I Am Thankful. . .

for the bountiful beauty all around, the peace and warmth of our home with our fellow furry beings, for friends---old and new---my heart's full to bursting.

In the Company of Women

Having grown up in the South with only an older brother (no sisters), and relating more to my father than my mother, in general I've seemed to look up to men more than women for much of my life. As a pre-adolescent, I hung out with my younger male cousins, leading them into the dense pine woods "in the back" and proving to them (and myself) that I could find a way out again. In high school, I admired and looked up to my brother and his musician friends (and even married two of them).

Conversely, I looked at (and experienced) most women as shallow, interested only in the trivialities of appearance, in vicious gossip or fundamentalist Christianity, or in out-doing other women somehow, whether in gaining power in the workplace (and working head-to-head with paternalistic men) or in their homes, bragging on how they manipulate their husbands.

In this transitional time for me, now that I'm living in the Northwest and have retired from full-time work, I realize that in the fifty-four years I lived in the South, I formed only one long-term friendship with a woman whom I continue to stay connected with on any deeper level. Yet in the year and a half I've lived here, I've met and befriended (and continue to meet) several women of different ages who are willing and eager to connect at a level I never expected possible for me to enjoy----without competition, supporting and reveling in our differences and various talents and gifts.

What an unexpected pleasure it is to be in the company of women and to love it so.

Remembering Dreaming

Dreams have fascinated me for as long as I can remember, so reading Jane's piece about dreams inspired me to take her advice and simply ask to remember my dreams (since remembering them has been a problem lately). Raised on Southern Baptist teachings, the biblical "Ask and ye shall receive" seems natural enough (though I've long since left behind the patriarchal religion), but I'm amazed at how often I don't allow myself to ask for what I need, even when all that is required is for me to personally address that entity, to treat her with respect, and acknowledge her mystery and power.

And what do you know. . . I've been remembering my dreams again, busily scribbling down their essence before fully waking each morning. Somehow this ritual makes me feel more whole, less hurried, and more attuned to the beauty of life. And I am grateful.

Sometimes I have "movie dreams" in which I'm not really a part of the dream but am merely an observer----and elaborate, often beautiful stories develop. Though I have my own examples, I'll refer you to a fascinating one recorded beautifully here by my dearest friend Anita.

Even my little Corgis seem to enjoy their dreams, their short legs twitching as they breathe heavily and irregularly, eyes rolled back in their heads. I remember visiting a friend once who had an Irish setter that apparently dreamed of running after some delectable prey while my friend prompted him on by whispering "Get him, Aesop; get him!" and the dog's legs, no longer relaxed though he was still asleep, would begin to move in unison, faster and faster, as if he were really carrying his body through that field of dreams.

And who is to say that our spirits aren't really visiting these places we dream of, that my father, dead these past four years, wasn't really communicating with me this morning as he pointed out to me the little squirrel turning and turning an acorn in his paws, and I showed him the blue jay perched in plain view.

Mill Creek Trail, Jedediah Smith State Park

Mill Creek ripples over smooth stones with the gentle sound of applause from a distance, fall leaves drifting by in its clear water, sun breaking through clouds as I stopped to look up, to breathe deeply the cool fall air, recently rain-washed clear of the dry season's dust.

The irony that such a lovely body of water would be named "Mill Creek"----which speaks of man's belief that a creek is not an entity in itself so much as a thing to use----is just another reminder of how fortunate we are that this paradise was allowed to remain despite civilization's hunger for turning nature into man's designs.

Fear

Reading Resolute's piece on fear on the Anima website reminds me of how often fear has surrounded my life, constricted it in ways I have tried to ignore rather than face.

When I was a child I was so afraid of the dark, I'd lie in bed with the covers pulled over my head, trying not to breathe deeply, watching to see whether the covers moved when I took my shallow breaths, imagining something or someone looking at the bed and deciding that it was empty and thus moving on, leaving me alone, which was all I desired, I thought----to be left alone.

I lost this particular fear at some point but gained a whole slough of others, it seems, as I matured and came to see myself as somehow "different" and thus in need of hiding again----because how could I allow others to see what I really thought, that school was boring and pointless, that I had no true friends, that my parents didn't really care about me, that the world of so-called "normal" people seemed alien to me and I had no idea how or whether I even wanted to fit in.

And so, it seems, I've tried to do essentially the same childish thing again and again in my life, to figuratively hold my breath and remain unseen as I negotiated the world of school, marriages, family, work----hiding from others, and as it turns out, from myself.

The most pleasant release from this fear that I learned when I was young was through music, reading, and being in nature, all of which continue to soothe my fears, but it seems their release must come from more concentrated efforts that require me to be patient with their revealing themselves over time---- these layers and layers of suffocating blankets I'd come to hide under----peeling them off, one by one, and shaking myself free.

Red Rock

Last week I drove with a friend over 3,000 miles on a (round) trip down to Taos, New Mexico, to participate in a writing workshop given by Natalie Goldberg, whose books WRITING DOWN THE BONES and WILD MIND continue to inspire new and experienced writers alike. As with any organized event, one can easily find fault, which I did, but after another day passed, I could feel what I'd learned begin to register in my body and mind, and I'm grateful for having gone, in spite of my disappointments.

All along the way, driving through such dramatically different country, I felt tugged and pulled to stop (which I had no time to do), to touch the ground, to linger and appreciate the beauty of the place. What torture it is to speed through nature. We did pause in our trip for a couple of hours at the Arches National Park, though, where monolithic sculptures stand as fabulous testaments to the passage of time and the wearing of wind and sand.













Another briefer stop was at the Earthships community, where we toured through one of the off-the-grid houses. Though I wouldn't want to live there---not enough trees, and the water supply is too limited---I would love to one day build one of these houses. The sloping, rounded edges of their colored-glass-studded interiors appeal to me, as do, of course, their energy efficiency, sustainability, and independence. What fun to use cast-off material to create such a lovely home, partially submerged and nestled into Earth as insulation and comfort.

WATER

Set in 1936 India, the film WATER explores the lives of widows, another horrid story of female oppression. I hadn't known about this tradition but it reminded me again of humans' darkest side, our ability to shut out others based on sex. And so I sobbed through this film before walking over to my neighbor's for a little visit, and she sent me home with an antidote, another movie titled KINKY BOOTS with a very similar theme, actually, though this time with a cross-dressing man in London as a central character and a more cheerful ending. Only now did the similarity between the two films strike me.

Which, I suppose, takes me to the value of writing (which I have a regular argument within myself about).

I'm a huge fan of Derrick Jensen's writing because he has broken through so many taboos about what can be written about (and writes with such courage about aspects of his own life), which has literally saved my life before because I can relate to his descriptions of how civilization silences us on so many levels.

I attended a conference recently where a great many brilliant, mostly younger (around my daughter's age) people met to talk about the era we're in----I'll use the title of a Jensen book to describe it----ENDGAME-----and how best to be the activists and proponents for Earth (as opposed to civilization).

Of course everyone at first acknowledged the elephant in the room, and then proceeded to speak the veiled language one must use when one must be super sensitive to how that language could be interpreted by someone unfriendly to one's causes. This lent an air of unreality to the entire scene that made me feel as if I were, indeed, playing a game, while at the same time knowing it wasn't.

And so, it was difficult for me to maintain focus on the tasks at hand because I wanted to discuss the "meta-" characteristics (i.e., situated behind or beyond; more comprehensive: transcending—usually used with the name of a discipline to designate a new but related discipline designed to deal critically with the original one) of what I observed at the event and of civilization in general, which is one of Jensen's themes that most interests me, how people are silenced, how we learn to self-censor. To quote from A LANGUAGE OLDER THAN WORDS, "Underlying the different forms of coercison is a unifying factor: silence" (p. 263). Also, a bit further on, he states that "in order to maintain our current mode of being, we must ignore a tremendous amount of information" (p. 303). And, of course, "to ignore" is to repress, to silence. I'd jotted down this additional quote (and I may have truncated it) but don't know which Jensen text I took it from: "Abusive systems (whether personal or political) work best when the victims police themselves (through internalizing their helplessness in the face of 'invincible abusers')."

And so, I overheard in a nearby group one young woman wearing dark sunglasses in this bright room say, "I'm a hermit; I'm very shy; this is hard for me," and I could only praise her in my mind for being so brave in coming to the event, but I wondered whether she'd find what she was seeking----a relief from silence.

My own experience in one of the groups was more silencing----someone who said that the "personal" should be withheld and instead the political task at hand, a prompt, should be the focus of the discussion.

That's what made me realize I was in the wrong place for what I desired----there wasn't enough room for me to dip water from this stream. I see most things as personal (and definitely value the personal over the political). After all, without people who feel connected and trusting of one another, how far can the political take us?

Tolowa Dunes

The Tolowa lived in this northern California paradise a long time before any pale European faces showed up with their conquering mentality and muskets. Walking through sandy-soil pastureland through patches of shady spruce on to the rolling sand dunes that finally lead to the ocean feels as if you're walking back to a simpler time, when plants spoke as clearly to you as the birds. The St. George Reef Lighthouse is visible from afar, a foggy reminder of men who wish to point the way.

Transported by Music

Not Posting for Now

Sometimes it's enough to be silent, watch the garden grow, and now, begin to wither in its time.

Soaking up the sun of a bright fall day is preferable to the glare of a computer screen.

Events, visitors, and travels fill this month's and part of next month's calendar pages, welcome in their odd converging during this harvest time.

To any reader(s) out there, I'll be back!

Thinking about Tolle

I'm reading Eckhardt Tolle's A NEW EARTH and also watched his DVD "meditation" in which he mentions something I wasn't aware of because I don't watch much TV nor do I keep up with popular news except when I'm reading magazine covers in the grocery line----that Opra featured his book a couple of years ago, apparently, and he is (or perhaps was, as such phenomena go) quite the rage. That in itself would have been enough to keep me away from him (since I am dubious about anything that masses of people go in for), but, as I mentioned, I was unaware of all of this when I bought his book for its subtitle (Finding Your Life's Purpose) in an airport bookstore.

What is his message's appeal? Learning to separate oneself (one's ego) from one's "stories," reminds me of my own youthful efforts (inspired by Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda's fictions that I consumed earnestly at the time) to not identify too closely with the language that builds up in our heads nor in that of others about who we "are" or even who we are not, which can be an equally appealing stance, making us feel strong and powerful in our fist-raising against the "majority" or some other group perpetrating what we perceive as wrong.

Yet Tolle reminds us to get out of our stories and to live in the present moment, to BE. Stop the incessant talking in our heads, the repetitious droning, and notice what is here, now. Experience it fully, bodily. Breathe deeply. Be open to possibility (rather than always defining it and thereby limiting it). Release yourself from the illusion that you have a future (since one can only truly experience the present; even when one remembers a past event, its memory is re-envisioned, and changed, in one's present mind).

I don't think it's "transcendence" he's proposing but total being, unless you understand his recommendation to release yourself from the mind's chatter as "transcending" the mind. He mentions four primary states-----sleep, dreaming, normal awareness (in which we are thinking and telling stories), and this state of more-than-awareness. This state is similar to that of an infant or of an animal who appears to be entirely present and unjudgmental, yet since it is accomplished by one who is learning to silence the endless mental storytelling, it's different from those who do not have words (and different from those who are ill, suffering from dementia and stranded in an eternal present moment filled with confusing pieces of stories, swirling incomprehensibly).

And I can't imagine that he proposes we remain in such a state, only that we are able to achieve it, to add this dimension of being to our awareness and to experience its many benefits to ourselves and to others.

Clearing

Clearing away clutter in our study this morning, I came across a packet of old photographs and report cards my mother had given me some time ago, and discovered one of my favorites among them.






















The excitement I felt as a brave four-year-old climbing atop a pony for the first time I can feel even now, fifty-one years later. How many suburban children of my generation knew this pleasure, made more real in its photographic commemoration?

Seeing our yard in Baton Rouge also brings back vivid memories of going outside to play in the morning, returning at lunch for fuel, and eagerly zipping back outside to play some more, digging with a spoon in dirt, making mudpies, exploring the ditches for tadpoles and frogs, stirring the street's hot asphalt bubbles with a stick, running back to the house to plead for a nickel to buy ice cream from the passing musical truck, tagging along with my older brother, observing his games with his friends. We didn't have television yet.

My mother sometimes caught me after lunch, made me lie down to nap, and I can remember measuring my breath against hers, watching her fingers tap out (seemingly unconsciously) piano tunes on the bedspread, her eyes shut, wondering how I could possibly sleep, with Mother saying "Just be still for a while," and then finally taking her advice and falling into a slumber, riding into the sunset on my painted pony.

Sinkyone Wilderness

A friend and I drove down to the Sinkyone Wilderness, about four hours from here, in Mendicino County, California, a lovely place to hike, with elk roaming about but no bears, only marauding chipmunks that chewed up part of a peach we left out on our picnic table. The herd is seen here at dusk, bedding down. After clicking on the photo to enlarge it, notice the nursery of small ears in a grouping, and then some adolescent ones in another huddle.






This is the vast view beyond the herd.













And here's a proud male, looking quite ridiculous to me, but clearly feeling powerful and bold in his leafy headdress, which he hopes will catch some strong female's eye. . .














The visitors' center there, where friends are hosts for a while this summer, is named for Needle Rock.

















Part of me likes to see nature consuming industrial remains, another part feels this poor tree must have indigestion.

Movie-Watching Again

MRS. PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT is a rich, beautiful film, full of the sadness of a life lived fully yet coming to its end, in contrast with that of a young person trying to find a way to live. (It's based on a novel by British author Elizabeth Taylor, which I've not read but plan to.)

I'm at the odd mid-point in life ("odd" only because I'm in it and if we pretend for a moment to view it linearly with an assumed quota of years), a tipping point of sorts, moments of youthful yearnings juxtaposed with longer periods of dealing with my own demise, and so this movie made me tearful as I considered the poignancy of the unexpected and undeserved generosity of relative strangers.

Who ever thinks of strangers as generous. Instead, people tend to fear those they don't know, ever believing the weird media accounts to be indicative of the entirety of humanity (except ourselves, of course). When a kindness is shown, it's inspiring to us all.

Addicts of Ideas

To continue my thinking on When enough is enough, I'm aware that our consumer-culture encourages, first, our identification with THINGS in order to keep us buying them, of course, but it also has commodified ideas, so that people identify with their collections of ideas, of how much they perceive they know, of how many diplomas they have displayed on their office walls, of the lists of books they've read, music they know. . . all of which is ego-driven behavior, designed to have us identify with this fiction we create called "I." And, of course, the creation must be ongoing, so that one NEVER has "enough" of anything, and the comparisons and competition are neverending. Perhaps this is one reason the proliferation of easily-accessed information via the Internet is so popular. One feels powerful to be in control of so much knowledge, as if the person who accesses it has somehow internalized it, has become this wealth of information, and thus is also powerful.

How good it feels to step outside of this ever-striving behavior, to simply BE and enjoy our lives.

And how much better life could be if more people would step outside of their little self-creations they tend so carefully and take long walks in the woods, wearing paths of care and observation into the thickets, clearing their minds of the brambles and briars of ego, taking adventures into the unknown moment.

A Daily Dose of Beauty

In Wolf Hardin's latest essay, Nonsensical Economy & Champion Greenbacks, he states that

I believe I’d really have enjoyed being alive at an earlier date when both words and money were spent carefully, when meaningful conversation was of more importance than accumulation, when free time for having fun was seen as more valuable than owning more toys, when a good friend was considered worth more than a thousand investors, love more precious than gold and one’s word more bankable than a lawyer-penned contract.

Some of us try to live our lives honoring these values today, but it's true that our culture in general doesn't encourage our doing so, instead pressuring us on all sides to live our lives as shallowly and fleetingly as possible, paying more attention to things than to our loved ones or our own welfare or the source of all we are, Earth and Spirit. Yet people like to rebel against the expected, no matter their age, so maybe in such a spirit more and more will begin to raise their fists against this kind of wasteful, thoughtless living, to take time to connect with others beyond the surface, and to create meaning and beauty in their daily lives. Though it may not change the world, it will make our own lives more pleasant, and it can't hurt!

Enough

We modern folk often create goals as merely shiny gold stars to mark our "progress" in life, when all we are really doing is collecting marks on a page, forgetting to notice the day-to-day beauty and meaning in our lives, and instead continually focusing on what's next.

As a young child, I remember loving the unexpected, but I didn't think I always needed to orchestrate it, I simply needed to be open to it. I played outside, poking around with a stick, turning over leaves, digging in dirt, discovering delight in what some might call the ordinary.

After starting school and becoming more enculturated, I came to realize that this sort of piddling play isn't valued much. To make "progress," I had to have something to show for it. Thus, the question formed and has been repeated over and over again in my life and in ripples throughout our culture: When is enough, ENOUGH?

Such a Relief

All this hoopla about my health has been suddenly released by one telephone call from my doctor, telling me to celebrate; I'm fine.

So now these pains I have are just that, not some indication of impending doom, but merely the aches and pains of a woman who is aging normally, dying slowly, as we all are.

I took our two dogs for a long walk to the ocean this morning, sat to watch the waves, listen to the sea lions barking, hitch my sight on soaring sea gulls. Later, Jon and I picnicked in our back yard and I took a nap in the hammock while he worked on a redwood carving of a whale.

I'm no longer waiting.

Waiting Again

No number of lists can make someone who is depressed care a whit whether anything is ticked off or not.

At the small hospital yesterday where a radiologist did a needle location procedure on my breast, inserting a long needle with a wire into it, then taking two mammograms, looking at them, and coming back four times to readjust the needle and take two more mammograms (and then, because my head was in the way for one and the technician forgot to put in film for another, re-take two of those eight (?) mammograms----I began to lose count), I finally was wheeled in to have the incisional biopsy done, which at that point, I looked forward to because I felt absolutely traumatized by all that squeezing and needling. Think of it. Just a mammogram is bad enough (especially if your breast is tender, anyway), but with a needle poking out in addition to that? Torture. The only way I could deal with it was to keep focused away from what was happening, to basically give up my body to the two nurses and the doctor who came in and out after studying the location of the needle on the film. His aim was finally perfect, as he showed me the image of the needle just touching the little wire marker that'd been left there from an earlier procedure, and he then injected some blue dye to guide the surgeon's blade. At no time did I dwell on the fact that this is MY BREAST with a needle in it they're looking at. I actually told the doctor that it looked perfect. It all seemed rather absurd.

In the times I've been anaesthetized, I always like to try to anticipate when I'll "go under" before the weird waking up (which seems like moments later) in the recovery room. It never fails that I think it's not going to work, that they'll begin cutting on me and I'll still be awake, but then----I'm gone. All I remembered this time after that initial doubt is my thought (upon being rudly awakened by a nurse calling my name) that I was in a huge blue field.

The dreaded procedure is behind me, so now I'm waiting for the results, which I should know sometime next week.

Don't Worry; Have a Cup of Tea

In the novel INTO THE FOREST by Jean Hegland, two young sisters who are the primary characters finally begin to explore, collect, and use wild foods after civilization has collapsed. Depressed at her accurate depictions of human nature, I'd put the novel down for a while. Hegland portrays a world not very different from the one where we live, and when the sisters had finally used their last tea bag and began drinking merely hot water with the dust of tea leaves from the bottom of a box, I'm internally screaming at them to go outside and pick some blackberry leaves for tea, until finally, which is what kept me reading, they begin to open up to the wealth of what nature can offer. They didn't hear me screaming, though; it was a book of their mother's that saved them.

The more I learn about how much industrialization has poisoned our food and air and water, the more sad I become. I watched a PBS piece recently on honey bees' demise, and learned that if the current trend continues, in only 25 years or so there will be NO bees. . . no pollination of over half of the flowers that produce the wealth of fruits and vegetables we enjoy. . . no honey. . . no beautiful bees.

Bruce Cockburn expresses my sadness in the most poignant song, "The Beautiful Creatures Are Going Away." I cry every time I listen to it and feel absolutely powerless.

Indian Pipe

Our dear friends who were here visiting with us last week after having driven all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, hiked with us in the forest, and Tom spotted and identified this little native wildflower, Indian Pipe (also known as Corpse Plant), which doesn't contain chlorophyll, as you can see, but is instead a parasite. I may not have noticed it on my own, even though it's one of the many wildflowers pictured on the poster hanging near me now, "Wildflowers of the Redwood Forest," because most of the ones we saw were beneath the redwood sorrel, hiding their little piped bodies in the cool darkness like tiny plant-vampires, pale and fragile-looking.

Having moved here from my native South a year ago now, I realized how much more grounded I felt when our friends were here with us, and how often I've felt as if I'm floating here. But more and more, Jon and I are sending our own shoots out and down, stabilizing ourselves in the forests and on the Pacific beaches here, in our little gardens by our house, getting to know the names of our neighbors and plants, weaving our own webs of stability we call home.

Waiting

I've never been a patient person, and waiting for anything can be excruciating. Yet waiting for something painful, for a medical procedure that has the potential to reveal that I'm another number added to a horrendous statistic (close to 20,000 women in California are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, and 1 in 9 Caucasian women will develop breast cancer during their lifetimes) seems almost impossible to bear at times, yet my fear increases as the day of reckoning approaches. I've "dodged this bullet" before, ten years ago, and now I struggle not to apply yet another cliché superstition to my own life----that my "luck may have run out."

Of course, it has nothing to do with luck. I'm older and have been exposed to dioxin (along with every other person on Earth) and a long list of other poisons for longer. After all, I lived in "Cancer Alley" down in Louisiana for most of my life. What should I expect.

So I've been watching documentaries (THE CORPORATION, which I highly recommend, and THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON, on an interesting musician) and science fiction (KNOWING, predictable, but it kept my attention)----trying to keep my mind off of worry, of fear.

Distractions are what we turn to when we can no longer control our feelings.

Ahhh, Music

Ecstatic music by Andrew Bird

The Discipline of Doing

Sometimes pushing oneself to do what one believes is best can become an internal battle, the voices arguing for so long that time passes, and the deeds go undone, regardless. We have so many choices to make in our lives----the primary ones, I believe, being how to spend this moment and upon whom (or with whom).

Dividing our time to spend on what we desire to do and on what we need to do in order to feel balanced is essential, yet how often do I just let my feelings hold sway on my days. Somedays I'm like a blind person, listening, listening to my body, wondering what I feel like doing, examining my feelings like fingers over corduroy, then getting mesmerized with the process, losing all sense of time, and finding the hours to act have passed.

So. . . do I plan my days, schedule them tightly, and act upon them, regardless of my feelings? Of course, I do plan larger events----travel, events like music festivals and writing conferences, hiking.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to reading, writing, exercising, gardening, the myriad hobbies that we wish to pursue-----in addition to most folks' need to earn "a living" (i.e., pay the doctor bills, put food on the table, repair the roof or pay rent).

How do we ensure our lives are a balance of desires and necessities? Is it merely good planning? Somehow creating a schedule for everything I want to do doesn't seem right, yet how else can we accomplish that which we desire?

Signs

Our friends took us for a long hike yesterday, a hike with a destination----a place known as "Dr. Rock." The modern-sounding name is actually a sacred site to the Yuroks, who make a twice-a-year pilgrimage to the place to experience its power and conduct their rituals. I know little more than this, which made me nervous enough about going, since I'm sensitive (not that my friends are not) to other culture's holy places and didn't want to feel I was defiling it unwittingly by going there.

On the winding road we drove to get to the trail, Jon suddenly said "Did you see that snake?" and our friend stopped the car and backed up a bit. We all got out to watch a five-foot-long rattler, his little package held high, accompanying his slithering fat body across the road with its constant percussion, sending a chill through me, while Jon walked closer, stick in hand, to observe.

I wondered whether this was some kind of warning to us not to approach any closer and fully expected to see other snakes on the trail, as that has been my experience. It seems that because I have such a fear of snakes, they are put in my path and in my dreams at every turn. Yet I do have a fascination with them, too, and have forced myself to touch the nonpoisonous ones and have even held a boa constrictor before.

When we finally arrived at the huge rock, we sat on a ledge, looking down into the crevasse where Yuroks camp and cook, felt the power of the place, honored it as best we knew, with silence, with a prayer and a response from another percussionist----some kind of unseen insect that clicked its legs or wings noisily----before taking the long, hot hike back.

Herbing

I like the idea of herbs as plant allies. That plants feel us (as we do them) and wish to be helpful to us, too, is encouraging.

Sunday, over sixty folks from our small community showed up for a talk and walk with a local herbalist, which surprised me and delighted the sponsors, who naturally profess a desire for everyone to be knowledgable about the plants that live here. I selfishly find larger groups of people draining after a short while, but if I can stand off at the edges, I'm better.

Being in large groups of people brings out my desire to be separate, and I often start feeling depressed because I'm reminded of how overpopulated our world is becoming. I also started picturing hoards of people marauding the local fields, pulling at plants and stuffing them in their mouths like voracious cows.

Okay, okay. . . I know it's an exaggeration.

As a child in Louisiana, my grandmother taught me the names of our plants, but as a newcomer to Northern California, it's younger folk who're teaching me the names of herbs that proliferate here.

Learning herbs and their uses is a wonderful addition to the bumper-sticker admonition to "think globally, act locally." I'd like to see another sticker that says "Be kind to plants; they're people, too."

Self-Heal

Seeing this lovely flower in our yard, I was reminded of bee balm's flower and thought it must be some sort of herb, so the quest was on. What is its name? I asked some old-timers at the Fourth of July parade, and they agreed that it's self-heal, also known as heal-all.

How much better (in the language of medicinal herbs, that is) can it get?

After sitting with it (á la Jane) in our sunny front yard yesterday, I found it to be a twisty little plant, as I had to insinuate my fingers into its close-growing body to find a place to pull off a branch to sniff. No discernable scent (other than purple, which most folks may be perplexed by, but it's meaningful to me in that it's reminiscent of grape Kool-Aid, which most kids of my era are fully familiar with), even when I crushed a leaf a little between my fingers. But then I thought I smelled the green of any plant's leaf-scent (such marvelous science conducted here!).

According to the herbal I found it in (100 Favorite Herbs by Teri Dunn), this relative of the mint obviously enjoyed a fine reputation as a treatment for many things, including a topical salve or poultice for cuts, burns, rashes, and bleeding hemorrhoids. Taken internally, it was reputed to reduce fevers and could serve as a diuretic. A tea brewed from its leaves was said to be soothing to gum inflammations and sore throats or as a mouthwash.

Another way humans have used this beautiful plant is for its dye properties. Its leaves are said to produce a soft yellow to golden color in fabrics.

But it's not a plant's "usefulness" that interests me most, it's its beauty, and the humble self-heal has insinuated itself into our lawn like a hidden treasure.

Writing

Posting something here gives what's been written such an air of finality----as is typical of any sort of recording, whether through art or writing. (Type-)Writing can look so finished, which is why many people fear and avoid it (and many others should) because our lives and thoughts are not in any sense finished, not even when we die. We're always open for revision. . . for learning. . . for change.

And so when I look back at something I've written (which isn't all that often) and suddenly find all sorts of arguments against it, part of me wants to stop recording, to acknowledge my general inability to encompass enough to ever feel I've written the true thing.

But I keep at it because I'm never quite convinced, and occasionally, there are moments of clarity for me, and maybe even for someone else. And not only that----sometimes these pieces just serve as sparks, whether to further thought or argument or doing something.

I guess I'll keep at it a little longer.

Flowers

My own mother and grandmother always kept fresh flowers (or leaves, or twigs or whatever was available to their itchy fingers and visual palettes) in vases in their homes, and I find that I'm happiest when I keep to this tradition. Though Mamaw (as I called my grandmother in the Deep South) also knew some medicinal plants, it was the medicine of their beauty she most desired, as, apparently, so do I since I keep putting off making that rose tincture or elixir and instead imbibe through my eyes (and nose, since my favorite flowers are scented).

Some recent bouquets:

Inspiration

From whence does inspiration come? The unconscious? The fully conscious, responding to Earth and its myriad forms? Other folks? All of the above and more.

Yet sometimes I find myself slipping into a realm that believes only in mystery, in the half-looked upon, the star that can't be seen directly, and I come to believe that my own inspiration and ability to act upon it is somehow tied to that mystery, a mystery that will disappear if I look at it directly or question it.

Of course, that's superstitious, and I try not to encourage that vein in myself, but inspiration can be so wonderfully present at times and then so dried up at others that one can't help but try to figure it out----this essence that cannot, will not be captured----yet can be encouraged (and of course, dismayed).

Reading and Doing

I write to learn. If someone else reads it and learns, too, that's a bonus.

As a child, my favorite book was THE LITTLE RED HEN ("I'll do it myself" is what I carried with me from it), and, according to my mother, I never tired of hearing her read it to me. I can picture myself, book in hand, asking her to read, wanting us to sit in the rocker where she almost always read to me, to hear that creaking wood soothe me with its familiar sounds and rhythms, to feel the warmth of my mother's lap, her accepting and cocooning self keeping me safe in the moment, rocking.

A new friend of mine recently told me that she's not writing so much anymore, not reading so much, but is living more, attending to her spirit more.

Her saying this caused me to consider how often I've believed that if only I can learn just a little more about whatever it is that's currently obsessing me, to read just one more book, then I'll be okay (and what does "okay" mean?). But what these books often do is put off the inevitable, the crucial, the necessity of my simply acting.

It's as if I think that I can figure out how to live my life by reading what others have done, and yes----it's interesting to do this and often helpful and inspiring, but knowing what others have done doesn't necessarily prompt me to act. In fact, reading about others' actions frequently keeps me from acting on my own; instead, I live vicariously.

I guess what I'm finally figuring out is this: Books and ideas aren't going to save me from these emotions that overwhelm me still on occasion. Nor can they make the decisions for me about how to live each day.

Now that may sound a little ridiculous, but at one point in my life I actually thought that If only I had more time to read. . ., kind of like those people who say to themselves, If only I had more money [or time or whatever]. Yet now that I have all the time in the world to read, I realize it's not enough. Reading is not enough to make me happy, though I admit that I love ideas, I love considering this life of ours through the prisms of different people's ideas, and reading remains a great pleasure for me.

"I know I don't have much to give"

This line from an old song by Blind Faith prompted me to say in response----It doesn't matter how much we give of ourselves, all we can do is give what we have. Of course, that's Steve Winwood singing, and he's given quite a lot, in my opinion, and if I had to compare my own giving ability with his, I might feel pretty empty-handed, but that's not the point, is it.

If we value diversity, and if we see that life is not a hierarchy, then what we each give from the overflowing of our beings is enough, plenty, and can only have the wonderful effect of adding to the lovely diversity of life and an increase in all that is good.

No comparisons necessary.

ILLUSIONS

I'm blessed with a wonderful neighbor (after living next to the neighbors from hell back in Louisiana, I'm very grateful now) who pressed a well-worn book into my hands recently, one that I took my time reading----as it demanded----titled ILLUSIONS, by the seagull author, Richard Bach, and I've written several pages of quotes from it and ordered my own used copy to keep. Here's a quote that attests to the truth of what I've been experiencing a great deal lately (aka "synchronicity"):

Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. . . . Just be who you are, calm and clear and bright. Automatically, as we shine who we are, asking ourselves every minute is this what I really want to do, doing it only when we answer yes, automatically that turns away those who have nothing to learn from who we are and attracts those who do, and from whom we have to learn as well. . . .

I've either heard or read similar statements several times over the past year, and it's finally getting through! It's okay to be who you are, even if some folks don't particularly like it. Another:

The Golden Rule doesn't work. How would you like to meet a masochist who did unto others as he would have them do unto him [or her]? . . . I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my lfe in a way that will make me happy. . . Anybody who's ever mattered, anybody who's ever been happy, anybody who's ever given any gift into the world has been a divinely selfish soul, living for his [or her] own best interest. No exceptions.

And finally---"Our true work is this voyage, this adventure." What great ideas.

Being in One's Soul

I've just begun reading Bill Plotkin's Nature and the Human Soul, Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, and especially like his saying that "a person is in her soul, or at least potentially can be, rather than saying that her soul is in her." Our continual evolution toward seeking this "ultimate place" or soul in life he likens to an "evolving conversation" through which "both the person and the world are changed."

This reminded me of something I learned from Wolf Hardin, who talks of how our appreciation of nature, our loving and experiencing it, is a recriprocal process----not only do we gain pleasure in and from nature, but nature becomes more fully sentient through our appreciation of it. Thus, not only do we feel gratitude for nature's bountiful beauty, nature feels gratitude for our appreciation!

As a child of nine or ten, I remember lying in bed at night, looking up at my hands spread in the air, moving my fingers, marveling at my hands' construction. I felt that I had streamers of light emanating from my fingers, but I didn't have words for those feelings at the time.

Only now am I coming to understand that this feeling is a part of my learning about my soul and coming to inhabit it more fully. What a beautiful way to see life, as a progression toward this ultimate habitat of nature-woven soul.

Crater Lake National Park:

Questions that Inspire

Chris Guillebeau (thanks, Tracey!) on his inspiring website asks us to explore a couple of questions, and I have to say that questions of this sort have TERRIFIED me in the past. It's as if I think that answering them will somehow pin me down to what could turn out to be a mistake, and what if I'm trapped in a mistake? How silly of me. . . No one is in control of my life but me, right? So, at this time, this is how I answer these two questions:

What do you really want to get out of life?
My own basic desire has always been centered on appreciating the beauty of nature and the creativity of others (whether in writing, music, art, drama, whatever!), and on somehow reflecting this beauty back in my own unique ways, with the hope that others will more enjoy and then be inspired to create their own unique reflections.

I seek to do these things by experiencing and remembering to be grateful for nature's beauty each day, whether in my home's everyday surroundings or in my larger explorations when I travel (which I love to do----mostly with my husband Jon, but also alone or with a friend). I seek a balance in my appreciation of nature/the nonhuman and human culture, and I want continue to learn throughout my life.

How can you help others in a way that is unique to you?
Through our voices----which I'll define as our own unique ways of representing what is most true to us, to our souls----I believe we can encourage each other. My own soul's voice has most often sought expression through writing, whether poetry or other kinds of reflections, but also through different modes of art. However, only very recently have I begun to be able to share my essential self with others, having felt in the past that, since "there is nothing new under the sun," why should I presume to cast out my little net?

Now I understand that it is only through our casting that we can weave this stronger, larger net that can support everyone, not just a privileged few.

What We Gain

As I contemplate (sideways, not directly----too soon for that) the probability that I will face breast cancer (my mother had it, and now, I have the same sorts of pre-cancerous cells in me that are having to be removed), I wondered why so many tend to focus on what we've LOST as opposed to what is GAINED. Thus, we consider "lost youth" rather than "gained perspective, experience, and wisdom."

Or maybe it's just in our more pessimistic moments that we focus on loss, in those moments when we look around us at our society and its continual focus on the superfluous, or on the bright and new----quickly disregarding or relegating to the sidelines what appears old or tired.

Not a novel theme for me, I have wondered this in my earliest journal from my teens/twenties, summarized in song lyrics by John Prine:

Hair

What is this obsession with hair about? Either it's too straight, too curly, too thin, too thick, or too gray. Women (and some men) apologize endlessly and make excuses for their hair----think of all the "bad hair day" jokes and cartoons. And if you're anywhere near my age, think of how much time has been wasted considering the nuances of hair.

Men often pride themselves on what's on top of their heads, experiencing varying degrees of crisis as they adjust to losing their hair or its turning gray. Some men grow facial hair as compensation or shave it all off, choosing the bowling ball look over the patchy one.

Of course, a whole industry exists to support people's vanity over their hair, barber and beauty shops ubiquitous in our towns and cities, all with the promise of making a person more handsome, prettier, more youthful looking.

Figuring out how to "properly" BE one's age is difficult, as one all-too-quickly discovers when, for example, she realizes she's no longer considered by any segment of society to be young. At 55, in fact, the young consider you old, while one's peers mostly still refer to you as middle-aged (though with a doubtful and sometimes pessimistic reference to "feeling old" at times).

My mirror tells me I am beginning to look like my mother as I remember having noticed her suddenly looking older, the sagging jowls, the creeping neck, the thinner skin, the parchment-wrinkled hands and blue veins beginning to show, the wirey gray hair she finally let grow out. In my youthful arrogance, I remember feeling a little angry at her, as if she should DO SOMETHING about all these things! Stave off disintegration a little longer, Mother!

My own friends----who range in age from young to old----are responding to their aging in different ways. So far, I am tending to just let it happen to me (though I've spent my fair share of cash on eye creams and such while spending more time than I should questioning all of the hoopla), and listening to my husband Jon as he calls me "beautiful" and "young girl with gray hair" and other such endearing (and, I have to say, mostly unbelievable) sentiments.

But it's our HAIR that seems to take the brunt of our self-criticism and the burden of making us (and others) think we are younger. Think of those ads for men and women for the hair dye that shows a progression from gray to darker hair, and how "She looks ten years younger!" after the hair has been dyed.

All of this causes me to wonder why so many mostly intelligent people can continue to hold such negative preconceptions about "older" people and to sadly lump each other into these little categories, rather like a syllogism: she has gray hair, therefore . . . What? She's less worthy? Less beautiful? Less interesting? Has her personality, her very being turned gray along with her hair? Is she fading into oblivion with her hair color?

And it's not just the topic of the color of hair on a woman's head that's been bothering me, either. What of our equally bothersome fetish of not having any hair on our legs or under our arms? What's that all about (besides lining corporations like Gillette's pockets and catering to men's desires to have their women unnaturally smooth like little girls)?

I still flaunt my gray hair, but even after all of this, I do shamefully wonder on occasion whether I'd "look ten years younger" by dying it. Until yesterday, I had hairy legs, but I decided to use Nair on the damned things because I was spending more energy hiding my legs than on enjoying not having to shave them. I'm one of those women with rather thick, dark hair on my calves (certainly not one of the lucky blondies), and I was unwilling to feel the ire of humanity at their sight, so now that I want to join our local swimming pool, I succumbed to the pressure rather than feel like a leprous outcast.

What's with this ridiculous focus on hair?!

Depression

These are the symptoms of depression (found on many Internet sites and on cards in doctors' offices):

At least one of the symptoms must be either persistent sad or "empty" feelings or loss of interest in activities.
Constant sadness
Irritability
Hopelessness
Trouble sleeping
Low energy or fatigue
Feeling worthless or guilty for no reason
Significant weight change
Difficulty concentrating
Loss of interest in favorite activities
Be sure to tell your health care professional if you're experiencing any of these symptoms.
Call a health care professional right away if you or your family member has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you:
Thoughts about suicide or dying
Attempts to commit suicide
New or worse depression
New or worse anxiety
Feeling very agitated or restless
Panic attacks
Trouble sleeping (insomnia)
New or worse irritability
Acting aggressive, being angry or violent
Acting on dangerous impulses
An extreme increase in activity and talking (mania)
Other unusual changes in behavior or mood

For me, because I'm no longer required (by having to go to a job every day) to fit in to our society's definitions of normal, instead, I can allow what used to be the debilitating emotions I felt all too often on top of my general sadness (especially hopelessness, irritability, difficulty concentrating, loss of interest in activities, feeling agitated and restless, being angry, and also some acting on dangerous impulses [though "dangerous" can be defined in many ways], and occasionally an extreme increase in talking or activity) to simply happen without undue concern, knowing they'll pass as I come to an understanding of why I'm feeling the way I am, and then figuring out what to do next to shift my emotions to a better plane.

But this isn't what I want to consider. . . I want to think about how all of these symptoms can be the result of someone who is simply, naturally, reaching out and attempting to make changes to an unbearable lifestyle and how this simple act can be considered an illness by our culture. (And consider this: if our culture teaches us that reaching out to make changes is an illness, then the obverse must be considered healthful----i.e., stasis, doing what's expected, being happy, happy, happy all the time----thus the preponderance of antidepressant prescriptions.) Our culture tells us to take that pill, stop thinking so much, and "Don't worry be happy now."

Change isn't encouraged in our society. Flux is considered an illness. Losing interest in the "familiar" is a symptom of depression. And of course, depression must be treated with antidepressants and, preferably, with talk-therapy, which can be a saving grace if (and this is a big IF) you can find someone who can relate to you and you to him or her.

My being able to make friends with two good therapists saved my life. If it weren't for the last doctor I had (John Bolter), a prescribing psychologist (i.e., in Louisiana a person with a doctorate in psychology can become further certified to prescribe medication to patients, rather like a PA or physician's assistant), and one other therapist (Jim Purcell) back twenty years ago, I might not be here now. I just needed to talk through some issues that were important to me and to have someone really listen to me and assure me they didn't think I was "crazy" for thinking the way I do. And, of course, they provided me with ideas for acting or coping (or at least, they helped me formulate plans of action). Finding a way to act in a constructive way seems to be one of the most pressing needs of a person who's depressed because when you're depressed, you're physically and mentally stuck in a viscous universe that causes you to move more slowly, rather like trying to push your body through mud.

Why did I feel I needed to pay someone to listen to me? Partly it's because our society seems to require such substantiation to deem it "real" and valid. A person must have "qualifications." But it's also the depressed person's way of saving her friends from the pain of listening to the mental machinations of someone who's thickly and painfully sad and stuck.

Not many people want to dwell on how awful things seem. However, it's a quick way to eliminate from your life the folks who only thought they were your friends----talk to them about the way you really feel and think, as a line from an old CSNY song goes, and you "separate the wheat from the chaff."

But right now, I've talked myself right out of this mood and am preparing to take a walk in the redwoods with a local botanist who works with the parks---a "June blooms" walk at Tolowa Dunes to learn the names of some of the local wildflowers.

I'm making that shift from inner to outer, to nature, the source of healing.

Silence

I've been on a movie-watching binge lately because I'm anxious about a medical procedure scheduled for Thursday and have been trying to stay out of myself, or at least to worry less. One of Revolutionary Road's main characters, played by Kate Winslet, states at one point, "No one forgets the truth, they just get better at lying," and I added to that "or remaining silent." This film's young couple fill in some emotional gaps in my understanding my own parents and their peers, who were around their age at that time in history (the 50s and 60s), and they also help me see how easy it is for people to defer their own dreams to societal norms.

How many times have I wondered the same thing----Who made that "rule" and why should it be followed?

The themes running through this film also segue nicely (it's not that I think you don't know this word, I did this because I hate the way this word looks---so unlike its pronunciation) with a book I just finished reading, The Other, by David Guterson----and the themes I've been intent on exploring in my own life: what it means to "fit in" to our culture versus critically standing outside of it, questioning the reality that so many seem to accept without bother; why some of us are disturbed to the extent of our sanity being questioned while others are able to be quite happy and maintain what some describe as "successful lives"; how those considered "insane" are often the most sane and perceptive.

Coincidences can take on more meaning than we intend sometimes and either become elating synchronicities or disturbing potentialities, which only time can tell. In my blog-browsing, I recently came across a photograph of a woman naked from the waist up, arms raised in exhaltation to an open sky, one breast removed.

Synchronicities are seen in hindsight.

Defiance

Though we purposefully don't have a television connection, I do watch movies occasionally, and yesterday I watched the film Defiance, based on a true story about Tuvia Bielski and his brothers who, in 1941, basically took to the woods to hide from the Nazis, eventually forming a kind of resistance and gathering more and more Jewish people in their wooded community as time passed.

My focus on thinking about this film has been its most basic premise----of escaping into nature and allowing it to enfold and protect----and of how generous nature can be to humans, yet how cruel humans too often are to nature. Escaping into the surrounding forest was possible in the early 20th century, but I wonder whether those forests now exist to an extent that would allow them this. Based on humans' destructive tendencies, I think not, since 95% of all old-growth forest has been destroyed.

I read statistics like this and feel as if I've been slapped, only to remain uncomprehending.

Learning to Do

To me, learning to do something physical is oxymoronic: I have to physically go through the motions to learn how; I can't be told how to do it and then actually do it with impunity. That technique induces me to do it with idiocy.

For example, Jon and I thought we should take a little 3-hour class in kayaking before venturing out on our own. However, by the time we actually sat in the kayak and pushed off into the water, I wanted to leave that little teacher behind and figure it out for myself, in the quiet of the day. At one point when I was waiting (waiting, waiting) while she instructed us, I was fiddling around with my oar (thinking of a line of Donovan's "a simple act of an oar's stroke put diamonds in the sea"), and she stopped to ask me what I thought I was doing. "Just playing," I humbly giggled, feeling as busted as a kid in junior high.

So if I go out and die while kayaking in the future, it can all be blamed on my not listening properly to my teacher.

Rusty, Kayak Zak's dog, looking quite debonair:

Digitalis----foxglove----growing wild near Lake Earl, where we kayaked:

Opening and Closing

I was dubious about beginning a blog for many reasons, even wondering to myself why I could desire "strangers" to read what I'd written (which is a rather odd thing to think, I see, since most of us are [and will always be] strangers to one another, and, ahem, that's what writers do). But then I felt a certain purpose in writing here that turned the key, and the door has, so far, felt good being open, especially when some truth actually sifts through and miraculously appears on top of the dross.

And so I was surprised at my reaction this morning to finding that a blog I was following had been unexpectedly closed. No note. Nothing. Gone. This little window into someone's soul, shut. I miss her already. She played guitar, sang in the loveliest low voice, posted her artwork, and generally inspired many, I'm sure. Where has she gone? Is she okay? art-teri.blogspot.com.

I'm not an obsessive blog-checker, but I do have a bit of a ritual in the early mornings, usually, or sometimes late evenings, depending on what's happening in my life. The relationships we form with people via this machine are mostly shards of our larger selves, pieces we chip away and post here to offer others, by chance to do some good. When our computer was in the shop recently, I have to admit that I missed this a bit. In the computer's absence, I felt a certain airiness, a freedom that I also feel because we have no television connection, no way to get lazy and sit in front of the tube. Now I realize that if I ever do disconnect from the computer, too, I'll want to leave a note to say why. . .

Finding What I Need Is What I Have

I know. It's cliché. (But as I used to say to my students, there's a reason for clichés' overpopularity: they speak truth!)

Wolf asked me why we decided to live in town, and why in a Victorian (when I was telling him how much I miss living in the country, being closer to wildlife). All I could say was that I've always loved old houses and had pictured myself living in one with bay windows----and with an attic, where I could play in those rafters with secret nooks, a childhood dream realized.

We had a fine big attic in the old Acadian house we restored in Louisiana, but it wasn't a place I felt comfortable----especially not after having found a snakeskin up there. . . yes. . . a snake shed its skin in our attic----and of course it's so hot and muggy there, leaving only a few weeks out of a year that it's cool enough to stand its upper realms.

Here, however, the attic is quite cool most of the time, with only isolated days that it might heat up to an uncomfortable degree. And so on rainy yesterday, here in June with our coastal temperatures still in the 50s during the day, I sought out the warmer attic and began to make what my goddaughter Mary-Margaret has made before and now her grandmother-age protegée has made, too: an attic nest.

But what's the impetus to go up there? In part, it's the height----here, there's one window from which (and this is where I've carved out my little space) you can see the mountains meeting the Pacific a little over a mile away. I could sit and stare at this view for hours. (Folks, of course, do this out on our little town's famous Pebble Beach Drive, but as you know, houses with ocean views are exorbitantly priced and they have almost no gardening area, as we are fortunate enough to.)

But the height isn't just for the view; it's also for the feeling it gives me. I think of cats who are always looking for the highest point to perch unexpectedly, just looking out. Thinking. Imagining. Separated from the everyday lived below. A retreat.

And so I've hung a few curtains and other fabric as soft enfolding walls and am looking forward to developing this attic spot as a focus of creativity. The narrowness of the attic steps has so-far prevented my hauling up a more comfortable chair to sit in (I even thought of putting a bed up there!), but here are the beautiful rugs that our lovely Fritz chewed holes in when he was still a puppy, the drawing table I wasn't using downstairs, and the old wooden ironing board, which is perfect as a table.


Now to begin one of those projects I've been meaning to! Sometimes, it just takes finding a new perspective.

Moving Energy

The concept of "moving energy" interests me. I'm thinking of it in a certain context----that of being in a situation in which negative energy is apparent, and then using our ability to change it to something more positive----whether through humor, a show of compassion, a simple smile, a deep breath, or some other means. Our intellect might call this manipulation, but I like the more expansive idea that a person can move energy.

We can all think of examples when we've done this (and also when we wished we could have). It may occur by simply focusing elsewhere: you are with someone who is in a terrible mood, energetically grumpy, and instead of going down that path, you turn your eyes to the window, look outside, see a robin hopping on the ground, and suddenly----you're feeling better and the shift in energy occurs. Perhaps the grumpy person feels better, too.

I'm eager to learn more about rituals that can cleanse spaces of this sort of heavy energy.

Our being in a photograph----especially in relation to nature----makes us into icons, and just as we view the photo, we become larger than our lives.

For example, here are three generations, sitting with an ancient one:


My desire for my daughter and granddaughter is that they take these feelings with them when they move to Austin over the next month or two, and that they feel safer and more whole because of them. Austin's a big city compared to our own little town here, so I am hoping they can find places of calm, clarity, and grounding to help them in their own continual acts of balancing.