The poets have scattered you.
A storm ripped through their stammering.
I want to gather you up again
in a vessel that makes you glad.
I wander in your winds
and bring back everything I find.
The blind man needed you as a cup.
The servant concealed you.
The homeless one held you out as I passed.
You see, I like to look for things.
What is it about the art of gathering that fascinates me so? My deep belief that we come to know through riddles runs parralel with my heart's aching for that which is lost in life. Some things are lost from my life, sometimes I am lost from life. The cure for lost-ness is journeying home. Wandering in the the wind as Rilke says. The image is priceless for me. The image speaks of pieces that deserve to be remembered as my own. Re-membered.
Yet looking for things is not the same as actually collecting things. I can look for things and believe they belong to the new environment and never reach for them. The art of gathering is not just the act of looking for things, but daring to believe that one thing belongs to another and remembering them.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Finding meanings
I’ll admit that I always see deeper meanings in things. For example, my son Joe found two cats in the woods. They were too young to be left without a mother and so they became ours. Joe fed them with cat formula using an eyedropper. They were going to be named Jake and Elwood, after the Blues Brothers.
But, somehow Elwood stuck but Jake became “Red,” partly because he was more red in color than Elwood but also because we found him on the curb. When our oldest son, Dan acquires anything from the curb, he says that he got it from “Red’s garage sale.” Names are complicated, suffice it to say.
Back to Elwood. We had the cats for seven years, Joe had gone off to college and one evening, Pete (my partner) came home from work to watch Elwood have what seemed to be a heart attack. It was very dramatic. He was trying to eat, then it seemed he couldn’t breathe. He did a somersault and died.
I was telling my friend, Shannon the story a couple days later. I was telling her that the two cats were so much like the two sides to Joe’s personalities. It scared me with him being away at school. I started to say, “Perhaps that means that part of Joe’s personality is dying as he matures,” but she interrupted me and said, “Not everything means something.” I was caught off guard. I said, “of course everything means something.”
But, somehow Elwood stuck but Jake became “Red,” partly because he was more red in color than Elwood but also because we found him on the curb. When our oldest son, Dan acquires anything from the curb, he says that he got it from “Red’s garage sale.” Names are complicated, suffice it to say.
Back to Elwood. We had the cats for seven years, Joe had gone off to college and one evening, Pete (my partner) came home from work to watch Elwood have what seemed to be a heart attack. It was very dramatic. He was trying to eat, then it seemed he couldn’t breathe. He did a somersault and died.
I was telling my friend, Shannon the story a couple days later. I was telling her that the two cats were so much like the two sides to Joe’s personalities. It scared me with him being away at school. I started to say, “Perhaps that means that part of Joe’s personality is dying as he matures,” but she interrupted me and said, “Not everything means something.” I was caught off guard. I said, “of course everything means something.”
Friday, June 24, 2005
Shelter from the wind
I was taking some ridiculously overdue time away. By time away, I mean solitude. I have learned over the years that a life without solitude can never be truly hospitable. In other words, if there is no place for me in me, there is no place for you either. So, space – I created space for myself. My friend offered her beach house to me (which turned out to be a house, literally on the boardwalk on Long Island complete with private beach entrance and private pool.) So, I loaded my car braved the seventeen bridges it takes to go 50 miles. As a general rule, Jersey folk don’t drive to NY, we take the train. Of course, there are many, many – did I say many – commuters who drive every dang day into the city. But, the rest of us are happy to go in every once in awhile and take public transportation. So, driving to LI was an adventure.
Yet my destination was not LI, it was solitude. And to accommodate that solitude, I had to fill up my proverbial gas tank, I had to make sure I had enough “cash” for the seventeen bridges. I needed helpers to accommodate solitude: books, wine, sunscreen.
Upon arrival, I was given the grand tour and welcomed with a beer. A good beer. Thank God for good beer. Then, when I was left on my own, I quickly took a walk down the shoreline. I made it about ½ mile down and then turned around, wondering what to do next. I mean I could keep walking… heck, I could walk to the end, but is that what I want to do?
Wow, I haven’t asked, “what do you want to do?” in a long time! I wanted to go back to the condo and read a bit. So, I did. I did that for 40 minutes and as if my legs had minds of their own, I stood up and wondering, “What do I want to do now?” It’s only been 40 minutes, certainly you can sit still for more than 40 minutes. Apparently not!
It’s not boredom, it’s terror. Terror of facing myself alone. Terror of having no other voices around to drown out the worries in my soul. There was no one else to share the grief of transition happening in my life. Just me. And, of course the books, the wine, and the sunscreen.
Day One: I read. I listened to the wind. I reflected. I penned letters to my partner, who I desperately wished was hear to share my solitude. I drank wine. I put on my sunscreen. I read. You get the picture.
Day two: More sunscreen, less wind, more breathing, continued letter but happier to be alone. And, then the most amazing thing happened. A tiny butterfly, not even an inch in diameter landed on the arm of my beach chair. She was gold with a bit of amber. I cupped my hand to her side to shelter her from the wind, which seemed heavier on her than on me. Her wings slowed down, my own breathing matched hers. She rested, and then road the wind to her next destination.
Plan for day three: Read, drink wine , apply sunscreen. breathe deeper, allowing the solitude to be for me a cosmic hand cupped to my side, sheltering me from the wind. Know that I too will ride the wind to my next destination, in due time.
Yet my destination was not LI, it was solitude. And to accommodate that solitude, I had to fill up my proverbial gas tank, I had to make sure I had enough “cash” for the seventeen bridges. I needed helpers to accommodate solitude: books, wine, sunscreen.
Upon arrival, I was given the grand tour and welcomed with a beer. A good beer. Thank God for good beer. Then, when I was left on my own, I quickly took a walk down the shoreline. I made it about ½ mile down and then turned around, wondering what to do next. I mean I could keep walking… heck, I could walk to the end, but is that what I want to do?
Wow, I haven’t asked, “what do you want to do?” in a long time! I wanted to go back to the condo and read a bit. So, I did. I did that for 40 minutes and as if my legs had minds of their own, I stood up and wondering, “What do I want to do now?” It’s only been 40 minutes, certainly you can sit still for more than 40 minutes. Apparently not!
It’s not boredom, it’s terror. Terror of facing myself alone. Terror of having no other voices around to drown out the worries in my soul. There was no one else to share the grief of transition happening in my life. Just me. And, of course the books, the wine, and the sunscreen.
Day One: I read. I listened to the wind. I reflected. I penned letters to my partner, who I desperately wished was hear to share my solitude. I drank wine. I put on my sunscreen. I read. You get the picture.
Day two: More sunscreen, less wind, more breathing, continued letter but happier to be alone. And, then the most amazing thing happened. A tiny butterfly, not even an inch in diameter landed on the arm of my beach chair. She was gold with a bit of amber. I cupped my hand to her side to shelter her from the wind, which seemed heavier on her than on me. Her wings slowed down, my own breathing matched hers. She rested, and then road the wind to her next destination.
Plan for day three: Read, drink wine , apply sunscreen. breathe deeper, allowing the solitude to be for me a cosmic hand cupped to my side, sheltering me from the wind. Know that I too will ride the wind to my next destination, in due time.
Friday, June 17, 2005
Van Gogh on Jesus
"Christ alone - of all the philosophers, Magi, etc. - has affirmed, as a pricpal certainty, eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity and the raison d'etre of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh. That is to say, this matchless artist, hardly to be conceived of by the obtuse instrument of our modern, nervous, stupefied brains, made neither statues nor pictures nor books; he loudly proclaimed that he made... living men, immortals.
Manicured Lawns
Kim Stafford writes, "There is a clear lawn, then the messy digging that begins a garden, then the order of the garden when it flourishes." I have never thought that my summa cum lifestyle was creating a beautifully lush lawn that would may provide space for a church to plant a garden. All I saw/ felt this morning was the shovel making a hole. I wonder now what kind of fruit might grow in that hole?
Friday, June 03, 2005
Doubled over in pain, with dozens of
advil swimming in my stomach, I
lay in bed.
Am I sick? Or just
avoiding the mext phase?
Piles of paper, mail,
books invade the air around me.
But - I leave it - wanting
to remember
the last phase. People, work,
assignments and learning, left
to read.
My life clutters my house.
Clutter? Is my life but clutter?
In my you th, we
collected clutter in the
laundry basket - carried
by little hands
distributing, depositing
remnants of weeks past --
dividing, delivering
a face lifted life.
The space no longer speaks as
a whole but many
spaces, flavored with the
life past.
Perhpas life like cooking requires layered flavors.
Some from the whole
to the part - ready to seep
into the whole again.
advil swimming in my stomach, I
lay in bed.
Am I sick? Or just
avoiding the mext phase?
Piles of paper, mail,
books invade the air around me.
But - I leave it - wanting
to remember
the last phase. People, work,
assignments and learning, left
to read.
My life clutters my house.
Clutter? Is my life but clutter?
In my you th, we
collected clutter in the
laundry basket - carried
by little hands
distributing, depositing
remnants of weeks past --
dividing, delivering
a face lifted life.
The space no longer speaks as
a whole but many
spaces, flavored with the
life past.
Perhpas life like cooking requires layered flavors.
Some from the whole
to the part - ready to seep
into the whole again.
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