Postings from Amy’s own delightful and unique Goddess Thoughts, including charming selections from her hundreds of appealing and inspiring poems published in her large book of the same name, along with short-story accounts of many of her delightful and hilariously fantastical relationships, run-ins, and the remarkably humorous reactions of her own, as well as her muse-like critical “Editor” of Amy Dio’s tales and conversations with her personal world of ancient (and often not so old) gods and goddesses, angels and fairies, of mythology and fantasy and how to this day we are influenced by the “reality” of a wonder-filled world of magic, mystery, and memories from the pantheons of the gods and goddesses from the days of yore.
Amy Dio in her garden with Aphrodite
Amy Indira Dio Ramdass is a mythology/goddess poet and an author of mystery/romance novels, including not only her big beautiful book of “Goddess Thoughts”, but also her delightfully enchanting, but chillingly sinister, debut novel “River Bound Secret Swept”, a magical yet mysterious tome of a story, full of romance and intrigue, set in the tropical beauty of her own native Guyana, and on to Houston, Texas, and her own adopted Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is working on her second novel, draft titled “Avatara”
Previously Published by Amy I. Ramdass. . .
Amy is a highly respected and well-followed expert on the ancient deities and pantheons of Greek and Roman philosophy and mythology.
The End of the Trail, sculpture by James Earle Fraser (1894) The year of Albert’s birth
Note~ This poem has been modified from an original poem, “Lonesome Land”, by my uncle Albert Pendergraft (1894–1944). See the brief commentary on Albert’s life and the original composition following the poem. (Rewritten, revised, expanded and edited by Lloyd Albert Williams.)
Dedicated to Albert and his Lonesome Land with love and hope . . .
You’re a Lonesome Land a virgin land Beautifully exposed free and bare You’re an untamed still wild Lonesome Land But a proud land demanding yet fair
When I pause on some sun-blistered hill And gaze far o’er your broad boundless range Where the brisk restless winds never still And swift sunlight and cloud shadows change
There’s a song in my heart and an ache A longing indefinitely sad With contentment that sorrow can’t take And my troubles seem gone and I’m glad
In the night while the hours slowly pass When the wolves wail their long lonely cry And the wind whispers low in the grass As the stars circle silently by
Your feminine spirit holds me fast In a spell that cannot be undone While the days of my lifetime shall last You have blessed me and made me your son
Then softly to me drifts your sweet voice When I’m so weary and far away Faintly I hear you and I rejoice For you are calling me home to stay
More often now I hear your calm call While I so long but sated do roam And my eyes fill with tears that might fall Were it not that you’re calling me home
Your voice promises comfort and peace When I rest on your nurturing breast Then all my cares and sorrows shall cease And my somnolent soul shall find rest
Give me strength till my battles are won While along life’s lonely trails I plod Then at last when my journey is done Let me sleep for all time ‘neath your sod
Let my spirit roam free in your hills And keep watch as the ages pass by Till the clamor of humankind stills When mere men and their follies shall die
Till the heavens and earth have grown old And the endless dark night has drawn on When the sun in your path has grown cold And the days of creation are gone
###
(The original 1944 poem has been privately retained for posterity)
About Albert and the original poem:
Albert Pendergraft was one of my several uncles, and I was given his given name as my middle name, but I remember meeting him only once, when I was just two or three years old on the main street of Worland, Wyoming. I remember he gave my older brother and me each a silver dollar and he bought us a wagon to share.
At the time he was a ditch rider for some of Wyoming’s Big Horn River basin counties. Albert committed suicide in 1944, leaving behind a poem he called “Lonesome Land”, presumably as a self-penned epitaph, although it was written in more of a lyrical ballad kind of song-writing, repeating the title “Lonesome Land” every other line in each verse. A ditch rider’s life is a lonely life, so the original poem, or ballad, may have been generated over time by singing it along the trails he rode, which, if so, made it a much simpler poem than this recent rewritten revision, although the meaning of the original poem and a few phrases of the more memorable lines have not been changed, but all of the stanzas have been altered for length, meter and the rhyming scheme, including four new stanzas that I have added. ~llaw
Mary, John, and Jesus (from Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’)
Mary, I’m not sure why I love you
Or why my heart yearns so intensely
Nor what created our strange milieu
Or my soul-indulgent fantasy
But my mind is filled with thoughts of you
That consume my nights and all my days
With such hopes and dreams that shan’t come true
Since we live our lives in disparate ways
What might have been is all that I have
To comfort me in my sad despair
When with my Muse I find words to salve
My heart for mending with Wisdom’s care
Your bright eyes reveal your inner light
Illuminate your divinity
You are our lost Goddess in plain sight
Sent from Pleroma’s infinity
You are Mary of old Magdalen
Reborn through divine androgyny
Sent to awaken the souls of men
To errant ways of misogyny
Old Christian clerics rewrote the Books
Turned the secular world upside down
In order to reverse the spiritual looks
From Sophia’s smile to Yahweh’s frown
Priests stole the Texts of the Gnostic times
Perverted the role of the priestess
From goddess of love to harlot’s crimes
And scribed the myths of that god they bless
They burned those Texts and switched the places
Of women and men and life and death
They moved the holy dwelling spaces
To far distant realms beyond our breath
Those priests hid the Truths once known so well
While Yahweh with hubristic grandeur
Led the world into the depths of hell
His archons draped in unctuous splendor
Eve was impugned for Adam’s weakness
Beguiling him of the ways of life
By eating from the Tree of Gnosis
And Yahweh cursed them to lives of strife
When Jesus was sent to right the world
Bursting with our sins and corruption
He found the Truths and tried to herald
That Yahweh’s way was blind deception
Christ was forsaken and left to die
While Magdalene with love’s treasure trove
Grieved at his feet knowing the lie
That the clerics with their archons wove
They tore Hypatia the lovely mind
To pieces in the Egyptian streets
Because she told of the truth behind
The lies of the Coptic Christian priests
Our Joan of Arc the Maid of Orleans
Burned at the stake by ecclesiasts
For heresy though yet in her teens
Made a martyr for their priestly castes
Mary, I am called to help you learn
And instruct you of your destiny
To inform the World of your return
And of your gifts for humanity
Now for us all with your heart laid bare
Our Lost Goddess has arrived once more
To right the wrongs for the ones who care
To conclude this Patriarchal War
~ from your loving John, for just one more of those ten thousand lifetimes during which I shall wait for you
~ a poem by Albert Pendergraft (1894 – 1944)
(revised and edited by Lloyd Albert Williams)
You’re a lonesome land, an empty land
A hard land that is rugged and bare
You’re a wild and untamed lonesome land
A proud land that’s demanding but fair
When I pause on some sun-blistered hill
And gaze far o’er your broad boundless range
Where the brisk restless winds never still
And swift sunlight and cloud shadows change
There’s a song in my heart and an ache
A longing, indefinitely sad
There’s contentment that sorrow can’t take
And my troubles seem gone, and I’m glad
In the night when the hours slowly pass
And a wolf wails her long lonely cry
Where the wind whispers low in the grass
And the stars circle silently by
Your magical spirit holds me fast
In a spell that cannot be undone
While the days of my lifetime shall last
You have blessed me and made me your son
Then softly to me comes your low voice
When I’m so weary and far away
Faintly I hear you, and so rejoice
For you are calling me home to stay
More often now I hear your calm call
While I so long and wearily roam
And my eyes fill with tears that would fall
Were it not that you’re calling me home
Your voice promises comfort and peace
When I rest on your nurturing breast
Then all my cares and sorrows shall cease
And my somnolent soul shall find rest
Give me strength till my battles are won
While along life’s lonely trails I plod
Then at last when my journey is done
Let me rest for all time ‘neath your sod
Let my spirit roam free in your hills
And keep watch as the ages pass by
Till the clamor of humankind stills
When mere men and their follies shall die
Till the heavens and earth have grown old
And the endless dark night has drawn on
When the sun in your path has grown cold
And the days of creation are gone
by Albert Pendergraft, 1944
& Lloyd Albert Williams, 2018
(Original poem retained for posterity)
About this poem: Albert Pendergraft was one of my many uncles, and I was given his given name as my middle name, but I remember meeting him only once, when I was just two or three years old on the main street of Worland, Wyoming. Albert committed suicide not long after that, in 1944, leaving a poem he called “Lonesome Land” behind as a kind of self-penned epitaph, I suppose, although it was written in more of a ballad kind of poetry, repeating the title “Lonesome Land” every other line, which made it a much simpler poem than this revision, although the meaning of the original poem and several of the lines have not been changed, but all of the stanzas have been altered for length, meter and the rhyming scheme. ~llaw
