REHOMING

Ripping down the house walls.

I’m living between worlds right now—between the world of my rental house and the world of our new house. Contractors have laid claim to our new house, and every room is full of construction tools, or construction detritus. Our rental house is a mess, because I spend most of my time in the yard of our new house cleaning up for spring. The previous owner, I’ll call her Polly, lived there for the past 45 years. In her final years, she tended the house alone, and the yard—a glorious flower-filled garden—got neglected along the way.

As I rake, I find tiny plants poking up through the expanse of dandelions: A yellow tulip here, a star-shaped white jewel there, occasional bursts of purple popping out from under the leaves of grass. Gardening helps settle me, and I can use all the grounding energy I can conjure. Moving is hard, but living in limbo between moves is no picnic, either. In the garden, I find it easier to live in the moment, to breathe, to find some focus.

Putting my hands in the garden dirt, my ears are free to listen, my eyes free to wonder. Already I have learned things about my new home: There is a chatty osprey who flies over many times a day. The Columbia river is only a mile away or two as the crow flies, and I’m sure this osprey has a nest nearby with some good fishing on the river. I’ve begun anticipating her fly-bys with anticipation. Her call carries far, yet the notes are gentle and musical…

 

OF BOMBS AND BUGLING

Sweetness and Strength

The Boston bombing brought a flood of memories cascading over me last night and into this morning. Suddenly, I was right back in the belly of 911, and deep into the mystery of that unforgettable day. I’ve told this story before, and I’ll tell it again, because stories are meant to be shared again, growing in power in each telling.

On the morning of the 911 bombings, I was hosting a gathering of Kindred Spirits—14 good folk who had come from all over the country for a workshop with a small group of gifted teachers and friends of mine. My little cabin had no radio nor television. I heard of the towers coming down from the participants who were arriving—shocked and numbed—to begin a sacred time together with like-minded lovers of animals, nature, and the Earth.

For awhile, as people continued to arrive, we were all in a state of suspended animation and confusion: What in the world do we do NOW? Some participants wondered how and when they would get home, as the airports had all closed down. Others wondered about friends and relatives back east. Do we continue a workshop in the face of this horrible calamity? Would it be disrespectful? Would it even be possible to focus on our topics?

Somehow, the idea came up to pass the sacred pipe around our circle. A pipe ceremony seemed appropriate. After all, the least we could do was to pray quietly together in the smoke and silence. And so I took out my pipe and moved through the ritual steps of the sacred ceremony and stillness settled around us. My pipe tends to smoke very long, and it made many, many trips around the circle. Above our heads in the cottonwood grove around us, birds sang in full glory. A breath of a warm morning breeze tickled our shoulders. In the background, the towering peaks of the Grand Tetons watched over us like a trio of grey-clad nuns.

When all the tobacco had been smoked, I put the pipe down and waited quietly. Very slowly, we began to speak our hearts around the circle. It became very clear to each and every one of us that praying was not only the least we could do. It was the MOST we could do. It was an intensely powerful thing to do, and it was a healing thing to do. Unanimously, we decided to carry on with our workshop, pausing at breaks to fill ourselves  in on any updates in New York.

The pipe had guided us and centered us and calmed us, but the real wonder of that day came late that night as the stars lit up a night sky in Jackson Hole, free for the first time in memory of plane congestion. Our group was gathered at White Grass Ranch to hear the yearly pageant of the bugling elk, all deep in rut that time of year. The night was dry and clear as glass. The air so sweet, you could taste it.

As we walked, these words spilled out of my lips, coming from somewhere outside of myself: “Out here, nothing happened today. No tragedy happened today. Not out here.”

This morning, I sit looking as I write out my bedroom window to the blooming pear tree where the bees gather and sing. Here, on this plot of grass, no tragedy happened. And what I want to say is that for every plot of scarred and blood-spilled ground, there is another plot somewhere of silence and peace and beauty. For every darkness, another place of light and sweetness. These sweet places hold the energy to heal the broken bits of ground. They are medicine centers, from the tiny lawns with carefully planted pansies, to the mountain meadows. And I believe that if we are blessed to be in such a place, to be in a safe place at a time when horror strikes somewhere else, our task is to remain beautiful inside  of ourselves, so that our beauty and balance can be medicine energy for all those afflicted.

I believe we weaken ourselves with grief that is not ours to claim. Those of us who have lost loved ones, it is our task to grieve. For the rest of us, our task is to walk and speak and pray in beauty, so that others may draw from our soil of soundness.

If you are hooked to the horror of the TV today, turn it off, now.

If you are plugged into the news stations on your computer, unplug now.

If you are crying for people you did not know, stop crying now.

If you are sick inside with hopelessness, stop it now.

Go outside. Sit on the grass. Listen to a bird sing.Hum a song of healing for those who need it. Tend your gardens. Walk your dogs and hug them. Do whatever it is you need to do to make yourself smile and be strong. That strength is medicine that will find its way through the power of mystery to all those suffering in Boston. If you are very lucky and grace has fallen over you, you are in a place where “Nothing happened here today,” so show your gratitude with prayer, softness in your heart, and lightness in your step. These gifts will find their way to where they are needed.

 

GOD PLOP TWO: THE BEES

They came by the thousands today, their golden-brown bodies undulating in soft, translucent honey-colored veils above the fruit trees. They were not here yesterday or the day before, or any day since I first began watching for them this spring. But they came today in numbers that are making my yard thrum with the sound of an ancient, hopeful heartbeat.

I noticed them at first thumping softly against my bedroom window this afternoon when the sun unexpectedly arrived. First one, then five. Curious, I walked very slowly to the part of the yard where the old pear, apple, and plum trees grow. My heart stood still at the sight of them. I haven’t seen so many honeybees gathered anywhere in years. Certainly not in any yard of mine.

Trying to be as quiet and as welcoming as I could, I moved from one tree to the other, head tilted up, tears on my face. Was I walking in a pageant? In a parade? In a shamanic dream? As I write this, they are moving back and forth in golden waves past my window, resting now and then on the glass panes and the window sills. The trees are rejoicing. I am rejoicing. They skim across the green lawn, kissing the dandelion blossoms, the violet blossoms. They kiss each dreaming pear and plum and cherry flower and they sing and sing and sing. I look inside my heart for the words to describe this feeling, and the feeling is wanting. I just want them. I want them to stay and to make hives in all my walls so I can be in the middle of them day and night, and my walls can drip honey until my dying day…

 

GOD PLOP

Yesterday, something astonishing happened to me. In a good way. At a time when I had lost all sense of direction, and was feeling hopeless. I want to share this because I had told my friend a couple days ago that while I truly, honestly believed Spirit really intervened in the lives of people in a good way, I was feeling that that was true for everyone but me. Do you ever feel like that?

I’ve been praying for help these past few weeks with two things. First, I’ve been sick for weeks, weak sick, with no seeming end in sight. And because I was feeling so sick, I’ve been scared. I get scared when I get sick because I reach a place in my head where I just stop believing I’ll ever get better.

 

THE GREEN TREATMENT

Otis in his new digs.

I am sick today, for the fourth time this winter. My granddaughter and I seem to be passing these germs back and forth between us. It has been years since I’ve been slammed with upper respiratory things. Years. I usually get one of these snotty things once every few years now, so this recent turn of events in which I seem to be sicker more than I am healthy is really getting me down.

My doctor agreed that the stress on my body from our cross country move is one that can make the first year in a new place hard on the immune system. So I keep doing the good things I know to take care of myself, and taking anti-biotics when the stuff on my Kleenex starts looking truly scary. Still, I was not prepared for the utter emotional slump I found myself in this morning. Six days into this most recent bad booger affair—during which I have been cranky, angry, and then more cranky—I awoke to a feeling of total despair.

 

COYOTE WOODS: LIFE AT THE EDGE

Carter and Coyote Woods

Permaculturists—folks who believe in permanent, sustainable cultures from the soil on up—speak often and with passion about edges. The edges of a space are where the action happens, they teach, where the most possibility exists, and where life experiments with itself. Our rental house sits nestled in a world of edges. There is the edge between the driveway and the house, between the driveway and the pasture, between the pasture and the douglas fir grove, between the fir grove and the blackberry borders, between the blackberry borders and more pasture.

Then, out back, there is Coyote Woods—a long stretch of trees, brush, and berries that snakes along the edge of hundreds of acres of grass pastures. We call this place Coyote Woods because we know that coyotes sing from back there, and most likely den back there. I often walk Mazel Tov back along the border of Coyote Woods in the very early spring long before the grass gets waist high, and Mazel runs fast and free there in every direction, far as my eyes can see…

 

POSSESSED BY PONDS

As most of you regular readers know, I’m sorta pond crazy. My obsession started in Indiana, where I put in a small but elaborate in-ground stone-edged pond in my back yard, and a bathtub pond up by my garden. I also had a kiddy wading pool for the neighborhood dogs in the driveway, and one year, a pair of passionate toads filled it will handfuls of squiggly toad eggs. I had a small pan in the garden filled with water so that insects and frogs could come to drink, and frogs laid eggs there, too. Since then, I’ve loved putting together water gardens of one sort or another, just to see what showed up in them. If nothing took up residence, I’d always put in a few fish to keep the mosquitos managed.

In my little blue rental house, I dedicated on of my large plastic planter pots to a pond of sorts. Nothing moved in, but has been a pretty little thing, and a nice spot for mossy pieces of wood. So, today, while it pours bucket outside and the day is as cold as can be, while the sourdough starter bubbles on my counter and a pan of sweet peppers roasts in the oven, I’m dreaming of little waters. My plan for our new house is another bathtub pond (courtesy of my friend, Leslie, who has an old claw foot tub she’s donating to my pond dreams). I also plan to work in a wine barrel into this pond configuration. The house’s previous owners left behind a big lavender plant in a half wine barrel, and I’ll transplant the lavender and have my way with the barrel. I’m wanting to set this up so that somehow, the barrel “pours” into the bathtub.