Cathy's Blog!

It’s April Fool’s Day though today is no joke.  It’s also the beginning of poetry month.

Enchanted with stones and poems, I combine two of my favorite things.

The poem is by Charles Simic.

STONE

Go inside a stone 

That would be my way. 

Let somebody else become a dove 

Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth. 

I am happy to be a stone.

 

From the outside the stone is a riddle: 

No one knows how to answer it. 

Yet within, it must be cool and quiet 

Even though a cow steps on it full weight, 

Even though a child throws it in a river; 

The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed 

To the river bottom 

Where the fishes come to knock on it 

And listen.

 

I have seen sparks fly out 

When two stones are rubbed, 

So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; 

Perhaps there is a moon shining 

From somewhere, as though behind a hill— 

Just enough light to make out 

The strange writings, the star-charts 

On the inner walls. 

Though we’ve been sheltered-in-place, it’s felt a bit like a lark, but now another month, and the reality of our household as independent is clear.  Do we have enough cat food? That’s the big question as they look at us with huge eyes, and say we are here to comfort, and all we ask is a little food, well, sometimes a lot of food.  They go in and out on consumption.

I don’t know what to say but this gives a lift, a gift of laughter and tears.

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/faversham/news/familys-viral-les-mis-lockdown-success-224818/?fbclid=IwAR21St9HocxfruB7xLrfUnqnCbt4OitgJaKvazrnrXSzvBDiNjKWOXUdvsA

And there’s this poem by Martha Postlewaite.

Clearing

Do not try to save

the whole world

or do anything grandiose.

Instead, create

a clearing

in the dense forest

of your life

and wait there

patiently,

until the song

that is your life

falls into your own cupped hands

and you recognize and greet it.

Only then will you know

how to give yourself

to this world

so worth of rescue.

― Martha Postlewaite 

I’ve read many books on coming to slowness.  I came to slowness when I trekked in Nepal, and when I went through chemotherapy and radiation, and when I broke bones in both my feet and couldn’t walk.  Slowness. Stillness.

It’s so still here this morning the wind chimes hang, no sound.  The trees and clouds are so still I feel like I’m living in a matte painting.  A friend says to view this time of sheltering-in-place as being on a retreat.  Yes.

Anne Lamott writes, Peace is joy at rest and joy is peace on its feet.

In this moment, I’m peace listening to the twitter of birds while all seems still.  

When my children were young and at home, I savored cooking, made homemade soups, and baked bread and desserts.  Then, we realized two people cannot realistically consume what a family of four might, especially when it’s been more, when you include extra children and friends, so with the current proliferation of prepared foods, cooking has become minimal. 

Now, as we shelter in place, cooking is again an appreciated and celebrated  gift. We discuss our meals with intensity. I cook in quantity, and freeze, something I’d stopped doing when our power was out for five days in the fall, and we lost everything in our freezer and refrigerator. 

Now our lives swing around food, and when this is over, we may need to swing from very strong trees so they don’t break.  

Like toilet paper, food right now, is gold.  Today I made broth for soup, cooking chicken, carrots, celery, onion, ginger, and lemons for hours.  After straining, I froze some of the golden elixir and some will become soup. The chicken awaits.

This care and presence reminds me of water rationing.  Where I live, we are dependent on our reservoirs, so when it doesn’t rain water is rationed. Buckets are placed in the shower. The water is used to flush the toilet. Nothing is wasted, and again there’s a gift in noticing and honoring what flows through our pipes.  

Recently we watched the movie A Hidden Life.  The movie is beautiful and intense so we watched it in two nights. It shows the beauty, work, and wonder of being a farmer,  of procuring food, milking cows, gathering eggs, growing cabbages and wheat. It also shows what a family endures for their values, ethics,  and deep inner knowing of truth. Where does each of us stand? How much can we endure? Do we give way, or not?

The movie moves through me as does my life right now.  I am a colander, strainer, sieve. The only way I can handle what keeps coming is to allow movement through.  I stand, like a sprinkler, in flow and release.  

It’s raining softly, the sweetest of sounds, and Bella is snoring softly next to me, also, the sweetest of sounds. I’m with all we share as this crisis brings us together.

If we have access to the internet and phones, we’re gathering even closer together with family and friends, and yet, in contrast, if we get the virus, we may pass away in isolation. 

We’re like the rain coming down, seemingly a collection, but really a composite of drops that enter the soil to be carried through earthworms, birds, flowers, and trees.

We are the river and the drop.

We connect in moisture; we come from the sea.

I’m noticing that with Senna Dog’s passing and the shared connective tissue of love and grief, my eyes and heart are wet and moist much of the time.  I just Face Timed with my son and five month old grandson. We don’t let my grandson see me but he hears and responds to my voice. Tears of love and joy pour down my face, as I feel us connected in this sea of Love we all share.

May we work now for the benefit of All, with deep gratitude to those who are keeping the world functioning amidst a pandemic not seen in my lifetime.  We share a sea of air and we share in this passage with each breath.

May this day bring ease!

Yesterday morning I woke thinking that all that matters is Love.  My mother, who was raised Christian Science, would always say, “All is Love,” and yesterday morning that awakening embodiment filled me and my realm.  I understood.

One of the elements that sent me on a trek to the Everest region of Nepal in 1993 was the following quote by Albert Einstein. I had been so focused on family, love of my family, my particular family, that the wider circle of compassion felt illusive, and yet as my children were growing up, and leaving home, I wanted to feel a wider connectiveness, a love less held and focused on a few.  I touched this place in Nepal, but then, as we know, we go in and out. We are both human and divine, and the life force guides us to both at the same time.

Albert Einstein:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Last night, just as we were preparing for our 8:00 neighborhood evening howl, my son called with the latest news on the health of their beloved dog Senna.  Senna is a rescue greyhound, and when, despite his racing lineage traced generations back, he not only lost, but came in last in every race he was in, he was dismissed, banished from the track. I thought how smart he was, losing to win. He’s a lover, not a racer.

At one time, that banishment meant death, but amazing people have found their life purpose in rescuing greyhounds and he traveled from Florida to Colorado for neutering, and then came to the Bay area with other greyhounds to be matched with the family just right for that particular dog.  That was Jeff and Jan.

At the racetrack he had never been alone, never been touched, never been out of his crate, other than to be walked and trained to race on the track. He was incredibly thin, all bones visible. What a gift and opportunity to be with and guide a fellow creature to immerse in a wider world of the senses, especially touch.

He couldn’t be left alone at first, so when they went to work, I would go down to their home to be with Senna.  It was a gift, pure delight.

We bonded as together we explored a wider world than he knew. I touched and hugged him, taught him about glass doors, and showed him how to go up and down stairs. We learned together as I followed his pace and we both saw the world “new”.

A visiting dog taught Senna about toys and play. Watching the dog, Senna ventured in and began to pick up and swing a toy. Who knew we need to be taught to play.

He loves stuffed hedgehogs, and has a basket full, and they’re scattered all around the house. At night he carries the favorite one up to his upstairs bed. I love this dog with his long nose and legs, and when I visit, he lays his head on my lap, and we are one.

Now, Senna, named after Aryton Senna, a winning Formula 1 race car driver, is not well.  We’re awaiting the results of his tests but he is old for a greyhound and is clearly very sick.

I sit here now, filled with the wholeness of love for us all, and the beauty and weight of love for certain ones, which in this moment centers on this wonderful spirit who entered our lives through the love and rescuing care and work of many.

I am attached to his form, the spirit animating this form. I can say life and death are one, and I’ve worked and studied very hard to know enough and release, but when it comes to something like this, I want more. I want more Senna.

And here I am, sheltered in place, not feeling like an “artist-in-residence”, but only a very sad human, filled with the weight of grief.

Though I see my sons and grandson daily on a screen as we dutifully and carefully shelter in place, I want to physically be with Senna and family, and I can’t be.

Senna’s human mother is a doctor in Santa Clara, a dangerous place to be these days, so we are especially careful about exposure and sheltering in place, and tears keep coming.

Knowing tears are liquid love. I melt today, a simple task, a melting trust in the bonding and healing power and the energy and strength of Love.