System, structure, dogma, convention, party line, category, pigeon-hole. There are all kinds of ways to get living beings corralled into something that some authority will find manageable. And then there are those of us who defy this kind of tidy dismissal. Here are two examples that I photographed on my walk yesterday:
Here’s to all you defiant ones! Thank you for teaching me a thing or two…
Rain changes everything. After 4 weeks of drought, it refreshes the scent of the earth and the color of the grass. The corn leaves uncurl and look fuller, too. Here are some photos I took after (and during) a good thundershower on Thursday.
I posted a photo of this same porch about a month ago. The difference? Now the pots have flowers in them.
Hooray for folks who own and care for historic houses in my neighborhood!
Cloud in a puddle. Sounds like the name of an old recipe.
I was so excited to see this view from my front steps today:
Rain! Glorious rain!
We’ve had a few really good thunderstorms lately, after no rain at all for 4 weeks. I was so happy that I ran down the sidewalk yelling “Thank you!” to the Universe. Then Steve and I took a good, long walk around town for about 2 hours. I will share pictures over the next few days. I love the smell of rain, wet earth and wet wood. I love the feel of a cool spray coming through the open window in the middle of a hot night. I don’t even mind getting up to lower the windows to protect the books from a drenching! Looking forward to a good, cool sleep tonight…
Change and the movement of life – flow and motion –energy passing through places and phases. Here I sit in an old house with the shades drawn and the ceiling fans going fast, aware that the heat index is at a level that prompted my employer to call most of the staff and direct them to stay at home. It’s hot and humid…but only for now. This is what my street looked like in February:
I have been reading through some letters and journal entries that I wrote in the year 2007, the year before my husband died, when my teenaged girls were in serious distress and the entire family was in deep pain. Here’s a list of feelings I wrote about:
I wrote: “What do you do with feelings? They’re supposed to have ‘a beginning, a middle, and an end’, but when you’ve had the same feelings swirling around you for a half a year, a year, several years — they aren’t just feelings anymore. They become a way of life. I feel like Job — afflicted with boils. These hives on my legs itch like crazy, and I have no clue why I have them. I just keep hoping they’ll just go away.”
When you attempt to stop the flow of energy and movement and turn your present feelings or thoughts into a way of life, it may seem like you’re taking control and choosing something you want. It may turn out to be something thatmires you in suffering, however. That’s something of which to be aware. You could apply that to the physical environment: attempting to regulate the temperature and keep it at a constant 72 degrees Fahrenheit as a chosen way of life may cause you to suffer inordinately whenever the temperature is much lower or higher than that. Aversion and attachment causes suffering. Letting go of them allows the dance of life to swirl you into new places. If you find joy in the movement and change of life, you will not be disappointed. If you insist on sitting in the same pile of ashes for years, you will inevitably feel itchy and uncomfortable. You can hope that changes miraculously, or you can get up and move. As Jesus said to the man sitting at the Sheep’s Gate Pool complaining and making excuses, “Wilt thou be made whole?” (John 5:6) Do you want to enter the flow of life? It’s your choice…
The land is parched. It hasn’t rained for more than two weeks, and that was just a shower, really. Clouds gather and pass, rain pummels areas just to the north or south or west, but not here. Water vapor hangs in the air; the humidity makes the evenings sticky. The ceiling fan keeps up a tinny hum, the slight breeze causing a cooling evaporation on the surface of my exposed skin as I try not to move. Oh, but if I inch over the cotton sheet, I might find a cooler surface…just there…maybe?
I glance out the window to see if the maple leaves are moving, quivering, even a little bit. They are still, and the moon is full. It looks so cool and pale in the dark sea above. I have to go outside and stand under it. Perhaps its snow white radiance will bring an icy wind from space. I invite Steve to join me for a night walk. I put on just a sheer sundress, slip into sneakers, and grab my camera. The neighborhood is quiet. Televisions and air-conditioners keep the people shut up inside their suburban catacombs while we explore the world above…above the rooftops, above the concrete, above the tangible, above and beyond comprehension. Where we are is no longer “Milwaukee”, it is in space, outside of time, anywhere and everywhere. We are moving through existence. We are.
I spent the day in the 19th century, working at Old World Wisconsin, so naturally, I wasn’t allowed to be wandering around with a camera. I have to admit, though, I did square off my fingers to imagine a few frames. The sky today was absolutely breathtaking. Big cumulus clouds with flat, gray bottoms were floating around as if on parade. Looking up outside St. Peter’s church, with its 1839 bell tower and cross silhouetted against these clouds was like looking at a catalog of “INSPIRATIONAL”. I remembered back to the days when I was living in Los Angeles County, CA, feeling as if I would suffocate any minute. To look across the atmosphere to the horizon was like looking into a thick bean soup. Even looking straight up would remind you of watery hot cocoa. I longed to escape the valley and take off for clearer skies. I thought I could simply ascend the mountains and be in a brighter, cleaner, more natural world, but it wasn’t that easy. Everything is Owned in California. There is hardly any open land. We did get an invitation one weekend to house-sit for a retired couple who lived on Mt. Baldy. Their home was beautiful, furnished with antiques, quiet, nestled away from the highway in the pine trees. It was good enough. I took our nine-month old daughter in the baby backpack, my Canon AE-1, and left the smoggy valley behind. There is a photograph from that weekend etched in my mind. I’ve got on my beloved hiking boots, Susan is smiling in the pack on my back, my skinny legs are striding over a boulder. I was in the throes of postpartum depression; I weighed 98 pounds, and I was nursing. My husband’s buddies called me “Tits on a Stick” behind my back. I was struggling for survival. (photo added Jan. 20, 2024, see below)
Some years after that, I was living in suburban Illinois, and the skies opened up over the prairie. I would wander out to open land while the kids were in school and get lost in the clouds. I remember September 11, 2001, as a clear, sunny, perfect sky day. I spent the afternoon out in the prairie after having saturated myself in the news that morning. I look to the sky when I am confused. Back in the heyday of my Christian spiritual journey, I wrote this poem:
The Sky
Did I ever thank you for the sky
spread far around like an open field
piled high with moods and structures,
a playground for my soul?
This space above bids my thoughts expand
to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud
and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare
or slide down the shafts of the sun,
To swim to the center of its lonely blue
Where I find no mist to hide me,
and lie exposed to the western wind
like a mountain braced for sunrise.
Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,
it coaxes me to musings
far removed from the minutiae
that chains me to my life.
I search for light and openness
to shadow the bonds of earth,
exploring the vault of heaven
for its meaning and its truth.
Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art.
Thank you for these eyes admitting You into my heart.
Even though the calendar says that summer is still officially 2 days away, I beg to differ. It’s 94 degrees F and humid here in Wisconsin. Let’s just call it summer already! At work, folks are already bringing in treats like ice cream sandwiches, freezer pops and a keg of root beer with a cooler of vanilla ice cream for making floats. People stand around talking about the heat, which, frankly, doesn’t improve anything. We work at an outdoor living history museum; we don’t have air conditioning, just like people for centuries didn’t have air conditioning. I don’t have air conditioning in my 21st century home, either. It’s not that big a deal! Slow down, strip down, get wet, make a breeze, and evaporation will happen eventually. And while you’re waiting, silent and still, be amazed at how much life is thriving around you! Summertime!!
Gazing into the pond, pondering its many levels. What lurks in the depths? What ripples the surface? What is reflected from far above? Can you catch the sun dancing across it on a breeze? Does any creature understand all the dimensions of his environment at once?
Guess what I made today in the wood stove at Old World Wisconsin? Rhubarb pie! First time I’ve ever made it and first time I’ve ever used a wood burning oven. It’s a display pie, meaning no one is going to eat it. The crust was a tad dark on one side, but it looked pretty good. I have no idea how runny or crunchy the inside is. Maybe someone will cut into it tomorrow. It was lovely just sitting by the wood-burning stove, keeping toasty in the 50 degree rainy weather, smelling the pie bake and hemming handmade linen towels. We didn’t have many visitors, so I felt like I was having a cozy day in my own little corner of the 19th century, by myself. Nice work, if you can get it, I think.
So now that I’m back home, I’ve got to figure out if there’s something I can whip up for dinner in this century. Plus, I’ve got 3 days of dirty dishes in the sink to wash. Domestic bliss. For your entertainment, let me showcase a guest photographer: Steve. He took this shot while we were hiking on the Ice Age Trail on Monday.
scillagrace 