“Johanna’s writing is so ridiculously beautiful and brilliant and just seems to flow out of her.  I really think it needs to be out in the world in a big way.”
–Emily Trinkaus, writer, editor, astrologer

Anthologies including pieces by Johanna Courtleigh include Sisters Singing, VoiceCatcher, Wake Up Women: BE Happy, Healthy and Wealthy and Wake Up–Live The Life You Love, In Service.

*Available on Amazon.

~I am Delighted To Announce the Release Of~

Prayers For A New World

Writings for an Awakening Humanity

In this crucial time of beauty, degradation and transformation, it is imperative that we evoke and manifest a new world. One where we Remember deeply who we are, where we are, and what all this is for. The growing into and expressing of our own Divinity. The passionate awareness and valuing of the Divine in all things.

Prayers For A New World is a collection of 35 prose and poetry pieces written in the hopes of reminding, inspiring and moving you into a state of awe, reverence and awakening. Awakening you to your own beauty, the miracle of creation, and your place in the vast, complex, magnificent, holy order of things.

prayers

“Johanna’s writing is so ridiculously beautiful and brilliant and just seems to flow out of her.  I really think it needs to be out in the world in a big way.”
–Emily Trinkaus, writer, editor, astrologer

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from Prayers For A New World

The Coming of Grace

If you come closer.
If you stand here, just, quiet in the gray of evening.
If you let the salt sea mist weave a cloak around you
and meet your skin as if it were a wave,
as if it were a lover, enfolding.
If you come to the place where the ocean meets the sky.
Take a small boat, all the way out to where the universe began.
If you are quiet enough, then you will hear the singing.

In the heart of the land, stone.
In the belly of the ocean, fire.
The light of dawn takes her time to awaken you
on a sleepy shore a dozen continents from here
dreaming a memory of the first speaking of your true name.

Place the stone, carefully, in your mouth.
Put the fire in the palm of your hand.
Speak what you remember, but do not tell everything.
The heavens are open, and someone is always listening.
Even God, sometimes, is allowed to have his secrets.

Take your boat and tie it to the sunrise.
Place the flame in a crystal vase and put it on the table.
Bury the stone in the garden with the flowers.
Take off your cloak.
Have a long drink of the sea.

Even if you are lonely, you have been chosen to be here.
Even if you are afraid, someone is always beside you.
Behind the clouds are worlds too brilliant to imagine.
Behind your eyes is more than you could begin to know.

Bow to the sun.
Give her your hair to weave a rainbow in.
Though the day is long, and you walk a far distance to the sea,
its undulating rhythm will call in the night,
and let you down, finally, into sleep.

Ask for everything and do not worry.
Ask for nothing and be at peace.
Even God closes his eyes sometimes.
Even the sea is sometimes still.

At any moment, somewhere in the world, it is night.

You will walk on water when it is time.

Even this, too, will prove to have its season.

Don’t Wait For Love To Find You!

She is lurking in the marketplace
luxuriating in the peaches
soft as the dreamy down of dawn
sultry as morning sun
gentle on her sweet blushed cheeks.
Crouched between the tomatoes
her crimson skin gleaming
her heady musk yearning toward you.
Even the clustering of grapes
calls your lips
to take them in whole
inviting the white perfect pebbles of your teeth
to open and enter the sweet mystery of their wine.
And the wrinkling of figs, warm and seductive.
And the watermelon, pregnant with juice.
As pears, lounging, offer themselves.
And the soft soft of persimmon flesh
fiery-sweet and glaring.
And the royal velvet of eggplant
noble in its beckoning.
Even in the fields
tiny mouths of buttercups sing
shining their faces up toward the light
as corn sways and hisses the breeze
and crickets pray down the night
rubbing their sinewy wings into music.
Open the door and breathe them in!
The morning dove
bowing and cooing.
The evening swallow
cascading its ballet
skimming the clear glass of some dusky lake.
Get out of your room!
And do not wait for love!
She knows your name
and has been calling since before you made your dive
down down
into the warm body of this dream.
She will not coddle your cowering
twisted in your bed
sheets worn thin with sorrow.
She is everywhere, curtsying
humble and coy.
She is impatient and pleading
her breath the scorching winds of summer.
She is brazen and wild
panting and heaving.
Imploring you.
Longing.
To take her in your wide, calloused hands.
To bend and bow and beg her to dance.

“Johanna’s lovely writing has a beautifully evocative spirit about it Her gorgeous lines will quite simply take your breath away, and quietly change your life . . .”
–Michael Hoppe, Grammy-nominated Composer/Producer

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