Healing Fear

I almost don't know what to make of it all. . . the continual changes to my plans, the strange branchings-out and connections. Before I moved here almost two years ago, I'd never heard of Reiki healing, which---miraculously enough----"is not dependent on belief at all and will work whether you believe in it or not." This suits me because I'm slow to believe, even though I'm quite open to possibilities. (I know that sounds contradictory.)

I became curious about Reiki after reading Jane's blog but hadn't had a chance to learn much more personally until this trip to France (that I'd sold my engagement ring to pay for) was canceled. I'd committed to go with a group of women intent on exploring the dark feminine (and various other themes inherent in that, including various beliefs revolving around the probability that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were married and had children [Da Vinci Code stuff]----and how that information was suppressed by the Roman Church, intent on subjugating women, among other things)----all interesting themes that seemed to speak to my own feelings of having been silenced, so I thought I was somehow "meant" to go. So much for that.

However, when I got my money back from the woman who'd canceled that trip, she gave me someone else's name and told me that I might be interested in participating in a small workshop in Chartres Cathedral for a week---called "Healing Bodies, Healing Fear"----and after several other doors closed (including my looking at other possible tours), I decided to connect with the woman leading this group and make this a part of what has turned out to be my self-guided tour of France. And she's a healing touch practitioner (similar to Reiki) who actually performed a healing session for me while I sat in her living room, since I mentioned to her my most recent (annually occurring) breast cancer scare. I told her I don't believe I have cancer, and after the treatment, she agreed----so that felt good. (I'll still go back to have the radiologist confirm it with a sonogram.)

I grew up hearing stories of how my mother resented giving up her ideas of how she might have lived her life, so I vowed never to do this myself. However, fear is sticky and sometimes disguises itself as "practicality" or as "safety" or even as statements like "I wasn't meant to do" whatever.

Here in this time of wondering how to live my life, I am intent on pushing against the barriers of who I pictured I once was in order to become who I am. . . and FEAR will not hold me back.

Shifting

How strange to think I know myself in a basic way and then to find myself shifting in ways that are contrary to the stories I've told myself ABOUT myself before. . .

That is, I have always called myself a "loner," yet in the (almost two years) since I've moved, I've reached out to others with a constancy that is rather shocking to my formerly isolated self. In fact, someone told me that my "transparency" disturbed her.

Until recently, I have tried not to reveal myself, I have remained quiet, believing (as I'd learned from Carlos Castenada's Don Juan when I was a teenager) that those who tell their histories to others allow themselves to be trapped by others' judgments. Rather than freeing me, this idea actually kept me pent up and too-conscious of what others may or may not be thinking.

How freeing it is to simply say to oneself, "I am not responsible for what others think about me. All I can do is attempt to live and be as wholly myself as possible, trusting that I am unfolding and becoming who I am meant to become. . . always learning, always finding bits and pieces burned away, then regrown."

Dreaming

After writing about thinking of "building walls and barriers" to protect myself from unwanted conversations from strangers while enjoying my front yard, I dreamed I was swinging from the top of one narrow wall to another (from a trapeze connected somewhere in the sky), trying to find balance and stay safe from a coming flood.

I only now recognized the relationship between my thoughts and dream, coming back to this electronic space, wondering whether anything was happening here.

And so, in my continuing questioning of what is private and what is public, I wonder whether this sort of writing should remain private or whether it has a place in a public realm.

Town Life from My Front Yard

I've rarely lived in town over the course of my life thus far, and it's a challenge for someone who's mostly a loner (and frequently a curmudgeon), who prefers the company of a book to small talk and a walk in the woods or through a field and along a creek to shopping. We're still in the Wet Season here in northern coastal California, so on the rare occasions when the sun appears, almost everyone shows up outside, as I did yesterday, chopping around with my hoe, attempting to free flowers and vegetables from some of the choking weeds.

And so as I looked up to see a man walking on the street toward me with a big grin on his face, my own face grinned in response, but unfortunately this served as sufficient invitation to a visit from someone who (apparently) knows no boundaries because he proceeded to ask me about how much we paid for our house ("We don't talk about that") and to chatter on nonsensically before finally wandering away, talking loudly to himself (since I was no longer paying attention). I'd prefer not to believe the fellow was hopped up on meth (an unfortunate problem of our area) and instead is merely eccentric, but. . . this is why I don't like to spend any time in the front yard.

Instead, I dream of creating walls and barriers.

Not five minutes later, an 11- or 12-year-old boy appeared, introducing himself as our new neighbor, and asking whether he could help me (for a price, of course), and whether we have any fruit trees. I told him our apple trees are still young but that when they begin to produce enough apples to share, we would, and I suggested that he talk to his parents about planting one in their yard, too. (I bit back a wicked impulse to tell him we have cameras and motion detectors focused on those trees 24 hours a day.) He was polite and easy enough to talk to (with his shyer friend standing a bit behind him), and after he left, I began to see myself from his youthful perspective, wondering whether one day he might remember living on this street, talking to the lady who lived up the street about growing apples, and whether he'd remember her as kind; if so, I'm sure he'll also remember me as old.

Observing all these differing perspectives is what happens when I'm around people, whereas when I'm observing nature, I can simply watch and be.

Out to St. George Reef Lighthouse

Lighthouses have always fascinated me----for all the obvious, Romantic reasons, and then for more personal ones (like my grandfather's having been a seafaring man)----and so when we had a chance to benefit the folks who are working to restore the St. George Reef Lighthouse, located about 7 miles off the coast near where we live, by our buying a helicopter trip out for a too-short tour of less than two hours, we jumped at the chance. Opportunities don't come often or easily: the tour is only available on weekends that the weather permits and only from November through mid-April (today's was the last for this year) to spare the endangered stellar sea lions the noise and bother of us humans.

I may post a few other photos of Jon's later----he has the high-powered camera----but here are some I took today.

Links and Connections

Since I stepped away from this blog, questioning the value of the time I was spending with this metal box, I've come across several reasons to continue, but within limits. Reading this piece and watching the fascinating short film at the bottom of the page on the "social media revolution" reminded me, however, of the value of technology, too.

Of course, I still get angry with its too-quick obsolescence, with people who spend more time staring at screens (small and large) than they do at nature or their loved ones----and I don't want to be one of those, but I cannot deny that I enjoy the connections I've found via technology, as long as my more immediate and personal life with those around me here does not suffer.

Because one thing so easily leads to another. . .

Sailing Away

Thank you, dear readers, fellow seekers, for sharing time with me here. I am leaving behind these electronic creations for the time being to more fully attend to ink and paper, seed and dirt, warm hand in mine, cat in the lap, dog at my feet.

Feeling Blessed

Traffic where we lived near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was awful, and every day I bemoaned the loss of nature---given over to highways and buildings and concrete.

Here, however, the drive anywhere (except within the tiny confines of this little town where we live and mostly walk) is absolutely stunning. The following are some photos of the Smith River (about ten miles from our town), one of the last undammed rivers in California, and also one of the clearest. If you're driving from here anywhere north (besides along the coast), this is the route you take.

If you look closely in the first photograph, you can see an RV driving on the winding mountain road from which these photos were taken----because no matter how many times I see these lovely views, I'm still incredulous and sometimes use pictures to look back on and pinch myself to remind me (when it's stormy and rainy and I'm feeling trapped inside) of how fortunate I am to live so close to such beauty.

Thoughts from the Tub

During my brief (but wonderful) stay at the Anima sanctuary, I was reminded again that the main luxury I will miss when civilization collapses will be my easily acquired hot tub baths, not just because I enjoy all of the physical sensations but also because I do a great deal of contemplating in the tub. It's as if sitting in hot water condenses my thoughts so that I'm able to see them more clearly, like the finger-writing we can do on a steamy bathroom mirror.

This morning, it occurred to me how strange it is to finally realize how hard I am on myself (after others have told me time and again that they notice) and to consider the reasons (in an attempt finally to break their hold on me)----especially since I can no longer believe that this stance serves me but only tears me down. This mental (as opposed to physical) self-flagellation isn't because one enjoys the pain but because one believes that the pain can be transformative and thus beneficial. Oh, how twisted. . .

Where did this thought pattern originate? Partly in patriarchy, partly in the Puritan-inspired work ethic of my grandparents (with whom I grew up closely), and partly in the morality I learned from Southern Baptists. It says that we can do good, but we mustn't take pleasure in or be recognized for the good we do. Good grief.

Only One?

Looking for the reasons my chest has been feeling so tight, why I become so restless and feel I must get out---move---anywhere sometimes, I reflected on a recent conversation that centered around the topic of "How to live one's life" in the everyday, and this person said that it's important to find one's passion.

Of course, this idea isn't new to me, but it reminded me of how long I've been seeking what others seem to know in their hearts early on. Some people discover in childhood or as teenagers what they wish to pursue, to focus on in their lives and they become accomplished at that art or craft or profession and stay with it.

Instead, I seem intent on tasting a little of everything I'm interested in, of experiencing as much as possible, knowing that this may make my experiences more shallow than those who delve more deeply over time into a certain passion, but also feeling that it's just my way----something I don't really desire to change because it feels natural to me, even though it may not seem ideal.

If I had to point to a single "passion" I've pursued with any regularity I'd say it's been writing, but its pursuit has been as fragmentary and on-again, off-again as any other aspect of my life, and thus the results are equally fragmented and poorly honed, forming not a body of work but scattered papers (and credentials now gathering dust). And so I wonder whether my passion is simply misnamed, or whether I lack the fire of discipline. I'm not sure writing is one of those saving passions, though (at least for me)---that is, the kind of passion that knits together days and makes a life feel whole and purposeful. But maybe it will be, especially if it's connected to nature, one of my other passions. . . .

from: Why Cats Paint, a Theory of Feline Aesthetics

Beware the dangers of "bovine hypnosis"! (Please click on the image below to see it full-size.)

Feeling Uprooted

It's finally dawned on me. Even though I always reckoned myself a free spirit, able to live anywhere, move anywhere, the fact is that I lived in the same 100-mile-region almost my entire life. In my mind, I didn't move away because I couldn't----too many ties, too little money. And, though I thought that I never really felt at home in the South, it was my home, by default, anyway. That is, there were people who came to know me, to accept me (whether begrudgingly or not), to forgive me (if not accept me for) my eccentricities, to know that even though I may come across too strongly for some, they at least could count on my meaning well. And. . . I had my "credentials" associated with my employment----that is, my college degrees, my sterling evaluations from jobs deemed well done.

A year and a half later, I am realizing how isolated I feel, how dependent I am on this technology to keep me in touch with my loved ones----my daughter and granddaughter and friends----who are so far away. And, though I don't really want to work again, part of me misses those affirmations of my strengths.

Which brings me to technology again: this morning I actually signed up to receive five e-mails weekly from "The Universe," little affirmations that are supposed to boost one's spirits. Add to this the poem I read each day from The Writer's Almanac, today's by Norah Pollard, that ends so sadly, so truly, and my tears just mix with the rain that is falling, falling, falling steadily.

When you did not give me
a Valentine today,
I was undone.
And I wept in the shower
even though I am an adult and know
gifts are materialistic shallow
commercially driven wasteful crap.

But why, why could you not have
Wasted some mute love on me?

The Nature of Privacy*

My notions of privacy were formed from an early age, imposed in great part by a mother who is excruciatingly private in most ways, as she learned from her father, who didn't talk about his own experiences (as a sixteen-year-old who joined the navy to enter WWI by lying about his age, who won the Croix de Guerre for heroic actions in France)----even to his own brother. As a teenager, I strongly related to what I read of Henry David Thoreau's isolation at Walden Pond and to the ideas that Carlos Castanada presented as Don Juan's, especially in regard to not telling anyone else your "personal history," for that would allow someone else to trap you in their own ideas of who you are.

Thus, I still have very conflicting ideas about whether to reveal my ever-changing self----and at what point. That is, I used to think that I'd eventually reach a point where I'd honed this self to an acceptable sharpness, brightness, that would be "worthy" of revealing to a larger world. Then I realized that my life was passing and I was merely hiding, waiting for a perfection that I could never attain, and that I was missing many opportunities of interacting with delightful people who generously accept me as I am . . . becoming.

And that's it. I intend never merely to be what I am now, but to continue always to become what I want to be (regardless of the social "acceptability"). Those folk who prefer to box you up, tie the strings tightly, and tape up your mouth, keep you conveniently on the shelf and expect you to behave just so----they don't interest me, but I must admit that when I examine my feelings about such people, I fear them. They are the ones who judge, who imprison, who hurt, the ones who try to make us feel we are always being watched from the infamous Panopticon.

And this is the crux of what I feel about privacy at present: it is the keeper of individuality, of differences, especially since I now live in a very small town, one with cliques very much like those that develop in one's school years. In revealing too many of our idiosyncrasies to the world at large (through this vast technology), I wonder whether we endanger them. Zombies are out there looking for life to consume; the impulse to remain hidden still seems viable.

*Inspired by reading "The Observer and the Observed," Marcy Peek

Budding Out

In the midst of a typically rainy, coolly mild Pacific coast winter, I stare from windows often at the rain slanting down. Sometimes it's the horizontal rain that the locals brag about, other times merely the mist we tend to ignore after a while, going out without umbrellas, which are the sure sign of a tourist.

Against a dark background, though, are the bright stars of blossoms on our cherry plum tree bursting out from full buds humming with life, with potential.

Being Present

I'd started several posts over the last couple of months and then left them unfinished as drafts; here in this post, I've tried to consolidate the ideas and deleted the drafts. It's interesting (and disconcerting) to see that the same ideas have kept coming up, unresolved, in my life since I was a teenager. I keep twirling them over and over in my mind, looking----always----for how to live my life.

Figuring out how to act, what to do, isn't so easy, especially when one desires to live with purpose and intent. So many diversions call to me----reading, writing, crafts (I learned to knit a couple of years ago, anticipating living in a cooler clime), watching movies, traveling----and I jump from one to another, all the while attempting to maintain touch with people I desire to have a relationship with.

After reading Wolf's piece, "A Case for Presence," I considered again why the average person seems to have such difficulty sustaining this sense of presence for any length of time. Of course, many people are uncomfortable with what may be perceived as not producing anything. We are taught that we must always have something to show for our time, so that leaves out observing for the sake of observation, experience for its own sake. Not-doing has come to mean instead watching television, becoming numb.

Most of us are trained from childhood to fit into a certain mold, our lives planned out for us from school to career to retirement to death. It's no wonder we become uncomfortable when we act outside the typical, the norm.

Saying that the experience of danger tends to snap us into attention to the present serves to remind us of the attractions of camping out, of riding a motorcycle, long hikes, of any sort of movement into the unknown where the unexpected can occur. More typically, we arrange our lives in just the opposite way, surrounding ourselves with comfort and predictability, becoming fearful and distraught when a schedule is disrupted or the electricity goes off.

Homogeneity has become the standard so that no one is surprised by any potential unpleasantness----which precludes the possibility of the unexpected delight, too.

And when I do try to communicate, I remember that no matter what I say or don't say, do or don't do, someone else can always see that as a hook to capture me and place me neatly folded in a box of theirs. But that in itself should never stop me from saying or doing what I feel is true and right in the moment, even when, upon circumspection or learning more, I find out that I was wrong. How else can anyone ever discover and experience truth as a part of the world? Otherwise, I would continue as I have been for much of my life----isolated, ruminating alone, silencing my voice that I'd learned to characterize as a bit too strange and never quite good enough.

Who am I?

For many reasons lately, I've been frustrated with technology, including many aspects of modern life----computers, flying, driving, movies----often compelling aspects that nevertheless can make me feel hurried, unheard, invisible, and separated from the natural world.

And so, reading A Harper's Garden, I was pleased to find questions asking me to (re)consider some basic aspects of my life. As an exercise in being more attentive and to slow down and focus, I have written some answers here, though they are only tiny shards of the whole.

What do I love in life? I love being attuned to my feelings, my intuition, and allowing my feelings to lead me or to teach me. For example, recently I felt overwhelmed and confused by the enormity of my emotions and the way I appeared to overreact to something my husband said. I felt as if I would fly in all directions at once----rather like exploding. It happened quickly and the outburst was over after ten minutes or so, but what interests me now is looking back at my reaction and what happened later in the day: an earthquake, 6.5, occurred 90 miles south of here, one strong enough to create a boom (rather like a sonic boom) and cause our old house to sway. And so I wondered whether my feelings earlier in the day were in response to the energy building in the earth beneath me.

Remembering that I have a part in the greater whole of life is important to me; it's what I love about life----that I am not this lone, separate being, and though I am unique, I also share with others----humans, animals, plants, rocks----in the greater good of all. This is also my greatest challenge: to remember I am important, too.

Asked to consider what I enjoy about reading A Harper's Garden, I like the mix of art, fantasy, magic, music, and thought-provoking, personal writing. I return to read the blog because I am often delightfully surprised by its contents and by the synchronicity to my own experiences. Also, I like the pauses----sometimes longer pauses in the regularity of the posts----because we all need breaks. I enjoy reading about others who are struggling to evolve, to be more sensitive, to live more fully.

To answer what my greatest wish for the planet might be, I would wish for zero population growth, zero new development, and to allow nature to begin to recover from the devastation civilization has wreaked upon it, which would also be the sentiment I'd voice if I knew that I'd be heard and attended to, along with loving and being tolerant of others and their differences.

Uncomfortably Stretched

Writing here has become daunting to me in my month-long absence from it, yet it's also measured how time can seem to encompass so much because a great deal has happened. If I had to describe my feelings, I'd say I feel as if I've been beaten up, pummeled. If my mirror image could reflect my feelings, it would be stretched, distorted, smeared across the glass.

Part of this feeling is because my feet have been in the air (along with the rest of me, of course), flying (or driving) all over the place, visiting family, friends, and former haunts, some places I was glad to have left behind.

And it's partly because of news I received last night of a former colleague who killed herself Sunday, the day I was traveling home. Over the course of my work-life, she is the second person I worked with who killed herself, and I'm just so saddened.

Synchronicity

Whenever I use this term, I must sing it syllabically ("Syn-chro-ni-ci-ty") whether in my head only or aloud to the melody of the Police song by that title. Lately, so many instances have occurred that I feel buzzing with excitement.

This particular time began with a forwarded e-mail referring me to a talk by poet Kim Rosen titled "Poetry: Medicine for the Soul." I'd not heard of Kim before, but I've always loved the idea (and experienced the reality) of poetry as a means of healing, so after listening to this talk, I ordered her book (with an accompanying CD), Saved by a Poem.

Though I didn't have time to begin reading the book before leaving for a short trip to southern Oregon, I did bring along the CD to listen to on the way. While in Oregon, I was invited to stay the night at the lovely woman's home where I attended a meeting because temperatures dropped quickly into the teens and a late-night drive back to the California coast on icy winding mountain roads would have been dangerous.

The following morning, drinking tea and talking to my hostess, I mentioned Rosen's CD and asked whether she'd heard of her. "Well," my new friend said, "Kim began writing that book in the room you just spent the night in. In fact, she's going to be in Eugene soon, which is only three hours from here." The details of how Kim Rosen ended up staying there are my friend's own tale of synchronicity, one rich in meaning to her life.

Needless to say, we are going to hear Kim Rosen in Eugene on Sunday and my anticipation over following the next length of thread to this event is growing.

Women Who Run with the Wolves

Lately, I read from this book by Clarissa Pinkola Estes (I fondly think of her as "Pinky") each day, allowing these archetypal stories to slowly steep in me. Over the last few days, I've felt this sinking in my spirit, a feeling I once named depression but now choose not to name it (and thus all-too-conveniently wrap it up in all the [sometimes false] notions I have about it) but to explore the feeling instead.

Estes refers to the "peaks and valleys" of our lives and how wolves "ride them as efficiently, as fluidly, as possible." She goes on to write that "the instinctual nature has the miraculous ability to live through all positive boon, all negative consequence, and still maintain relationship to self, to another." I've been working to become more attuned to my instincts and intuition over the last year (as opposed to focusing on knowledge and reasoning), which has opened me up to remarkable and surprising synchronicities and associations/relationships----what I've been needing for so long. It's these relationships that our culture so easily cuts off with its pressures on us to produce and maintain a certain style of living.

And so, I am trying to focus on looking at the depressions I fall into on occasion not as something I should or even can avoid, but as a kind of "compost pile" I'm naturally a part of at certain points on my wheel of living, a necessary breaking down in order to find myself built up again.

To quote Estes: "We have erroneously been trained to accept a broken form of one of the most profound and basic aspects of the wild nature. We have been taught that death is always followed by more death. It is simply not so, death is always in the process of incubating new life, even when one's existence has been cut down to the bones."

Thus, when I'm depressed, I can remind myself that I am in a necessary period of incubation, preparing for the new (and surprising) that is to come.

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.