A Soft Light

Sliding into home for the holidays...wondering where the year went...where all the years went actually. Time slides away faster every year. This Christmas, we decided not to do presents bought from stores but instead to celebrate the greatest gift of all...each others presence. It's amazing how ingrained Christmas shopping is and the rut worn by 57 years of staging Christmas. Harried people are everywhere...in a race with time to get a mountain of errands done before the holiday arrives. Stress, rushing around, fighting for parking places,spending money you don't have, racking up debt on the credit card...all side effects from the brainwashing of the great Christmas machine. Once I thought the machine was plugged in for recharging myself...the perfect gift for Stephen, the boys and always a basket of bubble bath and soaps for my Mom and sisters...new books, music, movies...the hot new toys and of course the always needed winter clothing and snow toys. If I bought the perfect gifts and baked a million cookies and managed to clean my house all before the darkening sky of Christmas eve...then the holiday would be perfect. I did all the running around, the baking, the cleaning, the filling of the stockings and the holiday meal preparation...not to mention the clean up. The day after Thanksgiving I would don my red cape and conjure up my extra powerful powers and like super-Santa...whiz through the month of December with hardly a moment to breathe. Then Christmas would come.

Of course it was never perfect tho in hind sight it was perfect in its imperfection...always some kind of disappointment follows such extreme anticipation and such high expectation. The holiday became the perfect set up for me to go all out in production and achievement...and then to come crashing into the finish line with a sense of failure, exhausted and frazzled...and dissappointed by my humanness. This is not what Christmas is all about.

This year we will gather for a holiday of relaxing together. Going skiing/snowboarding or sledding and watching old home videos and sharing a good meal together with a spirit of love and non-expectation. This year I will not out do myself outdoing myself. I will not spin myself into a tight tornado tearing a path through obstacles without regard to their need or nature. For once, I will let Christmas come and go on it's own and not feel one-handedly responsible for making the whole event "perfect". I will welcome the silent night...the soft light of candles, the deep story of the birth of a new year and allow that light into my heart to share with my friends and family. This year...I am the giving, the giver and the gift...and the folks I love are too. Merry Christmas and a divine farewell to 2009. May all feel the deep peace of the holy season of light.

The Dark Side

Today, an army officer went berserk and killed several military personnel as they were being readied for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. He wasn't just an officer. He was a psychiatrist who treated other military personnel for PTSD. I am grappling with this event because last week a local counselor here in Bethel killed himself. The 2 events are linked by the fact that both were violent acts perpetrated by mental health professionals who practiced the art of soothing souls distraught by despair and trauma. One unleashed his violence upon himself. The other took out 13 people and wounded 30 or so other innocent people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. My first thought upon hearing the news of the shooting at Fort Hood was that it might be the work of a terrorist..and that led me to ask myself, what is a terrorist. In the war against terror...who are we fighting?

Both these American men were "terrorists". Both these men were terrified. Were they Muslim? Were they suspicious? Would Border Patrol recognize them? The United States is at war and has been for nearly 9 years in the "War Against Terror". Iraq or Afghanistan...the country is irrelevant...and there is no difference between what occurred on 9/11 and what occurred on 11/5. On both dates...fear and desperation lashed out and attacked life as it went about it's daily business.

The American military unleashes it's fear and desperation day after day in Iraq and Afghanistan and the civilians who are simply trying to live their lives are paying the price...whether it is an American worker paying taxes spent on the war or an Afghan child seeking nourishment, their lives pay the cost of war. The extreme muslims seek retaliation by explosives strategically placed...in a shoe bomb, a suicide pilot or a training in suicidal glory. From what I can see...war is war. Both sides are terrorists. Both sides are irrational, intolerant and in a sense, ignorant. How many generations of learning does it take to understand the simple law ...for every action there is an equal reaction.

I sometimes imagine what might have happened if the USA did not react to the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. What might have happened if the money and effort went into caring for survivors? Instead of righteous indignation and assault, what might have happened if the USA invested it's resources in strengthening itself? By sending armies out to fight, the available resources are being spent on violence and the result is more violence. We kill our enemies but at the same time, we kill ourselves. As we wage this war against terror, we become terrorists and the people that are hurt the most are the people that idealistically believe they are doing something positive as they set out and realize they've lost themselves when they return and in losing themselves, they lose a sense of life having value. If we are at war against terrorists, we are terrorists because we are at war. Perhaps it is time to try a new approach. Honoring human differences might be a good start and in honoring differences perhaps we can begin to establish common ground.

I can't help but think about the people who poured out their souls to the psychiatrist that went berserk...or the folks who sought strength in the counsel of a mental health professional who then committed suicide. There is betrayal and evidence for yet deeper despair. How did these professionals not see things getting out of hand? Why did they not seek treatment themselves? In listening to and supporting the anguish of others did they absorb the very energies they sought to heal? Is this the time when sin eaters sin? While we "help" other countries become safe, will we watch ourselves breakdown? I don't know. I just wonder.

Hovering

Hey...hummingbirds do it...kestrels do it...bees do it. There are scads of examples of hovering in nature. What do you think of when you think of hovering? My first image is of my mother hovering around my room when I was sick...though she didn't do it often. Maybe the mother was me hovering around my boys rooms hoping to know them better...glean some key piece of information from their sleeping bodies...hovering around when they entertained friends. Hovercraft...its not an easy skill you know. You can't appear to be hovering...so you have to practice being invisible as well. Ahhh, finding the empty film can or the note from a girl in school. I never hunted on purpose for the clues into the lives of my teenage sons. I was lucky. They left obvious trails and I was curious and curiouser, so I followed the signs. Hopefully, I learned to respect their privacy while satisfying my curious sniffer. Certainly I soon realized that I don't want to know all their private goings on. Keeping track of my own is a full time job and the day comes when a mother needs to trust her children to navigate their own journeys as surely as she learns to navigate her own. I explored hovering a bit when my sister Beth was dying. She was in a hospital bed for 4 and 1/2 years before she managed to slip out of this world. I went through lots of stages myself, before finally letting go. Somewhere between denial and anger and sandwiched between bargaining and acceptance was the stage I call hovering.
Maybe angels do it. Insects surely do. How about souls? There is a time when a body is way past useful but it hasn't stepped over the threshold. I've seen that place in Beth's life...when Dad was dying of lung cancer and everyone wants to know when it's going to happen. Now, my dog Hershey is fluttering on the threshold and the clock is useless. The only time that keeps proper time is her time. I get up several times a night to see if she is still breathing. The room is crowded. It's not just me and Stephen and my girl sleeping on her bed...but the presence of a fourth energy. The presence of death. The gas she passes and the smell of her breath all require a balsam pillow...the presence of the tall majestic trees...scent of the forest. The piney essence is restorative and fresh. My girl still breathes. We visit the nursing home where Stephen's mother hovers at her threshold. The balsam pillow would be welcome. Why is it so hard to allow...to let each single soul come to their own point of crossing? To let the creature take their time? Why does it seem like you have to do something? There is no grace in pushing someone over the threshold...so I wait and breathe and love...happy for the time...confident the choice will be perfectly timed. Hovering. We all do it.

Unfinished Business

I feel my way through the technology maze and I do pretty well but I could not figure out how to get back to my saved draft of my musings on change. My only options seemed to be delete or publish...so I published it unfinished. Thus, this entry becomes a meditation on Unfinished Business. I was thinking about the challenge of change and the difference between change in the external circumstances of life that one can control vs the kind of change that happens to us and affects our deepest self and is not in our control at all...in fact it controls us with wave upon wave of emotion be it happiness or sadness. There is a piece in all this called resistance too. How much do we allow ourselves to be moved? Do we open our hearts to the depths of grief or do we avoid going there for all we are worth?

There was once a hopelessly idealistic and romantic poet that lived within me. She amassed a mountain of material over the first half of life. She embarked on a journey back to the land and a search for the deepest roots of soul and love. At one point, she became sick with the flu and nearly lost her life when complications developed into heart failure. Perhaps she did lose her life because I no longer seem to feel driven to write. Heart failure for a poet is way more complex than just the physical illness that gets treated with medication and diet changes. It's a failure of spirit as well. Perhaps I just let her die. I simply ran out of words. And I became tired of language, tired of words and verbal description...tired of trying so hard to make myself understood...tired of the internal noise. I craved silence and stillness. A similar thing happened when my Dad died. After taking his cremains out to sea and scattering his ashes, my old joy in sailing died too. I suddenly became prone to seasickness where I once passionately loved the open ocean and the rolling waves. My deepest desire was altered by the void left by the death of my Dad. Suddenly I became a stranger to myself.

Perhaps the challenge of change that happens at our marrow is in allowing ourselves to be temporarily unknown and vulnerable...carried by the waves on a journey toward some unknown becoming. Resistance manifests in holding on tight to our previous definition of ourselves rather than trusting the movement ever onward toward evolution of spirit. I think of my cousin, my friends and family in the throws of cancer...and I pray they greet their changes with less resistance and a deep openness to their vulnerability because it seems to me that embedded in the mystery of change lies a fragrance of something far sweeter than our human minds can conjour and the only path is through feeling.

Is there anything more vulnerable than a baby bird on the cusp of learning to fly?

Challenge of Change

Here we are cruising into the last week of June slightly rusted from all the rain but ever hopeful for a warm sunny growing season still to come. The ribald idealism of bright green May and nothing but growth to come, has given way to a tempering this June. There was murder and mayhem out back at the bird house that has been occupied by swallows all spring. The house was literally turned upside down hanging from the pole, suggesting vandals of the cat kind. The 2 unhatched eggs had been drained by the telltale puncture of a snake tooth and the one hatched baby was dead. The swallows are still landing on and around the house...perhaps wishing to wake up from their nightmare to find their home intact and children alive. Out of 24 days of June, 22 have been rainy and cucumber beetles have destroyed my squash and pumpkins. Some kind of black aphids have turned my fava beans from healthy green to wilted sick. I also haven't found a job beyond my own home and garden. Guess it's understandable that my thoughts turn to the challenges of change. I'm a person who loves spontaneity, surprises and the not quite knowing what's happening frame of mind. I've called many places home and been fortunate to work in many different capacities through my life. I know I am not commitment-phobic because I've been married to the same wonderful partner for 26 years and have held the thread of journal writing since the age of 12. No. I'm not afraid of change. But there is change and there is CHANGE.

Lower case change is about changing external circumstances. I'm not saying it's easy. Usually changing externals means lots of work...hard earth work...moving stuff, cleaning stuff, sorting and dumping stuff. But capital CHANGE is internal change. It's far reaching and life-altering. It seems to come about when external circumstances change you. I just heard from my sister that my cousin's wife had a heart attack on Friday and died very suddenly. In a moment he has experienced a loss that totally redefines him. Two years ago, another cousin was driving with her husband to deliver her 18 year old son to college. In the passing lane of the highway, her husband had a heart attack and died while she reached over from the passenger seat to get the car under control.

My May Mystery

Hard to believe it's already the last week of May and I'm just sitting down to do a May entry. How has this happened? It's not like I don't have time. April Fools was a day on the mountain and today half my garden is planted and I've mowed grass three times. Mud season has come and gone and all the migrating songbirds have arrived to fill the woods with music. The lilacs are in bloom and leaf-out is complete. The transition is over and we are rolling in to early summer. Today is a damp cold rain and the wood-stove is cooking. The thirsty young plants are soaking up the rain and I feel the same about sitting in the warmth of the living room and writing. I seem to have a thirst for putting thoughts on paper. Sometimes I go overboard and sometimes I go so long without that I don't recognize that I'm even thirsty...until I start and I sigh and I feel a slow comforting hand gently holding me. May is a challenging month for me. My head is all over the changing temperatures and the hope of a great growing season and my body thrives on the increased activity and working outdoors. The arrival of the birds is always so thrilling. A great void inside me is suddenly filled with the joy of watching the birds do their courtship dances. The hummers bring back a feisty energy full of passion and competition...flashing iridescence. The ever present possibility of seeing a rare visitor or a bird happening gives a quality of wonder and a daily potential of the unexpected. Not to mention that the woods and the yard are unfolding their layers of spring green and every day new blossoming delights emerge. That is the great side, the heady, fragrant , sweet and drunken side of May. It is easy to keep my thoughts focused on the fertile birth of a new growing season and the hope of a future harvest .

The heart side of May is a different story...it is a complex fabric of deeper and more somber feelings. The higher my thoughts soar on the wild new beginnings, the deeper my heart seems to plunge it's awareness of lives lost. No matter how hard I try to buoy myself up and fortify myself against my potential for a deep May sadness, the more surprised...the more mystified I am by the sudden gravity of my memories. My sister Beth died on May 21st after 4 and 1/2 years lying in a hospital bed. She had so many meetings with Death over the course of those years that I felt certain I could handle the actuality of her passage once it finally came. But when it came, I felt stunned by the loss and the finality of the moment. Like becoming a mother...nothing prepared me for the moment to come. It was only through walking the path that I have come to know the truth of deep feeling...to open the heart a soul must be willing to walk through great joy and brave enough to weather great sorrow because joy and sorrow are irrevocably connected. They are one and the word that encompasses them both is LOVE. Every spring I seem to rediscover my original discovery and every single time I pass through May, I am astounded by this earth-shattering truth. It's been 24 years since she died. She was only alive for 26 years but every May I take the same walk...as though for the first time. I think of my friend who lost her daughter at the tender age of 15. Grief doesn't really ever go away. Can we but learn to recycle the grave and deep sadness, the salty tears and the throat lumps like egg shells and avocado seeds in the compost pile...perhaps that is all we can hope for...that our life's losses become fertilizer for our present flowers and fruits as long as our lives are sustained.

Memorial Day has always been a very sad day. I weep openly at the Memorial Day trumpeting of Taps...and since becoming the mother of 2 boys I weep copiously and out loud. My father, my uncle and all men who have served the country...how do you think their mothers felt? Sure they say proud. That is the public mask. It is the socially expected presentation for a woman who loses her child. Beneath the defense of "Proud" is a sense of great waste. ..a bitter taste of lives wasted when considering the cyclical nature of war. To lose a child is permanent. We are ripped open by loss...our hearts laid open by love.

There is great mystery in deep joy and deep sadness because both are the paths we walk in Love. I think of both when I pick flowers in the May rain. Loss has put my heart in touch with the eternal blossoming of love and I know it because my sadness reveals the great joy given to me by my sister's presence. Her life continues to fertilize my heart's garden with exquisite blossoms of wisdom and I am eternally grateful.

April Fool on a Hill

Ahhhh...April Fools. Our first April Fools Day in Bethel, Me in 2001 was a memorable one. Our first winter it snowed about 150 inches and we had company up from Mass. Josh and Beth were here and Josh went outside and heard a pop pop popping sound. He determined the sound was coming from nails in the garage popping loose. He bellowed in that the garage was going to cave in and we thought OH Sure...but when Stephen went out to check, sure enough...the garage was slowly giving way to the pressure of the snow upon it. We got the vehicles out and 5 minutes later, the whole thing went. Josh caught it all on video. At the same moment, the phone rang and one of our guests received the news that her Mom had passed on. Whew. That's what I consider Uranian energy. The kind of energy that breaks down old structure and makes a person wonder if they earned this Karma somehow. Funny though...I had a sense of peace. Somehow I had this feeling that everything was for the best and tho tempted to listen to my stinkin thinkin telling me what a disaster was brewing, I chose to focus on "All will be well".

Today, the universe pulled a similar April Fools joke. I had a call last night from a friend who is going on a ski vacation with a bit of a wound and she was looking for some special tape that Stephen had after his heel surgery. She asked to meet at the top of the race course on Monday Morning ( a ski trail at Sunday River) so I could give her the tape. Stephen participates in the Locals Challenge race every year but today was unable to race due to being in charge of 11 or so British kids just learning to ski. He offered me his bib and told me to go try the race because he had heard me talking about wanting to do it next year. He said I could give his team points just for going. He encouraged me to try it now so I'd know if I'd want to do it next year. It's all about commitment. There's a safety in thinking about something in the future and the actual reality of it happening in the NOW brings up a whole slew of other sensations. Suddenly, the universe was presenting me with a moment of challenge. I could accept the chance as an opportunity or I could listen to all my excuses why it would be better to wait. I could choose to listen to my desire to participate in my life, or I could choose to listen to all the reasons why I am afraid and protect myself from possible danger.

I know it seems like a small thing...skiing around some gates with a bunch of people who just do it for fun. I've certainly practiced my skiing and improved enough to join in the fun. But as I stood frozen on the top of the race course with the blue bib in my pocket, suddenly all my moments of "Just Jump" or "Just Do It " came around to weigh on my heart like ancient pressure as I listed for myself all the reasons not to race. Now I'm 56 years old. I've been waiting for perfection for a very long time. Do I want to wait till 2010??? Damn. I just had to put on that blue bib. I got it all tangled up and some other racer helped me. I got a quick rundown on how to do the gates and before I knew it , I was in the starting gate...Go Ahead #44. So I went.

Small as this moment seems to an outsider looking in, the universe had tricked me and I had brought all my psychological baggage along. A bunch of old tapes. The good new tape I gave to Kate, was given to me by the Creative Spirit. I just had to claim it. So at some point I said to myself...you're ready, your good enough....just do it. So I did. And I took the course gate by gate and I didn't care about my time. I skiied across the finish line and the rush of adrenaline was like a great breath of fresh air across my heart. I rose to the challenge. I had courage. I took heart. I burst into tears of unleashed joy. Damn. It felt great to be a fool on the hill on April Fools. It was more of a practical magic than a practical joke. I feel whole...engaged...commited...my vitality is restored. Healing comes cloaked in strange outfits. I did not cave in under pressure. I simply opened to the moment.

Maple Musing

This was the second weekend of boiling our collection of maple sap into syrup. Last year we lived in downtown Bethel where people walked by and if we were sitting out by the boil, they would come into the maple vapors and chat. This is our first farming event up here on Intervale Road. People drive by fast and aren't as likely to notice our process or take the time to stop. Last week, I got a call from our old neighbor Bill wondering if it was Maple Sunday at our place as it was Maple Sunday for the entire state. Of course, I told him but noone had stopped by...he was calling to see if he could come and sit by the boil and chat. Sweet. Just as I told him that I miss the spontaneous visits of friends downtown, the doorbell rang. John and Marilyn had come by to check out the process. They pulled in followed by Stephen who had made a trip to the dump and moments later Bill arrived. No sooner said than done....again we had a circle of maple celebrants spontaneously pop in. There is something about the ritual of maple-syrup making that marks the new year of growing after the winter of mountain recreation. The magic of the mistlike vapors, the sweet aroma rising into the air and the cultivation of nature's sweetness...it's healing and slow and we sit watching, eating peanuts, skimming the nitre froth and adding sap as the fire turns this run of tree juice into one of the worlds great flavors.

This Sunday after ending rituals at Sunday River...The Annual Perfect Turn Prom and Gary's annual corned beef for St. Patty's Day party...we invited our friends over for a Maple Food Fest.
Stephen religiously attended to the boil and collecting of sap while entertaining the appearance of friends who come by to check out the syrup making. I am working only weekends and though unable to collect and spend the time sitting, I still have my jobs. I do all the collecting and sterilizing of jars and we work together to seal and fill the jars with our finished syrup. Sunday I left work early. Who wants to learn to ski when it's pouring rain at the end of the season anyway. I had maple plans...we learned years ago that dropping eggs into the boil has the effect of clarifying the syrup...so for apetizers we enjoyed farm fresh eggs from Jill and Pete's hens. Anita and Ricky brought some salmon and we put our pieces of fish together in a maple/ginger/garlic marinade to cook on the barbeque and serve with baby yams and a big field green salad. For desert we had French Vanilla ice cream with warm syrup drizzled over it and an aperitif of dark rum mixed with warm syrup. WOW. Talk about buzzing on the sweetness of the season.We were a circle of celebrants celebrating the cycle of seasons by honoring the gift of the Sugar Maple available for only about 3 weeks in late March and early april. We never know how much we'll get but this year we were ready for the first run and so far it has been a banner year with a net result of a gallon of syrup for about 33 gallons of sap.

The sap is the blood of the tree. The product and process of making syrup was a gift of knowledge from our indiginous peoples...a kind sharing of knowledge that exemplifies life in harmony with the wild green things of planet Earth. The New Moon is passed and the time for planting some seeds is at hand. I wonder what I can do to give back a gift in kind for the Maples'
sweet syrup or the Native American's gift of wisdom. I ask...and on my e-mail I have an invitation I share with you. The Crow Creek reservation in South Dakota reports that Native Americans living in abject poverty are having their lights and heat turned off by the big power companies and in shutting down their power for non-payment of bills they are putting the population of children and elders at risk. As you anticipate your planting season, please consider sending some seeds for zones 3-4 to Crow Creek Community Garden...C/O Lisa Lengkeek..530 S. St. John...Fort Thompson SD 57339 or write to day.of.dignity@gmail.com. We can support these impoverished folks with the same gift they offered to incoming immigrants centuries ago...the green growing gift of seeds. Happy Planting and count one more ring in the tree of life.

Timid Spring

March came in with a snowstorm and yesterday it was a nippy windchill of zero. There are redpolls, goldfinch, chickadees, titmice and nuthatches at the feeders. The ravens, crows and blue jays prefer the food mix I set up back for the deer. They are all raucus and calling out some yearning for warmth...sun and sex would be my guess. Stephen has set 22 taps and we had our first boil this weekend. The early run has given us nearly 2 gallons of syrup. We are the sweet suckers...human proboscis, sipping the nectars of the trees. Must be the inner hummingbird stirring in the southern hemisphere making ready for the journey north. My energy has changed over the past few days. There is a buzzing...a sense of newness that seems to be awakening inside me. I dreamed last night that an Indian elephant came running down the hill from the woods as I was calling out Susannah, Susannah...she seemed to be on a walkabout away from her handler and she was wearing a red square fabric head covering with fringe and glittering mirrors. She was so vivid as was my voice calling out for her...and when I opened my eyes, there were six deer at the edge of the woods. The wild contrast of the strong inner elephant to the reality of the six hungry deer so timid and gentle, inner to outer...winter to spring.

I like to think of Spring as a young fresh maiden, innocent and hopeful playing amongst the fields of flowers and Winter as the lecherous old man wearing dirty white clothes that are threadbare and receding. In my vision, the lecherous, dirty old man wants to grab the young maiden Spring but she will never be had because her strength is growing while his agression wanes. But of course, it's the chase that counts...and as the wheel turns and spring becomes stronger she grows toward summer and her chase begins to seek fruits from her flowers. But of all the seasons here in Maine, Spring steps out timidly...first donning dirt , mud and last falls' leaves. The snow recedes and leaves all manner of debris exposed to light. There is a delight in seeing the ground bare as it is. I realize that I've missed the Earth's subtle colors and texture...her solid matter beneath my unbooted feet. This renewed connection makes me deleriously happy. How can I bear the joy of the full flowering, the moist dark earth ready for planting...the smells of the early tender green shoots and brave crocuses. The emerging pale green and purple shoots remind me of hidden growth beneath my surface and the mystery of what all goes on under the snow and ice of a woman's winter feelings.

I had thought of myself as empty and passionless. Burned out from a frantic work pace and too many people, I feared I lost my vitality. My exhaustion prefaced absolutely everything I attempted to do. All winter I have been happiest to sit in front of the woodstove and read...too tired even to write. The emptiness of my mind...the boys all moved out...the job finished...the move finally accomplished...I felt happy to sit and just be but somehow nipping at my spirits was a sense that somehow by not doing, I was copping out on something else I should be accomplishing. The elephantine pressure of a do do do conciousness that I allowed to enslave my child-wild heart went on a walkabout...and I let it.

The sun in front of the barn is warm as the sap boils and the sweet maple mist rises like a prayer for all life to awaken and nourish itself. Stephen and I sit looking out at the vast expanse of mountain ranges and the frozen ribbon of river in a companionable silence. I inhale great draughts of maple smelling vapors and surrender to the delicious do-nothing enjoyment of the sun warming face and bones. Spring may be timid a she steps cautiously out from behind the white curtain...but taking her time, she is sure to put on a colorful display and deep in her child-wild heart, she knows we are all waiting breathless for her strong clear song of creation. I tell myself again...just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. Finally it seems the wisdom of my years assures me that my vitality will return and I have grown faith enough to know that beneath my woman's winter layer of dirty ice and corn snow, sweet tender greens and gentle beginnings begin their journey toward flowering.

White Elephants

It snowed last night. A huge dumping of about two feet settled softly, cleaning up the landscape and commanding my attention. The amount feels almost overwhelming. I shovel a small area around the deck and hot-tub and I am exhausted. Stephen's truck has four wheel drive and he has gone to work at the mountain. I feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest. I want to shift my focus...change my locus...try a little hocus pocus. I decide I'm not going to be resigned to to being stuck. Stephen happily snowblows our whole driveway but it is a huge effort. Before he left today he jokingly said...How about if you snowblow today? It was an innocent ribbing because I don't know how to run the damn thing and I don't even want to know how. I have enough trouble trying to understand the clickers for the TV. So I decided to call a man to plow. Actually, I called two. Now I'm waiting...the one who said he'd be 30 minutes is still not here yet and the one who would have been two hours probably would have been here an hour ago. Guess it really doesn't matter. I'm not going anywhere so how can I be stuck? What matters is I called and instead of giving in to the caving in feeling of weakness in the face of adversity, I took action. It might sound like a little thing...calling a plow. I see it as one of lifes' little miracles.

I'm a person who has struggled mightily all her life with fear and negative thinking. Maybe it comes from my birth experience...coming into the air of earth with the cord wrapped around my neck..maybe I just lack confidence. I don't know. I do know that Stephen knows he can handle about anything and consequently, he can. I am inspired by his attitude and his widespread talents. I wish I could be more like him. But that is a waste of time because I'll only ever be me. I've become aware of a pattern that is deeply ingrained. I decide I'm going to accomplish something. I set out to acheive the goal I set for myself and I plod along, taking slow steps and the closer I get to what it is I want, the harder it becomes to move until I reach a point where I cave in and say...I'll never make it. And just about three steps away from accomplishing my goal, I fall into a heap and cry...experiencing the absolute certainty that no matter what I want to do...I don't have the energy, the hutzpa, the guts, the brains, the looks, the time, the money or whatever other obstacle I set between myself and success.

I do it in so many ways. Hiking Mt. Will last summer...we set out to do a short hike. It turned into about five miles and on the climb up I felt my will weaken and I wanted to turn around. It was probably just 100 yards from the peak and a gorgeous vista...it was where I became aware of the certainty of failure...the pattern of self sabotage. Stephen asked why do I do that to myself? At my age I should know...but it really doesn't matter why I do it. What matters is that I see I do it and I know I am talking myself out of what I want and I can choose to do otherwise. I go and call the plow man.

When I return to shoveling, there is a lightness in my shoulders. Suddenly I can see myself as able to clear my path. I am not at the mercy of a man or anyone really. I choose to take action. And the plow man coming is incedental. Even the snow is incedental. What really matters is that I have made a choice to see myself in a new light and I am lifted. I have become one with my white elephant...Be sure and look for the Flying Elephant link on my facebook page. It moves and inspires and highlights Magnificence.

Faces in the Windows

My friend April Frost, moved up here to my neighborhood in Maine. When I lived in Marblehead we often created art together and when I was in my painting pottery phase, I even worked with April when she gave children lessons. I admire her because she has made a lifestyle around her art. We were talking one day and she suggested we put our heads together and make a blog page for art inspiration. I shared with her that though I consider myself an artist, I don't feel like what I produce is really art. I'm not a product artist. I'm more of a process artist that creates for the energy it gives me...the flow i enter. I've never actually recognized my work as art because the results always seem to be so far from what I see in my mind. That's when April told me about a quote from Annie Dillard...something about how her art is a changeling...she thinks she knows what she is creating and every time she nears completion, her creation becomes something other. Changeling...it stuck in my mind and I think about the native women artists...weavers and sand painters . They left an opening in their work ...purposely they did not finish the art completely to allow for soul to enter. This whole concept has been a bone for my mind to chew on, inspiring me to go to Google and claim a blog space that I named Changelings Haven...because if the creator is creating me as a work of art, I was put into this awe inspiring landscape unfinished and like a Navaho rug, i am open for soul to enter.

That same week I had an intense dialogue with my sister Sue who struggles to create her art with the constant distractions of life- like motherhood, caring for friends and family, single parenting and full time work for a living. It was around commitment to your art...and the result of choices all along the way. The choice to care for loved ones can put the making of art on the back burner and there can be a developing sadness that comes from choosing to support others over the choice to focus on making art. She insisted her choices had favored human connection. I played the devils advocate around prodding her to make the same commitment to her art. I too struggle with the competition between intimate bonds and the need for personal space to create art. I too see the fruits of my labors as the seeds I've sewn by the choices I make along the way. I haven't written my book or any poems in ages. I continue to journal but all I write ends up in a closet on a shelf. It doesn't reach out and touch. There it sits unfullfilled.

CHANGELING'S HAVEN suggests a place that is safe for a work of creation to come into its own. It has sat untouched since it's inception in October '08 just like journals in the closet...until I opened up to Facebook and began connecting with people...faces in my windows. In my vast and sweeping landscape of woods, mountains and wide river I come to my computer. I look out the window and I am aware of so many faces...so many creative spirits that probably struggle with the same conflicts of creating space and bonding space. And here it all merges...a place to create and a social network all in the same spot...blogspot...spot on.