Tag Archives: Poems

Heart-Fire

Posted on by
7

In the library last week I spotted a book of Mary Oliver’s poems with which I was not familiar. I picked it up, opened it randomly, and found this poem.

HEART POEM by Mary Oliver

My heart, that used to pump along so pleasantly,
has come now to a different sort of music.

There is someone inside those red walls, irritated
and even, occasionally, irrational.

Years ago I was part of an orchestra; our conductor
was a wild man.  He was forever rapping the music-
stand for silence.  Then he would call out some
correction and we would begin again.

Now again it is a wild man.

I remember the music shattering, and our desperate
attentiveness.

Once he flung the baton over our heads and into
the midst of the players.  It flew over the violins
and landed next to a bass fiddle.  It flopped to the 
floor.  What silence!  The someone picked it up
and it was passed forward back to him.  He rapped
the stand and raised his arms.  Then we all breathed
again, and the music restarted.

I had to smile. What a beautiful description!!!

The local cardiologists, surgeons, and electrophysiologists have all conferred & told me that there is nothing more that they can do to help my heart. They did, however, enthusiastically suggest that, since the leakage in my tricuspid valve is “torrential,” I might be a good candidate for participation in a research trial involving a new procedure developed by Abbott Labs. One of the trials is being held in a large medical facility only an hour and a half away, so they sent off my records & I settled down to wait for a response, wondering, hoping. At length, the doctor running the trial called me down to Charlotte for yet another echo-cardiogram & a clear, enthusiastic,and quite fascinating explanation of the procedure. The doctor said that one trial had just been completed elsewhere with exciting results and that “You’ll be reading about it!” [And sure enough — yesterday (3/5) the NY Times had a long article describing the symptoms and the trial’s excellent results: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/04/health/tricuspid-valve-clip-leakage.html ]

I was told that during the next few days, the research team would meet to discuss my case & by the end of the week they’d call back with a schedule of tests needed before the procedure.

Indeed, a call came, not to offer a schedule but to set up an appointment to talk with the doctor. I knew then what to expect. Every time a doctor talks to me, the first sentence is “You know your case is very complicated.” The ensuing conversation with this doctor began the same way. The team didn’t think they could successfully carry out the procedure on my heart and, even if they managed to do it, they thought that — given all my other heart & lung complications — it probably wouldn’t make much difference anyway. So…. a dead-end.

Well, I’m telling you this long story only because of the surprising (to me) and wonderful, joyful outcome — truly old Trickster teaching me his famous side-step! Somehow I feel liberated! No longer wasting energy considering possible remedies, various strategies, what-ifs & hopes, I feel free to just accept, with gratitude, that this is how it is going to go for me & to get on with finding ways to live my life as meaningfully as possible anyway. Every life has its constraints. These are mine. So what?

Acknowledgement & acceptance have led to a wonderful increase in — or reclamation of — my inner Fire. This has helped me finish a project that had been languishing or, at best, proceeding very, very s-l-o-w-l-y for months. Somehow, my conversations with the fibers must have continued to simmer in some hidden inner cauldron. Now the embers rekindled & flamed and the cooking began in earnest. I began to show up more regularly in my work/play room & my conversation with the fibers began to flow again. The completion has (as always) hit some snags & included some tedious bits but, once I started to work again, the impetus — the Fire — stopped faltering & grew.

This past year, I have heard 3 different Slavic stories of the beautiful magical Firebird [not to be confused with the Persian Phoenix who rises from her own ashes]. I told one of the stories in my 9/23/22 post.

These stories have enchanted and evoked some deep resonance within me. Encounters with the Firebird are never simple. Always the finding of a Firebird feather signals the beginning of a difficult adventure that leads one deeper into one’s true self. The adventure usually involves a tsar demanding (with the threat of death) that one capture the Firebird, the delivery of the Firebird to the tsar, and then the freeing the Firebird at last. The Firebird is elusive and wild. Those in power seek to cage it for themselves, but always it must be, will be, freed — just like the Fire within ourselves. And just as the Firebird is wild so, too, in the required series of tasks & adventures, the “hero” requires help from an animal (a talking horse or big gray wolf in the stories I heard). No rule book could provide the necessary map & answers nor could his own human rationality, but Wildness itself showed the way. There is much here for me to learn.

Touched by the Firebird

*****

[On a larger-than-personal level, my shift is a bit like finally having realized that we are, in fact, already in the midst of the disasters (ecological, political, economic, technological, etc.) that we have struggled for so long to prevent, hoping we could somehow stave them off and return to what we’d thought of as “normal.” Our need to act remains, but — recognizing that deep & irreversible changes have already taken place — can we channel more of our emotional energy away from fear or ranting or trying futilely to “stand our ground” when that ground has already become shifting windblown sand dunes? Can we focus our energy not on so much “combat” as on creative responses to the evolving situation? I believe that, in spite of everything, we can uphold our gratitude & reverence for all life and “remember who we are and how we got here, accept the inevitable, honor our grief, and prioritize what is  pro-future and soul-nourishing.” We can live “meaningfully,  compassionately, and courageously no matter what.” (Quotes from https://postdoom.com/ ) ]

“Sometimes I go about pitying myself. All the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky.”

Chippewa Song

The Wise Trees

Posted on by
5

Winter Trees — by William Carlos Williams

"All the complicated details
 of the attiring and
 the disattiring are completed!
 A liquid moon
 moves gently among
 the long branches.
 Thus having prepared their buds
 against a sure winter
 the wise trees
 stand sleeping in the cold."

Here in the northern hemisphere, the Winter Solstice will occur on December 21. The word “Solstice” derives from two Latin words meaning “Sun” & “Stopped/Stationary.” The sun — which has been rising & setting further and further south every day [or, in the southern hemisphere, further north] — appears to stop its southward path for three days before reversing its journey to move gradually further north, lengthening our days. There seems to be a pause in the sun’s travels, a stopping, a still point….

Excerpt from BURNT NORTON (No. 1 of ‘Four Quartets’) by T.S. Eliot

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

In our human world, this is a time of festivities and celebrations in many traditions. It is a time when we gather together to rejoice in the lengthening days & to strengthen relationships as we face the deepening cold. In our U.S. version, however, it has tended to become a time of blatant commercialization & frenzied consumerism. The simpler, beautiful, heart-inspired rituals of the season can too easily become buried, overwhelmed by the rush, drowned out by the noise.

For many reasons, this year I need to honor the Still Point, to step back, to stand quietly — like the wise trees — resting a bit, dreaming roots & paths & ways of being that I have not yet imagined.

I am taking the next two weeks off from Trickster’s Hoard. I’ll be back on January 6th — a new year, a time for new weavings of fibers, stories, and thoughts.

For now, I want to leave you with a poem by Pattiann Rogers that, for me, captures the way a cold winter wind can actually be enlivening, can carry to me the mysteries of the far north [a place that has haunted me all my life] & bring me the dreams of the Old Ones whose wisdom — born of their deep & sacred communion with place — kept them alive through times of ice and hunger.

THE FIRST NORTHER — by Pattiann Rogers

1.
Arriving all evening, turning up the bellies
Of oak leaves, parting the edges
Of cotton hulls and spikelet shafts, it comes,
Having swept first over deserts
Of black tundra, having brushed the flanks
Of the musk ox, descended into the dark
Bubbles of the pipits’ lungs and out again.
It has been slack in the wings 
Of the snowy owl, static in the webs
Of a thousand firs, but it comes now
Pressing particles of down
And whale smoke, penetrating windows
With spirits of cedar, frost
From the lemming’s mouth.

2.
Aware of its presence, what will happen to us then
If we choose to leave this room together,
If we walk out among the trees maintaining
Their broken intentions against the wind
And stop beside the wall, feeling the hiss
Of Arctic lichen in our sweaters, the rush
Of frozen grasses in our hands?
You and I, tasting the same air that touched
The eye of the caribou in migration,
Taking into our lungs the same molecules
That reckoned their motion over icy plains
By darkness alone?  Surrounded
And utterly possessed, how will you speak
To me then? How will I ever reply?

Sending you love & all the blessings of this season, however it enters your life and your heart — Margery

With Gratitude to All Teachers of Whatever Kind

Posted on by
7

Wise words from Jude Hill, https://clothwhispering.com/blog/ November 19, 2022:

“Yesterday, simply asking myself a lot of questions. Today trying to answer them.  But I think answers don’t apply for very long really.  Things are always changing. And I, we, are only human and answers, there aren’t any really.  Questions are prompts for considering, and answers , well what if they are just coffee breaks?”

******

Thank you all for your warm, wonderful, and kind contributions this past week. This safe circle is truly a sacred space.

And thank you again, Tina, for your question. It has been said that a good question prompts more questions. That has certainly my experience this last couple weeks. I keep finding more & more questions, shifting perspectives, uncovering important memories…. My mind/spirit does enjoy finding connections that expand & complexify things. [No doubt part of my love of Paradox & Trickster.] So — a simple question requesting one title of one book sent me off down many maze-like rabbit holes at once. (And, of course, it doesn’t help that I am what my husband calls a “bookaholic.”)

I began to think about the myriad of books that have ignited life-changing passions, patterns, ways of being — starting with the books my mother read to me as a young child…… I thought about how, in 1986, a single step into an unexpected bookstore led me to randomly open a book to the poem that gave me the courage to make a difficult but necessary life-changing (shattering) decision.

And then I thought beyond the books to some of the authors with whom I was later fortunate enough to interact for a day or a week or, occasionally, for months.

I thought of folktales & myths which I was told — encountering them with my ears & body, rather than through the written word.

And then, beyond words — to experiences such as time spend beyond language with the land, plants, and animals for months in Kenya or daily in my own backyard. Or Aramaic chants & the Dances of Universal Peace with a Sufi master — sounds & movements that helped me develop and deepen a new relationship with my body, moving from head-centered to heart-centered.

Oh, I could go on & on — but would any of this be helpful in the sense of a “recommendation”? It’s the story of my life, which may or may not be relevant to another in one or many (or no) details.

So — I am incapable of recommending one book or one experience or one teacher (human or other). But what I did realize as I thought about possible answers was that it is the very diversity of books, experiences, and teachers that is the treasure.

I guess if I have any recommendation it is to Cherish your Curiosity.

And another recommendation [I told you I couldn’t do just one!] is to Practice Gratitude. Even though it is often hard or may seem impossible at times, I believe we can learn to give gratitude for whatever we meet along the way — be it book, dance, idea, personal teacher, unexpected bird, Old Woman in the Forest, or Coyote at the Crossroads. I often fail. Still, whatever my response, I believe each encounter does have at its heart (though often disguised & recognized only in hindsight) something I need to learn. The gift can come gently or with the roughness of a rusty blade, but it is something that can help in building a more grounded, kinder, and wiser life. And building such a life from what is at hand is something I will keep trying to do. 

THE HOUSE  --- by Mary Oliver

It grows larger,
wall after wall,
sliding
on some miraculous arrangement
of panels,
blond and weightless
as balsa, making space
for windows, alcoves,
more rooms, stairways
and passages, all
bathed
in light, with here
and there the green
flower of a tree,
vines, streams
casually
breaking through --
what a change 
from the cramped
room at the center
where I began, where I crouched
and was safe, but could hardly
breathe!  Day after day
I labor at it;
night after night
I keep going --
I'm clearing new ground,
I'm lugging boards,
I'm measuring,
I'm hanging sheets of glass,
I'm nailing down the hardwoods,
the thresholds --
I'm hinging the doors --
once they are up they will lift
their easy latches, they will open
like wings.

— photo by Mark Olsen —

Trickster’s Tracks

Posted on by
16

Looking back over the last week or so — no matter what the topic or level of experience & meaning — I see Trickster’s tracks weaving in and out and over my own tracks, sometimes almost obliterating them. I feel flummoxed and frustrated and have wanted to raise a fist & shout “Enough Already!” …..But, of course, it isn’t enough; otherwise he’d skip away to other business. Trickster is summoned into existence by many things — inattention, indecision, distraction, lack of perception & imbalance, and hyper-seriousness, to name just a few. They all seem to describe the sort of funk I’ve been in. Trickster is my eternal teacher, usually advising me to praise paradox more loudly & to dance through this journey more lightly, more joyfully.

*********

– – – – – – And, since writing those words yesterday, since naming Trickster’s message, I’ve found myself turning a corner, choosing a path, no longer stuck in indecision and useless lamentation at the crossroads. I continue to be amazed by the power of words. Preoccupation with words — or with a lack of them — may occasionally cause me to stumble into some deep crevasse … but words can also provide the handholds & footholds I need to climb back out and continue the journey!

Of course, many feelings and experiences are way beyond words & need to be protected from attempts to nail them down & cage them with language. Trickster himself is one of those beings/experiences. This is why poetry, metaphor, story are the linguistic vehicles we use when trying to share the deepest truths. And there are non-linguistic ways as well — image, music, dance….

I love nonverbal communication. Still, words are strong — and, like Story, potentially dangerous. Many indigenous cultures (including the Navajo and the ancient Hebrews) have taken language seriously, recognizing that spoken words create or shift reality. For me, writing, saying, or just thinking a word, metaphor, or story can sometimes be a prayer, both a source of clarification & a kind of commitment. Such commitment is essential before undertaking true work. (My teacher Luisah Teisch teaches that Trickster sits at the Crossroads and, if you lack clear intention & commitment, he is more than happy to lead you astray.)

William Hutchinson Murray (1913-1996), Scottish mountaineer & writer, reminds us:

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

And so I am, once more, beginning — remembering the words of St. Benedict:

“Always we begin again.”

I have finally begun to put into words for myself a paradox that, especially in light of political struggles here in the U.S. & around the world, has been drifting in a cloud around me like a swarm of gnats, bothering me incessantly. Somewhere earlier on this blog I said (no doubt, many times) that the power of Story is stronger than we’ve imagined and can be harnessed for healing or for harm. But when I read definitions of Story, I hear little that distinguishes these 2 possibilities from each other, little to explain the difference and how to identify & avoid or overcome the latter. Why/how is one story “better” or more “true” than another? After wallowing unhappily in my puzzlement for far too long, I feel like someone who’s been drowning in shallow water and suddenly — simply — puts her feet down on the bottom and rises up above the waves. [This reminds me of the saying — highlighting the stunted growth of trees in the cold of Iceland — that advises: “If you are lost in a forest in Iceland, stand up!”]

Well, more on those thoughts as they develop….

I’ve also been dithering for weeks about the colors for my next weaving. As I’ve pulled out more & more possible (or impossible) fibers and yarns from my stash, my studio came to resemble the messy, unstructured, hodge-podge nest of a mourning dove — though the mourning dove is definitely more minimalist than I am in the collection of building materials. (I once read about a mourning dove who constructed her nest of just five poorly arranged twigs.)

Two days ago, I came across words written by Maeve Brenan to her friend Tillie Olsen:

“You are all your work has. It has nobody else and never had anybody else. If you deny it hands and a voice, it will continue as it is, alive, but speechless and without hands. You know it has eyes and can see you, and you know how hopefully it watches you.”

Hooray for synchronicity & serendipity! This was just the reminder, the wake-up call, I needed. “... and you know how hopefully it watches you.” How much longer will the work be patient? There have been times when, faced with my endless wavering, it finally gave up on me and went off to look for someone else.

So — I finally pulled out some fluffy gray wool & slick hand-dyed mohair and began to spin yarn for the mask’s warp (which will become the hair). Yesterday I plied the two uneven yarns together loosely & washed the skein to set the twist. …… Ha! The power of commitment took hold! When I couldn’t sleep last night, I got up & found the yarn to be dry. I cut the lengths and warped the loom — and returned to bed for a few hours of satisfied & restful sleep. First thing this morning, I began playing with a variety of wefts on the edge of the warp, anxious to see some of the possibilities emerge before unraveling them all & beginning to weave the form in earnest. (Warp colors are not bright pastel than shown — more subdued & subtle.)

Throw Yourself Like Seed ~~ by Miguel de Unamuno

“Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit;
sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate
that brushes your heel as it turns going by,
the man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant.

Now you are only giving food to that final pain
which is slowly winding you in the nets of death,
but to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts
is the work; start then, turn to the work.

Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field,
don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death,
and do not let the past weigh down your motion.

Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself,
for life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds;
from your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.” 

************

In the meantime, the other-than-human world continues to offer its multiplicity of gifts. A Yellow-crowned Night-Heron has visited the neighboring pond (drained during a construction project but now refilling) a number of times this week — Such a magical creature!

And Old Oak continues to shed leaves & let go of overt growth so that she can find a deeper life in the darkness of winter — a time when, though the part of her I see above ground will appear dead & dormant, deep underground her roots will continue to grow & to gather water and nutrients — storing them to propel her sudden burst of life in the spring.

I love how her bones are beginning to show: the form, the strength, the scaffolding on which her life and the lives of many other beings depend.

Of what am I currently letting go? 
What is the shape of my own scaffolding? 
And what, I wonder, will my roots be doing this winter?

In the meantime, I’ll leave us all to ponder the advice of Osho:

"Don't move the way fear makes you move.
Move the way love makes you move.
Move the way joy makes you move."

Learning from the Tree Elders

Posted on by
2

I love the amazing surprises of serendipity & synchronicity. I’d planned to write today about the ways the Old Oak I greet every day is gently teaching me. The age of the oak is important. Not technically “old growth, I suppose — not part of an old growth forest — but definitely an Elder, a survivor through all that life has thrown at it for who knows how many years — long living as a lone tree in a cow pasture …. withstanding construction that changed the shape of the land & now living on a steep slope at the edge of a small — but still blessedly wild — urban woodland. An Elder.

Certainly we need to learn from the teachings of our human Elders, who understand that humans are an integral part of nature — not something “separate” & “superior” as modern industrial/technological culture would have it. But to become aware of our embedded-ness, we humans also — and perhaps even more — desperately need to remember how to listen to & learn from our other-than-human Elders, wtih reverence and respect.

Then, this morning, as I was dutifully scanning the NY Times headlines, I encountered an exquisite photograph of ancient bristle cone pines introducing a fine essay entitled What The World Will Lose If Ancient Trees Die Out.

The author is Dr. Jared Farmer, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of “Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees.” I hope you can access & read the whole article. I especially love the way he speaks not only of the ancient trees’ importance to their ecosystems and the whole web of life but also of the immeasurable gifts they give us just by being:

“Ancient trees provide services too, but really, they are gift givers. Of all their gifts, the greatest are temporal and ethical. [emphasis added] They inspire long-term thinking and encourage us to be sapient. They engage our deepest faculties: to revere, analyze and meditate. If we can recognize how they call upon our ethical imperative to care for them, then we should slow down climate change now, and pay forward to people who will need a future planet with chronodiversity as well as biodiversity.”

Among plants, there are ephemerals, annuals, biennials, perennials — and beyond them all a category I call “perdurables.” Perdurance is resilience over time. Humans can recultivate this attribute by caring for old trees and the old-to-be. Sustaining long-term relationships with long-lived plants is a rejection of The End, an affirmation that there will be — must be — tomorrow. That is a gift.”

LEARNING FROM THE OLD OAK: RESILIENCE

PRAYER ~~~ by David Abrams

May a good vision catch me

May a benevolent vision take hold of me, and move me

May a deep and full vision come over me, and burst open around me

May a luminous vision enfold me.

May I awaken into the story that surrounds,

May I awaken into the beautiful story.

May the wondrous story find me;

May the wildness that makes beauty arise between two lovers

arise beautifully between my body and the body of this land,

between my flesh and the flesh of this earth,

here and now,

on this day,

May I taste something sacred.

Autumn Thoughts

Posted on by
4

Fires, floods, hurricanes — natural processes that have been magnified by our human folly. This week I’ve been thinking about Hurricane Ian, as I’m sure many of you have — the devastation of both human & other-than-human habitats…. I have wondered about the hummingbirds that fed hungrily outside our window before setting, off a week or two ago, on their annual journey to Central America.

Here in central NC, we missed the worst of the storm. We really had only one day of strong winds & driving rain. Many branches & some trees down but no widespread damage. And, after the storm, the arrival of true autumn weather, with beautiful cooler days & chilly nights. The leaves are just beginning to change color.

I am definitely a 4-season person. I love the on-going changes as Earth makes her way around the sun. I treasure all the seasons for their distinctive gifts, but Autumn is my favorite — for the end of sultry summer heat & for the gorgeous colors of trees — also, since I was so long tied to the academic calendar, for my feeling of beginning, of stepping into new possibilities — a feeling more commonly associated with Spring.

Like each season, Autumn holds more than one kind of movement:

There’s the exuberance and abundance of harvest time, the rich tapestry woven over the Summer by the Earth community — both in human fields and in the woodlands as squirrels gather nuts, bears forage and fatten for their long rest, and birds feast among the ripened seeds as they prepare to fly south or to hunker down for the winter here.

Then, gradually, as Autumn progresses, the movement shifts from celebration to letting go. The fruits have fallen, flowers withered, the leaves that have delighted us with their spectrum of fiery colors are dimming, drifting dry and crumbling to the ground. So many poems associate these Autumnal changes with death.

But I have learned that this isn’t the final curtain on the year’s last drama. For instance, the fallen leaf hasn’t simply died & left the tree bereft. The tree is protecting itself against the hard weather ahead by absorbing the nourishment contained in each leaf back into its main body, separating itself from the dead leaf, and then healing each tiny scar so that new buds are possible in the spring. Last summer’s leaves begin new journeys — becoming & strengthening the soil with, perhaps, a stop along the way to line a nest or den, participating in the flow of life. And all the while, hidden from us, the trees are still sharing the sweetness of the sunshine that their leaves harvested during the summer, literally feeding each other & associated life-forms through an incredible mycorrhizal network underground.The flowers, too, that seem to us to have died — drying up & withering away — are becoming part of the soil into which they have cast their seeds — feeding their offspring & ensuring next Spring’s colorful carpet.

I love Mary Oliver’s playful imaginings about the so-called “loss” that’s often associated — amid much melancholy — with Autumn:

Song for Autumn by Mary Oliver

"In the deep fall
 don’t you imagine the leaves think how
 comfortable it will be to touch
 the earth instead of the
 nothingness of air and the endless
 freshets of wind? And don’t you think
 the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
 warm caves, begin to think
 of the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep
 inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
 the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
 the everlasting being crowned with the first
 tuffets of snow? The pond
 vanishes, and the white field over which
 the fox runs so quickly brings out
 its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
 bellows. And at evening especially,
 the piled firewood shifts a little,
 longing to be on its way."

Then, in the last days of Autumn, new kinds of beauty — quietly austere rather than overwhelmingly lush — emerge. As the green fades, as the bright leaves fall, much that was hidden can now be more clearly seen — the unique shape of each tree, for instance, becomes apparent, as do the curves & ridges, the bones of the land….

This is the sacred unraveling of threads, the making of space for a different weaving; letting-go of the old so that the unknown can emerge… as it always does.

 Fall Song by Mary Oliver

"Another year gone, leaving everywhere
 its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,

 the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
 in the shadows, unmattering back

 from the particular island
 of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere

 except underfoot, moldering
 in that black subterranean castle

 of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
 and the wanderings of water. This

 I try to remember when time's measure
 painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

 flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
 to stay - how everything lives, shifting

 from one bright vision to another, forever
 in these momentary pastures."

Autumn is a crossroads — both a celebration of what has been & a plunge into the unknown — a dreaming towards newness, not death but transfiguration…. Autumn opens us to questions, more than to answers:

Will the fallen acorn feed a chipmunk and become part of that quick chattering animal life? Will it crack and disintegrate and become part of the rich soil that feeds the forest plants? Will it sprout in the spring? — and will that sprout become a snack for a grateful winter-thin deer or perhaps grow eventually into another wide-branched oak?

Life embraces these changes & shifts in its form as necessary. A reminder to us humans: What needs to be celebrated? Of what must we let go? And how does that relinquishment provide not only space for but also a strengthening of the yet-to-come? How do we step & dream our way into the next seasons of our personal & collective being?

*******

In the studio, too, a pondering of possible configurations — playing with the idea of leaves…. on the branch? around the face? The leaves in the photo are just cut-outs. I need to experiment with different ways to felt interesting leaves. Or — who knows…? No end to the explorations!

3 Old Women

Posted on by
5

A spider has been building orb webs in the upper corner of our porch. (She reminds me of another spider who companioned me at an important juncture — but that’s another story for another time.) I am happy to have her company, for I have been thinking about the Old Woman who, in myth, weaves the world into being and, in times of change, takes out the threads and weaves anew.

This isn’t just because I now am an old woman. I have long been drawn to the Old Weaver & to other manifestations of the Wise Old Woman who appears so often in Story & Myth — fierce, independent, on the edges of society, close to both the natural & the other worlds…

Of course, I knew Her from many of the folk tales of my childhood — not always a wicked witch but sometimes a helper & healer. She truly took root in my imaginal realm when I was an 18-year old freshman in college. Several years ago, I wrote of that memorable encounter, trying to puzzle out why a teenager might have been so permanently imprinted with a positive image of old age & death:

	ANTHRO 101

December, and late afternoon sun
edges wearily through half-basement windows,
into chalk-dusty air redolent of
camphor, ancient leather, and bone in the museum above.
Students scribble in spiral notebooks while
the professor drones on about Arctic cultures.

“Conditions were harsh,” he notes, "but if a woman did grow old,
she might spend her final years commandeering young men 
to take her visiting village to village --- until,
no longer able to sew a seam or spin a tale, 
she walked out onto the sea ice alone.”

As he speaks, an unseen door opens,
caribou-hide covering sweeps aside, and
an old woman enters the room --
hood of her sealskin parka thrown back
to reveal braids gray as late winter ice.
“Who has called me?” she asks.

The professor lectures on without lifting his eyes;
students write, doodle, or doze in their seats.
“Who calls?” she repeats.

	Did I turn a little to the half-heard voice,
	lifting my eyes to meet hers, bright
	and merry amid the wrinkled terrain of age?

For sixty years I have carried her 
-- silent and light as eagle down --
along the northern margins of my mind;
I have pulled her forward as steadily as 
a team of huskies heading for home;
I have nourished her in equal share with everything 
I have hunted for myself.

Of late, we have begun to converse more freely,
to sit and sew and spin stories together.

The ice is melting.
When it is time, where will we go?
                                                          --- MCK

*****

Then, in 1973, in Yugoslavia, I met an old woman as she walked, spinning yarn, along a country road. We talked — with no language in common but lots of gestures & laughter. She couldn’t believe that neither my friend nor I knew how to spin — grown women though we were! Several years later, I found that she, too, had entered my imaginal realm — becoming stronger within me as I learned to spin and weave.

*****

As my 50th birthday approached, the Old Woman moved to the forefront of my imagination. I read myths & stories, getting to now her many ways of being in many different cultures. I looked forward to growing “older & wiser” and began searching diligently for my first gray hairs (which, alas, still haven’t appeared).

About that time, I discovered that the word “Crone” was derived from a older word meaning “a carcass” or “an old & worthless ewe.” I responded by writing a triumphal Crone poem:

CRONE

is my favorite word these days.
Wonderful sound of 

crow:	  old shape-shifter, one-eyed seer into future, or
	          verb of exultation.

drone:	  the steady throb of dulcimer or bagpipe—not melody but
	         the tone that holds it all together.
	
bone:	  the hard, the lasting.

CRONE —	you beautiful word, you have been mistreated,
		manhandled by makers of linguistic lists,

		linked to “carrion: putrefying flesh” or
		“old ewe with broken teeth to be culled from the flock.”

		Why not tied to “chronios: long-lasting” like CRONY?
		Why, old long-time woman—ancient buddy— why not?

You, CRONE, are a feisty fiddle upon which life has been playing
in all tempos, all weathers, for a long long time.
No shiny new penny whistle can sing with such depth.

CRONE, you are ragged and straggled
with elf-locks in the wind
and a belly laugh that sends
muscle-proud lads scurrying for cover.
Old Baubo, you raise your skirts and
show them what they fear.

CRONE, you are as beautiful as the last apple
on the tree in November, the final apple 
in the barrel come March:  No young face holds
such terrible beauty as the face of one who
knows that she knows the truth of her days.

CRONE:	I chant you as mantra,
		I chase your whirlwind,
		I dream hooked beak and vulture wings.

I’m coming, I’m coming—not far behind you.
Save me a place at the old crones’ feast.

*****

The 3rd old woman to take root in my imaginal realm was Jouška, who arrived during a delightful & insightful experimental workshop on “Art & Character” led by the artist Roz Casey . We engaged not only with art-making and writing, but also with some imaginative experiential prompts — for example, walk down a familiar path sensing it in the ways that your character would. As I took my favorite walk through the wooded acres across the road, sensing my surroundings as Jouška might have done, I was amazed how deeply the place and its beings came alive for me. I have always been aware of the natural world, learning from it and sending my love in return for its many gifts — but my habitual awareness felt superficial compared the awareness revealed through Jouška — an old woman living about 1,500 years ago in the depths of the boreal forest of Karelia (home of the Kalevala mythology & now straddling the Finnish/Russian border). This Old Woman continues to walk within and beside me.

Lately I have realized that as I converse now with the Shaman figure, trying to learn who she is & who she wants to be, it is Jouška‘s voice that I hear guiding me. I dug deeper into my stash last week & found more leather and the remnants of a old, old fox-fur hood. I used my old walnut dye to color the wooden base & the leather that covers it. Here is the Shaman in one of her possible be-comings — for she is still and always coming more & more into Being, just as we all are.

As I age, I realize that I have apprenticed myself to these 3 Old Women. They have taught and continue to teach me in so many ways. Learning from them, stepping with them into the Unknown, what shall I discover next?

******

” …. ‘Tell me one thing,’ said the eldest Princess to the Old Woman…, ‘Tell me one thing. Was that you ahead of me on the road, in such a hurry?’

‘There is always an old woman ahead of you on a journey, and there is always an old woman behind you too, and they are not always the same, and may be fearful or kindly, dangerous or delightful, as the road shifts, and you speed along it. Certainly I was ahead of you, and behind you too, but not only I, and not only as I am now.’ ….”

[A.S. Byatt, “The Story of the Eldest Princess,” in The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye]

Wildness: Both Turbulent & Still

Posted on by
5

This week I have been living in two very different but equally Wild places.

Two books I’ve been reading concurrently have tossed me into turbulent cascades of Wild energy:

In The Eye of the Wild, the French anthropologist Nastassja Martin recounts her interaction with a bear — violent on both sides — in the Siberian wilderness of Kamchatka & her struggles to recover and to come to terms with what had happened. Her journey is slow and painful — physically and mentally. Martin has lived with both the Gwich’in people of Alaska & the Even people of Kamchatka — peoples who dwell in areas where climate and culture are undergoing rapid changes. She has been particularly on Animism. Now she must learn for herself what that intimate near-death encounter with a bear meant, how it is to be — as the Even say — medka, half-human/half-bear.

The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir was written by a woman who grew up, amid the violence of Colombia in the 1980s and 90s, in a Mestizo family — a people who experience daily a life of inbetween, being neither fully Indigenous nor fully white. Having a grandfather who was a well-known curandero — a healer knowing the old secrets — Ingrid Rojas Contreras found her family to be set apart in still other ways. As an adult in the U.S., an accident leaves her with an extended bout of amnesia — a condition that, she learns, was experienced by her mother as a child. As she tells of her own experience of amnesia and as she digs deeper into the stories of her family’s past, Rojas Contreras reveals the complex cultural & personal legacies that shape her sense of reality.

Both books are true stories of metamorphosis and becoming, shape-shifting and transformation, stories in which Wild energies are freed & allowed to have their say in the unfolding narratives.

And then, yesterday, Audrey di Mola’s energetic & enlivening retelling of the story of King Arthur, Sir Gawain, and Dame Ragnelle (aka “The Loathly Lady”). Here we meet Ragnelle not merely as some unimaginably ugly hag, but as the feminine embodiment of the Wild & Shape-Shifting natural (more-than-human) world — an energy that demands sovereignty, agency, its own right to choose.

So….. books & story — written and spoken words dancing with and through overwhelming waves of primal energy, swirling movements, volcanic encounters between humans and the Wild.

But also this week, I’ve known many moment of deep Stillness. As T.S. Eliot has written:

"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
 Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
 But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
 Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
 Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
 There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
 I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
 And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
 The inner freedom from the practical desire,
 The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
 And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
 By a grace of sense...."

This Stillness, too, is a doorway to the Wild — Becoming so still that the birds at the feeder ignore my gradual approach. And with the evening deer by the bridge, becoming so still that even my rather excitable & frequently vocal little dog, after one low growl, sat quietly my side while the deer noted our presence but did not startle, cautiously returning to their grazing, then slowly gliding into the band of trees by the creek. This Stillness is a good place — less flamboyant & exuberant than the worlds I glimpsed this week through language & Story, but just as Wild, just as far from the constricting and life-sapping beliefs of the prevailing colonial-consumerist-capitalist-technocratic culture that now dominates more & more of the human world.

My making this week has followed two similar, seemingly divergent paths. On the one hand, the quiet contemplation of various ways to felt a leaf; on the other, a return to a wild making I began and abandoned nearly a dozen years ago:

I’m curious about what energies I will encounter or bring into being next week, about how I will live more & more into the Wildness of this life.

P.S. When my son read my mention of Stillness in the blog this morning, he said it reminded him of something that happened when he was about 10 years old. And oh yes! It is a perfect example of Stillness! He and I were on a rafting trip in southern Utah. The other passengers were a family with two children about his age. When we stopped to camp, the other children spotted small lizards & began trying to catch them. My son just stood still and watched. He was very, very Still…. and soon a little lizard ran up his leg and sat quietly on his shoulder. I remember the lizard staying there for a long long time … but who can discern time in the midst of such Stillness? It was a timeless moment filled with Beauty. My son named the lizard Turquoise. And Turquoise has remained with us.

LIFE IN AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE by Pattiann Rogers.

"It's not only all those cosmic
 pinwheels with their charging solar
 luminosities, the way they spin around
 like the paper kind tacked to a tree trunk,
 the way they expel matter and light
 like fields of dandelions throwing off
 waves of summer sparks in the wind,
 the way they speed outward,
 receding, creating new distances
 simply by soaring into them.

 But it's also how the noisy
 crow enlarges the territory
 above the landscape at dawn, making
 new multiple canyon spires in the sky
 by the sharp towers and ledges
 of its calling; and how the bighorn
 expand the alpine meadow by repeating
 inside their watching eyes every foil
 of columbine and bell rue, all
 the stretches of sedges, the candescences
 of jagged slopes and crevices existing there.

 And though there isn't a method
 to measure it yet, by finding
 a golden-banded skipper on a buttonbush,
 by seeing a blue whiptail streak
 through desert scrub, by looking up
 one night and imagining the fleeing
 motions of stars themselves, I know
 my presence must swell one flutter-width
 wider, accelerate one lizard-slip farther,
 descend many stellar-fathoms deeper
 than it ever was before."

Beyond Adventure

Posted on by
10

Again and again I am amazed by the world’s beauty — this week, this day — and every week, every day.

Since I last wrote to you — Deer. Once 2 does & 3 fawns grazing just outside our backdoor. Another time, 7 or 8 deer grazing on a nearby hill. Wary of our presence, they moved back towards the woods — the does hurrying a bit with an air of concern but their fawns leaping & leaping, obviously delighting in the recently discovered magic of muscles, sinew and bones. And I, too, enchanted, delighted by their delight.

I put up 2 bird feeders behind the house & soon the birds began to come. First, one female hummingbird and then at least one other have become frequent visitors to the nectar. Then other feeder — chickadees, goldfinches, titmice, and some sort of sparrow-like bird with a lovely rusty-rose breast. More magic as they perch on the feeder & then flit off into the trees and out of my sight.

On Tuesday we had just begun to eat dinner in the communal courtyard when a welcome rainstorm sent us back inside. Just as we got up to go out afterwards, I saw sunlight slanting through from the west, washing the tops of the buildings with gold. Stepping through the door, we were astonished by a beautiful double rainbow. What a gift! The 4 of us just came to a standstill. Colors so strong & vibrant [unlike those in these photos]! We gawked and marveled at the magic. I felt drenched through and through by the liquid colors & light. I didn’t even think of putting a lens between my eye & such glory. Cris did take a picture, so I can share it with you. Let your imagination fill in the colors & light that the lens could not capture. When we’d walked home, I did want to take an image of the rainbow with The Tree, but by then the inner rainbow was fading & the outer one dimmed to a glimmer so faint that I would have missed it if I hadn’t known it was there.

But isn’t its very evanescence part of the magical beauty of a rainbow? Its appearance and disappearance as light & moisture & our perspectives change…

I love the way something can flicker in & out of the range of my senses — rainbows, leaping deer, birds alighting then gone in a moment. None of this beauty can be captured or contained. Like the big spiderweb that appeared one morning in the corner of our back porch: I was standing there, just loving The Tree and the woods (full of their own invisible-to-me treasures), when something flickered in the corner of my vision. I turned to see, but there was nothing…….until…..it came again….and again…and I finally spotted a big spiderweb billowing in & out as the morning air currents moved it. Invisible, visible, then gone again, then back in a different configuration of glints. I tried to take a picture but was defeated by the ephemeral nature of the interaction — which was exactly what had taken my breath away & held me immobile for a long time. Not just the web but the dance….

Hummingbird wings, dancing deer, a brief flash of silk, colors across the sky — Elusive but not illusory, something moving that cannot be captured — or, if captured, would become something else entirely — no longer wild, a bird in a cage. Who knows? Maybe that’s one of the characteristics that draws me towards Trickster.

So much to love….

And then, the last day or so, some fibers and my hands beginning to converse… For several weeks I’ve been dwelling with green wools & silks — looking, touching, knowing them to be perfect just as they are. My hands wanted to interact with them, but…. The loose swoops of green in so many shades seemed to call for the open-ended possibilities of felting. At the same time I knew that, after the chaos of the last month, my spirit longed for a safe container in which to rest, a form, a focus. I finally found a sort of compromise. I’ve submitted myself to the gentle limits imposed by loom and warp, but left the weft fibers free, combed but unspun, unbound fibers sliding deliciously through my fingers and through the warp. I’m enjoying both the lively give & take of the conversation and the comforting over/under rhythm, both a sense of freedom and the focus I’ve craved. After a long pause, stepping over the threshold into the Unknown…. It just makes me happy!

And last, but by no means least, I’d like to thank you all for reading these posts — for just being there and for so often enriching them with comments & reflections of your own. It is one thing to toss words off into the Unknown and yet another to hear that some have landed, have been heard. It seems that the true creativity resides neither in the making nor in the seeing/reading/listening, but in that indefinable interaction where the two meet. 

As water flows in when a well is dug,
as breath becomes song when the flute is carved,
I lay my words in the nests you have made
of your patiently listening hearts.

Do you feel it?
Love is pecking from the inside out.
Shells are cracking open.
Look!  We all
are growing wings.  

                                                ~~~~ With gratitude, Margery

Pondering the Imponderable

Posted on by
5

I hope you’ve all taken time to read the beautiful Comments that were sent in response to last week’s post — all of us moving together, groping towards new understandings. Much to ponder…..

When I try to address the Imponderable, I inevitably call forth too many words. Perhaps this is a hangover from too much academic writing. Perhaps I am just trying to dodge the truth, to fill the sacred Silence that the Imponderable demands. You can, if you like, read on to hear my current ramblings — my turning round & round and flailing about like a person lost in the woods at night — or you can stop here with this simple poem by David Whyte, which says it all so beautifully: 

"Enough. These few words are enough.
 If not these words, this breath.
 If not this breath, this sitting here.

 This opening to the life
 we have refused
 again and again until now.

 Until now."

*******

For a long time — no doubt because of situations both global & personal — I’ve been thinking about action, about how I might choose to step into the Unknown of any particular moment. First, by waking up & looking at where I am — where we are — actually standing at this particular moment, noticing both the amazing details and the larger patterns that sometimes seem to shift & change like a kaleidoscope…. Then, by taking that next step and once again pausing, noticing….

It’s all about Movement — the condition of the Cosmos, of Life.

The Unknown, like Life, should really be verb, not a noun. Modern English seems to act as a noun-based language — focusing on the separation of things rather than relationship, movement, interaction. Sometimes we need a new kind of language….

The Cosmos and all it encompasses are Emergent Processes — unfolding, interacting, evolving. The idea of an established “normal” — whether macro or micro — is a human illusion. We are part of continuous & multifaceted movements, whether we notice or not. When we try to grasp & cling to what has always seemed “normal” to us — with our limited, human-shaped sense of time — we are trying to fight the inevitable. If there is no change, there is no life.

I love the metaphor of the butterfly whose flapping wings create a hurricane on the other side of the world. Certainly, every time we move (and that includes just sitting & breathing), we change the world around us and — because we are inextricably woven into the whole — the world changes us too. For example, I am sitting by a campfire…I shift my position slightly…I inhale a lungful of dense smoke, and I begin to cough loudly which frightens a deer who runs onto the highway and …. We can spin out that story of the deer’s fright (as storytellers love to do) in directions which could lead to many different consequences — perhaps to owl’s failure to catch the rabbit he’d spotted, to the feeding of a hungry human family, or to a car crash that changes in the course of human civilization, or perhaps to nothing so directly noticeable. Whatever the case, there will be changes, spreading out through space & time in ways we’ll never fully know.

When I was young, I didn’t think a lot about “Adventure” or the Unknown;” I simply plunged in & thrived on them. I was privileged to spend high school summer volunteering on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana where I was introduced to both sharp poverty & rich cultural inheritance. A few years later, I was lucky to get a grant that let me spend a college summer studying baboons & simply learning to be present with the animals of the vast West African savanna, dwelling for awhile in a place beyond language. Then, after a heartbreaking rift of relationship (which I certainly did not experience as an “adventure”!), I took a trip — which coincided exactly with both my bank account & my vacation time — to the Central Sahara where I encountered for the first time many landscapes, peoples, ways of being, and the magical ancient galleries of rock painting high on the Tassili plateau. Having rediscovered the larger world, I looked for a job in Africa & ended teaching in Libya — arriving just before the revolution/coup that set up Gaddafi as dictator — and staying for 5 years. Many Adventures …. always changing, growing, learning — sometimes quickly, sometimes painfully, sometimes only in retrospect — through trial & error & often “dumb luck.”

In recent years I have been trying to approach personal changes in that same spirit of active curiosity. My mantras have been “It’s all an Adventure!” & a rather wry “All shall be revealed!” — meaning only that we’ll know what will happen next when the next thing happens. Our move to the farm & life with llamas was obviously an Adventure. I was sorry in many ways to have that come to a close so, when it was time to move to Greensboro & closer to hospitals and other help “just in case,” I told myself we were starting our “Urban Adventure.” Then, quick on the heels of that move, the 5-minute trip to a hospital ceased to be a hypothetical convenience & became central when I had cardiac surgery to repair a valve — a “Medical Adventure.” Now our move into a Quaker continuing care situation, about which I’ve been at times very conflicted, is proving to be a new kind of “Community Adventure” — filled with both “Not Knowing” (as described by Marti in her comment), which requires my focused research & specific learning AND also with “Unknowing,” which can only be known by plunging in. It is an Adventure!

But not all Adventures are — like most of those I’ve described — chosen. I’m thinking of hungry folks who walk through drought-stricken fields, of the streams of refugees around the world, of Ukrainians & Syrians & Palestinians & the many others whose lives are encompassed and upended by war…. How can they possibly view their daily scramble for existence as an “adventure”?

I know I am thinking of “Adventure” from a very privileged place.

Global climate change and other human actions are destroying and shifting the nature of beloved landscapes & species. Extreme authoritarian forces are threatening the democratic movements towards freedom and equality which I’ve witnessed — little by little — throughout my life & which I had expected would always keep moving — however slowly — more and more towards true justice. We find ourselves in the midst of dangerous changes on all fronts, deeply grieving the mayhem and destruction and fearing what may come.

I wonder if it is simply arrogant to try to view all this & what is still to come as “Adventure”?

How I wish there were a clearly marked path forward from Here to a truly better There! But as Antonio Machado cannot remind me often enough:

"Traveler, your footprints
 Are the path and nothing more;
 Traveler, there is no path,
 The path is made by walking.
 By walking the path is made
 And when you look back
 You’ll see a road
 Never to be trodden again.
 Traveler, there is no path,
 Only trails across the sea...."

If I am making my path — which is mine to choose — I’d better get started walking with more conscious awareness of each step & more openness to the Unknown, no matter how scary. How many times in the past have I let fears or ambivalence or sorrow bring me to a screaming halt?! In stepping out into the role of workshop & retreat leader and especially in starting this blog, I’ve become aware of how much growth can be found & how very much stifled and bound energy can be liberated with just another step into the Unknown.

*******

I’ve just started reading Estelle Frankel’s book The Wisdom of Not Knowing: Discovering a Life of Wonder by Embracing Uncertainty. In the Introduction, she says:

“Without what I call the ‘wisdom of not knowing,’ it is difficult to leave the safe harbor of the known for the vast, unpredictable sea of growth and change. Certainty may calm our anxious spirits, but it closes the door on possibility. Moreover, when the known overshadows the unknown, we forsake our infinite life for a counterfeit, finite existence.“

(emphasis added)

*******

So what kind of existence do I choose? What might happen if, when contemplating global situations, I spent less energy on fear & lamentation and more on living/participating fully in the world as it is in its actual becomings, however painful? If I name what is happening not as Doom but as Adventure, can I free up more energy to heal wounds & mitigate the damage inflicted by myself & others? Can I learn how to be a blessing that enlivens the situations & beings I meet rather than a force that destroys?

What if, rather than hoping for a magic silver bullet to “fix” things, more of us found our Hope in the possibilities that reside within the Unknown? In any case, my Curiosity keeps me plodding ahead, asking questions, looking around to find out what might be. The Changes we’ve feared have already begun. How then shall we live in a good way?

*******

I believe I’ve shared this poem with you before, but it speaks to much of what I’ve been struggling to say:

Another World is Possible

by Rose Flint

We can dream it in, with our eyes
Open to this Beauty, to all
That Earth gives each of us, each day
Those miracles of dark and light–
Rainlight, dawn, sun moon, snow, storm grey
And the wide fields of night always
Somewhere opening their flower
stars – this, this! Another world is

possible. With river and bird
Sweet and free without fear, without
minds blind to harmony, to how
We can hold. We have been too long
Spoiled greedy children of Earth, life of rocks and creatures
Slipping out of our careless hands.
We must stand now and learn to love
As a Mother loves her child, each
cell of her, each grain of her, each
precious heartbeat of her that is
Ourselves, our path and our journey
Into our dream of future, where
another world is possible
cradling this one its arms.

*******

And, in my studio, I’m still hanging out with Green, and more Green — pausing to see where I am and what is here before taking that next great step into the Unknown. I am grateful for the Green & Healing Spirits of Willow who companion me.