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.

I FELT YOU GREAT BLUE!

The Great Blue Heron is a regal bird. It stands motionless for long periods of time scanning the shallows for frog morsels and small fish. It never hurries...and when it spots a meal...it nabs it with a sure and confident motion, so fast that the meal doesn't know what hit him. I love Great Blues. They are always a reason for celebration when they first show up flying in their deliberate undullating motion up the Androscoggan River. Such an important bird presence in my life. When Stephen and I first got together and let the love between us wake up, my sister Beth was  beginning her long slow journey to the great beyond. It was a difficult time in my life, punctuated with the heavy pauses of guilt that were touched off by my good fortune in love developing as my sister began to slowly lose her life. Stephen and I met a woman who had MS and she was living alone in a daylight basement apartment in Marblehead. I was practicing massage at the time and because Beth had received a diagnosis of  MS, something in my heart was moved by this woman and her story of being bedridden all winter and how she kept her spirits up. Stephen and I visited her and when she asked us to take her outdoors, we made a seat with our hands and carried her out to see the sky and smell the air for the first time in early spring and as we carried her outside, a Great Blue Heron flew over our heads and all three of us were moved. From that day on, whenever we see a Great Blue, it has the effect of lifting our spirits and making us feel like whatever is happening...its all right and good. A few weeks later, that woman left in an RV for Arizona and a changed life in a friendlier climate. Great Blues spend much of their lives in a solitary hunt for food. They are opportunists and they don't really sing so much as they bark. I had the chance to hear the Great Blue's call when we took our first paddle around North Pond in our new kayaks. We managed to paddle up close to a large adult and when we got too close for comfort...he let out a hoarse bark and lifted off with his stunning wings spread wide. The call he made reminded me of how close this bird seems to be to the dinosaur Pteradactyl. The call was out of another era. It made the goosebumps rise on my arms. When I began sitting yearly with a circle of Shamans, the Great Blue arrived with a lovely woman art teacher from the coast. She had heron wings and made a dance by herself under the double rainbow that graced our day. When Stephen had his bypass surgery, I had many birds show up to bless us with their presence. But Stephen's encounter with a Great Blue on the day of his first motorcycle ride after the traumatic opening of his sternum was so very special. He was actually riding the Harley up route 5 headed to Bridgton when he spotted a large Great Blue beside the road. As he closed in on it, the bird slowly took off and as it lifted, it touched Stephen's head with a brush of it's wing. It was a close encounter with grace and he felt touched by an angel upon having that encounter. He was moved to tears when he told me about it afterwards and it is a story I'll never forget. So...upon finishing my blanket of songbirds and a saw-whet owl, it seemed only natural to try my hand at felting a Great Blue for Stephen. And having found this beautiful piece of birch bark on a walk in the woods with the dog, it seemed like a perfect background to display it. My only problem is how to attach it to the bark. I think I'll try to sew it with embroidery thread and a blanket stitch but maybe, if that doesn't work, I'll glue it. I never seem to love my creations when they are first made. But they kind of grow on me after time and after my inner critic falls asleep. The Great Blue is lots bigger than the rest of my felted bird squares...and as I worked on it, I discovered the Cornell birdcam of the Great Blue nest so I could see the heron in it's full breeding plumage. He has two black feathers off the top of his head and lots of showy feathers off his chest and saddle. He is one fancy dude and now I think of him as riding the motorcycle with Stephen when he goes off alone. My Dad had a boat named The Heron...it was a double bowed dory or something just a little odd and one of my last photos of my sister before she got sick were of her sitting in the bow seat of that boat with a captains hat on...one of those portuguese fisherman hats that my Dad loved so much. It's funny how the brain makes connections between things...like Beth and Birds and Birch and Stephen and a Great Blue for a healer. Birds do a powerful job of constellating memories for me. As I think about each one, I can go on and on about how it has featured in my life as a message or as a messenger. If I listen..without rushing...what would they tell me about my life? Have I even really known a bird until I felt it?