

Instagram @ Jana_h_White

Fragile

March 1, 2025 By in Art, Poetry Tags: , , , , , 2 Comments

`

Fragile like smog shadows rifling valleys

the mountain holds its breath

~

Fragile like feverish water

the ocean aborts the moon’s children

~

Fragile like bees losing direction

and stamens playing their last hands

~

Fragile like children born overwhelmed

by viruses perplexed

~

Fragile still

like a flower

self-sewing in the garden

in blooming will make no mistakes

Intelligence in its unfolding

~

~

“The Sky is falling. The sky is falling”

Painting and poem by Jana White

Instagram @jana_h_white

Helene

February 10, 2025 By in Art, Persian Poets 7 Comments
 

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool

shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and

serenity of distant fields and meadows … then let

your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.”

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind

shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning

proclaim the majesty of the sky … then let your heart

say in awe, “God moves in passion.”

And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a

leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason

and move in passion.

~~~~~~~~

Excerpted from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran

Painting by Jana White

@jana_h_white

     
 

The birds alight

October 6, 2017 By in Poetry Tags: , 25 Comments

~

Firmly rooted in the strength of grace

the birds alight on the stiff raised arms of poets

balanced on one foot in the spaces left standing

between the tenuous structures that remain

~

Insubstantial and vaguely reminiscent

~

The flooding waters begin to recede

as the detritus of the displaced

live on in our frightened prayers and their own cardboard hollows

carrying the burden of our collective magnificence

~

The sun arrives late as the dogs and donkeys

shiver in the new light … in the heat

in the washed out fragrance of urine and slowly drying fear

their familiar trails erased how will they find home?

~

Tree limbs with radial fractures leaves crushed

a chaotic maze of leaching chlorophyll

roots holding to rocks waiting for loosened soil

to settle the wail of a child

~

The water heavy with suffering, eddies in wrong places

weary from the seizures of epileptic unbalance

made other and reduced to an inventory of unfamiliar relationship

to wood to concrete to flesh

~

the eye looks for one familiar thing in its place with another

a chair and a table, a table and a glass, a glass and a pitcher,

a single glass and a pitcher the thirsty eye raised

to rest for a moment on a recognizable sky

~

the sun comes up

and the birds continue to alight

on the stiff raised arms of poets

~

                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rhythms…

July 2, 2017 By in Poetry Tags: , , , , , 18 Comments

~

Riding the currents

sleeping through storms

treading water in the dark

~

sparks of harmonics

fly from my pen

~

my hand

the sentient animal

of my heart

~

~

An older poem …. words float and land. improvisational rhythms. their own kind of precision. different relationship each time. they’re just there….perhaps have always been

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~