Glad that I accidentally took the wrong road for Dillon Beach yesterday, because the road I ended up on (Rt. 116 W) winds through redwood groves with the Russian River to its mouth at the sea. There I sat on a bluff on one side of the river and watched a panorama on the other side that stunningly illustrates a permaculture principle, namely “the edges are where the action is.” (Plant, animal and mineral species congregate, communicate, commune with each other at edges of all kinds, to encourage diversity, integrity, stability).
I was at the EDGE of the ocean (the beach), at the EDGE where a river meets the sea, and there were obviously lots of fish present, because hundreds of grey pelicans and thousands of seagulls were on the other side of the river, peacefully intermingling. Most were resting/sleeping on the sand, but gobs of pelicans (and a few seagulls) were swirling in circles, looking down, and then suddenly diving into riffles (where stones create lots of EDGE with water) next to the shore.
Meanwhile, probably forty fat seals lay motionless, lining the EDGE where the water meets the river/sea. While I sat there one of them flopped his whole self into the water then flopped out again and, with a tremendous heave, flipped over onto his back to once again, lie supine. (His natural, unself-conscious manner in his body, plus the contours of his bodily form, reminded me of my late husband, Jeff. So many reminders, more than four years later!)
Then, of course, the tides were continuously creating and destroying EDGE in their relentless, mysterious synchronization with the Moon, and we humans (maybe 20 of us along a half-mile long beach) had also been drawn to the edge, full of longing yet mostly not knowing why, not realizing that we too, participate in the infinite panorama of life, and that our species, for all its current propensity for destruction, has its place in the whole.
We try to stay within the bounds of our cultural conditioning—to separate from our own bodies and ignore nature while achieving success, wealth, power; to “play it safe” in that unconscious structure—but something in us seeks to go beyond. The ocean symbolizes that mysterious Other that each of us feels within our own psyche, a dark, pregnant, inner cosmos where structures continuously form and dissolve in the vastness to which we are all surrendered.
I just about dissolved into the vastness myself yesterday. While peering closely at tiny, tide-created channels in the sand, a powerful rogue wave caught me from behind. Instantly, it rose to my armpits and, while just about jerking me off my feet, had the grace to not remove my car keys from the shallow pocket in my pants! What god did this? Who is responsible for this sudden awakening to the larger, mysterious presence that both knocks me down and holds me tenderly? Or was it the work of Jeff as trickster, laughing, calling— “Wake Up!”
And I had even read the sign: “This is one of the most dangerous beaches on the California coast. Do not stand at the shore with the ocean behind you”—or risk being caught by a rogue wave.
While I was peering into microscopic forms made by water’s EDGE with sand, the abyss nearly swallowed my form.
Inside me, too: at the EDGE between whatever I am paying attention to, and the awareness of the whole—what is attended to, the me that is paying attention, and the entire panorama within which I live and breathe—is where the action is. The creative edge, the place from which anything is possible, anything.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Grief as the Secret that Opens into Praise
When I tried to imagine last night's book event beforehand, I found it impossible. By this time I am quite used to the fact that somewhere between seven and fifteen people will show up (averaging ten to twelve, though a few have numbered as much as twenty-five), and that I will feel connected and supported by my local contact.
This person, usually a woman, is the one who, at my request, agrees to organize the event and contact her friends and others who might be interested in actually looking at and working with the deep wells of unexpressed and unprocessed grief that seem to live inside all of us, both individually and collectively. All along, I have felt that the key to this kind of independently operated tour is the network of local contacts, as well as the willingness of the person who is going on the tour to actually ask for help!
This was my biggest stumbling-block, as I am stubborn and proud, and prefer to do things on my own rather than risk rejection. Indeed, I think I said here in an earlier blog that during the two months that it took to organize the this ten-week tour there were a number of days when I felt paralyzed, unable to act. All my old voices would come up, especially the "Who do you think you are?" (said sarcastically) that I heard from my mother so long ago, and probably not even very often. But of course, that was the one remark from her that I remembered. As a typical Mom of her pre-feminist generation, she felt an unconscious need to make sure her daughters didn't stick out too much, less they be ruthlessly cut down— "by the patriarchy" I used to add, but now that phrase seems so hopelessly dated and angry and, even if true, unhelpful, in terms of my own personal healing.
At any rate, all along my intention for this tour felt strong and clear, and when those days would take me down I'd just notice the place in my body that the pain was constricting, breathe deeply into that place, and honor and embrace the pain for how it served me in the past. Finally, like a vise grip (or is that vice grip?), the pain would ease, let go. And the next day I could once again pick up the phone or write an email to some friend or acquaintance on the route I had chosen to ask if she would help me create an event in her town.
At this point, after seventeen of these events and ten more to go, I feel immensely grateful to all who have supported me in this quest, and indeed, I'd say that whereas during the first year of my grief I was intensely grateful for solitude, in this fifth year after Jeff's death I am learning, through this amazing journey, just how inextricably interdependent I am with all living beings. All the new and old friends who have surrounded me during this odyssey feel like a deeply-held, purposeful human matrix of caring that I am just barely beginning to tap into on a feeling level. So thank you all, so much!
Which brings me to last night's event, the only one for which I have NOT had a local contact. I arranged the reading/discussion event myself, by looking up bookstores in the Bay Area on the web, and contacting three of them. The Open Secret bookstore in San Rafael was the only one to agree to an event by this non-local author whom they didn't know beans about. Given the clamor for book events in California where I imagine most alternative people are either authors or in the process of becoming authors, I felt gratified—and actually somewhat amazed— that the door to the Open Secret Bookstore and Cultural Center actually opened for me.
But I didn't know anyone here. And would anyone show up?
Amazingly enough, nine people did—including an old friend whom I last knew in New York, and who had seen the poster on the door—and once again, we found ourselves circled up, talking intensely and deeply about various multidimensional and paradoxical aspects of the grieving process and how the layers upon layers of our grief, when processed as fully and with as much awareness as possible, can serve as a transformative agent for both ourselves and the culture at large.
Three of the people there mentioned with great praise a CD called "Grief and Praise," by Martin Prechtel, as well as books by Malidoma Some´—both aboriginal teachers who work to help us Americans who are unknowingly stuffed with and paralyzed by a mass of lifetimes and even generations of unprocessed grief. So once again, I feel the continuity of the work of this tour with the work of others, and I am full of appreciation for all those who both bear grief willingly and expressively and who work at ever deepening levels to access the wonder and awe that greet our recognition of grief's continuity with praise.
Next up: Dillon Beach for the afternoon. YES!
This person, usually a woman, is the one who, at my request, agrees to organize the event and contact her friends and others who might be interested in actually looking at and working with the deep wells of unexpressed and unprocessed grief that seem to live inside all of us, both individually and collectively. All along, I have felt that the key to this kind of independently operated tour is the network of local contacts, as well as the willingness of the person who is going on the tour to actually ask for help!
This was my biggest stumbling-block, as I am stubborn and proud, and prefer to do things on my own rather than risk rejection. Indeed, I think I said here in an earlier blog that during the two months that it took to organize the this ten-week tour there were a number of days when I felt paralyzed, unable to act. All my old voices would come up, especially the "Who do you think you are?" (said sarcastically) that I heard from my mother so long ago, and probably not even very often. But of course, that was the one remark from her that I remembered. As a typical Mom of her pre-feminist generation, she felt an unconscious need to make sure her daughters didn't stick out too much, less they be ruthlessly cut down— "by the patriarchy" I used to add, but now that phrase seems so hopelessly dated and angry and, even if true, unhelpful, in terms of my own personal healing.
At any rate, all along my intention for this tour felt strong and clear, and when those days would take me down I'd just notice the place in my body that the pain was constricting, breathe deeply into that place, and honor and embrace the pain for how it served me in the past. Finally, like a vise grip (or is that vice grip?), the pain would ease, let go. And the next day I could once again pick up the phone or write an email to some friend or acquaintance on the route I had chosen to ask if she would help me create an event in her town.
At this point, after seventeen of these events and ten more to go, I feel immensely grateful to all who have supported me in this quest, and indeed, I'd say that whereas during the first year of my grief I was intensely grateful for solitude, in this fifth year after Jeff's death I am learning, through this amazing journey, just how inextricably interdependent I am with all living beings. All the new and old friends who have surrounded me during this odyssey feel like a deeply-held, purposeful human matrix of caring that I am just barely beginning to tap into on a feeling level. So thank you all, so much!
Which brings me to last night's event, the only one for which I have NOT had a local contact. I arranged the reading/discussion event myself, by looking up bookstores in the Bay Area on the web, and contacting three of them. The Open Secret bookstore in San Rafael was the only one to agree to an event by this non-local author whom they didn't know beans about. Given the clamor for book events in California where I imagine most alternative people are either authors or in the process of becoming authors, I felt gratified—and actually somewhat amazed— that the door to the Open Secret Bookstore and Cultural Center actually opened for me.
But I didn't know anyone here. And would anyone show up?
Amazingly enough, nine people did—including an old friend whom I last knew in New York, and who had seen the poster on the door—and once again, we found ourselves circled up, talking intensely and deeply about various multidimensional and paradoxical aspects of the grieving process and how the layers upon layers of our grief, when processed as fully and with as much awareness as possible, can serve as a transformative agent for both ourselves and the culture at large.
Three of the people there mentioned with great praise a CD called "Grief and Praise," by Martin Prechtel, as well as books by Malidoma Some´—both aboriginal teachers who work to help us Americans who are unknowingly stuffed with and paralyzed by a mass of lifetimes and even generations of unprocessed grief. So once again, I feel the continuity of the work of this tour with the work of others, and I am full of appreciation for all those who both bear grief willingly and expressively and who work at ever deepening levels to access the wonder and awe that greet our recognition of grief's continuity with praise.
Next up: Dillon Beach for the afternoon. YES!
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Pot-holes, dial-up, violence and other primitive conditions
During the past four days, in both Ashland and Grants Pass I was reminded of the so-called “primitive” conditions that I lived in while a yurt-dweller in the Tetons— and with only “dial-up” available I decided to ignore the blog until now. So let’s see . . . I last wrote here on August 24th, the day after my dear body/energy worker friend Janet arrived at Mouna’s little forest compound up the Mount Ashland gravel road off I-5. She not only worked on me that night, but four more times in two days! An unheard of luxury that left my neck soft and my all-around condition firmly supported and purring with pleasure.
Meanwhile, two more events, on the 24th and 25th.
The first one, in Ashland, felt challenging at first, since the room held a temporary art exhibit on war, with violent images collaged on the walls and a gigantic photo of George Bush on the floor, meant, apparently, for visitors to walk on.
We folded up the floor photo and circled the chairs at the back of the long room, beyond the collages. The situation reminded me of my “peace activist” days in 1982-83 when thought I was working to make sure the MX missile didn’t come into Wyoming (it did), and I was shocked to discover that I was, in fact, a violent-peace-activist.
That stunning surprise plummeted me into my own inner world, and I spent the next four months staring into a fire of the stove in the yurt in the Tetons into which I had just moved, shuffling through turbulent scenes from memory that made me wince with pain, shame, remorse, and an absolute determination to learn how to never repeat.
I thought that would be it, that having taken this time to “integrate my own shadow” I would be free and clear, ready to go on without unconsciously spraying my own inner weirdness all over others. But NO. It took six more years of work, deep work with “Orphan Annie,” the one who felt abandoned and covered it up with arrogance, before I finally began to feel that I was hopefully conscious enough of how my own unpredictable nature can wreak havoc in the world.
So when I sat there in that room with those war images all around me I noticed the turbulence I still feel when even glancing at them. Obviously, I’m not yet at the point where I can say that my awareness remains as a calm, still pool no matter what.
A dozen women, mostly of crone age, were present, and I began by talking about the CRONE magazine that we’re about to launch. And when one of them (a very modest woman whom I later discovered is a sculptor of international renown) asked “how do you define crone?,” the images on the walls reminded me of my favorite definition, “She who eats her own shadow.”
“What’s the shadow?” Someone else asked.
“The parts of ourselves that we don’t like,” I answered, firmly, remembering—to the nods of many others.
Actually, I’m not sure if that question was asked then. It may have been at the other session, held in Grants Pass, again with about a dozen women mostly of crone age. T he Grants Pass event, was the first where I directed the entire conversation specifically to the magazine—and received lots of great feedback and suggestions for how we can make it even more relevant to women of crone-age.
The Ashland event, on the other hand, felt similar to most of the other 17 book events so far—intense, deep, focused on the multidimensional quality of our responses to death and loss and how allowing ourselves to process grief fully transforms us. Later, one woman who participated in the Ashland event heard about the more “informational” tone of the Grants Pass event, and how it was focused almost exclusively on the upcoming magazine, told me she was surprised that the second one was not like the first, and wondered why. (By which she apparently meant, “why didn’t the second group of women get to experience what we did?”) In fact, that was because my friend Jean Mountaingrove, the organizer for the Grants Pass event, had assumed that her group would want to focus on the magazine more than the book.
Besides the gravel road to Mouna’s yurt/dome compound, I got to negotiate a two-mile long pot-holed dirt road to Jean’s barn/hut/cabin compound north of Grants Pass. Tthis second road made me decidedly nervous, since the Prius (now called the Pius, thanks to Janet’s play on both her and my Catholic origins, and the “holier than thou” attitude of us who drive these hybrids) runs very low to the ground, and I did scrape its front fender on the one pothole that went clear across the road. Otherwise, the potholes felt like moguls on a ski run, fairly easily swerved around.
Jean and I spent a day at her place with the tape recorder running on and off again, as a first step for the “interview” with her that will run in the first issue of Crone magazine. She and her then-partner Ruth Mountaingrove ran the seminal—oops, I’d better say “ovular”— little magazine WomanSpirit, for ten years starting in 1974. This magazine initiated what one might call the spirituality arm of the second wave of the feminist movement. Jean’s now nearly 82 years old, and intrepid, despite her cane and a recent hip replacement. Her compound, called "Rootworks," now sports a compost toilet and electricity, both within the last three years, after nearly 20 years in truly primitive conditions. My yurt life was always luxurious by comparison.
Tonight, an event at the Open Secret Bookstore and Cultural Center in downtown San Rafael. This will be the first event where I was the contact person for it. In other words, no local contact! Yeeks! It will be interesting to see who (if any!) are drawn to the poster that they put on the door, and the books they placed on the table near their check-out stand. I was gratified and relieved to see their preparations for this event when I checked in with the store yesterday.
Then, on the 30th, my interview with Angeles Arrien in Sausalito, also for the launch issue of CRONE.
BTW: I decided to stay in a motel during these three days in Marin. Sudden strong craving for solitude.
draft
Meanwhile, two more events, on the 24th and 25th.
The first one, in Ashland, felt challenging at first, since the room held a temporary art exhibit on war, with violent images collaged on the walls and a gigantic photo of George Bush on the floor, meant, apparently, for visitors to walk on.
We folded up the floor photo and circled the chairs at the back of the long room, beyond the collages. The situation reminded me of my “peace activist” days in 1982-83 when thought I was working to make sure the MX missile didn’t come into Wyoming (it did), and I was shocked to discover that I was, in fact, a violent-peace-activist.
That stunning surprise plummeted me into my own inner world, and I spent the next four months staring into a fire of the stove in the yurt in the Tetons into which I had just moved, shuffling through turbulent scenes from memory that made me wince with pain, shame, remorse, and an absolute determination to learn how to never repeat.
I thought that would be it, that having taken this time to “integrate my own shadow” I would be free and clear, ready to go on without unconsciously spraying my own inner weirdness all over others. But NO. It took six more years of work, deep work with “Orphan Annie,” the one who felt abandoned and covered it up with arrogance, before I finally began to feel that I was hopefully conscious enough of how my own unpredictable nature can wreak havoc in the world.
So when I sat there in that room with those war images all around me I noticed the turbulence I still feel when even glancing at them. Obviously, I’m not yet at the point where I can say that my awareness remains as a calm, still pool no matter what.
A dozen women, mostly of crone age, were present, and I began by talking about the CRONE magazine that we’re about to launch. And when one of them (a very modest woman whom I later discovered is a sculptor of international renown) asked “how do you define crone?,” the images on the walls reminded me of my favorite definition, “She who eats her own shadow.”
“What’s the shadow?” Someone else asked.
“The parts of ourselves that we don’t like,” I answered, firmly, remembering—to the nods of many others.
Actually, I’m not sure if that question was asked then. It may have been at the other session, held in Grants Pass, again with about a dozen women mostly of crone age. T he Grants Pass event, was the first where I directed the entire conversation specifically to the magazine—and received lots of great feedback and suggestions for how we can make it even more relevant to women of crone-age.
The Ashland event, on the other hand, felt similar to most of the other 17 book events so far—intense, deep, focused on the multidimensional quality of our responses to death and loss and how allowing ourselves to process grief fully transforms us. Later, one woman who participated in the Ashland event heard about the more “informational” tone of the Grants Pass event, and how it was focused almost exclusively on the upcoming magazine, told me she was surprised that the second one was not like the first, and wondered why. (By which she apparently meant, “why didn’t the second group of women get to experience what we did?”) In fact, that was because my friend Jean Mountaingrove, the organizer for the Grants Pass event, had assumed that her group would want to focus on the magazine more than the book.
Besides the gravel road to Mouna’s yurt/dome compound, I got to negotiate a two-mile long pot-holed dirt road to Jean’s barn/hut/cabin compound north of Grants Pass. Tthis second road made me decidedly nervous, since the Prius (now called the Pius, thanks to Janet’s play on both her and my Catholic origins, and the “holier than thou” attitude of us who drive these hybrids) runs very low to the ground, and I did scrape its front fender on the one pothole that went clear across the road. Otherwise, the potholes felt like moguls on a ski run, fairly easily swerved around.
Jean and I spent a day at her place with the tape recorder running on and off again, as a first step for the “interview” with her that will run in the first issue of Crone magazine. She and her then-partner Ruth Mountaingrove ran the seminal—oops, I’d better say “ovular”— little magazine WomanSpirit, for ten years starting in 1974. This magazine initiated what one might call the spirituality arm of the second wave of the feminist movement. Jean’s now nearly 82 years old, and intrepid, despite her cane and a recent hip replacement. Her compound, called "Rootworks," now sports a compost toilet and electricity, both within the last three years, after nearly 20 years in truly primitive conditions. My yurt life was always luxurious by comparison.
Tonight, an event at the Open Secret Bookstore and Cultural Center in downtown San Rafael. This will be the first event where I was the contact person for it. In other words, no local contact! Yeeks! It will be interesting to see who (if any!) are drawn to the poster that they put on the door, and the books they placed on the table near their check-out stand. I was gratified and relieved to see their preparations for this event when I checked in with the store yesterday.
Then, on the 30th, my interview with Angeles Arrien in Sausalito, also for the launch issue of CRONE.
BTW: I decided to stay in a motel during these three days in Marin. Sudden strong craving for solitude.
draft
Friday, August 24, 2007
From forest to table, always Love
Take exit 6 off I-5, Mouna told me, and go three miles on the gravel road. I envisioned a dusty dirt road winding through small rolling hills. The actual road hugs the side of a cliff in the middle of a silent old growth fir and pine forest.
As soon as I felt the arms of the forest encircle my little car, I noticed a strong feeling of internal calm. Probably what always happens in a forest, though I had not ever before noticed it so instantaneously. Welcome relief in a day that had begun at 6 AM when I headed out from my old friend Clarissa's house in Portland west (after a raucous evening with her and another old friend Candice (both from Jackson, now in Portland) towards Forest Grove to meet with publisher Anne Niven and her husband Alan at Maggie's Buns for a face-to-face talk about the new CRONE mag that we are producing, to launch next spring.
I got lost on the way, and arrived 45 minutes late. That meant my driving day had been lengthened by that much, and I finally arrived at Mouna's beautiful forested property south of Ashland and deposited my things in her 24-foot diameter guest yurt around 5 p.m. Just then . . . my old friend Janet from Jackson drove up from Brookings Oregon, over 3 hours away, on the coast——with her table! Janet, an extraordinary body and energy worker, did two sessions with me before I went to bed, and I slept for ten hours. Incredible, how I seem to be given exactly what I need when I need it, since I was utterly fried and overloaded but the time I arrived here.
Today, an event in Ashland 2 to 4 p.m., and another one in Grants Pass tomorrow. Then I stay with Jean Mountaingrove (who produced WomanSpirit magazine in the 1970s). I wil interview her for CRONE over the weekend.
So glad to feel full and ready to meet this wide, wide world again, and so very very grateful for friends and family who cushion and support me on this long, strange, wondrous odyssey.
As soon as I felt the arms of the forest encircle my little car, I noticed a strong feeling of internal calm. Probably what always happens in a forest, though I had not ever before noticed it so instantaneously. Welcome relief in a day that had begun at 6 AM when I headed out from my old friend Clarissa's house in Portland west (after a raucous evening with her and another old friend Candice (both from Jackson, now in Portland) towards Forest Grove to meet with publisher Anne Niven and her husband Alan at Maggie's Buns for a face-to-face talk about the new CRONE mag that we are producing, to launch next spring.
I got lost on the way, and arrived 45 minutes late. That meant my driving day had been lengthened by that much, and I finally arrived at Mouna's beautiful forested property south of Ashland and deposited my things in her 24-foot diameter guest yurt around 5 p.m. Just then . . . my old friend Janet from Jackson drove up from Brookings Oregon, over 3 hours away, on the coast——with her table! Janet, an extraordinary body and energy worker, did two sessions with me before I went to bed, and I slept for ten hours. Incredible, how I seem to be given exactly what I need when I need it, since I was utterly fried and overloaded but the time I arrived here.
Today, an event in Ashland 2 to 4 p.m., and another one in Grants Pass tomorrow. Then I stay with Jean Mountaingrove (who produced WomanSpirit magazine in the 1970s). I wil interview her for CRONE over the weekend.
So glad to feel full and ready to meet this wide, wide world again, and so very very grateful for friends and family who cushion and support me on this long, strange, wondrous odyssey.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Juxtapositions
Sitting here on final morning of domestic arrangements, in rental home with my son Sean, daughter-in-law Sue, and my two delightful and strong-willed grandkids, currently whispering vociferously inside a fort of blankets and chairs. Grey day in Seattle, as usual (three days of sun this summer, so far). Sean just told kids not to bring pillows into the fort. They convinced him otherwise. Sue and Sean eating eggs and bagels.
So interesting, the juxtaposition among various realities. This "mundane," daily one vs. the quiet, high intensity of the book events. Last night, Sue, a niece, and two of my sisters were present, so another juxtaposition for me, whose life and work have basically occupied an alternate reality from that of my family.
One highlight from last night's book event: the woman, ten years a widow whose husband died of cancer at home, who told us she made sure that her children, ages three and ten, spent time with him in his bed before he died. "I wanted to make sure that they were with him at his death the same way that he was with them at their births," she stated matter-of-factly, and then added: "As a result, they are not a bit afraid of death, not a bit."
More and more, I notice that the book events move quickly into deep talk, rather than skimming the surface and then heading down. Having now facilitated 15 of these discussions, I notice that Death as the ultimate mystery seems to be blooming ever larger as an ineffable presence, palpable, larger than Life.
Last night's event, with about a dozen people, turned into a gourmet treat, with appetizers, a full meal, and, after our discussion, a fabulous date pudding with whipped cream, fruit and maple syrup. The discussion itself lasted not quite 90 minutes, perhaps too short, since four or five people came up to me afterwards to convey privately their own remarkable stories. We need to remember that our personal voyages into the archetypal domains of death and grief and loss have been sitting inside us for a long, long time, and sometimes can only be coaxed out. As we hear others' stories, so we gradually open to tell our own. I sense that, had the discussion been allowed another 30 minutes, there might have been a remarkable outpouring.
In any case, the evening was full and heartfelt, with my sister Mary and brother-in-law John exceedingly generous and caring hosts. And their friends! Such a caring, gentle, spiritually-inclined group of people who accurately mirror their own rapidly-expanding and multidimensional world-view. Thank you Mary and John!
Today, Portland, where I stay with my old friend Clarissa this evening.
So interesting, the juxtaposition among various realities. This "mundane," daily one vs. the quiet, high intensity of the book events. Last night, Sue, a niece, and two of my sisters were present, so another juxtaposition for me, whose life and work have basically occupied an alternate reality from that of my family.
One highlight from last night's book event: the woman, ten years a widow whose husband died of cancer at home, who told us she made sure that her children, ages three and ten, spent time with him in his bed before he died. "I wanted to make sure that they were with him at his death the same way that he was with them at their births," she stated matter-of-factly, and then added: "As a result, they are not a bit afraid of death, not a bit."
More and more, I notice that the book events move quickly into deep talk, rather than skimming the surface and then heading down. Having now facilitated 15 of these discussions, I notice that Death as the ultimate mystery seems to be blooming ever larger as an ineffable presence, palpable, larger than Life.
Last night's event, with about a dozen people, turned into a gourmet treat, with appetizers, a full meal, and, after our discussion, a fabulous date pudding with whipped cream, fruit and maple syrup. The discussion itself lasted not quite 90 minutes, perhaps too short, since four or five people came up to me afterwards to convey privately their own remarkable stories. We need to remember that our personal voyages into the archetypal domains of death and grief and loss have been sitting inside us for a long, long time, and sometimes can only be coaxed out. As we hear others' stories, so we gradually open to tell our own. I sense that, had the discussion been allowed another 30 minutes, there might have been a remarkable outpouring.
In any case, the evening was full and heartfelt, with my sister Mary and brother-in-law John exceedingly generous and caring hosts. And their friends! Such a caring, gentle, spiritually-inclined group of people who accurately mirror their own rapidly-expanding and multidimensional world-view. Thank you Mary and John!
Today, Portland, where I stay with my old friend Clarissa this evening.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Convergence and the needle's eye
Sitting atop a high stool at the kitchen couner in a lovely, large-enough rental home near the water in West Seattle, son Sean reading to 7-year-old Kiera and 4-year-old Drew upstairs while daughter-in-law Sue takes a shower. Feel full, contented, lazy, on this overcast, rainy northwest day. Yesterday's family meal here with my 91- and 90-year-old parents, four sisters and spouses, two other grandchildren (both grownups), and my dear friend Claudia was, as usual, rowdy, raucous, and high-spirited, all of us swirling around the folks as they sat in state, laughing at the jokes and joining in the merriment as well as can be expected, given that she has trouble understanding things that were, only one year ago, obvious to her, and he is doing his best to take on what may be his hardest role in life, despite his nearly 50 years of being a doctor: looking after, cooking and cleaning up after, his beloved wife who is slowly and subtly incandescing before our eyes.
Though being with family again was a shocking re-introduction into this old, familiar framework after another year away, and though I had just barely begun to process the intense book event on Vashon Island the night before, and had just driven up to the rental only two hours before the family started to arrive; though Sean, Sue and the kids had hardly slept the night before due to their 1 AM arrival from Boston, I, and I would say everyone else, somehow moved through the eye of a needle into a flow that felt delicious and warm and all those other fuzzy words that we use to try to describe the ineffable yet powerful connections we humans have for one another, especially those we have engaged with in one form or another all our lives, moving through crisis after crisis and somehow not only surviving but thriving.
The book event on Vashon held 15 people circled on comfortable couches and chairs inside a bookstore, talking deeply about various experiences related to death and grieving. More than any other of these evenings, this event focused on the mysterious connections we have to one another both pre- and post-death, especially as revealed in our dreams and other uncanny circumstances. Everyone very present. Though it did take some people a long time to open up, even their listening felt compelling, as they magnetically drew out the stories of others.
One of my favorites: the woman who talked about death as a part of living, illustrating it with a story of how her father (or was it brother/) was dying of some chronic disease in an upstairs bedroom, while downstairs everyone carried on their normal lives, though visiting him once in a while upstairs. Then, on one day, at the same moment, three family members all suddenly ran upstairs, to reach him just as he let go of his final breath.
Tomorrow, we visit with the folks at their new home, the Covenant Shores Retirement Community on Mercer Island, for lunch. Mom: "will hot dogs and potato chips be okay for the kids?"—trying so hard to be gracious in constantly deteriorating interior circumstances. Then tomorrow evening: a book event at my sister Mary's, to which sisters Kathy and Kristin also hope to attend. I notice that their evident interest makes me feel both grateful and hesitant: all my life I have kept my life and work separate from family origins. Are they about to converge? Are we about to take a new step in our family dynamic to ease the way for our parents as they are drawn through the needle's eye of death?
Though being with family again was a shocking re-introduction into this old, familiar framework after another year away, and though I had just barely begun to process the intense book event on Vashon Island the night before, and had just driven up to the rental only two hours before the family started to arrive; though Sean, Sue and the kids had hardly slept the night before due to their 1 AM arrival from Boston, I, and I would say everyone else, somehow moved through the eye of a needle into a flow that felt delicious and warm and all those other fuzzy words that we use to try to describe the ineffable yet powerful connections we humans have for one another, especially those we have engaged with in one form or another all our lives, moving through crisis after crisis and somehow not only surviving but thriving.
The book event on Vashon held 15 people circled on comfortable couches and chairs inside a bookstore, talking deeply about various experiences related to death and grieving. More than any other of these evenings, this event focused on the mysterious connections we have to one another both pre- and post-death, especially as revealed in our dreams and other uncanny circumstances. Everyone very present. Though it did take some people a long time to open up, even their listening felt compelling, as they magnetically drew out the stories of others.
One of my favorites: the woman who talked about death as a part of living, illustrating it with a story of how her father (or was it brother/) was dying of some chronic disease in an upstairs bedroom, while downstairs everyone carried on their normal lives, though visiting him once in a while upstairs. Then, on one day, at the same moment, three family members all suddenly ran upstairs, to reach him just as he let go of his final breath.
Tomorrow, we visit with the folks at their new home, the Covenant Shores Retirement Community on Mercer Island, for lunch. Mom: "will hot dogs and potato chips be okay for the kids?"—trying so hard to be gracious in constantly deteriorating interior circumstances. Then tomorrow evening: a book event at my sister Mary's, to which sisters Kathy and Kristin also hope to attend. I notice that their evident interest makes me feel both grateful and hesitant: all my life I have kept my life and work separate from family origins. Are they about to converge? Are we about to take a new step in our family dynamic to ease the way for our parents as they are drawn through the needle's eye of death?
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Stuck in traffic with the Dalai Lama
Arrived in Bend Oregon after a gorgeous drive through wild desert (where I kept scanning for wild horses, no luck!) from Boise at 3 p.m. only to find that Rita, my hostess, had just left for the emergency room with her husband in great pain. How fragile life is, how the "best-made plans" . . . ! (P.S., he's okay, the situation was not life-threatening, though had to be attended to immediately).
That evening's event, at the home of two women who have long opened their home to gatherings-of-heart, held a dozen women in a circle, most of them connected to each other through their work in the local hospital. Half young and the others of crone age, like me. Really a special time, the young ones blushing to have to speak at all and yet eagerly absorbing the stories of their elders. One of them said to me afterwards that after our discussion she no longer feels afraid of death.
Yesterday, driving north through old forests with sudden spectular views of Mount Hood, got stuck in an hour-long traffic jam while nearing Seattle and felt serene and grateful to be listening to an audio book describing a man's experience with the Dalai Lama over three decades.
Walked around Green Lake with my dear sister Mary and her husband to get the kinks out after near 8-hour drive, deep into discussion of global warming, peak oil, need for community . . . Then a wonderful dinner and full-hearted talk on their patio until dark joined by their friend Carol, whom they met at the Chartres Cathedral in Paris and who also seeks to serve.
Today, take the ferry to Vashon Island, for this evening's event at a bookstore there, hosted by my dearest sister-of-heart in the whole world, Claudia. So very grateful to be alive and mostly conscious and awake during this momentous, scary, exciting crossroads time of human transformation.
That evening's event, at the home of two women who have long opened their home to gatherings-of-heart, held a dozen women in a circle, most of them connected to each other through their work in the local hospital. Half young and the others of crone age, like me. Really a special time, the young ones blushing to have to speak at all and yet eagerly absorbing the stories of their elders. One of them said to me afterwards that after our discussion she no longer feels afraid of death.
Yesterday, driving north through old forests with sudden spectular views of Mount Hood, got stuck in an hour-long traffic jam while nearing Seattle and felt serene and grateful to be listening to an audio book describing a man's experience with the Dalai Lama over three decades.
Walked around Green Lake with my dear sister Mary and her husband to get the kinks out after near 8-hour drive, deep into discussion of global warming, peak oil, need for community . . . Then a wonderful dinner and full-hearted talk on their patio until dark joined by their friend Carol, whom they met at the Chartres Cathedral in Paris and who also seeks to serve.
Today, take the ferry to Vashon Island, for this evening's event at a bookstore there, hosted by my dearest sister-of-heart in the whole world, Claudia. So very grateful to be alive and mostly conscious and awake during this momentous, scary, exciting crossroads time of human transformation.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Well, I can't figure out how to edit these blog entries once I post them, and Azimat tells me that my word "sautered" from yesterday's blog is really "soldered." Go figure. Yeeks, do I hate mistakes. I questioned her, thinking maybe there are alternative spellings of that word, and she told me she was a spelling champ in high school. Azimat (aka Lane) was the editor for the book, so who am I to question her? Except she says don't send this until she double checks it. How very like her, and I'm ignoring her advice--how very like me.
Meanwhile, here's clear evidence for me of how lack of presence, of staying awake, can leave me stranded on shore rather than flowing with the current: Today, I received email message from Ada in Ketchum that I left not only my yoga mat, but my address book at her house! I knew about the yoga mat, and had already gifted it to her in my mind and bought another one at Target. But the address book??!?!
I have some of the contact info I need stored in the computer and iphone (which is working now. . .) but not all of it, as I didn't quite finish that task before I left Bloomington on July 25. And, of course, the next address I need, for Rita in Bend Oregon with me due there tomorrow afternoon and a book event tomorrow night, I do not have stored anywhere but that address book.
Quick flurry of calls to various people, none of which produced what I needed. Then, amazingly enough, I did find Rita's phone numbers on an old email (actually, this is not amazing at all; what's amazing is that I didn't think of it to begin with!). Called her, and she didn't answer. Left message. Someone else there called back immediately, and gave me the address, yelling back and forth over loud rock music in this internet cafe. Then my computer refused to go on the internet at this cafe—and of course Azimat and I had just paid for our chai muffin and tea! So couldn't google the address. But the internet did work for Azimat's Macbook, across the table from me, so she googled it, and I sat down in her chair and laboriously wrote down directions (in absence of a printer). Such is life on the road for she who falls into a trance and forgets where she is, what she has, what she's doing, whatever! Reminds me of my old friend Chuck's mantra for me, "A good gypsy leaves no traces." . . .
Last night's event felt wonderfully warm and present. About 18 people there, apparently more than usually attend events at this wonderful new age center in the middle of Boise. There were a number of people in active pain present, especially a widow of about my age whose husband of 47 years died only 11 months ago, and who has not been able to utter the words "my husband died" on the phone to insurance people and others with whom she must deal. I had asked her if she noticed a different response from people on the phone when she uttered those words, and that's when she muttered that she does not say those words.
This was the first time I had heard someone in active grief say this, and of course it immediately magnetized a sympathetic response from the whole group, which was, up to that point, enjoying a spot of tea around a large table before retiring to what I had jokingly referred to as "the other side" (of the room) for the reading/discussion event within a circle of chairs and couches.
So often I and others discover how individuated our various responses to grief are. Over and over again I am humbled to realize that, despite going through my declared year of "conscious grieving," I truly know very little about the range of responses evoked in humans to the death of a loved one.
The atmosphere of this evening felt slow and stately and very respectful. Many incredible, miraculous, evocative stories, as usual, and what stands out for me from this night is the beautiful young woman who worked as a nurse's aide at a nursing home and actually functioned as a senstive and very observant angel in the dying moments of her patients' deaths. Over and over again she would discover an intuitive way to help that particular person make his or her transition. An example here: the man who was afraid, deathly afraid of what he was experiencing as the horrible dark (his way of symbolically depicting death), and she swiftly grabbed the bedside lamp and shined it directly on onto his face to comfort him.
Meanwhile, here's clear evidence for me of how lack of presence, of staying awake, can leave me stranded on shore rather than flowing with the current: Today, I received email message from Ada in Ketchum that I left not only my yoga mat, but my address book at her house! I knew about the yoga mat, and had already gifted it to her in my mind and bought another one at Target. But the address book??!?!
I have some of the contact info I need stored in the computer and iphone (which is working now. . .) but not all of it, as I didn't quite finish that task before I left Bloomington on July 25. And, of course, the next address I need, for Rita in Bend Oregon with me due there tomorrow afternoon and a book event tomorrow night, I do not have stored anywhere but that address book.
Quick flurry of calls to various people, none of which produced what I needed. Then, amazingly enough, I did find Rita's phone numbers on an old email (actually, this is not amazing at all; what's amazing is that I didn't think of it to begin with!). Called her, and she didn't answer. Left message. Someone else there called back immediately, and gave me the address, yelling back and forth over loud rock music in this internet cafe. Then my computer refused to go on the internet at this cafe—and of course Azimat and I had just paid for our chai muffin and tea! So couldn't google the address. But the internet did work for Azimat's Macbook, across the table from me, so she googled it, and I sat down in her chair and laboriously wrote down directions (in absence of a printer). Such is life on the road for she who falls into a trance and forgets where she is, what she has, what she's doing, whatever! Reminds me of my old friend Chuck's mantra for me, "A good gypsy leaves no traces." . . .
Last night's event felt wonderfully warm and present. About 18 people there, apparently more than usually attend events at this wonderful new age center in the middle of Boise. There were a number of people in active pain present, especially a widow of about my age whose husband of 47 years died only 11 months ago, and who has not been able to utter the words "my husband died" on the phone to insurance people and others with whom she must deal. I had asked her if she noticed a different response from people on the phone when she uttered those words, and that's when she muttered that she does not say those words.
This was the first time I had heard someone in active grief say this, and of course it immediately magnetized a sympathetic response from the whole group, which was, up to that point, enjoying a spot of tea around a large table before retiring to what I had jokingly referred to as "the other side" (of the room) for the reading/discussion event within a circle of chairs and couches.
So often I and others discover how individuated our various responses to grief are. Over and over again I am humbled to realize that, despite going through my declared year of "conscious grieving," I truly know very little about the range of responses evoked in humans to the death of a loved one.
The atmosphere of this evening felt slow and stately and very respectful. Many incredible, miraculous, evocative stories, as usual, and what stands out for me from this night is the beautiful young woman who worked as a nurse's aide at a nursing home and actually functioned as a senstive and very observant angel in the dying moments of her patients' deaths. Over and over again she would discover an intuitive way to help that particular person make his or her transition. An example here: the man who was afraid, deathly afraid of what he was experiencing as the horrible dark (his way of symbolically depicting death), and she swiftly grabbed the bedside lamp and shined it directly on onto his face to comfort him.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Technology sautered to my nervous system
Had one of my rare insomniac periods last night, between 2 and 5 a.m., and used it to come to a fuller understanding of this business of me and technology. That, plus a breakfast conversation with my friend Azimat this morning gave me a “take” on just “why” I go ballistic over technological glitches. Here’s what I came up with.
I didn’t start writing until I was able to afford an electric typewriter, in 1970. So amazing! The keys could almost keep up with my thoughts which, because of my volatile, explosive, interruptive, mental nature (astrologically, that’s Mars opposite Uranus in Sagittarius/Gemini) flash through at warp speed.
Then, when I got my first Mac, in 1985, I could really take off! For the first time, no resistance between head and hand, no slow-down where I would forget what the rest of that particular sentence was supposed to have been.
Thus, I’ve been embedded perhaps more deeply than some with this electric/electronic evolutionary process that has sautered itself to my nervous system and enabled me to actually express what’s shooting through.
So, when something stops the process, ach, it feels so damned interruptive, as if I myself have been shut down, my existence on hold.
As I said in yesterday’s blog, I realize that this is exactly where I need to practice awareness, and today, I realize that I must begin by practicing awareness in the middle of when my interface with technology is humming along at warp speed. Because the synchronization of my fingers with the speed of the computer (I type at over 100 words per minute) is so extreme, it’s very easy for me to completely forget myself while utterly intoxicated by the joy of shooting mental/spiritual/linguistic rapids. If I can hold awareness during these good times, then most likely it won’t be so difficult to hold awareness during times when I get hung up on a large, impenetrable rock!
A big order. The kind of challenge that I can get my teeth in.
Tonight: book at “Spriit at Work Books and Beyond” in Boise.
I didn’t start writing until I was able to afford an electric typewriter, in 1970. So amazing! The keys could almost keep up with my thoughts which, because of my volatile, explosive, interruptive, mental nature (astrologically, that’s Mars opposite Uranus in Sagittarius/Gemini) flash through at warp speed.
Then, when I got my first Mac, in 1985, I could really take off! For the first time, no resistance between head and hand, no slow-down where I would forget what the rest of that particular sentence was supposed to have been.
Thus, I’ve been embedded perhaps more deeply than some with this electric/electronic evolutionary process that has sautered itself to my nervous system and enabled me to actually express what’s shooting through.
So, when something stops the process, ach, it feels so damned interruptive, as if I myself have been shut down, my existence on hold.
As I said in yesterday’s blog, I realize that this is exactly where I need to practice awareness, and today, I realize that I must begin by practicing awareness in the middle of when my interface with technology is humming along at warp speed. Because the synchronization of my fingers with the speed of the computer (I type at over 100 words per minute) is so extreme, it’s very easy for me to completely forget myself while utterly intoxicated by the joy of shooting mental/spiritual/linguistic rapids. If I can hold awareness during these good times, then most likely it won’t be so difficult to hold awareness during times when I get hung up on a large, impenetrable rock!
A big order. The kind of challenge that I can get my teeth in.
Tonight: book at “Spriit at Work Books and Beyond” in Boise.
Monday, August 13, 2007
"Deep spiritual practice" foiled by technology
"Former publisher of the Crone Chronicles, Ann Kreilkamp engaged in conscious grieving after her husband died suddenly of a heart attack. Supported by a deep spiritual practice, Kreilkamp attuned to her need for ritual and ceremony to acknowledge and honor a path of grief that encompasses both pain and joy. Part cartography, part plein-air painting, This Vast Being gives form to a rich internal landscape of fierce love and loss."
This review, by Connie Mears, in the New Age Retailer, sure looks impressive! Not sure I understand what "plein-air painting" means in this context. Oh well! No complaints. This little magazine goes out to 10,000 independent bookstores.
Meanwhile, back in the Prius, now in Boise at an internet cafe with my friend Azimat and our dueling MacBooks. Spent 45 minutes standing in line at the Cingular/AT&T store to see if I could exchange my iphone, again on the blink, only to discover, as I finally got to the clerk, that Cingular does not exchange the phones, that I have to go to an Apple store for that . . .
{Here, fill in your own circuit-breaking rant on how technology both accelerates us to warp speed and stops us in our tracks.]
The other day, when I said, "yes, of course, it would be great to eat quiche!" and meant it, to my dear friend Judy, when I had just had huevos rancheros, courtesy of my friend Brenda, only four hours earlier, in retrospect blows my mind. Eggs upon eggs, something I would never have agreed to even six months ago and makes me nauseated, now, to even think about! I guess it might actually mean that I'm moving into "the flow," appreciating WHATEVER presents itself.
[Except for technological glitches! I still grow agitated when I think back to standing in line for so long, that conversation with the Cingular guy. My internal state was—is— that of complete chaos and frustration. All awareness OUT THE WINDOW!] Azimat asked me if maybe there was some early childhood memory that my consistent trauma over technological glitches reminds me of, and I immediatley sunk back into a day when I lay on a table in my doctor Dad's office—he was hooking me up to an electrocardiograph machine to see if it worked. I was six years old, and do remember feeling the alien wires on my chest, but no memory of fear or rage.
Though most of this trip IS doing what I hoped personally, plunking me into the Now, these technological moments are my Waterloo, clearly where I need to remember, with every breath, to practice awareness. So, thank you, iphone, for the intransigence of your sautered-in battery. I bow before you, most honorable opponent!
(BTW: if you will please forgive one more moment of obsession . . . Just wanted to report that I really felt for the Cingular guy. Clearly, he WAS sorry, and chagrined that he couldn't help, and I'm glad that I wasn't even tempted to take my rage out on him.)
This review, by Connie Mears, in the New Age Retailer, sure looks impressive! Not sure I understand what "plein-air painting" means in this context. Oh well! No complaints. This little magazine goes out to 10,000 independent bookstores.
Meanwhile, back in the Prius, now in Boise at an internet cafe with my friend Azimat and our dueling MacBooks. Spent 45 minutes standing in line at the Cingular/AT&T store to see if I could exchange my iphone, again on the blink, only to discover, as I finally got to the clerk, that Cingular does not exchange the phones, that I have to go to an Apple store for that . . .
{Here, fill in your own circuit-breaking rant on how technology both accelerates us to warp speed and stops us in our tracks.]
The other day, when I said, "yes, of course, it would be great to eat quiche!" and meant it, to my dear friend Judy, when I had just had huevos rancheros, courtesy of my friend Brenda, only four hours earlier, in retrospect blows my mind. Eggs upon eggs, something I would never have agreed to even six months ago and makes me nauseated, now, to even think about! I guess it might actually mean that I'm moving into "the flow," appreciating WHATEVER presents itself.
[Except for technological glitches! I still grow agitated when I think back to standing in line for so long, that conversation with the Cingular guy. My internal state was—is— that of complete chaos and frustration. All awareness OUT THE WINDOW!] Azimat asked me if maybe there was some early childhood memory that my consistent trauma over technological glitches reminds me of, and I immediatley sunk back into a day when I lay on a table in my doctor Dad's office—he was hooking me up to an electrocardiograph machine to see if it worked. I was six years old, and do remember feeling the alien wires on my chest, but no memory of fear or rage.
Though most of this trip IS doing what I hoped personally, plunking me into the Now, these technological moments are my Waterloo, clearly where I need to remember, with every breath, to practice awareness. So, thank you, iphone, for the intransigence of your sautered-in battery. I bow before you, most honorable opponent!
(BTW: if you will please forgive one more moment of obsession . . . Just wanted to report that I really felt for the Cingular guy. Clearly, he WAS sorry, and chagrined that he couldn't help, and I'm glad that I wasn't even tempted to take my rage out on him.)
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Open Hearts, Open Space
Drove up to Ketchum, Idaho this brilliant blue early morning from Hagerman, where I stayed overnight with old friend Joan at her beautiful little lodge and retreat center on a clear, chortling creek that flows from one of the "Thousand Springs" and rivulets its way in many branches down a hillside. I took the back road, up from the gentle terminus of the Snake River Canyon to tiny, rural Gooding, then Hiway 46 north to where it ends in Hiway 20 a few miles from Fairfield. Turned right, and arrived in Ketchum about 45 minutes later.
All along the two-hour journey, processing. Revisiting the continuous connections with old friends of the day before--hiking in the canyon with Brenda in the morning, an hour grabbed with Pegan at noon, laughter-filled discussion with Judy, Rex and Bill at Miracle Hot Springs in the afternoon plus dropping off a book for David since our schedules did not mesh, then the fairy/elven/watercress retreat at Joan's for dinner and overnight. How blessed I am, to enjoy such rich, rich friendships with people I have known for decades and who all still surprise and delight each other with the ways our unique, quirky original natures continue to unfold. So MUCH more fun now that our bodies are relaxing their "hard body" drive and our egos dissolving their opinionated edges into a shared, bemused, wise knowing of how we humans work, how we blind and kid ourselves, and still manage to survive and thrive . . .
So many of the men that I'm renewing connection with now are opening their hearts, wide, like little kids, drinking in the warmth of the sun. It's this heart-opening that I seem to be drawn to, and which Jeff, and Jeff's death, seems to have engendered in me. I see/feel it in individuals as well as in the culture, beneath the scary, loveless news, this tight spot that humanity has put itself in, this forcing through the narrowest of gates, the needle's eye, into a vast, expansive spaciousness that includes us all and finds its echo in the vast, limitless desert north from Gooding--so much nothingness, such a silent presence that shimmers in the heat and calls us to remember that we too, deep inside, are this vast space, this vast being of limitless, unbounded love.
It's easy to move into mysticism when you feel the desert in your bones. I feel lucky to have spent my childhood in such wild, abstract, mysterious country.
Ketchum: Chapter One Bookstore, 11 AM to what turned out to be 2 P.M. Books on a round table near the front door, small group sitting around the table, talking about death, and grief, and sharing stories. Once again, the realness, the vulnerability, tears, laughter. Three widows present for at least two of those hours, and one man of such rare heart that I sense his life has been brimming with suffering and isolation. (What ever happened to our discussion, only two nights ago, when we women were calling--for a short while admittedly, and half-joking--men "assholes"? It's as if we had to bring that word up once again, just to let it go, since though a conversation we've had forever, it's obviously just not true, and never really was, once we peer below the crusty surface.)
A number of people in and out, to pick up books and have me sign them. Several people even found me at a nearby restaurant to sign books later. At the bookstore, a few more widows came in to buy books and sit with us for awhile. A number of people are gifting one or more books to others grieving through the aftermath of a loved one's recent death.
This circle a very good and heartfelt time. So fortunate to be living right here, right now, in this body, on this long journey in this trusty little car, moved by the ever-enlarging presence so many great souls.
Next: walk in the mountains tomorrow morning, then to Boise in afternoon.
All along the two-hour journey, processing. Revisiting the continuous connections with old friends of the day before--hiking in the canyon with Brenda in the morning, an hour grabbed with Pegan at noon, laughter-filled discussion with Judy, Rex and Bill at Miracle Hot Springs in the afternoon plus dropping off a book for David since our schedules did not mesh, then the fairy/elven/watercress retreat at Joan's for dinner and overnight. How blessed I am, to enjoy such rich, rich friendships with people I have known for decades and who all still surprise and delight each other with the ways our unique, quirky original natures continue to unfold. So MUCH more fun now that our bodies are relaxing their "hard body" drive and our egos dissolving their opinionated edges into a shared, bemused, wise knowing of how we humans work, how we blind and kid ourselves, and still manage to survive and thrive . . .
So many of the men that I'm renewing connection with now are opening their hearts, wide, like little kids, drinking in the warmth of the sun. It's this heart-opening that I seem to be drawn to, and which Jeff, and Jeff's death, seems to have engendered in me. I see/feel it in individuals as well as in the culture, beneath the scary, loveless news, this tight spot that humanity has put itself in, this forcing through the narrowest of gates, the needle's eye, into a vast, expansive spaciousness that includes us all and finds its echo in the vast, limitless desert north from Gooding--so much nothingness, such a silent presence that shimmers in the heat and calls us to remember that we too, deep inside, are this vast space, this vast being of limitless, unbounded love.
It's easy to move into mysticism when you feel the desert in your bones. I feel lucky to have spent my childhood in such wild, abstract, mysterious country.
Ketchum: Chapter One Bookstore, 11 AM to what turned out to be 2 P.M. Books on a round table near the front door, small group sitting around the table, talking about death, and grief, and sharing stories. Once again, the realness, the vulnerability, tears, laughter. Three widows present for at least two of those hours, and one man of such rare heart that I sense his life has been brimming with suffering and isolation. (What ever happened to our discussion, only two nights ago, when we women were calling--for a short while admittedly, and half-joking--men "assholes"? It's as if we had to bring that word up once again, just to let it go, since though a conversation we've had forever, it's obviously just not true, and never really was, once we peer below the crusty surface.)
A number of people in and out, to pick up books and have me sign them. Several people even found me at a nearby restaurant to sign books later. At the bookstore, a few more widows came in to buy books and sit with us for awhile. A number of people are gifting one or more books to others grieving through the aftermath of a loved one's recent death.
This circle a very good and heartfelt time. So fortunate to be living right here, right now, in this body, on this long journey in this trusty little car, moved by the ever-enlarging presence so many great souls.
Next: walk in the mountains tomorrow morning, then to Boise in afternoon.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Then, blowing in from stage left . . .
Several decades ago, Kathy Ruyts decided to manifest a long-term dream. She bought an old church in the tiny town of Buhl, Idaho, and turned it into a beautiful little temple with a labyrinth at its heart. This little jewel, with the bland name of "8th Street Center" has become the cultural heart of not only the town it sits in, but a magnetic draw for the entire Magic Valley of Southern Idaho. My talk and discussion of This Vast Being was held there. Coffee, tea, cheese, crackers and brownies were all available to . . . but who knew how many would show up? Despite newspaper notices, lots of phone calls and emails, and even a small newspaper ad, only seven people came—and that includes me and three others who worked to put on the event.
My expectations, so battered by this trip in all ways, suffered a sharp jolt. I thought that by this time I had learned to flow with the Now, immune from expectations, but NO! I think what seduced me this time was the sheer beauty of this little space which can hold 50 people easily.
As usual, we formed a circle with chairs and began. Not sure how it started this way, but the conversation immediately moved to the slightly raunchy—on the theme of "men are assholes." (Two of the six were men; all of the participants knew each other; and the two men were good sports, mostly agreeing with our comments.) Then, suddenly, like a tornado, blew in a giant, ungainly man with huge, calloused hands and a dirty baseball cap on his sweat-streaked face, apparently fresh out of the potato fields. He strode over to the circle, pulled out a chair, and sat down, saying, "I lost my wife in March. It's been a long, unending nightmare."
Oops! Back up. Start again.
It was as if one play had begun, but then was scratched entirely, when a larger-than-life figure strode in from stage left. Riveting.
Immediately, we all entered the sorrowing spirit of Bill and his massive, flowing, vulnerably expressive grief. From that moment on, the evening galvanized all of us into the rich, paradoxical emotional field that the archetypal experience of death and loss engenders, encompassing both desolation and hilarity, and spinning out stories from each participant that riveted all the others. For the first time on this trip, part of our conversation centered on what might be the differences between men and women in how they grieve. (Men needing to "work out" grief, by engaging in something very physical.) Clearly, these three men, at least, were NOT assholes.
Nearly three hours later we were done, spent. Bill strode out with not one, but two books, and not before commenting, "I think there are 600 people in this town who could have benefited from this evening's discussion."
Whew!
Today, visits with old, nearby friends. Tomorrow morning, book signing at Chapter One bookstore, Ketchum, Idaho
My expectations, so battered by this trip in all ways, suffered a sharp jolt. I thought that by this time I had learned to flow with the Now, immune from expectations, but NO! I think what seduced me this time was the sheer beauty of this little space which can hold 50 people easily.
As usual, we formed a circle with chairs and began. Not sure how it started this way, but the conversation immediately moved to the slightly raunchy—on the theme of "men are assholes." (Two of the six were men; all of the participants knew each other; and the two men were good sports, mostly agreeing with our comments.) Then, suddenly, like a tornado, blew in a giant, ungainly man with huge, calloused hands and a dirty baseball cap on his sweat-streaked face, apparently fresh out of the potato fields. He strode over to the circle, pulled out a chair, and sat down, saying, "I lost my wife in March. It's been a long, unending nightmare."
Oops! Back up. Start again.
It was as if one play had begun, but then was scratched entirely, when a larger-than-life figure strode in from stage left. Riveting.
Immediately, we all entered the sorrowing spirit of Bill and his massive, flowing, vulnerably expressive grief. From that moment on, the evening galvanized all of us into the rich, paradoxical emotional field that the archetypal experience of death and loss engenders, encompassing both desolation and hilarity, and spinning out stories from each participant that riveted all the others. For the first time on this trip, part of our conversation centered on what might be the differences between men and women in how they grieve. (Men needing to "work out" grief, by engaging in something very physical.) Clearly, these three men, at least, were NOT assholes.
Nearly three hours later we were done, spent. Bill strode out with not one, but two books, and not before commenting, "I think there are 600 people in this town who could have benefited from this evening's discussion."
Whew!
Today, visits with old, nearby friends. Tomorrow morning, book signing at Chapter One bookstore, Ketchum, Idaho
Friday, August 10, 2007
Soul, and Spirit
In order to launch myself on this ten-week journey through seven western states, I knew I would have to learn to "stay awake" continuously, or at least wake up a thousand times a day. Without a near-continuous state of presence, the journey might prove disastrous—from ill-placed keys, wallet, other belongings; from a sudden or gradual loss of the sense of groundedness that would throw me into internal chaos.
To a certain extent, I must admit that I decided to do this journey to see if I could. As a sort of experiment. Ever since my husband Jeff died, over four years ago, I have been gradually grounding myself into the little house that he bought in order to go to law school in Bloomington, Indiana (actually, in order to gift to me on his way out of body). This daily grounding process has been new to me, a double Sagittarian who, for most of my life, have felt most myself while in flight. Over these years, I've begun to recognize that what I have been caring for in Bloomington is "soul." Through the smell of early morning as I step out to pick up the newspaper, through skin's sensing of the variations of temperature and humidity in seasonal swings, through the over and over again routine of letting my kitties out, and in, over and over each day, through weekly grocery shopping, having friends in for dinner, yoga, chi kung and tai chi early morning and evening—I have found myself immensely appreciating the sheer deliciousness of quotidian rhythms, these troughs and valleys into which body sinks and relaxes.
So the question was very real: Would I be able to do this trip and remain grounded? Or would I be as before, a leaf tossed in the wind.
Then, on the third day after the trip began, driving through Wyoming during and after a hard rain, swooning into ecstasy of the aroma of sage, the endless windscoured vistas, the vast tumultous sky—all this made me say, out loud with hands clutching the wheel, "Ah yes, my soul may be in Bloomington, but my spirit is here. Here in this wild, wild land."
Soul and spirit, so very different! And to think that at one point in my life I wondered how or whether, to distinguish the two. I even remember an astrology conference where some learned astrologer said that there really was no essential difference between the two, and cited sources, and etymological origins, to "prove" it.
I didn't know whether to believe him. And now I realize that I don't believe him. For in my experience, soul and spirit nurture two different parts of myself. Soul belongs to body, to earth, to the easy, comforting familiarity of routine that allows me to sink into the rich resonance of feeling. And spirit belongs, well, to spirit! To that part of me that rises, ascends, views from afar, finds meaning, links together in a conscious whole.
Soul, operating mostly on an unconscious level, inhabits the whole, lives at rest inside it; whereas spirit, the more conscious it is, seeks to remember what it has lost through its marvelous capcity for self-consciousness, what allows us to split off from the body and flee, fly, forget.
Yesterday, I spent the day traveling south from Hamilton, Montana to Twin Falls, Idaho, a journey that, beginning in the Sawtooth valley in central Idaho—those mountains where I had ridden horses on long camping trips with my friend Mary and her family as a child, where I had honeymooned over and over, walking deep into the wilderness with my second husband Dick (and first love, in high school)—all this sunk me into deeper and deeper into the recesses of memory. Continuing south from there: over Galena Summit where a bunch of us hippies once tried to push a bus uphill and over the crest; through Ketchum and the Wood River Valley, where I craned my neck as I drove past the entrance to the road up the east fork of the river where my first husband had designed and built "the cabin" for my family, only to see it now totally obliterated by a half-finished megamansion; through the tiny village of Bellevue where, as usual, I made a little detour to check on the little house where I had lived for about four months with my third husband Phil (a sick, scary, alcoholic who taught me to take my power or die) and then escaped, in the early morning, in his old truck since he had pulled the spark plugs on my car; past the butte on the desert south of Shoshone where the riding club trucked our horses for a ride one Saturday morning when I was a child; then to Twin Falls itself, where the pace of change into new, "businesslike" buildings and strip malls has been so dizzying that I continually get thoroughly confused and lost.
I continued releasing and reinvigorating memory here this morning, driving past the house where we grew up on Maplewood Drive (bigger trees, brick now painted white), past the little house where I lived in my mid-30s while I published "OpenSpace" magazine, a utopian publication that brought out all the creative types NOT connected to organized religions (house very run-down; sad!); and the big square two-story house that was once my father's office where I mowed the lawn one afternoon as a 9th grader, furious, and terrified that I had actually said "yes" to a boy who wanted to take me to the movies that evening.
All of it pulling me down, down into a place of feeling that I don't understand but do know instinctively that it is good for me. The feeling of "being at home," that relishing in the delicious depths of soul, is not just located in my little house in Bloomington, Indiana, but also found inside the cells of my being, each one shaped by a myriad of impressions from the deep past and enriching life immeasurably now.
Then the final descent—into a little canyon, Rock Creek Canyon, where I went for a walk this morning alone and found Rock Creek gurgling like a baby in my arms, the Russian olive trees and sagebrush waving to me as I walked by. And everywhere, the dark volcanic rock faces silently reminding me of my own volcanic, volatile nature—it was as if for the first time in my life I truly and consciously understood how soul was present in my early years—as I rode my horse, as I played in "empty lots," as my friends and I explored canyons and deserts of the Southern Idaho desert. I took it all for granted then, and longed for "greener pastures" literally—dreaming of Anne of Green Gables, and her much lusher world.
Last night, while in my ruminations about soul and spirit, I happened to be sleeping in a bed that had Thomas Moore's book, "Soul Mates" on the night table. I opened it to the introduction, and there he is, talking about the exact same subject, in the exact same way as in my recent ruminations. Soul and Spirit, what pulls us down, and what lifts us above. Both, together, not in a static "balance," but as a continuously shifting, paradoxical whole connecting our lives to both earth and sky, the depths of our memories to visions of the future, and all centered in a silent, nurturing, subtle presence that supports us unstintingly, at each and every moment of our lives.
A piece of volcanic rock a sprig of sage and a sprig of Russian olive now sit, a tiny altar of soul, just about the wheel of the Prius.
Tonight: another book event, this one at the labyrinth in Buhl, a tiny town 30 miles from where I now sit in an internet cafe, downtown Twin Falls.
To a certain extent, I must admit that I decided to do this journey to see if I could. As a sort of experiment. Ever since my husband Jeff died, over four years ago, I have been gradually grounding myself into the little house that he bought in order to go to law school in Bloomington, Indiana (actually, in order to gift to me on his way out of body). This daily grounding process has been new to me, a double Sagittarian who, for most of my life, have felt most myself while in flight. Over these years, I've begun to recognize that what I have been caring for in Bloomington is "soul." Through the smell of early morning as I step out to pick up the newspaper, through skin's sensing of the variations of temperature and humidity in seasonal swings, through the over and over again routine of letting my kitties out, and in, over and over each day, through weekly grocery shopping, having friends in for dinner, yoga, chi kung and tai chi early morning and evening—I have found myself immensely appreciating the sheer deliciousness of quotidian rhythms, these troughs and valleys into which body sinks and relaxes.
So the question was very real: Would I be able to do this trip and remain grounded? Or would I be as before, a leaf tossed in the wind.
Then, on the third day after the trip began, driving through Wyoming during and after a hard rain, swooning into ecstasy of the aroma of sage, the endless windscoured vistas, the vast tumultous sky—all this made me say, out loud with hands clutching the wheel, "Ah yes, my soul may be in Bloomington, but my spirit is here. Here in this wild, wild land."
Soul and spirit, so very different! And to think that at one point in my life I wondered how or whether, to distinguish the two. I even remember an astrology conference where some learned astrologer said that there really was no essential difference between the two, and cited sources, and etymological origins, to "prove" it.
I didn't know whether to believe him. And now I realize that I don't believe him. For in my experience, soul and spirit nurture two different parts of myself. Soul belongs to body, to earth, to the easy, comforting familiarity of routine that allows me to sink into the rich resonance of feeling. And spirit belongs, well, to spirit! To that part of me that rises, ascends, views from afar, finds meaning, links together in a conscious whole.
Soul, operating mostly on an unconscious level, inhabits the whole, lives at rest inside it; whereas spirit, the more conscious it is, seeks to remember what it has lost through its marvelous capcity for self-consciousness, what allows us to split off from the body and flee, fly, forget.
Yesterday, I spent the day traveling south from Hamilton, Montana to Twin Falls, Idaho, a journey that, beginning in the Sawtooth valley in central Idaho—those mountains where I had ridden horses on long camping trips with my friend Mary and her family as a child, where I had honeymooned over and over, walking deep into the wilderness with my second husband Dick (and first love, in high school)—all this sunk me into deeper and deeper into the recesses of memory. Continuing south from there: over Galena Summit where a bunch of us hippies once tried to push a bus uphill and over the crest; through Ketchum and the Wood River Valley, where I craned my neck as I drove past the entrance to the road up the east fork of the river where my first husband had designed and built "the cabin" for my family, only to see it now totally obliterated by a half-finished megamansion; through the tiny village of Bellevue where, as usual, I made a little detour to check on the little house where I had lived for about four months with my third husband Phil (a sick, scary, alcoholic who taught me to take my power or die) and then escaped, in the early morning, in his old truck since he had pulled the spark plugs on my car; past the butte on the desert south of Shoshone where the riding club trucked our horses for a ride one Saturday morning when I was a child; then to Twin Falls itself, where the pace of change into new, "businesslike" buildings and strip malls has been so dizzying that I continually get thoroughly confused and lost.
I continued releasing and reinvigorating memory here this morning, driving past the house where we grew up on Maplewood Drive (bigger trees, brick now painted white), past the little house where I lived in my mid-30s while I published "OpenSpace" magazine, a utopian publication that brought out all the creative types NOT connected to organized religions (house very run-down; sad!); and the big square two-story house that was once my father's office where I mowed the lawn one afternoon as a 9th grader, furious, and terrified that I had actually said "yes" to a boy who wanted to take me to the movies that evening.
All of it pulling me down, down into a place of feeling that I don't understand but do know instinctively that it is good for me. The feeling of "being at home," that relishing in the delicious depths of soul, is not just located in my little house in Bloomington, Indiana, but also found inside the cells of my being, each one shaped by a myriad of impressions from the deep past and enriching life immeasurably now.
Then the final descent—into a little canyon, Rock Creek Canyon, where I went for a walk this morning alone and found Rock Creek gurgling like a baby in my arms, the Russian olive trees and sagebrush waving to me as I walked by. And everywhere, the dark volcanic rock faces silently reminding me of my own volcanic, volatile nature—it was as if for the first time in my life I truly and consciously understood how soul was present in my early years—as I rode my horse, as I played in "empty lots," as my friends and I explored canyons and deserts of the Southern Idaho desert. I took it all for granted then, and longed for "greener pastures" literally—dreaming of Anne of Green Gables, and her much lusher world.
Last night, while in my ruminations about soul and spirit, I happened to be sleeping in a bed that had Thomas Moore's book, "Soul Mates" on the night table. I opened it to the introduction, and there he is, talking about the exact same subject, in the exact same way as in my recent ruminations. Soul and Spirit, what pulls us down, and what lifts us above. Both, together, not in a static "balance," but as a continuously shifting, paradoxical whole connecting our lives to both earth and sky, the depths of our memories to visions of the future, and all centered in a silent, nurturing, subtle presence that supports us unstintingly, at each and every moment of our lives.
A piece of volcanic rock a sprig of sage and a sprig of Russian olive now sit, a tiny altar of soul, just about the wheel of the Prius.
Tonight: another book event, this one at the labyrinth in Buhl, a tiny town 30 miles from where I now sit in an internet cafe, downtown Twin Falls.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Live and, hopefully, learn
Last night's event drew nearly 20 people, 18 women, one man (Tony), and one 14-year- old boy with his mother, sitting on hardback chairs in a circle in a fairly smallish room. All but one actually arrived on time--rare in Montana.
However, despite some very willing, heart-centered, open folks who kept nodding their heads "yes" at much of what I said, this was the first event where I felt like I was pulling teeth for the whole evening. Lots of lulls in conversation, which then would prompt me to start up a new topic, and see where that one would go. Unlike most of the other events, which last at least two hours, this one was obviously out of steam after only 90 minutes.
On the way back to Tony and Kay's house, I decompressed with my friend Star, the organizer for the Hamilton events, and we zeroed in on three women who came in together and who seemed to be somewhat out of it, disconnected. Two of them did at times seem to be responsive, though none of them ever spoke. The third one however, felt to both of us like a black hole, dour, unexpressive, unchanging during the entire time. Could she--or they--have "scotched" the event, so that no matter what the rest of us did or said or felt, they kept dragging down the energy?
Oddly, as Star and I were talking, a policeman's lights started to flash behind me. I pulled over, and he told me that I had been driving on the center line and asked to see my registration, because the car didn't seem to be registered. Peering intently with his flashlight, he then checked the Vin number, and went through a few more official checks, and finally let us go. The timing of this incident felt uncanny.
It's not that the event didn't "go well" in conventional terms, with me as "the teacher" and the others "the students." Tony, for one, liked very much that he was present at a conversation which was deeper than usual. I realize now that my own disappointment was due to the fact that, once again, I had built up expectations-- for some kind of alchemical ignition in the group process. Because that does sometimes happen on this tour, I have grown to personally need it. Once again, Ann, let go!
(By the way, the 14-year-old, who looked as if he had been dragged to the event, was very happy and energized afterwards, said he had greatly enjoyed it. Perhaps it was because a number of people had brought up instances of magical phenomena that had accompanied the deaths of people they were close to, and magic is Harry Potter territory. So who knows? I may be entirely off in my assessment of what happened last night.)
Kay and I also remarked to each other this morning that if I had asked each person to state their name and why they had come it might have changed the evening's course. I had thought there were too many people present to make that a meaningful ritual, but, as Kay said, we were saying to each other afterwards that we didn't even know each other's name, and let's get to know each other now!
Live, and hopefully, learn. This afternoon, a book signing at the local independent book store, then tonight, a Sufi zikr (dance and chant) to which I very much look forward. Tomorrow I travel to Twin Falls, Idaho, and hopefully will be able to go directly south on highway 93, despite the Tin Cup fire, burning near Darby.
However, despite some very willing, heart-centered, open folks who kept nodding their heads "yes" at much of what I said, this was the first event where I felt like I was pulling teeth for the whole evening. Lots of lulls in conversation, which then would prompt me to start up a new topic, and see where that one would go. Unlike most of the other events, which last at least two hours, this one was obviously out of steam after only 90 minutes.
On the way back to Tony and Kay's house, I decompressed with my friend Star, the organizer for the Hamilton events, and we zeroed in on three women who came in together and who seemed to be somewhat out of it, disconnected. Two of them did at times seem to be responsive, though none of them ever spoke. The third one however, felt to both of us like a black hole, dour, unexpressive, unchanging during the entire time. Could she--or they--have "scotched" the event, so that no matter what the rest of us did or said or felt, they kept dragging down the energy?
Oddly, as Star and I were talking, a policeman's lights started to flash behind me. I pulled over, and he told me that I had been driving on the center line and asked to see my registration, because the car didn't seem to be registered. Peering intently with his flashlight, he then checked the Vin number, and went through a few more official checks, and finally let us go. The timing of this incident felt uncanny.
It's not that the event didn't "go well" in conventional terms, with me as "the teacher" and the others "the students." Tony, for one, liked very much that he was present at a conversation which was deeper than usual. I realize now that my own disappointment was due to the fact that, once again, I had built up expectations-- for some kind of alchemical ignition in the group process. Because that does sometimes happen on this tour, I have grown to personally need it. Once again, Ann, let go!
(By the way, the 14-year-old, who looked as if he had been dragged to the event, was very happy and energized afterwards, said he had greatly enjoyed it. Perhaps it was because a number of people had brought up instances of magical phenomena that had accompanied the deaths of people they were close to, and magic is Harry Potter territory. So who knows? I may be entirely off in my assessment of what happened last night.)
Kay and I also remarked to each other this morning that if I had asked each person to state their name and why they had come it might have changed the evening's course. I had thought there were too many people present to make that a meaningful ritual, but, as Kay said, we were saying to each other afterwards that we didn't even know each other's name, and let's get to know each other now!
Live, and hopefully, learn. This afternoon, a book signing at the local independent book store, then tonight, a Sufi zikr (dance and chant) to which I very much look forward. Tomorrow I travel to Twin Falls, Idaho, and hopefully will be able to go directly south on highway 93, despite the Tin Cup fire, burning near Darby.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Confessions of a rich American bitch
Greetings from smoky Hamilton, Montana, where the fires have so obscured the sky that the mountains east and west of town are invisible.
Today, for the first time, I needed to basically stay in bed all morning--I'm staying at friends' Kay and Tony's house--just to let go of everything and drop fully into restfulness. It worked. Even slept some. Then, this afternoon, I wandered down to Main Street in this little town of maybe 10,000, meaning to take my computer to an internet cafe, and forgot my computer (so I write this later, on Tony's computer). Wandered around in a daze, until I came across a place that did pedicures. If you recall, I tried to do my own pedicure back in Jackson, and my hand shook too much, so this was my opportunity. They advertised 1/2 hour and one full hour pedicures, saying that the hour-long ones involved massage of feet and legs, so I grabbed it, thinking I needed some real luxury on this downtime day. Well, after 40 minutes, she was done! And boy was I pissed. Hardly any massage, and the nails weren't even expertly done. My inner bitch rose up and loudly announced that I would split the difference between half and full hour pedicure, and of course, the poor worker called for the manager, who said they shouldn't have advertised it that way, etc. etc., but that I did get a "full" pedicure. I decided not to press it further, except to say, in a loud voice, that I would not recommend them to my friends.
Stayed pissed all the way back to Kay's house. Told her about it, feeling foolish even as I did. Thought about how only a year ago I had never indulged in a pedicure, and now that I had, look at what it had brought me to, a petty argument over 15 measly bucks! Tried to justify my pique to myself, but the situation of self-indulgence so ridiculous that it truly did feel like the complaint of a rich American bitch.
The contrast between this personality stuff--righteously proclaiming false advertising--and my stated intent on this tour to help ignite a collective fire that burns up old unprocessed grief--really quite hilarious.
So, in a mood of (no doubt, temporary) humility, I stop this rant to dress for this evening's book event.
Today, for the first time, I needed to basically stay in bed all morning--I'm staying at friends' Kay and Tony's house--just to let go of everything and drop fully into restfulness. It worked. Even slept some. Then, this afternoon, I wandered down to Main Street in this little town of maybe 10,000, meaning to take my computer to an internet cafe, and forgot my computer (so I write this later, on Tony's computer). Wandered around in a daze, until I came across a place that did pedicures. If you recall, I tried to do my own pedicure back in Jackson, and my hand shook too much, so this was my opportunity. They advertised 1/2 hour and one full hour pedicures, saying that the hour-long ones involved massage of feet and legs, so I grabbed it, thinking I needed some real luxury on this downtime day. Well, after 40 minutes, she was done! And boy was I pissed. Hardly any massage, and the nails weren't even expertly done. My inner bitch rose up and loudly announced that I would split the difference between half and full hour pedicure, and of course, the poor worker called for the manager, who said they shouldn't have advertised it that way, etc. etc., but that I did get a "full" pedicure. I decided not to press it further, except to say, in a loud voice, that I would not recommend them to my friends.
Stayed pissed all the way back to Kay's house. Told her about it, feeling foolish even as I did. Thought about how only a year ago I had never indulged in a pedicure, and now that I had, look at what it had brought me to, a petty argument over 15 measly bucks! Tried to justify my pique to myself, but the situation of self-indulgence so ridiculous that it truly did feel like the complaint of a rich American bitch.
The contrast between this personality stuff--righteously proclaiming false advertising--and my stated intent on this tour to help ignite a collective fire that burns up old unprocessed grief--really quite hilarious.
So, in a mood of (no doubt, temporary) humility, I stop this rant to dress for this evening's book event.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Smoke, howling and a sea of beautiful faces
MIssoula Public Library, Monday afternoon. The fires in Montana create conditions so smoky that I can only barely discern the mountains that ring Missoula. The local newspaper's front page daily fire log details conditions for many many fires, not just the one or two that I grew to expect while living through hot Teton summers. Now I know where the phrase "cast a pall over" comes from. Downtown, some people drag themselves along the street. It must be hard NOT to allow depression to take one over during such a long-term relentless emergency.
But I am just a relatively carefree visior, privileged to drive in and then, drive out. I so feel for those who do not enjoy my freedom to choose.
Today I enjoy the first fully free day since I started holding book events in Jackson, on July 29th. The event in Stevensville was cancelled, giving me "breathing time." Too bad the actual breath is compromised. . .
This morning I walked along the Clark Fork downtown river walk, and did Tai Chi and Chi Kung in a secluded, shady, grassy spot. Really wonderful to feel myself fully centered in that moment, the obsessive worries that dogged me during the two months planning for this trip blessedly gone. Poof!
The psychic in Kansas City told me that Jeff was saying that all I needed to do was flow with the current that I had created, that I didn't have to even think about it much, just move from place to place with no worries! And that is largely how I'm experiencing this journey—although I do have to be very aware of observing boundaries with others so as to have enough energy for evening book events.
The two events just past, one in Helena and the other in Missoula, were both, again, very very different from any of the others. In each case in these two towns, about a dozen people assembled in someone's home, and in both cases we entered into a sharing together that felt very coherent at the time, a strong, vibrant, allowing energy field that suddenly jelled around us, and then as suddenly dispersed as the event wound down.
Helena's event followed a day spent in the company of my dear friend Joan and her husband Max. Joan and I walked up Helena mountain in the morning with her little pomeranian on a rare morning when smoke wasn't so bad it would compromise breathing to inhale deeply on the ascent. That afternoon, the wind picked up, and thick smoke blew in carrying the odor of burning wood. Dread sets in at moments like these, an instinctive desire to flee. Reminded me very much of the Tetons in the '88 fires. With our rational minds we calmed ourselves, realizing that the fires near Helena were more than 15 miles away, and the wind and odor did die down later.
Meanwhile, that evening, we were inside enjoying a potluck, and stories, and my astonished recognition that this group converses on multimensional levels as a matter of course—due in part, I'm sure, to Joan and Max's long, slow introduction to the Helena community of many people and subjects that bring in "messages from the beyond" of all kinds, including E.T.'s and UFO's, just as a matter of course!
So, when we got down to work with the book, sitting in a circle on the floor to talk about our experiences of grief, and how it can be a gateway to Love, we were fully primed. As usual, there were several people there who have also been through deaths of spouses, and of course, many other typese of losses—and it's wonderful to compare notes, and to recognize the parallel courses that our emotional and spiritual journeys run in.
In Missoula, for the very first time, inside my dear friend Zamilla's home, the whole group of, I discovered, very powerful women, the youngest of whom was probably 55, listened with great intent, as, one by one in order going around the circle, the women each told some facet of their life that gleamed with with loss and grief. Towards the end, one woman gave a longer discourse on how she had tried to avoid getting in touch with grief, always running away into more and more activity—at one point even riding her bicycle clear across the country, dragging her shadow behind her every inch of the way— which then, would slam her once more into some powerful loss that she again tried to dismiss. Constant escape, until one day, out of the blue, she started screaming and howling and crying and couldn't stop—while on a ski vacation with friends in a rented condo! The next morning, no one would look at her. The group carried on as if nothing had happened. Later, one of these friends told her that they wanted to hold an intervention, because they had decided she had behaved that way to manipulate them!
As she told this story, each time punctuating the end of its various chapters with the phrase, "And still I did not know of my grief," our group was sitting on the edge of our chairs, mouths hanging open. Such a gifted storyteller! And such a classic story. Can we, for example, look at the busyness that infects America as a collective symptom of repressed, unprocessed grief?
At both events I demonstrated (mimicked) the primal howling that blew through me like so many tsunamis me during that year after Jeff died, and both times my extremely loud demonstration galvanized others into a deeper sharing. In both groups, at least one woman then commented, "But that's what I did too! And I never told anybody, because I didn't know it was okay to do that. . . "
Next up, Hamilton, two events, Tuesday and Wednesday. Think I'll get up off my library chair and mosey on down there now. Give me time to acclimate. And meditate. And thank the universe for all the blessings showering down along with the smoke! I look back already on this trip, now approaching two weeks, and what comes to mind is a sea of beautiful faces who greet each other as fellow pilgrims along the mysterious and profound journey of the soul.
But I am just a relatively carefree visior, privileged to drive in and then, drive out. I so feel for those who do not enjoy my freedom to choose.
Today I enjoy the first fully free day since I started holding book events in Jackson, on July 29th. The event in Stevensville was cancelled, giving me "breathing time." Too bad the actual breath is compromised. . .
This morning I walked along the Clark Fork downtown river walk, and did Tai Chi and Chi Kung in a secluded, shady, grassy spot. Really wonderful to feel myself fully centered in that moment, the obsessive worries that dogged me during the two months planning for this trip blessedly gone. Poof!
The psychic in Kansas City told me that Jeff was saying that all I needed to do was flow with the current that I had created, that I didn't have to even think about it much, just move from place to place with no worries! And that is largely how I'm experiencing this journey—although I do have to be very aware of observing boundaries with others so as to have enough energy for evening book events.
The two events just past, one in Helena and the other in Missoula, were both, again, very very different from any of the others. In each case in these two towns, about a dozen people assembled in someone's home, and in both cases we entered into a sharing together that felt very coherent at the time, a strong, vibrant, allowing energy field that suddenly jelled around us, and then as suddenly dispersed as the event wound down.
Helena's event followed a day spent in the company of my dear friend Joan and her husband Max. Joan and I walked up Helena mountain in the morning with her little pomeranian on a rare morning when smoke wasn't so bad it would compromise breathing to inhale deeply on the ascent. That afternoon, the wind picked up, and thick smoke blew in carrying the odor of burning wood. Dread sets in at moments like these, an instinctive desire to flee. Reminded me very much of the Tetons in the '88 fires. With our rational minds we calmed ourselves, realizing that the fires near Helena were more than 15 miles away, and the wind and odor did die down later.
Meanwhile, that evening, we were inside enjoying a potluck, and stories, and my astonished recognition that this group converses on multimensional levels as a matter of course—due in part, I'm sure, to Joan and Max's long, slow introduction to the Helena community of many people and subjects that bring in "messages from the beyond" of all kinds, including E.T.'s and UFO's, just as a matter of course!
So, when we got down to work with the book, sitting in a circle on the floor to talk about our experiences of grief, and how it can be a gateway to Love, we were fully primed. As usual, there were several people there who have also been through deaths of spouses, and of course, many other typese of losses—and it's wonderful to compare notes, and to recognize the parallel courses that our emotional and spiritual journeys run in.
In Missoula, for the very first time, inside my dear friend Zamilla's home, the whole group of, I discovered, very powerful women, the youngest of whom was probably 55, listened with great intent, as, one by one in order going around the circle, the women each told some facet of their life that gleamed with with loss and grief. Towards the end, one woman gave a longer discourse on how she had tried to avoid getting in touch with grief, always running away into more and more activity—at one point even riding her bicycle clear across the country, dragging her shadow behind her every inch of the way— which then, would slam her once more into some powerful loss that she again tried to dismiss. Constant escape, until one day, out of the blue, she started screaming and howling and crying and couldn't stop—while on a ski vacation with friends in a rented condo! The next morning, no one would look at her. The group carried on as if nothing had happened. Later, one of these friends told her that they wanted to hold an intervention, because they had decided she had behaved that way to manipulate them!
As she told this story, each time punctuating the end of its various chapters with the phrase, "And still I did not know of my grief," our group was sitting on the edge of our chairs, mouths hanging open. Such a gifted storyteller! And such a classic story. Can we, for example, look at the busyness that infects America as a collective symptom of repressed, unprocessed grief?
At both events I demonstrated (mimicked) the primal howling that blew through me like so many tsunamis me during that year after Jeff died, and both times my extremely loud demonstration galvanized others into a deeper sharing. In both groups, at least one woman then commented, "But that's what I did too! And I never told anybody, because I didn't know it was okay to do that. . . "
Next up, Hamilton, two events, Tuesday and Wednesday. Think I'll get up off my library chair and mosey on down there now. Give me time to acclimate. And meditate. And thank the universe for all the blessings showering down along with the smoke! I look back already on this trip, now approaching two weeks, and what comes to mind is a sea of beautiful faces who greet each other as fellow pilgrims along the mysterious and profound journey of the soul.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Limbic and other fundamentalisms
Bozeman, 6:00 A.m. Hint of rain in the smoky air. Respiratory system compromised. I keep thinking I have a cold, then allergies, then I realize once again that it's the fires north and west of here, which obscure the mountains in a haze so that the deeper the breath, the more smoke I breathe in. How I feel for those who must live here! So much easier to just be traveling through. Reminds me of 1988, the yellowstone fire year, when a feeling of claustrophic dread set in and caught us day and night, for months on end.
Last night's book event another totally new experience. My hostess, Helen, decided to hold it in the place she works as a nurse, in the conference room of a long-term care facility. So in order to reach the room where we were to talk of loss and grief and their gifts, we had to run the gauntlet of ghosts, thin, emaciated, hospital-gown-white clad men and women, sitting still and quiet here and there, in no seeming communication with each other or the world outside their own interiors. What are they thinking? Are they thinking? Are they afraid to die? Do they want to die?
Seven of us gathered under harsh fluorescent light, pulling cloth-upholstered aimchairs into a circle aside from the conference table. From talking with her beforehand, I discover that one of the participants is VERY experienced in the varieties of experience encountered as humans lay dying and their families, she tells me, are 98% of the time, not on the same page with them. This reminded me of what the hospice director in Jackson told me, that often families will try to keep their loved ones alive as long as possible, despite their own wishes, because to them, this is how they show their love.
Love, in other words, as attachment, and, if the Buddha is right, guaranteed to cause suffering.
The experienced woman from last night took care of her own parents as they were dying, and works with elderly now, both in hospice and otherwise. Her mentor, she tossed as an aside as she left (she had to go early), was Elizabeth Kubler Ross.
Decades ago, this woman had a near-death experience on the operating table, and ever since then she has been in an altered state, with a number of extrasensory capabilities. I urged her to tell us her story, but (and I am grateful now), she insisted that I talk about the book first. So I did, but I must say, I kept feeling myself under her watchful eye. As if she was assessing me, somehow.
In any case, once she started to tell her near-death story, which was amazingly detailed and descriptive, the evening took off in another direction.
To summarize: she spoke of being above the operating table, watching the doctors frantically trying to revive her while a translucent being of light showed her a big book, and kept turning the pages on the future—up to 2011.
Somewhere in her tale I began to feel uncomfortable. She began to speak of "God," and God's plans for the human race, and a war between angels and fallen angels, and the Rosicrutians and the great plan that is unfolding now, since 7/07/07, where people chose which side to be on, and cannot go back . . .
As she went on, bolstered, and in part contradicted, by another woman in the room who also has a sort of black-and-white, fundamentalist, born-again, absolutist view of the world, I felt my stomach turn, clench, tie in knots as some of the people in the group (six women, one man), started accosting, in a gentle way, but firmly and with certainty, each other with their beliefs.
How many times have I been privy to such conversations, which lead nowhere, and seem to cause only separation? The one new element last night, at least for me, was the man, who, despite being a conservative Christian, had an amazingly light and attentive attitude towards others and their beliefs. To my belief that "we need to get below our beliefs to what we all have in common, our experience of loss, and grief, which, if fully processed, releases into love," he asked, kindly, softly, wondering, as a real question, "but then how do we make sure that people do the right thing?" (I paraphrase.) In other words, he was concerned that without some kind of guiding principles (beliefs), chaos might ensue. I imagine that this IS the usual fear of those who feel that society needs rules to stave off a Hobbesian war of all against all.
Helen and I then expressed our common view, that people, when given enough love and left to their own devices, will naturally develop and express their own unique natures and harmonize with others. Our generation speaking. Or at least our generation as we were in our heyday, the '60s. This man too, Helen told me later, had done his share of acid, and had participated just as we had in that storied time, and she has long been impressed with his open-hearted approach to conversations about ultimate beliefs, despite his own conservative cast.
I contrast his soft, gentle, untroubled way with my own emotional embroilment as I detect even a whiff of fundamentalism. Much like the Dalai Lama, whom we all admire for his obvious compassion and light-hearted acceptance of even the greatest suffering and injustice, this man apparently does not attach himself to his beliefs, at least not to the extent that he becomes emotionally upset when others contradict him.
So I'm still a fundamentalist. A limbic fundamentalist. Attached to getting rid of fundamentalism. My instinctive revulsion for black and white thinking is itself a polarized reaction to it, and I thank both the woman who started the conversation, and the man who showed me that one could be in it and yet not of it, for their gift.
This journey is such a teacher! Over and over again, I discover another part of myself that feels rough, hard-edged, in need of gentle care. And it feels that this journey is guiding me to understand, little by little, more and more of why I have undertaken it.
My focus on grief and loss does lie beneath beliefs, and my way of working with these experiences and the feelings that they engender is not theoretical, not based on belief, but on an attunement with the body and its natural wisdom. If fundamentalism is the problem, then re-membering our connection with our bodies and through them, the earth of which they are made, is the solution. I aim for the spirit, by working with the flesh.
Last night's book event another totally new experience. My hostess, Helen, decided to hold it in the place she works as a nurse, in the conference room of a long-term care facility. So in order to reach the room where we were to talk of loss and grief and their gifts, we had to run the gauntlet of ghosts, thin, emaciated, hospital-gown-white clad men and women, sitting still and quiet here and there, in no seeming communication with each other or the world outside their own interiors. What are they thinking? Are they thinking? Are they afraid to die? Do they want to die?
Seven of us gathered under harsh fluorescent light, pulling cloth-upholstered aimchairs into a circle aside from the conference table. From talking with her beforehand, I discover that one of the participants is VERY experienced in the varieties of experience encountered as humans lay dying and their families, she tells me, are 98% of the time, not on the same page with them. This reminded me of what the hospice director in Jackson told me, that often families will try to keep their loved ones alive as long as possible, despite their own wishes, because to them, this is how they show their love.
Love, in other words, as attachment, and, if the Buddha is right, guaranteed to cause suffering.
The experienced woman from last night took care of her own parents as they were dying, and works with elderly now, both in hospice and otherwise. Her mentor, she tossed as an aside as she left (she had to go early), was Elizabeth Kubler Ross.
Decades ago, this woman had a near-death experience on the operating table, and ever since then she has been in an altered state, with a number of extrasensory capabilities. I urged her to tell us her story, but (and I am grateful now), she insisted that I talk about the book first. So I did, but I must say, I kept feeling myself under her watchful eye. As if she was assessing me, somehow.
In any case, once she started to tell her near-death story, which was amazingly detailed and descriptive, the evening took off in another direction.
To summarize: she spoke of being above the operating table, watching the doctors frantically trying to revive her while a translucent being of light showed her a big book, and kept turning the pages on the future—up to 2011.
Somewhere in her tale I began to feel uncomfortable. She began to speak of "God," and God's plans for the human race, and a war between angels and fallen angels, and the Rosicrutians and the great plan that is unfolding now, since 7/07/07, where people chose which side to be on, and cannot go back . . .
As she went on, bolstered, and in part contradicted, by another woman in the room who also has a sort of black-and-white, fundamentalist, born-again, absolutist view of the world, I felt my stomach turn, clench, tie in knots as some of the people in the group (six women, one man), started accosting, in a gentle way, but firmly and with certainty, each other with their beliefs.
How many times have I been privy to such conversations, which lead nowhere, and seem to cause only separation? The one new element last night, at least for me, was the man, who, despite being a conservative Christian, had an amazingly light and attentive attitude towards others and their beliefs. To my belief that "we need to get below our beliefs to what we all have in common, our experience of loss, and grief, which, if fully processed, releases into love," he asked, kindly, softly, wondering, as a real question, "but then how do we make sure that people do the right thing?" (I paraphrase.) In other words, he was concerned that without some kind of guiding principles (beliefs), chaos might ensue. I imagine that this IS the usual fear of those who feel that society needs rules to stave off a Hobbesian war of all against all.
Helen and I then expressed our common view, that people, when given enough love and left to their own devices, will naturally develop and express their own unique natures and harmonize with others. Our generation speaking. Or at least our generation as we were in our heyday, the '60s. This man too, Helen told me later, had done his share of acid, and had participated just as we had in that storied time, and she has long been impressed with his open-hearted approach to conversations about ultimate beliefs, despite his own conservative cast.
I contrast his soft, gentle, untroubled way with my own emotional embroilment as I detect even a whiff of fundamentalism. Much like the Dalai Lama, whom we all admire for his obvious compassion and light-hearted acceptance of even the greatest suffering and injustice, this man apparently does not attach himself to his beliefs, at least not to the extent that he becomes emotionally upset when others contradict him.
So I'm still a fundamentalist. A limbic fundamentalist. Attached to getting rid of fundamentalism. My instinctive revulsion for black and white thinking is itself a polarized reaction to it, and I thank both the woman who started the conversation, and the man who showed me that one could be in it and yet not of it, for their gift.
This journey is such a teacher! Over and over again, I discover another part of myself that feels rough, hard-edged, in need of gentle care. And it feels that this journey is guiding me to understand, little by little, more and more of why I have undertaken it.
My focus on grief and loss does lie beneath beliefs, and my way of working with these experiences and the feelings that they engender is not theoretical, not based on belief, but on an attunement with the body and its natural wisdom. If fundamentalism is the problem, then re-membering our connection with our bodies and through them, the earth of which they are made, is the solution. I aim for the spirit, by working with the flesh.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
I spent all of yesterday until the event at the library last night at the yurts, schlepping back and forth to the bathhouse to do my laundry, trying to paint my own toenails only to discover that my hand shakes too much, reading Mary Oliver, doing tai chi and chi kung, taking a nap, and doing astrology for several people on the fly. Really good to not have to go anywhere, do much of anything except re-integrate myself, since the nomadic life tends to disperse me in all directions.
About 25 people gathered at the library conference room, and so we made a big circle of chairs in the big space. I took my clue from two women there who had both played roles with Jeff in community productions, and decided to read from the obituary that I wrote for the Jackson Hole paper published under the astounding title that somebody at the paper chose: "Joel, 55, healed on interdimensional planes."
The obit tells the story of how we met, all the synchronicities involved, how he repulsed me at first, how embarrassed I was to be seen with him, etc. I read it as a comic drama, and people's mouths were hanging open. Lots of laughter and tears. This was a welcome relief for me, since as a double-Sagittarian "cosmic cheerleader" I'm not naturally geared to spend much time in the big G word, GRIEF! As a daughter of a friend of mine said, incredulous: "Ann? Talking to people about grief?"
My dear friend Steve, the bookseller was there, and he held my hand afterwards, tears in his eyes. Says I've changed greatly. That "You're becoming a teacher."
Today: 5 hours to Bozeman, then an event tonight, plus an astrology talk (the only one of the trip) the next morning.
Glorious rain visited the Tetons late yesterday and this morning the air is clear and redolent of my beloved sage.
About 25 people gathered at the library conference room, and so we made a big circle of chairs in the big space. I took my clue from two women there who had both played roles with Jeff in community productions, and decided to read from the obituary that I wrote for the Jackson Hole paper published under the astounding title that somebody at the paper chose: "Joel, 55, healed on interdimensional planes."
The obit tells the story of how we met, all the synchronicities involved, how he repulsed me at first, how embarrassed I was to be seen with him, etc. I read it as a comic drama, and people's mouths were hanging open. Lots of laughter and tears. This was a welcome relief for me, since as a double-Sagittarian "cosmic cheerleader" I'm not naturally geared to spend much time in the big G word, GRIEF! As a daughter of a friend of mine said, incredulous: "Ann? Talking to people about grief?"
My dear friend Steve, the bookseller was there, and he held my hand afterwards, tears in his eyes. Says I've changed greatly. That "You're becoming a teacher."
Today: 5 hours to Bozeman, then an event tonight, plus an astrology talk (the only one of the trip) the next morning.
Glorious rain visited the Tetons late yesterday and this morning the air is clear and redolent of my beloved sage.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Early morning: Coyote, Raven
5:00 A.M, jerked awake. Overwhelming urge to get up, right now!, and walk north two miles to the Warm Springs from Kelly Wyoming where I'm staying in a yurt. Surprised. Not only do I not feel any trace of the sore throat and lethargy that threatened to undo me yesterday, I am bursting with energy.
Quickly dress, start walking, an eye out for bison which have proliferated this year like rabbits. First light, yes. As in years past while on this eary walk, I will get to see dawn's rosy hue brush the top of the Grand Teton and move on down to the valley floor way before the Sun itself rises over the eastern hills.
Winding my way on a horse-path through three-feet high sagebrush, picking sage leaves and rubbing them in my fingers, bringing up to my nose, inhaling, swooning with intoxication, just like when it rains. When will it rain? the dry underbrush crackles, crunches underfoot. Reminded of how, as a kid growing up on the Idaho sagebrush desert, each rare hard rain's release of sage aroma would throw me into this same swoon.
Somehow, that brief brush with infection yesterday, countered with a well-timed acupuncture appointment in Jackson with Carol (I had been prescient enough to schedule it in advance, knowing I would probably need a tune-up, given the switch into high, dry climate) grounded me here, landed me back into the magic of this place.
Kelly Warm Springs: site of countless inner journeys over the years, sitting on its banks watching both white mist hover over winter-cooled water and the soft clumps of summer's algae green. That day, for example, in 1991, when I sat there perplexed after two years of doing the magazine Crone Chronicles, wondering whether to continue. I asked Raven sitting on a post nearby for a sign; then crestfallen when he immediately flew off in the other direction. The very next day, on another walk, Raven swooshed over my head with inches to spare from behind, then turned, and flew back, again low, directly over my head, giving me the precise signal I needed to go on. (The magazine had begun in response to a dream in which Raven was clawing into my shoulders from behind, cawing, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S TIME! IT'S TIME!", and I KNEW that this symbol, for me, was that of the Crone.)
This morning I climb the little hill directly north of the springs and just as I arrive on top, Coyote streaks out from under a bush and runs down the hill, not thirty feet from me. In all my 18 years in Jackson, I never encountered Coyote at such close range, and so of course, take it as a sign.
On way back, there sits Raven, on a downed post. He lets me walk up to within ten feet of him, and we stand together and watch the sun gleam then burst across the top of the eastern hills.
Last night's event had a bit of Trickster Coyote energy, interesting, and moving at times, however with a distinct disjointed feeling. From the beginning I've known that in order to do this trip I need to release all expectations and move into the present moment. As these book events unfold, three so far, I find myself comparing the relative lightness of the second two to the terrific intensity of the first. "Comparing" has to do with expectations. Reminds of me of "compare and contrast" essay questions in tests throughout my school years, including comprehensive exams for the Ph.D. I've been so long conditioned that expectations- based-upon-analysis feels natural. But does Coyote or Raven compare and contrast, judge, see right and wrong, good, better, best?
Quickly dress, start walking, an eye out for bison which have proliferated this year like rabbits. First light, yes. As in years past while on this eary walk, I will get to see dawn's rosy hue brush the top of the Grand Teton and move on down to the valley floor way before the Sun itself rises over the eastern hills.
Winding my way on a horse-path through three-feet high sagebrush, picking sage leaves and rubbing them in my fingers, bringing up to my nose, inhaling, swooning with intoxication, just like when it rains. When will it rain? the dry underbrush crackles, crunches underfoot. Reminded of how, as a kid growing up on the Idaho sagebrush desert, each rare hard rain's release of sage aroma would throw me into this same swoon.
Somehow, that brief brush with infection yesterday, countered with a well-timed acupuncture appointment in Jackson with Carol (I had been prescient enough to schedule it in advance, knowing I would probably need a tune-up, given the switch into high, dry climate) grounded me here, landed me back into the magic of this place.
Kelly Warm Springs: site of countless inner journeys over the years, sitting on its banks watching both white mist hover over winter-cooled water and the soft clumps of summer's algae green. That day, for example, in 1991, when I sat there perplexed after two years of doing the magazine Crone Chronicles, wondering whether to continue. I asked Raven sitting on a post nearby for a sign; then crestfallen when he immediately flew off in the other direction. The very next day, on another walk, Raven swooshed over my head with inches to spare from behind, then turned, and flew back, again low, directly over my head, giving me the precise signal I needed to go on. (The magazine had begun in response to a dream in which Raven was clawing into my shoulders from behind, cawing, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! IT'S TIME! IT'S TIME!", and I KNEW that this symbol, for me, was that of the Crone.)
This morning I climb the little hill directly north of the springs and just as I arrive on top, Coyote streaks out from under a bush and runs down the hill, not thirty feet from me. In all my 18 years in Jackson, I never encountered Coyote at such close range, and so of course, take it as a sign.
On way back, there sits Raven, on a downed post. He lets me walk up to within ten feet of him, and we stand together and watch the sun gleam then burst across the top of the eastern hills.
Last night's event had a bit of Trickster Coyote energy, interesting, and moving at times, however with a distinct disjointed feeling. From the beginning I've known that in order to do this trip I need to release all expectations and move into the present moment. As these book events unfold, three so far, I find myself comparing the relative lightness of the second two to the terrific intensity of the first. "Comparing" has to do with expectations. Reminds of me of "compare and contrast" essay questions in tests throughout my school years, including comprehensive exams for the Ph.D. I've been so long conditioned that expectations- based-upon-analysis feels natural. But does Coyote or Raven compare and contrast, judge, see right and wrong, good, better, best?
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