I watch the fog move in and out, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes wisps, and other times a clasped presence. Sometimes I see it moving but it doesn’t advance. It dissipates, unseen.
As I watch the fog, I read from The Hidden Lamp, learn that in Chinese lore it is said that the chicken listens with her heart to hatch her eggs.
I read of the El Paso shootings.
I listen with my heart.
Yesterday I shared an Emily Dickinson Poem, “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain”.
I had listened to Billy Collins and Marie Howe discuss the ambiguity of the poem, the nuance, and multiple meanings.
A friend questioned the last line concerned because it ended with a dash. Had I forgotten to post the whole poem? Well, that’s Emily; she loved her dashes.
Researching the poem further, I now learn that not all editions include this last stanza, but, for me, it’s the most important of all.
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
Why do I and others find this poem important? In living, we play with the ground, with the responding aliveness and lift from the pull of gravity. We’re in a dance, and yet, for many of us, when we start to question our “existence”, there comes an awareness of the space between the molecules. Where is our support? We’re mainly air.
Her “then” and dash open up this dance of connection and exchange. We don’t know what she “Finished knowing”, but we know that she wrote and examined and explored her inner world and she did her domestic tasks. Her inner world was vast and she “went downstairs and made cookies”, as Collins and Howe put it.
This poem reminds me of the work of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido. He said we’re always coming back to balance. Think of walking. Unless we shuffle, there’s great courage in allowing one foot to leave the ground, explore the air, and come back down. We may do it thoughtlessly, unconsciously, but when slowed down and analyzed, we can see it is a big deal to take a step.
For her, a “plank in reason” broke, and she fell down, down, down. Did she fall down into her own knowing, essence, and strength as she explored world after world? Did her “fall” take her further downward or bring her out? She leaves the poem open for our own exploration, for us to figure out.
I prefer to believe that she fulfilled what Morihei Ueshiba spoke of when he said:
“Iron is full of impurities that weaken it; through forging, by exposure to heat, cold and hammering, the impurities are forced out and the iron is transformed into razor-sharp steel. Human beings develop in the same fashion.”
I think Emily Dickinson used poetry as a way to forge, hammer, examine, and transform, and that is why she leaves the poem with a simple word and a dash – next –
And with that the breath moves in and out like summer fog on a ridge.
It’s Bay area cool where I live so I’m curious about where the term “dog days of summer” originated. I thought it might have to do with days where we lengthen our tongues into ice cream scoops.
Now I learn that in the summer, Sirius, the brightest star visible from any part of Earth and part of the constellation, Canis Major, the Greater Dog, rises and sets with the sun. The term refers to the 20 days before and the 20 days after the alignment of Sirius with the Sun – July 3 to August 11 – so we’re in the dog days of summer, and because dogs wisely lie down and reflect, I’m in contemplative mode.
My mother was raised Christian Science and she simplified it for me to “All is Love”. That philosophy has served me well. Therefore I’m puzzled these days because lately there seems to be a great deal of humor and angst about whether the word “love” is appropriate in political discussion.
Mahatma Gandhi used nonviolent resistance to free India from the ruling domination of the British. I’m sure at the time it seemed futile, but as Margaret Mead is said to have said, Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
For me, that commitment is the love of which my mother spoke.
The star Sirius, though white to blue-white in color, radiates in our sky with many colors. She, and somehow I see her as a she, can be seen as a rainbow star, a twinkling composite signaling change.
I’m enjoying a Master Class with the marvelous poet Billy Collins. He comes to me in my very own room.
Today I watched Collins and Marie Howe, another amazing poet, discuss a poem by Emily Dickinson, “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”.
I’m sure I’ve read this poem before but I never took it in as I did today. I think I was more deeply affected because yesterday I read of the suicide of a 22 year old woman. She had been dealing with depression and the weight of it became too much.
Can a poem save a life? I want to believe so. Could this poem have helped her know that Emily Dickinson made it through, and she might too?
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –
And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My mind was going numb –
And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,
As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here –
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –
I thought that August is a month with no set holidays and therefore it’s meant to be celebrated jubilantly and spaciously each of its 31 days. Then, this morning I read that today is Ice Cream Sandwich Day, International Beer Day, and National Coloring Book Day. Tomorrow is Watermelon Day.
What is this human need to name and categorize?
Yesterday my son introduced me to Catherine Ingram and her article on “Facing Extinction”. Okay, that isn’t the most inviting way to begin a day that celebrates ice cream sandwiches, beer, and coloring books, but she moves through categories, essential categories and comes to Love, the binding fabric we share.
Near the end of the article, she writes:
Jonathan Franzen, winner of the National Book Award and many other literary honors, writes in his latest book The End of the End of the Earth: “Even in a world of dying, new loves continue to be born.” This is now the time to give yourself over to what you love, perhaps in new and deeper ways. Your family and friends, your animal friends, the plants around you, even if that means just the little sprouts that push their way through the sidewalk in your city, the feeling of a breeze on your skin, the taste of food, the refreshment of water, or the thousands of little things that make up your world and which are your own unique treasures and pleasures. Make your moments sparkle within the experience of your own senses, and direct your attention to anything that gladdens your heart. Live your bucket list now.
And she concludes with words of Leonard Cohen:
“It is in love that we are made; in love we disappear.”
There are a great many of us sharing the planet today. In 1952, there were 2.6 billion people on the planet. Now, there are 7.7 billion.
I was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1949 though we moved to Ames, Iowa when I was six weeks old. Now I live in the San Francisco bay area. No wonder I often feel overwhelmed with the numbers of people, the crowds. I like solitude and nourishing on, and in, my own space.
Today as I look out, fog moves in to cloak blue sky and I pull into the flow of my blood, the marrow in muscles doing tiny push-ups and sit-ups of their own. I am an ecosystem. My lungs branch and reflect the branches of the trees which now lean in close since most of what I see is gray, but now wait, a lighter gray and further trees reveal, and I choose now where to place my visionary plate.
Tiny birds are twittering outside my window and bouncing up and down on the branches of the redwood tree. I feel an empathetic lift in me.
I’m also lifted on words from Samantha Wallen who was a writing coach, guide, and inspiration for me in writing my book Airing Out the Fairy Tale.
In her July newsletter she featured my book and our work together, and her work with an organization called EIT, “Entrepreneurs in Training”. She writes of going to Soledad prison where she and other volunteers were greeted enthusiastically by the men gathered there, how deeply they were affected as they settled in to listen to the gifts of men’s stories.
She writes, “Some of them run film production for the entire state system, some are electrical engineers and keep the tech and electricity running smoothly for the prison, some are liaisons between their cohorts and the warden and hold mentorship roles because they take the opportunity to grow and learn. Many have awesome business skills and ideas they are ready to implement with the right resources and support!”
She continues, “But the #1 story I heard over and over again was, “I want to serve, to give back, to have an impact and make a difference with the one precious life I’ve been given.”
Isn’t this what we all want, to serve, give back, have an impact, and make a difference with the one precious life we’ve been given?
I sit with that as I sit with Samantha’s words on Airing Out the Fairy Tale. She writes, “In her book Cathy says, “The journey to Nepal was a journey of reconciliation with myself, claiming all my parts, looking into mirrors to see other than what I’d known.”
She says that “telling your story is an intimate act. It is an act of freedom. Receiving someone else’s story is also an act of intimacy and freedom. It brings us closer to ourselves, closer to our fellow humans, closer to the pulse of life. It is a place to “be with the gods, to be where the air churns with prayer,” as Cathy so beautifully said of her experience in Nepal in her book.”
I consider now how a book is offered and then the question becomes how it might be received. Am I affected when you read my words? Am I the birds or the branch, the air or the tree?
If you are interested in bringing forth your own book, or learning more about Samantha, click here; https://writeinpower.com
I’m reading Rachel Corbett’s book, You Must Change Your Life, The Story of Rainer Maria Rilke and Auguste Rodin.
When Rodin suggested to Rilke that he hone his craft by viewing animals, Rilke recalled the teachings of professor Theodor Lipps, a process of conscious observation called “inseeing”.
“Inseeing described the wondrous voyage from the surface of a thing to its heart, wherein perception leads to an emotional connection. Rilke made a point of distinguishing unseeing from inspecting, a term which he thought described only the viewer’s perspective, and thus often resulted in anthropomorphizing. Inseeing, on the other hand, took into account the object’s point of view. It has as much to do with making things human as it did with making humans thing.”
“If faced with a rock, for instance, one should stare deep into the place where the rockness begins to form. Then the observer should keep looking until his own center starts to sink with the stony weight of the rock forming inside him, too. It is a kind of perception that takes place within the body, and it requires the observer to be both the seer and the seen. To observe with empathy, one sees not only with the eyes but the skin.”
Rilke, enthralled, wrote to a friend: “Though you may laugh if I tell you where my very greatest feeling, my world-feeling, my earthly bliss was, I must confess to you: it was, again and again, here and there, in such in-seeing in the indescribably swift, deep, timeless moments of this godlike in-seeing.”
Rilke saw this in-seeing, as empathy, as a way to free himself from the solitude of his mind.
Last night we could watch ten candidates tell us why they should be president. We now have analysis and interpretation of what was said and different interpretations of who “won” and by how much. Perhaps it is for each of us to step into our own in-seeing, our own empathy with each candidate, and feel our way to who can best lead our country now.
Last night I placed a pillow and blankets outside on the deck and lay down to watch for meteors. It’s like watching for whale spouts: it’s tricky. I didn’t see any but I loved watching the stars come out, one by one. I made my wish on the first one, then waited, and felt and smelled the air grow cooler and cooler. Little critters rustled about under the deck and through the yard.
Sometimes when I rest outside looking up at stars, I feel small, a speck in the universe, but last night I felt big as though I encompassed all.
Then, this morning I came to Richard Rohr and words from Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights. She lived from 1797 to 1883.
But the moment she placed this idea of God by the side of the impression she had once so suddenly received of his inconceivable greatness and entire spirituality, that moment she exclaimed mentally, ‘No, God does not stop to rest, for he is a spirit, and cannot tire; he cannot want for light, for he hath all light in himself. And if “God is all in all,” and “worketh all in all,” as I have heard them read, then it is impossible he should rest at all; for if he did, every other thing would stop and rest too; the waters would not flow, and the fishes could not swim; and all motion must cease. God could have no pauses in his work, and he needed no Sabbaths of rest. Man might need them, and he should take them when he needed them. . . . As it regarded the worship of God, he was to be worshipped at all times and in all places; and one portion of time never seemed to her more holy than another.’
I sit with that, one portion of time never more holy than another, and all moving in flow. How has the concept of God taking a day off for rest affected my life when clearly all is flow, impermanence and flow?
Yesterday I sat by a fountain and watched fish. They came up to me, up to the camera, perhaps thinking I had food or maybe I was the most fascinating thing around. I felt we were communicating, fish and me. There was no need to categorize, only presence in a day where some fish swim round and round in a circle, while others live in the bay with ferries and wind surfers flowing by.
My heart continues to swell. I keep reading we are here for one purpose and that is to grow our hearts. Mine is swelling with love. Yesterday gave an extra boost, a giant swell. The gathering to honor Velvet’s life was touching and sweet as could be. She embodied Love, Life, and Joy, and transferred it to others.
One man who more than walked Velvet, who clearly loved her deeply, shared about life in Czechoslovakia before the Russians came and just like that took over ownership of the generational family farm. There were four horses, chickens, gardens, a life.
One daughter-in-law made blueberry cobbler that he said was just like his grandmother used to make. He wouldn’t describe the journey but said, at one point he’d had enough, and fled with his wife and two children to Austria where they were in a refugee camp for two years, and yet, there was happiness. I’ve heard that before from two women who were in a camp when Yugoslavia split apart. Sponsored, he came to this country where he seems puzzled by the layers and levels of discontent.
After such a day, I was shocked to return home and read about the shootings at the garlic festival in Gilroy.
People went through security this year just in case but the killer cut through a fence and used an assault-type rifle, and like that, everything changed.
I sit here now wanting to hold compassion for all, and my heart goes out to those who on a beautiful day suffered the greatest loss. There is no way to explain the way life coils and curves. May we all wind our ways to the center, the center of life and heart.
I rise early, and now it’s 6:00, the moon a slivered crescent in the Eastern sky as the world begins to turn to rose and pink with a few wisps of Karl the fog, the latest phenomenon in the Bay area, giving the fog that moves in and out a name.
Perhaps the name honors Carl Sandburg and his words:
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
I’m driving south today to Menlo Park via Half Moon Bay and Woodside. I need the ocean and bay more and more these days as I honor transition and flow. Today is a celebration of Velvet’s life, a joyful spirit now transitioned out of her body into a wider world and she is here patting my heart with her paws and tapping my being with jumps and barks.
“Wake! Wake!” she harks, and honoring her spirit, all spirit, I do.
