lessons on fishing (and time) ...

[F]or me, philosophically, stress is a perverted relationship to time. So that rather than being a subject of your own time, you have become its target and victim, and time has become routine. So at the end of the day, you probably haven't had a true moment for yourself. And you know, to relax in and to just be. 

- John O'Donohue, interview in On Being (transcript here)

The first time I heard those words, I had to stop what I was doing (yes, multitasking), sit down, rewind (so-to-speak) the audio and listen closely.

[O]ne of the huge difficulties in modern life is the way time has become the enemy. (John O'Donohue)

I believe I have been shadow boxing Time for much of my adult life.  It's a slippery eel; the more I try to extract myself from a sense of being caught up in the net of time  -- rushing, running late, arriving breathless, wringing my hands at all I have to pack into one slim suitcase of time -- the more entangled I become.

To be conscious is not to be in time ... (T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton) 

I totally agree with Eliot ...  but how to live in this modern world of school bus schedules, trash days, tax days, monthly bills and all AND to live in what an art teacher of mine once referred to as Medieval Time (absorbed, suspended within and outside of Time)?

Only through time time is conquered. (T.S. Eliot)

I'm not sure I want to conquer time so much as befriend it? It dawned on me that my frantic relationship with Time is part of a larger and deeply rooted anxiety. "Not enough-ness." It isn't so much Time fudging around with me as much as modern society perverting Time by turning it into a commodity. What is my time worth? You are wasting my time!  Words I've even heard my Girl parrot (from whom? Gulp.) 

I don't want Time as an enemy. I want to understand its deeper magic, the alchemical potential hinted at by O'Donohue when he writes "Possibility is the secret heart of time. On its outer surface time is vulnerable to transience. In its deeper heart, time is transfiguration." (Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

This student is more than ready ... and finally (it's about time?!) my teacher stepped forward:

Or rather, she perched forward.

For the past few weeks I have gone to the park for a walk and discovered Heron on the edges of the shore fishing.  The immediate lesson Great Blue Heron offers is that of patience. If you want to see Heron doing anything other than standing still like a avian manikin, you had better be prepared to wait. And watch. Abandon any notion of a quick walk and surrender to becoming like Heron by standing still. Looking  and waiting. 

Would say there is a fair helping of trust involved except doubt probably never enters into the heron's mind.  Now, I find myself doubting often ... getting antsy with the suspension of my walk (wasting my time?) but there is that delicious moment when an inner stubbornness wins and with a sigh I adjust my posture and settle in for the wait.

So far, I've always been rewarded.

Or rather, Heron is always rewarded for her patience, her commitment, her deep knowing This Is What I Do.  

Watching her the other day, I realized I often bemoan "Why is it taking me so long?"  The It varies - my understanding, my knowing, mastery of a skill, completion of a project or process, my finding My Way, flashing upon My Purpose - the list is long but the vibe is always that of me out of sync with some mythical timeline. I ought to be further along. I ought to have this all figured out by now.

Yeah. Right-o. 

It struck me that when I am fully absorbed and committed ... like Heron, focused upon the water that will surely yield a fish later or sooner ... I am suspended within the flow of time but not constricted by it. When I tantrum and feel the squeeze of Time -- this is taking me too long! -- then I am not fully in. I am distracting myself. I am turning outward when the call is to go in. Time  - or a fixation upon time and time keeping - is my means of side-stepping the depth diving. I don't have the time and it is taking too long.

So maybe, just maybe my frustration with time is a clue that I hiding out on the surface of time, swinging on the clock face when in fact time offers me a portal to dive deeper within. 

I know Heron's deeper teaching will be both a lesson and a surrender to time. Showing up, abiding, paying close attention, and most of all knowing when to act ...

and knowing when to stay in stillness.

exploring

Wow. It's been awhile.

I suppose I am a victim of the season ... this betwixt  and between time ... not yet Spring yet clearly no longer Winter. It has me all tangled up inside. I awake to hear the raucous sounds of randy robins mingled with the clatter of shovels, spades and boomboxes as armies of landscapers descend upon my neighbor's yard to ready it for a new season. (My neighbor owns his own landscaping company, so there is a continual stream of his employees prepping and primping his yard. This is not the case in our wild landscape.) I sip my morning coffee and plan my day which is quickly sabotaged by my spring fever. There is just too much productivity happening around me and I must escape.

I've been hitting the trails of the neighboring park. For eight years I have lived near this recreation center and managed to overlook it. Way back in the early days, Cowgirl and I would pack a backpack with sketch books and snacks and walk a half mile or so to a bench to sit and draw. I admit a snobbery and insensitivity to the landscape of my home. Dried grasses,milkweed, and scraggly mulberry trees did not capture my imagination. Wildlife appeared to be limited to Canada Geese, seagulls and wooly caterpillars.  

Of course it was not the landscape that suffered from lack of imagination, but this viewer.  Thankfully Nature has been patiently going about her business, unbothered by my lack of enthusiasm. (Seems like a good model for me to follow as Cowgirl enters into the preteen Eye Rolling and Deep-Sighing-from annoyance and/or boredom stage of development.) And thankfully, the writing and influence of this teacher has inspired me to take a longer and more studied look into the spaces and places I now embrace as home. 

It is only recently that I've made the conscious attempt to consider and refer to this place as home. 

"Later I would look back at my time with the cedar trees and say I was visited by the mythical crone - the old woman of the crossroads who allows travelers to ask her one question, which she is bound by the laws of nature to answer in truth. My question might well have been: where do I belong? And her answer, with a gesture to the wild forests, sprawling meadows and dark waters of the earth, would have been: here." 

-Eila Carrico, The Other Side of the River: Stories of Women, Water, and the World  

I feel the pull to venture out. I pack my backpack with camera, binoculars, and bird guide.  I tuck inside my journal, pencils and pens. Fill my water bottle and strike out. Each ramble I discover more and more. I hold in my hand the map of the Arboretum tour with the hope of familiarizing myself with the over 90 different tree and shrubs lining the trails. I have found a tuft of a fox's tail, the shedding coat of some deer, feathers, seeds - signs of life vaster than I had realized. 

Porcupine have been feasting on the tender flesh of young shrubs. A corridor of trees hosts Downy Woodpeckers late in the day while the  Black Capped Chickadees have an earlier commute. I have been seeing a Bald Eagle and now know it has a nest safety tucked away in one of the park's larger sycamore trees. 

"Maureen Murdock, author of The Heroine's Journey, says that women find their way back to themselves differently than men do. Men move up and out into the lights of the world, but women's challenge is to move down into the depths of their own ground of being."

-Eila Carrico, The Other Side of the River 

I am drawn to exploring this patch of world around me because I believe it holds a key to understanding myself. For too long I have felt unrooted, out of place, free-floating through my life like a dandelion seed blasted by the wind across my lawn. To understand myself, I believe I must discover my relationship to this place. Or more accurately, uncover where and how I belong in the web of being. What is my place among the Ponderosa Pines, the Mulberries, the Geese, the rabbits and the coyotes? 

I want to understand how the rhythms of Nature move through me. I am taking part in a new and exciting offering: The Lunar Womb. I am following the moon's rhythms and charting my own. I am examining the dance between the Moon, Sun and Earth and learning how those energies play out within and around me.  

It is immersion into my self and my days which takes me out of modern time. I come here and it seems as if lifetimes have been lived out in 24 hours. I cannot operate within the rhythms of social media and am accepting that now is a period when I orbit far away from connections that once were regular and daily. I know things will shift and so I surrender myself to this new way of being ... I want to see where it takes me. Deeper within, I hope.  

 

I have every intention of regularly reporting back here. But just in case, I am trying to leave a breadcrumb trail.  

What the trees told me ...

I went to the woods to be with my sisters. 

I went to the woods seeking my next step.

I went to the woods feeling lost, confused, uncertain, weary, emptied and afraid. 

I went to the woods to release my grief. To cleanse my soul. To hear my voice. Find my song.

I went to the woods to disappear for awhile. Be quiet. Listen. Receive.

I went to the woods and I was SEEN.  I was HEARD. I was WELCOMED.

photo by Nika Ridley

I went to the woods and I shed yet another layer, another scaly piece of snakeskin armor.  I shed and left in the dirt beliefs that are Just.Not.True.Anymore. 

Stories that were Never True were laid upon the altar and burned. Wounds honored for the truth they bear witness to: Strength. Belonging. Acceptance. Love.

I went to the woods to create new prayers. To gain new tools. To go deeper into my own truth.

I emptied and then I receive the love. Oh, soooo much love.  It cracked me wide open. It pulled my insides out and left me shiny new, tender, raw.

Reborn. 

image by Tiffanie Gabourie Davis

I went to the woods and I was found. I un-covered what had never been lost, just misplaced, buried underneath piles of decomposing leaves, a poultice upon old wounds  long-ago scabbed over and now healed.  New skin ready for sunlight and fresh air.

I sat upon a mossy rock and rested against a tree whose trunk leaned away from the dark of the woods and stretched towards the life and light of the river.  I closed my eyes and I listened to the river's song. I breathed in the scent of wet wood and damp earth. I felt the swift flow of water crashing over rocks in my pulse, in my blood, in my being. 

I listened to the tree tell me its truth, its experience of belonging, of grounding, of reaching, of becoming.   

 

I received the tree's message about claiming my place. Strengthening my root system. Growing by taking in that which refreshes, inspires, and nourishes me. It shared with me t how I am a link between the past of my ancestors - the earth I come from, the clay soil of my body - and the future that I co-create, that I hold in my arms and in my heart, that I lift up and offer to the light. 

I went to the woods with trust in my heart and in my sisters and with a fledgling's trust of myself. Wobbly, not quite certain, but willing to make the leap. By doing so,  I was welcomed into magic and healing, wonderment and love.

Oh, the love ... a mother's love ... mama goose's love and dedication to her eggs, dedication to life ...

Dedication to her path reminding me to honor mine, to have patience and understanding that there can be no rushing soul work. It must be attended to with care and kindness, generosity and a constant dose of patience and no self judgement. Just love and understanding.

I went to the woods lost, alone, weary, and weak.  I came home fortified, refreshed, filled, and connected.

image by Nika Ridley

I came home flooded by the sense, the understanding, of So.Much.Love and a taste of the immensity of the power and magic of that love that surrounds me and is me.  I came home ready to be fully myself.  It takes a team to do this work. Thankfully, these doulas were on hand to guide me through the journey. Aho my sisters. So.Much.Love to you all.

our ReWilding doulas

 

'tis the season (& don't let the turkeys get you down)

 I couldn't resist ...

Actually, I am always excited to see turkey.  He comes around a lot when I am with Cowgirl and his presence reminds me abundance is always afoot.

Still, as the calendar pages flip over to a new season I remember: transitions are always dicey.  Stepping off a stable dock and into a wobbly boat, usually there is someone ready to assist with a steadying hand. How then to step out of winter's inertia and into the energy of Spring without slipping or falling?  What steadies me?

Even thought it is still March, I find myself reciting the opening lines to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land":

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

There is something challenging in the promise of Spring finding its foundation in the death and decay of Winter. I remember according to Ayurveda the three qualities - the Gunas -  that describe all of existence: tamas (inertia, darkness, impurity), rajas (energy, action, change, movement) and sattva (balance, unity, purity). These principles also describe the cycles of creation, preservation (living), and destruction that are in constant motion even though we prefer not to dwell on the fact that the only certainty in life is that things - ourselves included - will change, will never stay the same.

I catch myself thinking that death seems to be winning.  So many around me have been touched by loss in recent months.  Just this week a neighbor went to the hospital and it is unlikely that he will be returning home. Yet this is the way of life: birth, living, then death. The cycle isn't amplifying so much as I am noticing it more. 

Winter is tamas: the time of rest, decay, the natural conclusion to all that growth and activity of the previous seasons. When the time comes, when Spring arrives, it brings with it energy - heat, sun, light - to awaken the earth and to start the cycle of living/growing once again. So too I must reinvigorate myself. I must generate within myself some heat, some energy and coming out of a dark phase, this is always clunky, always challenging.

Thankfully, I have a few go-to moves that I've collected over the years.  Actions that help jump-start my day and in turn my inner engine so that I find myself moving in the direction of wholeness, happiness, joyful action transforming into joyful being.

It's really ridiculously simple.  I attend to the clutter. I find an rhythm to my day. Tidying up the morning breakfast, feeding the dog, then heading upstairs where I toss a load of laundry into the wash. There is  something about tackling the ever-present piles of dirty clothes that acts as a reset button.  It is my feeble nod towards productivity. I may get little else done, but there will be some clean clothes by the end of the day. I then hop in the shower and after I have bathed and dressed, I go through the house opening up all of the blinds, letting in the morning light.

Spring cleaning ... it makes total sense.  Before new growth can happen, I've got to clear out the death wood, tidy and prepare the way so whatever wants to be born has a place to land.  I'm itching to get outside, but the weather gods are not ready for me just yet. 

Inside there is plenty of half baked projects shouting out for my attention.  I start small, finding paintings in various states of completion ...

Pushing paint is what my one friend calls it ...  getting the juices flowing ... I know from past experience it doesn't matter so what I do as long as I do something. It is about stoking the internal fire, moving energy.  Some of the best advice I received from a yoga mentor was to consider before eating which foods would give me energy versus take energy to digest and assimilate. Expanding upon that idea, what can I do to support healthy energy flow within myself?  

The answer for me has been taking time to read, reflect, and meditate; daily prayer outside; cooking and consuming fresh foods, exploring new recipes; exercise (oh to run in the warm sunshine); and play. Lots and lots of creative play.

In the face of so much loss, there is a pull towards collapse, an impulse towards inertia.  The only valid response to death - in my humble opinion - is to live. The counterpoint to tamas is rajas, action. Both are necessary, both are part of the ever moving wheel of birth, life, death and the dance of opening, receiving, and releasing.  

The way I move out of Winter mode and into Spring is to follow the energy. Nurture and support it and then allow it to support and carry me. I am amazed to discover there has been so much all around me, so much waiting to engage and awaken me.

paintings in various states of completion; my intention is to offer them for sale soon!

What are you finding as you move out of Winter's cave and back into the sunshine? What gets your juices flowing?

 

Welcoming the mystery, relaxing into the not knowing is one way to navigate through the transitions.

Autumn memories ...

It seems that is all I really can hold onto: the memories ... 

the feeling tone of a moment ...

 

a day ...

a time alone ...

or together ...

 

the sensation of the magical entering my cells ...

the entire, sweeping whole of my life flowing before me moment-by-moment ...

with just the briefest of pauses allowing me time to gather them up, and stash them safely in the pockets of my heart.