Everlasting Comfort and Love (Joy)?

The metronome tick, tick, tick of the clock tells me the morning is almost over. A seagull cries as she passes by my window and the Tibetan prayer flags occasionally whip into view (all this is of great intrigue to Buddy the cat who sits in the window sill). A winter wind chime blows over frozen grass and then it is gone, taking its song with it. I am left in silence as if I'd never known the song of winter.

Why should God be any different? How can we know the lasting everlasting presence, comfort, and love if nothing in our reality is forever? The Queen of Hearts suggests we try to believe six impossible things before breakfast. Well, I've already had breakfast, but here goes:
1) God is always with me
2) I am loved unconditionally and have always been
3) World peace, it could happen
4) I can make a difference in this world
5) Miracles happen
6) True love and joy will come again

If I were to stand on the moon tonight

what light would I see from Earth?
Would it be strings of colored Christmas lights?
Or streams of headlights racing to the mall
for some last minute, hectic consumerism.
Would it be the golden glow of childlike wonder?
Or sparks of anger from the drunken lady across the street,
who resents the doctor who cut off her cancerous breast.
Would it be the Festival of Lights at the Grotto,
or the Star of David at the synagogue,
a menorah, Kwanzaa lights, Advent candles,
or would it be the blue light of a television
that keeps the widow company
during her first Christmas without
the love of her life?
Would it be the green light of forgiveness?
Or the blazing red, white, and blue artillery
across an ocean of loathing.

Could the light from Earth
simply be three candles lit:
one for gratitude
one for longing
and one for clarity
in this mystery?

Advent

Adventure

You enter my life
like a northwest snowfall,
fickle and inconsistent, one
moment an incessant
rain of winter turns
thick and whitens
rooftops then thins
again into rain, more walls
of rain, a vexatious mix
of opposites you are
here now you are gone.
Oh come oh come
oh glorious oh wisdom
oh love
oh one, stay,
please stay and lift me
from my darkness
ordain my shadows to flight
I beg in the cleft
of my being, waiting
for awe, for you
magnificent you
stay, stick to the still
green grass dotted
with golden birch leaves,
stay and light
on my tongue
like the first snowflake,
then melt into nothing
into me so I can believe
you are gone forever
and I can believe
you will come again.

Upon Return of a Painting Titled “Flight”

The picture wire at the end of the hook
snapped at the last moment, and
the frame dropped to the parking lot
shards of glass, shattered flight

snapped at the last moment, and
I could only think, “Ironic!”
shards of glass, shattered flight
you asked, “What did you do?”

I could only think, “Ironic!”
and get the painting out of the rain
you asked, “What did you do?”
I said, “Nothing, the guide wire just broke.”

and get the painting out of the rain
a downpour replaced any tears
I said nothing. The guide wire just broke.
And picked up the pieces, no more apologies.

a downpour replaced any tears
you tenderly laid the painting in your Pathfinder
And picked up the pieces, no more apologies.
We shook hands and went our discrete ways.

Last Day of November

November has always been a difficult month for me...Season of death I suppose~ entering Advent, but not there yet.

It's about Matisse blue paint
on slanted attic walls,
crisp white wainscoting
and a view from above:
frozen raindrops
on bare oak branches
and Christmas lights hanging
from the eaves.
It's about moving in
and moving out
getting away
from the stinging ocean spray
salty...
well, you know what's next
after salty (in a sad poem).
It's about tears
and torn hearts
and other Hallmark sentiments,
although Hallmark doesn't
make cards for unrequited love
and getting shit on;
love 'em and leave 'em,
used and discarded:
Especially for you
When you are feeling blue
You would have had better luck
If I hadn't been such a fuck.

But it's really not about that
anymore. It's about
fresh paint
and fresh starts
clean slates
and clear...
(hearts? is that what you expected to hear?)

Well, not today
Today, it's just about
crystal prisms that catch
even the smallest
amount of Oregon light
and it's about being
eye-level with the seagulls
as I initiate the morning
with a poem
and they with flight.

Frank McCourt

Last night I went to hear Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes, Tis, and Teacher Man, read with the Literary Arts Lecture Series. My last work site gave me free tickets. I was looking forward to hearing an Irish accent. I have a fondness for that accent every since my I met Annie Callan, a local writer and gentle teacher who used to call me "Wendy luv" and I not only felt like the most important person in the world, but she also made me feel like a pretty good writer. I digress. Did you know that Frank McCourt was also a teacher? He taught 33 years in the NY schools. He had stories to tell, like we all do. When asked why it took him until age 66 to publish his novel he said, "I was teaching, that's what took me so long...When you teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you're not inclined to go home to clear your head and fashion deathless prose. After a day of five classes your head is filled with the clamor of the classroom."

When I read that in his bio I had an odd longing for days of 5-7 classes and 2-4 hours of paper grading every week night. I bitched and moaned at the time and flew into a rage every time someone said teacher's have it easy. As McCourt said, "You try it!" But last night, when McCourt called teachers heroic and an audience of 1500 applauded ~ when he would like to shoot the No Child Left Behind bill and the audience applauded ~ I had renewed pride for the my profession, for my greatest talent. Beyond writing, poetry, dancing, singing, healing, creating events, and coming up with good ideas, I am a teacher. AND I still have time to publish my book!

What are you listening to right now?

I'm listening to silence, but soon I'll hear Mozart's Serenata Notturna and Mahler's Song of the Earth with our own Taylor Schlichting on cello and the Diva singing. What is the sound of Earth? In this corner of the Nation it's been sloshy and ambiguous like the sound of bad acting in a soap opera. I think the Mahler is something about horse hoves and joy. I'd like to hear that pounding certainty again in my days. This week was full of culture (freebies no less); I heard West Side Story, Faust, and Frank Rich of the New York Times. Both WSS and Faust ended with the use of white lights and white set on center stage to represent walking into the unknown or the redemption scene in Faust. Rich didn't speak of white space, but from what he said about the media and our government (pre Tues. election) I'd venture we could use some white space, white sound at the White House. What is the sound of white space? Silent truth? Quiet wisdom?

Jump
We are not committed to this or that. We are committed to the nothing in between whether we know it or not. ~ excerpt from Silence by John Cage

Jump
Jump
Contemplation not required, not recommended, not desired.
Hatch out, tumble out with unbridled ferocity

Fall
Fall
I dream of dreaming a dream of falling
Fluid, suspended falling
swallowed by cushions of air
I float on the wake of the sky
vapors thick like honey slow my descent

I dream of dreaming a dream of falling
Lingering in the time between
the between spaces where thoughts turn inside out
where behind my eyes is emptiness - clean and pure
where all my endings become an entrance
into another beginning - a deeper recess
leagues beyond knowing

The faster I fall
the faster I fly
Am I ready?
Are we ready
for space to narrow into a thin line of nothingness and time
to turn yellow with age and uselessness
Are we ready for free fall and grace?

I dream of dreaming a dream of falling
Falling into the soil
into the space between the web, between the lace
I enter the white space
a new place
a new face
Jump
Jump

Today I listened to the cheers at Bridgeport UCC regarding the election results (even though our friend Rob lost by a few hundred votes). Lately, I hear fewer cat fights between Buddy and Tucker (maybe I don't have to get them anti-anxietmedicinene after all. Maybe they are content now with Democrats in the house). I hear more empty silence as Donna leaves again (after only being home 3 days) to work in Japan and Hong Kong. I think I hear, off in the distance, a smile returning to Denice's face. I still hear doubts in my own head about my decision to move and now I have an empty house unsold while strangers north of me are flooded out of their homes. I thought I heard God's call, but I've got some doubts about that right now too. Rabbi Rami Shapiro (who writes for Spirituality and Health) says doubt should be befriended because it melts the fire of certainty that is the antithesis of faith. If we are certain of everything we have no need for faith. "Doubt...awakens you to a compassionate curiosity rooted in a humble not-knowing that is the hallmark of mature faith." Wow, I must be REALLY mature! I hear that.

What Color Are You Today

A friend asked me that title question. Yesterday I was sleepy siesta yellow (she asked around 4:00, nap time). The warm autumn sun through my bedroom window seduced me into a rare afternoon nap before gearing up to start the second coat of mud on my drywall project.

Today is a crunchy orange day like the crisp on the side of the baked mac and cheese casserole. Crisp cold, crisp bright, crisp leaves under foot, I'm anxious to get outside and take a walk around my new neighborhood. I choose a different route each day, sometimes with a destination like Safeway, or to Pam's house to teach her daughter how to use the sewing machine I gave her. Sometimes I just explore; the other day I discovered a stone mosaic "door mat" in front of a house on Siskiyou. I have to remember to show Donna, she'd want to make one with all the stones and pebbles and rocks she collects. But not until the drywall/paint job is done in the study, I say. Turning the corner on 46th, I was amazed by the professional front yard garden with a manicured lawn winding between well cared for triangular flower beds. Usually those urban front yard attempt-at-an-English garden look really trashy this time of year, but this one was well planned for a fall showing with asters and mums and stalks of burgundy somethings.

I'm relieved to be in a neighborhood again where I can walk to the store, help out a neighbor with her construction project, or be pleasantly side-tracked from daily chores by a visit from Jackson (see Donna's blog) and his mom looking for the Toys R Us catalog in Donna's Sunday paper. I'm relieved to be an active part of every day living: laundry, cleaning up after territorial cats, taping drywall, mudding, baking cookies, reading, going for a walk, studying, not just numbing out on television and wine, waiting for my house to sell so my life can begin.

Since Sunday I begin again to access the sacred within the every day profane, the every day mundane. The dictionary defines profane as irreverent, vulgar, course and secular in contrast to what is sacred. Mundane is also defined as secular, common place, ordinary, typical of this world. In the last 3 years or so I've been exploring the sacred in Christian religion, practicing lectio divina, daily centering prayer, breath meditations, reading the Bible, reading other theologians trying to develop a more intimate relationship with God. For some reason, throughout this process I started doing less gardening, had fewer walks in the woods, hardly ever baked or rubbed fresh basil between my thumb and index finger before simmering it in a pot of pasta sauce. For some reason, I took less pleasure in the scent of freshly washed sheets and the tidy, satisfactory folds of laundry day. I stopped noticing the chatter of squirrels, the phases of the moon, or even the passing seasons. I stopped noticing God as I have always known God.

Sunday, a small clan of us were invited to visit my friend Gerry's farm in Oregon City. Five year old Maude had a saddle and no horse to ride. Gerry is an equestrian, professional carriage driver. Gerry has horses she calls ponies. The threatening clouds from the morning broke open just as we pulled into the driveway. What was a gray day became an easy baby blue, soft as the colt's nose on our dispositions. Gerry, the consummate hostess, had prepared rare roast beast, oven baked mac and cheese, apple cobbler, and a raspberry martini "hooha" for the adults (it was Sunday after all and we could drink before 5:00). After a leisurely meal, a climb up the hay bails in the barn, and a few fly-bys of breathless, red cheeked children chasing the Guinea Hen around the house, Gerry saddled up Comet for Maude and Ellory to ride around the yard. Despite the carrot treats, Comet was less than cooperative while the kids tried to ride, tugging at the lead line until he could crunch a mouthful of grass. Gerry scolded him, "Come on Comet, be somebody." We all took to that expression rather quickly and I decided I would use it to scold myself when I would be tempted to zone out in front of the television. Come on Wendy, be somebody!

Finally, Ellory decided he'd much rather sit in the lawn and let the cat's tail tickle his chin while he sang the Little Pony song. We brought Comet back to the barn and Gerry offered the kids a ride on her tractor, with wheels at least five feet tall it was a sight to see. I thought I was in some Disney movie, "Day at the Farm," it was so ideal. Driving back, Maude's mom, Buff, commented on what an amazing woman Gerry is and what a full life she leads. I agreed and thought about my life and how I keep trying so hard to make it fuller without recognizing how full it can be just as it is: the fullness of witnessing Ellory trumpeting with Gerry's fox hunt horns through autumn storm clouds, urging the tentative sun to stay one more hour in our day. And towheaded Maude perched on Gerry's lap, steering the tractor with all the confidence five year old girls should have. My heart was full while I noticed Genevieve with the opportunity to see fearlessness in others and also the unconditional right to hold on just one more day to her own cautions. Just by being, we could be somebody. This is the stuff of a full life...that a horse can eat an entire carrot in one feeding, that we can scrape the side of the mac and cheese bowl for the coveted toasted brown crunchies. That strangers can meet on a farm and become friends, that is a full life, a full day.

Sunday, I saw how I spend too much time wishing for something more, waiting for the house to sell, the perfect time and conditions to begin to write, the right person to enter my life to help me feel complete. I've spent too much time seeking the sacred in something outside me, outside my mundane life, and not appreciating the miraculous in every moment, the God of each ordinary, common place day. Today is crunchy orange, and in order to be somebody within the day, I will not wish for the day to be anything other than what it is. I will step in, bite down, crunch, crunch, crunch as lively as I can until I intimately know about a simple, common, crunchy, orange day.

What it Means to Love

I'm reading Kathleen Dean Moore's book titled The Pine Island Paradox. She made a list of what is means to love a person and place. This list struck I cord with me and I wanted to quote her for all of you:

"What does it mean to love a person? What does it mean to love a place? Before long, I discovered I had made two copies of the same list. To love -- a person and a place -- means at least this: One. To want to be near it, physically. Number two. To want to know everything about it -- its story, its moods, what is looks like by moonlight. Number three. To rejoice in the fact of it. Number four. To fear its loss, and grieve for is injuries. Five. To protect it -- fiercely, mindlessly, futilely, and maybe tragically, but to be helpless to do otherwise. Six. To be transformed in its presence -- lifted, lighter on your feet, transparent, open to everything beautiful and new. Number seven. To want to be joined with it, taken in by it, lost in it. Number eight. To want the best for it. Number nine. Deperately.

Love is an anchor line, a rope on a pulley, a taut fly line, a spruce root, a route on a map, a father teaching his daughter to tie a bowline knot, eelgrass bent to the tide, and all of these -- complicated, changing web of relationships, taken together. It's not a choice, or a dream, or a romantic novel. It's a fact: an empirical fact about our biological existence. We are born into relationships with people and with places. We are born with the ability to create new relationships and tend to them. And we are born with a powerful longing for these relations. That complex connectedness nourishes and shapes us and gives us joy and purpose.

I knew there was something important missing from my list, but I was struggling to put it into words. Loving isn't just a state of being, it's a way of acting in the world. Love isn't a sort of bliss, it's a kind of work, sometimes hard, spirit-testing work. To love a person is to accept the responsibility to act lovingly toward him, to make his needs my own needs. To love a place is to care for it, to keep it healthy, to attend to its needs as if they were my own, because they are my own. Responsibility grows from love. It is the natural shape of caring.

Number ten, I wrote in my notebook. To love a person or a place is accept moral responsibility for its well-being."

Community

Come Unity
for Vi

We sing
wind beneath wings
and rub sandalwood oil
into her too tired old feet
tucked beneath hospice blankets
blue
while not far beyond
thousands of russet and gold leaves
turn and turn and turn until
silently they all fall
to the cold ground
released.

________________

morning
comes unity
intimate as crystal
dew on her lately woven web
vast, too
the view
Crater Lake blue
deep and high and nearby
generations beyond knowing
hold truth

___________________


Relish community
like a spoonful of homemade applesauce,
cinnamon rich,
made of apples gathered
from last year’s barren tree

Stories

Last night a group of us told (in ten minutes or less) our spiritual, religious, faith, journeys of truth. Stories revealed shadows of humanity, doubt, misgivings and missed directions. This morning, as I read and wrote, the neighbor man, a confirmed schizophrenic, was shouting his story to nobody in particular. Some how parts of what he said, what I could hear, what I understood, pieces of his "rantings" made sense to me:

"We're gonna keep going down a dead-end street. We have power to do it all over again, make it right. What are you doing? I know a fucking hoax when I hear it. Well it's about time. No, I'm staying. What are you doing? Too good for Words (Works?) You're gonna have to find some better lingo when you start giving out the um, the uh explanation of feelings. And the fucking story goes on and on and on. I wanna kick your shadow."

Confessions

Don't kick my shadow
such a shady story
in the bright light of day
elongated like an El Greco painting
pained in purple gray
or stumped into secrecy
my shadow
is as much a part of me
as the detail you see
in the face
facing you
in all honesty

Irony

Just as I remove the final framed artwork from the wall, I receive news that the buyer's financing fell through and the house is going back on the market. I had intended to sell that final art piece at a church art auction this week. Nobody bid on it, so I brought it back to the empty house to resume it's place above the mantle. The piece, titled "Flight," just doesn't seem to want to fly. I refuse to believe that means I can't fly. Maybe that artwork stays with the house. Maybe it needs to be returned, with grace, to the artist. My head swims with 'how comes' and what's up with this, and what, damn it, is the lesson I'm supposed to learn in order to move on!!

Grace is in the Return

This weekend I removed the last framed artwork that hung over my mantle in my Vancouver house. Painted by a lover of nine years ago, the work is a simple 3' by 4' line drawing of an open poppy (or some such full-petaled blossom) with one red streak across the bottom of the otherwise white canvas, a crimson river of femininity. In the center of the flower is a sweet but somewhat phallic stamen and a real live dead bug caught between the canvas and glass on its journey to pollination. My lover and I laughed about that bug's aborted effort to consummate even as we wept about our own inability to fully realize our relationship. We were an affair that would never reach fruition. I started writing poetry as a result of her artwork. I wrote several pieces about this painting, but can only find this one:

Rapid thin streams,
thin crimson streams rush through ~
Petals thrown back, hotly back
on throated stems.

Does she
remember the flower?
The orchid?

The flower grows in its growing from hour to hour
while the Master flame
Destroys the dry mountain pine.
The dry
mountain pine.

At the appointed time,
a cry from the morning crow will come
Will come.
Does she know when? Do I?

Only then, can she
remember the flower.
The flower trembling
from root, to pistil, to petal.
And
Oh, the fragrance!

She can
remember the flower.
The orchid.
Again,
this hour, this instant
She can.


It was appropriate for this painting to be the last piece of art to come off the walls. I designed my entire living room around this painting...White fireplace, white carpet, white furniture, pale yellow walls, splashes of red accent throughout the room. Her artwork was a focal point of my living space. In fact, I bought the house eight years ago with the vague hope that she would eventually move in with me and we would have a life of co-creation. I painted my garage a high gloss red with the thought that it could be an art studio...Something she didn't really have in her house. My bedroom was a convent white in readiness for a new life with her. Over the years it became apparent that she wasn't going to leave her marriage and even the fact that she called me "the other side of her face" wasn't enough to liberate her from what I saw as a possessive (yet socially acceptable and secure) marriage to build a life with me. I'm acutely aware that selling this house is the final letting go of that relationship. Not that I've been mourning, moaning, and mooning away here in this house for the last eight plus years (I've had other lovers since and maintain a realistic sense of what is (and isn't). But we never really said goodbye and I've always wondered what I'd say if she showed up at my doorstep. Would I close the door in hurt and resentment and bitterness or would I welcome her return with grace?

In my spiritual direction class we practiced a breathing meditation for about 30 minutes. I found myself, as usual, drifting out of focus and coming close to nodding off to sleep in that state of relaxation. I asked the teacher how this practice could lead me to higher consciousness if I kept drifting into unconsciousness. She said that the discipline is in the return. It is not about getting to a place of meditative transcendence, it is not about judging our perceived failure and giving up, it is about recognizing that we have drifted (as we all inevitably do, often) and exercising the discipline of returning to the breath. Grace is in the return.

This week I've been reflecting on the parable of the prodigal son. I used to be annoyed by the father's reaction and would take sides with the resentful (but faithful) son who never left. I was the one who did everything right, or at least gave the impression that I was good and responsible and faithful. Then I swayed, I had an affair. I became lost to myself, my community, my family. Through this reading of the parable I was reminded of our inclination to seek what is lost. We don't focus on the $20 in our wallet, but the $10 we knew we had and can't find. Jesus searched for the one lost sheep, not the ones in constant view. I don't write as much poetry about the love that is steadfast and present in my life, but I do write volumes about lost love. In the parable, the focus and attention isn't on the one that is lost, isn't on the going away, the celebration is about the return. The return home, the return to God, the return to one another, to self.

I never noticed the title of my lover's artwork until I lifted it off the wall last week. It is called "Flight." As I leave my cocoon of a home, spread my wings and take flight in a return to my own artistry, I have hope that by removing her work of art from my wall, no longer claiming or possessing it as mine, giving it up to the church art auction for someone else to be nurtured beneath its simple strength, that she will fly home to her artistry, she will return to Grace. As I write this blog entry, revealing my secret affair, seeking release, forgiveness, homecoming, and renewal, I open myself to a return to grace. And I know now that if she finds me again, stands on the threshold, facing me in humility, I will welcome her return to my life with all the celebration and open heart of any lost love come home.

To Be or Not to Be Claimed

Can I allow myself to be claimed without being possessed? I bristle at our human need to possess property, things, people, to claim as ours a house, a parcel of land, a spouse, a room of one's own. As a friend Donna says, it's all on loan, all of it. When we were designing the art school we had a tin can that was used to collect quarters every time someone said "my or mine"; my students, my classroom, my department, my whiteboard marker. We struggled for years trying to maintain the collective and cooperative ours over the possessive and competitive mine. We finally had to concede on some things like whiteboard markers for sanity sake, but really, the concept of fasting from "my" is a good one. The more I give away, sell, separate myself from detachment in a fasting sort of way, the less I can relate to those who continue to cling. Something as small as a board member from a former workplace not being willing to let go of a button maker long enough for me to borrow it for a festival, it BUGS me to no end.

On the contrary, another friend taught me that being claimed can be a grounding experience. Claimed as a best friend, as a life partner, as a valued employee, as a child of God can root us and help us self-identify without clipping our wings and censoring our flow. Yes? Maybe? I believe, though, we must be willing to relinquish all, fast from all our attachments, before we can experience the liberation of this type of claiming.

My name, Wendy, means wanderer. Whenever I feel trapped, inhibited, tethered, reined in, I become seriously irritated, refusing to see that these reins may be just the thing to keep me from going off the deep end as I wander the edges of life. MY best friend keeps an ankle bracelet on me (metaphorically) because she knows I can drift off into nothingness when I'm needed right here in the now. I know I can take this bracelet off any time, so rather than feeling possessed by her, I feel cared for, rooted in a relationship and never abandoned. She helps me find the French translation of A bandon, "to put in one's power, to liberate."

Disorientation

I walk the edge between begin and end
beyond the tether of created self.
I am not afraid to move.
I am afraid of standing still,
utterly still in this gray silence -- this 2:00 a.m. space
where the crow has long since cawed away
the busyness of a day,
where my purpose of being
is not yet linked to memory or knowing --
utter stillness, before the morning dove has begun her lament.

I am awake
spinning in the space between --
vertigo of the soul.

The East opens beyond the sun
The West, an ocean abyss
I am direction-less.
North and South (heaven and earth)
a fading filament.
Storylines, brittle with age.

In this center threshold, this 2:00 a.m. space I am,
at the same time, both leaving and left behind.
Self and other --

We desert and are deserted
forsake and surrender
to be in our being
define in our defining.
We are both form and motion
noun and verb
abandon and abandoned.

A bandon,
to put in one's power.

To be in one's power
we must yield completely.
We must relinquish our claim,
our right --
to what?
Certainly, to our hold on other
and apparently,
to our hold on self.

We must spin without reference
without spotting
disoriented
sick with dizziness
we must continue to spin and spin and spin
until we collide and fall
until we have spun ourselves into laughter
until we have spun the new.

A bandon,
liberation.

Geography of Love

Ephesians 3:14 encourages us to explore the expansiveness of God's love, the breadth, the height, the length, and the depth, both overflowing and rooted, ours for the receiving. Because I try not to personify God, I do not imagine a being expressing his or her love in a tangible, sensory way that I can see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. I can, however, notice the manifestation of that love in the landscape of my every day living:

Breadth of autumnal sunshine
and the five year old
neighbor boy's call
to come out
and play ball.

Towering circle of cedar ~
there is no ceiling
to Your love.

Moonlight and shadow ~
oh the length of You
arched long along
my living room floor,
arms open in a transept
of receptivity.

Even in the darkest depths
a porch light shines
somewhere
here or there
guiding me home.

Just Questions Today

Does sin abate when surrender abounds?

I cannot bow down to any lord, as solicitous scriptures suggest. I do not see how reverence to the lord God is any different then reverence to lord Caesar or lord Bush. The paradigm, the holding to hierarchy (patriarchal or matriarchal) is what needs to be dismantled for us all to live in unity. This is what I have believed, and yet, sin (defined as separation from true self, in my Book) continues to plague me. I wonder if surrender to the Lord God, release of my knees into soft soil, the buckling of pride and independence would not just bring me the freedom i seek. And yet, (yes, yet again) Ephesians states we are the adopted children of God. While an adopted child can (and did in Biblical times) have the same rights as a blood child, anyone adopted can tell you, it's not the same. If I am not of God's womb, how can a surrender to God lead me to my true self? We, God and me, never had the symbiotic relationship, the umbilical connection (according to what I read), so how can I return to wholeness through God if I was never whole in God in the first place?

And another thing. We are all One in God's love through the sacrifice of Christ. What about Buddha? What about Ghandi? What about MLK Jr.? What about the rest of the world? The Euro-centrism disturbs me. I want the Bible to make room in my head for a more global embrace of humanity. Seems to me that's what Paul was suggesting with his chain letter to all communities in Asia Minor. Still so much to learn. I must remember to read loosely.

Grace, Oh I Get it

"It is not falling in the water that drowns us, but staying there."

By grace I unveil
shame like steam from crimson
burnt branches
once smoldering then doused
by tears of compassion

By grace I rise
from stark wrongdoing
to circling caress,
her smoky whisper, "I still
love you. Don't ever forget."

I had a realization that to have Christ live in me is not about clothing myself in the costume of Christianity and pretending, but rather it is surrender...Disclose and de-clothe to raw vulnerability, ask forgiveness and begin again, naked and new, every day.

More Scriptural Shorts

Psalm 126

Laughing hallelujah
and God recommends
we re-commune with sisters, all
from beginning to end and back again
Aloha and ciao


Dr. Luke 24, a Gentile among Jews

Every day
doubt looms
like gray clouds
threatening to ruin my
garden party.
So I am called to remember
Jesus is in the cornbread.
Can't you see?
Every day.
So eat up.
Abundance comes from loss.

Lies can be Life Saving

I am your Rahab, as you are mine,
living on the edge
one stop short of rejection
and one window away from freedom.

We spin a deceitful thread
not silver, not gold, but blood
red, my life for your life
we lie to save both.

Salvation for all,
this thread, we know
will not devastate,
if delivered as kind protection.

A redeeming passion, we must trust
will save us from stone walls
of panic and fear, away
from enslavement, from possessive love.

This crimson thread will
lead us to transformation
to open hearts and silver
waterfalls of unity, if we are not afraid.

Let it be so.

In a Nutshell

I'm taking this course with some church friends called Companions in Christ. We have Bible readings and I just got the idea to write some short poems summarizing what I read.

Genesis 12
Leave it all behind
Blackberries and 'mourning' doves
Impugn not my call

Genesis 28
Jacob
With head upon stone
I wrestle an angel, dreams
descending like dust

What next?
Glad tithings?
Let's make a deal!

Exodus 17
Water from sand stone ~
Doubt and you will die of thirst.
Exodus ain't easy.


I've decided that my study plan for Goddard will be to study both Rumi poems and Paul's letters, Sufism and Christianity, find the connections, travel to Turkey, and create a contemporary response from my unique perspective in letter and poetry form. These mini poems are good practice. I'll send on more if anyone is interested.

Mortgage and Marriage

I choose to sell my house because I don't want to be locked in anymore to the commitments, obligations, costs (literal and not so literal), work, and constant repair involved in a mortgage. As soon as I had a buyer, I started looking at where I would live next. Some days I thought, I really want a clean slate, empty rooms, not even paintings on the wall (painted by ex-lovers, streaming red with aching memory). I'll just rent a studio, make art, collect unemployment and detach from my entire past. Oh so tempting. Then I explored intentional community living...A community just starting, out on Sauvie Island. I could build a yurt, meet and eat in the big house, work the land, sustainable living, a fantasy since my Sandy days almost 25 years ago, a vision from six years ago that I called the Place of Grace. Or I could join the established Lighthouse Community, an urban, Buddhist community just off of Hawthorne. The house is enormously spacious with a poetry stage and movie seats in the basement, an open flex space with just an alter and some pillows, and a modest bedroom with sunlight, a fireplace, and hardwood floors. But wait, I already have a community. I am already committed to Bridgeport. Granted I don't live with these people, but I stood in front of them four years ago and promised to give and receive through thick and thin, for better or worse, like a marriage. I can't sign on to another community, that would be bigamy, wouldn't it? Yet why do I feel the need to flee?

Typical for me to squirm in tight spaces. As Denise Levertov says, "Don't lock me in wedlock, I want/marriage, an/encounter--" Most traditional committed arrangements are too tight and rule-filled for me. I need room to flex and flow with the changing tides. I need to be able to say, "Until life do us part." I know that nothing is forever and don't need to lock myself in with a myth of security. In younger days, as soon as things got too tight, I split open and flew on winged feet to start another honeymoon of lightness. Then, three years or so later, I would be disappointed with the superficiality, the unsatisfactory nature of the relationship (individual or organizational), and think it must be time to leave and seek again. My longing has changed from a desire for light flight to a yearning to go deep, with clay feet, through all the scrapes and mistakes, dents and scars of loving and living, to the other end of community, family, work, relationship.

Rilke writes, "Like so many other things, people have also misunderstood the position love has in life; they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure are more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, precisely because it is the supreme happiness, can be nothing other than work. It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation."

So first I say, "Okay, I am ready to step in deeper, no more toe dipping." Again, Denise Levertov in her poem "The Ache of Marriage...two by two in the ark of/the ache of it." Or three by three, or 50 by 50, whatever commitment to comm-unity calls for. Now, what about authentic self within? If I am to exchange winged NIKEs for clay heavy work boots, do I not need to be fully of this earth, true to who I am? This brings forward, for me, the question of secrets and integrity.

Another reason I have fled community in the past is that secrets became too heavy for me. I cannot hold in secrecy and feel internal integrity. We all have secrets. How do others maintain long term relationships with individuals and community while keeping secrets? Really, I want to know. That's a genuine question. Is it a matter of semantics, renaming secrets and calling them a right to privacy? Is about saying only what is necessary, true, and kind? I've always thought the path to greater intimacy is through open disclosure. My cousin once said that it is impossible to reach intimacy in a group. Maybe this is why. I am particularly challenged by committing to greater intimacy in a faith community. Am I not expected to walk in transparency, light, soul-filled truth? How do I do that in heavy, soil-filled boots?

Help me out here. Let's dialogue for future blogs.

9.11

We shudder, all of us, no doubt, with each plane passing overhead today.

So it Goes

We are in reunion with rage
a stone throwing stone
upon stone
upon stone upon
cordon of memory
Caught in a storm of twin sorrows
we rage -- eleven upon eleven
at tomorrow at forever
at mid-night
and so it goes
Blind-sided by terror -- naked, alone
a stark stones throw
away stone
upon stone
upon stone
upon stone
upon stone
and so it goes

Ah, but stop, listen to the circle of cedar
listen to pine and her spine
soft marrow of forgiveness
and light, listen
where darkness springs bright
and we can unite in a faltering
flight
upon flight
upon infant
flight

-Wendy 2001

Vested but not Vetted

I have a buyer for my house. The new title company sends me a document: "Commitment for Title Insurance. Schedule A. 4. Title to the estate or interest in the land is at the effective date hereof vested in: Wendy J. Thompson, an unmarried woman."

That's it? An unmarried woman; not poet, teacher, theologian, philosopher, lover, kind and thoughtful friend? No wonder I struggle with my single, childless status in this world. Legal language defines me solely in relation to other and never in relation to my true self. No wonder I've felt lost trying to play by society's rules of good behavior and integrity: go to college, get a respectable, acceptable, vetted, and appraised job, get a spouse (vetted again in socially acceptable pairing), have a child, buy house, control your wild, wandering, verdant soul. I don't fit in that mold and I'm tired of trying. I can only hold in integrity when I hold in center, sound in who I am and who I was created to be ~ not trying so hard to fit and merge and blend with other.

Rainer Rilke wrote in "On Love and Other Difficulties" that "Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over, and uniting with another...It is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake."

This transition I am in (selling house, leaving a job, going back to school) is all about me daring to step into my true self, my true call, become who I was created to be, ripen, and trust that just being that person will be more than enough for the rest of the world. I've spent most of my life trying to be for others, helping to manifest other peoples' dreams, helping others transition into wholeness. I continually feel left behind, left out, kicked out, unappraised, unvetted, for all that I invested in the world outside my core. Now, starting today, I give attention and vested interest in MY life first.

Yesterday was a pivotal day, my last day at work (to name just one significant event). I am no longer Executive Director, titleless and free, I refuse to be defined and held in a definition not true to me. Instead I hold myself together in stable soundness, listening within to what is right and good for me as the unique creation that I am. I trust that such integrity within will serve the comm-unity around me without my having to try so hard anymore.

Parker Palmer's Repelling Experience

My friend sent me a copy of Parker Palmer's Zen Outward Bound climbing experience...similar to my rock climbing story. I wanted to share the end of his writing because it articulates my understanding.

""Then," said the second instructor, "it's time that you learned the Outward Bound motto."

"Oh, keen," I thought. "I'm about to die, and she's going to give me a motto!"

But then she shouted ten words I hope never to forget, words whose impact and meaning I can still feel: "If you can't get out of it, get into it!"

I had long believed in the concept of "the word become flesh," but until that moment, I had not experienced it. My teacher spoke words so compelling that they bypassed my mind, went into my flesh, and animated my legs and feet. No helicopter would come to rescue me; the instructor on the cliff would not pull me up with the rope; there was no parachute in my backpack to float me to the ground. There was no way out of my dilemma except to get into it -- so my feet started to move, and in a few minutes I made it safely down.

Why would anyone want to embark on the daunting inner journey about which Annie Dillard writes? Because there is no way out of one's inner life, so one had better get into it. On the inward and downward spiritual journey, the only way out is in and through."

I have been asked by several people lately, "What will your job prospects be after completing a degree in Transformative Language Arts and Poetry Therapy?" At first I thought that I needed to yet again justify my choices based on society's standards of success (namely income, security, recognition, fame). Now I realize that I am moving in a direction that I can no longer avoid, the "daunting inner journey," the call, regardless of what society's barometer reads regarding my potential success. I remember when I decided to be a dance major in Utah my mother kept asking, "Why Utah?" with the unspoken question, "Why dance?" I finally quieted her by saying, "I don't know why. I just know it is right." I feel the same way about pursuing a degree in Transformative Language Arts, selling my house, entering unemployment and not seeking a full time job with health insurance. This is the right move for me and I'm willing to give it all up to take that horrifyingly risky step to get into it, to get into my life, my journey, through and eventually out into a place I can't even imagine...A place of purpose and intention.

Risk - Step Back to Move Forward

Last Saturday my friend and I went hiking along the Salmon River. At one point the trail joins the road and on the opposite side, several young men and women (everyone looks young to me now) were practicing rock climbing along a granite face. We stopped to watch and I recalled my first rock climbing experience.

My knees rattled like a loose bobbin in a sewing machine. Mouth dusty dry, I whispered, "I can't."
"Geeze girl, your eyes are wide as monster truck tires. What's your problem. Just step back, you'll be fine once you take that step," my coach hollered from the other end of the red and blue rope. He made it sound so easy; it's not taking the step that was the problem, it was stepping back, blindly back into the clouds, in the vapors, thin air, limbo, nothing, infinity.
I tugged at the harness, checked the "bineer" and wiped my sweaty palms on my cargo pants. Just then the chapstick barely in my pocket flipped out ~ clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, 1,000 feet down. My destiny. I can't.
The climb up Smith Rocks was intense, but doable. A 5.6 for my first climb. "You're a dancer," coach challenged. "You can do it easy." Crawling up the monolith, inch by inch, hugging the rock face, spurred on by pride and coach's encouragement, I felt safe. Even if I fell, I'd be caught in the belay, suffering, at worst, a few scrapes and a bruised ego. But this repelling down business...What if I push away and slam back against the jagged wall, splat? Even if I thrust my leg out to catch myself, the impact might fracture a tibia and then I'd be kicked out of the dance program. What if I flipped upside down like my brother did when he repelled? How embarrassing.
"Come on. Just do it," coach egged (this was years before NIKE coined the slogan).
"You didn't tell me we had to repel," I whined.
"How else did you think you'd get back down? I'm counting to five."
"Wait, can't we call a helicopter? (this was years before cell phones, too) Ten, count to ten."
"4, 3, 2, 1"
"Yes! I can!"

I slid to the bottom of Smith Rocks without a hitch and still claim the experience as one of the most satisfying, Zen-like challenges in my life. I stepped backwards to go forward and succeed. A few years later, while climbing a 5.2, I heard a loose carabineer, the thing supposedly holding me safe, tumble down the cliff. I decided then that rock climbing was too risky for me. I wondered, last Saturday, why I don't take many risks in my life any more. And yet, my friends say they admire my courage. This Saturday there will be an Open House at my home. I celebrate the risk of selling my house to follow my call. This Saturday I will take my past foster daughter (I found her again) out for a day of beauty before she moves back to Ohio to be with her birth mother. That chapter in my life was certainly a risk, risk of loving and letting go. In a few weeks I return to the art school for a 10 year reunion, stepping back to move forward? I still take risks I suppose (calculated, conservative, reasonable risks for me), more emotional than physical. I think the physical ones are easier. I don't really have an ending for this blog post...I can't see what I'm stepping into right now, just trying to trust infinity.

Love, Why are You Hiding?

“All the particles in the world are in love and looking for lovers. Pieces of straw tremble in the presence of amber.” ~Rumi

Dopamine, endorphins, I am chemically challenged. I long to be in love again, the rush, enchantment, carried away beyond the ordinary to the extra-ordinary, ascending in spirit where heart meets soul in blissful communion. (I hear a Hallmark card coming on.) My friend Nancy dreamt (the same night I dreamt) that I was with a lover who was my size, same haircut, and we were at peace with each other. She thought the lover could symbolize a new direction, new passion in my life. I supposed it could be me…love of self. Indeed, I have experienced a dopamine high from art making, from strolling in the woods along an undiscovered path, but never, really, from loving self. So, I seek her interpretation, new direction, unmarked territory, in pursuit of bright passion.

Research shows that humans need a balance of dopamine, endorphins, for first-rate health. The most common way to get our fix is through human contact, hugs, sex, etc. I’m a bit underfed. A hug a week is about all I can expect in my single life (and I’m not sharing details of my sex life). It’s not enough, but my pursuit of a partner has proved unsuccessful. I need an alternative, especially in this world of disenchantment ~ this world of mistrust, fear, doubt ~ this world on the defensive, eager to exploit before it is exploited. Even as I write this, my nearly expired Norton virus protection pops up to warn me of a recent threat to my system. Interesting timing. No wonder I’m depressed. No wonder my system is battle weary. I need to be consumed by something, swept away in love.

Love is an intimate, sensual engagement with the world. I can find a facsimile in my garden, in the peach pink wispy sunset, the lime-green tree frog camouflaged on the garden hose ~ jasmine sweetening the lazy evening air. There, I border on ease, but it takes work to get there and the moment is fleeting.

Jung says, “The soul isn’t in you; you are in the soul.” How do I maintain a soulful, soul-filled life in an increasingly soulless landscape? How can I leave my garden? When I do leave, will I be able to re-build a life that continues to bestow breathlessness, enchantment, that leaves me trembling in awe at the mystery that evades my logical mind? Am I stripping myself of the ounce of love and spirit, inspiring inspiration, that still exists in my day or am I leaving behind the fading vapors of finished love, taking with me the love that has always been me (I AM love, my friends proclaim), opening the windows to a fresh new morning, perfumed beyond my imagining.

Thank God

"Prayer erupts in the heart at the sight of either the impossibly beautiful or the unbearably difficult." ~ Joan Chittister

We thank God when we are grateful, when things go right, when we believe our prayers have been answered. And yet, we are discouraged from believing that our prayers are a Christmas wish list to a magic Jesus. I am taught not to curse or doubt God when things go wrong, out of order, away from my control. God has a plan, I am told, and I must have faith. I am also reminded of free will. And I am told that God is not an intervening God. That's why bad things happen to good people and why it didn't pay for Job to make sacrifices just in case his children sinned. Such offerings to God didn't do him any good in the end. Nor is God, I'm told, a distant God who just spun the earth into motion and then sat back in a lazyboy to watch the show. God is an enigma, a mystery, that much I know. So if God does not intervene in the unbearably difficult times of our lives, then why do we feel the need to give credit to God for the goodness in our lives? We can't have it both ways, can we? Why don't we thank God for suffering, for taking us through darkness so we may truly experience light? Well, some of us do, I suppose. Why don't we curse God when things go our way? For then we are only lulled into an unrealistic complacency.

Sometimes, when my friends and neighbors say they are praying for me, I can't help but roll my eyes and think, "Like that's going to do any good." All the people praying for peace, I'm waiting! I've put much of my faith in the natural order of things, the cause and effect cycles of nature. I want to believe that if I vote for the better candidate, if I canvas for intelligence, compassion, and reason, then the better "man" will win. Hmmm, I'm waiting. Sometimes the pears just don't appear on the tree, no matter how much care and tending and praying I do. Sometimes tsunamis destroy entire villages. Hurricanes happen. Sometimes babies die no matter how much money we contribute to medical research. Sometimes my sweet affectionate cat kills the treasured humming bird who has been thrumbing joyously around my honeysuckle, breeding new blossoms, new life, all summer. Sometimes we are crucified, no matter how good we are, no matter how hard we try. That is the natural order, unpredictable, inescapable, and basically out of our control. Out of God's control, too? Ineffable God?

So do we give up on God because we don't get it, because it doesn't make sense? Do we cling to religious cliches and platitudes, godly small talk to assuage our pain? Or do we pray to call God in to companionship beyond an impersonal, intellectual intimacy, to a side by side knowing, a shared grief with a welcome happiness. The Message states, "...The ironic fact of the matter is that more often than not, people do not suffer less when they are committed to following God, but more."

Crap, now what? What's the point? Why bother?
The resurrection, that's why. The transformation, the ecstatic beauty of transcendence when I have been to the depths, surfaced, and am able to see, really see the cobalt blue mayfly circling the rumbling river rock, when I stop long enough to be entranced by the flicking "S" of the fly fisherman's line and know that I have witnessed God and these moments, as much as our moments of suffering are the point of living. That the companionship through the inexplicable nature of living is all I pray for.

Change

My fortune cookie said, "You will make many changes before happily settling." Change, yes. Settling, probably never.

Today, a Realtor came to the door at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. I hadn't yet finished my second cup of coffee, hadn't brushed my teeth when I had to accept that 8 years of privacy was disappearing. Apparently, when a prospective buyer drops by, one must be willing to take a walk and leave them be to discover the house on his own. So I walked along my path, the Ellen Davis Trail, the place of blackberries in August and leaning trees for all seasons. A few berries were ripe enough to melt between my finger tips...sweet subtle relief. I'm getting cold feet. I don't want to share a house that isn't mine, to be a visitor in the suburbs, to have no path to walk every day, even if I choose not to walk. I huff up the hill, lined with figure eight cement bricks, infinity. I test blackberries on the vine and smile at the Queen Anne's Lace (it is my favorite weed because it reminds me of Anne Walters, the mother of my best friend in elementary school. I was in love with Anne Walters and wanted to be just like her). I could walk this path with my eyes closed, knowing each twist and turn. I rest among the circle of cedar, crying, trying to say thank you for all the times I've been returned to wholeness here. The circle of cedar saved my life, more than once. When I was longing for a child, I tied two pastel ribbons, one yellow and one blue, to low branches. The ribbons stayed there for six months. No child for me, but someone, somewhere, found her child because of the ritual. I buried bleeding sorrow in the soil of that circle and today I try to say good-bye. My feet aren't cold, but I have cold feet. I don't want to leave this cocoon of comfort. I wish there was another way. But I can't go back. I must inch forward into new passions and new directions with courage and trust, with what is next still out of sight.

Mary Oliver reassures me, once again, with her prose poem, West Wind #2

"You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart's little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love, It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks -- when you hear that unmistakable pounding--when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming -- then row, row for your life toward it."

I always thought this would be a great graduation speech poem. I found out last night that I was the first choice for graduation speaker this June at the art school where I used to teach, the school I helped design and build, and run for eight years. The current principal, the woman who had no courage and trust, no vision, who was threatened by those of us who created the school and spoke the truth, the principal who basically forced me out of the place I loved, my home, away from my family -- she refused to allow me to speak at graduation. She said I wasn't welcome in the building. By whom? Apparently the students wanted me. The remaining staff who still knew me wanted me. I would have been gracious and appropriate and would have read Mary Oliver. Ironically, last night, after hearing this bit of information, I received a postcard in the mail announcing the 10th anniversary of the school I helped build. The destructive principal won't be there next year so I will be welcome again. I can go home and enjoy my family and friends of another time. So in some ways, I can go back.

What would I say to a graduating class about Oliver's poem? I would encourage them to stop long enough to listen to the voice of passion, the voice of love in their lives. It is what I have been doing in this little house for sale, in the circle of cedar, at the art school, listening to my direction, my call, tasting the mist on my mouth, the churn and swirl, and unmistakable pounding that leads to my path. I would encourage the young to trust, to have courage to pursue what is right for them even if it sounds crazy, impractical, follow the pull of their unique ebb and flow, the heart within the heart, their soul song. Live without regret.

Moving

The bright white ReMax sign startled me as I pulled into my driveway today. It's real. My house is for sale. I hurried in to clean the kitchen. It is clean to an unreal, unlived in state. Funny, realtor leads to unreal. This morning I packed all my family photos and the memories of past lovers. I can only assume these boxes will remain unopened for at least two years, until I finish my next degree. I cleaned tonight until my hands were detergent raw. I have as much of a showcase home as is possible. Tomorrow is the official listing. Tonight I finally cried. I don't want to sell. I really don't want to sell. But to do all else that I want to do, what choice do I have? Now that the garden is weeded, the house is clean, I really don't want to leave. But the bright white ReMax sign has been hammered into my front yard. The decision has been made. I am moving. My house is for sale. My lovely convent of healing will soon be transferred to another. Tears well again and I am grateful for this outlet as I transition out.

Moving

Other things I'll miss.

The Leaning Tree

More embracing are your branches
than any arms I have ever known.
Are you a juniper, a cottonwood, a madrone?
I long to know your name, know you,
great spiraling mother of a tree,
Medusa hair wildly tendriling
as if you were planted upside down,
roots thirsting for the sky.
I see
your trunk warted, roped and frayed,
bark peeling to reveal
a dry light gray,
with one limb propped at a bend
by a man-made crutch,
I see
you are old,
perhaps tired, and yet,
and yet, you welcome me
as if to say,
Lean in. I am your womb of waiting.
Let me shield you from the unexpected
drops of rain, now
and for one day more.

Letter to Self

Back in May my Spiritual Direction class was encouraged to write letters to ourselves. I just received my letter. I asked myself to remember the power of words, my 'duty' to bring voice to the voiceless, the ineffable. I asked myself, "Are you daring to live a life without a why or wherefore? Are you living the question? Are you listening?"

The answer, yes. I am choosing again to take the risky route, sell the house, go back to school, do what I long to do, not what I think others think I should do. I have sadness about leaving my home. It has been quite the refuge, respite, and retreat for eight years. Below is a tribute to my lifesaving trail, the Ellen Davis Trail, just a block from my home:

What to Remember Before I Go
To eat
blackberries for breakfast
To cross over
NE 54th Street, green bowl in hand
To nod
at Steve, the neighbor I barely know, as he retrieves his morning paper
To pass
three mailboxes (one black, two green)
To turn
right onto a gravel road
To notice
apples still tight and red/green on their gnarled branches
To stroll
past the farmer’s garden with his purple peonies
To wonder
when the trail-tenders will rake the year-old pile of wood chips into the mud hole
To know
where the first blackberry bush begins and still feel child-like anticipation
To remember
when Karen brought over her three children to pick blackberries and swim
at Klineline pond. “These are Eva branches,” the youngest claimed, fingers and lips
already stained, “Nobody else can pick this low.”
To climb
the Ellen Davis Trail, switchbacks lined half way up with hexagonal concrete bricks,
Queen Anne’s Lace, and dusty blue chicory (the color of my cousin’s soul, so she says)
To study
the seasons of my path, first violets, then trillium, false Solomon seal, blackberry
blossoms and finally, in the end, blackberries
To be ready
for baby rabbit crossings and the familiar coo
of morning doves or is it mourning doves
hear me leave me
me me
me me
me me
To reach in
gingerly, past the thorns, touch me, I am warm
To smell twilight
purple ripeness
To test readiness
by the willingness to slip from the vine like a lover
an easy melt, sweet, silent surrender
knee-dropping gratitude ~ do I deserve this much pleasure?
To fill my bowl.

Haibun through a Collision of Love

Today is her birthday, Tamie's, my foster daughter, non-residental foster daughter, ex-foster daughter. I don't know how to refer to her anymore. I tried to call the last group home she'd been in. She's not there any more. I called the case worker, "Guess who I'm looking for?" I tell people that after she left me she's was in about ten different foster homes, three group homes, juvenille detention, as if to explain why she wasn't with me anymore, that it wasn't my fault. I told Tamie it wasn't her fault. Neither of us could be who we weren't, as much as we might have wanted to be. She arrived in 2002 and left in 2003. In 2004 I began to write about my short journey of motherhood, entrance into unconditional love, the lessons of loving and letting go. The writing is in Haibun form, a combination of haiku and prose. It is mostly a story about Tamie and me, but also references other lesson in loving and letting go. Happy Birthday Tamie, wherever you are.

Collision of Love, A Haibun for 2002

I thought it would hurt when I read your emailed answer, "I cannot hold in friendship with you anymore." I thought your cold and perfunctory abandonment of us would hurt, should hurt more than it did. I promised never to be perfunctory with you. I promised, in poetry, to brush your hair with tenderness and care, not like the quick rough strokes of your German mother. But I am not your mother. You are not my mother and you made no promises.

With a crooked spine,
creaking knees, and weary mind,
I walk my riddles.

I thought it would hurt, but the time had come. We were done. Rocky edges do not thrill you as they do me, even the windswept vanilla borders we walked; you could not plan for such fenceless loving. You could not control the outcome, write the script, master the equilibrium while the downy hairs at the nape of your neck shivered in anticipation. The time had come to let go. Like a thistle fairy in my palm, I could no longer hold you and you could not hold me. The time had come for a night breeze, green-black with mystery, to separate us,

drift you back to home,
me uneasily forward
into the unknown.

What next?

I write my riddles
with a Sumi brush and water
color abstraction.

I thought it would hurt more than it did when I called your caseworker to tell her I couldn't adopt you and they should probably find you another home before the holidays. Of course I cried, a throat rattling cry. It took two years to find you, two years of forms and foster care classes on Attachment Disorder and head lice. And prayers and candles lit to show you the way to me, and prayers and eight months of insemination because maybe, just maybe you were coming through my uterus, and then bleeding, and screaming, "What God? What are you asking me to do?" and more prayers and a phone call, "She has nowhere else to go. Her birthday is in two days, she'll be eleven." What the hell am I doing? The records said she set fires, stole, molested younger children, and punched her last foster mother. But I knew she was the one, you were the one; we needed to meet, to be yoked together at the heart. I needed to read to you at bedtime, braid your nappy hair, tell you about bleeding and tampons, leave sanitary pads in your bathroom, argue about make-up and halter tops, praise you at parent-teacher conferences (praise you to your face so you heard the words come from me, not second-hand, there was too much second-hand in your life already.) I needed to hold your spindly body between my open knees, while you punched your bedroom wall and screamed, "I hate you, you fuckin' bitch. You're not my mother. I want my mother." I needed to know I could hold you through your rage and my fear. I needed to know I could hold you through this collision of love.

I needed to know
I could love you no matter
what. You needed
to know I could love
you
no matter
what.

Your rage! We both knew you could kill me. You locked yourself in the bathroom. I locked myself in my bedroom, called your caseworker at midnight to say I can't do this. But I needed to know, so I found the key. I found you, curled in the dry tub, clutching all the blankets you owned. Was this a porcelain protection for you, or for me? "Come back to bed," I whispered through my horror. I'll sing you a song. Finally, tears came. I didn't know you could cry. You curled again between my legs, pressing your head against my breast, your mouth so close to my nipple. You apologized in pre-pubescent awkwardness, "Sorry I touched your boobie." I smelled the top of your head, "That's okay sweetie." You pressed closer as if trying to crawl back into the womb, the womb you could have come from, but didn't. You came from a poisoned womb that poisoned you and yet you still survived. I am your eighth foster mother in seven years.

Tomorrow we will
find mother number nine, but
tonight I need to
know if I can hold your hardened
body like the mother
I would want to be, loving
you unconditionally.

The time had come to love you and let you go. It was time for you to wander on to the next home. I finally knew who I was as a mother. You finally knew a mother who could love you. Four months was all we needed. I could tell you were relieved to be moving on, relieved of your duties to me. Of course you cried, crocodile tears. Someone once told you that you should feel sad at good-byes. You learned sad from the movies, how to cry at good-byes, "So long. Farewell. Auf wiedersehen." Good bye. We both knew it was time. I packed your belongings in my old suitcases, no more garbage bags of clothes for you. One week of grieving for me (maybe something I learned how to do in the movies, too). I re-painted your room

then went back to work,
teaching, as I am called to
do. So now what next?

I dream my riddles
free from attics and basements,
cluttered memories

I thought it would hurt more than it did when you told me, "I don't love you enough." You brushed your hand along my

arm like a haiku,
three brief strokes with the impact
of a tsunami.

I thought it would hurt, but I already knew by then, the hurt of loving and letting go. I knew I would not die in the sucking darkness. I knew the comfort, the familiar wet iron stench of grief, the reality that reminded me I was still alive. I knew my journey:

to love and let go.
I walked my riddles home
and wondered, what next?

Summer in Berkley

I've been to Berkley and back, two classes at Pacific School of Religion. The class on Writing as a Healing Ministry was the final piece of the puzzle for my next journey. I now have an affirmation for the work I truly want to do, which is not the job I'm doing now. The critics in my head, the ones who niggle and complain when I move closer to my true self (the artist, teacher, healer) had much to say at the beginning of the week. Here is some of it:

I noticed she has 60 pairs of shoes, 31 of which are black
and there are no screen windows
in her million dollar home
but there are 3 original Ekuk masks
from the Bakwele tribe
squinting from her fireplace mantle
with coffee bean eyes.

I noticed she has 20 framed photographs
of children, step children, and grandchildren
nestled beneath a 3' x 4' foot wedding portrait.
She is a divorce lawyer specializing in uncontested
divorce contracts. Her daughter is an author
with 2 books to her name. I admire that.

She has 3 goldfish left in a 4' x 4' foot round
pond in her backyard and 1 white-tailed deer
who frequents her front yard to breakfast
on white narcissus. I caught a glimpse of him
this morning just before he tenderly slipped
into the wooded periphery. I want
to see him again.

I heard her ask me, "Now why are you here?"
I said simply, "I want to write. I am a writer," I declared
as I was instructed to declare on the first day of class.
I heard her ask with a slight edge, "Well, how many
books have YOU written?"
"None," I replied stunned and defensive,

"But, who's counting?"

Swallowtails and other signs

Western Tiger Swallowtail, two at the tourist Denver Cliff Dwellings, 2 in the Garden of the Gods (Colorado Springs), one before I left to take a vacation, several on the bikeride with Diane, are they all a sign, are they all even different individual butterflys? Jackson, Donna's friend of 4 years and 10 months, says he grew that yellow butterfly with the black trim. His name is Butter, Jackson's friend, our friend, we catch a glimmer, several times a day, the same Butter stopping by, each time signaling metamorphosis, change, transformation. The boy, Jackson, grows almost a year older, the friend, Donna, too, and she becomes more than just a neighbor, a babysitter, but a woman with a heart as wide as swallowtail wings, and yellow/orange as her house. The catepillar reorganizes in the cocoon, the chrysalis, during a seeming period of lifelessness that doesn't want to show itself in print. Give birth to a new idea, a new opening: shape, form, develop, hone. A butterfly lighting upon a flower is the very essence of joy, beauty, and freedom. Christian soul, Chinese bliss, Native Americans see the butterfly as change and joy...spiritual rebirth. Welcome all, the little boy turning five, the Donna turning 52, the Megan, sweet 40, best transition of all. And Wendy, she is getting ready to fly from her tender white cocoon in Washington. She is done with the generative stage and she is ready to fly. Oh yes, enough of this silken broading. Do what we must and then let it go to the warmth of summer.

Lessons

The Education of a Poet

Her pencil poised, she's ready to create,
Then listens to her mind's perverse debate
On whether what she does serves any use;
And that is all she needs for an excuse
To spend all afternoon and half the night
Enjoying poems other people write.

--Leslie Monsour

This poem was sent in response to one of my poems. I have a concern that I will spend the rest of my life reading the story of others rather than writing my own. This past week I've had several opportunities to stand up for myself, which I don't do on a regular basis. I expressed my point of view and feelings at a board meeting. I held my ground in a theological discussion (yet another blasting of my sexual orientation using the Word of God), and I refused to accept mistreatment of me no matter what the 'excuse' or rationale. I've spend so much of my life concerned with what other people think of me. I can't continue to do that and do my art, follow my path, be the unique being I am. I must trust that what I am called to do does serve others, powerfully sometimes, mildly other times. I am getting closer to drastically shifting my life so I can live my life closer to my call.

The Between Spaces

I inhabit the 'tween
like the Goldfinch
on water's edge
struggling in winter
to keep a float
through my dreams ~
to sing anything of note
to utter anything at all.
Others wing round me
and stalks of dried thistle
rattle my sleep ~
wake me before I am
ready.
If only life
could just be
poetry
and I could
just be.

In the Dog Park

Brothers stand on a hill
Gray haired and tired
as they watch their labadors
wrestle and play.

Each remembers youth,
smiles, but says nothing
to the other.
What have we forgotten?

Longing to Be-long

Hafiz, the Sufi poet, says:

Don't surrender your loneliness
So quickly
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.


I turn on the television as soon as I get home. Sounds of CSI preferable to the silence (I think). My companions on sitcoms, who share a nightly meal with me, more real than the passing of lives in my day (I think). I lent a book to a friend, tagged with my impressions; she returns it, marked with hers. I relish the vague moment of intimacy with her that I never get to have as our lives rush by each other. I see myself standing on a suburban sidewalk at dusk, gazing in windows at families preparing dinner, snuggling around the blue light of the television, and I long to belong (I think). "Something missing in my heart tonight."

My need (I think) is for human intimacy. I think I want a child, a partner, and intentional community, and I will feel full again. Yet, I have blood family, I have extended family, I have good and faithful friends, and I know that one person, one community alone cannot season me to wholeness, to doneness. And yet the sense of exile has been with me all my life. Recently, I've begun to recognize that the exile is self-imposed. What I am learning (I think) is that we belong because we were born...Justification by Grace. AND belonging is be-longing; be in the longing, the cutting loneliness that draws us, drives us into connection and community and intimacy that is our call to living.

And, do I think too much?

Hope Shall Bloom

On Saturday, May 20th, four separate choirs joined together in a musical fundraising event in support of Hurricane survivors in the Gulf Coast. We raised $2500 in that event. Below is one of the poems I read that evening. It was written several summers ago (2003), when the war was so fresh on my mind:

Hope Over the Willamette

On the riverbank, a sienna night,
the symphony explodes in black and white.
It's an 1812 Overture. And we hesitate
in the patriotic.

A raging red Mars enters our sky
while the war still simmers, shock of the world,
in a cauldron of gray. And yet
a single goose sails by.

A bold gift, innocence begun? And the moon
rises on the largo like a New World arrival,
still wet from birth
and teary-eyed wonder.

The Mystery of Happiness

"What good is intelligence if you cannot discover a useful melancholy?" ~ Ryunosuke Akutagawa. As the philosophical one, the contemplative one, am I subject to sadness, always? Most of the time? Honore de Balzac said, "All happiness depends on courage and work." I've been courageous and I've worked hard, but the moments of happiness are fleeting. The bliss of being brief as the thrill I feel in the moment when a hummingbird thrums curiously between me and the alluring red honeysuckle only a yard away. Rare. I take the risk to leave a job that doesn't fulfill me, to step out of easy partnerships; I work for poetry not money; I work to live authentically, and yet the endorphins of happiness continue to skip over me. How much should I continue to seek and how much should I determine to settle? I am drenched in moodiness.

Pay Attention

I just returned from a retreat with my Spiritual Direction class. We've been talking about what it means to live in the presence of G-d, especially if one adheres to the idea of justification by grace rather than by works (you are loved unconditionally for who you are not for what you do). One of the primary practices, or disciplines is to pay attention on the Way. I was reminded of this poem I wrote back in 2003 when I first began this study of Christianity. I was coming more from a Buddhist bent. The poem is in response to one of TS Eliot's poems.

P.S./T.S.

Pay attention
on pathways moist with rain
and fallen cedar boughs,
kiss the soil with bruised knees

between breath and breathless

Pay attention
poised, on the edge,
ready or not,
in earthy sacredness

for this is your kin-dom

Pay attention
to the full length of your spine
surrendered on blankets of peace,
effortless in trust

for life can be very long

Pay attention
to hazel and blue, lover's eyes
and robins' eggs
hidden in nests of tomorrow

for this life in the presence

Pay attention
to footsteps on forgiving ground
walk below weighted clouds, which wash you clean
present, connected, insecure, but whole

for this is the Way of today

Beleven Lupine

 Be-lieve
Belief
Be love
Be life
I believe
in the power of Salmon Berry blossoms
to make me smile.
I believe
you can eat the greens of the Oregon Sorrel,
like a Shamrock salad, and you won’t die.
I believe
in Bleeding Hearts and the blessed resurrection
of Trillium every spring ~ oh those priestesses of the forest.
I don’t believe
that skunk cabbage really stinks (even though I know it does).
I believe
in rolling rivers and peacock blue twilight.
I believe hoot owls are wiser than we.
I believe
in the mystery of the silent moth
forever circling a flickering flame, until…
I believe in deathly attraction ~
in loving hard to the bone then letting go.
I believe
that the knots in wooden fences eventually all fall out
leaving peep holes for the curious and the brave.
I don’t believe in fences
or pearly gates.
I believe in death as a simple part of life.
although I’m not so sure that Christ died just for us.
I believe in the majesty of towering cedar.
I believe in the beloved.
Belief
Be light
Be true
I believe in prayers from open hearts
scarred and throbbing along the Way.
Which way?
Every Way.
Every day
I believe
in the kelly green gift of spring.

Making a Change

THE change, actually, and it's making me, not me making it. You know the one ~ remember that year your mom rampaged through the house ripping off her clothes like some crazed Gypsy Rose Lee. Night sweats were the beginning for me. I get so soaking wet that I'm considering wearing pajamas made from Bounty, "the quicker picker upper." I've always had the mood swings and I live alone so they don't really get documented nor does anyone bare the brunt (except maybe Buddy the cat). In fact, the moodiness is actually lessening in intensity, for which I am quite grateful. What bothers me the most is the weight gain. Even my armpits have a roll now. I used to be so proud of my flat, nearly inverted stomach area; now I can claim a muffin top, you know, that sweet rolling cap that flows over the stressed waist band of your too tight jeans.

I took my first NIA class this week. It is a combination of dance, martial arts and aerobics. For those reading this who don't know me, a bit of background: I was a professional modern dancer for 15 years, studied at one of the best college dance programs in the nation, performed in the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, even acquired an eating disorder in order to maintain the svelte tool of my trade. I worked out 6-8 hours a day six days a week with dance classes, rehearsals, running 8 miles, pumping iron, swimming, yoga, you name it. I retired ten years ago and have altered my work out to watching aerobic videos, sitting on the couch, eating a bag of chips. So a NIA class, I thought would be a good transition back into my body. I remembered the moves and in my head I found myself tracking the list of corrections: release the spine but hold the shoulders down, lift up through the pyrimadalis muscle and the rectus abdominus to hold center, lengthen the sartoris muscle and remember that thumb that keeps sticking out when I have unnecessary tension in the hands, hips aligned, lower back lengthened, foot arched without curling the toes, face muscles (zygomaticus) pulled back for an open, easeful look on my face and follow the line of energy with my eyes and my soul.

Well, I remembered the list, but my body couldn't track it and I tripped, I tripped over my own feet with a movement I used to do every day for 15 years. Can I blame it on the change?

Etched in Stone

Barry Lopez writes in an article about artist Rick Bartow, "It is legitimate to call the artist a carrier, a runner. He or she brings forward a story known from an earlier time. He changes nothing, adds nothing, but by the medicine he has been given, by his gift, he inflects the story."

She struggles with what to write on the sympathy card to the parents of dying twins. No Hallmark sentiment could possibly suffice. She waits for words, maybe too long, until one morning the tiny infant poem comes to her:
"Too rare
for anywhere
but their
ancient Celtic home."
She knows these girls from an earlier time, knows their Irish heritage, and knows this is all she should say. They aren't her words, really, but her responsibility to relay, her medicine, her simple gift to give. On April 12th, 2006 Eleanor Peck Hamilton and Rowan Quinn Hamilton return home (as their father writes). The memorial service is held on April 15th, the day between Good (God) Friday and Easter. Her friend brings her the program for the service. Those words, that just came to her so clearly, were on the front of the program. She is told that these will be the words that will go on the twins' grave marker; etched in stone. She's told by another friend that it isn't called a head stone or tombstone anymore (some aren't even stone anymore). What is she to understand of this? She is stunned.

"He (the artist) ensures that in his time it (the medicine) will lodge unforgettably in the memory of the listener."

Later, the mother writes a thank you note, "When I first read your beautiful poem I wept and thought how agonizingly apt it was for my beautiful elfin children...my changelings, my babies. You have given us the most beautiful fitting and romantic epitaph and I am grateful from the bottom of my heart." The medicine worked, so simply, with only the effort of listening to the spirit and passing it on.

"An artist arranges his life to take care of his medicine. He seeks out the medicine people, the doctors who can help him see (a bear, a tree, his father's brother)."

She has sought to arrange her life to honor the gift she was given, leaving her secure day job, committing to daily meditation and an open heart. Practice, practice, practice. But when the money ran out, she got scared, took another day job, and has little energy left to listen and record. She sees a fox on a spring ski adventure and knows the fox has something to tell her: feminine magic of camouflage, shapeshifting mistress of the between times, the thin places as they call it in Celtic Christianity. She knows the fox could jolt her awake into a "flash of pure epiphany...a diamond light," and yet she puts on her sunglasses and goes back to her job until tragedy strikes and she has no choice but to be still and listen. What is she to understand of this? The importance of her medicine, the need, the purity and aptness of it all. Does she say? Thank you? You're welcome? Does she tell anyone else about these words etched in stone? What does she feel? Pride? Humility? Embarrassment? Gratitude? Loving relief? Shock and awe, and all? She doesn't know. Does she just get on with her life until the next time? Perhaps she learns more from the twins' death then from their living. Perhaps her fear and need for security is a wicked distraction.

"He reminds himself it is not the medicine person who is great. It's that he or she knows how to participate more stongly in the mystery to which the artist has devoted himself. The artist needs guidance to reveal what happens when, for that brief period, he goes inside, when he steps further into life than most of us can manage. He wants to make as few mistakes as possible with his medicine."

The lesson in death, there really isn't that much time. Don't waste it on what she thinks others expect of her. Risk. Go deep. Abide in the 'tween spaces where so few wish to go alone. Walk the thin places, every time she is called, with a humble heart, grateful she has been given this gift~a gift no lesser or greater than anyone else's, but belonging uniquely to her. Let the words be etched in stone, words the twins gave her to comfort their grieving family. If she lives the good medicine, devoted, she will have lived well.

More Death. Damn it.

"It's the little things that get to me," Ruth sighed as her grieving body released oh so slightly into my embrace. We don't know each other very well, but death is a commonality that connects us all. I thought Ruth should have a witness to the little things in her marriage that she misses now that Greg is gone. "Like what?" I asked. "Every morning he would greet me with, 'So nice to see you today. Would you like some tea?' and I miss having someone being so glad to see me every single day for all those years." Tears brimmed at her lower lids, but never fell. "I appreciate all the meals you all bring. I'm not usually like this, I mean, I have food in the cabinets and the freezer, but something all made up, made with love..." More tears waiting on the edge. "You're allowed to need. That's why we are in community," I assure her. This Sunday she adandones her lone spot in church and sits in Sherry and DeAnn's pew, leaning in, just ever so slightly.

Trillium

Trillium

Trinity of forest floors, remind me
as I cling, in this spring of uncertainty,
my desire to claim, possess as mine,
heightened by daily news and little sign
of peace. I seek your lesson, wood lily ~

Rife and wild, you are ever meant to be
white wake robin, shaded, yes. Sheltered, but free
from harsh winds and warring lives entwined
trinity of forest floors, remind me ~

If I pluck violet-veined petals, nestled in ivy,
to vase as mine, for seven years I will not see
your flower, in patches of promise, divine
golden centers of hope in precarious times.
Behold, but not hold any blossom too tightly.
Trinity of forest floors, remind me.

Spelling Errors

Some typos and spelling errors I really appreciate. A student wrote about "realationships." I like it. I want it ~ a real relationship, not a flirtation that goes nowhere, an affair lacking commitment, an emotionally superficial connection. I'm ready for the real thing in real time, the good, the bad, the ugly, the exquisitely real.

A Foundation

Monday, the day after Easter, we broke ground for our Grace Academy cob bench (made from clay, sand, and straw). The middle school students designed the bench with clay models. The expectation was that the bench would artistically represent the history of the neighborhood, the untold stories and unsung heroes of Sullivan's Gulch. It needed to fish-tail around to accommodate two views, one of their public art mural and one of the future intersection project on the opposite corner. Finally, we asked the students to consider representing our interdependence of humanity, the confluence of community, of the past and our future dreams. They designed a two tier, semi-circle bench inlaid with handmade tiles representing the unsung heroes. A double spiral column (like the double helix of our DNA) supports a living roof. The ground breaking ceremony included a wish or hope from each student as s/he placed a rock around the periphery. "I hope people like our bench." "I wish this bench will draw the community together." "I hope we are remembered." We were all handed an egg (filled with confetti) to crack on our heads in celebration. Brightly colored paper and egg shells scattered on the cold ground. Renewal. Spring. New life. Promise of Easter scattered on the cold ground. As the director, I made the first dig into the turf. I need a new foundation.

The next day, with a foot deep hole in the ground, it was time to put down the urbanite foundation. I took the noon shift, pleased to move with the pace of stone, slowly, deliberating on the puzzle before us. Each randomly cut piece needed to fit evenly with the others...no rocking, precarious base ~ a perpetual, underlying support that integrated with the earth and offered us all a resting place. I need a resting place. Tuesday was sunny and warm. Sweat dripped from my forehead and ran down my face like salty tears. I took time to examine each empty spot, each possible piece of urbanite. I took my time placing each stone as if the success of our entire future was dependent on my choice. A symbolic circle of stone, I stood inside. I stood outside. We poured sand between the three layers of stone...filling the crevices with desert. I have wheelbarrow level bruises on my thighs from carting urbanite to the site ~ laying the stone, not rolling it away. A sturdy foundation. Starting over. In the beginning. A new song.

Rebirth, Resurrection, Reincarnation: What's the Dif?

Three days after the twin's death, Easter. I can't help but anticipate a resurrection. I never believed there would be a second coming of Christ as foretold in the hyperbolic predictions of Revelations...too mythological for my reality. Yet, humans use myth to explain the inexplicable and right about now I could really use a viable explanation for the death of Eleanor and Quinn. This Good Friday we, in our faith community, all wrestle on God's Friday, this soggy gray northwest day as the heavens rain down on us in torrents of tears (speaking of mythological hyperbole), we all wrestle with the grim reality of mortality and the ineffable hope of resurrection.

One of my students responded to an essay question on whether or not justice was one-sided or depended on everyone agreeing with his argument that our concept of justice is based on our belief in an afterlife. His hypothesis was that those who believed in an afterlife are less concerned about mortality and less caught up in seeking justice for this lifetime...hmmm? In contrast then wouldn't the exisistentialists be more concerned with justice in the here and now because their won't be a judgment day, an opportunity for salvation in an afterlife? What about the first 1000 years of Christianity where the belief was that we're all simply dead, right now, until the second coming? What about the rapture rage? What about the belief that you live in judgment of your deeds in this life in order to be saved in the next? Obviously the debate over judgment, mortality, and the afterlife is beyond the scope of an SAT Review Essay, but clearly, our decisions about how we choose to live in this lifetime are based on our beliefs about what's next, if anything, and what part does judgment (our own, societies, God's or the gods and goddesses) play along the Way.

Says the Reverend Susan Leo, "Good Friday is the day we can really know that God is with us when our lives are too hard to bear. Good Friday is the day that we lose everything, so that on Easter morning, we can receive God's gift of everything. Be not afraid. It's real life."

I believe I am supposed to find new life every day, every day a rebirth, a resurrection. I don't expect an empty tomb drama each day, a glowing visage packed with metaphor for how I should live my life. That's been done. I'm not going to get anymore signs until I believe the ones that are already here and have come before. Reincarnation is the reality, resurrection, the hope, and rebirth the promise of forgiveness if we trust and believe that our lives (our tombs of living) are simultaneously empty and full. Death and renewal, an unavoidable cycle occurring every second of every day. That's real life.

1:30 a.m.

Buddy the cat and I step out on the kitchen deck, looking for the cold, post mid-night, full moon. That moon, infamous 2006 Passover moon, is muted by northwest clouds and shaggy birch tree branches. The night is too cold for me. I don't understand life. I don't understand death,
and I cannot sleep.

Walking into the Future (Stafford Reports Back)

Of course there is more room to roam if you roam alone.
(We have reached this place.)

Risk walking in your own footsteps (If there is trust,
we make no mistakes.)

What is the secret for walking in the new?
(Our feet are trying to remember. Stay out of their way.)

-Wendy (2003)