Archive for July, 2010
Tasks
There’s the limb that came down in
the last storm. And the peach tree we
want to transplant. And the furnace needs
to be cleaned. And I promised to water the
plants while you’re gone. And I want to buy
you that necklace I saw you linger with when
I was waiting on the sidewalk. You held it
like it reminded you of the strong part of
your heart. I don’t know where to begin.
I keep staring at the maple bowing to the
October wind, its leaves turning inside out.
I think it’s going to rain. I spread the tasks,
even the ones I want to do, spread them
with my silence like a broom brushing
a puddle off the driveway. Mira is curled
under my desk. I ask her if she wants a task,
the way we ask if she wants a treat. Her tail
thumps in her sleep. More tasks like treats
wait at work. Which keep the world going?
Which keep us from ourselves? I’m
coming to like things as they are.
Terri Glass’s “The Fox Path”
The fox is clever, stealthy, swift, familial, independent, hearty, and very beautiful. In Spanish the word is zorro, a noun affixed to a dashing fictional hero of early California.
The fox’s path is a road for independent souls, wise familiars, rogues and rebels. The fox’s path ignores walls and fences, makes use of ditches, switches back on itself countless times, and winds through thickets and farmyards. The fox on its path wears out the dogs.
Sometimes foxes find us. Then they always seem like familiars. I saw one come out of the brush to the water’s edge at Coole Park in Ireland to take a happy, long drink. Another spoke to me in my barn from the pages of a long poem I wrote. Recently a woman told me a fox visited her deck for several months to sleep nightly on her chaise lounge.
All of these encounters seem magical, and that seems to be a given with fox sightings. No matter how often you encounter a fox, you dream of meeting another and another.
A Bay Area poet with roots in the Northwest, Terri Glass, wrote this poem:
“The Fox Path”
I want to follow the fox path
and enter a different world;
become swift, light footed
wear an outrageous fur coat
aim like an arrow
toward my earthen home
dream fox dreams
in my hidden den
slip into the womb
of hibernation,
melodic and serene
and always in tune
to the perfect hues of spring.
I want to follow the fox path-
the unknown beckoning;
the ancient world of smell,
the true field of touch-
paw to ground, nose to wind
fur radiating out
north, south, east and west.
I want to follow the fox path
and forget my humanness.
I want to follow the fox path
every morning I awake.
Like a dream-catcher, Glass perfectly snares my desire to be transmuted into another form, the fox’s sly, unconquerable form. Like me, like Terri Glass, don’t you want to “enter a different world? Be faster, lighter, more outrageously beautiful? Haven’t you ever wanted to dream the dreams of another creature? And who would not want to be “melodic and serene/and always in tune/to the perfect hues of spring?” Do you feel the insistent yearning and the fierce desire in these lines?
I want to follow the fox path-
the unknown beckoning;
the ancient world of smell,
the true field of touch-
paw to ground, nose to wind
fur radiating out
north, south, east and west.
I feel a sense of joy and abandon, a running to and an embrace of the unknown, a mad scamper back to reclaim the ancient world and the true field of the senses. And when I read or hear these lines—“paw to ground, nose to wind/fur radiating out/north, south, east and west” I am in the field transformed, thrilling to the sensation of the wind gusting in all directions, riffling along my body.
Rather than end there, Glass reminds us in four closing lines that transformation requires intention and focus. It requires perseverance. It requires shedding what is restrictive, or human, and embracing the bold sprint to freedom not just once, but every day I wake up.
You might enjoy this writing prompt. What is your favorite totem, the magical animal you dream of. Is it an owl? A horse? A wolf. Write a poem about meeting, sharing an adventure with, or becoming this creature.
Grace Notes
In learning to play piano at the age of forty-one, I worked my fingers far enough into that uncanny dimension that all pianists know, regardless of their level of skill, where the hands, briefly, beyond all logic, start to behave more quickly than the mind that tries to read the notes or position the fingers. I had practiced enough weeks that I was ready to tackle my first piece of Bach, a minuet taken from a collection he created for his wife, a book that she herself copied, which has come to be known as Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena.
In the eighth measure of that minuet there appears a note smaller than the rest. Almost ghost-like, it hovers very near the others like a barely seeable angel or a hummingbird whose path is more readily seen than its body. It surprised me. My teacher called it a grace note; a note that though played has no time; a note that though heard takes up no time in the measure of the song; a note that matters, though it is timeless. And therein lies its grace.
Now, eighteen years later, I realize this is another means to understand the paradox of epiphany; of moments that open and transcend their sense of ordinary time. In truth, every glimpse of eternity I have ever encountered has forever affected how I see and hear though it has taken up no time in the measure of the song. And seeking out the great sages and mystics throughout history, listening to their wisdom as it reverberates in the moments they are indistinguishable from life itself, I find over and over that the humbling instant in which we are washed along with the swell of the Universe is a note of grace.
When such a moment occurs, when the mind is touched by something larger than its ability to understand, when the heart is moved by something deeper than its capacity to dive, when the impulse to speak is stirred by the presence of something that cannot be named, things happen that defy the boundaries of time. In such moments we are made aware of a unity that is always present but seldom clearly known, and the flood of that presence, even when its conscious wave has passed, changes the life of the being who encounters it.
Moments like the moon, full and stark, rising over the garage between the oak and maple in the urban backyard of a friend as we barbecue and suddenly, the moon is calling in its white silence, drawing the smoke and fragrance out of the meat into the sky, and we, without a word, feel coated with a timeless film of light from another world, the same as cavemen preparing their game at the mouth of their cave.
Moments like the morning of my annual cat-scan since having cancer, and just as I leave the house, I walk the garden to see a cardinal splashing water on itself in the birdbath, and I am struck at our role since the beginning of civilization, at how we place things in the earth to collect water that will attract birds of color, how we really want something to call us to our thirst. How in the wet redness of the cardinal’s throat against the yellow of the primrose, I somehow know that everything will be alright.
Moments like watching my friend’s oldest cat adjust to being blind. How all at once, the cat’s attempt to make its way around a single room is clearly the hidden patch of softness we keep tucked behind our heart. How the soft attempts of the cat to find its dish without a clue so mirrors the soul groping within us for a life to carry it.
Moments of soft, relentless grace like the other night, celebrating one of our birthdays, the cake put between us, the lights turned off, all of us caught watching the sparkler on the cake, each of us peering from our own personal seat of darkness, gathering as we do, fixed by the hiss of light flaring between us, feeling the sparks fly, afraid one might burn us, hoping it does.
Reflections from Your Heroic Journey Class 2
Day 2 of Your Heroic Journey yesterday. Everyone on the call was particularly moved by this teaching about the land. Robert’s prompt to us: write about the land that’s sacred to you.
Security
There are so many circumstances in our world right now threatening our experience of feeling secure. What do we do when the cacophony of both the inner critic, or Con Artist, as I call it, is “shoulding” us and the outer world’s threats—the realities of financial calamity, political terrorism, environmental disasters—are weighing on our conscience so deeply that any or all of the following symptoms exist: our spirits are flatlined and anxious; our hearts are breaking; our minds are worried; and our bodies are exhausted.
Maybe the question we should all be asking ourselves is: “Who do I want to be during these challenging times?”
This is not a time of “don’t worry, be happy!” This is also not a time to let your sadness, anger, or despair turn into depression or bitterness. This is a time when we all may need to slow down to hear and see the truth, a time when we may need to ask for help. This is time when we must face the inner and the outer threats upon our security and see if it might be an opportunity for personal growth and character building.
My invitation to you is to begin within. Outer security will always be temporal while the internal security of our souls lasts for eternity.
Truth’s Sweetness: A Guided Meditation
Truth’s Sweetness
In Pema Chodron’s No Time To Lose, her commentary on the verses of Shantideva, she refers to certain couplets in which Shantideva hears “the
sweetness of truth.” I read that passage over three or four times, then paused to
consider it.
Intellectually, consciously, I wondered what the sweetness of truth would
sound like. I understood that in Pema Chodron’s book, the moment she
described involved Shantideva’s perception and no one else’s. Shantideva told us
in his couplets what truth’s sweetness sounded like to him. How it sounds to me
or you is as unique as we are.
I considered not the essence of truth’s sweetness, but the sound of it. What
are the sweetest sounds I’ve heard?
Many singers and songs resonate with truth’s sweetness—Paul Robeson
singing spirituals, John Lennon with his simple, elegant anthem, Imagine, Tom
Waits in his ballads and Liam Clancy with anyone’s ballads, Bob Dylan from
1962 to 1980, Judy Collins, Lucinda Williams, and so many more.
I lived with a dog for ten years, a Familiar, who would lean into a speaker
when I played a 78 recording of Jeanette MacDonald singing “The Kerry Dance.” He
would lean into the speaker and harmonize, howling with joy. The sound of his
howling and MacDonald’s rendition of that standard had truth’s sweetness in
them.
A train passes near my home every morning between seven and eight,
and every night between ten and eleven. The chug-chug of wheels on rails and
the whistle blowing always make me grateful and feeling as if I’m hearing the
sweetness of truth. I hear it in the voices of loved ones, in bird song, in the breeze
that dances with the trees. I hear it in the heavy sighs of sleepers, in soundtracks
of favorite movies, and I hear it when I listen to a recording of Dylan Thomas
reading poems. I hear it in the buzz of bees coming into and leaving their hive, in
the whirr of hummingbirds at feeders, in the huzzah of ballparks and Vin
Scully’s radio play by play. I hear it in traffic and ocean surf, in lightning and
thunder, in horses munching alfalfa or nickering as you pass by. I know I’m
listening to the sweetness of truth while mesmerized by the speeches of Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Intellectually, I know that all of these things include, for me, the sound of
truth’s sweetness. Spiritually, I’m pretty sure that hearing the sweetness of truth
occurs when I am in the moment and really listening. I am not overly concerned
with giving it a name, I just am. I am open, all ears, grateful for every wisdomchime
of blessed sound!
*
For this meditation, allow your intellect to be your triggering mechanism.
If you are angry now, use it here. If not, recall three-to-five situations in which
you were angry, even mangry. Now, come up with single words that rename
that anger. Remember, your anger was personal, so the new names you come up
with should be, too.
Once you have your new words (and yes, of course you can make up a
word, just like I did), write a short or long line r sentence for each one.
Contemplate the release of steam from a kettle as you recite the words, lines or
sentences in any sequence and combination that feels right to you. When you feel
it is appropriate, stop and remain silent in your natural state.
*
A second stage of this meditation includes a poem. Write one, in any form
or style, about a friend or family member who made you angry, or a friend you
angered. Many people write about their parents in this exercise, or their
relationship partner. Some write about their boss, their teacher. A woman even
wrote a poem once about her dog and how angry she felt about the dog’s
neediness! But right here, right now, it is important that you choose. Write your
poem, formal or informal, brief or long, and recite it three times, pausing for at
least sixteen long breaths for reflection between each recitation.
Here are four haiku I wrote for this exercise:
The tractor stalls again.
The farmer rests awhile, dreams
of plows and horses.
*
The night is bug bite
Heaven. Mosquitoes crave blood,
and girls to drink with.
*
He did it–Mickey
Mantle in bike spokes. A man
adds up his losses.
*
A poem impales
an editor. His head falls.
Someone dims the lights.
Each haiku speaks of things breaking down, of nature out of our control,
of bad choices and unwanted intrusions. Anger is quiet and tightly tethered, but
it’s there in every tercet. By the time I wrote these haiku and recited them in
practice a few times, my anger significantly subsided. Through my poem, I
released the steam building up in the kettle. Then I was able to hear again the
sweetness of truth.
Use your own poem now to do the same.
The Slowing of the Land
There is a day
when the road neither
comes or goes, and the way
is not a way but a place.
—Wendell Berry
We drive to Bangor, take a right at the blinking yellow light, another right on Hastings Court and then down a dirt road to Blue Dog Greens. Twenty-eight acres of agreeable land tucked between the railroad tracks and Black River. Dennis and Genevieve live there, very simply, in order to tend this organic farm. It’s a sunny, wind-blown day in July and close to thirty of us show up to help harvest the garlic. About an acre to pull up, shake off, carry, rope and hang in the rafters of the open air shed; high enough that the animals can’t nibble the harvest away.
After a few rows, I get the hang of it: pull the stalk up directly, so the garlic underground won’t break off. Some come easy, as if waiting for us to finally bring them like a birth into the world. Others hold back, as if saying we’re not ready, leave us be. Either way there’s a tug as the roots break free. I pull up fifty or so and stop to stretch my back when I hear the wind bending the oaks and maples at the edge of the field. I can see the bunch of us scattered through the beds, bending and pulling in the rows. And something wells up in me. For a moment, I feel part of some unannounced community that has come together and come apart for all of time: the coming together to harvest, to pull what we can from the ground, to dry it out and wait; so it can feed the lot of us when the ground freezes up and things seem rough.
This is such hard work, not our pulling up the garlic, but the slowing of the land till it yields something edible and sustainable; the hard work of these two and the small band of earth-lovers who come and go to help. And though we think of bounty when we think of harvest, I realize that the process is much more complex and telling, endemic of resiliency on earth: the land is broken of its grip so it can receive a seed, then watered till the seed can take root, then covered and protected from birds and rabbits and coons, then weeded to keep the other wild things from suffocating what is slowly growing. And finally, when the edible thing has grown its own roots, we come along and tear those roots, so it can feed us.
This is not harsh but intimately natural, only callous when we forget what harvest means. Only wasted when we don’t make the intimate connection to how this process works in our own lives: how everything we love and want requires this slowing; until what matters takes hold enough that we can break its roots so it can feed us.
Get a taste of Robert’s class
Your Heroic Journey started yesterday and it was an inspiring and thought-provoking class. Here’s a little sampling of Robert talking about how the experience of poetry mirrors the classic hero’s journey. We’ll be posting small excerpts from the class from week to week.
The quest of becoming a Life Artist
In his poem, “How to Paint Sunlight,” Lawrence Ferlinghetti captures the quest of becoming a Life Artist in that, as I see it, Life Artists are committed to seeing their true colors and creating their lives from a place of greater authenticity and full self-expression from the light, or potential, within their soul.
How to Paint Sunlight
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poets
how to paint sunlight
on the face of life
Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous
as if they were all guarding trade secrets
Whereas it seems to me
all you have to do
is conceive of the whole world
and all humanity
as a kind of art work
a site-specific art work
an art project of the god of light
the whole earth and all that’s in it
to be painted with light
And the first thing you have to do
is paint out postmodern painting
And the next thing is to paint yourself
in your true colors
in primary colors
as you see them
(without whitewash)
paint yourself as you see yourself
without make-up
without masks
Then paint your favorite people and animals
with your brush loaded with light
And be sure you get the perspective right
and don’t fake it
because one false line leads to another
***
And don’t forget to paint
all those who lived their lives
as bearers of light
Paint their eyes
and the eyes of every animal
***
Paint the light of their eyes
the light of sunlit laughter
the song of eyes
the song of birds in flight
And remember that the light is within
if it is anywhere
and you must paint from the inside
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