I have made a commitment to three things: finding time for Blue Space (beach, sky), Green Space (earth, woods), and the responses I have to poets & writers. I seek to discover the art of being.
In the Nick Cave book, he mentions how some things are prescient. His example was an album (Skeleton Tree) he wrote before his son died, and how in retrospect many of the songs seem to be about what happened to his son. People often think he wrote the album in response, but it was the opposite.
That struck me because at the end of December and early January, I had similar experiences. There seemed to be forces pushing me to do things I wouldn’t normally do, and I didn’t know why.
Here is one example. I went shopping for my friend Amy’s birthday gifts, and then was in CVS looking at reader glasses. I realized I needed a card for Amy, so went to that department. It was early January, but they already had the Valentine’s Day cards displayed.
Jim and I had stopped exchanging cards long ago, and we haven’t done much to celebrate Valentine’s Day in years. Yet, I saw this card and picked it up. I decided to buy it, even though I don’t particularly care for swans. It seems prescient now, because this card states what this year seems to be about—being side by side through our toughest experiences. And if I hadn’t bought the card that day, I probably would not have even thought to get him one, since that fell off my radar years ago, and things were feeling pretty insane in February. It felt good to have it to give to him.
We’ve been through a lot, Jim and I. And the best part is we do it together. The card sits on the bar by our sink as a continuous reminder, not only of our love, but of the mysterious forces that guide us.
Today I ran across the quote by Federico Garcia-Lorca:
“Only mystery allows us to live, only mystery.”
I decided to use it for an acrostic poem. (I do this to find out what I’m really thinking.)
On this Sunday, since you are
Not rushing anywhere,
Listening deeply to the messages because
You know you are living a
Mystery you didn’t bargain for
Yet, what good would it do to have known?
Some days will always be better than others
Trust in the Universal Tone, your soul response.
Energize yourself to positive actions.
Remember in each and every moment
You will never be left without a way.
Then I went looking for a mystery song, and recalled a favorite album from 1996 by Mickey Hart called Mystery Box. I went on a search for a song with lyrics that fit and I found this chorus:
Depend on the wind
The distant drums
We’ll know the next step
When it comes
This week as chemotherapy begins, I need to remember…just take the next right step.
Line from Nick Flynn’s poem “Put the Load On Me” inspired this poem: “everything is something else.”
As I bend my brain to figure out my learners, the only thing I can know is that whatever I think drives them it’s probably something else, I’m thinking a mystery I can’t unravel because BOOMER can never understand.
The first month of virtual teaching has been so darn stressful. I never wanted to go back to being a "first year teacher" but man, that is how it has been feeling.
The intense pressure to get it right, the missteps, the changing requirements, the frustrations, the exhausting Zoom meetings, the changing requirements, and oh yeah, did I mention the changing requirements?
I know, I know...we haven't done this before, everyone is figuring it out, blah blah blah.
By last weekend I was TOTALLY FED UP. I was COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED. So much so, I couldn't even enjoy my weekend. I kept falling into dark pools of tears, unable to lift myself out.
By Sunday, when I wrote ANOTHER depressing poem, my friend Laurie suggested I do something creative. I didn't feel like I had a creative bone in my body. But what I did have was a notebook, an array of colorful fountain pens, and my personal lifesaving device: Chapter 7 of Pema Chodron's book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.
I could read. I could make notes. I could doodle. Color always feels creative to me, so yeah, I'm was being creative.
But mostly it was the message I needed to hear from this wise work. Abandon Hope. Be Fearless.
It was easy to see what was bringing me down. It was my HOPE THAT THINGS WOULD GET BETTER. The hope that I'D FINALLY FIGURE IT OUT. The hope that OTHERS WOULD UNDERSTAND MY PLIGHT.
Guess what? Everyone else is feeling the same way. How are they going to save ME?
Pema says, We're all addicted to hope -- hope that doubt and mystery will go away. Abandon hope.
This upsets people. They don't want to hear it. In fact, I posted "Ye Tang Che" on Facebook and got "friendly" comments that I can't give up hope, blah blah...as if I was suicidal.
Ye Tang Che is the opposite of suicidal.
It is facing the realities we live with. The reality of who WE are. The reality that WE DON'T KNOW.
We can't escape that. Or ourselves. Hope that we can is what leaves us COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED.
Did I mention the title of this particular chapter in Pema's book is entitled "Hopelessness and Death."
The title alone would scare anyone away. But Pema promises early on:
If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated,
then we can have the courage to relax with the groundlessness of our situation.
This is the first step on the path.
So, I decided to take the step. The step into Ye Tang Che. The step that does not include any ground under my feet.
I made a list for what I'd do Monday. A doable list. A list of things I know how to do. And I told myself -- just this, and nothing more. And I did the same for each day of the week.
I didn't look to anyone else to solve my problems. Or prop me up. Or make me feel like I'm doing it "right."
When something frustrated me -- I just bore witness. I would think, hmmm, I don't agree with that, but there it is.
I became a constant observer of myself. I made sure I got out of my chair. I looked and listened and followed through and ignored the dumb stuff.
Pema says that Hope and Fear are two sides of the same coin. Boy, don't I know THAT!
The steps I took this week has helped me lose the fear I was experiencing.
The fear that I wasn't good enough, that I couldn't do this, that I was
not doing as well as others, that this is never going to end.
Pema suggests we abandon hope to become fearless.
Now
I am just letting the mystery be. I'm letting the doubt be. I'm
observing. I'm listening. I'm not attaching myself to any wish list or
certain outcome.
Years ago I made these for my team at Lehigh when we were going through a tough school year:
These four words are all I need right now. We have 4-5 weeks left, and with Ye Tang Che as my guide, I will not only make it through, I will survive AND know more about myself and getting through a difficult time than I ever thought possible.
I began this year with such a crystal clear vision on how I was dedicating my teaching life to student mastery and creativity. And it worked for a several weeks. I was hyper-aware and making it happen and feeling the ups and downs of my new endeavor. I was keeping up with my challenge here, and feeling fully in my space as a writer and teacher.
Then the curriculum changes came. And my husband had a stroke. And my health took a turn for the better, which has actually taken some getting used to. I had a super busy January and February in my personal life. At school, I was getting used to the control needed to make four creative writing classes happen, along with trying some new things. The reading curriculum I am doing is decent -- I like it -- but I don't feel I have to think as hard about how I am doing things. It's all in the script. On top of that, I was finally invited to do a professional development at my school, so had to plan that.
Phew.
And its all a blur...really. I feel like I lost touch of some things. Like writing here, mostly, and my own personal blog. Most of my writing has been to create models for my writing students.
None of this is bad. Not at all. It is just so unusual to have a majority of a quarter go by and I don't have many touchstones. I'm feeling great and keeping up with eating better and exercise and seeing friends and reading, my lesson plans and general aims for my classes. And I'm sleeping super good.
Flying through my days, some light, some dark...
Still...something is different about how I'm moving through my days that is leaving me fuzzy. Nothing much stands out to me.
(I know this probably makes absolutely no sense.)
Nine days until spring break, and I know exactly what I'm doing with all the classes. There is some kind of tidiness in that. One that perhaps I'm just not used to?
Is it a blur because I'm more organized, more aware in the moment?
Maybe I don't need to be looking back to know it happened. Or to have documented it all.
This morning I read a couple of Barbara Kingsolver essays, then a poem by Joy Harjo, and the next thing I knew this poem arrived.
I've been reading a lot this morning
about remembering and forgetting.
I find myself in a flux between the two.
I have a word I've been carrying with me: reshaping.
I am reshaping my Christmas holiday,
my way of thinking about curriculum,
my plans for the summer.
I'm looking to overcome little niggling fears.
Going to parties. Making the drive.
Opening to discovery by digging through boxes
and finding new highways.
It's a gentle process...reshaping.
I'm reminded of a Goddess Making in Clay
workshop I took many years ago,
how the clay goddess was made and
remade over and over again. She took
so many forms in my hands.
I was young then. I didn't comprehend
with my being this reshaping. It was
intellectual, an arc I was being taught.
Now -- it's organic and real and inescapable.
Now I can see and feel I am the clay
and the clay in my own hands.
I am both.
And the shape that appears is both
real and illusory.
It's remembering and forgetting
as the shape conforms to nothing.
It's here. It's gone.
And the only proper response is joy.
I spent yesterday trying to figure out stuff like photo storage and iCloud on my iPhone and iPad, since neither has been backed up in a long time. I get nervous, thinking, yikes! What if my iPad dies and I'm not backed up? I've moved the photos to my Mac for safe keeping, and that will suffice. I will clear the way on my devices to add more, but I don't think that it will help the backup problem.
In my vow to do some purging of stuff that has simply been sitting here TOO long (such as student surveys from 2010 that, honestly, I still may have trouble parting with), I found a couple of things that formed together this blog post. They reinforced that not only am I not jaded by my teaching career, I continue to thrive -- for I have a grounding in the key to success.
The first thing I found was this quote from Amy Pohler:
...ambivalence is the key to success.
I will say it again. Ambivalence is the key to success.
You have to care about your work but not about the result.
You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel...
This made sense to me when I first read it, and it still makes sense to me now. For I know the more I stick with not being attached to outcomes, the better outcomes I receive.
But that's not all. I then found this:
Back in an earlier life, I made some money with a part-time job promoting a Read-A-Thon to elementary and middle schools in the Northeast Ohio area to benefit the Multiple Sclerosis Society. It was lucrative and fun, and put me in front of lots of audiences to use my speaking and teaching skills.
The ink on the page above represents my thoughts about working with young people, written on January 27, 1998. The thing that struck me is that I could write every word of this today and still believe with the same fervor.
At the time, I was a volunteer youth sponsor for Unity Church's teen group called Youth of Unity. More importantly, I was just starting to toy with the idea of becoming a teacher, and what that meant: years of college, resting on an uncertainty of even beginning to make that happen. So much happened afterward, and less than a year later I was taking my first two college courses.
Here is what I wrote that fate-filled day:
to be filled...to connect with a child...to listen to a teen...to listen to laughter...to see the answers appear through their eyes...to help them see new ways...to listen when they have new ways...and AFFIRM...to encourage them to be their best...to know they have a best...to honor their journey...to know they have sacred contracts with those in their life, so judgment is never needed or necessary...to be a natural adult...to not be part of the wound but part of the light...to nurture their dreams...to be available...to witness their passion...to guide their souls...to care always, not just when it's convenient...to not play a comparison game...to guide gently...to use tough love sparingly and thoughtfully...to comfort...to cherish...to smile genuinely...to plan and prepare, yet be flexible...to open to the voice of spirit in times of trouble...to let go gracefully when the time has come...to keep a safe boundary...to teach them safe boundaries...to pray with...play with...work with...team up with...and in every moment knowing that there is no place better.
Discovered this today in a yellow legal pad, several edits had been made, no date or inspiration recorded. Tried desperately to place just why I wrote it. I searched my blogs and Trail Brazen blog to be sure I hadn't already documented it somewhere. It is a real mystery. There are lines in it that makes me think it was 2016 when the Cavaliers won the championship, but I cannot figure anything else out about it. I'm recording it here, and will let the mystery be.
Rain Dance Miracle
Personally, I've got my pocket full of jewels
Got beaded earrings
After over sixty years of singing
You'd think I'd be on the hilltops
My arms feel strong today
Like I could swing on a rope
Like the trapeze is mine
Like I can make a mid-air field goal
Well, I like all kinds of art anyway Starry night. Collages of concert ticket stubs
Such watercolor landscapes and clouds and trees
Such that tells the story of geography
And -- I only saw it once --
Persephone and her pomegranate
Lips silently red
At the bottom incense burned in a copper pot
Does everything have to be about the end of the world?
We all dwell among the fruit and the fanfare
Lightning strikes on a Sunday night
Everything comes in time -- even refreshing rain
When it's time for music, give it music
When it's time to sing out, lend your voice
and when it cries at the crowds cheering
and children climbing on statues for the view
when the lake and sky share the same blue
and when all it wants is the golden ring,
give it the golden ring.
We are traveling the American
Southwest, discovering a land of reds
and browns and rocks and utter dryness. The
rental car radio is on, and for
some reason the song "West End Girls" plays
over and over again. The beat of
the song drifts through my mind, connecting it
with the landscape, as we drive the road
to Shiprock and Four Corners and Valley
of the Gods. The sheer vastness of the land
astounds me over and over, makes me
feel lonely, much like the mood of the song.
I'm feeling like an alien in this
environment, lack of green and water.
It's not Ohio. Shiprock stands under
storm clouds, we take a picture and move on. II. Looking into the heart of light, the silence
What I read about Shiprock was that it
looks like a clipper ship, and was a sign
to migrating pioneers they were on track.
I did not read about the Navajo
mythology, and probably did not
even realize we were on their land.
Just now learned the legends and stories, the
spiritual and historical meaning
this place has for the people. Creation
rests on its peaks, closed now to climbers
"absolute, final, unconditional"
according to Navajo law. The owl
and the eagle are part of the myth, and
the story of women and children left
to die when lightning struck and sheered the cliff.
This is a place where evil is lurking.
III. What are the roots that clutch, the branches grow
"Too many shadows whispering voices"
Back in the day I did not hear them at
all. My world was much smaller, sheltered, bound.
I go back to the road to Shiprock when
I hear the Pet Shop Boys sing, there again
feeling lost and disconnected to the
land and the music as well. The hip hop
soundtrack was "The Message" things were changing.
I was so unaware. My roots elsewhere,
my branches clipped. Did I have a "heart
of glass or a heart of stone"? I don't know.
Now I can see at age thirty I was
ignorant of the questions being asked
"If when why what how much have you got?"
I was close to the edge and never knew
how it was or what it could mean to fall.
IV. The faint moonlight, the grass is singing
What is the use of dynamiting the
past, looking at all the things I did not
know? Why do I find myself here on the
road to Shiprock, opening awareness?
It was one line in a poem, and led to one
song from that year that led to creation
stories and epic poetry and the
changing music scene. I follow these threads
because I have to, it's what I do, it's
how I live life now. I missed so much back
then, but over time I could read the signs,
know if I was on track even with the
rock and no water and sandy road.
Grounded more firmly, wisdom comes with age. These fragments I have shored against my ruin.
Lost and then found,
on the Road to Shiprock.
How this poem came about...
On Thursday I read a poem by Layli Long Soldier that contained the fragment "road to Shiprock." It made me think about our trip out west, and I wrote what would be a part of what ended up in section I.
I became a bit obsessed with the idea, so I pulled out my five packs of pictures from our Southwest trip of April 1986. I retraced our steps, figured out exactly what the trip itinerary was. I was not journaling then, so don't have any actual records beyond my photos and memory. I do know that the only thing I knew about Shiprock was how it was named for a white man's creation (the clipper ship), and that it was a beacon to white settlers. Nothing about indigenous people.
Researching Shiprock, and learned the many versions of the Navajo creation story, the legends that surround the rock, the people who tried to scale the cliffs, some to die. This monument is found in the Navajo Nation and they control it. The quote about the law against climbing is directly from them.
I also researched the lyrics of "West End Girls," learning it isn't about prostitution as so many thought, but rather the struggles of inner city life and issues related. The beat is directly from Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," which is fitting since his song is about the same things. (I give a nod to Grandmaster with the words "close to the edge".) It was also inspired by T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," and even refers to a historical event from World War I at the end.
Once all the notes were made, I knew I needed a form. I felt I could just end up rambling into eternity if I didn't find the right form. Leave it to Rafael Campo to provide it. On Saturday I came upon his poem "Quatrains for a Shrinking World," which contains several sections of 10 syllable lines in a 4 X 4 format. Perfect.
I also checked out the Eliot poem, and pulled specific lines from it for the section titles. When reading the poem, the quotes in italics are from Eliot. The "quoted" text is from "West End Girls."
I had three Eliot lines pulled for a three section poem. As I got to writing, I realized I needed a fourth section, as I hadn't quite come to a conclusion -- in fact, I still don't think I fully knew what I was even writing about. I went back to "The Wasteland" and found a couple of lines I liked, and ended up deleting one of the original lines I had, the opener, "April is the cruellest month."
It is true the fragments came together as I weaved my way to finding some kind of personal meaning here. I think coming upon photos of myself at 30 really had an impact. More than half my lifetime ago. How different I was.
I think of travels through my life, and I know they are connected to specific times of my life. What enriched my experience here was learning all the poetic and literary and musical connections that were lurking beneath the surface of that day in April 1986 when we drove the road to Shiprock. I'm glad I know and see those connections now. It has been a gift I gave myself.
Today's inspiration is from a wonderful collection called Women in Praise of the Sacred. I am using a healing ritual song from Owl Woman (who lived in American Southwest and had shamanic powers) as my mentor text. The photo is through a screen, so not that great, but I wanted something to represent the general environment I was drawing from in the song/poem.
