On the edge

The Wolf Moon of January

The first full moon of the calendar year rises over the trees of a park in the village. Below the rising moon and slightly to the left, a favorite old red oak of imposing stature has kept most of last year's leaves - it will lose them in springtime as the new leaves come forth.

I am unlikely to forget this moon for quite some time, for I returned home from the latest hospital doings a day or two ago to learn that a good friend had just passed through the earthly veil into the next realm after a long and courageous battle with cancer. I attended her visitation yesterday, and we gave her back into the loving arms of Mother Earth this afternoon. That is why this post is late - I have been feeling rather down today, no, make that VERY very down.

My friend loved to walk, and on our slow potters around the village, we talked about everything there was to talk about with the exception of our treatments and how they were going along. I shall miss her strength, humor and courage more than words can express, but she is beyond pain now, and I am happy about that. There is a brand new star dancing up there in the winter sky now, and she is dazzling in her power and wild truth and grace. I am certain that she will continue to watch over her partner here on earth, and over her three beautiful daughters.

We also know this moon as the: Big Cold Moon, Buckeyes Ripe Moon, Carnation Moon, Center Moon, Ceremonial Initiate Moon, Cold and Ice Moon, Cold Meal Moon, Cold Moon, Cooking Moon, Turning Moon, Earth Renewal Moon, First Moon, Frost in the Tepee Moon, Frozen Ground Moon, Great Moon, Great Spirit Moon, Greetings Maker Moon, Her Cold Moon, Hibiscus Moon, Holiday Moon, Ice Moon, Lakes Frozen Moon, Little Winter Moon, Long Moon, Man Moon, Midwinter Moon, Moon After Yule, Moon of Darkness, Moon of Flying Ants, Moon of Life at It's Height, Moon of Much Cold, Moon of Strong Cold, Moon of the Bear, Moon of the Child, Moon of the Strong Cold, Moon of the Terrible, Moon of Whirling Snow, Moon When Animals Lose Their Fat, Moon When Limbs of Trees Are Broken by Snow, Moon When Snow Drifts into Tipis, Moon When the Snow Blows like Spirits in the Wind, Moon When the Sun Has Traveled South, Moon When the Old Fellow Spreads the Brush , Moon When Wolves Run Together, Ninene Moon, No Snow in Trails Moon, Old Moon, Pine Moon, Plum Blossom Moon, Quiet Moon, Rivros Moon, Rowan Moon, Severe Moon, Snow Blindness Moon, Snow Moon, Snow Thaws Moon, Snowdrop Moon, Snowy Path Moon, Strong Cold Moon, Sun Has Not Strength to Thaw Moon, Thumb Moon, Trail Squint Moon, Two Trails Moon, Weight Loss Moon, Whirling Wind Moon) White Waking Moon, Winter Moon, Winter's Younger Brother Moon.

Thursday Poem - The Inner History of a Day

No one knew the name of this day;
Born quietly from deepest night,
It hid its face in light,
Demanded nothing for itself,
Opened out to offer each of us
A field of brightness that traveled ahead,
Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps
And the light of thought to show the way.

The mind of the day draws no attention;
It dwells within the silence with elegance
To create a space for all our words,
Drawing us to listen inward and outward.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.

Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.

So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.

John O'Donohue,
from To Bless the Space Between Us

Wordless Wednesday - Lace

What the River Said

A few rays of winter sunlight find the edge of the river bed with its drifts of meringue snow, its gloss of ice and its current of small stones.

In May, there were small rippling waterfalls and gurgling music all up and down the length of the little hillside river, and I passed many happy (and soggy) hours engaged in a favorite activity which has come to be known among my clan as "tuning the waterfalls". Attired in high rubber boots and with hoe in hand, I traveled the length and breadth of the little river now and again, removing leaves, sticks and other debris so that the water could sing as it so clearly wished to sing on its merry way downhill.

Tuning waterfalls is a Zen kind of activity and an exercise in mindfulness. One must stop hoeing once and a while to receive instructions from the river, and she must listen to what the water is saying. She must be truly present and engaged in the activity at hand, the simple uncluttered (or uncluttering) matter of helping the river sing. Among the small flowing movements required, there is always time for working on koans too, and one never removes all the fallen leaves, pebbles and sticks but leaves a few to act as grace notes in the wild hillside symphony. As Wendell Berry wrote:

"There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."

Perhaps Life itself is the koan? Now there is silence, but I still hear the river singing over the stones, and for this ever baffled and oft impeded elderly female, that is a fine thing.

Held in Frozen Light

Visitor (II)

There was a sharp north wind along the trail into the deep woods, and every feeder was oscillating back and forth like a pendulum, at times almost parallel to the snow covered ground.

For all the wind, the attendees at the breakfast banquet were a throng, and they were loud in their thanks for the food. At one point there were nine chickadees sitting right on my hood, and they sang as tanagers sing at the height of summer.

Such moments are "ah ha" moments, and if we are fortunate and receptive, they sometimes gift us with a gladness, a clarity and a fleeting wisdom sorely lacking at other times and in other aspects of our mundane lives. On that snowy trail, the birds sang their thanks, and I offered them a deep and creaking gassho for their song, for allowing me to feed them in the depths of winter.

Out of this suchness, there arises a deeper sense of connection to the Old Wild Mother (Earth) and all her creatures. The connection and "rootedness" is always there, but I am forever forgetting it, and I need a reminder now and then.

Waiting

Thursday Poem - Blessings for the Journey

May the blessings of the air be upon you
A soft breeze to refresh you
A strong wind to lift you up
Great golden wings to enfold and heal you

May the blessings of fire be upon you
A blazing torch to light your path
A flaming sword to protect and defend you
The glowing sunlight to shine on you and warm your heart

May the blessings of water be upon you
A rushing river to carry you forward
The vast depths of the sea to bring you wisdom
The soft sweet rain to wash you tenderly and nourish you

May the blessings of the earth be upon you
A sheltering cave to bring you to birth and securely hold you
The fertile soil to nourish you
The green grass to lay soft under you

May your journeying be blessed
May your beginnings and endings be blessed.

Marilyn Geist

This was written by a dear friend who passed beyond the veil in December 2007. Marilyn was a Jungian analyst by profession, someone who was passionate about art, dreams, mythology, words and life itself in all its myriad colors. She was a thoughtful and ferociously intelligent spirit who lighted up every room she walked into, and she had a truly wonderful laugh.

Farewell to Kate

Let the sun set on the ocean,
I will watch it from the shore.
Let the sun rise over the redwoods,
I'll rise with it till I rise no more.
Kate McGarrigle from Talk to Me of Mendocino

Kate McGarrigle passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer, and the world is a poorer place for her departure. I've been an admirer of the McGarrigle sisters for years, and it is difficult to think that there will be no more of Kate's exquisitely crafted musical compositions and the concerts will not come again. In recent years, Kate and Anna were often accompanied in performance by Kate's two gifted children, Rufus and Martha Wainwright.

I give you Kate's haunting Talk to Me of Mendocino, sung by Kate herself, her sister Anna and Karen Matheson of the Celtic super group, Capercaillie. The gorgeous plaintive dobro solo is performed by the legendary Jerry Douglas. Linda Ronstadt recorded a number of McGarrigle creations, and her fine rendition of the song is here.

Smaller Me

When my hands were too small to hold book, camera, paintbrush or pen... Infant me looks happy and brimming with curiosity, a naiad or a dryad, a wild woman in the making, someone longing for adventures. Those tiny feet are just raring to go.

An aunt once said in disapproving tones that I was a strange, wild and difficult child, always asking questions, clamoring for reading materials (and to be taught how to read), demanding brushes, paper, pencils and the family Kodak before I was three years old, running off into the woods at every opportunity. Trees, rivers, butterflies, winding roads leading into the forest - it was all good, and it was all entrancing "stuff". It still is, several decades later.

At the moment, I am dipping into Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Estes again and reading the sixth chapter: Finding One's Pack: Belonging as Blessing. What Clarissa calls the "Mistaken Zygote Syndrome" was surely at work all those years ago, but it took several decades for me to figure it out, for I've always been what Ursula LeGuin called "a slow unlearner". She gave a remarkable commencement address at Bryn Mawr years ago containing that very expression, and it was a wonder - read it here.

Tea and Tales

One of those days when one is grateful for snow and fragrant evergreens... The daylight world is a study in gray this week, and the sky above our heads has a sodden morose demeanor unredeemed by even a moment of sunlight.

On this morning's walk, I passed by the local thrift shop and noticed a pristine hardcover copy of Wendell Berry's gorgeous Jayber Crow for mere pennies, and the happening is a redemption of sorts. This day is being spent curled up in a comfortable corner of the overstuffed sofa with several pots of Darjeeling tea, a reading lamp and one of my favorite books ever - all thoughts of the gray world beyond the window have been banished. Oh, to be able to write like this in my next life...

Between...

Depending

Friday Ramble - Listen

The word listen hails from before 950 CE and has its roots in the Middle English lis(t)nen, the Old English hlysnan; the Middle High Germanic lüsenen and the Swedish lyssna (among others to numerous to post here). It is kin to list which also names the French liste and the Old High German leiste among its antecedents. To listen is to experience someone or something with one's aural faculties, but more than that, it is to concentrate hearing, focus and mind together on that someone or something, to cultivate a radiant attention. Held within both words (listen and attention) are notions of observant care, courtesy, consideration and rapt awareness.

A cold damp wind howls through the gutters of the little blue house in the village this morning and goes rushing around corners, whistling a hollow resonant tune that sounds like my battered old Tibetan singing bowl. There is tinkling and crackling up by the eaves as the resident icicles protest the exuberant presence which is trying so hard to bring them down. When they tumble and shatter, the icicles ring like bells against the snow.

Outside the back door of the little blue house, I stand with mug in hand and listen to the day unfolding, and it seems to me that these ordinary morning sounds are almost symphonic in their expression, in their perfect, seemingly effortless orchestration. The intervals between the notes are as poignant, complete and expressive as the notes themselves, and I find myself thinking of a handful of avant garde compositions by John Cage and Steve Reich in which silence is a key element.

When it snows later in the day, one will actually be able to hear the snow falling among the trees and coming to rest on the stones of the garden. Such moments are precious beyond words, and they are some of my favorite moments in all of life - an eldritch music indeed, and what the legendary Finn mac Cumaill called "the music of what happens" He believed there was no finer or more beautiful sound on this hallowed earth.

Thursday Poem - I Praise My Destroyer

How can it all end,
the moon making foil of the blueblack sea,
at twilight the sandbars holding lavender
among turquoise shadows,
pastels of water lidded by pastels of sky
and, at angle, moon shimmer snaking to the horizon?
By the dockside, a diver kneels at his tank,
to test the regulator, as if taking communion.

***

How can it all end,
the cabbage whites aflutter
like tissue-papers
lofting to Heaven in a Japanese temple,
the yellow roses numbingly fragrant
and even the spiky conifer
whispering scent.

I praise my destroyer.
The sea turtle's revenge
is to dwell at equal measures
from the grave. Our cavernous brains
won't save us in the end,
though, heaven knows, then enhance the drama.
Despite passion's rule, deep play
and wonder, worry hangs
like a curtain of trembling beads
across every doorway.

But there was never a dull torment,
and it was grace to live
among the fruits of summer, to love by design,
and walk the startling Earth
for what seemed
an endless resurrection of days.

I praise life's bright catastrophes,
and all the ceremonies of grief.
I praise our real estate - a shadow and a grave.
I praise my destroyer,
and will continue praising
until hours run like mercury
through my fingers, hope flares a final time
into the last throes of innocence,
and all the coins of sense are spent.

Diane Ackerman, I
Praise My Destroyer (Excerpt)

Wordless Wednesday - Ice on Edge

Light Me Up

"In our life there is a single color, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love."
Marc Chagall

The light comes slowly on these January mornings, beginning with a diffused blush on the horizon beyond Hampton Park. Then come deep magenta blue and violet with rosy streaks of cloud above and behind the trees, a touch of coppery gold here and there. Painted in broad flowing strokes, sky and day undergo a spontaneous glowing transformation, their opulent colors flowing like honey over the village. Trees, chimneys and roof lines are silhouetted against the rising light, and they contribute their own more rooted glow to the new day.

I think of this early part of the day as my "stained glass hours", and such intervals have illustrious crafted kindred; the rose window of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the vibrant panels of Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany and perhaps most of all, the glorious offerings of the French/Russian master, Marc Chagall: his paintings of the biblical Song of Songs, the Reuben window for Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Centre (which depicts the Twelve Tribes of Israel) and the sumptuously hued commemorative windows for Sarah d'Avigdor-Goldsmith (also spelled Goldsmid) in All Saints Church, Tudeley, Kent. The master was commissioned by Sarah's parents to paint a single memorial window after her untimely death, but when he visited the little church and saw that its windows were plain glass, he painted every one. His was a generous and compassionate heart.

Compelled for some reason to be up and about before the light show starts, off I go in my warmest togs to find a good seat and partake of the abundance. I bring my mug of tea, a heavy shawl and various other swaddlings, my notebook and camera. Chagall often seemed to be seeing the beauty of the earth as though through stained glass, and all wrapped up in these exquisite morning colors, I feel I am doing the same thing, albeit in an infinitely smaller and paler way.

Nature is the consummate artist, and I, merely a doddering observer. Oh, to borrow the incandescent wordy gifts of Diane Ackerman for a few moments, that I might describe it all! This perfect morning is my own song of songs.

Sun and Snow

Into the White and Blue

On and on they go, these rolling fields of white, artfully shaped by the north wind into billows and dunes and curls. Above them, the sky and clouds are backlighted by the sun and so intensely blue that it hurts the eyes to look up.

Call it gifting or exchange or reciprocity - the sun and sky pour out light over the snowy hills, and the snowy hills give it all back.

It would be lovely to post an image of greenery or flowers or an open river here, but this is what my world looks like now, deep in the realm of winter.

Snow and wind shape the spirit too - having truly partaken of them in all their sweep and cold and grandeur, one is never again quite the same. In January, she often craves light and warmth, but in the midst of summer, she remembers perfect blue and white mornings like this one and longs for them as for nothing else. A strong wine indeed...

Hillside, Sun and Blowing Snow

What an unexpected gift it is, this bitterly cold and diamond bright day with the sun shining through the snow blowing across the hills and through the trees.

One stands out of the wind whispering the descriptive words like a mantra, and they confer a blessing, a sense of comfort and balance on an icy day in January: winter, sunshine, very cold, hills and trees and blowing snow.

Of course, one has to dress properly for such a day, muffled up in multitudinous layers of clothing and looking like a yeti.

Thursday Poem - January

Dusk and snow this hour
in argument have settled
nothing. Light persists,
and darkness. If a star
shines now, that shine is
swallowed and given back
doubled, grounded bright.
The timid angels flailed
by passing children lift
in a whitening wind
toward night. What plays
beyond the window plays
as water might, all parts
making cold digress.
Beneath iced bush and eave,
the small banked fires of birds
at rest lend absences
to seeming absence. Truth
is, nothing at all is missing.
Wind hisses and one shadow
sways where a window's lampglow
has added something. The rest
is dark and light together tolled
against the boundary-riven
houses. Against our lives,
the stunning wholeness of the world.

Betty Adcock from The Difficult Wheel

Wordless Wednesday - A Silent Thicket

Evergreen Quiet

You rise an hour or two before dawn and make a pot of tea. Standing by the kitchen window, you look out at the evergreens in the garden and marvel at their blue-green needles, the cloaking snowdrifts, the glossy suspended icicles, the north wind that sets them all dancing.

Looking out with your tea in hand, you find yourself wondering... Am I becoming invisible, buried in snow like the garden, forgotten, perhaps totally irrelevant? Oh for a little sunlight...

A Few Words for This New Year

Words for a Snowy Day

24. Fu / Return (The Turning Point)

The time of darkness is past, the winter solstice brings the victory of light... After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement but it is not brought about by force... the movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time, therefore no harm results. Societies of people sharing the same views are formed. But since these groups come together in full public knowledge and are in harmony with the time, all selfish separatist tendencies are excluded, and no mistake is made. Return is based on the course of nature ... and the course completes itself. Therefore it is not necessary to hasten anything artificially. Everything comes of itself at the appointed time. This is the meaning of Heaven and Earth.

In winter the life energy, symbolised by Thunder, the Arousing, is still underground. Movement is just at its beginning, therefore it must be strengthened by rest so that it will not be dissipated by being used prematurely. This principle, i.e. of allowing energy that is renewing itself to be reinforced by rest applies to all similar situations. The return of health after illness, the return of understanding after an estrangement: everything must be treated tenderly and with care at the beginning, so that the return may lead to a flowering.

From the I Ching (Book of Changes)
Translation by Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes

Returning refers to the time when the climate is at its coldest, yet the water in the wells is still warm... This is the thunder of the winter solstice that is stored within the earth. The power of returning yang energy to the earth is at its highest, yet it only moves in accord with time... young yang must be kept peaceful and calm to allow its growing - do not act to dissipate it.”

From the Yi Jing: Book of Change,
Translation by Gia Fu Feng, Sue Bailey and Bink Kun Young

The I Ching gifts us with lovely words for a day like this one, when the world beyond the windows is an endless flowing ocean of white, and the patient evergreens are bending under the weight of falling snow in a peaceful Zen-ish kind of way. As gray and hushed and still as it may be "out there" this morning, green realms lie sleeping underneath the whiteness - a lush and shaggy blooming lies within.

Light and Shadow

Blue Moon of Endings and Beginnings

Last evening's full moon was special, for it is only once or so in twenty years that a full moon falls on the last day of the calendar year - add to that the fact that last night's luscious moon was the second moon in December, and one realizes that she is witnessing something uncommon. Throw in a partial lunar eclipse and she realizes that this last moon of the year is something truly remarkable. Last evening's eclipse was not visible in my part of the world, but the night was exotic and transcendent nevertheless.

Hafiz once wrote a poem called What Should We Do About That Moon?, and for some time it appeared that those words would form the title of this first post of 2010. We are in the midst of several days of snowfall here in the north, and for a while last evening, it appeared (alas) that there would be no moon to view. Perhaps the Lady heard our wailing - for all of five minutes the clouds rolled away, and there was the moon, radiant in the arms of a neighboring poplar tree on the last night of the calendar year. It happened at just the right moment - a few minutes longer and the four of us (Spencer, myself, tripod and Pentax) would have been frozen solid and stuck in (to) the garden until next springtime rolls around.

Around this time every year, I seem to ask myself why I devote energies to capturing Lady Moon's image with camera and tripod and a woefully inadequate net of words. There is really no short easy answer to the question, but doing it is a core part of my way of walking in this world, and it feels right to be doing it.

In its perfect annular form, the moon resembles the Buddhist symbol called an enso and is therefore symbolic of community, non-duality, enlightenment and the circle of shared existence. It is a radiant expression of the phrase "as above so below" and of the turning of the seasons in the great round of time. More than that, the moon is a potent magical reminder that I am a child of the universe, that this is my home, and I am right where I belong. Growing elderly and forgetful, I need all the reminders (cosmic, earthy and common) I can get.

Bliadhna mhath ùr means Happy New Year in Scots, and Bliain úr faoi shéan is faoi mhaise duit is the Irish form of the traditional greeting uttered at the beginning of a new year - the Welsh form is Blwyddyn newydd dda. A dear Hawaian friend who has now traveled beyond the fields we know, used to say Hau ‘oli makahiki hou. In the mother tongues of other ancestresses, one says Shana Tova (Hebrew), Nimkodading (Algonquin) or ose:rase (Mohawk).

May all good things be yours in the coming year. May your night skies be clear and starry all year long; may the sun shine upon you by day, and the moon grace you with her radiant presence each night.