08/25/2025
I found out a couple days ago that a dear Tucson friend, Susan Banes, had passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. She was fierce, a force, fun, funny, friendly, and fabulous. This beautiful image and poem were her own last FB post, which somehow feels very apt. Rest in peace and power Susie B. Dance on into the stars, where we are all the wind and a stone by the stream, where every breath is a prayer... You will be missed and remembered. ✨💖💫
-The Fawn Spoke First-
“I do not fear your hands,”
said the fawn,
“for they smell of earth,
not iron.”
The woman knelt,
braids brushing her shoulders
like rivers crossing time.
She did not speak—
but her stillness
was an answer.
“I’ve seen humans with fire in their eyes,”
the fawn continued,
“but yours hold clouds,
soft and full of rain.”
The woman smiled,
and the air bent gently
around her silence.
“Do you remember when we met before?”
the fawn asked,
“Another life,
when I was the wind
and you were a stone by the stream?”
The woman touched her chest—
then the heart of the fawn—
and nodded,
as if memories
were seeds
just beginning to bloom again.
They stood together,
in a place
where names are not needed,
where every breath is a prayer
and every eye
a mirror."
- Indigenous Rhythm Circle
🎨: Serin Alar
