Steve had a headache; I have a head cold. We talked about celebration and seriousness, listened to Medieval motets and re-read John Keats’ The Eve of St. Agnes. We watched The Apartment again, and fell asleep shortly after midnight, listening to music. Thich Nhat Hahn talks of birthdays and other milestones simply as “continuations”. Life goes on; time is our own invention. There will be another occasion for champagne. Today we slept and listened to our bodies healing.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
from In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
blogged by thousandfold echo
Life continues; a new cycle begins. It’s the shortest day of the year. Imagine our ancestors noting the the diminishing of light and wondering anxiously if the sun would return…and it does! We are so used to “knowing” all this that we can grow so jaded and incapable of surprise and awe. But why not retain the ability to be surprised, delighted, bowled over by the wonder of Life?! And also to include Death in that cycle. One of my favorite passages from Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself”):
“What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?
They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.
All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”
Looking through my files of photos, I found two that I remember as being surprising moments of serendipity, both of which are of birds. Birds are surprising. They alight and fly off at their own whim, so catching one on camera is a gift. The first shot is one I took with the little Lumix when a hawk landed in the maple tree right outside my bedroom window. To have this elegant wild predator just a few feet from my hidden wide-eyed face was a real treat. I had to take the shot through a dirty window, but still…
This second shot is one I took the first time I went to a State Park with my brand new Canon Rebel T3i in hand. Sandhill cranes were flying overhead, and I took a chance that perhaps with this new camera, I would actually get a clear image.
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.
Steve & I went on a driving excursion todaythrough rural Wisconsin. Today’s post will just be a teaser; I promise there will be more substance when I have more time. We began the day by re-reading W. H. Auden’s poem“In Praise of Limestone”. Little did we know that we would chance upon a cave by a river later that afternoon….
I hope everyone can make some stunning discoveries this weekend! Go out and enjoy the world!
What an amazing day! Training at Old World Wisconsin included visits to the Animal Barn, the Garden curator, and the Collections curator. I met two oxen, each weighing a ton, and stroked their noses and chins. I was introduced to three horses who are each in their 90s in “people years”. I saw a sow who had given birth for the first time just this week and her seven pink little piglets. Oh, how their little faces captivated me (and made me wish I’d brought my camera)! I visited a greenhouse full of tiny sprouting seeds which will become food and decor to an entire community, a future rooted in the present and informed by the past. I browsed through shelves of antique artifacts that illustrate the lives and time of people whose stories encompass miles of external and internal territory. So much to take in, visually, mentally, physically and spiritually! I came home to my usual tasks of dinner and chores and a phone call from my darling youngest…and now I’m sitting at my computer and entering this century of technology for the first time today. It feels kinda weird! I can only imagine how this feeling will intensify as I spend more time in the Old World.
I have one more week of the poetry challenge from NaPoWriMo to complete, and already I can tell that it’s not going to be easy to be in the mood to concentrate on composing verse each day after training! Still, I hope to have a little time to dabble in the word pond. Today’s prompt is to write an “ekphrastic” poem, a graphic description of a work of art. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous one. I went through some art photos that I had collected for a game I invented, and this one caught my eye. It’s a self-portrait by Van Gogh. Here’s the picture and the poem, and then I think I’ll call it a day here in the 21st century and get ready to go back 150 years again tomorrow!
The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970 and marks what some consider the birth of the Environmental Movement. Of course, cultures throughout history have celebrated and appreciated the earth according to their particular perspectives. Harvest festivals, rain rituals, volcano appeasement, fertility festivals, river ceremonies…I can think of many ways that humans have venerated the earth. Since 1990, when the Earth Day campaign went global, we’ve focused on the planet as a whole. We are the ones who have seen it (at least in pictures) as a whole from outer space, and I think we are realizing more and more how our relationship to the Earth is effecting that picture. Large scale weather patterns, extinction rates, pollution and population are just some of the issues that are “going big” in our consciousness. This is all very well, and at the same time, each of us has a particular and specific and local intimacy with Earth that should never be overlooked.
NaPoWriMo is acknowledging Earth Day with its prompt to write a poem about a plant. I have so many favorite Earth/Nature/Flower/Animal poems already dear to my heart that I’m having a hard time being original, so I think I’m just going to share a few favorites with you here instead. The first one is a lullaby that my mother used to sing to me. I have no idea of its origin. I just hear Mom sing:
White coral bells upon a slender stalk,
Lilies of the valley deck my garden walk.
Oh! Don’t you wish that you could hear them ring?
That will happen only when the faeries sing!
Here’s one I wrote back in March as I looked at my lilac bush:
When will the buds appear this year?
When will the lilac be full in bloom?
When will that perfume make fair the air?
When will that purple bedeck my room?
Soon, oh, soon; let it be soon!
I’ve been wearing lilac oil from a little vial that Jim bought me when we were on Mackinac Island years ago. A few drops on my neck assures me that the fragrance of my favorite flower will not fade too quickly from my consciousness.
I took a walk yesterday to photograph some of my local earth miracles. May I present:
White tail deer
Bleeding heart
Red Admiral butterfly
Tulips, daffodils, hyacinth
And to represent the hippie protesters and the environmental movement, I have to share one of my favorite earth songs. Nanci Griffith, “From A Distance” (written by Julie Gold). Socks with sandals, passion and integrity. She moves me.
Love our planet, today and every day. Treat her and all life with respect. Please.
I am about to venture out into the retail world in search of shoes that might pass as reminiscent of the 1870s. Having come up empty yesterday at two Goodwill shops, I’m not sure if I will be successful. It’s interesting taking stock of what’s out there in the resale stores. This is the stuff that people give away…and other people buy. It’s not marketed; it’s not about status or brand. It’s about filling a need with something serviceable. I would do all my shopping at a resale place if I could. That’s probably why my kids call me “cheap”. I don’t get the whole “status and style” idea. I just want to get the job done. I’m not trying to fit into a competitive culture of consumerism. My “work outfit” for my new job will be a reproduction of 19th century pioneer clothing. My “work outfit” for my last job was jeans and a T-shirt with the latest musical production logo on it. I guess I have a different idea of dressing for success.
One of Steve’s favorite fables is The Emperor’s New Clothes. He often sees himself as the little boy at the side of the parade who looks on in bafflement at what everyone else is celebrating and asks, “Why are we doing this?” He sometimes talks about it as being the one who points out the elephant in the room, that glaring awkwardness that no one wants to mention. He’s not judgmental about it, he just wants to discuss it, bring it out into the open, make everyone aware of it. He’s not cynical or sarcastic, he’s genuinely curious. We don’t have a TV, but we do watch basketball games online that often include commercials. Those ads bring up a lot of questions. Why do we sell what we sell the way that we do? Why is sex and violence so prevalent? And stereotypes? Why do we think having a good time is so important? What do we really think is important? And why? Why? What is the Big Idea? Everything comes down to that level, that three year old inside who stands watching and asks, “Why?”
It’s a really good question, I think, and one that I have been trained not to ask. “Theirs not to reason why/ theirs but to do and die.”The military motto, President Bush’s command to go out and spend money rather than debate economic policy, my father’s and the Church’s instructions on being obedient…there are so many examples of hushing up that 3-year-old. I admit that there are times when it’s useful to forgo the philosophical and act decisively and immediately, but shouldn’t we return to the subject eventually and periodically to keep our motivation clear? There are members of society who are watchdogs to our conscience, in a way, and I very much respect them for their courage and thank them for the questions that I forget to ask. I am more characteristically concerned with “How?” I want to do things lovingly, primarily; efficiently, much of the time; and as correctly as possible. That may say a lot about how effective my indoctrination into Judeo-Christian thought was.
Intentionally asking both questions and fashioning a life around the answers we find deep in our experience is the focus of our Saturday Summit (what we call our “relationship discussions”). The poetry prompt I found today on NaPoWriMo’s site challenged me to write a hay(na)ku, which is a recent poetic invention. It’s simply 6 words in three lines of ascending (or descending) measure. One word, two words, three words (any number of syllables) or vice versa. We can link several together as well, we’re told. So, here is my hay(na)ku series and a few photos.
Today’s poetry writing prompt is to write a travel poem about getting from Point A to Point B. I took this with me as I walked with Steve to meet his mom for breakfast at a cafe on North Avenue. Here’s what I came up with:
Suburban sidewalk, cement sanitation
Fighting blight from untidy dandelions
Writhing, withered stems polluted, poisoned
Preventing spreading superfluous seeds
Muddy raindrop crater-pocked parkway
Mini helicopter maples, twin neon confetti
Mossy black trunks, petal-splashed branches
Tinny worm smell, saturated iris-limp toilet paper
Hiking boots treading asphalt pathways
Longing for the purity beneath.
Yesterday’s rain has left a distinct damp chill over everything. I miss the golden sun. My mood is slow and overcast as well, but I think I’ve had an epiphany in the recent “relationship talks” we’ve been having. A serious and positive epiphany, too complicated to explain. I never knew that shock and denial could last four years and then drop in an instant. I feel like a snail without her shell. Perfect for crawling about a rain-soaked environment.
Just when you’re ready to declare that you have had a defining experience, another experience comes along to blur that definition. How do you know what you think you know? Epistemology is enough to explode my brain, I fear. I have to be very careful venturing into that discipline. Taking an open, artistic approach spares me from the pressure to get off the fence. The poetry prompt from today’s NaPoWriMo post helpfully supports that position. They invited me to take a poem that already exists and re-write it so that each line is the opposite from the original. I assume that the fruit of this labor is to see that both are valid in some way.
Does this drive you crazy? Are some of us driven to be dogmatic, the ones who enjoy boxing things up and nailing them down and painting them in black and white? Is this a fear-based activity, presided over by the threat that there is a right and a wrong and you could be Wrong? Is life written in either/or, both/and, neither/nor or without the slash mark altogether? How many school teachers asked you to “compare and contrast” and then told you that you did it incorrectly?
Life is diverse. You could say it is “un-like”. It just is. “Are you, like, for real?”No. I am real. Real isn’t “like”, it is.
I am thinking about my oldest daughter today. She has been sick with a terrible cough, possibly pneumonia, and left a message on my phone yesterday afternoon saying, “I just needed some Mom.” Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to contact her since to get more information although I’ve left messages. These are those “Mom moments” that teach me how to manage anxiety. Her voice actually sounded better than the day before, I know she’s on antibiotics, so my brain can convince me that there’s little evidence that something catastrophic is happening. My imagination, however, cooks up a million scenarios that are “possible”. My spirit tells me that I live in this moment, not any imagined or borrowed moments from some other plane, and so I act in the present as best I can. Practicing living in peace with myself and the world, what I think I know and what I don’t know is an ongoing project. At this point in my life, I do not need added drama. Reality is exciting enough.
My daughter has always been open to engaging with lots of stimulus. Even as a toddler, she had a hard time shutting her brain off at the end of a day, relaxing and falling asleep. As a grad student, there are just so many exciting things to pursue, that I think she resists shutting down to re-charge. She’s a fascinatingly energetic person to talk to, but she has a hard time slowing down. No wonder she’s succumbed to illness, right? I checked out the poetry prompt from NaPoWriMo this morning, and they suggested writing a lullaby. Perfect! I know just who to write one for! I am hoping her phone is turned off because she’s resting, sleeping, meditating and healing. When she was a little girl, I used to do a kind of guided meditation that I made up in order to get her to relax. I had her visualize floating like a leaf on the surface of a slow-moving brook. So, here’s a lullaby for Susan and pictures of the Sand Cave at Wyalusing State Park. I apologize if this makes anyone sleepy in the middle of their work day!
Lullaby for Susan
Float gently, float slowly, my baby, my dear
Like a leaf on the water, no burdens to bear
Gaze skyward to heaven while stars gather there
Like a leaf on the water, no burdens to bear
With mermaid hair flowing, glide slowly along
While Mama’s beside you, she sings this sweet song
Go slowly, breathe deeply, my child; nothing’s wrong
scillagrace 