My husband and I traveled a great deal in Asia back in the day. Now, my son is traveling in Kuwait and Oman. He’s there on business as were we. I now know camels don’t spit, are friendly and sweet, and certainly they are beautiful animals adapted to their environment. Chris slept alone under the stars. What a gift!
A friend recommended a book, Good Night, Irene, a Novel by Luis Alberto Urrea. I knew what it was about but didn’t expect how personal it would become. My father flew a B-17 out of the base in England where the first part takes place. The author describes the drama and tension of the planes taking off and the wait to see who returned.
I sit here now caught in memories and sadness at the loss of my father who passed away in an accident in 1969. I feel memories of his experience, of how families share a history.
His crew completed the required missions, and then flew out of Italy. The B-17 he was piloting was shot down, and the crew parachuted out along a route that landed them in Austria. My husband and I went to the village where he landed, and met people who saw him land, who fed him, and turned him over to the SS as the village was small and undefended with only women and children left.
Seeing me they knew he lived. They wanted me to know they had no choice, and I understood. They talked of how tall and handsome he was which was true. He was half-German and half-Norwegian, and so again how strange this tragedy of war where depending where one lives determines what side one is on.
Oddly the village was so small, it had no jail or cell so he was held in a small room in which I then stood. The room is in an art center now. The exhibit in the building when I was there was of California landscapes so I felt myself caught in a melange of time travel. I was in the present, the past, and though in Austria seeing a landscape of where I live. I was disoriented and felt sick.
I sit here now absorbing it all. I know that life is impermanent, is always moving, and we honor the flow, and yet, there are places in us that, like stones, create the river’s song.
More than 2000 years ago, the great Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu said: “The True Man breathes with his heels; the mass of men breathe with their throats.”
Walking brings breath to and through our soles, toes, arch, and heels; it brings us down to the ground.
Yesterday at Tennessee Valley beach, I was entranced with stone, with what surrounds, holds, guides.
At one point I walked on chert, and felt the ridges as though I was walking on the tail of a dragon. No wonder we love fairytales and I think now of the book by Kenneth Grahame, The Reluctant Dragon, about a dragon who preferred writing poetry to fighting.
Ilse Middendorf said: “Perceiving our breath as it comes and goes we discover an opening into our unconscious life, and bring about a conscious expansion into the whole of ourselves.” The whole of ourselves, and I feel the breath move in a wave, connected like a Mobius Strip.
Feeling the shift in light, I put out pumpkins and change candles to yellow and orange. I breathe more deeply, receive the fresh stirrings in the air activating and energizing the moments remaining to me. I read that people my age are happy because they recognize the gift of each breath, the air moving in and out.
Yesterday I walked to and from Tennessee Valley Beach. Photos speak in the mist.
I’ve been with my grandson who is three, almost four. It’s pure delight to enter into an imagination where we are moles, lions, jaguars and bears as we protect and feed our baby animals, which are an assortment of all the stuffed creatures he’s been given over the years. I feel myself as fluid when I become another animal, feel what it is to use my mouth and claws to hunt and defend. I see grandson exhibit patience as he waits to pounce on prey, and twists and turns in all sorts of ways, and I do too.
We become the gentle rabbit hiding in the grass, and the curious monkey who peers through a handle-hold in his bed which is lifted so we climb up and down a ladder as we move from the floor to the safety of our blanket and pillow-filled den.
It’s an immersive world being with him as he interprets differently than I so I’m constantly adjusting interpretation and explanation . The blind hanging vertically becomes a carwash for the matchbox cars.
I sit here now looking out on blue sky with a soft touch of fog. How many animals am I today? How do I meet the floor on all fours? What is it to sit in a chair as a bear and type?
I’m reminded of a book by Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age. It’s about racism, and the joy of being with a three year old. I recommend it as a way to live even more aware.
When I was driving him around town, I took a wrong turn and we stumbled upon a library. When I saw the sign, I slammed on the brakes and parked, and grandson was as excited as I. Books – another way to expand. He chose one about a woman born the same year as I, 1949, and her journey to becoming an astronaut after seeing Sputnik fly overhead in 1957. Dreams fulfill.
My son is 49 today, a magic number, seven times seven, an entry number as he gathers all together before a half century comes to pass. I pause in contemplation. 49 years: Birth branching connection in waves of immersion and growth.
We are all connected. To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.
– Neil DeGrasse Tyson
August is folding wings and September is on approach. My family has four birthdays as we move through September and October, so, for me, it is a time of birth.
The sun rises later these days but with such clarity, I simmer like a leaf in awareness of release.
Two quotes guide my day today.
Robin Wall Kimmerer:
Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them an intention and compassion – until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a “who” but an “it,” we make that maple an object. We put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying “it” makes a living land into natural resources. If maple is an “it,” we can take up the chainsaw.
Rabindranath Tagore:
Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection.
Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.
– Eckhart Tolle
This is a time for straying, for losing one’s way, for asking new questions. A sacred activism. A slowing down that knows enchantment is not in short supply.
Bayo Akomolafe
I was unfamiliar with David Solnit but now I know what an amazing man he is. You can Google him and learn the work he does.
My friend Jane Flint is part of this group The Lamentors. She says:
We are the Lamentors and we are associated with 1000 Grandmothers (elders)and with Extinction Rebellion, also known as XR (youth)
David made the contraption that anchors the puppet. Jane made the face out of paper mache so it would be light. Someone else made the hands.
These photos are from the ferry building in San Francisco. Each of us is a wave in the ocean and we each find our own way to say what we must say. Here’s a gathering of cohered waves.
I’ve been in Inverness. Yesterday I was at Abbott’s Lagoon with a low tide, so birds were abundant and otters were resting in their reeds.
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