I'm Adali Mone and this is The Slowdown.

As someone who is an atheist and was, for the most part, raised as a non-believer, one

of my favorite things is when poets find their own individual gods to write for, to worship,

to praise or pray to.

The God of small things, the God of broken hearts, the God of poetry, submission acceptances,

the God of wine.

The pantheon of poetry gods is real.

The list is vibrant and gets added to every day.

I think it's a beautiful thing to find what God you want to talk to in a poem and make

that God your reader, your own listener.

I've done that many times.

I think about how many times a forest has become my church, my sacred space or where I went

to talk to my dead.

I'd walk in the tree farm and know it was where I could reach them, across whatever

millions of plains there are between the living and the dead.

And just talk, a direct connection, like a root system, taking up water.

I've done this with my ancestors too, called on a specific person that might help me

through a particular moment in my life.

Sometimes you need the kind of supportive ancestor who is going to say, good job, you can

do this.

You are doing this.

You've got this.

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