I thought that I would give up on the Goldfinch Wild Yeast herd because the two times I tried to make something with it, it turned to weirdly textured, salty flatbread. I ignored it for two days, neither feeding nor stirring it, and finally looked at it last night. The texture was spongy and bubbly. So I fed it. This morning I decided just to use the whole lot of it, try to make something, and call myself finished, so I mixed up a dough this morning, and it was rubbery and hard. I decided that it was destined for compost, but decided to let it rise anyway.
Two and a half hours later, it was double its size, and light and fluffy. I punched it down, pulled off a one-cup portion to put back in my now-clean Yeast Corral jar, and shaped it into a loaf and some rolls.
I, too, am rather a late-bloomer. Perhaps you are, too? Maybe we will also rise with such grace and great will. Let us be leaven. (Hmm. Do we need to write some leaven/heaven poems?)
Gratitude List: 1. The Wild Herd of Goldfinch Yeast rose! Yay, little yeasts! 2. How a yoga session unknotted me this morning 3. That pretty green bush Jon planted on the bluff ten or fifteen years ago has come into its own in the past couple years, this year especially. It’s really an elegant little being. I’m so glad I failed to kill it those times when I accidentally mowed over it. 4. Digital/virtual communities–of course they can’t replace the real thing, but they do provide deep connections when the real thing is curtailed. 5. Hugging. Do trees hug back? I think they do. I think that hugging trees also encourages endorphins. (Why don’t you experiment on that for yourself?)
May we walk in Beauty!
“As truly as God is our father, so truly is God our mother.” —Julian of Norwich
“Had I not created my whole world, I would certainly have died in other people’s.” ―Anaïs Nin
“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” ―William Wordsworth
Forever Oneness, who sings to us in silence, who teaches us through each other. Guide my steps with strength and wisdom. May I see the lessons as I walk, honor the Purpose of all things. Help me touch with respect, always speak from behind my eyes. Let me observe, not judge. May I cause no harm, and leave music and beauty after my visit. When I return to forever may the circle be closed and the spiral be broader. ―Bee Lake (Aboriginal poet)
“We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.” ―Joseph Campbell
“I can’t tell you why your story is important, only that it is.” ―Mara Eve Robbins
Room 206 before I took down the things from the walls and bulletin board.
This week I have been the worship leader for my church’s Sunday service, my first time to prepare the videos to open the service, to pray, to bless us at the end, and to ask others to do children’s time and scripture. It felt daunting, and it highlighted how much I miss being part of that weekly gathering. And so last night’s dream:
In the dream, I am planning worship, asking people to make videos for the Sunday morning service. The pastor suggests that we really need a saxophone solo, so I go searching for people I know who could record a saxophone solo, but suddenly it’s no longer quarantine, and we’re holding church in a parking lot in a city (on folding chairs) and it’s about to begin and I have not yet found someone to do the saxophone solo when an old friend comes walking by and I ask him, and he starts to play “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In” and everyone gets up and follows him in a dancing march around and around the parking lot, and everyone is laughing and dancing and celebrating, and no one is afraid to bump into anyone else or to touch.
And now I am crying.
The other day, Jon and I were talking about what it will mean when parts of Pennsylvania go from red to yellow, and I realized that for me, it won’t necessarily be any different. Really, in life Before, I mostly went to four places: church, school, and to visit our parents. When we go to yellow, we still won’t go to church, we definitely won’t go to school, and I don’t think we’ll be able to visit retirement communities yet. It feels pretty bleak.
I wrote that thing the other day about the After, how the time when this is over won’t be a “getting back to normal.” I like that awareness that people are putting into the world–this is a time for change and transformation, to envision what the new way will be when we are again out in the world. Still, for me, I long to get back to a normal where we can brush past each other in public, link arms, hug, dance, celebrate together without fear, when we can go marching in, joyfully, to the public places we share together.
Gratitude List: 1. Sometimes something that appears and creates stress is also really exciting. I have a week to get my whole classroom cleared (that means my thousand and one books packed, too) because it looks like construction on our air conditioning will begin in June! 2. Anticipating Oriole 3. Quiet mornings with my boy before anyone else is up 4. Good stretching 5. Dreaming well
May we walk in Beauty!
“An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. I think that is true of painters, sculptors, poets, musicians. As far as I’m concerned, it’s their choice, but I CHOOSE to reflect the times and situations in which I find myself. That, to me, is my duty. And at this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved. Young people, black and white, know this. That’s why they’re so involved in politics. We will shape and mold this country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore. So I don’t think you have a choice. How can you be an artist and NOT reflect the times? That to me is the definition of an artist.” —Nina Simone
“A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.” —Rachel Naomi Remen
“The secret to waking up is unscrambling the word earth.” —anonymous
“I have come to regard with some suspicion those who claim that the Bible never troubles them. I can only assume this means they haven’t actually read it.” ―Rachel Held Evans
“What a comfort to know that God is a poet.” ―Rachel Held Evans
“Geometry is the archetype of the beauty of the world.” —Johannes Kepler
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” —John Keating (Robin Williams in Dead Poet Society)
“You are the Ground of all being the Well-Spring of time Womb of the earth the Seed-Force of stars. And so at the opening of this day we wait not for blessings from afar but for You the very Soil of our soul the early Freshness of morning the first Breath of day.” —John Philip Newell
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” ―J.K. Rowling
The white egret has been visiting the creek across the road since the neighbors took the bamboo down. I took a photo with my phone through the binoculars, then did some filter-work to add some mood and deal with the odd blur.
I put my mantra on a sticky note on my big computer screen yesterday: Limber, Heathy, & Strong. Then I added another: Straighten your spine. And then: BREATHE
These were good reminders throughout the day. It was hard to keep my intention of getting up every hour–back-to-back meetings, getting caught up in the thing I was doing, forgetting to check the time. . . Today, I will try again.
Gratitude List: 1. Visiting egrets 2. I found my Spirit Voyage Sampler CD–just perfect for quiet stretching and meditating. 3. How April throws up poems from previous years in my face. Some I thought were pretty good are kind of meh, and some I was uncomfortable with are grabbing me now. Maybe in May, I’ll finally find the energy to start another collection. We’ll see. 4. Catching new rhythms. 5. So much green!
May we walk in Beauty!
“Imagine the tiny percentage of your body that is directly involved in reading this sentence. Now, consider the oversized percentage this conscious part of you occupies in your concept of yourself. So? What does this discrepancy mean? Is our “who” different from our “what”?” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist
“Where you ache to be recognized, allow yourself to be seen.” —Toko-pa Turner
“People have said to me, ‘You’re so courageous. Aren’t you ever afraid?’ I laugh because it’s not possible to be courageous if you’re not afraid. Courage doesn’t happen without fear; it happens in spite of fear. The word courage derives from ‘coeur’, the French for ‘heart.’ True courage happens only when we face our fear and choose to act anyway, out of love.” —Julia Butterfly Hill
“Where is our comfort but in the free, uninvolved, finally mysterious beauty and grace of this world that we did not make, that has no price? Where is our sanity but there? Where is our pleasure but in working and resting kindly in the presence of this world?” —Wendell Berry
“Every country should have a Ministry of Peace” —Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire
“Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.” —Tom Robbins
“I never want to lose the story-loving child in me. A story that meant one thing to me when I was forty may mean something quite different to me today.” —Madeleine L’Engle
I’m not moving my body enough. I can feel almost the gears and cogs gumming up, getting crochety. It’s easy to put off yoga or walking because I have one more task at the computer that MUST be done. Everything is on the screens now.
So I set the intention of getting up and moving every hour. At school, I’m at least pacing around my classroom, walking to the office (and then speed-walking back to my classroom and back to the office again because I forgot something), even walking to and from the car. Here, I can ignore the pauses “between,” miss the chances to stand up and walk around.
I’m including ten deep outside breaths every morning (as my sister-in-law prescribed), and greeting the Beings in the hollow. I need to find patience for yoga and other exercise. Walking is good, because by the time I start to thinking, “Ugh. I have so much to do on the computer,” I am half a mile away from the house, and I still have another half mile to walk back.
So. Here’s the intention: Get up and walk around the house at least once and hour–maybe us and down the steps. I’ll keep up the walking every day or two. And once or twice a day, 15 minutes of yoga.
Truth be told, the yoga has been demoralizing. For years, I have had a balance series that I did, and over the past six months, I have noticed that one of the more challenging pieces has been getting harder and harder, and I can no longer actually do it–my left hand can no longer reach behind me and grab my left foot. I love that stretch, so sometimes, I sidle up to a wall so I can push my foot into my hand. But it’s no longer the easy flow that it used to be.
I just need to redevelop a new routine, one that still challenges me, that includes some of my beloved balance poses, but one that also stretches my back and legs, one that strengthens my core, one that allows me to shift away from some of my expectations and lets me be in the moment.
Also, when I am creating intentions to move more and exercise more, I have a tendency to fall onto the tracks of the weight-loss train. This is a danger zone for me. I need to want this for my health and my strength and my mobility and not for my weight. Somehow that sneaky little trick always happens and I find myself starting to pull out the scales, starting to plan another dietary tactic. So the spiritual/emotional discipline in this will be to keep my focus on keeping limber, healthy, and strong. There’s my mantra.
Gratitude List: 1. My yeast came! Thanks to my friend Joan, who sent me yeast in the mail. This morning I set another dough to rise with my wild yeast (the last attempt, on Tuesday, resulted in a chewy flatbread), and this afternoon, I am thinking of making a dough with Joan’s yeast for a calzone or something for supper. The wild yeast needs me to let it be experimental for now and not have too high an expectation 2. Cats in the classroom. Cats are good people to have around. 3. Poetry. This month has been another period of poetic breakthrough for me, and I am grateful. I think my writing deepens when I’m fighting my way through the woods of anxiety and grief. Also, an accountable writing community helps. 4. Intentions. 5. Watching the green appear, and anticipating oriole.
May we walk in Beauty!
“Good morning. There is a small, but meaningful thing you could do today in the service of your long term goal. Do that thing and then celebrate your progress with wild abandon. This is how we cultivate our dreams with a gardener’s gentle diligence.” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist
“Most lives are not distinguished by great achievements. They are measured by an infinite number of small ones. Each time you do a kindness for someone or bring a smile to his face, it gives your life meaning. Never doubt your value, little friend. The world would be a dismal place without you in it.” —Lisa Kleypas
“Decide to rise. Lean in. Listen up. Closely. It’s your soul speaking and she says, Get UP! I need you. I want you. I am you. Choose me. Lean in. Listen up. Closely. Decide to rise.” —Danielle LaPorte
“What you are comes to you.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Poetry, indeed, has always been one of humanity’s sharpest tools for puncturing the shrink-wrap of silence and oppression, and although it may appear to be galaxies apart from science, these two channels of truth have something essential in common: nature, the raw material for both. To impoverish the world of the birds and the bees is to impoverish it of the bards and the biologists.” —Jane Hirschfield
“Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.” —Helen Keller
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” ―Jalaluddin Rumi
“We Are… our grandmothers’ prayers, we are our grandfathers’ dreamings, we are the breath of the ancestors, we are the spirit of God.” ―Ysaye M. Barnwell
“The earth, the air, the fire, the water: Return, return, return, return. . .” –Libana song
Contemplative Research Journey for Earth Day: Contemplate the earth you walk, right in your yard, your neighborhood, your town. If you can, put your bare feet on earth today. Think about the people who were here before your, and before them. Do you know who were the indigenous peoples who lived on and hunted and farmed and fished on the land where you stand? What do you know of the soil and the rocks and minerals of your place? What feeds the life of the place where you are?
Contemplate the plants of your neighborhood. Can you name three trees? Five? Twenty? Who is in bud now? Who is in bloom? There is so much more than grass in the grass. Do you know the names of all the plantfolk who provide the green carpets you walk on?
Contemplate the wingfolk and the four-footed people who share this space with you. Can you tell one shining bird from the other? Can you differentiate their calls? Can you see evidence of the night wanderers? Who might be visiting your yards and gardens and alleyways while you sleep? And the tiny insect people that try so hard to live inside our houses. Have you watched them make webs, tend to their own business, seek the dark spaces?
What about the waters of your place? Where does it come from and where does it go? If you have wild water running near you, take some time today to trail your fingers through it.
Touch earth. Touch water. Touch bark. Listen for the messages in birdsong. Smell the rising spring. Breathe wind. Take ten deep outside breaths. Greet the Beings of your place with love and gratitude.
Gratitude List: 1. The guarddogwoods are beginning to bloom. Even though I no longer hang poetic laundry on their branches, I always feel like poetry itself is blooming when they start to throw pink at the sun. 2. Wangari Maathai, Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, Greta Thunberg, Berta Caceres–and all the fierce and joyful activists around the world whom they represent. 3. The many Beings of Skunk Hollow. The shine and the flutter. The wafting and the whoosh. The verdancy. The brilliance. 4. Golda’s Lake and Goldfinch Creek and Ezilie’s Spring and Cabin Creek and the Susquehanna River, and the Chesapeake Bay. 5. The promise of a new way. The hope of change.
May we walk, so joyfully, in Beauty!
Earth Day Words: “The world is, in truth, a holy place.” —Teilhard de Chardin
“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” —Henry David Thoreau
“You are your own cartographer now.” —Ralph Blum
“If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees.” ―Rainer Maria Rilke
“Every creature is a word of God.” ―Meister Eckhart
“The forest for me is a temple, a cathedral of tree canopies and dancing light.” ―Dr. Jane Goodall
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.” ―The Onceler (Dr. Seuss)
“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” ―Rachel Carson
William Stafford: “I place my feet with care in such a world.”
“A society is defined not only by what it creates, but by what it refuses to destroy.” ―John Sawhill
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ―Rachel Carson
“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full or wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later year…the alienation from the sources of our strength.” ―Rachel Carson
“Few words are so revealing of Western sexual prejudice as the word Goddess, in contrast to the word God. Modern connotations differ vastly from those of the ancients, to whom the Goddess was a full-fledged cosmic parent figure who created the universe and its laws, ruler of Nature, Fate, Time, Eternity, Truth, Wisdom, Justice, Love, Birth, Death, Etc.” ―Barbara G. Walker
“Our vitality is inextricably bound up with creativity. Like a tree whose expression is fruit, giving our gifts is what keeps life pushing through our veins. It’s what keeps us feeling alive. As anyone who has strayed too far from their creativity knows, without it every corner of one’s life can fall prey to a terrible greying spread. As Kahlil Gibran writes about trees in an orchard, “They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.” —by Toko-pa Turner
I’m getting a late start today, and I need to go get ready for school in a moment. This morning, first thing, I took a cup of my wild yeast, mixed in a cup of water, a Tbsp. of salt, and then added flour until I had a good kneadable dough. It’s rising now, covered by a damp cloth, for six hours. Then I’ll knead it again and form it into a loaf or two, let it rise another two hours, and see what happens!
Gratitude List: Words I am grateful for today. 1. Winsome: curious, dreamy, innocent, fool-ish 2. Wild: untame, free, safe, creative 3. Weird: eccentric, magical, fate, unpredictable 4. Woods: inscape, numinous, serendipitous, shining 5. Windy: scouring, shriving, re-vivifying, inspiration
Walk Wildly!
“Buying a book is not about obtaining a possession. . .but about securing a portal.” —Laura Miller
“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” ―Shannon Hale
“I can promise you that women working together―linked, informed, and educated―can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.” ―Isabel Allende
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.” ―John Muir
“When we went to jail, we were setting our faces against the world, against things as they are, the terrible injustice of our capitalist industrial system which lives by war and by preparing for war.” ―Dorothy Day
“What is not acceptable is silence in face of oppression. Boycott if you want, or participate if you want. But do not remain silent in face of injustice.” ―Omid Safi
“When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.” ―John O’Donohue
“Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness. What ails us is our sense of beauty is so bruised and blunted, we miss all the best.” ―D. H. Lawrence
“Poems are maps to the place where you already are.” —Jane Hirshfield
“Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation. The choice is to draw the blinds and shut it all out, or believe.” ―Barbara Kingsolver
“Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.” ―Hermann Hesse
There’s something about being in isolation that makes a person want to bake. I started by trying to make hamburger buns for our first isolation birthday. The practice round was so successful with the kids, that I kept making them, and I played around with the recipe, making spiral rolls and garlic rolls. And then, just like that, I was out of yeast. And Giant was out of yeast. And Sue’s was out of yeast. No one has whole wheat flour either.
I complained on Facebook, and a friend who had just received her mail order of a pound of yeast said she would put some in the mail for me this week. What a tender gesture! I never would have let myself accept such an offer in the Before, but now, Yes, please and thank you. And such a feeling of being cared for.
My sister also ran out of yeast. As she was on a walk the other day, a neighbor who was unloading groceries from the car called out and asked her if she needed paper towels. No, my sister called from a safe distance, but yeast–now that’s a difficult thing to come by. Just a couple days later, her neighbor dropped off yeast at my sister’s door.
The sharing takes on a sacramental edge these days. And yeast. Sharing yeast is sharing something even more elemental than a cup of sugar. No matter how much I research and study what yeast is and how it (they?) does its work, it will always be something mystical, something magical, to me. Bread and wine, the elements of sacrament in more than just the Christian tradition, are both yeast-based. I once heard someone talking about the two kinds of plants–monocotyledons and dicotyledons–and how corn is a monocot and grapes are a dicot, and that the elements of bread and wine bring together those two forms of plants with the magic of yeast and fermentation. And I think I won’t try to wrap that up with a nice essayist’s conclusion. It feels like a mystery that needs to stay quietly behind the veil, hinted at, marveled at, unexplained for now.
While I await the precious gift of yeast from Joan, I have begun to capture my own wild yeasts. They say that the yeast of any place is distinctly OF that place. So these are my Goldfinch Yeasts. Is is a flock? A herd? They’ve been bubbling for days, strong and lively, and today they smell sour and yeasty. Yeast Beings, I greet you.
Capturing Yeast: I’ve done this before, but it’s been years, so I watched some videos and read some tutorials. Here’s the process I’ve been using:
In a wide-mouthed jar, I put 3 Tbsp. of flour and 2 Tbsp. of water. Mixed, covered with a special cotton cloth and rubber band (perhaps any cloth will do), and let stand in a warm place for 12 hours.
After 12 hours, I stirred. Then another 12 hours later, I added another 3 Tbsp. flour and 2 Tbsp. water. The tutorials say five days until yeast is ready for baking. This is the morning of day five for me. Tomorrow, I will find a recipe and bake. Maybe pizza dough for supper, or rolls for the boys to snack on. And some day we’ll find whole wheat flour again. Meanwhile, it’s white bread.
That’s the process. Stir every 12 hours, and feed every 24 hours. Though none of the experts have mentioned it, I suspect it might be helpful to sing to them as you stir, or to speak poetry to them. Greeting them and praising them can’t hurt.
Gratitude List: 1. Yeast 2. People who share yeast 3. Bread and wine 4. Awaiting oriole 5. The promise of a new week.
May we walk in Mystery.
“To light a candle is to cast a shadow…” ―Ursula K. Le Guin
“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.” ―Claude Monet
“We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.” ―Malala Yousafzai
I called through your door, “The mystics are gathering in the street. Come out!” “Leave me alone. I’m sick.” “I don’t care if you’re dead! Jesus is here, and he wants to resurrect somebody!” ―Jalaludin Rumi
“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.” ―Jalaluddin Rumi
“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.” ―Anaïs Nin
“Everything has boundaries. The same holds true with thought. You shouldn’t fear boundaries, but you should not be afraid of destroying them. That’s what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries.” ―Haruki Murakami
“All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.” —Richard Rohr
I’ve been slowly reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Braiding Sweetgrass over the past few months, taking a chapter at a time and letting it deepen. Today I read her comments on the Potawatomi language (and its cousins) and how the references, even in verbs, differentiate not between animate and inanimate objects, but between Beings and non-beings (like make objects). It’s not anthropomorphism, but a recognition of the Beingness, or personhood, of so much that is not human in the world, the animacy of the Beings around us.
I feel this most palpably with trees, though rocks also seem to have a Beingness which teaches me. And water. How would our world change if we began to consider the Beings around us not as resources to be used, objects to be mastered or owned, but as Beings with something to teach us? As neighbors and helpers and friends with whom we can companionably share a space?
Yesterday, my sister-in-law reminded her friends on social media to take at least ten strong breaths outside each day. I love that. So this morning, I went and stood on the porch, and breathed greetings to my friends and neighbors: Good morning, Sycamore! Thank you, Walnut! Why hello, Willow! Greetings, Ground Under my Feet! Such a shiny twinkle you have, Quartzite on the hillside!
I think this will be my morning practice for a while now: Breath and Greetings.
Gratitude List: 1. The song of the White-Throated Sparrow. Who am I to tell him he’s off-key, really? It’s like telling someone they spell their name wrong. He’s the master of the blue note, and it sound like longing, like desire, like all the loss and the hope in the world rolled into a ball of birdsong. 2. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s reminders. Deep noticing. 3. The ways we keep connecting even when it’s difficult. This morning was Worship Scattered (which I am beginning to call Church With Cats), this afternoon is Gang Zoom, and tonight is Family Zoom. 4. I have created my school/office space here with more clear delineation, more intentionality. It both helps me to feel that my work has a Space here, and that I can put up my little screen in front of the computer stuff and walk away. As I was setting things up, Josiah scuttled off to his room and brought his Xbox and school Chromebook own and set them up on the other end of my table. Companionability. I suppose this corner of the living room is not the Schoolroom. I should print out a photo of the little classroom that came off our porch in the little house where my mother taught me kindergarten and my brother second grade. 5. Trails in the woods. We’ve avoided it for so long because of the poison ivy, but the kid has us out there almost every day now, walking his trails, and clipping poison ivy away from the edges. There are mayapples and shelf lichens, old snags and trees with burrows and dens in the roots. It’s a gnomy sort of place. And everything is coming out in bud.
May we walk in Beauty!
“It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.” —Cesar Chavez
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” ―Frederick Buechner
“The words you speak become the house you live in.” ―Hafiz
“Humans are the most intellectually advanced animal on the planet and yet, we are destroying our only home. The window of time is very small, but I refuse to believe that we cannot solve this problem.” ―Dr. Jane Goodall
“Memory makes the now fully inhabitable.” ―David Whyte
“Things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance even after the physical contact has been severed.” ―James Frazer
“Which world are we trying to sustain: a resource to fulfill our desires of material prosperity, or an Earth of wonder, beauty, and sacred meaning?” — Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” —John Steinbeck
“Crystals are living beings at the beginning of creation. All things have a frequency and a vibration.” —Nikola Tesla
I took these photos in my classroom yesterday. I’m thinking of printing up a postcard to send to my students with one of themse,saying, WISH WE WERE HERE! I’m always a little worried about being cheesy, but maybe that’s part of my function in the lives of teenagers, to be a cheesy eccentric old person. Another option, which might be more comforting, actually, would be this one.
I should make up and order the card today so I can hopefully start sending them out next week. Maybe I’ll do both, and send the serious one to the ones that I think need that boost and the silly one to those who might need a laugh.
Gratitude List: 1. I know they’re always on here, but really that goldfinch out there is the purest yellow I think I have ever seen. He’s radiant. The grey of the rainy day makes it more intense. 2. I’m really grateful that I had a second pair of glasses in the more recent prescription. I can’t seem to fix the eye-piece on the pair I broke, so I ordered a new pair (that was one expensive bag of flour!), but in the meantime, I have these others. I even like the way they look, but they’re really heavy on the bridge of my nose, so I will be glad when the others come in the mail. 3. New things to anticipate: If I have to be home all the time for a while, I am so grateful that it is during the time that the oriole returns. I will be listening every day for his whistle. 4. Capturing yeast. I’m frustrated that we couldn’t find any in the stores we go to (and I am not going to go driving about and searching–it feels like that breaks the spirit of the rules at the moment, even though it’s technically a grocery), so I am capturing some. I’ve done it before, and it’s a great way to connect directly to the science and the livingness of the organisms we use in cooking. This is the third day, and there are little bubbles beginning to form. 5. It’s not just the gold of the finch, but the green also pops out more vividly and verdantly on certain types of grey days. Isn’t that word fabulous? Verdant. I wonder what the original German or Latin version of the word was in Hildegard’s writings. . . I guess there will be a little research in my day.
May we walk in Beauty!
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” ―Thomas Merton
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.” ―Thomas Merton
“We see quite clearly that what happens to the nonhuman happens to the human. What happens to the outer world happens to the inner world. If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.” ―Thomas Berry
“All acts of kindness are lights in the war for justice.” ―Joy Harjo
“We have only begun to know the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle.” ―Denise Levertov
Yesterday, my friend Katie Hutchison College wrote a very moving piece about living in these times. I was so moved by her words that I asked her permission to post it on my blog. She graciously said I could. I used her image of “Mt. Everest” as my photo of the day.
Today’s bloom: anemone ‘Mt. Everest’. She hasn’t opened yet (perhaps later today). But this stage is beautiful, just perched on the edge.
At the end of the fourth Harry Potter movie, when it’s now clear that Voldemort is back, there’s a moment I love: the main characters are standing on a bridge, and Hermione, always able to see further ahead than the others, stops cold and says ‘Everything is going to be different now, isn’t it?’
To which, after a slight pause, Harry answers ‘yes. Yes, it is.’
The actors nail it. She isn’t fearful. Just…..wistful. Taking a moment to acknowledge what has changed. Taking a moment to think of the changes that are ahead.
He isn’t dismissive. There’s more a tone of quiet determination in his response.
It’s a remarkable moment precisely because the director had to streamline the book so much, and so many details were left out. I’m glad this small bit was included. The series is about, among other things, transitioning to adulthood, and this exchange says it all.
This sucks, and it will never be the same again, but we’re going to do it anyway.
Most thinking people understand now that this isn’t simply a weird, inconvenient two week holiday. The ramifications of this, economically and socially, are massive. And, of course, the ‘two weeks’ is long gone.
Did you ever, having messed up something or other in your life, wish for a do-it-over button? Did you ever read a story about someone who vanished and created a whole new life, and you took a moment to think hmm, yes, what would I change if there weren’t already all these pre-conceived ideas of who I am, if everyone surrounding me hadn’t frozen me into a mold? Who would I be, if I could be anything? I’m talking about the inside person, not the outside
Did you ever think “I’m trying so hard, now, not to be (insert character flaw of your choice here) but it’s impossible, because everyone’s already decided that I’m (repeat previous). And when I try to act in a new way it’s impossible, because they treat me like I’m still the old way, or they’re suspicious of my motives.”
Well! This is our moment!
People are different post-trauma. Things are different. Rules are different. Patterns are different.
While we grapple with what these changes mean for us, let’s not forget this: we can be different, too. But unlike all those other changes over which we haven’t much control, we DO get a say in our own upcoming, inevitable changes.
You have a blank sheet of paper in front of you and a nice sharp pencil with a perfect eraser.
If you know that you have always come across as cold and unable to show affection, but you don’t want to be that way – this is a once in a lifetime mulligan. Because nobody, but nobody, is going to question your sea change.
Been irresponsible? It’s a good time to shift gears. A crisis will do that to you. Haven’t been focused enough on the kids, other than micromanaging schedules? It’s perfectly understandable that this would shift your priorities. No one will give you crap for dropping out of some activities after this.
It’s a crisis, it’s a game changer, and Hermione nailed it: everything is going to be different now.
But not all of the changes will be bad.
We have all been imprisoned by some burden that can now be lifted, because in a very real way we’ve just been handed a Get Out of Jail Free card.
Go. Bloom.
Gratitude List: 1. The great and tender wisdom of my friends 2. I slept very deeply last night. I always feel, after a bout of insomnia, that I need to re-train my body to sleep. 3. Friday 4. Dogwoods in bloom 5. Yeast. We couldn’t find it in the big grocery store or in the little local shop in town, so I am capturing my own flock. It will take a few days, but I’m glad there are options. I’ve done this before, so I’m excited to try again. During times of quarantine, so people get a new puppy to tend and train. I wrangle wild yeast.
May we walk in Beauty!
“First is the fall. Then we recover from the fall. Both are the mercy of God.” —Julian of Norwich
“Nothing is more beautiful than the uniqueness that God has created. You don’t have to create the beauty—you’ve already got the beauty. You don’t have to create the freedom—you’ve got it. You don’t have to create the image of God in you—you have it. You don’t have to win over God’s love—you have more than you know what to do with.” — Father Thomas Keating
“An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” —Henry David Thoreau
“Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.” ―St. Francis of Assisi
“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.” ― Mary Oliver
“Wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.” ―Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” ―Ursula K. Le Guin
“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” ―Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women, and the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who’s confronted with it. We need equality. Kinda now.” ―Joss Whedon
“The world is remade through the power of fierce women performing outrageous acts of creative rebellion.” —Louise M. Pare
Mockingbird Chronicles 