LAST DAY LEARNINGS

And here it is...the last day of 2011. I want to write a blog post that is light, uplifting...a prayer for all to be embraced by the natural peace and well-being so generously provided by the Wild Earth Mother. I want to say something original...something important. But alas...I'm feeling sad and ineffective, small and weak and flooded with emotion. I'm just so sick of waiting for things to be right...the weather, the snow. the skiing. The conditions around my sister and my mother and all the mayem in their lives resulting from the escalating need for her care. Nothing is ever going to be right. That's what I think. Or maybe the pervading sense of waiting for things to be right just needs to be replaced by the possibility that things are just right in all their imperfection. Christmas was a sweet round of family branches constellated against a true blue sky. It all went beautifully. There was warmth and merriment...a sense of being blessed to have another Christmas with Mom...and yet one sister remained distant and the other was diagnosed with breast cancer. The day we left Salem, there were some tense moments exchanged and emotions spilled over the riverbanks. The situation continues to darken. I look at my sister who is shouldering most of the daily care of my Mom and I see myself...my pattern of doing too much and being so caught by details and feeling soley responsible for things that I close out the chance of receiving help. Yep. Thats me folks. Her behaviour and some of her words trigger me and I am aware of feeling like no matter what I offer it is never enough. I'm back in high school being scolded for being an underachiever and believing the guidance councellor who told me not to bother applying to any schools other than Salem or Bridgewater State. That person...the Lisa of high school...is not helpful in this senario of 2011. Apparently I say things that trigger my sister as well. And as our amygdalas are spazzing out in the juices of childhood emotion, we are making the moment even harder to deal with. I think if anyone stole Christmas this year...it was that damn amygdala. And I am determined to break the cycle because I want my sister to know I am on her team. Can I see the branch that is me or are we woven into family dynamic so tightly that I can't quite tell where her emotions begin and mine unconciously hook in? This is a case of coming undone. We are unravelling a lifelong tapestry of childhood emotional patterns...or I am anyway. And it isn't a good time. My youngest sisters cancer diagnosis isn't great  timing either. For Mom, we are all in this together and yet we each have a heaping plate of our own crapola to navigate.

This morning as we had our coffee, Stephen and I were talking about all that happened over 2011. It wasn't a year that I'd like to repeat and yet there were some fine blessings to be sifted for from the sand and ash. One was that we were even having coffee together. I said..Gee. I should pull out my journal and read what I was hoping to let go of, what I hoped to achieve and see how I measured up. Stephen said...mmmm...if your going to do that be sure to look at all that happened that wasn't planned...wasn't on your list. That comment was said with such love. He knows me. He knows how hard I can be on myself. I thought about that comment and it moved me. He's right of course. Instead of looking at my list and seeing how I fell short...I could look at the big picture and see how I rose to the occaision. If life is what happens when your busy making plans...then damn it...let me open up to it and stop waiting for the perfect moment...the perfect conditions...the end of the holidays...next spring...or when the snow comes.
If I keep looking right...for the right this or the right time or the right job or the right friendship, then I'll just keep spinning in a circle of inactivity. If I want to write, I better get going and take what time is left.

So on this last day of 2011, I have learned that if I want to accomplish something next year...I better start to include the unknown in my plans because there is me, my list...all in my head...and then there is whats happening. Maybe instead of looking at reality as a wrestling match...I could learn how to dance. And that requires me to slow down...lie in the grass and stare up at the tapestry of trees against a blue sky and wonder how it lives there like my family lives in my heart. Wishing everyone a 2012 full of Natures' blessings and the strength to roll with her storms.

CREATIVITY UNLEASHED

I believe I have been a writer all of my life. I started writing poems when I was twelve and have kept a journal since I was in high school. As tongue tied as I can become, writing appealed to me because I could always take the time I needed to find just the right word to express myself. Talking in front of people exposed my word retrieval problems...I was clumsy and easy to embarrass. Death was my first catapult into metaphor and the poem I wrote was about a lunar eclipse and the untimely death of a friend when I was 12. The poem was actually read at the funeral and although I was not present to recieve any attention for it, that quick success encouraged my efforts and began a lifelong love of metaphor and word play. As a child becoming adult, I managed to take the attitude of play out of the equation and turn writing into something motivated by duty and work. I always have a sense of being held back...held in check...held on a short leash...and pratice practice practice is an exersise in spiritual discipline. Early experiences with elementary teachers taught me to fear the open white page. Art lessons were actually lessons in following directions and doing what we were told...not in indulging our childlike creative spirits. My second grade teacher shook me till my shoulders bled and locked me in a supply closet when I put a sun on my Easter picture...then she made me walk around the room holding my picture up for all to see. She basically snuffed out the light in my little artist heart and I've spent the rest of my life trying to get that radiant spirit back. I never face a white page without anxiety and the need to encourage myself to go ahead and let it rip. When we moved to Maine and began life in a ski resort town, and I began to work on improving my skiing...I realized that I carry the same fear and anxiety to my skiing and to skiing on new terrain. I became a yellow crayon on the white trails in my imagination and writing with a gel pen resembled the sensation of skiing and I would pretend the pen was me skiing. Suddenly, my concept of creativity opened up. I've finally discovered that creativity is not just about writing or painting or music, singing or acting or performance. Creative doen't necessarily imply using art media at all really. A person can be creative by making an unusal choice on any given day...or by linking 2 unlikely things together or by using something in a new way. That openness comes from an attitude of play because play is light, happy, fun. If one sets one's mind to working at something...there is a serious adult frame that goes around the whole picture. Work is serious. Work is something that needs to get done. Work is headed toward a particular outcome. Work beats a slow path while play allows you to leap.

Sadie has been a great teacher in the effort to reclaim play in my life. Now that she is older and has learned to come when I call, I can take her on long walks in the woods where she can enjoy the freedom of unleashed exploration. I trust her to come when I call.All the practice of puppyhood has brought us to the possibility of enjoying our freedom together. Now that she knows how to heel and stay near, I can give her rein and let her explore her own sequence of choices. I talk to her aloud in the woods. Often I talk out loud to the trees and often, I see ephemeral images of ghost animals or people in the woods. I recently read an article about creative people being weird...square pegs in round holes...often doing what they do despite feelings of not belonging anywhere. The writer of the article frequently mentioned that creative people report hearing voices, seeing ghosts, communicating telepathically and having other strange perceptual experiences. I thought...how strange. I was under the impression that most people have these odd perceptual experiences and have learned to regard them as pretty normal. Reading that article made me wonder about the effort of science to explain everything and prove everything. So much of life's mystery and imaginative play is lost in the testing and lableing and explaining and proving.

When Stephen and I first got together, we had lots of conversations about the word "Weird". He'd call my thinking weird and I told him to replace the word with creative. Whenever he called me weird, he had to say the same thing only change the word to creative. I would do the same when he caught me calling him weird. It helped us both rise above what external people thought of us because we had begun to change the language we used about ourselves. The same tactic can be used with abilities/disabilities. Sometimes a single word can change the way we understand ourselves.

I need to have the wild around me...it is the hole this peg fits in. In the woods, I am at home with my nature. My spirit is unleashed. I move happily into the little hobbit holes I spot as I walk. I imagine myself at home with the chipmunks and tree gnomes and I find the time and space to be with the rocks, the trees and to listen to the shivery chatter of the brittle oak leaves knocking together in the soft wind and smell the layers of earthy decay. I've always needed the wild and I craved it from the time I was a child and we had to move to Salem after living in the more rural Beverly Farms. I need to have the possibility of a bear stealing my birdfeeder or the chance of spooking a deer in the woods. I need to hear the coyotes howl and the winds scream through the trees. I need to hear the popping trees in January and
imagine the bony tree limbs reaching out for the love of the sun. I need to listen to the music of the wild water running down through the moss covered rocks...not for anything other than it makes me happy and it gives my imagination a place to play. A space of wilderness is the empty space, the white page, the place before buildings and pavement and wires and lights...the state of grace before pollution and industrial pillage. The wilderness is the origin and the source of hope for planetary healing. So if you feel like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole...go walking in the wilderness. Perhaps you too will find a hobbit-hole awaiting your imaginary elf-self and the fit will be perfect.

MY WILD MOTHER

The second weekend of Advent has passed like water through the mossy rocks. I spent the time hunkered down with my Mom in Salem. It is always special. Because her recent memory is most challenged by the aftermath of the fall she took, she really has the most trouble remembering what she's doing right now or today or this weekend. We watched the Andrea Boccelli concert from Central Park on Friday night. I sat in my Dad's old Morris chair...the one that belonged to his Dad. My dad was a passionate fan of the Italian opera composers and especially loved the arias written by Puccini. I remember him sitting in that chair listening to the Sunday afternoon opera and weeping. When I was younger I thought it was kind of funny and didn't at that time, share my Dad's interest at all. While Mom and I listened to the concert, I found myself weeping. She didn't have dry eyes either. My dad's presence was uncanny and throughout the weekend, we spoke aloud to him. We watched that concert Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night...each time it played it was as fresh as the first time...at least for Mom. She was moved and happily surprised by the song choices as if hearing them all for a first time. She seems to be experiencing the format of the house as it was in the 70s. She stands up and heads for the back hall which before 1976, was a lavatory. But when we look at old photos taken by her father who was a photography enthusiast, she knows just whos who in the college and wedding pictures. I marvel at the human brain, amazed at the phenomenon of memory and how our experience of the present moment can be scrambled while the ancient memories are as clear as photos. All weekend I was reading a book that had as one of its many themes, the idea of genetic memory. The book is called THE WINTER SEA...and it is a historical romance set in Scotland during the first attempts to bring King James back from France. I saw my mother's grandfather's photo for the first time...a William Noble who emigrated to the USA from Glasgow Scotland. The Scottish accent furled around my ears like a sound of water flowing. There seemed to be a gathering of family energies including a cat we had as a young family. Smoky...a grey part angora cat that Mom mentioned a few times. I wonder...could all the dejas vu and familiar feelings that make a person think they may have been here before...could they actually be ancestral memories that hide in our genes? Mom kept talking about the mist and fog of early morning. I didn't experience any, mind you...but I dare not tell her what is or isn't real for who's to say her perception of Now superimposed over Back Then isn't more acurate on some level than my own. Silver fingers of scottish brogue weave through the hairs in my ears...I smell the crystal jar of orange jelly slices...I breathe and feel my father's loving essence moved by the exalted music of love. Somewhere back in time, the roots of my family tree sent forth some seeds to find fertile soil in a new place...so that a new branch of the family would find a haven to call home. The roots were fed by the wild Celtic water of ancient forests and the people farmed for their food. The cold was familiar and the winter snows were as much a part of life as the fog and mists hiding the hills. My family...Stephen, Sam and Will and I are the seeds that found new soil to sink our roots into during the 21st century. Genetics are carried by seed and perhaps the tree remembers feeding its roots in the wild Scottish soil.

When I come home from my visits with Mom in Salem, I am aware of a deep sense of gratitude for being here now...where the air is fresh and scented with evergreens all winter and the mountains greet us with white shawls under bluebird skies. I love the open space and the restful landscapes of unbroken wilderness. After going back to the city, I return home released of any residual regrets for having left. I can sleep again. The night sky is actually dark and the quiet is calming. Mom told me that when she was little, she would hang out her bedroom window and sing at the top of her lungs. She never told me that before. I was surprised and reminded her of how I used to sing Que Sera and assorted other favorite songs at the top of my lungs out the third floor windows and from the tiptop of the pine tree in the front yard. There. Another little memory bubbles up from the far long ago. Like mother, like daughter. We laugh because all my life I worked so hard to not be like my mother. Now, relaxing with her in her twilight years...it seems we are more alike than I ever dreamed. My love and appreciation for my dear Mom in the present, casts a light on my ardent love and need to comfort myself in the breast of the wild mother. The Wild Mother ...she welcomes me home. She is the wild water that feeds the roots of my family tree. She is the angel at the Christmas treetop. She is the artist who decorates with crystaline frost and whimsical cloud formations. She is a most vulnerable and confused elder and she asks for my protection. This Christmas, I give her my Present..my quiet, listening presence. Sssshhh...listen. There is music in the flow of wild water and it feeds my roots.

THE SHAPE OF CHRISTMAS

These are the dawning days of being a tribal elder. I'm a new born on the threshold of entering the teepee reserved for the circle of elders, to gather and hammer out the process of moving forward in a way that benefits the People...and having finally grasped the depth of conditioning that has shaped my passion for creating the perfect Christmas by buying into the huge machine of the American Consumer Christmas, I am finally ready to let go of all the false promises of store bought joy and mass-produced media satisfaction. I am encountering a healthy mistrust of an unhealthy society. Somewhere in my growing process, I hitched myself to a black-hole instead of a star. A black-hole sucks the life out of everything it swallows on its obsessive quest for energy. A star shines quietly, letting its light out to be appreciated and seen by anyone and everyone freely. I'm not down on myself or being overcritical here...I'm just becoming aware. I've put my faith in a place that wasn't faithful...made an honest mistake. Now I can correct it.

I don't need certain clothes, toys, material things to be happy. And I don't need to spend precious creative energy attempting to be something that I'm not. I also am not singly responsible for making Christmas come true for all the people I love. I don't need to make something for every last person I come into contact with. The pressure I place on myself to provide holiday cheer has an ironic way of taking the joy out of everything. My job is to be present...and my gift is to love.

This first weekend of Advent was filled with gifts. A gathering of friends from college..us girls were all roommates off campus at U. Maine Orono and a few special male friends joined us at a pizza place in Bangor. Sue and Michael were stateside from Wonthaggi Australia for a visit to Sue's mom who is recovering from a bad fall, like mine. Two friends had lost their Dads just this summer. But what a group of laughing, delighted souls who were happy just to bask in each others presence. "So This Is Christmas" played like a refrain in my brain. Even though Stephen had met these folks only recently, there was a feeling of ancient familiarity. What is this feeling of gathered family among people that created their first bond back in the 1970s? Why has so much time slipped by without tending to these precious connections? I went back to be present in Bangor with my old friends to realize that when I left them in 1973, I was making a huge mistake. I was following a romance that led me into a 10 year black hole that I had to crawl out of...like falling for the machinations of a Christmas machine instead of the true spirit of love and rebirth. This past weekend I laughed my way into awareness. The glorious gift of reconnection is like a weaving of thread...our stories creating a fabric and somehow our shared love for each other managed to bridge any gaps of divergent thinking. We could all differ in our political or religious approaches but what held us together in a bubble of joy at that table was our love for each other and that is the kind of weaving that holds families together. Who cares about the externals? The trappings and shiny paper that wraps things up in glittery beauty but has no thought for the killing of the trees? Who cares about that new hi-tech doodad or that 60 inch TV? I'm so grateful not to be one of those poor sad souls who bloodied someone's face for fear of not grabbing that desired item on Black Friday. I realize I have the luxury of truly letting go because my children are grown and as a family, we have been pruning our traditions for years. I hope I didn't set my boys up with impossible materialistic expectations for a joyous holiday season when what really satisfies is the small everyday miracle of making ends meet and having time to love the people who are really important in your life. I am deeply grateful for the "Festival Of Lights"...and though we didn't attend the parade or the tree lighting...we had our own ole fashioned holiday table where everyone was alight and everyone was a present and their presence was THE GIFT.  So if the photo here resembles just a bunch of friends sitting at a table eating pizza, then you are obviously just looking at the surface. What you are actually seeing is a beautiful tree burning fairy lights of love and decorated with the stories writ from the fabric of our lives. As we shared shots of tequila and hovered at the doorway to our adult lives in the 70s, we now drink red wine and hover at the threshold of our years as elders. May our laughter guide us through the portal and shape our later years with love, health and a few more precious visits...maybe even one down-under.

PORTALITY

I like to get on my treadmill for a 30 minute session of making my heart beat a strong rhythm. When I walk and jog, I blast my favorite tunes and close my eyes imagining that this hampster wheel excersise is moving me toward light...a lighter weight, a lighter attitude, a lighter sense of perspective...heck an incredible lightness of being. I dedicate my 30 minutes to the Creative Spirit...or God if you wish...whatever you call it, its the great orderly flow that my own cells are made from. I guess its rather like a form of moving meditation and I would probably be smart to do it before I write instead of after, because I always get some kind of new awareness. Today...it comes in the form of a new word. As I contemplate my mother's mortality, I encounter a relationship with portality...a through the glass darkly phenomenon...a slide down a tunnel or a rabbit hole...a secret door that I can finally open. Over the last two years mortality has been sitting on my shoulders. Intensely. First, Stephen required quadruple bypass surgery in May 2010 and that was a long intense dance with the unknown. Then came Priscilla passing in March 2011. And now Mom and her very bad fall in September. It dawned of me as I treaded my mill that these are the 2 years that I have recieved a particular gift...the gift of being able to devote myself full time to my garden. Actully it began in 2009 when Stephen tilled me up the beds and fenced in my space because there were so many deer roaming about. He put that fence up and I began to feel like a baby in her playpen. My friend April taught me to refer to my garden time as playtime and as a result, I found an unquenchable thirst for spending my energy in that spot. So for three years, I've spent spring, summer and fall 100% committed to my garden...planting, weeding, tending, watering, pruning, pinching, picking, putting up, preparing and serving. For the first time in my life I've been focused on one thing. What a rare and amazing luxury. And I'm not sure I fully GOT IT until now. What a simple pleasure to tend one's own back yard. And what has it given me? Besides food...good healthy pestiside free food that seems to love me as much as I love growing it? Well...the more I ponder it, the more I see the gifts.

First...I've learned that when I don't think I can do one more thing...I can. I can always go a little further than I think I can and that thought has been lifechanging. Perhaps the original prototype for this lesson was set in motherhood because I always thought I couldn't take one more minute and I always took many more. Ha. So much for limits.

Second...No matter how much the weather and the bugs and the diseases thwart my growing efforts, there is always something that does well...and I don't need to hover over every tender shoot because that fearful hovering can cause a person(me) to overwater and encourage superficial root systems. A little neglect is healthy.

Third...the whole world seems to plot against maintaining focus. As a lifelong member of the ADHD club, I became ,with my teachers full support, just one more human being who knows a little about alot but who loses focus easily...so easily that finishing things is a rare occurrence. Before moving to Maine, I remember grieving the fact that everytime I planted a garden, I missed the harvest. The seduction of distractions has always been a personal difficulty. And I'm a master at distracting myself. So...the luxury of focus and follow through have been gifts of my garden.

And fourth? Tending my garden...working for Mother nature...doing what needs to be done and doing it all for the sake of the satisfaction it gives as opposed to doing it for money...well that is a first. So my garden is not just a garden...it is a portality. It is an opening I can slip through to become more of what I am...an amazing female mystery and it gives me exactly what I need right now to support my aging mother as she faces her mortality and end of life choices. Writing brings me to the opening...allows me to see the connections...and peering through the portal...what do I see? I'm growing a portality. And who cares if it isn't a word. Its my word.

FOR THE LOVE OF TREES

I'm home from Salem after spending nearly a full week at my Mom's house for holiday sharing but also to spell my sister who is shouldering the lion's share of her care since she fell and was discharged from rehab. Last night I had trouble sleeping. The nightmare that disturbed my sleep was of me, stepping outdoors to find men with chainsaws cutting down immense pine trees. As I stepped through the door, I began screaming and crying at the top of my lungs and I couldn't quite identify where I was...I wondered if I was here at my home or if I was in the front yard at Cambridge Street. Both places have grandfather pine trees nearby. In fact it was a huge old pine that was removed from the sunny side of our house here in Maine when we were preparing to move in 2008. At that point in time, I had a dream that suggested that the removal of the tree would be acceptable. I still felt terribly guilty because it was immense and the reason it was being cut down was to allow for more light to penetrate the building. I dreamed that the base of the tree would become a totem pole to honor the life of the tree, the people who had lived here prior to us and to give respect to the animals who have become so important to our family as totems, friends and neighbors. I had a vision of the tree trunk and where the trunk split into two trunks. I requested the men who were cutting it down to make sure they left several feet of trunk above the fork because I could see the Bald Eagle that would be at the top of the totem with it's wings spread and carved from the two separate sections. Somehow, the art form of honoring the tree's life in a totem pole made it OK with the universe that the tree's life would come to a sudden end. My heart felt peace. It's a growth I've had since leaving Marblehead...making peace with killing meat for food and cutting down trees for light. The spring before my Dad passed away, I was working as a crossing guard at the Tower School corner. The school was preparing to add a large addition to the school and preparations were underway that included cutting down trees. I was born a tree-hugger...long before the term emerged, my soul was a bird that loved and depended on trees in ways that I couldn't comprehend consciously. That June I stood at that corner with my stop sign crying my eyes out as the saws took down tree after tree. The kids stared at me but seemed to understand my deep sadness for the loss of life. I wrote a poem about it and sent letters to the newspaper but it didn't matter. I think of that time now as I try to get a sense of what my dream last night was telling me. I love trees. I care about their lives and I thrill inside when the birds return and the bare tree limbs can feel the little scratchings of birdclaw arrival in late spring.

As I've been writing this blog entry, small brain firings illuminate connections. I feel the act of writing allows some bridgebuilding in my brain and aha's happen like a cerebral shower of stars. I feared I might be short with my mother. Especially when overtired. I never sleep well at her house. The night shadows and lights, the sirens and sounds of city...the unfamiliar feel of the bed and the hypervigilance of wanting to be awake for her every move. I expected to be moody and emotional. Instead, caring for Mom gives me a deep peaceful feeling. I feel so grateful to be able to spend all this time with her. I feel grateful my sister has opted to live with her and I feel totally committed to providing her repite with my visits...it's all so right. I've had some really hard conversations with her about her end of life desires. This weekend it was a conversation about moving her bedroom downstairs. It seems the most natural place for her to sleep given the inevitability that in the near future she won't be able to manage the MacIntyre staircase that is a challenge for even the unchallenged. As I wrote my dream above, I remembered helping Mom down the stairs twice after Thanksgiving. As we descended the spiral staircase, she looked intently at me and said...Dear...do we know where I am? I said, I don't have a stairway like this at my house Mom, so we aren't there. And she said...you mean I'm right in my own home? Yes Mom. You are right at home. That moment in time created a portal...a portal I passed through when I couldn't figure out if I was at home or at Mom's in my dream last night. It makes me wonder...if I can be so passionate about the life of trees, so sad about their end of life, so moved to honor them in song and art, what will it feel like when Mom slips through the final portal and her life on Earth ? Will I step out and weep and scream and send out a wave of fury into the universe? Or will her passing open my home to more and more light? And will her soul still visit me in imagination and in dream? Will she come to me...a tree, and alight with a soft brush of feather or a sweet scratching of claw? I don't know. And I won't know. Until it happens.
Meanwhile, I savor the fragrance of her confused but radiant presence. Perhaps it is the unnessesary, irreverant removal of life for the convenience and wastefulness of humans that causes me to dream of screaming outrage ...or perhaps I am simply giving voice to the dying trees.

BONSAI CHRISTMAS

I've been pruning our family celebration of Christmas for years. I think I've just about got myself a holiday that resembles a Bonsai...a miniature holiday...a tiny essence of yuletide...a suggestion of Christmas that focuses primarily on the returning light and the beginning of a New Year full of unlimited potential. The first "things" to go were the traditions that required buying things. I wasn't quite brave enough when my kids were small and I worked hard to have a holiday with homebaked goodies...filled stockings, candies, a gingerbread house, a cause to donate to or a child to give gifts to that was not a member of our immediate family...visits with both sides of the family, Christmas cards to all who lived a distance away, a yearly family ornament, a creche, a Christmas Eve visit from Santa, photos at the Mall, a real Balsam Christmas Tree and a mountain of gifts beneath it. I began my insane robot imitation the day after Thanksgiving and the battery went dead just about New Years Day. I wandered into the New Year completely exhausted, depressed and tearful...having missed some of the best moments with my kids cuz I was such a frenzy of activity preparing my nativity. And by January...I had a bad case of BITCH. And I wondered why. Slowly, over the years since the boys flew the coop, these traditions have passed into light. This year, my favorite custom occured before Thanksgiving. The making of the wreathes. This year we had a rare midweek visit from Sam and Cass and for the first time EVER, I had pals to make wreathes with. We took Sadie down to the river and up back into the woods to collect interesting boughs and branches, seedpods and dried flowers. We spent all morning gathering whatever we could find that seemed beautiful in it's bony November state...milkweed pods tossing up snow fairies, hydrangea blossoms gone gold, about 6 different kinds of evergreen branches exuding their fresh aroma, bright orange mushrooms with velvet undersides and the bright yellow red sparks of bittersweet that the winter birds love to steal once the snow flies. That took all morning and then we pulled out the potting table and set up shop...Sam built a bonfire while Cass and I began our whimsical approach to making the wreathes. Of course I think about my Mom as I wind the vines into a circle. She is in her November of her life. The dried pods, the seed pouches, the dried goldenrod and browning hydrangea all in the geriatric stage of their lifecycles...not alot of vitality left...but still beautiful. I pick them up and work them into the circle with gratitude. The milkweed stood as nursery to the monarch caterpillars and fed the chrysalis to the point of emergence as a butterfly. The hydrangea fed the hummingbirds and bees and any other bugs that stuck around to make their magic in my garden. The dead sunflower heads fed the goldfinches and lifted their heads to the sun as it made its daily journey around my garden. All these bits and pieces of dead nature had given all they could in life...and yet even as they stand lifeless and ready to become one with Earth when the first snow flies, there is joy to their presence. The milkweed pods look like birds if you turn them upside down...and the soft silky seeds take to the air like fairies and you know you have sent a seed into an unknown future...of life and growth. Last year, I made November wreathes out of all the dried stuff...they are really gratitude wreathes. And after Thanksgiving, I made evergreem boughs and circles to afix them to...the evergreens reminding me of that which is always a part of me...the people of my family that came before, the love that is ever green and nurturing me as I pass through the stages of my life. There is a lot to making a wreath! Then Sam took a photo of me looking through the wreath and I was struck by the wreath as portal...a place of entry that celebrates that which has passed, honoring the life of the nature filling my year by treating the dead with love...and awareness of the beauty that remains. That circle of remains afixed to the boughs of evergreens makes a doorway I can slip through into the New Year. It has become my favorite celebration by far. But in order for that day to happen...I had to snip away all the commercial "have tos" in my brainwashed mind. Even some of the main limbs had to be pruned. Its taken several years but I have come to the place where giving away and getting rid of is way more fun to me than recieving storebought stuff that suits no real purpose.When I remember the day I brought my boys home from Christmas dinner at my folks. They had recieved huge Tonka trucks from my Dad...the earthmovers...2 each. Dumpers, dozers, cranes...when we got all the stuff up to our third floor apartment at Middle Street, I wept because there was so much stuff from Christmas that we couldn't even walk across the room. That was my wake up call.

Now here I am. Damned if I'll go to the mall. I'll take my Christmas tree from the side of the new garage because eventually, we need to clear that area so the white pine may be Charlie Brownish...but it is tax free and it whispers to me about being celebrated by bringing it in and decorating it and on January 6th...we'll burn it in the fire pit tied with our prayers for the healing and peace of the worldwide family. I love Christmas. I gave birth to a child on the Winter Solstice. Will slipped through the portal to this life as a Caswell and has turned me into a tried and true pagan...celebrating the first day of the increasing light and the love of family and friends with a heart full of gratitude...and happy to share all I have. But like my Mom has mentioned time and time again, her greatest legacy and gift to humankind, is the gift of her children

MAKING LIGHT

Light changes everything. When the clocks go back and the day darkens long before supper, and the people sensitive to the short light begin to feel sad for "no reason"...there is no switch to turn it up or on or make it burn because you want it to. Or can you? I often think about the nature of light. It makes a skyscape holy or a night sky eerie and mysterious. Light brings colors alive and makes us feel like jumping out of bed. Sometimes the way the light touches our surroundings makes it seem like spirits are present or like God is reaching down through the clouds with lightfingers to give us a hand. Light is the way you look at something too. If you consider a certain issue one day under a certain light, you read it a particular way and if you look at it another day, under a different light...a problem's solution becomes visible. Artists revel in light play and a great artist can portray the magic of light for everyone to see and appreciate. I wish I had been born an artist. I just adore the creative process and find in it, my most resonant example of the sacred spirit that lightens my burdens as I make my way through life. Light is the shining light as well as the lifting of weight or the setting of flame. It is fleeting. Momentary. Everchanging. And changing everything. A camera is my friend and gives me the opportunity to catch the slant of light or the refraction that casts a pink spell over my heart. If I can't capture the unique and passing beauty of a certain light in art...in paint or drawing...at least the camera gives me a tool to share my vision with others. I use it gratefully. It has captured an image that has captured my imagination that has captured knowledge that has shed light on how I read the deeper meaning of my life. In seeking light I find insight. In making light, I find I can let go of baggage that weighs heavy on my shoulders. In appreciating light, I am better able to see and funnily enough...I am better prepared to feel a sense of comfort in the darkness because it is really just another transitory state of light...or no light. When life brings the ultimate challenge to sit on my lap, I no longer despair. That...my friends...is a huge change. I hope it has something to do with age. Because if it does...then aging becomes something of a treasure. I am watching my 86 year old mother navigate her end of life and I am horrified by the prospect of being in the same state some day. I encounter a crouching coward in my heart who prays for a quick end at a not too old age so I can be spared of the indignity of feeble old age. I don't want my sons to have to help me to the bathroom. I don't want to become lost and confused and befuddled by daily tasks. I may not be brave enough. And yet my mother laughs at herself. She roars over her confusion and weeps with mirth at the twists and turns of her injured brain. She has become so dear...and her great gift is that she takes herself lightly and that makes people want to spend time with her reminding her of what she's doing and where she's going. Just when her condition tempts a response of despair, she has come up with a certain slant of light...and she is laughing. Now thats a light I would like to turn on in my darkness.

There is a tunnel and through it shines a light. I used to see the portal as a spinning eddy of water pulling me down and under. It's nature was to pull me deep into darkness and depression...despair and decay. Youth is a time when we take ourselves so seriously and I found myself deep in a dark doom reality more times than I care to recall. Aging changes the slant of light and one learns to change the frame...my portal has become more of a doorway and sure enough...it opens to a broad expanse of light that feels warm and welcome and energy giving and all I need to do to lighten my load...to turn on the lights...to see things differently...is to walk through. Maybe it could be that easy. I am a grateful daughter. I am even grateful for the gift of time to spend with my mother ...brain injured or not. The love is unconditional. My gratitude is huge. Now...instead of a swirling eddy of darkness sucking me into my grief, I am swimming in a pool of light. By choosing to focus on that light, I amp it up. I turn it on. I step into the light. How bout you Mom? Wanna join me?

RED GEESE AND BEAR HAIR

I don't know about you but when I set out for the woods or a walk in nature, I try and get into my Zen brain and listen to my environment as if it were talking ...no, whispering, in my ears. Sometimes I'm just awake and my reception is sensitive after  waking up from sleep. I always feel just a little softer and fuzzier around the edges with my dream images hovering just beyond my brain's ability to grasp them into conciousness. It's the tween times when the veil between worlds becomes thin and translucent...the time when rabbits dance and deer step out into a clearing...it's the time when spirits draw near and messages from ancesters can be heard...a magical, crepuscular time and it can come daily, weekly or quarterly. Tween times also happen at edges where one landscape feature changes into another...like a field that gives way to forest...or a lake to a mountain. The possible tween times can be tween places where a doorway to an altered reality opens and anything you imagine can happen. Call it a border...a door...a bridge...a portal or a pathway. Any opening into another state creates a tween time. This morning I woke up with Sadie perched atop my bladder looking furtively into my face with that obvious I want to go out look in her eyes. I don't know how they do it but our animals make themselves clear without language as humans know it and real communication happens. No words to trip over or misunderstand...no multiple meanings to complicate intention. My eyes popped open and I fled to the bathroom myself. She had put the pressure on my bladder and I just had to get up. I struggled into my clothes and gave up trying to catch a thread to my dreams to take her outside for her bathroom needs. It was about 6:45 with daylight well underway. Here in the mountains, daylight comes way before you actually get to see the sun. This morning it felt more like September and I walked up onto the hill to toss the ball and get her moving. A gorgeous morning. A blue cloudless sky and a breeze coming down the river and suddenly the sound of honking geese...a swarming gaggle...in fact it was a huge double V headed south honking up a storm. Even Sadie stopped and looked skyward. It was special. The sun was just coming up and was lighting the underside of the geese with dawns red light. They flew in formation colored red by the rising sun and I couldn't stop looking at the double V of red geese. All day I've pondered what to make of it. Was it a sign? Maybe. Maybe it was a simple reminder to pay attention to the power of a slight shift in the angle of light...how it changes everthing and turns the everyday thing you see a million times over into a life affirming miracle. It has always been the magic of light that whispers for me to capture it. Of course, I never really can. As an artist, I am no realist. I admire the talent of those that can render the real view to share with others but I just get frustrated. The beauty I want to communicate eludes me and my paintbrush. My only satisfaction has come from my point and shoot camera. When I get the setting right, I've hit the mark a few times and captured a beautiful light event to share...rare but doable.

I took my red camera with me on my walk with Sadie later in the day. I am slowly learning to cherish my freedom and to realize that the gift of my present moment includes the luxury of some free time for which I need not feel guilty. Even though unemployed, I work hard. But the garden has been put to sleep. All the fruits of my labors have been put up and the freezer is stocked for winter. The wood has been stacked and the plants brought in. Granted my house is filthy due to so many sunny days but I've been a busy productive little farm girl. I'm standing at a doorway...summer and fall are behind me and winter still lies in the future. This is the magic of the tween times...there is nothing well defined. I can walk with a light heart and there is no pressure to get to the next thing. The clock doesn't determine my agenda and for once, I can revel in unplanned moments. As Sadie and I walked up the Farwell Mountain Road at mid day today, there were deer prints everywhere...mostly does and young but their impressions were hard to miss. My eye fell on some black hair and I had to stop for some reason. I picked it up and smelled it. Mmmm. It's black bear hair...I can tell by the wild gamey smell...a faint hint of urine, probably something the bear rolled in. I kept it. I carried it home feeling a sense of spirit presence. Bears at the portal make me think of hibernating...going within and resting...and I feel reassured. I am currently finding myself in a very introspective place and I somehow feel supported in that by the smelly bear hair in my hand. I know. I sound ridiculous...I've always been told I make ridiculous connections. But in my ridiculous connections...in the red light V of honking geese and the strength of a hair of the bear..I find myself embedded in Nature...a part of my Mother earth and not at all apart from her. And tween you and me...my life is lit with meaning.

FALL REFLECTIONS

My 86 year old mother is at home now recovering from a fall she took on September 12th. It was a lulu...and it's left her brain injured. I just returned home after spending 10 days with her because the doctors have decided she needs supervision 24/7. I think they would have preferred that we put her into some kind of long term care but she has always maintained that she wants to die at home. In fact she would never even consider the possibility that she might not be able to live at home until her death. It was surprising how easy it was to hang out with her for 10 days. I have grown countrified inside and out. I am not always able to call up my old Massachusetts driver. My skills for city living have atrophied and though I miss several people that live down in the Salem/ Marblehead area, there is very little that excites me about urban life. Given my penchant for the open spaces, I thought I'd hate being in Salem for so long. I actually enjoyed myself. Mom is like a 4 year old...she's highly distractable and easily becomes confused as she sets out to go to the bathroom and notices something out the window and before you know it she has forgotten what she got up for. But she is actually quite pleasant to spend time with. She can mask her confusion with stories from long ago and as long as she can keep her focus, she can be entertaining and appear pretty sharp. She can use the toilet and she is not taking medications except for vitamins. Consequently, she doesn't seem like a nursing home candidate and the assisted living model doesn't quite provide her with enough attention. Everyone at the rehab stressed her need to be safe. I think about Priscilla who was in a nursing home...she couldn't talk or toilet or even walk around. Her care was so far beyond our abilities to provide but she still took daily falls at the nursing home. Mom may fall even with someone supervising her whether she is at home or at a home. What was amazing was how strong she became when she came home. Sleeping in her own bed and eating home cooked food, being surrounded by the things of her life...she became more of herself when she got home. When I look back at her cognitive changes, I can see that she had started to fail over a year ago. When I encountered neighbors of hers in salem, they commented on how unsteady on her feet she had become. I didn't really notice that. As far as I could tell, she was walking to work and all her appointments as usual. Had I known would I have done anything? What could I do? If I had told her she couldn't go out walking she would have anyway. I couldn't stop her then and I doubt if I can stop her now when I am on duty. I can't live in constant fear and hovering over every move she makes. She needs to do things by herself so she maintains functioning. When I leave her alone, she endangers herself because she becomes disoriented. Twice, in the middle of the night I was woken up by her flushing the toilet. She had wandered into the bathroom even though she had a commode beside her bed because she went to the bathroom from her bed every night for 50 years. I lost a lot of sleep wondering if I'd hear her up and around...hypervigilance exhausted me. Whether she is in a home or at home with a sitter...the truth is she will fall again. There isn't a situation that can keep her from endangering herself. All we can do is do our best to give her support and love the time we have left. The laughter and the stories and the warm feeling of "I'm here for you" can give the heart wings but only if I can keep my balance by being there for me too. Because when I come home...I too am strengthened.

LATE FALL CHILLS

L

With the end of October, comes the first really cold weather this year.  October has been pretty mild and this last week we did have to get a woodfire burning to take the chill off... but only once or twice. The leaves seem to be late falling this year too. When I take Sadie out walking in the mornings...there are many reminders of the winter moving slowly in our direction. I love the drying milkweed. The little girls next door do too...between the dandilion seed heads and the milk weed pods exploding to throw their internal seeds to the far reaching winds, I enjoy watching their enjoyment. They blow on the dispersing seeds in their effort to help Mother Nature get her seed spreading work done. And I ponder the seed waiting for the moving gust that will carry it on to it's next incarnation. I kind of feel like that milk weed pod full of seeds hanging on till the wind catches them. My growth has slowed down. The monarchs have come and gone. The landscape is full of dried plants and bittersweet. The coming of winter is undeniable. I've popped my lid and all the seeds of future growth are laid bare to the moving air. One of these days a big old gust will pick up some of those seeds and send them packing to find a new spot that will support the future generations. The pace of my life has changed. It's much slower. I watch the busy busy people stressed out from running around trying to do too much and after I feel the initial stabs of guilt, that I should be so lucky to have some time to myself...the gratitude sinks in. I feel so grateful that I have a life partner that is my best friend. We have worked hard together and as a result, we have created much that nourishes and sustains us. Yes. I'm unemployed. But the only time I feel bad about that is when I'm amidst the clashing egos of the corporate world...a world I 've explored and said...thanks but no thanks. There is a space full of peace within me. I have the luxury of offering myself as a volunteer to my own family. My mother is being discharged home from rehab after a bad fall in September. She will go home on my Dad's birthday and because I'm unemployed, I can offer myself up as a helper for a couple of weeks. Tommorrow I head down to Salem. I feel like I'm on the threshold of a big adventure. Everything is unknown. Of course, thats the way it always is but when the current grabs you and you have a job, it holds you in place. You have to make your plans around your work schedule. You are anchored to one spot. Without a job, there is no bouy...no anchor holding you in one place. Suddenly you are a ship moving out to sea and headed into unknown weather with a flexibility to accomodate whatever comes up. And if your job doesn't hold you in place...then your dog will or your husband and children will...but when they are all grown up and able to care for themselves...well...thats when your life resembles a milkweed pod awaiting that cold blast of wind. If you are a seed...you don't want to hold on to the pod too tight or you'll miss your ride. And if you are the pod, you don't want to hold too tight to your seeds or your future generations won't get planted. Your holding on will prevent them from generating their own. So the best rule of thumb is to "let Nature take her course". Don't hold on too tight or let go too soon. It's like that with your mother. If I'm the seed, then she was the pod...if I'm the pod, then my loving actions are the seeds. The wind is blowing. My choice to be there for my mother is a prayer in action. I have the luxury of being able to respond to her in her time of need and I feel the gratitude for my amazing freedom. But there is a chill to the wind...a cold forshadowing of the winter to come. While I chill out with Mom for a few weeks, the edge of winter encroaches. I breathe in and relax knowing all is as it should be. When I forget to breathe and I become fearful of the unknown, I freeze and my motion becomes restricted. I tense up and turn a cold shoulder to the cold and the icy edges are sharp and cutting. When I breathe, I let go and allow timing to be in the hands of a greater intelligence. My goal is to move confidently into the ebb and flow of the energy of my life and to trust the breath of spirit that guides my ship...no matter if I am the pod or the seed. One is the one who releases. The other is that which is released. I am not in charge of the timing. I'm not in charge of natural events bringing on the edge of winter. I am just one little person who has a couple of weeks to spend caring for her Mom. And if the wind blows from a certain direction? Well, that is Mother Nature's department...and it is she that determines my course.

MAKE A WISH

Late fall promises to be a challenge for me this year. My mother fell...and she did it up big...back on September 12th. She's been in rehab and they will be discharging her home next week. Their recommendation is for 24/7 supervision in order to keep her safe. After hitting Broad Street with her right cheekbone and forehead, her cognitive skills are not likely to ever be the same. She has had a cerebral shower somewhere along the way but the big right brain damage may have actually been what caused her to fall. She easily becomes confused and disoriented. If she heads to the bathroom she can easily get distracted and forget what she is doing. Her motor planning is poor and walking with a walker can put her into strange conundrums...how to turn so her rear end lands on the seat. She also has significant left side peripheral blindness that can cause her to misjudge location...and she can keep bumping into the same obstruction over and over without a clue as to how to successfully proceed. The thing is...she is otherwise still herself. She is charming and funny...full of jokes and not very demanding. She can still perform her own toilet and with lots of verbal cues, she can dress herself. And eating? No problem. The rehab wanted us to send her to a longterm care facility. And we can't do it. Mom has always made her heart clear regarding end of life. She wants to die at home...plain and simple. She has never questioned that outcome and therefore, has never planned or even thought about the possibility that she may not be able to stay home until the moment of her death. She repeatedly comments on how much she loves her home and how lucky she has been to live so comfortably. We, her four daughters, want to grant her her wish if at all possible. I can't even begin to share the crests and troughs of emotions that I have experienced with her as my mother. I've screamed in a fit of rage...I hate you to her. I've cried alone wishing she would comfort me and I've written her poems expressing my love. Somehow. as she stands at the threshold of her end of life, all the baggage of a lifetime falls away. I put my arms around my brain-injured mother and look into her blue blue eyes and I can't remember anything. All that exists is my love for her and my prayer that her wish be granted. Tomorrow I will seek out the Meteor showers that will occur as our planet passes through a debris field of Halley's comet. They predict a shower of shooting stars. 15 per hour. Is that enough stars to wish on? All the time of 59 years has passed and my mother is 85. Yet I am still her child...I still feel her all caring arms around me and her ever present curiosity in what I am doing in my life. Who will I be when she is no longer there to reflect my existence? The whole universe shifted when Dad died...what will happen without her to relate to? I remain that small child...her number 2 daughter...and when I go down to offer my care and support as she comes home...I hope I will have wished on 100 stars for her one desire to come true. She really never asked for much.

TRACKING

The concept of "tracking" has come up a few times this week in several different forms. I went down to Salem, Mass. where I was born and lived the majority of my childhood years, to visit my mother who had a bad fall and is in rehab. It was four days of a return to being primarily a daughter. It was also the week Steve Jobs passed away. Tracking is a word that has fascinated me in the past...I 've written poems about it and fantasized being a student of Tom Brown tracking my authentic life in the tangle of earthly distraction. I admired a woman who wrote a book called Tracking...she was Australian and she walked solo across the continent of Australia with three camels who had their own ideas about the path they should take. The poem I wrote about Tracking was about stepping out onto a field of fresh white and virgin snow and making tracks fearlessly. On one visit with my mother, I arrived during a therapy session. She was working with the OT on tracking excersises. She has had a series of strokes that have weakened her left side and the left peripheral vision. On the paper, she had to connect small numbered circles from #1 through #25. The purpose was to strengthen her tracking ability. She struggled to complete the activity particularly with the circles that appeared on the left side of the paper. I watched and realized...it's really human to default to what comes easiest to us. What is easy is generally what is strong within us. We tend to avoid our weak areas but if we do so, we truly run the risk of living a lopsided life. We all desperately need to exersise and strengthen the very things we tend to fail at in order to lay track in our brains for a whole life. This is where conciousness and effort kicks in. Life invites us...in fact demands us to use our whole selves if we are to discover meaning and satisfaction in our short time on Earth. If we choose to use only what comes easy, we miss out. It is the shadowy, shy...wild , uncivilized part of ourselves that we need to somehow invite out to play...we need to strengthen and educate and love the part of ourselves that is the most inept, unbecoming, unpredictable and uncooperative part of ourselves. If do do only what comes easy, we set ourselves on a circular track and we go round and round wondering why it is we always return to the same challenge. Steve Jobs gave a talk several years ago to a class of college grads. He talked about doing what you love...trusting your intuition and following your own dream as opposed to fullfilling someonelse's set of expectations for you. He talked about connecting the dots...but that that tracking must be done in hindsight. You have to lay down the dots of your life by living it and finding the track...finding the pattern...learning to make sense of it all comes in the looking back, not in the looking forward. As I listened to him give his talk...I thought about my elderly Mom lying in the hospital connecting dots for the OT. I think about my own journey of life on this planet. Sometimes I get bogged down in trying to sense the sense of it all...trying to analyze and understand the whys and wherefores. I imagine that I can make my life whole and complete by bullying myself into change. Yet as I talk meanly to my self in ways that I'd never speak to anyone else thinking I might create a motivation for positive movement, I believe I am immobilizing myself with self loathing. Instead, I should be treating myself like my aging Mother...gentle...respectful...calm...knowing the whole picture will be seen eventually. If I want real change...I need to lay down a new track like a bridge over chaos and depression and ineptitude. I need to notice my strengths and exercise my weakness...not hide them under the rug. One needs to be a child at some things. A beginner. A fool setting off on a journey the world considers foolish. Steve Jobs spoke concisely and clearly about it all in that one speech he gave at Stanford. Listen to it. Listen to your inner self and then stop critisizing and labeling and sabotaging yourself...and just do it. A sacred moment can happen anywhere...at any time. But it cannot be forced or contrived to happen. The prayer and the prayed for open in their own time like a flower opening...from the deep inner timing of it self and not before. If you want to travel the track of the positive...you have to lay it down first in your brain and in the way you talk to yourself and encourage yourself. Choose not to bully yourself. Choose not to believe in the negative self talk. Choice is everything. And it is the only real power.

THE WHEEL TURNS

The equinox has come and gone. The calendar says it is autumn. Today I went up to my garden to look over the next two big projects that are calling for my attention. I did just that. I looked at the location for planting next years garlic and I pondered the removal of the tomato cages but that was it. My garden gusto is gone. The forcast frost from September 16-18th never came. And now there is no frost in sight for a couple of weeks. I don't want to plant my garlic too early but it won't get a good start if I plant it too late. And because my tomatoes suffered a blow from leafspot septoria, I've been instructed to remove the plant debris from the area and either burn it or wrap it in plastic bags and send it to the dump. Luckily the fungus did nothing to harm my tomato crop. So here I am...poised for the cold weather that isn't coming. My latest craze has been to escape into the woods for many hours at a time of happy mushroom hunting. It takes me away from the burden of my dying garden and provides wonderful flavors that I never planted seeds for. I really love to forage. The woods are quiet and smell of moist decay. There has been enough moisture to cause a wonderful bloom of mushrooms in the woods and as I follow the stream beds into the forest, the happy trickle is a kind of music that plays as I walk. Sadie is my companion and there is absolutely nothing on my mind except mushies. Its absolutely thrilling to mosey around in the woods and to stop in a spot and look down to see otherwise invisible black trumpet mushrooms suddenly appear among the leaves. I sometimes feel like I've been led to the colony by a Black Trumpet fairy. I've been showing the mushrooms to Sadie and letting her smell them. I also have her witness my collecting them. If a dog can sniff out marijuana in suitcases why not choice edible mushrooms in the dirt. I remind myself of a pig snorfing truffles. I relish the hunt and feel a happy contentment when I find some. But the biggest thrill of all is the creating of a fine meal with these tender woodland fungiis and savoring their delicate flavor. Now as I realize the beginning of the end of hummingbird season, I need not be sad because it is the beginning of the fall mushroom season. My garden is dying anyway, so I can allow my attentions to stray as long as I keep putting up my produce. One love ends and another begins and I hardly miss a beat. Most amazing is my almost full time employment in my kitchen. Such a happy room to work in. I am truly blessed. I feel the turning of the wheel. The sun goes down on my personal/family garden and all the work it generates. But my attentions turn to my Mother Earth's garden and to foraging for a brand new passion. We've had a Wild Mushroom Alfredo sauce on angel hair pasta...a wild mushroom soup...a Black Trumpet/Chanterelle Risotto...and a homemade wild mushroom pizza. Today I had a nice hot cup of Turkeytail/Birch Polypore tea and imagine myself building a wild forest immune system that can stave off any virus I encounter. Foraging for mushrooms is a celebration of whatever pops up in life...spontaneous and often well camouflaged, they pop up and call for your attention and voila...dinner. I'm so excited that I am going to put on my muck boots and head for the woods. Will I find something? No guarantees. Something wonderful will pop up and I will be sustained. It's natural law...the turn of the wheel.

I THINK I CAN

Since I was let go in March, my pace seems pretty slow. I'm not moving fast but I am moving. After Priscilla passed and I recovered mobility of my knee, enjoyed a family vacation in Antigua, returned to Maine to put in my garden while the men of my life took a five week sailing journey up to Newport RI...I created a schedule for myself. All my excersise plans were easy to keep when I was the only person I had to think about. And it was easy to do a daily write and to update my blog. I don't know what happened but when the guys returned, I stopped folowing my path. I do this all the time. Ever since Stephen and I married, I've put self care on the backburner. It was easy to come between me and myself when the kids were small and we were both so busy just trying to make ends meet. I assured myself that one day in the future I would mend my ways. Trouble with a plan like that is that the future never comes. The mantra of maybe tomorrow keeps the future from ever happening today. I know many women grapple with this very issue. When they commit to a marriage, their creative goals get backburnered...sometimes friends fall to the wayside and often, there is a loss of motivation to workout. Funnily enough...its a time when you most need to practice self care due to the demands on your energy. Everything has changed since the boys grew up and moved on. There is an emptyness that I keep trying to fill. Makes me think of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Caterpillars move slowly and eat constantly. They can't stop. That is they can't stop until they stop. Their metabolism tells them when they are full and they take the J shape. My next door neighbor, 6 year old Janna, tells me that the J shape is the signal that the caterpillar is coming to a stop. He is approaching his Chrysalis-making stage. When he takes that shape he better be where he needs to be because he won't move again until he emerges from the crysalis as a winged moth or butterfly. I think about this process every day as I move slowly minute by minute, tending my home and garden and spending most of my day alone. My hunger seems to be for creative expression but my actions continue to manifest my usual routine. My garden is a demanding and unruly child and yet it is exuberantly producing food that feed Stephen and I long into the winter. The responsibility of keeping up with the vegetables wins out as my top priority. I have succeeded in putting my creative yearnings on the backburner yet again. It's a comfortable habit even if it remains a mystery as to why I keep sabotaging myself. I wonder about caterpillars. I wonder if they have butterfly urges while they are crawling along the ground like a worm. I wonder if they sense their future before it comes. How do they know when to take the J shape? Do they dream of flight and the unfurling of lovely wings? Or are they 100% in the moment just being true to their instinct to become still and do the inner work of transformation. If the transformation of a caterpillar to a butterfly has something to teach me today, it seems to be...keep moving. Slow motion is motion nonetheless. Keep feeding the hunger. One day soon, you'll curl up in a J and hang around inside a crusty chrysalis...sleeping till the urge to break out can no longer be held back. Then...when you wake up...you will be able to accomplish what you yearn for...flight will be possible. So don't go all negative on me and start calling me names like slug or loser or any of those other mean names that come so easy when you start to get hard on yourself. Try being kind. I think I can...I think I can. The I can track...its around here somewhere.

THE FALL

I marvel at the complexity of the English language and the myriad meanings of even a simple word like FALL. The season Fall evokes beautiful imagery of colorful foliage, ripening apples and pumpkin patches and the startling cerulean blue of a sky that is lit with the sun at a lower slant. I love Fall. I love the coolness of the air and the soft smell of woodsy decay. Mushrooms pop up to surprise and delight. Nature is beyond herself in productivity...the trees are heavy with fruit and nuts or dressed to the nines in brilliance. Raptors begin to kettle for their migration South and if you look up any given sunny day, the dragonflys are dancing with tails curled. They appear to be celebrating. We take to the North Pond in our kayaks and the pond lilies...both pink and white are blossoming for the painted turtles and feeding herons. They remind me of lotus blossoms. We went paddling on September 11th. The shallow areas where the grasses grow and the ducks hang out on their islands of mud are still as glass. As we paddle out to the deeper water...passing under the two bridges and through the shallows we are wrapped in silence...stillness...peace. The changing light makes the whole atmosphere vibrate. As we reach deeper water, the wind picks up. I feel in the presence of a remarkable spirit of breath and possibility. I fall in love with fall. And I remember the falling towers...a fall tinged with horror, smoke and dust and chemical debris. My mind provides this moment of utter peace with the distinct contrast of a moment that passed 10 years ago. For some reason, we are riveted to the TV at night...watching video footage of the inside of Tower 1 as the event of 9/11 unfolds. My son Will and Sam too...they are enjoying the filming of documentary footage. They are in my mind as the two brothers who video the events of 9/11 in a remarkable moment of sychronicity. Remembering is important but becoming fixated on the images of horror and trauma does nothing to help our human conciousness grow beyond it's limits of fear. I go to bed and thrash and revision. It's a full moon night and sleep is elusive. I must finally fall asleep because when I wake up it is to a dream of the Earth shaking under me and a wave of water pouring down a mountainside washing us down...a natural disaster. I figure it's because of the images and rememberance of the events and stories of 9/11. I spend the day harvesting...walking in my garden...apologetic to the plants for not being a better weeder. The september phenomenon is that the garden grows way beyond my control because I am so busy harvesting and putting up veggies for winter that I have no time to weed. I feel delinquent. But my priority is to the emerging produce...to get it in and put by before frost. Here in the Western Maine mountains, winter can come fast. Frost can happen anytime. One sure sign of fall is the prediction of frost at night. It's coming. Day after tomorrow according to NOAA. A sure sign. And that afternoon I get the call. My mother has taken a FALL. She fainted and fell on her face as she walked home from Steves Market. There was noone and nothing to break her fall so she damaged her face...broken cheekbones...and a slight bleed in her head. She was taken to Brigham Womens hospital where she was admitted yesterday. Another night of light sleep and visual images that haunt and trouble. The media wants me to think the worst. They train us to remain stuck in that brain track. Today...I choose to focus on the Lotus...the calm beauty of the great Mother and to continue the job of the harvest while I wait for news of my poor wounded human mother. Let a new track be laid for this train of thought that takes me to a higher way of being and thinking and hopefully I can choose a way of being that is healing...calm and light...and send out prayers for her recovery.

AFTERMATH

August is sliding in to homebase after giving us quite a rocking month of weather, politics, financial rollercoaster rides and here in western Maine...bugs. Hurricane Irene never did come to our barnraising because she had downsized in plenty of time but she sure brought the flooding rains and did a little pruning of green wood with her 40-50mph breezes. Lucky for us, the trusses weren't delivered until Monday...during the aftermath of Irene. The first attempt was aborted because our street was underwater at the intersection of Rte. 26 but by noonish, you could see the pavement and the delivery was made. Timing is perhaps one of the lessons learned as one aquires wisdom. I recall myself setting the departure date for our honeymoon trip 28 years ago. Unfortunately, I was not yet in sync with Stephen and the job he was finishing took longer than planned. By the time we left, I didn't even want to go anymore. Nuff said about my flexibility. Somehow...timing was about my time or no time at all. We both complained a bit about how long the order date was from delivery but now that we are on the other side of the whole issue, it couldn't have been more perfect. Had the trusses been delivered sooner, the urge to get them up might have been strong and we'd have had the whole roof to worry about during all the media hype for the hurricane terrorist that they made her out to be. In the calm after the storm, I had a banner day for birds. First, in the flooding by a small pond nearby, I caught site of a great blue heron standing majestic and alert for frogs or whatever he could find. Then, upon return to our house, we got out of the car and heard the cacaphony of ravens overhead. Sure enough, they were on to a huge hawk...probably a Northern Goshawk and we watched mesmerized by the interaction and antics of the hawk versus 4 ravens. That was just prior to delivery of the trusses. Then, after they arrived, a beautiful bald eagle was circling overhead as I picked up branches that had been blown from the Hydrangea and the Birch and Pine. The sky was blue with billowy clouds racing by in a strong breeze and everything feeling poised for change. Today, the neighbor brought his logging truck by...and he and his son and our friend Greg all came by to help set the trusses in place. It's been a long time since Stephen was a roof monkey...in fact, before his surgery. Seeing him up a ladder in the peak of the trusses made my stomach roll and I realized just how anxiety keeps me from participating in dangerous looking activities. As a person who has had balance issues and ear pressure issues all my life...I tend to shy away from heights because they give me vertigo. But there he was...and breathing with the best of them. It's been 15 months since Stephen had his quadruple bypass surgery. His recovery was complicated by a paralyzed phrenic nerve and a partially collapsed lung. Last year at this time we were both crying while we harvested potatoes...he because he couldn't breathe and me because of watching him struggle. Today, I watched him climb a 20 foot ladder with his nail gun and yep...i was anxious...but he's never been 60 before and his physical limits have changed. Makes me wonder if there isn't some Fox News in my head telling me how horrible everything is going to be and how dangerous everything is and how we should all lock ourselves in the prison of their fearful hype so we stay safe and bored to death. The journey through his surgery was slow and long but it wasn't as horrible as some told me it would be. And Irene was so much less of a madwoman than expected. Perhaps we can as a species, settle ourselves into our Greater Selves to experience the calm of the eye rather than tune into all the hot air wind bags spinning their fury and fear on a foundation of maybes...and in that calm place, affirm the perfection of Earth's imperfection. Sssh. The Pileated woodpecker is laughing and beating a rhythm on a tree while the builder hammers away, chuckling to himself about how good it feels to take a deep breath while I watch and marvel at how much can change in a moment of time.

RENASCENSE

Wow. August is winding up to whirl and swirl in a tropical wind and rain as Irene comes up the eastern seaboard to remind us all again just who is boss. When you give yourself to the garden, it's quite clear how small and feeble the will can be when pitted against the Will of Mother Nature but oh how powerful is the will that works with nature and how rich is the harvest. August brings the celebration of our wedding anniversary and this year marks the completion of 28 years together. For a person with commitment-o-phobia...thats not too shabby. This is my second marriage, and Stephen's too. My first wedding was a June affair with a catered reception and lots of yellow and orange flowers...my favorite and colors of the sun. The rightness of the wedding did absolutely nothing to change the wrongness of the coupling, and when my second chance rolled around a tiny breakfast ceremony in my parent's garden followed by a potluck bash at a friend's home was a much more harmonious environment for our vows. Funny...I was certain and willfull about the first event and scared silly for the second. My fear was the fear of repeating my stupidity. I was gun shy and where I was blissfully ignorant for the first event...I was all too aware of my talent for self deception for my second wedding and consequently, fearful from a lack of trust in myself. As I look back now, I appreciate more, my choice of reading for the service. I chose to read an Inuit prayer..."The great sea has sent me adrift...it moves me as the weeds in a great river...Earth and the great weather move me, have carried me away and move my inward parts with joy." At the time, I didn't totally understand why I chose that one particular verse to read any more than I could determine whether or not our marriage would succeed. I knew only that it was the perfect description of how I felt moved by my love for Stephen. We chose to go to the sea for our anniversary this year and stay in a B and B farm near Popham Beach. Stephen called it a honeymoon...and it was actually. It was relaxing, refreshing and nourishing to spend time alone together by the ocean and especially fun because we were allowed to bring Miss Sadie Hopkins, our puppy nearing 1 year old, with us. Her first trip to the beach was hilarious...comical and amusing as she had her first experience with waves and sand and revelling in the rolling around on dead crabs. As usual, though...the highest moments of our getaway were the ones that weren't planned. The pinnacle was a drive up the auto road of Mt Battie in Camden. I have written since the age of 12...mostly poetry until I moved to Maine. My poet mentor was Edna St. Vincent Millay, along with Emily Dickenson and May Sarton. I was given a biography of Vincent by the Unitarian Church in Salem on Children's Sunday...it was called Restless Spirit, and I ate it up. In fact I read it multiple times. The photo here is a picture taken from the spot where Edna St. Vincent Millay, lay down to watch the sky and open her heart to Infinity as she wrote about her mystical moment in the poem entitled "Renascence". She was experiencing a rebirthing and as I gazed out to the far horizon over Penobscott Bay after spending 2 days at the ocean, I was moved by the infinite wisdom of the words I read at my wedding. I'm glad I took the plunge. Even though I was reticent and fearful, hesitant and maybe even ambivalent, I am aware now and so much more tolerant of not knowing. Getting married...having children...writing...and making a garden...they all have something in common. They are all leaps of faith. No guarantees...no outcome that is right or wrong...just what YOU make of it...me and the Great Weather. No. It didn't all go as I wanted. It didn't all go as I planned and it certainly didn't happen as I expected. But somehow the dance I did with Stephen and the Great Weather for 28 years...well it worked out. It has nourished and sustained me as any garden and I am hugely grateful. Leaving space for the unknown...it's a tradition in lots of tribal arts to leave a place unfinished so the spirit can enter and the creation can have a soul. Funnily enough, I resisted the drive to the top of Mt. Battie because it seemed like too much driving for the dog. Resistance isn't my most creative urge, but it is part of myself that I need to get a grip on at long last. I'm amazed that so many moments of my life that I become resistant and stiff towards...well they become some of my finest moments. This year I happily submit to renascence...to the unknown, to infinity and beyond...let the great sea send me adrift. Here's hoping Irene's wallop is just a dollop.

FULL MOON EVE

Last night I dreamed I was gazing up at an exquisite full moon that was special because it hung so low in the sky. Today, when I sat for a meditation, i felt that whole huge silvery moon emanating out from my heart just like it was when it was shining luminesence in my dream. Somehow, the outside had come inside and the inside had moved outside and well, it clearly was all connected whether it was inside or outside. Today, I looked at Facebook update statuses for my news. It's always news I can relate to because it is whats happening in my world of friends. Here, I use the term friends to mean people I know...not necessarily well and we may not be especially close but we are all connected by this thread of internet weaving us together despite geographical location. I enjoy it. My friend Arla had posted this video on her status and I opted to sit quietly for 13 minutes and watch it with my full attention. Most folks know Eve Ensler for her now famous play "The Vagina Monologues". Arla is an artist healer who works with incarcerated women, women survivors of breast and other cancers as well as just us hung up creatives who can't quite get rolling. I had the remarkable oppurtunity to work with Arla on a Breastplate project that opened my awareness to just how deeply I had been affected by the social/media concepts of beauty and body as I grew up. I had no idea how negative my self appraisal of my body was until I did this project. It was a plaster cast of my torso full on front. I was thrilled, embarrassed, self concious and all kinds of descriptives because I had, over time and with my negative notions, created a breastplate of energy defending my soft underbelly. Fact is, I have huge breasts and I don't care for them. They are hangy and sweaty in the heat and they are a weight that sometimes hurts my back. As a young girl, I was mortified by the wolf whistles of men on construction jobs and always suspected any boy who was drawn to notice me was simply interested in my breasts. I was usually right..so I never perceived my full cups as a strength. If anything, they kept people from seeing ME. My awareness opened when the plaster was removed from my body and I began to work with it. During that time, Stephen and I were having our heart troubles both in our relationship and in our health. I remember the night I had to sand the cast of my breasts. I used a fine sandpaper and as we women chatted and worked, I realized that I was begining to appreciate the soft curve of my breasts and how my belly stuck out a little after delivering 2 large boys. It dawned on me that Stephen actually might appreciate my landscape and love it rather than just be fixated on it. I knew that only because I was, in lightly rubbing the shape of my body, opening up to the possibility of loving it myself. And learning to love myself was an integral part of moving to the mountains of Maine. My soul was hungry for this landscape and I have given my all to my mother Earth. Eve Ensler's "Suddenly, my body" is an intense, remarkable piece. It is the truth. As I harvest vegetables from my garden, I feel the hungry children in Somalia...and the children of Japan eating irradiated food because the Big Wigs fear losing money more than the lives of their children. I see the ridiculous posturing of politicians from the White House to the local elementry schools and I remember sanding my breasts...praying for understanding and direction, given how far off course we had drifted. This is a potent piece. Eve is a brave soul for putting her perception into words, as is Arla, for teaching Body-nature as a way of healing women. I am humbled by how much more powerful is the voice of the artist in speaking straight truth where the politicians and money-mongers speak empty words and unconcious crowds want to believe, so they vote for them and everything continues to sit encased in grime and oil and coal dust, in cancer and in lies while impotent committees waste time bickering over semantics and blame. I have found the softness of my torso...a love of my landscape and a healing in my garden. I am one blessed cookie and I give thanks with every cell of my being. Mmmmm. The moon rises over the mountains.

ACCEPT, EMBRACE, CELEBRATE

I went right to work this morning...picking black raspberries. I picked 3 quarts in the quiet of the morning under a blue sky with bare feet and braless. Not such a good idea. Had to dress in long pants and boy was it hot but those blackberries are well armed and several scratches is getting off pretty easy. I love when the berries are so ripe and ready that they just fall into my tub with barely a touch. August is what gardening is all about. The weeds have officially taken over but it's time to turn my attention to picking and putting up. One thing leads to another and before I know it, I've picked squashes, lettuces, cucumbers and taken garden photos and played frisbee with Sadie. I've mowed the garden paths and as I move from one activity to another, I realize that it's up to me to say...stop. Seems simple enough...but I have worked hard all my life. I enjoy the feeling of working hard and accomplishing much but my body wants me to slow down, to stretch, to relax, and to be present. It doen't want to be driven by my mind all the time. This is an odd time of life. I'm a beginner at being an elder and an old lady at being childlike. I find myself rushing around like I did when my family was young and everthing I did for myself was done on stolen moments. I'd steal a half hour here to write or a walk in the woods or an hour there for reading a book. It all had to be done between laundry and cooking and cleaning and working and chauffering and appreciating and listening and reassuring someone else...usually Stevo and the boys but I did jobs too...ones that paid me money. Now I'm unemployed by most peoples standards though I feel like I'm working as hard as ever. It's just that I'm doing what I want. How is that a problem? It isn't really. It's the old habit of thinking I have to work 24/7 to get where I want to be...the mental rut of expecting not to be able to have time to do what I want to do. I've been juggling activities for so long to create space for myself to play, that I have lost my ability to play right when I have all the time in the world to do just that. Ironic. I'm so accustomed to having a problem with myself, to fenagling time for myself, to sacrificing my desires so others can have theirs...that I don't know how to handle this new developement in my life called ME. It's actually pretty funny. I watched the bees in the borage today. They are busy and buzzy and yes they move from flower to flower but there is nothing hurried about them. I watch my little dog Sadie with her friend next door. She is fully present in her play...and I marvel at her joy. I peruse my garden and I hear a critical voice commenting on the number of weeds and the way I can do it better next year and I see that boarding the brain train is not going to get me where I want to go. The mental habit of busy busy busy is just a habit that comes between me and my enjoyment of life. This is where I am. I have not achieved all I'd hoped to in my life but I have done my best. For whatever reason, here I am. Hopping on the heart train headed for a big juncture called Acceptance. Funny. That was the name I gave my very first journal way back in the 70's...and here it is again. So here I am at this garden of Paradise after a lifetime of work in effort to get here and what calls on me is one of the most difficult jobs yet...getting off the train and enjoying the arrival...embracing and celebrating the lifestyle I have created and making a joyful use of the time I have created for myself. I can stop seeing the problem and with a tiny tweak, see that I have actually lived myself into the answer. I'm reminded of the quote by Rilke...from a passage that was read at Stephen's and my wedding ceremony where he reminds the young poet to "learn to love the questions themselves ...that one day you might live into the answers." This passage lives inside me...and now to the task of savoring the blessings of my life's journey.