Breath of Life

Tags

community, daily round, death, Family, gifts, Grief, healing, Love, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Slow Life, spirit, Transformation

Phillip, my cousin, Don, and my Aunt Mary

My beloved Aunt Mary died several weeks ago, early one Sunday morning in February. She was my mother’s younger sister, but not by much, and their close bond throughout their lives always made me long for a sister, too.  It often surprised the three of us how much more I resembled my aunt in attitudes and preferences than I did my mother. And in the years since my mother died, Mary and I had become even closer, sharing e-mails and phone visits regularly.

My aunt was a remarkable person, utterly funny, charming, intelligent, and alive to the society, interests, and amusements that paraded through her days, the kind of person who had many lifelong friends, enamored children, nieces and nephews, and beholden strangers who benefited from her kindness and acts of charity. She was someone whose wit, wisdom, ready listening and encouragement were vital to making others see that a better world, or just a better day, is always possible. She had a vital spark most lack. She breathed greater life into those around her than they sustained alone.

I write this not as a eulogy, for I cannot do her gifts or influence on my life justice in such a brief forum, but by way of sharing that my grief in losing her has been gentle and so coupled with relief at her peace that it’s traveled with me these past weeks more like a soft grey cloud than a terrible storm, as my parents’ deaths engendered. I am grateful for her gifts and presence in my life and I am grateful that she is no longer yearning to be with her husband or suffering from ill health.

But I sure miss our e-mails, visits, and shared laughter.

I was thinking of her one morning when spring beckoned more than chores and I’d wandered outside to see what the world could tell me. I saw this daffodil, so earnest in its reaching for light that the dead leaf circumscribing its leaves couldn’t restrain its rising momentum.

That is how the dead can be with us, how grief can restrain joy…The next day, the leaf had fallen away, joining others that surrounded the plant, becoming food for its continued growth. In death, still the breath of life.

Grief takes its own time—and must—but what a gentle reminder that winter leads to spring, and death to life. Just the kind of message my Aunt Mary would send me.

Another gift of spring has been these darling fox kits, just emerging from their den to smell the world and take a few tentative steps into its songs and mysteries. They make every pore of my being tingle with maternal instinct, but, like everything wild, including my own nature, they also teach me over and over again to respect their boundaries and not interfere with instinctive patterns followed for centuries. So I observe from a distance and leave them to their necessary dance. I hope they will know peace, and comfort, and joy, in whatever form these may be known by foxes. I breathe a prayer and send it to their den at night.

I read about a wealthy inventor, futurist and engineer who believes people will, eventually, live forever, and who has hopes that his dietary, vitamin, and exercise regimen will allow him to remain healthy until this is possible.

I have no desire to live forever; I just want to be alive for all of the life granted me, and, if I’ve done it well, maybe I can feed the growth of others in their reaching for the light after I’ve gone, breathing still through their lives and the ways they love the world.

Like my Aunt Mary.

 

Earth Day, Every Day

Tags

Balance, blessing, co-creation, community, daily round, Earth Day, Full Moon Cottage, Gaylord Nelson, Home, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life, spirit, Transformation, wholeness, Wisconsin

Our goal is an environment of decency, quality, and mutual respect for all other human creatures and for all living creatures. . .The battle to restore a proper relationship between man and his environment, between man and other living creatures will require a long, sustained, political, moral, ethical, and financial commitment- -far beyond any effort made before.  ~ Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson , founder of Earth Day

Last Friday

Saturday

River at the end of July

River today

If we don’t have certain outer experiences, we don’t have certain inner experiences or at least we don’t have them in such a profound way. We need the sun, the moon, the stars, the rivers and the mountains and the trees, the flowers, the birds, the song of the birds, the fish in the sea. All of this evokes something in our inner world, evokes a world of mystery. It evokes a world of the Sacred and gives us that sense of awe and mystery.   ~ Thomas Berry

Glacial drumlin

The wealth of the nation is its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats and biodiversity… that’s all there is. That’s the whole economy. That’s where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world.  ~ Gaylord Nelson 

Fiona and Riley watching the sunrise this morning

Double-Crested Cormorant

Practices for Earth Day to feed the spirit.

Happy Earth Day, and for tomorrow: Happy Shakespeare’s Birthday!

Riversong

Tags

Balance, co-creation, daily round, Listening, Nature, Noticing, Photography, River, Slow Life, spirit, spring, Transformation

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

The spirit of spring, for me, certainly includes the divine discontent Grahame mentions, but perhaps it feels more like a sacred and welcome effervescing than a discontent. It is a readiness to emerge…I wonder if it’s felt by butterflies as they pierce the sheltering confines of their cocoons?

I yearn to muck about in the gardens and to co-create with the earth, to honor my winter’s rest by cleaning the house from top to bottom. This is the time I listen for the river’s spring song, familiar yet always new, as though my Creator is calling me forth into the new season’s green dance.

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Phillip was home from work last week, and we decided to tackle some home improvement projects, but also planned daily adventures that took us out and away from home. Last year, temperatures in the 80’s allowed us to get all the gardens cleaned, weeded and mulched. This year, they’re still sleeping beneath the snow.

The river was barely open at the beginning of the week, then gradually the ice retreated and at dawn, returning ducks and geese floated dreamily down the river. By Friday, most of the ice had melted, so off we went on the year’s first canoe trip.

The pictures, I think, make it look like we had a chilly ride, but it was really quite pleasant, though utterly absent of green. Still, the spring smells of thawing earth and the glorious birdsong bathed us in promises the next few weeks will keep.

We met some men fishing for walleyes and another pair using a seine, probably for carp.

Sandhill cranes and Canada geese called and flew overhead, red-wing blackbirds chimed along the bank, and we met the pair of ducks that nested in our garden last spring. This year, our fox has a new hole very near the “duck garden,” so I hope they’ll nest elsewhere.

The rest of our week together was happy: we took a day to go antiquing, and spent our Easter Sunday with family, but it’s the lovely time in our canoe that consecrated the week most profoundly for me, leisurely paddling and listening to the waking earth and river sing our spirits back to life.

By the river and with it and on it and in it…It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing…  ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Phillip returned to school today and I started the housecleaning after he left this morning. A crew has come to the bridge to pull up and replace the old planks and side rails. The incessant beeping of their front-end loader as it backed up, over and over, initially made the pups bark protectively until they were sufficiently reassured and accustomed to it, a good thing, since the bridge repair is scheduled to last the month.

The temperature is near freezing, but I stepped outside to shake some rugs and watch the light dance over the river. A few last pieces of ice floated by and I watched two male cardinals battle for a nesting site. I noticed a female waiting and watching. I wonder if she favors one or the other? I wanted to stay outside, but the air was cold and my indoor chores called me back.

I hope I’ll have time again this afternoon to walk down near the riverbank and listen to the river’s music, singing over and over, “Come; join the spring’s green dance!” Winter muscles need practice to get back in shape and I want to be ready to dance up a storm when spring comes to stay.

…when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.  ~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

 

 

Equanimity

Tags

authenticity, Balance, blessing, Breath, co-creation, daily round, Equinox, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Slow Life, spirit, spring

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

In my meditation times during this lovely season of soul-clearing and house-cleaning, I’ve been sitting again with the concept of balance. For years when the Lenten (spring) weeks circle round, I focus on practices of intentional breathing, reviewing breath exercises and wearing a ring that reminds me to “take time” and turn my noticing inward to monitor my breath as often during the day as I’m able. After all these years, it’s still not easy for me to maintain rhythmic breathing naturally. I hold my breath at times, or tighten my throat and jaw, or breathe less deeply than is truly nurturing.

To me, it seems that the spring equinox blesses us with the invitation to return, again, to sacred balance. I’ve written about balance many times, I know, for the simple reason that the energy of the world is stronger than our own individual energy, and humanity still does not—if it ever has–honor the balance that nurtures and sanctifies our earth, our spirits, our bodies, or our minds. We pull ourselves and each other into imbalance when we lose our own commitment to the sacred equanimity to which we—and all life—naturally cohere when we enter and honor the rhythm I believe we’re called to by Love, a kind of dance that co-creates compassion in our hearts which waters and feeds our spirits, and empties, simultaneously, in an out-pouring to the world. Love becomes the food that’s most needed, in myriad forms, and we the gardeners that feed our own and each other’s well-being.

I felt this so deeply when Phillip and I went to a “home and garden” show in Milwaukee last weekend. Instead of focusing on sustainability, or new gardening techniques and plants that conserve and honor life, it focused solely on products and excess, the conspicuous consumption we’ve become so accustomed to that we don’t even notice the grotesque imbalance we accept as “natural.” The simple and glorious beauty and sustenance a garden provides was lost in all the false glamour of “must-have” purchases few could afford and all were meant to desire. All ego-food and no true soul-food.

But it was an excellent reminder to return to my own balance and monitor my energy for the balance required to live with equanimity. In/Out. Give/Receive. Endeavor/Rest. Create/Surrender. Action/Stillness. And all sailing on the sea of Love.

Peace to your equinox, and may the blessings of spring enrich your spirit, your self-care and care for the world, your creativity and well-being.

Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery,
teach me how to trust my heart,
my mind, my intuition,
my inner knowing,
the senses of my body,
the blessings of my spirit.
Teach me to trust these things
so that I may enter my Sacred Space
and love beyond my fear,
and thus Walk in Balance
with the passing of each glorious Sun.
~ Lakota Prayer

As a poet I hold the most archaic values on earth . . . the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times. ~ Gary Snyder

The Quickening Time

Tags

Aging, authenticity, Creativity, daily round, gifts, Listening, Meditation, Noticing, Photography, Slow Life, spirit, Transformation, wholeness, Winter

Winter continues to linger at Full Moon Cottage. Today, another storm has brought 4 new inches of heavy, wet snow. The quality of the snow, however, indicates that spring is near, since the air temperature is too warm to sustain a snow that is dry and fluffy. Winter isn’t over, but it’s moving along, as the greater hours of daylight confirm. 

Our energy shifts away from the need to incubate seeds of ideas into acting upon them, from the stillness of winter’s tomb towards rolling away the rock and stepping into the light of another spring and the green life we’re called to create and recreate.

In my free time, I’ve been playing with paint samples and garden catalogues, two sure signs my spirit is quickening. (No surprise that the medical definition of “quickening” refers to the first detected movements of the life within a mother’s womb.)

The temptation to rush into projects has always been a weakness of mine; thankfully, I’ve finally learned to notice and honor the impulse but invite it to wait and trust that my creativity, if properly fed and rested, will birth what it must when gestation is complete.

“Take more time; cover less ground,” wrote Merton, and it’s become my later life’s mantra.

In the meantime, I meditate. I pay attention to dreams. I listen. Winter is still with me and her lesson books are still open. There are truths to retrieve, like threads that have unraveled and must be gently pulled forward and woven again into the tapestry of my life to make it healed and whole. Hold up one experience at a time to the light; enter it and know its meaning for my life now, and then weave this into the next experience. Spring will call forth the proper action.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been re-reading my childhood diaries. I began keeping a diary when I was eight and continued for the next 30 years. (Since, then, I’ve kept e-mails and journals on hard drive and now, in a “cloud.”) I’ve been focusing on my diaries from 4^th grade through 7^th grade, the years when individuation and finding one’s voice seem to begin blooming in earnest, since those years are integral to understanding my current book’s characters.

At the end of 6^th grade, my family moved, and I was dropped into a new class where friendships had been long-formed and there were clearly-drawn lines separating the girls into groups that were accorded clear and varying levels of “worthiness.” When I later became a middle school teacher, I fought this tyranny earnestly. But, it seems, like other forms of bullying, it persists, flowing around teachers and parents like a river that must run its course, no matter what stones stand in its path. Pecking orders must be established, I guess. (Although I would never offer the persistence of cliques and bullying as an excuse to surrender the need to constantly teach kindness and compassion to middle-schoolers.)

I’d forgotten what a hard time I had with this life shift, struggling for most of the next year to find the sense of self that had begun to be confidently defined at my former school. I missed friends and teachers with whom my growth and self-knowledge had felt sewn together and merged into a quilted patchwork of community.

At my new school, I felt both isolated and exposed at a time when a girl most wants to blend in and be part of a group. And it probably wasn’t as dramatic as I felt it to be, but our feelings create our reality and mine, during this adjustment, felt unwieldy and miserable. Of course, those days flowed into a new year, a place where the clouds lifted and the sun gradually began to shine. Winter ended and green life returned. I was changed.

Reading these once-upon-a-time stories from my life has brought me many gifts: Steps of my life’s dance have again been clarified; patterns of interaction have been brought into focus and their sources better understood; methods of evasion I’ve used to conceal my feelings, even from my own heart, have emerged, and melodies my spirit knew but had forgotten have been sung back to me by the girl who wrote these diaries.

I hope she sings through my dreams and into the book I’m writing, but like the spring, her gifts to me will be born fully when they’re ready. For now, I’m content to ponder and feel a new wholeness quickening.

Everything Changes

Tags

Aging, Balance, Change, co-creation, daily round, death, Family, healing, Hospice, Nature, Photography, Relationship, spirit, Transformation, wisdom

In the past four days, we’ve had a snowstorm, a thunderstorm, temperatures in the upper 50’s and today, another snowstorm. This morning, chickadees have been flying back and forth to the feeders, singing their spring songs, but that’s changed again in the past hour. They seem to have adapted to winter’s return. I wonder if they can tell that tomorrow the temperatures will dip once more below zero, or if this will surprise them?

Everything changes: not always in a day, or even a lifetime, and rarely all at once, but as we revolve through life, it seems every cycle brings us back to a place that’s similar but never the same as it was. Companions have left our side and new ones now walk the path beside us; our physical capabilities or our views have altered; the degree of hope we perceive in our hearts and the encouragement offered by the world around us varies.

We may be surprised by loss, tragedy, or reversals, changes that cause the geographies describing our relationship to self, others, place, and spirit to evolve or regress, or dramatically alter, and we either adapt or do not, depending upon our finesse and willingness to regain our balance and accept these changes that were unsought and undesired.

But even changes we’ve planned for and worked towards demand our willingness to discard elements of our current situation, boundaries, or relationships that were once rooted in the earth of our existence.

We devise systems to manage change: education, healthcare, government. We create “news programs” to discuss the changes collectively experienced over 24 hours, and share phone calls, or posts in social media, or text messages to update each other more intimately and frequently regarding changes in our “status.”

It seems, societally, we’re addicted to insignificant change and hasten its rhythms to keep us engaged in life. Until substantial change threatens our sense of security, the way we “want” things to be, or the direction we desire to move. Then, we resist, argue, deny, or retreat, often to our detriment, though certainly stillness, discernment, and speaking our own truth are valuable companions as we navigate the flow of this ever-changing energy we call life.

I’ve been reading another book on the spirituality of change, specifically as it relates to aging. This is a topic that fascinates me and that I’ve been asked to address in presentations to those who care for geriatric patients or to those who, like me, are interested in exploring changes that are specific to aging humans and our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.

Over and over, I’ve encountered the understanding that the happiest individuals are those who have used their intelligence and gifts to the best of their abilities, but who resist grasping too tightly to any outcome, and instead nurture a willingness to let go and to flow with the greater current, looking for unexpected blessing and the potential for creativity in forming one’s response.

The central change we face as we age is our death, and our health as elders may depend upon the degree to which we embrace our death as friend, foe, inevitability, or a fearful possibility we can avoid through the “magic of medicine.”

I know of a woman who is 89 and considering a heart valve replacement. All of her organs are somewhat compromised and the surgery, if successful, will require a lengthy stay in a nursing facility for her convalescence. She has said, “I’m afraid to die.” I hope she is aware that hospice is another choice, and that patients served by hospices often live longer than those who instead choose aggressive medical interventions, but her fear is driving her choice to undergo this surgery. Family members often disagree about such choices and thus another level of chaos and distraction can intrude upon our end-of-life choices and experiences. Answers are elusive and, in the end, each person has to choose and, hopefully, be at peace regarding these choices.

Over and over in my work as a chaplain I met people at these crossroads and tried to be a listening presence as they navigated their way to peace, or battled through final breaths to the change that came anyway and inevitably. Regardless of my inclinations, my job was to support them through theirs. Certainly, a patient who said, “I am afraid to die” indicated an obvious need to dialogue, and in conversations with a chaplain or other trained caregiver, the patient often reached greater peace as his fears, his beliefs, and his sources of strength were opened, explored, validated and employed creatively to face the days ahead.

Rituals sometimes helped ease deterrents to dying peacefully, but so did the hard work of asking forgiveness, or extending it to another, reviewing a life that proved more light-filled than first admitted, re-connecting the dying to loved ones who had become distant, or to a faith community that affirmed its willingness to become involved.

It taught me to pay attention to my own dying: to choose responses to possible scenarios; to designate my power of attorney, complete a will, and file the legal forms with my physicians and loved ones; to discuss with my husband, relatives, and friends, what treatments and care I would desire at the end of my life, and to clarify how I want my body to be returned to the earth. Such tasks completed, although unforeseen change may cause their revision, I’m better able to turn back towards the amazing mystery and ever-changing dance with my ever-changing life. Whatever it brings, storms or halcyon days of mellow sunshine, I hope I’ll go with the flow.

Falling in Love Again

Tags

Aging, authenticity, Balance, blessing, co-creation, Listening, Love, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Relationship, spirit, Transformation

One day last week I reread Paula D’Arcy’s moving spiritual memoir, Gift of the Redbird, in which she shares her lost-and-found relationships with the Holy over the course of many years, and how her sacred encounters, whether prompted by the utter depths of grief, illness, or yearning, always led to her willingness to notice, attend, and surrender images of the Holy that no longer held meaning for her. The gifts yielded by these journeys—hard-won, as the best gifts often are—seemed to be greater expansiveness and deeper evolution regarding her capacity to love and to perceive connection with all creation.

And so I’ve been traveling with the book’s wisdom in the time since closing its covers. (All art, for me, requires this time to be with my atoms and energy, rearranging my understanding of life’s big questions before I can even begin to speak about its effects on my spirit. And, of course, these alterations change when I revisit a work of art, even a book that’s slim and a deceptively quick read.)

I’ve been thinking about all the significant relationships in my life, from the openness and intimacy shared with my own spirit and sense of the Holy, and then rippling out from there to include my connections with my husband, family, friends, 4-leggeds, and even my home. It seems all of them have followed the pattern described by D’Arcy’s relationship with her God, in that the connections are at times deeply intimate and lively, and at other times, somewhat flat and stagnant

It’s good to be reminded that ongoing discernment and faithful checking-in can help us recognize the degree of effort and attention we’re offering these relationships and how well we’re tending them. But there is also the need for the field of each relationship to have its fallow time for deepening; what may, at first, feel stagnant may more truthfully be the sacred period of stillness necessary for the rigors of  the relationship’s evolution, its next stage, requiring re-commitment and patience as this unfolds.

The dark nights our spirits experience, as do each of our relationships, may be accepted and unpacked as gifts, although at times they feel so antithetical to anything desired, supportive, or helpful. But traveling the circle as many times as I have, I’ve begun to see these places of dark blessing are like the silent depths beneath the earth where seeds are loved into growth.

And to realize that my partners in relationship, perhaps even the Holy, have their own steps to dance, their own needs to withdraw, to be renewed, and to evolve.

And how lovely when we waltz together once more, embrace, and fall in love again, not only with our past adventures and the relationship we have shared, but with the shining place we now find ourselves in and all the steps we have yet to dance together.

The Space Between the Notes

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authenticity, co-creation, community, daily round, eagles, Full Moon Cottage, Home, Listening, Meditation, Music, Nature, New Year, Noticing, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life, spirit, Transformation, Winter, Wisconsin

“Music is the space between the notes.”  ~ Claude Debussy

The long inhalation of excitement and joy that begins in September and lasts through the Christmas holidays has been exhaled over the past week or so. The decorations are almost all put away—a few are “wintry” enough to last through February, along with a few that foretell Valentine’s Day—and my energy has settled deep within.

We attended a post-holiday-holiday-party and several guests mentioned their dislike for the months of January and February.

I nodded sympathetically but remained unengaged with the conversation, because I tend to love the months for their stillness and gifts of time for sifting through recent experiences, re-gathering my spirit, noticing little regressions and evolutions, and seeing clearly where I am on my journey, before heading into the new year with renewed energy. Each new year is like a musical composition my little spirit co-creates with Spirit. Twelve measures of music, or possibly 52, or 365; each a movement of its own. I’m grateful it begins–somewhat non-traditionally, I suppose–with a long rest, so I can hear the music shape itself and its themes for the coming year.

Many of the other guests at the party were teachers, however, and I could empathize with their post-holiday weariness and return to classroom routines.

January and February can be cold and the days are still brief. Their passage can be slow and uneventful and they’re rather anticlimactic, following the long season of holidays and traditional gatherings with friends and family. The crescendo diminishes to silence.

But what an invitation to be creative and start some new traditions!

Phillip and I tend to use these slower winter months to get out of the weekend routine and go on day trips. Last weekend, we traveled to the Wisconsin River area and combined an eagle-sighting adventure with a visit to a well-established and award-winning winery.

We have a few more adventures planned between now and spring break, and I’m looking forward to them. Sometimes we’re surprised by the fun a new place or experience offers and even if it’s less than stellar, we’re together and, usually, laughing.

This week, I was surprised with a visit from my nephew and his family, a true boost to the spirit. One of the gifts of working at home is being able to say yes (or, as we say in Wisconsin, “You betcha!”) to spontaneous visits.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to schedule gatherings with close women friends during these months, to share spiritual stories, practices, books, and films, and to reinforce each other’s spirits and affirm our journeys. We become so busy when the days grow longer. It might be helpful to get together once or twice a month in January and February to transfuse each other’s spirits with renewed energy and share a very-mini-retreat, helping each other get our spirits in tune for the months ahead.

Traveling through the year’s music, its rhythms and beats, its familiar melodies and new improvisations, invites greater intentionality and sensitivity from me than I was prepared or wise enough to offer when I was younger. Letting Spirit be the conductor is easier, however, and I welcome her gift of an initial multi-measure rest, because it allows me to hear her deeper song, the one she sings in my heart and bids me to dance when the music of the year continues.

(Murphy says, “I crawl under my blanket, watch Downton Abbey, and take a two-month retreat.”)

Blessing

Tags

Balance, blessing, co-creation, community, daily round, healing, Listening, Love, Meditation, Relationship, Slow Life, spirit, Transformation, wholeness

May I offer joy and gentle peace today and every day. May I take time to pause before I judge, before I criticize, before I punish myself or the other with thoughts, words, and energy that is anything but calm, loving, compassionate, and forgiving.

May I remember and hold close to my heart the awareness that we’re all here together; may I help heal myself and others by remaining mindful and intentional about my presence, my needs, and others’ rights.

Everything passes; may it pass my awareness with love, and may I look for the joy, because it’s here, within and without. May I be love to my friends and to the strangers I’ll meet today.

May no one cross my path without feeling respected, worthy, seen, heard, and loved.

May I hear the invitations to transformation that call to me today, and be willing to travel the paths that will lead me to greater authenticity, deeper self-knowledge, and greater compassion.

May I be kind. May I be aware of any thought or behavior that moves me out of the state of love. May I grow in balance, wholeness, and wisdom.

May I be a force, a light, a candle in the night…

All my relations.

Still, Still, Still

Tags

authenticity, Balance, co-creation, Listening, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Slow Life, Snow, spirit, Transformation, wholeness, Winter

Our first annual snowfall graced our Sunday (Bon Iver!), and we relaxed into being with the wonder of it. Huge flakes covered the trees and earth; the river, surrounded by white hills and flowing beneath the smoky gray sky, took on a brilliant silver sparkle, like a glittering ribbon threading through the landscape.

Winter is the season that calls me within, to slowly and gently review the journey of the dimming year and gestate the light with which my spirit will co-create the year to come. What gifts have served me well? Which have I neglected? How will I dance out my life in the new year? What are the triggers that hook me to harmful ways of being and what are the deep desires I ask of Spirit to further challenge and delight my heart? Am I tending my time, health, and relationships, respecting the treasures they are? Am I putting anything off because I’m afraid of failing? Or succeeding? Can I begin, alter, or renew a spiritual practice? Is my energy aligned and in communion with my beliefs, and do these translate clearly through my speech and actions?

Last year, I wrote about my “hibernaculum,” the meditation room where I spend my deepening time each day. It becomes more deeply sacred to me in winter. As I wrote: The word “hibernate” is derived from the Latin word for winter (hiberno: I winter) and generates the wonderful noun “hibernaculum,” which, zoologically, is the place where an animal winters, and, botanically, is the protective bud or covering a plant uses to survive the challenges of dormancy. I love that the letters of the word “hibernate” form the anagram “breathe in,” for winter is my time for assessing, deepening, and strengthening my meditation practice and more earnestly tending my dreams.

Nothing engenders these days of gentle and vital introspection more for me than the lovely snow that muffles the noise, busyness, and demands of a world too addicted to all three. When it’s snowing, traffic slows, heartbeats slow, breathing slows, and sometimes magically, the limiting need to avoid our inner voices and knots dissolves as well.

Sitting in my meditation space and looking out towards a full moon making the snow-covered earth sparkle and glow with mystery, or witnessing the iced river and white hills afire with the deep violet, indigo and scarlet of a winter sunrise remind me that all of life is a magical gift, and that the finest way of offering my gratitude is through the inner work and discernment accomplished in stillness, that helps me be as present to all of it as I can.

I wish you a winter of gentle peace, times for deep introspection, the stillness to bring forth your renewed light to the world, and gentle snow (real or imagined) to blanket you with the shimmering beauty and mystery of spirit-tending.

A Story for the Season

Tags

4-Legged Companions, Cats, Christmas, co-creation, community, daily round, Family, Full Moon Cottage, Home, Love, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life, spirit, Story

On Sunday, after I’d put away Thanksgiving decorations, we decided to begin setting out a few Christmas pieces to ready our home for the holiday. Every day, I’ve pulled out a new box and selected a few decorations to place in a window or on a mantel, noticing the stories all around me: stories behind every decoration and every piece of furniture where they’re placed…I cannot separate myself from these stories; my own accrue and add new layers to the objects until finally, everything shines with story.

My great-grandfather made this little table, from scrap lumber and fruit crates, for my mother when she was a child. She collected the pewter dishes.

Due to our new cat, Fergus, and his continued period of adjustment to our home, and us, and the 4-leggeds, we’ve decided that maybe a Christmas tree encrusted with all of our glass ornaments wouldn’t be such a great idea this year. In past years, the cats have enjoyed playing and resting on the quilt beneath the tree; this year, I’m afraid that feline power struggles might bring it all crashing down. Better to lower the odds, I think. There are plenty of ways to make the home festive without a tree, but we’ll miss it.

Murphy and Mulligan napping beneath the tree.

Fergus and the dogs are doing fine with their introductions; the other four cats (oh, God, I’ve become the Crazy Cat Lady) are struggling a bit more with the refinement of pecking order and ego assuagement. We have every reason to believe all will be well, but these relationships, these stories, will need to progress according to their own timing, and I think we owe our 4-leggeds all the time they need. Fergus is as placid as Buddha sitting in his kennel, despite the sniffs, spits, and indifference form his new siblings. He forbears.

When he’s alone with me in my office, he loves to sit beneath the computer screen and watch the birds through the picture window. He runs to the door when he hears the other cats; he yearns for community, it seems. He loves fearlessly.

Today, his siblings entered his private room and began to sniff and acquaint themselves with Eau de Fergus. Murphy and Mulligan were especially intrigued, meticulously conducting their version of a CSI, and covering every square inch of the room before accepting a treat.

Murphy smelling Fergus’ food bowl.

Tonight, we’ll supervise a first face-to-face visit and see how it goes. We’re hopeful that by the time the New Year rolls around, we’ll have a larger, peaceful, and happy family. Fergus appears to be a force of love; he audaciously chose me on the trail one very cold, wet day and followed me home, and has never stopped exuding that charming trust and desire to connect. All creation, it seems, can reveal the Love of our Source. We often overlook, I think, the myriad ways those with whom we share the planet can teach us about love and loving.

I read that Pope Benedict XVI (“Buzz-Kill Ratzinger”) has written a new book in which he states there were no animals or angels present at the birth of Jesus, nor was that birth date calculated correctly. While I understand his point is to de-mythologize Jesus and place his life within a more historically exact context by removing the inaccurate embellishments that surround our handed-down version of Jesus’ birth, I also believe that for many people, the animals, shepherds, and angels are intrinsic to the story, especially for the young and young-at-heart. For Christians, this was a life like no other, a life that serves as a template, worthy of celebration, as all lives are, but one that was recognized as such from the start.

So rarely do we see the ways Love in-breaks and enters our world, causing unnoticed eruptions of hope and joy all around us.  But once, more than two thousand years ago, some of us were actually paying attention. The story that celebrates the birth of one of us who got it right needs no updating or fact-checking; it was never about the angels or animals, but they pin it down in our imaginations and allow us to vicariously enter the birth and so the life, and so the dance of pure goodness modeled for us, however clumsily we misstep.

And when I do falter in my dance, I have always found animals whose love can lead me back to the path quicker than any sermon. Humans like Jesus are rare indeed; animals who love as selflessly as Jesus are not.

I believe we should be very cautious about re-writing well-known and beloved stories, and even Pope Benedict, a Vatican correspondent said, agrees that the traditions surrounding Christmas play a role in nurturing our grasp of the deeper truths the story reveals.

Our own stories, the ones we write with our lives, reveal their deeper truths, too, if we listen. This Christmas, we won’t have a tree, lit and splendid; instead, we’ll celebrate two stories: the birth of Jesus (which is the story of Love’s possibilities being born every day, always, in our hearts), and our story, too, about a tiny abandoned cat named Fergus, who loved everyone he met, and his new family, who had to learn more about loving so fearlessly.

It’s going to be a good story, I can tell: the echoes of other stories and the spirits of those we’ve loved will shine all around it…There will be many animals as featured characters in this new story, and I’m quite certain that on Christmas Eve, when we gather together for treats where the tree would have been, we’ll hear angels singing.

Thin Places and Sacred Ancestors

Tags

Ancestor, blessing, co-creation, community, Family, Listening, Nature, Photography, Relationship, Saints and Souls, spirit, Thin Places, wholeness, wisdom

When my Celtic ancestors felt the energy of a place was sacred, they called it a “thin place,” meaning the boundary between this world and others was easily crossed at such locations; spirits might travel freely; the ancestors—and other spirits—were close.

Halloween, in part, is derived from Samhain, which marked the New Year for the Celts, a time when the souls of the year’s recent dead traveled beyond earth, and the long-deceased came back to “visit,” their presence welcomed.

When the Catholic Church sought to convert indigenous cultures (or “pagans,” the term Romans used to designate “country people”), it took their sacred days and translated them into Christian observances, and so November 1 became All Saints Day and November 2 is called All Souls Day. (These latter souls, presumably, await heaven and sainthood in purgatory, where one’s lingering sins are “purged.”)

Regardless of one’s theological views and practices, in the Northern Hemisphere this is the season when all the world’s considered a thin place. It seems natural, as vegetation dies back, exposing nature’s stark architecture, to enter the time of darkness and long shadows and consider the spirits of the newly and long-departed.

It’s fitting and important to set aside special days to focus our attention and gratitude upon single themes, events, people and memories. The danger is that we relegate our awareness of these important bonds to one-day-a-year only, as we relegate our acknowledgement of the Sacred to barely an hour a week, or less. (And heaven help you if a church service is ending as a football game is starting! The Sacred better get out of the way quickly.)

For growing numbers of people, however, it’s important to integrate connection with the Sacred in meaningful ways every day; nothing is profane unless we see it as such, and I think that explains the increasing attraction to non-Western cultures and their spiritual practices, as well as seeking new ways to honor the earth and all those who live in communion with us.

I’ve mentioned the books of Malidoma Patrice Somé before. My favorites are Of Water and Spirit and The Healing Wisdom of Africa. In both, he illustrates repeatedly the link between the deceased ancestors and the living community of his people, the Dagara tribe of West Africa. The ancestors are sources of wisdom and counsel for tribal leadership, choices, and direction. It is a natural behavior to commune with them daily.

The elderly in the tribe, because of their advanced age and proximity to death, are viewed as living on the bridge between worlds and therefore closer to the ancestors, and the newborn are viewed similarly; they have “just arrived” from the ancestral land and the company of the Wise Ones. This forms a tribal link between the young and the elderly, whose relationships are very close, sometimes edging out deep connections with those who, by necessity, are more fully engaged with “the things of this world.” The elderly and very young are believed to have the ability to speak with the ancestors more fluently and are respected for this connection.

In our materialistic, work-focused approach to life, we cart the young ones away to day care and the elderly off to nursing homes, or we move far away from childhood communities, severing connections that follow us from birth to death, and denying ourselves the deep riches of lifelong community. Relationships and the wisdom of our ancestors don’t matter so much to us. The immaterial, the insubstantial lacks value; or rather, it can’t be accorded a price point, which is what we most value. We’re often connected to our money and our desire (or frustrated desire and anxiety) more than to relationships with family, living or dead.

The recent Presidential campaign has clearly illustrated that “what should be important” is jobs: making money and spending money. One candidate is perhaps a bit more blatant and aggressive in his disregard for the earth, the ancestor we all share, by promising mining, fracking, and the extraction of resources needed by corporations (and robbed, if necessary, from lands that are currently federally-protected). Whatever it takes to get and keep people working (when they’re not shopping), will be accommodated.

But both candidates have neglected to confront the lack of reverence we have for the earth and the resulting devastation wreaked by storms like Hurricane Sandy. No mention of conservation, our role in climate change, global warming, or the sacrifices we might make to correct these, has been made. No invitations to alter our worldviews or perspectives have been offered. People who lost their homes along the coast are being urged to “rebuild” instead of to “rethink.” And how could it be any different when the campaigns’ exorbitant costs are funded by the wealthy corporations (i.e., “persons”) and their officers, who reap the short-term benefits from these ill-gotten resources and the new slave laborers we’ve consented to become?

We carry our ancestry in our DNA. I’ve enjoyed episodes of a program that connects people with their ancestors through investigating their genetic roots. Their DNA leads to unearthed connections played out across charts, and they learn about their ancestors’ stories, sometimes going back hundreds of years. It’s profoundly moving to see the featured guests weep, share their amazement, or evidence stunned silence as these deep connections are revealed.

We yearn for sacred connection, all the more because we have forgotten who—and what—we are. Imagine the wealth afforded by conversations with our ancestors. What can we do differently? What did they learn from their trials, errors, successes? Are they proud of the people we are becoming and the world we are creating? How can we better steward our gifts and those of the earth?

Perhaps, instead of just rushing, working and shopping during these sacred days of early November, we could stand in our thin places and listen for the wisdom of our ancestors and the lessons of Mother Earth. Perhaps we could kneel in reverence and gratitude for all of these holy connections that exist to nourish our souls, offer us wisdom and energize our spirits.

Perhaps we could change ourselves and so, the world. Because we’re always standing in a thin and holy place, being held by Mother Earth, with the wisdom of our ancestors circling in our hearts.

Just listen.

Humans Being

Tags

Balance, community, daily round, Noticing, Photography, Relationship, Slow Life, spirit, wholeness

The chilly gray days gave way to sunshine yesterday, so we headed into town with many of our neighbors to celebrate autumn on the town square. Booths were set up for selling handcrafted soaps, jewelry, woodcrafts, needlecrafts, and homegrown vegetables and honeys, along with decorations for fall.

A band played lively Irish music,

that caught this fellow’s attention,

and inspired his spirit (and body) to dance. What joyful abandon!

A group of older boys were more entertained by a pile of leaves. Some things, thankfully, aren’t changed by technology.

We met a man from Ecuador who now lives in Madison, but travels to his homeland to gather lovely woolen goods, and jewelry made from native seeds and nuts. His friendliness and the time he happily shared telling us about his homeland burnished the encounter and made it memorable.

A woman who made wonderfully-scented, thick bars of soap was also happy to share her stories as she wrapped our purchases.

There is an elderly man who always comes to these events and sells a sweet-salty popcorn called “kettle corn,” a traditional indulgence when something’s happening on the square. And, of course, many dogs enjoyed the day with their humans. This one sat placidly despite the merry fiddling a few feet away.

A horse-drawn wagon gave families a different view of their village and we could hear the children’s voices every time it circled the park.

People stopped to visit with friends and there was a marked absence of the anxious warp speed with which life is attacked and hurled through on other days.

A simple sweet day, in a very small town, in an often misdirected world spinning away its life in our universe. It wasn’t really about shopping; for once the gathering wasn’t driven by the disease of consumption. If money was spent, it was very little compared to the value of experienced community and the shared and ancient celebration of changing seasons and life’s rhythms flowing through generations.

We can be energized by our differences, fed by our angers, made sleepless by our worries. We project and detail, judge and exaggerate, loudly publicize and vehemently argue about how, every day, someone else gets it wrong.

A day like today reminds us that sometimes we–all of us, together–can get this gift of being human perfectly right.

Out For a Spin

Tags

Biking, daily round, Photography, Slow Life, spirit

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~ Ernest Hemingway

I was almost always outside when I was young—like most kids—unless I had “my nose in a book.” We played games, climbed trees, built seasonally appropriate forts (tree or snow), and kept ourselves occupied from dawn till the fireflies and our mother’s gentle whistle called us home.

At some point, I stopped climbing trees, and roller skating, and playing kick-the-can. Jumping rope isn’t as fun anymore, nor is my hula hoop.

But I still love to bike. I first learned how to maneuver a two-wheeler with training wheels on a little red Schwinn. When my father took off the training wheels and gave me an encouraging push into the back yard, I surprised him by running myself into a tree. The tree, I should say; there was only one, and he hadn’t pushed me towards it.

He revised his thinking and decided perhaps a wide open space would allow room for practice, so off we went to the acres of Washington Park, where, for a time, I ran into every tree he didn’t push me towards.

When I was eight, we lived in another town, and I attended another school and wore another uniform. I came home after my third grade Confirmation, where I’d agreed to be a “soldier of Christ,” (and had dreaded for weeks the “blow to the cheek” that in reality amounted to a playful tap) and was surprised to find a shiny new blue Huffy wrapped with ribbons and bows…

The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world. ~ Susan B. Anthony, 1896 

Eventually I mastered biking, and I continue to feel a joy that pulses through every cell whenever I head down the road or trail on my bike. I no longer agree to being anyone’s soldier, but I’ll always associate biking with sacrament. Now I ride a Trek, a brand of bike designed (and formerly manufactured) a few miles from my home. I don’t race and I’m not out to do anything but get into the zen of lovely, rolling, bi-pedal meditation. Once I start, I can go for miles.

After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow. ~ H.G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance

I have collected 18 years of trail passes from the Glacial Drumlin Bike Trail. It’s near our home and named after one of the land formations the glaciers formed as they rolled and crushed their way through our part of the state 25,000 to 10,000 years ago and then retreated, leaving behind lakes and land formations known as moraines, drumlins, eskers, kettles, and kames. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_landforms)

How could a land not be magical with those kinds of names given to its ridges, hills, and depressions? Biking 10 miles or so, I can see almost all of these, along with 2 rivers, a lake, and a wildlife area. (http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/wildlife_areas/lakemills.htm)

There are many wonderful books about cycling. One of my all-time favorites is Miles From Nowhere, by Barbara Savage. (http://www.amazon.com/Miles-Nowhere-Round-Bicycle-Adventure/dp/0898861098)

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking. ~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

There is a freedom and lightness of being that I feel when I bike through space and time. I never know who or what I’ll encounter, and I usually bring my camera so I can stop if the flow and scenery seem to invite it. It’s a peaceful and almost silent past time; I have biked my way through losses and healing, and joyful periods of my life, weaving—or reweaving—meaning.

This week, the wildflowers along the trail were lovely: the electric lavender of the wild phlox, the gentle pink of wild roses, wild onions, fading trilliums, deep rosy geraniums hiding in the shadows…there’s always something to soothe the heart and spirit.

Here are just a few photographs from a recent ride, or “a spin,” as my mother called it.

Maybe I’ll see you on the trail: I’m the one with the dreamy expression and camera, not racing and, usually, avoiding trees.

Whenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I have hope for the human race. ~ H.G. Wells

Life Music

Tags

4-Legged Companions, art, co-creation, daily round, Full Moon Cottage, Music, spirit

 The morning began with a lovely solo sung by Riley, serving as her impromptu accompaniment to a loud siren hurtling down a country highway. She has a beautiful voice. Sometimes Phillip and I start a “howl song” just to have the pups join in. It seems to be a deeply bonding experience for them. A pack song, a family theme; an ancient call, heart to heart.

Music is almost always playing at Full Moon Cottage, just as it was in our childhood homes.

I was born with music inside of me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me—like food or water.  ~ Ray Charles

Phillip’s dad was in a Milwaukee barbershop quartet called the Cream City Four, and sang 30’s and 40’s standards in another group, when he wasn’t singing with Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera or directing church choirs. Phillip’s sister has had a successful career as an opera singer and is now a sought-after vocal and performance teacher. His other sister is an accomplished pianist, and his brother sings with the symphony chorus is Madison.

There was always music in my home, too. My mother listened to NPR from morning till dinner time. In those days, this meant that between Morning Edition and All Things Considered at day’s end, classical music was played all day long (except during Chapter-a-Day at noon). Both of my parents loved Broadway musicals, and my father had a special fondness for big band music. And then, late at night, jazz would be playing on the stereo as I drifted off to sleep.

I was always singing and “banging on the piano,” and later pursued a theater degree in part because of my love for musicals.

I can carry a tune; Phillip’s voice stops hearts. I’ve experience this “Phillip effect” for almost 20 years, and have seen it happen to others over and over. It is an amazing gift and I’m grateful every time I hear his voice and witness the way it touches people’s spirits.

Music is usually playing when I write, clean house, cook…we like every kind of music, and our CD collection is proof of this. We have it all arranged on lovely carousels that hold hundreds of  CD’s stacked vertically—500 CD’s per carousel—and then we can “program” the CD’s by genre, or artist, etc., and whether we want the music to shuffle and play random songs within the selected genre, play an entire album, etc. Very old-fashioned, almost a Victrola, but without the handle to wind…

We haven’t yet upgraded to digital music, and this is mostly due to the years we imagine passing while we burn  the CD’s and convert hundreds of old albums to digital signals. I imagine our hair turning white and walkers appearing in our hands as we trundle back and forth between our CD and album stash and the computer…and then I imagine finishing this Herculean task just in time to learn everything we’ve done is outmoded. (Kitty gasps; falls to floor; dies.)

No, wait! I couldn’t die at that point, because I have a Master List of music that I would like played at my Memorial Service…the service will have to last about a month at this point, but it will be a wonderful aural experience; I promise! If we can locate the right technology.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.  ~ Victor Hugo

Music heals; it stimulates and inspires; it changes us; it connects us and make us whole. I use music in my spiritual direction and I used it as a chaplain. There is a practice called “threshold singing.” It started here (http://www.thresholdchoir.org/), and promotes rehearsed, a capella songs offered to those waiting at the threshold between life and death. There are also harpists trained in “music thanatology,” and other musicians trained in techniques for accompanying those on healing journeys. You can read more about this here: (http://www.growthhouse.org/music.html)

I knew a nun who found a beautiful harp in the attic of her convent, had it restrung, polished and restored, and then taught herself to play it. She lugged it around to her city’s two large hospitals and played her harp for years, eventually receiving donations to purchase smaller, more portable harps.

It was no surprise that families and staff members at these hospitals felt the positive effects of her music, and she had some deeply graced experiences with patients as well. One woman lay in a coma that physicians had predicted she would remain within until her death. While the nun played her music just outside the patient’s room to soothe the family’s loss, the woman was gentled into wakefulness.  She later told the nun, “I was disappointed to still be here; your music led me to understand I was in heaven!”

Balfour Mount, one of the founders of Palliative Medicine in North America, wrote, “Music has touched the human soul across all boundaries of time, space, and genre…Perhaps, in its vibratory nature, music opens us to a greater appreciation of our essential connectedness to the cosmos, our oneness with all that is.” If you’ve ever watched one of the many flash mobs cause a breakout of spontaneous joy at a public gathering space, you know how music can affect and connect our spirits.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~ Berthold Auerbach

I love watching the crowds at the flash mobs: they stop and notice–something I fear our increasingly busy lives don’t allow us to do—and then they are delighted. Their inner children often come out to play. Here is one of my favorites, in Antwerp, when a flash mob performed “Do Re Mi” from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Sound of Music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EYAUazLI9k People often cry in response to such joyful invitations. Music can so quickly touch deep memories, unconscious needs, losses, and desires. And how healing it can be when we allow our bodies to move freely in response to the impetus of melody and rhythm.

And here is Ben E King’s Jerry Leiber’s, and Mike Stoller’s, Stand by Me, performed by musicians throughout the world: http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741, another lovely collaboration.

Music is vibration and so, at minute particle levels, are we; we’re bouncing particles, moving in waves, and everything is music. I wish we could hear more than the limited bandwidth we humans can manage, but I love the music of this beautiful cosmos that I’m able to hear: birdsong and rain, wind and beating wings, life’s breath, laughter, children’s voices, singing dogs, and my husband’s voice.

Many say that life entered the human body by the help of music, but the truth is that life itself is music. ~ Hafiz, Persian Sufi poet

Only This

Tags

daily round, Photography, Poetry, spirit

There is only this:

The breath of the dog on the bed and the breath of the dog in the living room,

the settling of cats,

the scrambling of the squirrel along the deck’s railing—

he, too, forages for seed and meaning.

There is this, too: the flow of the river,

the crow on the cooked branch,

the chiming of pipes in the wind,

the waves of the wind,

the insistence of the wind that we be more than we are,

that we are more than we believe,

that now is the god we seek;

we, poised and ready to breathe in the holy, the fact there is only this,

and breathe out the yes that allows the now,

and the love of now,

to marry. 

The Heart’s Geography

Tags

blessing, daily round, Family, Photography, spirit, Travel

Returning home after traveling is always sweet and yet a bit disquieting. Places visited have circumscribed our senses and experiences for a time; home, ironically, feels a bit foreign and we look at it with new eyes. Choices made long ago regarding furniture placement, or lighting fixtures, or garden arrangement, or partner, seem jarring and specifically wrong, or (in regard to my partner) more deeply delightful and pleasing…life has been shaken up a bit and our perspectives are altered. Is our home really this small? Has our yard always required this much tending? When did we agree to adopt all these animal companions and under the influence of what drug? Are our nephews really in college and grad school? How on earth have our lives passed so quickly and what is it, exactly, we’ve done with them?

And who can foresee the evolution of brother-and-sister relationships over a lifetime?

We don’t tend to return with many new “things,” from our travels; few souvenirs or purchased mementos signify we have been away and are changed, save the digital photographs that document the outward truth of this. And we are frugal travelers: I pack meals that keep us earnestly on the road for the 15-hour drive, although we’re always open to side trips when enticed by intriguing signs and curiosities. The experience of travel itself, though, has transformed us, and initially, home seems a place meaningful only to the strangers we used to be and no longer are.

Within a few days of re-entry, though, the new/old life settles into place, coherent routines knit back together, and like a re-tailored suit, our home fits us once again. Not quite the same. Encounters and revelations that crossed our paths while we were on the road have changed us. Although the patterns of the daily round are familiar, there’s a new step or two, a phrase, a recipe, a book, a point-of-view or a plan newly-adopted and adapted,  a new way of seeing and being that has been integrated. Our insights, and therefore our outlooks, have been tweaked. The outward travel has stimulated interior journeys as well, and the memories—long past and now updated—continue to roll and enlarge, diminish, fade, or take on mythic proportions in the latest chapters of our ongoing life stories…it takes a while to sift and settle, although we’ve been home for a few days now.

Every moment has the potential to transform us, of course, but the awareness of this seems heightened by travel.

We covered about 1950 miles, choosing interstates for our journey south and backroads for our drive home, offering us views of American heaven and hell. From the interstate, life looked hopeful, busy and unhindered by gasoline prices and a struggling economy; however, the drive back north, behind the bustling interstate curtain, revealed a sad succession of little towns that appeared faded, peeling and resigned; taped together, but sliding irretrievably into decomposition. Despite signs of life among the decay, people were nowhere to be seen and toys were abandoned in overgrown yards, as though everyone had already left on some tribal hegira to safety and better times, if either can be located geographically, although I suspect not. 

We stayed with my younger brother in a charming suburb of Atlanta, the stately, quiet neighborhoods blooming abundantly with azalea, redbud and dogwood. My brother and sister-in-law offered us a list of adventures from which we chose destinations every day and headed out to explore and tour the landscape and its offerings. And while the sights were interesting and entertaining and the restaurants were wonderful, it was the company of family and our shared stories that graced the week and hallowed our precious time together.

What I most enjoy about leaving home is the opportunity to see my partner and myself and our lives from different perspectives. His humor, intelligence, patience and curiosity—viewed in relief against new places and circumstances—charmed my heart and confirmed again what a gifted spirit good fortune has given me as my life’s fellow-traveler. A kind person with an open mind colors the journey so beautifully.

And I discovered that I’m far more easy-going than I used to be, and able to better enjoy whatever presents itself rather than bother with prescribed expectations. Just as I was reminded again by the family memories shared during the week and my (very tall) nephews’ entry into adulthood that life is fast and fleeting, I’m also learning to treasure the presence of loved ones more fully and delight in who we all are rather than evaluate the ways we are different in our philosophies and encounters with life. Choices and stances that mattered and challenged me when we were younger have been stripped away by time and all that I can see are people I have always loved. 

We walked along the streets of Athens, GA, one afternoon, and came across a mobile work of art the creator called his “Heaven and Hell Car.” I wish I’d had more time to photograph it and converse with the artist, but he was on his way elsewhere when we met. A traveler on his own journey. I especially welcomed his sculpture stating that we’re, most of us, “a little good, a little bad.” At any rate, this seemed to be his conclusion on the side of the car I was closest to; as I went around the other side, it seemed perhaps it had taken a lifetime of dancing with various aspects of his shadow to arrive at this fair-minded wisdom, as I suspect it does for “most folk” as well.

The days passed quickly and the joy of being together, away from home, and with people we love and seldom see made everything count. On vacation, my heart reminds me, “This moment matters: remember it,” and what it means is, “It all matters; be present to it; see the love that breathes through it all.” And I did; I do; I’m trying. I spent a good many years traveling in my own “heaven and hell car,” dancing with my shadows, too.

My nephews have returned to their honors classes, graduate seminars, and the exciting time of choosing careers and partners of their own. My brother and sister-in-law are back at work, and Phillip returned to school this morning.

I sit at my desk and ponder the week that has passed. Where did the time go? And what has changed? Why does the angle of light falling across the river and through the willow’s gown of leaves catch my attention and delight me so? Why do I cry when I see the picture of my brother with his arm around me?

And then I understand the gift of travel, whether we’re covering miles of road or years and years of memories. My heart reminds me that although we return to our recognizable daily rounds, we are changed and renewed. Travel clarifies the passing of time, the endurance of love, and the connections that last. It invites us to let go of the memories, beliefs, and feelings that no longer serve our spirit’s growth. We don’t need the excess baggage.

Travel allows us to set down judgement and see we’re just like “most folk,” equally light and dark, good and bad, seeking safety and better times, and sometimes discovering both when we let go of anything that impedes our ability to love. Heaven or hell depends on our perspective; we can travel down either road. Setting down and letting go of our hell, whatever it may be, frees our arms to embrace heaven and make our home there.

It was good to be gone. Our journey offered priceless insights and valuable perspectives. Frugal travelers that we are, we still came home with armloads of blessings. It is good to be home.

Infinite Expectations, Surprising Blessings

Tags

blessing, daily round, expectations, Love, spirit

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.  ~ Henry David Thoreau

Just when I was ready to guide winter to the door, thank it for its company and bid it farewell till next year, we received a snowfall different from any other and enchanting in the world it offered us Saturday morning. The relative warmth kept the snow heavy and just damp enough to cling to everything at the angle from which it fell or blew, so the world at dawn appeared to be flocked with opals, and magical. I wandered for some time and out of time with my camera, grateful for the opportunity to be reintroduced to winter’s surprises and depths. Reawakened.

It was a beautiful reminder that all of creation holds surprises if we can keep our hearts and minds open to its possibilities. We can be so quick to box and label our days, our seasons, our experiences, and ourselves; how lovely to be stopped in my tracks and have my expectations upended so delightfully.

Relationships, too, can be forever evolving and surprising in their invitations. Things may shift rather dramatically, for example, when children become their parents’ caregivers. When my mother came to live with us some years ago, we all had to make adjustments in our hopes and behaviors very quickly and unexpectedly. We thought she would soon be moving into her own nearby condominium, but her health declined rapidly, and everything suddenly changed.

This was most difficult for my mother, who was an extremely independent woman. She had cared for my father for almost 20 years following his stroke, and to so quickly find herself dependent and cared for was heartbreaking.

People respond to dialysis very differently, much of it due to the status of their overall health and related co-morbidities: for some it’s not too drastic, and they manage well with dialysis for years; for others, it can be extremely draining and dispiriting. Mama came home weary and discouraged from her first session, and her exhaustion only increased as the weeks passed. We could see her health fading, and our own spirits sank as well.

Everything my mother owned was neatly boxed and stacked in a storage unit some miles from our home. We hoped to complete an addition to our home and see her settled with her own furniture and belongings soon, but construction was still underway and stalled by winter storms. For now, my mother’s privacy and few necessary possessions were confined to the guest room. One day, early in December, I went to the storage unit after helping Mama get settled at the dialysis facility. I climbed, searched, dug around, and finally located some of her treasured Christmas decorations, came home, and set them around our living room and her bedroom. Her happiness at discovering these when I brought her home that afternoon was a great boon for both of us.

We all tried so hard to lift each other’s spirits that year, despite the fact that our family, home, and relationships felt like they were constantly shifting. We knew Mama was dying, but not yet. Everything was strange and new. I recall how we stumbled and found our way again, over and over; how we juggled joy and danced sorrow and laughed and wept…how precious people are when the world feels like it’s ending and they say yes to love, anyway. Constant reawakening to need, and loss, and ways to demonstrate and experience love.

Christmas was coming soon, and Phillip and I had fun planning treats and surprises to keep gratitude and joy readily accessible. We read Christmas stories, sang carols, watched movies, and happily relaxed some of the dietary restrictions dialysis patients have to follow, so Mama could enjoy her holiday season meals and a few special desserts.

We wrapped a lot of little gifts and set them under the tree with presents that arrived from my brothers, and hoped we could make Christmas Day truly special for Mama. Naturally, we didn’t expect her to do anything but relax and enjoy herself as much as possible.

When I handed Mama the last gift, she surprised us by reaching into the pockets of her robe and presenting each of us with a small wrapped box as well. I remember looking at Phillip in shock: how on earth—and when—had she located and wrapped presents for us? She was never left alone in our home, could no longer drive, and certainly didn’t walk into town on her own. She didn’t have the strength for any of these things.

I opened my gift and discovered a sweet brooch that had been my grandmother’s. Mama knew I collected these old brooches and—somehow—had wrapped this treasure from her own jewelry box, as she’d wrapped some of my Dad’s wonderful old tie-tacks for Phillip. The pin is lovely, but I value it more because it’s come to symbolize what that year taught me about love and the infinite ways it may surprise and enliven our days, if we keep our eyes and hearts open.

Stripped of hope that her health would be restored, deprived of dreams for her future, dependent upon others for meals and much of her care, my mother still honored her need–with dignity and creativity–to gift those she loved. Living a completely circumscribed and regulated life, she was able to  delight us with surprise. Those with infinite expectations of the dawn will encounter obstacles along the way, but the point, as Thoreau says, is to stay awake and look for the surprising opportunities and blessings that always appear.

We looked forward to sharing our dinner with a good friend this past Saturday night. Due to the week’s warm weather and melting snow, I’d planned a “spring” meal of quiche, salad, fruit, and “something lemony” for dessert. When I woke up Saturday morning to see the new version of a winter wonderland, I thought maybe a hearty stew was called for…but decided to surprise our guest with the spring meal, anyway. She’s the kind of person who naturally stays awake and looks for the dawn’s surprises, and I’m learning, all the time, how to expect its  infinite wonders, too.

Spring Is Icumen In…

Tags

daily round, healing, Photography, spirit, spring

Although my friends and family to the north received snow this week, we did not. Rain and the unseasonable warmth we’ve experienced all winter continues, and lead the spirit’s need for color and blooms and scents and birdsong to dreams of spring…every so often I find myself turning to images that remind me of what’s coming, and it seems a good day for sharing a few of these images in hopes they brighten your spirits, too. May the sweet rains wash away gloom and loosen ties to anything that doesn’t serve our healing and wholeness…

 

Going Inside to Play: In Praise of Idleness

Tags

Balance, healing, Idle, Meditation, spirit

The hardest work is to go idle.  ~ Yiddish Proverb

Ages ago, when I was a very young college student studying theater arts, a few of our professors encouraged meditation in differing forms, but always with the purpose of drawing our attention inward, to a place centered and still. The creative process is such a mystery that it requires these journeys inward for excavation, image work, listening, and synthesis. But this is also as true of life itself, for everyone, and always.

I have friends who yearn to meditate and engage with it as a practice but who can “never find the time,” and this breaks my heart, because I know how hard they work –almost nonstop—day in and day out, and how rarely they play or even allow hallowed moments of “non-work” to exist and open up their lives to possibilities of stillness and the kind of renewal it alone brings us.

 Who has taught us to punish ourselves so earnestly? What is it we fear in encounters with the self? How true is it, finally, to equate our worth with our productivity and “busyness?” Why on earth, while we’re on earth, wouldn’t we deserve regular times of peace and quiet? What has made us so blind to the need for balance?

Why is our first impulse to condemn idleness? Part of it is due to our American heritage, I suppose, and the Protestant work-ethic that people pledge allegiance to without the introspection or reflection a mosquito gives its next bite; some of it results from bad religion, handed down and accepted without question; a good bit is derived from unique family dysfunctions that become the rhythms to which we dance till/unless we learn better music and tempos, but all of it is nonsense and fear-based. And the imbalance generated by “nose to the grindstone” thinking and behavior makes us ill, so very ill in body, mind, and spirit.

A perusal of quotes regarding “idleness” is illuminating. Among others, Kierkegaard, Chekhov, and Virginia Woolf agree that me that idleness is necessary to our health as humans; many others view it with fear and disdain—not surprising in the world we’ve created. (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/idleness.html) Idleness is not the same as indolence to me, though they are used as synonyms. Neither is “work,” as in engaging with our gifts and passions, synonymous with “busyness,” that cultural frenzy with lists and tasks and always ensuring one is a human doing and never a human being. Engagements with our passions brings us to the center and we lose track of time; busyness causes stress because it so effectively binds us to time and keeps us away from the voice and needs of our spirit.

It is lovely and necessary to create, to work hard, to use our innate giftedness, and to produce something that makes the world, the community, or family, or self, the better for having done it. But this activity and the energy expended require fruitful balance in peace, introspection, reflection, and stillness. The avoidance of this—working “harder” and running faster to evade the still small voice within—is diseased and, at its core, “inhumane.”

For several years, I worked as a chaplain in a heart hospital and came to know the “types” who frequently became patients there: the over-achievers, who whipped out their laptops and cellphones within hours after life-saving surgeries; the people so steeped in denial of their brokenness or grief that their hearts just gave out from being so cruelly “silenced;” those who were non-compliant with prescribed self-care regimens, who routinely “forgot” to take medications or engage in exercise that would restore health; and those who never considered they were spirit as well as body, and that life was transcendent as well as empirical.

I always recall one of my patients, a retired and eminent heart surgeon, who could perceive no connection between his own heart attack and the fact it occurred on the day of his wife’s funeral. He could not accept that grief or loss had any place in his well-being, and was most anxious to leave the hospital and get home to finish necessary tasks he had set out for himself. We cope and grieve differently, and in our own time, but this tenacious avoidance of connecting dots and feeling feelings was something I observed frequently in heart patients.

This is not to blame the patient for the illness: most of us do the best we can till we know better, and our bodies are machines that weaken for many, many reasons, but there is often a connection between illness and a lifetime of beliefs and the behavior patterns they choreograph.

And the thing is, our beliefs and patterns never change unless we name them, review them, assess and evaluate them through reflection and introspection…and change. And this requires what appears to be “idleness.” We need daily recess: playtime and dream dates with our spirits, and connections with the Sacred within and without.

Meditation isn’t tricky. You don’t need to travel anywhere, earn a degree, pay a lot of money, or understand another language to meditate. Books and classes are available: so is a floor—or chair—where you can sit, close your eyes, and breathe for five minutes twice a day, and then, maybe longer. Do it with a friend or do it alone. Be kind to yourself; accept your feelings; heal.

Over the years I’ve continued to meditate and explore what that means for me. As I’ve aged, my stillness practices have only expanded, and all of them can be meditative: Centering prayer, mindfulness practices, walking or biking the trail, dreamwork, sitting with the 4-leggeds, walking a labyrinth, mandala creation and meditations, sitting meditation with and without images, breathwork, photography and gardening, canoeing the river, yoga and yoga prayer, journaling, soup-making, and (yes) housecleaning—all can help me to still and focus, release negative energy and open my spirit to needed healing and joy.

There are days I prefer music and days I need silence; days when I must move, and days when stillness beckons. And there are days when lying on a blanket beneath lovely clouds or a field of stars is mandatory playtime. Don’t look for “rules” regarding how and where, or when you meditate; do look at your need for rules.

For almost 40 years, meditation has saved me, over and over, from tipping into the illness of imbalance or calling me back from it, and I have learned so much about myself and the need for balance.

“Namaste” is the beautiful Hindu word for encounter: used as a word to bless both our greetings and partings, it means, “the Holy/Sacred in me recognizes and is grateful for the Holy/Sacred in you.” One way to begin to slow down is to use this word purposefully, whether silently or out loud, as we move through the day. Seek balance. Let yourself become a human being as often as you are a human doing.

Idleness is the Spirit’s playground.

 

A little while alone in your room
will prove more valuable than anything else
that could ever be given you.
~Rumi

 I have collected dozens of meditation books, but a few I return to frequently and still, are:

 Meditation for Life, by Martine Batchelor

Meditation for the Love of It, by Sally Kempton

Meditation, by Richard W. Chilson

God Makes the Rivers to Flow, by Eknath Easwaran

 As I’ve mentioned before, Spiritual Literacy, by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, can guide you towards many ways of deepening through self-reflection. The DVD series derived from this book is a wonderful resource for “visual and aural” meditations. Or, visit their website: www.spiritualityandpractice.com

 Here’s Fr. Thomas Keating, offering an introduction to Centering Prayer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IKpFHfNdnE

And here is a wonderful resource for heart care through meditation, backed by years of scientific testing and research: www.heartmath.com