the wildest wave alive...

the wildest wave alive 

Among the half-dead trees, I came upon the true ease of myself,

As if another “person” appeared out of the depths of my being,

And I stood outside myself,

...

A something wholly other,

As if I swayed out on the wildest wave alive...  

Theodore Roethke

Last summer,* I caught myself faking a laugh, feeling an empty non-direction. My alone-ness stained by loneliness. After several decades of being a mother,  painter, a life-skill coach, living an introverted life was freshly soul-satisfying.  Finding time to write, travel, and sit on a desert mesa alone brought me sweetness. Yet this past year, I recognize some “half-dead trees” of my own. What makes me alive one season and not the next? Reading Roethke’s poem I wondered where is my “wildest wave alive”? Where is that which teases me with mystery, love, and a larger presence?

I consider myself reflective. I think I know myself - my likes, wants, thinks, and feels. Yet maybe my self-definitions are too small.  Are these the source of my dull cast?  When I think back to the sweetness, it’s the unexpected energy that breaks forth from my inner being which excites me - gives me my creative edge, entertains me.

Sometimes this new aliveness surges in so gradually, I only recognize it in hind sight.  Other times it crashes in. However the arrival, this energy is a fresh place to live, a place of new decisions, new directions.  I become an observer, playing “catch up” because my likes of last season have changed this summer. The tear drop is a little sweeter, a book once read suggests a different meaning, and the color brown now is purple.

To be alive, is to be ever creating. Like the tsunami gathering it’s power deep in the ocean depths, ever moving undetected until it breaks on shore. My spiritual self has thankfully gathered undetected, thrusting me beyond my self-definition; my stories of who I think I am.  Riding this wild wave, I am discovering this summer that the grasses between my toes are actually toes feeling back.

* written a decade-plus ago yet always now...
Photo source: fotolia.com

tara, terrier bull...

Tara, terrier bull,
      one eyed monster that you are,
Cat torn ears, overture of friendship.

Tossed, bitten by horse
       and other advances --  token of wagging tail.
Ugly as ugly, this wonderful spirit.

Passing by, child grabs tail with both hands
       vigorously sweeps this well established wag back and forth under little nose.
Terrier bull, patiently waits.

Later: knock at the door -- police -- "crazy, damn, killer dog chasing ducks in pond...
bull terrier and ugly you know?"
This one eyed, torn ear, horse bit, duck chasing, friendship seeking
Incarnation of the god-heart.

Photo source: fotolia.com

light, a who...

“When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw “the tree with the lights in it.” It was for this tree I searched... Then one day I was walking along Tinker creek and thinking of nothing at all and I saw "the tree with the lights in it." I saw the backyard cedar...charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame... It was less like seeing than like being for the first time see, knocked breathless by a powerful glance."
                                                                                                                      Annie Dillard

A few years ago I had occasion to ask myself, "What is light -- or better still, who is light  Or, is light just an arbitrary what?"

Early in my life light was definitely a "what" as it had no more identity then its use. Like air and water, I took it for granted. Light was just light: with it I saw objects, people, color, and everything else physical eyes see. With a good idea a "light bulb went on" or one might "put light on the subject." Light stayed an "arbitrary what" for a long time.

However, over the years light has changed me. The "who" began to emerge, giving me a new set of eyes, a new awareness and now takes me to that Place called Love. Sitting here in the early morning drinking coffee the sun tips these mountains. I look up and watch light find a space through the million spring-fresh mesquite needles, watch it fascinated breaking into a million space-forms, a million color rays spread out from center. These infinite patterns play magic with my vision.

Half closing my eyes, flickering prism colors slide pass the yellow finches breakfasting at their feeder, then through the window spreading these rays fluid-like across the floor. I watch this radiating light in its great ordinariness, making form of the chair, sofa, making color as the dull grey of pre-dawn becomes a lovely magenta, a forest green and it moves toward me making warmth, feeling, making holiness felt.

Entering this paradise of light, color and form, something living inside me leaps -- a life that was not there before. I feel its sacredness, its aliveness, my aliveness.

I know this happens out everyone's window who has a mesquite tree facing east, yet how many times have I missed it? This Who that escorts me to the Place of Love; this Who that is "less like seeing than like being for the first time see, knocked breathless by a powerful glance."

Photo source: fotolia

a resonance of culture and history...

 "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly..."  Eleanor Roosevelt

Early Saturday morning, my daughter's train from Santiago was late. Mindlessly, I began walking up and down the Tucson train station platform to put in time. A freight train passed. Families traveling for Easter began to gather, some speaking Mexican, some American. Several people were setting up booths to sell their wares.

After strolling a few minutes, I was stopped by the smell of sage. In the middle of the platform, a Native American was fanning its embers to life with two eagle feathers. Curling smoke played with my senses. A woman waited for a morning blessing. The sage woke my awareness. I continued my walk-about, slower and softer.

At the far end of the platform I smelled burritos, chili's, and enchiladas being cooked on a grill by a Mexican woman. I stopped and watched her -- a colorful jacket for the early morning desert chill and a round brim hat for the sun later in the day. How much work she must have done in the early hours before it was light. On my return walk I noticed the man with the eagle feathers was sweeping the sage smoke over her, her stoves, and the food boxes she had brought. She never smiled or looked at him as the smoke swirled about her. My thought, "Oh, he has done this many times before."  Her non-response felt reverent.

Still no sound of my daughter's train. I turned and repeated my steps back down to the other end of the platform.  A old train engine and coal car were behind an iron fence. A era of experienced engulfed me. As I looked up, the engine appeared as large as those in my childhood -- the big brass bell on top, the coal car behind, and the engineer (sometimes my grandfather*) leaning out the window with the man behind him shoveling coal into the furnace.  Then an "All Aboard" sounded from the conductor a few passenger cars back. The train began steaming-chugging-cranking out of the station as I covered little girl-ears.

Leaving my reminiscence and coming back up the platform I noticed sculptures of two men, each carrying a rifle, wearing a long coat and a pistol on each hip. Not far from the sculptures, a historical sign was dated 1882. A map roughly drawn showed the railway station, several wiggly rectangles indicated where the passengers got off, where the freight was unloaded. A smaller rectangle shape was penciled in just across the track. Under it the author had written, "Frank Stilwell killed." The drawing was signed, Wyatt Earp. He had taken his revenge on his brother Morgan's death in Tombstone after the shoot out at the OK Corral.

People began moving toward the boarding gate. The Amtrak pulled in. My daughter emerged from the train and one look told me she had enjoyed her days in the Baja, maybe, as much as I had enjoyed the hour wait.

*My grandfather's family came from Scotland to Nova Scotia in the late 1800's because the Dominion Atlantic Railroad was beginning to open lines up through out the Annapolis Valley and the western part of the province.

Photo source: fotolia.com

the little no of self-love...

“Your task is not to seek for Love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  Rumi

Another reader wrote, asking: "How does one love oneself if one is not happy with oneself?"

How does one love oneself -- quite often by saying no. The little word "no" issuing from an inner "yes" has soul resonance and a deep sense of well-being. However, my ability to say that little no is interfered with and often buried by old wounds, habits, adult failures and griefs, which rob me of the feeling for that soul-yes.

I want to eat healthy, I don't. My body needs to lift a few weights, I  don't.  I want to write or paint but it is easier to procrastinate or be lured away by daily chores.  These little no's not said make me unhappy, get me in trouble with my god-self.  However, these feelings, beacon-like, also tell me I am on the track.

A friend who was losing weight told me recently, "The power to say no is built one small no at a time. I have to act no until it becomes the feeling in the body. Every mouthful has to have a no in it. Sometimes, all I can do is have a no in place, acted on or not." She concluded, "At first, I don't feel a thing, however, I trust the process and make small steps. Gradually, a feeling of well-being emerges."

The outer no becomes the lover of the inner yes. I love the self that eats healthy, has me hiking these mountains, resists destructive habits, negative inner dialogues and anything soul-diminishing. This self makes me happy and loves me back with passion. One's task, as Rumi wisely observed, is merely to seek and find all the barriers within that one builds against love.

* photo source: fotolia.com

two visitors and a vortex...

Vortexes are areas of high energy concentrations, originating from magnetic, spiritual, or sometimes unknown sources. Anna Jones

As I have mentioned, I live in Tucson, Arizona for the winter. My daughter is visiting for a few weeks. She and a friend are going to Sedona tomorrow -- a place of red cliffs, mesas, and beauty -- which reminded me of my last trip there. I wrote the following a short time later.

My friend was treating my cousin and I to a tour of the Sedona vortexes. He had felt different energies on previous visits. I was skeptical.  Ten years ago, I dismissed the vortexes as a tourist-draw. A lot happens in a decade and now I was curious.

Walking the mile to the base of Cathedral Mountain -- supposedly a vortex location -- we came out of the trees and were dwarfed by mountain walls, brilliant orange-yellow wrinkled with purple shadows. At my feet a stream trickled over flat, red rock. Our hiking guide invited us to close our eyes and let the sun warm the morning chill. The air was pristine, the birds were waking.

After a while, my hands started to tingle. I wondered if this was the vortex feeling but thought not? We sat awhile in silence. I could feel the beauty even with my eyes half-closed. Then out of the corner of my mind’s eye, to the left, a figure caught my attention -- a native American.  I dismissed "the image" knowing these southwest areas are steeped in history. However, as I kept watching him, he seemed quite material as if resting or waiting on one knee. Oddly, one feather on the right side of his head was pointing down. Then looking closer with my inner-eye I saw another smaller feather sticking out behind the larger one. Why were the feathers pointing down? 

The guide interrupted my reverie, “We are now at the center of a vortex. Did anyone sense anything? Silence. My cousin said her hands were tingling. More silence. My friend observed he didn't feel anything, this time. Hesitantly, I related what I was seeing. The guide instantly asked, as if it was a normal observation, where "the visitor" was positioned? I pointed to the left of a small sand bar about twenty feet in front of me. Then, describing him, I told them about the feathers pointing down.

While I was talking my cousin puts her hand on my arm and whispers, “A yellow, black butterfly has been sitting on your shoulder since you began talking.” Without moving, I saw it’s wings fluttering. Then looking toward the sand bar, my visitor was disappearing. The butterfly stayed a little longer. As we left, I turned and waved good-bye.

Several days later my friend described my encounter to a woman of the Hopi tribe. Her initial interest was in the butterfly "lodging" on my shoulder. She asked, "Is her birthday in July?" (July 24 th) Seemingly satisfied, she continued to informed my friend the meaning of two feathers pointing down signified the "visitor" as a teacher.

Driving back to Tucson, I had difficulty dismissing the experience. A quote kept filtering through my disbelief, "When the student is ready a teacher appears."*

* A Buddhist proverb
Photo source: fotolia

(Basically, a writing from a decade ago which my daughter's visit reminded me of.)

Which are the artificial yeses?

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight... e.e.cummings

A reader's question from the last writing "the lioness and the oryx":  "I can so identify with where you are coming from. Of course, it raises the question -- which are artificial yeses?"

My artificial "yes" was institutionalized early. In the fifties and sixties, being female, I was trained by society to say, "yes": yes to wife-hood, mother-hood, religion-hood, and just about any hood my blind eyes couldn't see. My inner no's, my authentic self had pretty sparse ground in which to sprout.

Yet, those yeses gave me social value, protections, and security. Becoming a wife, I was no longer considered an "old maid, a spinster." The labels speak for themselves. Becoming a mother was the most important contribution I could make to society. (I had three degrees.) Leaving the children to work outside the home was neglect. I was also not to be smarter, taller or earn more money than my mate. These requirement/roles, too often starve my true lioness nature, my natural self. (My husband, who was a freer thinker than the norm, gave me support and space in which to explore these social roles.)

At first, I had to learn what was the "surface me" and then what was the "authentic me" -- how did they differ? I discovered I starved emotionally and spiritually every time I said yes when something in me said a deeper no: how many times did I say yes to sex when I did not want it, yes to company when I was exhausted, yes to measuring up to someone elses expectations rather then my own. (Actually, it is rather embarrassing to write this.)  I sought personal value from others, my yeses often put me in a box/situation that crippled my choices. I needed to make things right, keep everyone happy. To sum it up, I too often was gooy-nice rather than honest and true --  with a, "No thanks."

Socialization peels away a layer at a time and the odd time in chunks. Of course the trick is, even today, who am I, really? What expands my spirit, what resonants with my inner being, what freedoms wait there for me to play in? I try for a glimpse daily as it is always new ground.  Socrates said it several thousand years ago, "To thy own self be true." No one ever wrote to thy own self be artificial. If the lioness had been true she would be alive today.

Photo source: fotolia.com