VACATION!!!!

Thanks to whoever stops in for a visit. But I'll be spending a few weeks writing in private and don't want to leave anyone hanging. I'll be listening to the silence and exploding on paper in ways that the "public" might not understand or appreciate. Wishing everyone a blessed summer break...including myself.

GOODBYE MAY

Holy Moly. Where did the entire month of May go? Today...the final day of the 5th month of the year 2012, has been gorgeous. The bluebird sky, the wind blowing gently and lifting the tree limbs in a dance of shimmery greens...a busy male bluebird hunting bugs for his lady who sits on the eggs. The sun hot and the earth warm as I weed and mulch and feel the space around me. I am drifting...feeling myself embedded in the backdrop of beauty that I call home. My planet Earth. I feel her breath, lifting the curtain of sadness covering my heart and watch her winged beings cavorting on the draughts of deep sighs. I realize I have nothing to say that could improve on the beauty that is spread out before me. There is nothing I can add. As I think this thought, an indigo bunting lands in the bush beside me and melts me with his song. Perhaps all I have to offer this great symphony of planetary life, is my deep gratitude for all of it...every last species of it. I lull myself thinking perhaps this is enough. But how can it be? How can it be enough when stupid people throw their beer cans out their windows and toss their garbage like the scenic byways are their own private trash barrels. I'm grateful for the beauty but I'm god damn mad at the stupidity of humans and I'm not gonna shut up about it. Good bye May. Thank you for putting me into my gratitude. The vividness of your beauty in May takes my breath away. When I get it back...I want to sing praises to the beauty of the Earth and remind people of how they are screwing it all up for everyone for evermore. Goodbye May.

WILD INSPIRATION

Finally...a break in the rain and the chance to take a nice walk into the woods with my poor neglected puppy. Actually, she isn't the least bit neglected. Her need to run pushes us out the door at all manner of hours and she can chase balls and frisbees until we are falling down tired but there is something a wee might sad about her obsession for fetching things like balls and frisbees. I love to throw things for her but even I get tired of the repetition and my arms and shoulders begin to ache. I've started throwing the ball with the blast of a tennis racquet because she runs so much further that way. Her passion for fetching has a riveting quality to it. She is driven and as I watch her and throw for her, it seems she could run herself to death...and yet there is her happy left-side flopping tongue that indicates a joy in what she is doing. Yes, she is obsessed. Yes, the balls and frisbees have a power over her. Even when she is feeling her most rebelious and refuses to come when called, she will always come running to the sight of her humans with a throwable object in their hands. Maybe it has a quality of addiction. I don't know. I just know that there is absolutely nothing more heart swelling than taking her for long walk in the woods near a brook or stream. She loves making the woods her agility course and I adore watching her. She races full speed, jumping over tree limbs, stumps and rocks. She is grace in movement and she  shows absolutely no hesitation for any obstacle she encounters. Her confidence never falters. But when she hears the gurgling of a running stream, she is carried away with her joy at dancing through the water, lying down in a pool and drinking the wild water leisurely. She is free. She is encountering every living thing with a curiosity and trust that inspires me. I believe she hears the music of the rambling stream and her exuberance is obvious. Would that we could all live our lives like Sadie in the woods...in an unbounded expression of love.

EATING FROM THE GARDEN OF THE WILD MOTHER

A Maine spring is elusive...it shows a peak of full summer in March and April but when May comes I find myself sitting by a fire plotting my garden and feeling frustrated because it is cold, raining and I'm dog tired of garden veggies from the freezer. I am hungry for FRESH! I set myself free in the woods and am becoming a feisty forager. I love, love love foraging. It sets something deep inside me singing. My souls wild music...I wander about in the woods watching my dog Sadie expressing her passionate joy moment by moment in the woods. She especially loves the brooks and rivulets...you can see her ears go back when she hears the music of the moving water, and then she's off...her pace picks up and she races with all herself, bounding on rocks, jumping back and forth over streams, ducking under tree roots and then lying down and drinking her fill from the  wild water. As I watch her, I feel my own animal self surrender to the pleasure of foraging. Not only am I up and walking for several hours, but I am filling bags with spring green goodies that I will cook for supper when I get home. I'm spending calories for groceries from the wild mother's garden and since I'm unemployed, its the right price. The neighbors I run into are the telltale signs of passage by deer, moose, bear and birds...the whitewash tells me where the barred owl sat quietly watching...the pile of moose scat is fresh enough to be today, so he proceeded me by a few hours. The bears poop is large and unformed. Don't know what he's eating right now but he's definitely been here too. The Kingfisher makes all kinds of excited noises as he flies up and down the river bed. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of a friend's company. She is a lover of foraging too and together with our field guides and experiences, we shared with each other what we knew and came home with plenty. Maine Fiddlehead ferns are one of foragings best finds. Where they grow, there are hundreds so its pretty easy to fill up a bag. The season though is coming to an end, at least in the valleys. Up in the higher elevations, things are coming along a little slower. I was home cleaning the fiddleheads and I had a discussion in my brain. I had enough to freeze some. I have been told they freeze very well and I played with the idea. Then...I said...NO. No, I'm not going to freeze any. I've been eating frozen veggies all winter and I will pick only what we can eat fresh. The great pleasure of foraging is that I am out in the garden helping the plants thrive and eating some fresh picked and local.The Wild Mother's garden gets along fine without me and is taking away the impatience I have from not seeing my asparagus grow fast enough. I fix my fiddleheads very simply. After cleaning them well, I boil some water...enough to cover what I'm cooking. When the water boils, I dump in the ferns and let them boil for 5-6 minutes. Then I pour them out in a strainer to remove the water, put them back in the pan, and drizzle some herb vinegar and wild mushroom infused olive oil, and toss with a pinch of garlic seasalt and fresh ground black pepper to finish them off. They are so good.

My new discovery yesterday was the spring shoot of the cattail. It was a little more of an adventure to harvest them because they grow right in the water. I fell in with my right leg going in up to my knee, but it was pretty funny and I could ignore the discomfort for awhile. My harvest of spring cattail also included some dandilion greens. Elba shared her preparation with me...a Curried Cattail Soup. Mmmm. It was simple. You cut the bottoms off the cattail shoot...the part that is white. It looks alot like scallion or green onion. Then you slice the white shoots. I started my quick saute with 1/2 an onion chopped small and some chopped garlic in olive oil and 1 tbsp. of curry powder. Then I threw in some sliced mushrooms, washed and chopped dandilion greens and added the sliced cattail. When everything was tender but not overdone, I threw it all in a sauce pan with 2 cups stock and 2 cups water, topped with fresh ground pepper. I didn't tell Stephen what it was made of until he was half done eating his...so he knew he liked it before I told him what he was eating.

The meal also included Trader Joe's sundried tomato and goat cheese raviolis with an Oyster mushroom sauce. I grew the oyster mushrooms on my kitchen counter from a kit I bought at Garden Day Maine. The mushrooms grow in a mixture of pressed wood chips and coffee grounds. Interesting...but very expensive for the amount that you actually get. But...now I'm just a week or two away from wild oysters for free. Weather permitting and also, my ability to locate them may be up to the oyster mushroom fairies who are unpredictable. Sometimes you find things when you aren't looking for them...so be prepared.

I am so grateful to live near wild places where I can mosey about and find good things to eat. When one thing stops growing, something else is just starting. The hummingbirds leave Maine just after labor day and their leaving creates a big hole...a void where once vibrant life buzzed about and cavorted with its young. When they go...its time to hit the woods for wild mushrooms. When they come back in spring...it marks the time of first mushrooms...and the celebration of their return. Such tiny glimmering buzzing irridescent jewels...they are a joy to watch. As I eat my foods from the wild garden and drink my Chaga and Birch sap, I am aware of being touched inside by the outside. Not only am I enjoying my environment of the wild woods and all that live in it...I am literally drinking and eating and partaking in that wildness and it feels good. It feels FRESH. It makes me feel alive...like a puppy jumping stream banks. Well. Almost.

A POWER FAILURE...JUST MY CUP OF TREE!

I've been wrestling with the double-edged sword of communication by computer. There are so many benefits in terms of ease and visibility, connection to friends and family, sharing photos and spur of the moment thoughts and even giving support when there is pain in somebody's words. I love that side of it. But then there are the viruses, the time that gets eaten up while I sit at a screen, the things I read that I'd rather not see, and the whole idea that I am visible to the powers that be that are not interested in being kind or supportive to me. I shared that conundrum with a friend on Facebook today and then proceeded to get on my treadmill for my 30 minute make my heart beat hard routine. I was running on all cylinders when my treadmill suddenly stopped. The wind today has been wicked...chilly and insistent. I moved about the house to discover that there was no power. Powerless...I entertain a metaphor in my brain. The power going out is alot like quitting coffee. My computer shuts down and I must use my pen. Quitting coffee is a form of unplugging. There is an electrical buzz to coffee that stimulates...it is a connecting drink and a start the day ritual that I have shared all my life with friends and family. I love the taste and the buzz and the whole shebang but as I approach my 60th year, I find it is not liking me too much. I love the lift but the crash is no fun at all and the result of drinking coffee for 5 days in a row after quitting for a week and then quitting again, reveals the level of exhaustion that I feel when I buzz on coffee. I inevitably take on more that I can handle and it leaves me wiped out and irritable, weepy and weak. I have recently been introduced to chaga...a form of mushroom/fungus that grows on the white birch that is prevalent here in my area. A little research on the medicinal benefits of chaga reveal a substance that is anti-inflamatory, anti-cancer, sugar and cholesterol balancing, beneficial to the heart/liver and for stomach problems. I love nothing better than foraging about in the woods and chaga hunting has become a regular obsession. I add some fresh ginger, cinnamon, clove and nutmeg to the chaga when I grind it up and the result is a delicious chai-like drink that has the consistency of coffee but none of the buzz. It gives a burst of energy that is more subtle and it is a substance that gifts it's fans with long life. The Siberian people drink chaga regularly and have a life span of 85-100 years. The Inuit do not drink chaga and their life span is 50-60 years. Thats pretty remarkable given they both live in similar climates with easy access to birches.

So, today was unusual because the power failed. I cut my workout short and took to the woods with Sadie because I couldn't compute, clean,  wash or cook with no power. The spirited wind was gusting and the ravens played on the draughts. I walked up the back hill on a road that was covered...not in pavement but with tiny flowers...bluets and violets. As I walked I became so grateful that I had to lie down and kiss the ground. I ate a few violets and bluet blossoms and tried to see if Sadie might like them too. She wasn't too impressed. Lucky me. I get to walk on a road paved with flowers. While I scoped out birches and potential chaga, Sadie pretended the world was her agility training course. She played with the fast running stream, rolled in who knows what and raced over obstacles having a blast. We walked for an hour or so and headed back to see if the power had been restored. No. Not yet. So I warmed up my dandilion green soup on the woodstove...slowly but there was a fire to feed and once fed, it did the job. I enjoyed my dandilion soup. It was made of all the dandilions I took out of my garden...the small ones without flowers, but still  bitterness was part of the interesting flavor of the soup.  
I love knowing I'm eating something free and wild that is tonic to my body, helping my liver and filling my hunger for life.

With power out, I couldn't make coffee anyway. Coffee is an electrical buzz that helped me move through lots of situations I wasn't that motivated to do and a ritual I shared with my Mom and sisters and friends. Now that I'm not living in the buzz of Massachusetts and my life is slowed down to a more natural pace, I find drinking chaga is envigorating. It is to partake in the grace and flexibility of the white birches...to feel the power of rootedness and the upward reaching of the tree branches...to feel a oneness with the woods around me. In fact a tree branch is what caused the power outage...that and the gusty spirited wind. So this power failure today? It was just my cup of tree.

HEART-MY MAIN BRAIN

28 years ago today, I gave birth to myself as a mother...and to a beautiful manchild who has become a human being that I feel honored to know in the deepest possible way. I remember the morning he was born. I had a long back labor and had been working with the pains since the morning before. I reached transition and found myself quite beside myself. I had opted for a birth center birth and in so doing, opted out of using drugs to help manage the pain. I became a person I wasn't familiar with...I swore, growled, grunted like a bear. I was demanding and wanted Stephen to constantly press on my back. I begged for a ceasarian because the other women had been taken across the street to the hospital. It was a busy night...with 4 of us giving birth. I was the only woman who managed to deliver naturally that day. I have read about some of the tribal women giving birth silently. It was bad luck for the mother to expose her difficulty with pain to her child. I sure hope it isn't the case...but back as a new mother, I feared my swearing and screaming might have a negative impact. I never felt real fear till I had a child. And the mind can become very active imagining all kinds of things that might happen if...Being a new mother was like rock climbing...hanging on to the edge for dear life, getting stuck in certain positions, fearing the fall. I was in a constant state of hyper alert. As I began the work of pushing this baby's head through the birth canal, my Mom stopped by on her way to work at a local bakery. She hadn't wanted to be present for the birth thinking she didn't want to see me in pain. But she stopped...and she came in and kissed my feet. A few minutes later, Sam emerged with a name we hadn't chosen. Once he was safely delivered and the pain was done, I experienced a week long high...feeling like I could do anything on earth. I felt truly powerful...deeply capable in my body and my heart...but incredible mental fears began to slowly grow like weeds. When Sam was a few months old, Stephen and I were walking beside Jackson Falls in the spring and the falls were ripping. Stephen was carrying him and I was nearly paralyzed with fear as he scampered around like a goat beside the rushing water. Eventually, the highest high gave way to the lowest low...the postpartum thing hit me like a brick upside the head. In truth, I have struggled with depression several times in my life...mostly hormonal but a few deep losses also prepared the soil for a fully flowered depression. It is truly the only regret I have in life...the days that were lost to negative thinking, the moments I couldn't fully participate in the love of my family and friends. Having lunch in the car with my 28 year old son last week while a seagull sat on the hood of my car begging like a dog for bits of sandwich, we talked about so many things...things that matter. We talked about his grandmothers, their aging process, the stress of their loss of capabilities, the ability to manifest dreams. He shared a video of a TED talk with Jill Bolte Taylor discussing the right and left brain, the feeling of having a stroke, the difference in the functions of the 2 brains. We cried a little and we talked about music. One of the interesting likenesses we share is the artists soul and sensitivities and the challenge of scheduling time for the making of money yet making sure there is creative time for self expression too. Sam and the video both described a sense of being big huge energies being pressed into small human bodies. I share that feeling and I can't describe the joy in my heart when I realized after all these years of saying "Sam...I think we need to talk"...and having him hold his hands over his ears or moan and groan saying.."No Mom...not another talk."...that here he was, talking to me...understanding me...and visa versa. He gave me a great gift. He listened, he heard, and best ...he understood from his own deep heart. I just adore my 2 adult men. They hear me with their hearts. I can stop struggling with words and explanations and the weight of guidance and move on from the feeling of being ole misunderstood Mom who's always making mountains out of molehills... and get in to my heartspace ...where a mother's main brain has always been. So Happy Birthday to me as a mother. I'm proud of the job I did. I'm delighted I chose to intuit my way through rather than read all the how to books. In hind sight I see that I made many solid choices and did all I could to bring up men who are good human beings. And Happy Birthday to Sam...I hope you see that music is an essential purpose in your life and that even if youre currently split...one half to make money to live on and one half to protect some creative time for continuing your music...you are in the process of weaving your selves together and soon a time will come when your passion will become your livlihood and there will be no stopping you.

If The Slipper Fits....

Last time I wrote I was an April Fool. Time seems to be racing by and yet, paradoxically, I've slowed my life down to the bear essentials. I am lucky to be at a place on the river, where I can stop whenever I want to.  I don't need to live my life as though I'm shooting the rapids. I no longer rush from one thing to another to accomplish all that I set out for myself. I work for myself on my own schedule. Stephen has always cultivated this talent. And my Dad was self employed as well. I am beginning to appreciate the gift of not working for someone else's agenda. But it hasn't come easy. Getting a job, following a schedule, being a particular way for the sake of professional personna...I did that. I worked hard to be responsible, dependable, focused, goal-oriented, pleasant and to do it on the clock, whether or not I slept the night before. My challenge was to schedule my life so that I had time for my husband, my kids, my home, and eventually for my own passions...like birding, writing, making art, cooking. It was impossible to do what I planned for myself in 24 hours. Now...at 59, things have changed. Now I have the freedom to schedule my own agenda and the ability to live my life honoring my own priorities. Even when I had a child, which was the only other time in my life that I was not working out in the world... the schedule of my days was focused on the eating and sleeping schedule of my children. I have become a master of adapting the choices of the people I love. It is a strength but like all great human qualities, that strength can become a weakness or a fault.

When Stephen had his bypass surgery and for the 12 months following, I prioritized him. I centered the choices of my day around him and what he seemed to need...for company, for food, for space, for entertainment. I found myself regulating my life to his. I'm sure I did that when we first fell in love and I know I readjusted when the children came. Now I find myself doing the same thing for my Mom and sister...putting down my schedule and plans to go accomodate theirs.Part of me feels lucky to be able to do what I'm doing. Part of me feels confused. How is that Stephen doesn't do the same for me? He does his process no matter what is going on for me. He doesn't put aside his games to spend time with me. He doesn't come rushing home just because I'm coming back from a few days in Salem. He knows he'll see me plenty and get all the scoop eventually. My mother never put her process aside to come to my assistance either. She always made it clear that she was not going to babysit because she had been there, done that having had 5 children. I just came home from my long weekend in Mass. to hang with my mom and to give my sister some respite. The whole time I'm there, I'm aware of suspending my own routine. I don't do my usual writing, excersise...getting outdoors. I even drink real coffee at Moms, when here at home, I don't drink it any more. Then, when I get home...the overstimulation of being in an urban environment, settling in to my mother's eating/drinking/toileting routine, driving the highway, being surrounded by the Mass. Pace...a palpable frenetic energy that stands out in stark contrast to my quiet  rural home in Maine where I can go days without seeing anyone but Stephen.

Is it really any wonder why I come home burdened with irritability, and the feeling that I give too much for love and leave myself bankrupt...wondering why I don't have a person in my life who loves me the way I love. Then it dawns on me. Gee. Maybe my idea of love is unrealistic. Maybe I'm the only one who can love me the way I love my family. Maybe they can only love me their way...and isn't that really just enough? The city is like my left brain...all scheduled, organized but overbooked. Too many people and details buzzing around my brain...too many people to see for the time I spend. Then I get home to my open space, open schedule, quiet home. The chatter and buzz is still going in my nervous system even though the grass is growing slow, and the birds are courting and building their nests. I am back in my right brain, where I feel peace and serenity but I have carried with me into the green meadows...a trail of garbage thinking. I need to remember that when I come home, before poor Stephen feels my brittle irritating quills and the itch of my anger...I need to get me to the woods...to take of my city slicker and put on my wild, sweet Lady's slipper. The wild breath of trees will refresh my inner peace. Then...share it again.