Roberto died at High Valley, our center, after a long illness. During his last weeks, his friends Karen and David cared for him there, joined by his mother Luisa from Venezuela. Until her recent move to a nursing home, Karen and David shared a house with my mother-in-law Olga, also from Venezuela. Olga’s last years at home coincided with the years Roberto, a musician from New York, stayed at High Valley frequently. Whenever he visited, he played Venezuelan folksongs on his Cuatro for Olga. In her nineties and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Olga knew all the words and sang along, tapping her feet to the rhythm. Olga and Roberto were more than compatriots. They came from the same island, Margarita, and spoke the same dialect. With his music, Roberto restored Olga’s memory of her earliest years.
Roberto requested that his ashes be scattered at High Valley, the place of his deep friendship with Karen and David, the heart of an earth-centered community in which he joyously took part whenever he was present. The morning of his funeral was warm and clear, the air full of birdsong, floating seeds and blossoms. The chaplain from hospice, a Roman Catholic nun who spoke fluent Spanish, came to officiate. Of those gathered, five spoke only English; three were bilingual, and Roberto’s mother spoke only Spanish.
Sister Maria was dressed in a simple suit with a cross on her lapel. She had been making visits to the family for the last two weeks when hospice services were put in place. She was quiet and confident; she had created a simple structure for the ceremony that left ample room for spontaneity. Her translations were seamless, her ways of including others, sensitive and inspired.
Karen opened a book of poems at random and happened on one addressed to a mother who has lost a child. At Sister Maria’s suggestion, Karen read a line in English and Roberto’s cousin translated in Spanish. Then Sister Maria read in Spanish the Gospel story of the disciples recognizing Jesus in the breaking of bread. “And so,” she concluded, in Spanish, then in English, “when you hear music, that is how you will recognize Roberto, our hermanito. You will know that he is with us.”
Spontaneously we sang a chant that Robert had loved and that we had sung to him in the last weeks. “We are opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love light of the one.” Encouraged, Roberto’s mother then sang a hymn to the Virgin Mary calling her to guide Roberto’s spirit. We all joined in the chorus, “Ven, Maria, ven!” One of the most powerful, intimate invocations of the divine mother I have ever heard.
Sister Maria then told us it was time to return Roberto to the Mother Earth. Luisa became very calm and still. She took the bag of ashes and went to a metasequoia tree that Roberto had loved. She flung his ashes; the wind caught them and lifted them into light before they fell among the roots. With sureness and strength, Luisa moved to the lake and gave ashes to the water, and then to the fire pit where Roberto had cooked arepas many times. And finally she walked to a huge copper beech that she called “el arbol rojo.”
At Sister Maria’s instruction, I had fetched a pitcher of water, “so that she does not have to wash her hands at the sink.” Underneath the red tree, where the last of Roberto’s body had been returned to the mother by his mother, Sister Maria poured water over Luisa’s upraised hands, murmuring prayers that needed no translation.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Becoming a Prayer
We usually think of praying as something we do, a prayer as something we say or perhaps read, aloud or silently. But if a singer is one who sings, a writer one who writes, a dancer one who dances, and so forth, we could say that a prayer is one who prays. If we pray, we are prayers.
The daughter of an Episcopal priest, I grew up with the sonorous, sometimes terrifying language of The 1928 Book of Common Prayer. From the General Confession this phrase has always stayed with me. “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickednesses.” (I still love that plural.)
Quaker Meeting was my first experience of silent corporate prayer. In what I called “the womb of silence” different images of the divine emerged, especially feminine ones. In time, longing for music and ritual led me out of Quaker Meeting to form a non-institutional, earth-centered community. At length I also became an ordained interfaith minister.
Here are some things I have learned/am learning about praying/being a prayer:
If you pray for someone (or something), prepare to be part of the answer.
Raging at the divine is fine. Go for it at the top of your lungs. Exhaust yourself. Then…listen.
Help! Help! is a good prayer. The answer may come in bizarre (often humorous) forms. Be alert.
You can pray with your body; you can pray with your breath; you can pray with your touch; you can pray with your presence.
Singing and dancing and drumming can be prayers.
Aligning with the elements, the waxing and waning moon and sun, the seasons of the earth, the plants and animals is prayer.
Gratitude and kindness are always prayers.
You do not have to have a belief system to pray. You do not have to have a fixed opinion about where the divine resides or if the divine as a noun exists. All our words and images are metaphors to help us connect with the mystery, the intimately known and unknown.
Writing a novel can be a prayer. Dreaming can be prayer. Cooking can be prayer. Eating can be prayer. Making love can be prayer. This list could go on and on.
A recent experience of prayer:
Something I am calling “world sorrow” for lack of another term, when the boundaries between you and “all that is” disappear for a time, and you sorrow with the earth, as the earth. Many people have become this kind of prayer during the oil spill disaster and other world sorrows.
A recent definition of prayer from my tai chi teacher who also teaches shamanic practice:
“When you pray for someone you become, for a moment, the creator.”
I remember those moments when I have seen someone without the filter of my hopes or concerns for them, which can all too easily take on the tinge of judgment or control. Those moments are startling, illuminating, humbling.
Praying without ceasing:
If we become prayers, we can. If we become prayers, we are.
The daughter of an Episcopal priest, I grew up with the sonorous, sometimes terrifying language of The 1928 Book of Common Prayer. From the General Confession this phrase has always stayed with me. “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickednesses.” (I still love that plural.)
Quaker Meeting was my first experience of silent corporate prayer. In what I called “the womb of silence” different images of the divine emerged, especially feminine ones. In time, longing for music and ritual led me out of Quaker Meeting to form a non-institutional, earth-centered community. At length I also became an ordained interfaith minister.
Here are some things I have learned/am learning about praying/being a prayer:
If you pray for someone (or something), prepare to be part of the answer.
Raging at the divine is fine. Go for it at the top of your lungs. Exhaust yourself. Then…listen.
Help! Help! is a good prayer. The answer may come in bizarre (often humorous) forms. Be alert.
You can pray with your body; you can pray with your breath; you can pray with your touch; you can pray with your presence.
Singing and dancing and drumming can be prayers.
Aligning with the elements, the waxing and waning moon and sun, the seasons of the earth, the plants and animals is prayer.
Gratitude and kindness are always prayers.
You do not have to have a belief system to pray. You do not have to have a fixed opinion about where the divine resides or if the divine as a noun exists. All our words and images are metaphors to help us connect with the mystery, the intimately known and unknown.
Writing a novel can be a prayer. Dreaming can be prayer. Cooking can be prayer. Eating can be prayer. Making love can be prayer. This list could go on and on.
A recent experience of prayer:
Something I am calling “world sorrow” for lack of another term, when the boundaries between you and “all that is” disappear for a time, and you sorrow with the earth, as the earth. Many people have become this kind of prayer during the oil spill disaster and other world sorrows.
A recent definition of prayer from my tai chi teacher who also teaches shamanic practice:
“When you pray for someone you become, for a moment, the creator.”
I remember those moments when I have seen someone without the filter of my hopes or concerns for them, which can all too easily take on the tinge of judgment or control. Those moments are startling, illuminating, humbling.
Praying without ceasing:
If we become prayers, we can. If we become prayers, we are.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Howl if You Love Gaia: Cristina Eisenberg's The Wolf's Tooth
I thought of titling this post “Howl if You Love Jesus,” although Cristina’s Eisenberg’s in depth survey of the effect of keystone predators on a wide variety of ecosystems, makes no mention of Jesus or of any religion. The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity is all about food webs. And I found myself thinking of Jesus saying to his disciples: Take, eat this is my body. If you think of the earth as the body of Christ, then all its members are important: the predator, the prey, the trees, the grasses, the birds, insects, fish, the forests, the rivers, the seas, and all their myriad forms of life.
A scientist with a poet’s command of language, Cristina Eisenberg writes with precision and passion. Her own ongoing research focuses on wolves as keystone predators, what happens to various landscapes when wolves return in sufficient numbers to drive a trophic cascade. Wolves affect herbivores, for example elk, not only by limiting their numbers but also by causing them to be vigilant, thus changing their browsing patterns. When herbivores no longer over-browse, young trees can grow to maturity. When the forest and other plants are renewed, songbirds, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians return. Forested river banks hold their soil, preventing erosion and contributing to the health of rivers. The herbivore population also benefits, having a more reliable and renewable food source. Wolves are called keystone predators, because their presence or absence has a radical effect on a whole complex eco-system. When a system is healthy, biodiversity flourishes.
In Part One: Web of Life, Eisenberg takes her reader on a breathtaking, sometimes heartbreaking tour of the planet from the Gulf of Maine to the Amazonian rain forests, the tropical coral reefs to old growth forests of the Northwest as well as rivers, lakes, and wetlands. At each stop she introduces us to the work of fellow scientists who are studying these ecosystems and the effects of disrupted food webs. As someone with no science background at all, I found the wealth of information not only accessible but riveting.
Part Two: Mending the Web surveys public policies and projects, both private and public, where keystone predators have returned or are being reintroduced. In this section Eisenberg also ponders the place of the human being, how to balance human uses of land and resources with the need to preserve wildness for our own health and the health of the whole planet. When too many species become extinct or compromised our own survival as a species is at stake, as we are being sharply reminded with the oil spill now threatening life in the marshes of Louisiana.
In order to survive in the wild where she works, Eisenberg herself has had to find her place, and learn to understand the language of wolves, grizzlies, and cougars and to defer to them when appropriate. As a species, we seem to have taken umbrage at the very idea of other predators who threaten us and our livelihoods. We have demonized them and many of us still seek to destroy them. In doing so, we have, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps with the best of intentions, caused harm to this sacred, beloved body of which we are all members.
Eisenberg quotes pioneer ecologist Aldo Leopold:
Eisenberg’s powerful, beautifully written book, already in its second printing, has the potential to open many people’s eyes, minds, and hearts.
A scientist with a poet’s command of language, Cristina Eisenberg writes with precision and passion. Her own ongoing research focuses on wolves as keystone predators, what happens to various landscapes when wolves return in sufficient numbers to drive a trophic cascade. Wolves affect herbivores, for example elk, not only by limiting their numbers but also by causing them to be vigilant, thus changing their browsing patterns. When herbivores no longer over-browse, young trees can grow to maturity. When the forest and other plants are renewed, songbirds, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians return. Forested river banks hold their soil, preventing erosion and contributing to the health of rivers. The herbivore population also benefits, having a more reliable and renewable food source. Wolves are called keystone predators, because their presence or absence has a radical effect on a whole complex eco-system. When a system is healthy, biodiversity flourishes.
In Part One: Web of Life, Eisenberg takes her reader on a breathtaking, sometimes heartbreaking tour of the planet from the Gulf of Maine to the Amazonian rain forests, the tropical coral reefs to old growth forests of the Northwest as well as rivers, lakes, and wetlands. At each stop she introduces us to the work of fellow scientists who are studying these ecosystems and the effects of disrupted food webs. As someone with no science background at all, I found the wealth of information not only accessible but riveting.
Part Two: Mending the Web surveys public policies and projects, both private and public, where keystone predators have returned or are being reintroduced. In this section Eisenberg also ponders the place of the human being, how to balance human uses of land and resources with the need to preserve wildness for our own health and the health of the whole planet. When too many species become extinct or compromised our own survival as a species is at stake, as we are being sharply reminded with the oil spill now threatening life in the marshes of Louisiana.
In order to survive in the wild where she works, Eisenberg herself has had to find her place, and learn to understand the language of wolves, grizzlies, and cougars and to defer to them when appropriate. As a species, we seem to have taken umbrage at the very idea of other predators who threaten us and our livelihoods. We have demonized them and many of us still seek to destroy them. In doing so, we have, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps with the best of intentions, caused harm to this sacred, beloved body of which we are all members.
Eisenberg quotes pioneer ecologist Aldo Leopold:
“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to the layman.”
Eisenberg’s powerful, beautifully written book, already in its second printing, has the potential to open many people’s eyes, minds, and hearts.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Celebrating Beltane: Courage in Hard Times
This year, as the festival of Beltane (April 30th) approached, I was aware of feeling anxious. Our community celebrates by leaping bonfires, dancing the May Pole, then gathering boughs and literally bringing in the May. We festoon the rafters of a barn with blossoming branches, and then we crown each other with ribbon, adding violets, periwinkles and daffodils wherever they can be tucked in. Use your imagination. We’ve been celebrating the holiday at High Valley for fifteen years, and I always watch closely and eagerly as Spring unfolds from the first snowdrops and crocuses, to the shadblow, the forsythia, daffodils, quince, and then tulips and the first bloom of apple and dogwood. This Spring everything bloomed three to four weeks early. I kept wondering, what May will be left to gather in?
This might not sound like cause for angst. As I fretted, I discovered many people do not keep such close track of when this or that plant blooms. And isn’t an early Spring (fast turning into an early summer) cause for rejoicing? Perhaps, if it was just an anomaly. But I can’t help feeling that this early Spring is connected to the climate change that is bringing us melting icecaps, disappearing islands and coasts, changes in monsoon patterns, violent freak storms. This year, for whatever reason, there have been five earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. The recent coalmine disaster and the ongoing oil spill serve as immediate and dramatic reminders of the havoc our human dependency on fossil fuel is wreaking. The greenest of us is part of this juggernaut.
On May Eve, we managed to find some dogwood still blooming as well as narcissus, a few tulips and plenty of violets. It was a beautiful, warm, clear day. As my husband and I gathered boughs and flowers and set up the bonfires and the Maypole, I pondered how to acknowledge grief, not just personal grief of which there is always plenty, but planetary grief and yet also open to joy, to possibility, to surprise. Spring, even when it is not early and connected to ominous change, can break your heart. Spring challenges us to begin again, open again, risk coming to life again.
For me celebrating the Wheel of the Year is about connecting with my community, human and non-human, aligning with the rhythms of waxing and waning light, cycles of fecundity and death and regeneration. It is about remembering that we are the earth, we are made of earth, air, water, and the fire of the sun. If I am earth, there is no shame in feeling earth’s sorrow in my body. But it is also important to know joy, to embody joy.
On Beltane morning I wrote a tanka (a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern):
The Beltane moment
~forsythia, shadblow, quince~
passed some weeks ago
still we gather this May Eve,
blossoming boughs of courage.
And that evening we did gather, some seventy strong. We acknowledged sorrow, then danced with joy. We brought in the May and as we crowned each other we made the last line of the tanka into an improvised chant. Over and over, till everyone was radiant and festooned with flowers, we sang:
“We are the blossoming boughs of courage.”
May our courage bear good fruit.
Coming next week, a post on Cristina Eisenberg's new book The Wolf's Tooth: Keystone Predator's, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity
This might not sound like cause for angst. As I fretted, I discovered many people do not keep such close track of when this or that plant blooms. And isn’t an early Spring (fast turning into an early summer) cause for rejoicing? Perhaps, if it was just an anomaly. But I can’t help feeling that this early Spring is connected to the climate change that is bringing us melting icecaps, disappearing islands and coasts, changes in monsoon patterns, violent freak storms. This year, for whatever reason, there have been five earthquakes and a volcanic eruption. The recent coalmine disaster and the ongoing oil spill serve as immediate and dramatic reminders of the havoc our human dependency on fossil fuel is wreaking. The greenest of us is part of this juggernaut.
On May Eve, we managed to find some dogwood still blooming as well as narcissus, a few tulips and plenty of violets. It was a beautiful, warm, clear day. As my husband and I gathered boughs and flowers and set up the bonfires and the Maypole, I pondered how to acknowledge grief, not just personal grief of which there is always plenty, but planetary grief and yet also open to joy, to possibility, to surprise. Spring, even when it is not early and connected to ominous change, can break your heart. Spring challenges us to begin again, open again, risk coming to life again.
For me celebrating the Wheel of the Year is about connecting with my community, human and non-human, aligning with the rhythms of waxing and waning light, cycles of fecundity and death and regeneration. It is about remembering that we are the earth, we are made of earth, air, water, and the fire of the sun. If I am earth, there is no shame in feeling earth’s sorrow in my body. But it is also important to know joy, to embody joy.
On Beltane morning I wrote a tanka (a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern):
The Beltane moment
~forsythia, shadblow, quince~
passed some weeks ago
still we gather this May Eve,
blossoming boughs of courage.
And that evening we did gather, some seventy strong. We acknowledged sorrow, then danced with joy. We brought in the May and as we crowned each other we made the last line of the tanka into an improvised chant. Over and over, till everyone was radiant and festooned with flowers, we sang:
“We are the blossoming boughs of courage.”
May our courage bear good fruit.
Coming next week, a post on Cristina Eisenberg's new book The Wolf's Tooth: Keystone Predator's, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
What did Jesus do?
One of the people who most remind me of the Jesus I encounter in the Gospels is my friend singer songwriter Tim Dillinger. He lives on next to nothing and yet carries with him an atmosphere of joy and abundance. His many friendships cross lines of race, religion, age, gender, and sexual orientation in a way that has nothing to do with political correctness. To Tim everyone is kin. He does not shy from confrontation, but when he contends with someone, he also seeks to understand their point of view, even when people condemn him, as many did last week when he posted a link on his facebook page to an article about Jennifer Knapp, a Christian singer who came out as gay, an experience Tim has lived himself.
Some of the scriptural pronouncements against homosexuality come from Leviticus, one of the three Biblical books that detail more than four hundred laws. Most people have a tough enough time observing the Ten Commandments. It hardly seems cricket for Christians to riffle through Mosaic law to pick the ones that reinforce their opinions while ignoring scores of others. Paul, who is famous for fulminating about sexual immorality, is also frequently taken out of context. For an excellent analysis of Romans I, see this article by James Alison.
Both Peter and Paul did do some picking and choosing about which of the laws of Moses to observe and which to disregard as gentiles flocked to the new movement. After a visionary dream, Peter argued for relaxing dietary laws. And Paul waived the requirement of circumcision insisting that what matters to God is a circumcised heart. In context, their policies were liberal and inclusive.
As for Jesus, he said nothing on the subject of homosexuality. You could argue, and many have, that he didn’t have to make pronouncements. He was an observant Jew who would have regarded homosexuality as a sin. The truth is, we will never know his views on this subject. We do, however, have very clear statements from Jesus on how we are to behave towards one another:
Judge not lest you be judged. Matthew 7:1
Do not take the mote from your brother’s eye until you have removed the beam from your own. Matthew 7:3
Let the one without sin among you cast the first stone. John 8:7
Love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:31
I was naked and you clothed me, hungry and you gave me to eat… Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these the least my brethren, you have done it onto me. Matthew 25
The only people Jesus railed against were the self-righteous and the hypocritical—sins we’re all guilty of from time to time. Let us repent! Focus instead on loving and caring for the people who cross our path. That is what Jesus actually did. And that is what Tim does. And if we do the same, we will not have the time, energy or heart to condemn any of our kin.
Some of the scriptural pronouncements against homosexuality come from Leviticus, one of the three Biblical books that detail more than four hundred laws. Most people have a tough enough time observing the Ten Commandments. It hardly seems cricket for Christians to riffle through Mosaic law to pick the ones that reinforce their opinions while ignoring scores of others. Paul, who is famous for fulminating about sexual immorality, is also frequently taken out of context. For an excellent analysis of Romans I, see this article by James Alison.
Both Peter and Paul did do some picking and choosing about which of the laws of Moses to observe and which to disregard as gentiles flocked to the new movement. After a visionary dream, Peter argued for relaxing dietary laws. And Paul waived the requirement of circumcision insisting that what matters to God is a circumcised heart. In context, their policies were liberal and inclusive.
As for Jesus, he said nothing on the subject of homosexuality. You could argue, and many have, that he didn’t have to make pronouncements. He was an observant Jew who would have regarded homosexuality as a sin. The truth is, we will never know his views on this subject. We do, however, have very clear statements from Jesus on how we are to behave towards one another:
Judge not lest you be judged. Matthew 7:1
Do not take the mote from your brother’s eye until you have removed the beam from your own. Matthew 7:3
Let the one without sin among you cast the first stone. John 8:7
Love your neighbor as yourself. Mark 12:31
I was naked and you clothed me, hungry and you gave me to eat… Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of these the least my brethren, you have done it onto me. Matthew 25
The only people Jesus railed against were the self-righteous and the hypocritical—sins we’re all guilty of from time to time. Let us repent! Focus instead on loving and caring for the people who cross our path. That is what Jesus actually did. And that is what Tim does. And if we do the same, we will not have the time, energy or heart to condemn any of our kin.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Personality Disorder: Deliberate Misdiagnosis
I am doing research and taking alarming diagnostic tests online, because of an article in The Nation “Disposable Soldiers” by Joshua Kors that highlights the case of Chuck Luther , a soldier discharged from the army after multiple tours of duty and exposure to combat conditions with a supposed diagnosis of Personality Disorder. Considered a pre-existing condition, this diagnosis permits the army to deny the soldier a lifetime of disability benefits and long-term medical care. And to add salt to the wound, a soldier also has to give back a portion of their re-enlistment bonus, which may exceed the amount of a final paycheck. In short, it is entirely within the military’s financial interest to overlook an alleged pre-existing condition during recruitment screening and then discover it later after a soldier has suffered trauma or brain injury.
This suspect practice has been going on for years. In 2007 then Senator Obama introduced a bill to stop all PD discharges. It was defeated, and the PD discharges are ongoing. Joshua Kors writes:
ICD-10 general diagnostic criteria, which includes the following:
These two criteria alone call into question the plethora of military discharges for PD. If a diagnosis requires evidence that the deviation is “stable and of long duration,” why wasn’t it made during a medical screening process or discovered during basic training? And in combat situations, how can a brain injury be ruled out? In Chuck Luther’s case a mortar exploded in his guard house and slammed his head into a cement wall. He suffered partial loss of hearing, blindness in one eye, debilitating migraines, persistent shoulder pain but was given (and ultimately forced to accept) a discharge for PD.
A much more common and accurate diagnosis for soldiers who have seen combat is Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. Of course it cannot be dismissed as pre-existing. In this country there are sharp divisions of opinion about the two wars we continue to fight. Let’s unify in holding our military and our government accountable for fair recompense and respectful care for returning soldiers. If we cannot afford to treat the wounds of war—physical, psychological, and spiritual— we should not be asking our soldiers to suffer them.
For ways to help: http://www.ptsdsupport.net/ptsd_given_misdiagnosis.html
This suspect practice has been going on for years. In 2007 then Senator Obama introduced a bill to stop all PD discharges. It was defeated, and the PD discharges are ongoing. Joshua Kors writes:
“Since 2001 more than 22,600 soldiers have been discharged with personality disorder. That number includes soldiers who have served two and three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.”Typing Personality Disorder into my browser, I soon discovered the
ICD-10 general diagnostic criteria, which includes the following:
There must be evidence that the deviation is stable and of long duration, having its onset in late childhood or adolescence.
Organic brain disease, injury, or dysfunction must be excluded as the possible cause of the deviation.
These two criteria alone call into question the plethora of military discharges for PD. If a diagnosis requires evidence that the deviation is “stable and of long duration,” why wasn’t it made during a medical screening process or discovered during basic training? And in combat situations, how can a brain injury be ruled out? In Chuck Luther’s case a mortar exploded in his guard house and slammed his head into a cement wall. He suffered partial loss of hearing, blindness in one eye, debilitating migraines, persistent shoulder pain but was given (and ultimately forced to accept) a discharge for PD.
A much more common and accurate diagnosis for soldiers who have seen combat is Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder. Of course it cannot be dismissed as pre-existing. In this country there are sharp divisions of opinion about the two wars we continue to fight. Let’s unify in holding our military and our government accountable for fair recompense and respectful care for returning soldiers. If we cannot afford to treat the wounds of war—physical, psychological, and spiritual— we should not be asking our soldiers to suffer them.
For ways to help: http://www.ptsdsupport.net/ptsd_given_misdiagnosis.html
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Drinking from Our Own Wells: Celebrating National Poetry Month
April is national poetry month, but we need poetry all year long, all life long. Left to their own devices, children speak poetry. I will never forget hearing my four- year-old daughter crooning to herself.
The cat catches the mouse
the mouse catches the bird
and the night catches everything
At the end of his life, my father also spoke poetry:
When the river nears the sea
it gets confused
it doesn’t know which way to go.
Reading and writing poetry restores our sense of awe and connection; it uses words to take us to the wordless. When you write poetry, it changes the way you perceive. You are always on the alert for that shy, wild thing: a poem.
Eight years ago, after keeping journals since my teens, I decided I was tired of listening to myself maunder on in prose. I challenged myself to keep a poem journal only. In this daily practice, bad poetry is permissible and inevitable, but whatever I write about—dreams, conflict, people, nature—I seek to discover something truthful and essential. For example, volumes on domestic tension and affection are distilled here.
Parting of the long-married
He opens the car door
and begins to get in
before I protest and he
swears he would have remembered
to give me a goodbye embrace.
He insists on removing my glasses
to hold me close, and I (almost angrily)
say many useless things
about calling and staying safe.
I send a blessing as he drives away.
Later I cannot find my glasses.
It is clearly his fault.
I rewind the morning and know
I put them on the back of my car.
I find them halfway up the drive, unharmed.
Poetry can call forth a succinct narrative account, but I also relish the permission it gives for free association. Here is a poem I wrote not long after my husband’s diagnosis with prostate cancer. (He has successfully completed treatment.) The poem came from a meditation.
saints’ gold
the light shining
through your mother’s womb
the light shining
into the depths of the sea
the last light on the last oak leaves
at the end of a short November day
the honey inside the hive
the honey spooled on the spoon
the light in your lover’s eyes
when he knows
you will never
leave.
For me, as for many, poems can also be prayers, a way of connecting with mystery. Here is one from yesterday.
where you dwell
you are in every breaking heart
I don’t know how this can be
but I believe it is so
our torn hearts are your temple
they offer scant shelter
from rain or beauty
you are welcome in my heart
I am seeking you here among
weeds and fallen stone
in some shadow you are waiting
you will give me water
from my own spring
cupped in your brown hands
when I am quieted
you will speak
When I signed up for twitter last summer, I began to experiment with haiku and even attempted the occasional tanka. The really gifted poets don’t always stick to the syllabic formula, which is only an English approximation of the forms, but I became addicted to counting.
haiku
now it's quiet again
crows have settled their dispute
wind rests in the leaves
tanka
just outside my door
the phoebes shrill excitement
topic? real estate
should we raise the babies here?
I hope they decide to build
Twitter attracts people who love words. In further celebration of poetry month, I want to introduce you to a writer I met there: R. May Evans who has just published Truth-Love-Blood-and Bones, a collection of poems available as an e-book. May is also a brilliant blogger and an artist. Here are her links:
book: http://bit.ly/b4wLMr
blog: http://www.maysmachete.com
art and writing: http://www.readheadgirl.deviantart.com
R. May Evans has a lively and wide-ranging poetic voice—funny, fierce, sexy, angry, lyrical, passionate. Her images and metaphors sometimes startle me in just the way I long to be startled, so that I see in a new way. With R. May Evan’s permission, I will close with a poem that gives me a sense of her bold, engaging spirit. I encourage you to explore her work further.
Curiosity
I am like a goat butting
my hard head and tiny horns against everyone
and everything I come across, if only to find out what
they’re made of. I’m made of stubbornness
and questions. My cry could be a laugh.
I hop rock to rock, restless explorer.
copyright 2009 by R. May Evans
used with permission by the author
I would like to acknowledge author and editor Cait Johnson’s brilliant editorial suggestions for this post.
The cat catches the mouse
the mouse catches the bird
and the night catches everything
At the end of his life, my father also spoke poetry:
When the river nears the sea
it gets confused
it doesn’t know which way to go.
Reading and writing poetry restores our sense of awe and connection; it uses words to take us to the wordless. When you write poetry, it changes the way you perceive. You are always on the alert for that shy, wild thing: a poem.
Eight years ago, after keeping journals since my teens, I decided I was tired of listening to myself maunder on in prose. I challenged myself to keep a poem journal only. In this daily practice, bad poetry is permissible and inevitable, but whatever I write about—dreams, conflict, people, nature—I seek to discover something truthful and essential. For example, volumes on domestic tension and affection are distilled here.
Parting of the long-married
He opens the car door
and begins to get in
before I protest and he
swears he would have remembered
to give me a goodbye embrace.
He insists on removing my glasses
to hold me close, and I (almost angrily)
say many useless things
about calling and staying safe.
I send a blessing as he drives away.
Later I cannot find my glasses.
It is clearly his fault.
I rewind the morning and know
I put them on the back of my car.
I find them halfway up the drive, unharmed.
Poetry can call forth a succinct narrative account, but I also relish the permission it gives for free association. Here is a poem I wrote not long after my husband’s diagnosis with prostate cancer. (He has successfully completed treatment.) The poem came from a meditation.
saints’ gold
the light shining
through your mother’s womb
the light shining
into the depths of the sea
the last light on the last oak leaves
at the end of a short November day
the honey inside the hive
the honey spooled on the spoon
the light in your lover’s eyes
when he knows
you will never
leave.
For me, as for many, poems can also be prayers, a way of connecting with mystery. Here is one from yesterday.
where you dwell
you are in every breaking heart
I don’t know how this can be
but I believe it is so
our torn hearts are your temple
they offer scant shelter
from rain or beauty
you are welcome in my heart
I am seeking you here among
weeds and fallen stone
in some shadow you are waiting
you will give me water
from my own spring
cupped in your brown hands
when I am quieted
you will speak
When I signed up for twitter last summer, I began to experiment with haiku and even attempted the occasional tanka. The really gifted poets don’t always stick to the syllabic formula, which is only an English approximation of the forms, but I became addicted to counting.
haiku
now it's quiet again
crows have settled their dispute
wind rests in the leaves
tanka
just outside my door
the phoebes shrill excitement
topic? real estate
should we raise the babies here?
I hope they decide to build
Twitter attracts people who love words. In further celebration of poetry month, I want to introduce you to a writer I met there: R. May Evans who has just published Truth-Love-Blood-and Bones, a collection of poems available as an e-book. May is also a brilliant blogger and an artist. Here are her links:
book: http://bit.ly/b4wLMr
blog: http://www.maysmachete.com
art and writing: http://www.readheadgirl.deviantart.com
R. May Evans has a lively and wide-ranging poetic voice—funny, fierce, sexy, angry, lyrical, passionate. Her images and metaphors sometimes startle me in just the way I long to be startled, so that I see in a new way. With R. May Evan’s permission, I will close with a poem that gives me a sense of her bold, engaging spirit. I encourage you to explore her work further.
Curiosity
I am like a goat butting
my hard head and tiny horns against everyone
and everything I come across, if only to find out what
they’re made of. I’m made of stubbornness
and questions. My cry could be a laugh.
I hop rock to rock, restless explorer.
copyright 2009 by R. May Evans
used with permission by the author
I would like to acknowledge author and editor Cait Johnson’s brilliant editorial suggestions for this post.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Sex and Incarnation: Part Two
“What about the orgies?” yet another man asked me.
“Orgies?” I repeated perplexed. “Why has no one invited me?”
We were attending New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sometime in the late 1980s. That summer the women’s rights committee (half-jokingly called the women’s rites committee) had sponsored an interest group on the goddess. (We didn’t specify which one.) Quakers have long been known for their religious tolerance. In 1683 Quaker William Penn, forced to preside over a witch trial in an era of persecution and hysteria, found a clever and merciful way to acquit the defendant. The controversy over the “goddess interest group,” a far cry from an orgy, took me by surprise. I wondered how Friends, who hold that “there is that of god in everyone” could so lose their balance when an “-ess” was added to the word.
The Biblical God, though referred to as “he,” is supposed to transcend gender. He has to, because in a monotheistic religion he is singular, and monotheism was a distinguishing characteristic of the emergent religion of the Hebrew people and remains so today for all the religions of the Book. When the Biblical prophets inveigh against rival pagan religions there is often a reference to (reprehensible) sexual practices associated with goddess worship. And this association and excoriation continue in the Epistles of Paul, notably Romans I. For better or worse, the word goddess automatically connotes gender, as does the word priestess, and it seems that whenever femaleness is not defined/confined by marriage and motherhood, people start asking “what about the orgies?”
Perhaps it is not an entirely idle or prurient question. Before I ever joined the women’s rights/rites committee, I had a periodic longing for a temple where I could go and celebrate Eros at full spate, make an offering of it to its source. The temple in my fantasy (or vision or memory) stood near a tidal river, and the moon was full. I knew nothing about the stranger(s) I received except that they were divine, as, in that moment, I was also.
Marriage can be a beautiful, durable container and expression of sexuality. (I’ve been married and monogamous for thirty years), but it is by definition domestic. And for the first 20 years or so, there are often children underfoot! Sexuality is not just domestic. My vision was about creating a container for Eros in its wilder, undomesticated form. In our culture we have no open or sanctified ways of expressing this aspect of sexuality. So that wild (perhaps divine) longing is often expressed covertly and destructively.
Because of that vision and the persistent questions about my orgiastic practices, I became interested in the subject of sacred prostitution. There seems to be fairly compelling evidence in ancient texts and images that it did once exist in many cultures (Sumer-Babylon and Phoenicia among them), though there is plenty of room for scholarly and religious debate about the details of the practice. Since I am not a scholar or a social reformer but a novelist, I decided to write about it , taking the position that what we don’t know, we can imagine. Through imagination perhaps we can become more open, insightful, and understanding of the ways we mortals embrace and/or wrestle with Eros.
For the record, I am still happily married, still monogamous. Our nest, now emptied, has come to resemble the temple more and more. At least on weekends, the orgy is here.
“Orgies?” I repeated perplexed. “Why has no one invited me?”
We were attending New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) sometime in the late 1980s. That summer the women’s rights committee (half-jokingly called the women’s rites committee) had sponsored an interest group on the goddess. (We didn’t specify which one.) Quakers have long been known for their religious tolerance. In 1683 Quaker William Penn, forced to preside over a witch trial in an era of persecution and hysteria, found a clever and merciful way to acquit the defendant. The controversy over the “goddess interest group,” a far cry from an orgy, took me by surprise. I wondered how Friends, who hold that “there is that of god in everyone” could so lose their balance when an “-ess” was added to the word.
The Biblical God, though referred to as “he,” is supposed to transcend gender. He has to, because in a monotheistic religion he is singular, and monotheism was a distinguishing characteristic of the emergent religion of the Hebrew people and remains so today for all the religions of the Book. When the Biblical prophets inveigh against rival pagan religions there is often a reference to (reprehensible) sexual practices associated with goddess worship. And this association and excoriation continue in the Epistles of Paul, notably Romans I. For better or worse, the word goddess automatically connotes gender, as does the word priestess, and it seems that whenever femaleness is not defined/confined by marriage and motherhood, people start asking “what about the orgies?”
Perhaps it is not an entirely idle or prurient question. Before I ever joined the women’s rights/rites committee, I had a periodic longing for a temple where I could go and celebrate Eros at full spate, make an offering of it to its source. The temple in my fantasy (or vision or memory) stood near a tidal river, and the moon was full. I knew nothing about the stranger(s) I received except that they were divine, as, in that moment, I was also.
Marriage can be a beautiful, durable container and expression of sexuality. (I’ve been married and monogamous for thirty years), but it is by definition domestic. And for the first 20 years or so, there are often children underfoot! Sexuality is not just domestic. My vision was about creating a container for Eros in its wilder, undomesticated form. In our culture we have no open or sanctified ways of expressing this aspect of sexuality. So that wild (perhaps divine) longing is often expressed covertly and destructively.
Because of that vision and the persistent questions about my orgiastic practices, I became interested in the subject of sacred prostitution. There seems to be fairly compelling evidence in ancient texts and images that it did once exist in many cultures (Sumer-Babylon and Phoenicia among them), though there is plenty of room for scholarly and religious debate about the details of the practice. Since I am not a scholar or a social reformer but a novelist, I decided to write about it , taking the position that what we don’t know, we can imagine. Through imagination perhaps we can become more open, insightful, and understanding of the ways we mortals embrace and/or wrestle with Eros.
For the record, I am still happily married, still monogamous. Our nest, now emptied, has come to resemble the temple more and more. At least on weekends, the orgy is here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
