dear sojourners,

do any of you speak Crow? unfortunately, Google translate has been no help at all as Joey the Pug and i venture out in the morning. early morning and late evenings seem to be when Crows are most chatty, as if making plans for the day and then debriefing before retiring is essential for their community to remain up to date on all the scuttlebutt. perhaps also a way to sort through disagreements.

i can’t remember when Crows and other Corvids flew onto my radar. likely when i began training to be a chaplain and working in hospice. in many traditions Crows and Ravens are considered psychopomps (escorts to take newly deceased souls from the Earth to the Afterlife.) maybe it was due to their comfort in scavenging carrion and being around death. or their ability to communicate and connect with humans. or their ebony coloring which some associate with darkness and less charitable ways. no matter how they came to be associated with this sacred role, it is one that lingers through time. as a hospice chaplain i was often sitting with folks in the “between space," so the wisdom of Crows was welcome guidance.

they are highly intelligent birds and are interwoven in myths, folk tales, folk lore across multiple cultures—often as shapeshifters. as i entered midlife and my world was shifting around me, looking back, i’m not surprised i was drawn to Crows (they are in abundance where i live) as guides in how to be in liminal spaces. as shapeshifters, they were an apt totem as i entered the swirling waters of midlife and continue to be meaningful companions even as i have passed through those tumultuous days. Crow likenesses are represented throughout my abode as i to soak in their teachings.

i adore the early dawn birdsong of Robin and Song Sparrow, but it is often a Crow’s caw that sidles through the open window, long before the first inkling of Sun crests the horizon. then, as the day gets its footing, a convening happens. i walk the outer edge of a middle school ball field at the start of Joey’s and my walk. Crows’ dark bodies polka-dot the grass and baseball diamonds and hop along backstops as they have their first “coffee klatch” of the day—pecking for bugs, eyeing dog walkers, exchanging notes. when a dog disrupts their gathering there is a hurried disbursement accompanied by tsking squawks as they resettled on nearby Firs, Maples, Pines, Oaks in annoyance. throughout the day they can be seen perusing the neighborhood for what can be scavenged (monday and tuesday garbage days are glorious!) they go about teaching the young their ancestor ways. they harass the Cooper’s Hawk. they tussle over this and that. at least this is how their day plays out in my imagination.

the more i tune into the intonation of Crow voices, the more i hear subtleties. sure, Crows don’t have the melodic trilling of Sparrows, but the other day one seemed to be offering a soliloquy. or reciting a poem perhaps. another Crow sat on a branch and listened for a short while before heckling (hmm, the equivalent of a comedy club?) a short distance away another sounded as plaintive as a lone train whistle. while another’s squawk reminded me of a unsatisfied toddler. one “barked” out commands. at times a grouping (murder) of Crows sounded angry-riotous even. a brawl on the brink! (i know projection…but i don’t have Crow words for what their emotions are…and they are clearly in dialogues that have a range of expression.)

recently a Crow (i can tell it is the same one by markings on its wing feathers) began walking alongside Joey and me for a couple of minutes. this happened for three days in a row and then the fourth day, no Crow. i felt sad…and then Crow surprised us farther down the road! this Crow makes eye contact with me and recognizes us when we come up the hill. i would like to think we are Crow’s “one and only.” not likely. and no, not an every day occurrence, but still…a connection that i delight in.

when i’m out i say “hello Crow(s). how is your day?” and other comments, so i believe they know i have an affinity and deep respect for them. i pick up molted Crow feathers and one day i might have enough to make my own wings. perhaps if Daedalus had used Crow feathers for Icarus’s wings the outcome would have different in their myth. but that is a pondering for another day.

on my deck i have a shallow birdbath and a deeper one. the Finches and Sparrows enjoy a good splash in the shallow one and, especially as Spring and Summer have long dry spells and natural sources dry up, both baths are appreciated for sipping. this year the Crows have discovered my little oasis. they look gigantic in comparison to the Songbirds. first it was one Crow that would visit, take a few gulps of water and fly off. then Crow discovered she/he could get in the deeper bath and splash around. quite entertaining! word has gotten around and now i sometimes have three or four Crows stop by for a visit. i told my neighbor below about the splashing…she said “i wondered where the drops were coming from!” crossing my fingers that Crows don’t leave any other, uh, deposits on her.

last August on late hot evenings, i noticed as Sun’s rays ambled toward the horizon, Crows speckled the sky from West to East as if it was rush hour traffic and they needed to be home before dark. i haven’t noticed this other times of the year (though i could be clueless) and wondered if it was due to a shifting of the seasons. it was amazing to watch, night after night, these wondrous beings navigate the skies as the colors of clouds shifted from pink to peach to magenta to dusky deep blue. the evenings sounded of sirens, engines revving, kids squealing, dogs barking, and Crows flowing through air as they cawed each other home.

maybe we are all just cawing each other home…with my apologies to Ram Dass.

it has been a long time since i posted. sharing my adoration of Crows seemed like a way to ease my way back into Substack. and while i haven’t been posting, i continue to do my daily poetry writing via The Stafford Challenge (170 poems written since january 17th!) so the pen moves, if not fingers on the keyboard.

i often mention Báyò Akómoláfé as someone who invites my pondering to deepen. and i have engaged with The Emergence Network (ten) and find it cracks open my curiosity and keeps me asking questions. if you are looking for new perspectives to spark your own curiosity there is a ten offering beginning mid-July. as you might guess, i’m signed up. oh, and very affordable! From The Emergence Network:

Inspired by our theme playful inquiry, we are launching Play-Study, a collective space that orients around creative works that inspire postactivist community and practice. For our first cohort, we thought it made perfect sense to begin with Selah: A Báyò Akómoláfé Reader. Selah is a curated selection of Báyò’s writings over the years, including essays, poems, philosophical fragments and parables on postactivism and beyond. (a note: i have read the book and look forward to re-exploring it in community with this inquiry.) In Play-Study, we will be reading with the intention of exploring play—and more specifically humour—in the writings, footnotes, references, and inspirations. We’re creating a Postactivist Playbook, a living curation of postactivist practices and guided reflections that will grow as we read along, weaving in practices that emerge from Play-Study. We intend to approach the book sideways—using a process of bibliomancy, rather than reading the book cover to cover.

This first foray into Play-Study begins in mid-July. The journey will last three months and folks can choose to engage asynchronously with the materials or join emergent online encounters for connection, discussion, and further provocations with other participants (and possible surprise visits from Báyò). Sign up here by July 15th to play & study with us!

oh, and i did put out two quarterly newsletters on my Nurture Your Journey website that were Grief focused since i last posted here. if you are curious: Winter Newsletter: Noticing Through a Shifting Lens and Spring Newsletter: Nourishing Our Grief Journeys.

for your reflection:

• is there a being you connect with or seems to connect with you? why do you feel drawn to them? has this connection influenced the way you go about your day? other thoughts?

• sometimes i get stuck in my perspectives (oh to be able to fly about my neighborhood like Crows for a different view!) so i prod myself to shift perspectives, usually via readings and podcasts that invite me to look at the world through different lenses. how about you? how do you invite in different perspectives? one of my favorite poems was recently on the Slowdown Show, Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye, which reminds me about perspective…and kindness.

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in our topsy-turvy world, Crows, for me, are wise beings. they remind me to play, that i am part of a community, that voices need space to be heard—even if they doesn’t sound “pretty,” that the world has been shifting since, well, forever really. a quick search has “Corvus,” the genus that includes Crows, as being around 10-13 million years. a lot of wisdom to be found in that many years of evolving. if i am patient, they are willing to teach me, of this i am confident. maybe an apprenticeship? perhaps they’ll even impart some of that shapeshifting magic my way…

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa

ps (isn’t there almost always a ps?) i was very grateful to have a poem included in the Tiny Seed Literary Journal in may. Here is the link to holy ground.

and here is the poem:

holy ground

this sidewalk is
holy ground
where he
places his shoes
just
beyond reach of his
bent grasp
each night under the thick
thighs of I-405
laying on
mattress of cardboard
bedding of coat-blanket-hat
face masked in dim light

i’ve never
looked
in his eyes
taught it is wrong to stare
into the fire’s core
&
the radiance
might blind me

each night those shoes
set out trusting
each morning always
always there when
traffic’s roar grows
in cadence with
his stomach’s growl

tonight
i step around
aware of what is
sacred:
a pair of shoes
a man that
Moses would have
recognized as the
burning bush

i walk on
while the bush
burns

by anne richardson

dear sojourners,

this is my third, maybe forth attempt to write a post since the start of the new year. i dash off a paragraph or two, three. join together two thoughts that i hope sound semi-cohesive. they don’t. some event erupts in the world. my words feel irrelevant. i return to my routines for comfort. morning walks with the dog. these days abandoning my flashlight as Sun crawls over the horizon earlier and earlier. noticing Robins singing with gusto as if rehearsing for spring. witnessing first shoots of Daffodils spearing through packed dirt. it all feels so “normal.”

in the small increment of Earth where i roam, winter is negotiating with spring about timing. our atmospheric Rivers of december and early january replaced by a long dry spell followed by a warming Rain. now we seesaw between rain and dry. rain and dry. temperatures not cold enough to bring Snow to the cascade Mountain range—vital to our summer Snow pack. the current Snow pack can fit in a carry-on.

so instead of trying to be tidy, this post will bounce around (lots of links.) much like the world today—unsteady. cracking open. maybe some of these thoughts will resonate. or some may annoy you. or maybe leave you curious. i am a fan of curiosity.

one morning the Sky was texture and color of dryer lint. no Rain, no blue. it seemed bored. or maybe just resting for “next.” or maybe this was Clouds’ version of sighing after witnessing federal agents gassing families at protests over the weekend. joyless Clouds.

i go about my day realizing how ordinary my life continues to be even as literally my fellow portlanders are protesting less than four miles away and risking injury (or worse)…these times are anything but “ordinary.” to be ignorant is to be complicit. i have no desire to be complicit. and i admit to being wedded to my comfort. i’m sitting with that truth. and asking how i can live in the day-to-day “ordinariness” of my life and still engage with the Grief, the Pain, the Sorrow, the all of it to be in service to this cracking open. i sit with something that Báyò Akómoláfé wrote on his facebook page january 2nd: “Sitting with the cracks is vital work. […] It requires courageous alliances and beautiful tending.” and “showing up may look stranger than we think.” i do know how to tend. how to sit in the quiet. learning how to pay even deeper attention as i apprentice with slowness. what does it look like to show up in a “strange way” though?

and even as i write the word “ordinary,” i come back to Francis Weller’s most recent book, In the Absence of the Ordinary, Soul Work for Uncertain Times. the microcosm of my wee day may feel “ordinary,” but my dreams, my intuition, how i’m listening beyond my certainty…i know better. these are not ordinary times. as i go about my days, i remind myself of that.

why i haven’t been able to “gel” a post is because my thoughts move like Water sometimes gushing from a Spring. other times moving deep as Ocean currents. nothing “threads” together, there is no weaving my thinking into a nicely quilted piece, because it all runs through my fingers and back into the Soil. (and yes, mixing metaphors.) i so want to be Water. be absorbed into the Land where i live, to hear Stories from beyond human perspectives. i know the stories of Landscapes and Seascapes are wise. (see previous post retreating into the storm.) and here i live this ordinary life where i walk my dog, shop for groceries, exercise to stay healthy, meet friends and volunteer to be part of my community. i am living a simple::complex life.

i am drawn to reading books with water themes: two of them: theory of water, Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, (mentioned in the december post) and Undrowned, Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. mind expanding. both invite me to look at language with fresh eyes. who named our non-human kin. who decided what is “resource.” where boundaries and borders are placed. what happens when we place any other being (including humans) in captivity. and more…

what has been gnawing at me is this poem shared by Pádraig Ó Tuama on Poetry Unbound (part of the On Being umbrella) by Oksana Maksymchuk titled Arguments for Peace. Pádraig, in this podcast, reads the poem, talks about the poem, then reads it again. an immersion. i’ll share a bit of the poem and i encourage you to go to the show and hear the whole piece.

Arguments for Peace

How could there be a war in this city with

cobblestone streets, glowing stars

in the windows, festive

dogs in felt deer antlers?

[…]

What’s a missile to do with

a concert hall full of children?

What’s an air raid to do with

a holiday celebration?

[…]

We love our children too much

We love our homes too much

and so, we argue, time and again

there’ll be no war

there’ll be no war

as i listened to the poem i thought first of my parents, both youth during the Second World War in London, my mother, 12, and father, 16, at the start. my mother having to finish school (at times being sent away to Wales) and then started working, all while having to cope with air raid sirens and bombings. my father being apprenticed to a trade (tool and dye maker) that was essential to the war effort. my mother’s father being called to serve, though he was in his late 30’s, and being away for most of the duration of the war. how this shaped the rest of theirs and their families lives. how they likely hoped, until the day the radio announcement stated they were at war with Germany, “there’ll be no war.”

then i thought about Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine (the poet who wrote this poem is Ukrainian) and other wars (named as a war or not) that proliferate our planet. about folks living in Minneapolis and other cities in my own country have been leading “ordinary” lives (which may not be “comfortable” but at least have a sense of rhythm) and when war and conflict arrive are startled into the unknown. how we think it won’t happen. “they” wouldn’t go that far. “they” always do (and oh, the power of “they”.) maybe that is what is sadly ordinary.

i start most days by reading/listening to poetry. the poems that are coming out of Minneapolis weave images and metaphors together in a way that enter the body differently than a news report. same with Gaza, Ukraine, and on and on. here is one shared by Pádraig Ó Tuama recently on his substack:

From Minneapolis in January

by Michael Bazzett

We live in the numbness

of an occupied city

where every story has another

story curled inside its labyrinth—

and when Sleep reads

to you at bedtime, it is

the nested one that comes

slinking out to sew you,

with tiny stitches and

scarlet thread, to the mattress.

It is a story that believes itself

to be permanent (an odd word,

because nothing is),

a story that is somehow

made of white light

bent and glaring to illuminate

what happened, then tell you

it did not happen. Dawn

slowly washes every face

sleeping in the pale grey

mop-water of its light.

Yet nobody awakens

and we cannot say why.

The answer is simple. Death

has come here on holiday

from the coast, yet its cousin

Sleep remains in charge.

Our nightmare is the waking.

what stirs in you as you read this poem? for me power of poetry is what it stirs inside. it can touch places in us in surprising ways. i have several poetry feeds, both via email and podcasts, come into my daily orbit. they start my days like a cup of tea—both grounding and invigorating. some remind me to be kind. or i find myself weeping. i feel rage. or deep sadness. or curious. i never feel nothing.

my own poetry writing muscle has atrophied the last couple of years, so i joined The Stafford Challenge. the invitation is to write a poem-a-day. no one “checks” to make sure you are on task, but i did sign up to join a small group. so far, i am writing something daily, but nothing shareable.

here are a few of poetry links i recommend:

The Slowdown: Poetry and Reflection (podcast: weekdays)

Poem-a-Day (receive a daily poem in your inbox)

Rattle Poetry (receive a daily poem in your inbox)

Poetry Unbound (seasonal)

if you have favorites, please share in the comments. or share a poem you have written.

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at the start of the year-ish, i pull together images, poems, words that resonate. two Ada Limón poems that were Water related came through as well as a Báyò Akómoláfé prayer. the photo of the Snail on my photo roll to remind me to go slow. a card to remind me i am deeply loved with a Crow because Crows. a card from Carolyn Hillyer’s Weavers Oracle deck that reminds me that stories are connected to Landscapes, Rocks. to know the Land is to be connected to ancient wisdom. this is like my personal and strange map for navigating cracks…as if one can navigate cracks.

for your reflection:

• some folks have mixed feelings about poetry (it isn’t always presented in a expansive way when we are young.) as you consider my thoughts on poetry, what are you curious about?

• in these shifting times, do you sense a shift in how you are called to engage?

• how wedded are you to comfort? how are you with holding the tension of that with the unraveling at the edges or cracks forming around you? (okay maybe this reflection question i am pondering for myself…)

• what does it look like to care for yourself as you care for others?

and finally (as if anything is final), i continue to focus on kindness as i go about my daily movements. we are all immersed in these times of cracking open, whether it still feels ordinary to someone whose path i am crossing or not. i don’t know anyone else’s story. what is stirring inside their inner Landscape. the poem “Small Kindnesses” by Danusha Laméris reminds me a small gesture may be a balm. this doesn’t mean being complicit (again that word) to injustice, but in the day-to-day of life, i value approaching life with an expanded heart.

buy me a cuppa

in gratitude,

anne

ps: a dear friend in the local writing community died friday and the tributes have been flooding facebook. steve arndt was a kind, gentle human and so so supportive of my writing. of everyone’s writing. the writer Nancy Townsley wrote a beautiful tribute on her Substack that i recommend: “a great wide heart, stilled,.”

dear sojourners,

an atmospheric river as class five rapid surged me to the north oregon Coast for my annual winter retreat monday. scary drive over the Coast Range. hydroplaned. whoosh. no cars around me as i fishtailed. roadway as River. car as Fish. relieved to be continuing downstream and not suddenly upstream. slowed down further. heart thumping. thumping. tense shoulders relaxing after what feels like hours (it wasn’t,) pulling into a parking slot of the sweet lodge where i typically stay, i took a few moments to offer gratitude for safe arrival. Rain morse-coded a response on the rooftop :: w.e.l.c.o.m.e b.a.c.k.

“welcome back” said Karen when i check in. high Water created a mini-Lake in front of the room i had reserved. i get an upgrade to a nicer room. no additional charge. i return to this historic lodge year-after-year for the kitchens, the simplicity, the kindness of staff. also cost, though that has risen like everything else these days. plus needed upgrades—old buildings. the ritual of this retreat may need to shift, but that doesn’t need to concern me the next few days.

i unpack. stow four days of meals in the fridge. Sun will dip below the horizon soon, though there is no visible Sun sighting this day. still, i want to take that first walk. need to take that first walk. i don my Rain gear and head out. the lodge does not offer a Beach view, situated closer to an Estuary. i am fine with that.

to reach Ocean, first i walk along Ecola Creek to where Creek meets the Pacific. an Ecotone. Western Gulls often gather where the two converge. convergence. my body, heart, spirit in this place of be(longing.) always honor and respect Ocean. winter Storms. last week was Full Moon. King Tides. nestled by some stairs that give walkers access to shops is a partially decomposing Seal. my assumption is one of the recent Storms heaved Seal there. big. heavy. the power of Water and Wind. reminds me: never underestimate Ocean.

Wind hurls Rain with needle-like precision against my skin. my clothes. memory from when i used to sew, foot to the peddle. fastfastfast. i taste Salt. i am being brined. initiated as a creature of the Sea once again. Ocean roils. unpredictable. Tide incoming. i take the stairs up away from Sand. walk the path on higher ground. Light is shifting. it’s time to nestle in for the night.

morning. Wind has calmed to whisper. to held breath. Rain to Mist to nothing. Storm has sculptured new undulations. Logs, tangles of Sea Grass, human litter are scattered on Sand, at first looking like trash after a riotous concert, but upon closer viewing one can see a pattern, the curve of Tide’s constant ebb and flow. reminds me of something i read recently: that we are constantly in transition, even when it feels like we are in a holding pattern.

micro transitions. macro. still movement. still::movement. is that a contradiction? can i be still and still be moving? in reading Francis Weller’s In The Absence of the Ordinary, Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty (mentioned in my September post) and recently taking part in The Emergent Network’s Becoming Sanktauree, where space was made to ask “what is apprenticing me?”, slowness (companion of stillness) once again comes to the fore. (i wrote about this recently in my Nurture Your Journey Autumn Newsletter: Apprenticing with Slowness.) this is not a new “ask” for me, but it seems more imperative as i discern “what is next.” a sense that life is shifting. honestly, some days i feel i am moving so slow, even my long winter shadow is impatient for me to hurry up.

so i arrive at a stormy winter Coast not seeking answers but open to listening, tasting, smelling, feeling, being. and as is Death’s way, it always finds me here. perhaps to remind me of my own eventual death. or that something in my life needs to be let go. partially decomposed Gull. Seal. my ritual is to offer gratitude for their lives. for their return to Sea. remnants of Trees strewn along the shore. they hold stories i have yet to be told (i have asked.) and then there are the Rocks…and those ancient Monoliths (very much alive) that rise up along the north oregon Coast. in our human way of needing to name, we have called the one that attracts tourists “Haystack Rock” and two smaller ones “The Needles.” to me “the Needles” are “Guardians.”

soon after my mother died when i began to regularly retreat down here, i stopped in front of these two ancient souls and felt a shift. a connection. a need to listen deep. have you ever experienced this type of connection with a non-human Being? they are one of my anchors in uncertainty: personal or global. these Beings have been around far longer than my puny human self. they speak the language of Water, Fire, Air, Earth. Quantum language. i don’t need to “get the lesson.” i don’t need to figure out anything. i just need to be. i find myself humming then singing to them. it is what i have to offer.

the days fold one into the other. Wind and Rain return. that River from “the atmosphere.” i take a morning walk. perhaps a late afternoon walk. notice shifts in Light. in Seascape. try to quiet my busy mind. Seal is removed by humans. i wonder where they take Seal. do they do an autopsy to see why Seal died? do they bury Seal with other large mammals that have washed up on the Beach in a special cemetery? does anyone say a few sacred words? is Seal cremated and ashes scattered in the Wind?

i spend slow time in my room reading, journaling, reflecting. trying to not be impatient with uncertainty. honestly, sometimes i bore myself with all this slowness. i brought two library books (wouldn’t you know they arrive at the same time!) one, Theory of Water, Nishnaabe Maps to the Time Ahead by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has me looking at “world making” and Water in new, deeper ways. curiosity stirring. these words about Water seem fitting as Water streams from my body when i step outside:

“Water that i breathe in becomes a constituent that makes up most of my body. Water I breathe out becomes part of someone else’s body. Water travels the world over, moving easily through land, air, soil, rock and bodies. To say it in another way Nibi (Nibi (Water) as a mapping of life and affiliation and global connection-pg 5) continually violates the home spaces of everything on the planet. It might take a very long time, but Nibi always escapes the container.” (pg 33)

escaping containers…reminds me of Báyò Akómoláfé who often invites us into the cracks and seeping outside containers.

there is more. of course…there always is. but this post isn’t about completeness. tomorrow i will head home. weather will be less weathery, the “River” having moved north, where there is catastrophic flooding, Water uncontained. my car, Luna, will be more Moon chariot than Fish. Water that needled my skin, touched my lips, seeped into my body will linger a while longer until i exhale it back out. Water, that uncontainable traveler will travel home with me in some form. tears most likely.

oh, and Joey, the rescue pug that became my companion in June, is staying with the foster family that was his home until he came to live with me. this has been our first “separation.” he was excited when i dropped him off sunday evening, though confused when i left. the follow-up report say he is doing fine. the one night home without him…i missed his presence—such a sweet snuggler. down here with the Rain and Wind and not being able to leave him in the room…it would be difficult. it is okay to have a break. like when my kiddos were young. and i’ll be happy to see him tomorrow.

for your reflection:

• have you every thought about what might be “apprenticing” you? what might that be?

• what transitions are you aware of in your life? how do you navigate transitions?

• what is your relationship to Water?

a different flavored post today. a ramble. having to be okay with incompleteness. would love to hear how you are being.

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during these darkened days in the northern climes, though winter solstice is less than two weeks away, i hope you continue to take tender care of your hearts. and, if you have the energy to offer kindness to others, human and non-human, you meet on your path, please do. it isn’t a magic potion, but we may never know the impact our kindness has on someone else’s life.

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa

dear sojourners,

we tipped past the autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere the other day. last time i posted summer solstice was cresting. a whole season of blue Sky days. farmers’ markets brimming with assorted Berries, leafy Greens, sweet Melons—all in abundance. morning and evening walks filled with light. a season of t-shirts and shorts. sitting outside conversing and sipping tea with friends at local cafes. a delight. truth: i was not as as enthusiastic as this paragraph sounds.

this is all to say when the solstice arrived it was like a switch flipped in me. some days i felt like i had left my body. my creative juices a parched rivulet begging for a rainstorm. sure, thoughts pushed through the caking mud of the stream bed and made it into my journal. “later,’ i promised, “i’ll find other spaces for you later.” i didn’t have the energy to take anything further. so i allowed myself permission to find what shade i could and not chastise myself with the old western cultural imperative to be “productive.”

i also came across an article about summer SAD (seasonal affective disorder) that “explained” my malaise. folks may be familiar with the “long dark of winter” version of SAD, but there are those who find the heat of summer interferes with their sleep and daily living. the imperative to “make use of every drop of extended sunlight.” and while i didn’t meet every criteria, it felt affirming to me to have a name for what i was experiencing. i simply wasn’t relishing summer and wanted to move on to the next season. it was an extra challenging invitation to be present each day. to “live in the moment.” ugh.

then one day in early september, i noticed the morning was still dark when i arose, a reminder that these Sun, Earth, Moon cycles have been ongoing far longer than even my deepest marrow memories.

i was able to sit outside in the early evenings and watch scatterings of Crows fly home to roost. west to east they soar in “murders” of 3, 10, 23, or more dotting the shapeshifting Sky as Sun set. i felt myself drop back into my body as i wondered about their day. this instinctual call to return home resonates. to gather. my kinship with Crows deepened as the skies darkened into dusk.

and like Crickets that are silent in summer and awaken as summer wanes, my own inner chirps began to fill the still places within. podcasts i was listening to re-invigorated me. my curiosity sparked. my wandering-pondering mind started igniting.

summer wasn’t without insights. without Grief. though i monitor/restrict my social media and news intake, as an empath, my dreams reflect the horrors and violence taking place in our world. my heart would have to no longer beat to not weep with the atrocities taking place in the country i reside. in Gaza, Sudan, and well, just about anywhere. how to take it in…or through…my body? my being? perhaps i needed to withdraw this summer to reemerge this autumn, a season of harvest and decay. a season of growing darkness…a necessary darkness, a place of gestation. incubation.

Francis Weller, psychotherapist, writer and soul activist, has a new book out, In the Absence of the Ordinary, Soul Work for Times of Uncertainty. he was interviewed by Ned Buskirk on the You’re Going to Die podcast september 11. Weller’s previous book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief, uprooted my approach to Grief and Loss after reading it. i recommend a listen to the podcast if you are wondering how to respond in these unsettled, uncertain times. he shares about how western culture is not a “living culture.” about emptiness. he comes back to themes that resonate with me, such as Deep Time and how to be in the darkness (themes i have written about in years past on my Nurture Your Journey blog. (link is to one example.)) i have just started reading the book and will come back to it in future posts.

i’ve also been reading posts by Báyò Akómoláfé on his website and facebook page that are, as usual, challenging my beliefs. beliefs i hadn’t even named. stretching me way beyond where i am comfortable. one is the idea of that “sanctuary is not a place.” i’ve been trying to explore how to reflect that in my life with minimal success, but then, how do i measure success? a slippery word if ever there was one. like i said, Báyò stretches me. perhaps as i enter into the dark seasons of autumn and winter a practice will emerge. perhaps it has been gestating during my fallow summer. if you head over to the link and the writing stirs something in you, i’d be interested in your thoughts on sanctuary.

i listen to a podcast called “Wild for Scotland” (surprising, i know.) usually about places to visit, a recent one (8/26) shared about The Clearances in the Highlands, close to where i visited last May. how did i miss this history with all the museums i walked through? overwhelmed by my injury? not ready to receive? Wild for Scotland linked to a follow-up podcast, Highlands Reimagined that shared about concerns the current highlands face about affordability for their young population that was fascinating and felt relevant beyond the local. it got me thinking about immigration (modern and times past.) wealth as Land distribution and our western belief we “own” Land. about many usa small farmers (who are on Land that was populated by indigenous tribes originally and had a different relationship with Land) being on the brink of bankruptcy and will likely be displaced by wealthy Land owners (aka—agi-businesses). and age old pattern. so this is something i definitely plan to come back to.

so even as we await steady rains to alleviate drought conditions in the pacific nw where i live, my personal drought has been quenched. if i go back though my journal (i was faithful to my journal even while i was quiet here) i know there is more, plus new ponderings arising. i see i have new subscribers. thank you for subscribing even as there were no new offerings!

my summer did have one impactful event. something that kept me grounded. my feet literally on the ground every day and got me outside no matter what was going on inside my mental or spiritual space. i adopted a seven-year old rescue pup, Joey the Joy pug. sweet with a bit of sass. as the calendar turns from summer to autumn he has been with me 13 weeks. his stamina has increased to 3.5 mile walks, when he is in the mood. and i discovered recently he loves chasing a ball—so basically obsessed. the only issue: he does not know why i should every leave my abode without him! nothing like having a fur family member to keep one grounded.

as we walked the neighborhood at a pug’s pace (also known as a crawl,) i looked with fresh eyes: Cedars, Maples, Oaks and other stalwart Trees shading Salmonberry, Serviceberry and other shrubs ripe with fruit for the Birds i heard singing. aromatic Roses offering free sniffs. Barred Owl and Cooper’s Hawk on separate occasions resting on Douglas Fir branches. and the Sunflower at the edge of a ragged green space. oh the Sunflower.

a wild offering from scat, i noticed this thin-stalk beauty as first flowers with tight fists loosening to release an array of yellow sunbeams. not near a water source, i wondered how it had managed to grow after long periods without rain. and so on days our walk would pass by Sunflower, i watched the slow opening and said my “hellos” and offer gratitude. then, shortly after the first three blossoms fully opened, someone had broken them off! i assume a human as it looked intentional, but i can’t know. i felt sad. this spark of beauty during a time of unsettledness…to have it, yes, i’ll use the word, violently rent from the body, seemed to mirror our times. would Sunflower have enough oomph to bloom the other blossoms on the stalk? there were several more “pending.” so over the days, i watched. and yes my fellow sojourners, they began to bloom. and my heart felt lighter. and if anyone passed by while i was there i would point out the marvel of Sunflower. i offered gratitude. shared photos with a friend. older blooms shed petals making way for seeds to fall. there were more blooms to anticipate! a bounty of blooms.

perhaps you can you guess where this is going. the other day as i approached Sunflower i saw only a torn stalk. no blooms. no promise of future blooms. again, what seemed to be a violent separation of beauty from the source. i hope whoever (again assuming it was a human) broke flowers from stem took home the blooms, put them in water, and are enjoying the joy. for me this Sunflower feels bigger than one plant at the end of a ragged space. a refugee? an immigrant? a reflection of resilience? maybe. i’d be curious to know your thoughts.

the unsettledness of the world—it’s a lot. how do we enter into the “long dark” as Weller names what is unfolding, is the invitation. i am (mostly) comfortable with the dark. i seek beauty and awe. i no longer look for answers or try to fix. i allow for my own complexities and confusion (i am often confused.) following dandelion seeds is my pondering in the midst of my confusion. my wonderings. and my gratitude that i have a place to share.

for your reflection:

• how do you respond to uncertainty? how are you coping?

• if you live somewhere where the darkness is increasing, how is that for you? what are your beliefs about “dark” vs “light”? feel free to take this as metaphor.

• in this world that is constantly shifting, how are you being kind to yourself and others?

• when you are out and about, however that looks for you (it might even be in your imaginal world) what do you notice? how do you engage?

Leave a comment

please take soft and tender care of your hearts and the Beings (human and other) you meet going about your day.

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa

ps: wearing my Nurture Your Journey hat, i did a presentation on Ambiguous Loss in Dementia Care in August that is available on YouTube through Hope Dementia Support. if you are caring for or know someone who is caring for someone with dementia or just want to more information on Grief and Loss related to dementia support, take a peek. it is about 1.5 hours long.

dear sojourners,

summer solstice is a wink away. the Strawberry Full Moon skimmed over Tree tops last week. sweet Strawberries at the farmers’ market are overflowing from vendor stalls. where i live in the pacific nw we have the sweetest Strawberries (you may argue with me, but your argument will go unheeded. there will be no convincing me otherwise). their aroma wafts from the stalls as i walk by. the sweetness is that enticing. folks leave with flats of red-gold filling carts and baskets. jam, shortcake, sliced with cream, or simply popping them in one’s mouth…tasting extravagances in their future. Strawberries are meant to be shared.

i have been home for over a month from my sojourn. a month home and the memories feel both distant yet echo in my thoughts. i continue to stitch together a mental quilt of my time away. my last post, stitching together a sojourn, focused on my walk along St. Cuthbert’s Way. my injured knee. my decision to come home early. (for the curious: the knee is back to its aging normalness after resting. ongoing physical therapy is focused on strengthening exercises to reduce future mishaps.)

i continue to ponder what i have returned with. what i carry. the time after the walk, due to being restricted in movement, led me to museums, a battlefield memorial, exhibits, cairns, and visitor centers i may have overlooked had i followed my original plans, offering “lemonade” from my lemony knee.

one day i took an excursion via Rabbies Tours that included a stop at Culloden. the brochure says, “On 16 April 1746, the final Jacobite Rising came to a brutal head in one of the most harrowing battles in British history.” the visitor center promoted an even-handed account (well, as much as can be offered with available documents and stories) of the scottish and the british sides leading up to the events to what was a massacre of the scottish clansmen. the background prior to that day is complicated. politics. religion. power grabs. nothing is simple, is it? i wish i had taken a photo of one plaque that had some wording along the lines that “not soon after the loses of the day and the end of the uprising, the story told in scotland would be of a righteous revolt…” basically a shaping of the narrative to tell the story in a way that weighted the uprising with one side shining and one side in shadow and leaving out a more nuanced telling of what transpired. not to take sides here, for i am not directly quoting the plaque, i was just noting “how” the story is told is influential moving forward.

i thought of my own country’s history and how shaping the narrative influences generations forward (and yes, i’m considering our own (un)civil war and the more recent attempt to reshape Jan 6). even as i walked along The Borders region of St Cuthbert’s Way, there was a marked distinction between the scottish side and the english side for the human denizens. Hills, Streams, Skylarks, Sheep, Gorse…they know no difference. it is humans that choose and fight for firm borders.

as i left the exhibit with the images of a graphic short reenactment video in my head and limped around the battlefield, i noticed how glorious the Birdsong was that morning. lilting notes blanketed the Wildflowers and grassy Moor. folks wandered on mowed paths to find markers that honored different clans of members who died during the violent and bloody battle. of the 1,600 slain that day, 1,500 were jacobites. so much blood poured out on the soil. do you every wonder how Land absorbs all that blood? how Shrub and Tree roots take it in? does the Mycelia network take the O-type in and transform it into nutrients for next season’s crops for people working Land? do the Wildflowers bloom a deeper stained shade for years to come? and how do we decided which fields are designated as sacred? to never be tilled again?

remembering is valuable. and yet, as the Bird song filled the air that morning, i wanted to stop everyone from talking and say listen. listen. Birds have something to tell us.

and Land too has its deeper wisdom. there other ways to honor the past besides monuments and markers and reenactments and books and gift shops, and, and, and. and yes, this is “my” history (on the english side…ugh, we have done some messed up shit over the centuries). but what if the Birds were singing to bring Soil back to a place of fruitfulness? what if that Land no longer wanted to hold the ghosts of the dead? how long do we make the Land hold onto our human violence?

so yes, remembering is valuable. i found the wall moving. but who does the remembering and who shapes it? who tells the story (now i have the Hamilton soundtrack in my head.)?

so Culloden lingers even weeks later…not simply as one battlefield, but for how humans control the Land as acts of remembrance after we engage in war or conquest. or what we choose to not remember.

i also visited Kilmartin Museum (close to where my cousin lives on the west coast of scotland—grateful they took me!) which takes one on a journey back to Neolithic times, 12,000 years ago. this i found fascinating. the museum starts in the present day and walks back though time. we visit the power brokers, the struggles from pandemics and plagues, the religious upheavals (saw the jacobites again and read more of their story). we see when the romans and vikings invaded the isles. try to get an idea of who the picts were. back through the iron age, the bronze age to, finally, the neolithic. conjecture as to the purpose of cairns (ritual and burial sites) with their complex stone arrangements that marked winter solstices with mathematical precision. as someone whose passion is in the world of grief, death and dying, i found the discoveries of human skeletal remains buried with a “beaker” (containing objects assumed to be of importance) tender. tending to our dead and having rituals of grief is, it appears, at least as old as homo sapiens.

it is the neolithic period that tugs at me, for that seems to be a time humans from my ancestry were clearly connected with the Land and the rhythm of the Earth (including Moon, Sun, and Stars). listened to the Land. it took generations of watching the Sun and Moon cycles to build these complex cairns, stone circles, henges, and other ancient structures. when we of european ancestry were indigenous. somehow, somewhere over time we lost that. lost our indigenous roots. that is what i crave…connection to that ancient Land wisdom.

i recently attended a few sessions of The Eternal Song gathering (link is to the movie trailer) offered through SAND (Science and Nonduality) where i believe you can view the full movie. i highly recommend. it is difficult to describe except to say there seems to be a movement to make space for the indigenous wisdom of the world’s cultures to speak. for those who still deeply listen to Land & Water. for the Elders voices to be lifted up. a connection to be made with Deep Time. to listen to Creator, as that is honored in many traditions. for language to shift from that of extraction and exploitation to relationship and reciprocity. and even those words need to be held loosely. for what i am learning, and i am a lover of words and writing, is that written language can be a prison if it binds us and becomes stale. written words can border us when we need to be expanding. and oh how i love to read and explore! and yet, to listen to Land, Ocean, Birds, Trees, Stones i have to let go of words and listen cellularly.

i am trying to unlearn. perhaps that is why this post is so messy. why it takes so long to write a post. some days language fails to “capture” what i am experiencing. or i reflect on my beliefs and realize how deeply saturated they are in western culture. it is exhausting. i have the privilege of being exhausted in my comfortable abode.

as i consider how to close this post that certainly has no solutions in this time of uncertainty, a brevity of words by Báyò Akómoláfé offered during one of The Eternal Song sessions are what linger with me in my own yearning to hear deeply The Eternal Songs shared by the wise council present during the gathering:

The world is not still…it is constantly dancing.

Understanding is overestimated.

Poetry is the refusal of anything to be still.

Poetry is where language comes from.

Meaning is not everything. There is resonance. (he attributed this last quote to someone else, but could not remember who.)

these five brief statements i jotted down…feel like permission to dance with my own unsettledness. to not “wrap anything up,” even a post (though, i’ll close like i always do-ha.) and there is more i’m pondering about my sojourn. more threads to weave. so until i surface again…

for your reflection:

• what do you notice when you visit museums, memorials, and other historical markers? (i’m one of those people who reads almost every sign!) do you wonder what stories are missing? why the ones that are included are there? what stirs your curiosity? if you could create a marker of some sorts, what would you honor?

• since my last post, i asked how do you engage with the Land and Beings where you live? what have you noticed?

• in this world that is constantly changing, how are you being kind to yourself and others?

  Leave a comment

i spend my days reading other folks words, writing in my journal, pondering future posts, and watching the Birds stop by. they sip, spin and splash in the birdbath. it delights me…and though i don’t know their inner thoughts, it looks like they are enjoying themselves. i’ve even had Crow stop by a few times for a sip. Crow is about 10x the size of the Sparrows, Dark-Eyed Juncos, House Finches and Goldfinches. i feel very honored.

please take tender care of your hearts and the Beings (human and other) you meet going about your day.

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa

ps: speaking of narratives and who gets to tell the story, one of my favorite Substackers, Katy Wheatley, posted this: AIDS Quilt UK, that i believe is worthy of you reading time.

dear sojourners,

the scent beckons long before the dazzle of lemon-yellow blooms greet you on the path. flashing back to my youth, it is as if i’m amid a squall of preteen girls pulling out tutti-frutti lip gloss wands all at once, readying to shine their lips…overpowering once it surrounds you and yet you can’t help but be caught up in the enthusiasm and cheerfulness. Gorse’s scent has been likened to Vanilla and Coconut and perfumes the Scottish spring countryside with the same subtleness as the rollicking Skylarks and Chaffinches seeking mates flitting about the fields.

i look upward, anticipating hillwalking. the brilliant yellow i’ll be navigating on the trail is muted from a distance. the embroidered works, many of them of English countrysides, of my grandmother and mother come to mind. delicate stitching in an array of colors mimicking seasons and places, some visited. the far off blooms i see look like there had been an abundance of saffron skeins in the bargain bins at the craft shop. the embroiderer, in their enthusiasm, had decided on French Knots as the stitch to best reflect the texture of flowering Gorse against the subdued browns of yet-to-come-into-their-own-glory Heather, the variable greens of the fields, and to compliment the cream, ivory and black of Sheep and Lambs. it is a Landscape that quickens my heart with anticipatory joy. soon i’ll be meandering on “the way.’

and yet, a month after those first glances i struggle to find words to make sense of what happened between anticipation and what transpired between my internal Landscape and the one i longed to engage with. this post is an attempt. words stammer on the rough draft. i close the draft in frustration over the past week. “not ready,” part of me says. “but sharing a struggle is what you do,” says another. “don’t over analyze. just post something…it will be a start.”

so, a start: St Cuthbert’s Way was my third walk in the UK in six years (2019 and 2022 being the first two.) a path may have a beginning and an endpoint, but how i’ll navigate the path, well, that is a mystery. i am not an experienced hillwalker. sure, i walk a lot at home in the Pacific NW of the USA, but it is not the same experience as walking in England. Scotland. Wales. these paths are open access and for the public to wander as long as one respects the land owner—closing gates and not interfering with livestock (i show great restraint in not cuddling all the Lambs.) paths are sometimes rocky or narrow, usually uneven, weave between clumps of Grass and Heather, Gorse, over small Streams, cross roads and wander into small villages. occasionally you may need to cross a major road and dash for you life! castles, graveyards and their accompanying churches, stone walls, and even a standing stone might be in the offing as well as historic sights. St Cuthbert’s is “officially” 63 miles and is part of The Scottish Borders region, starting in Scotland and ending in England.

prepare as i might, lessons from previous walks (toe socks eliminate blisters!, gaiters help with mud) brought forward, there are always lessons i seem to need to, uh, fine tune with each visit. and one is the weight of what i carry…what i carry, a theme i am “carrying” into this year.

i started the walk april 25th with a friend, planning to complete the allotted 63 miles in six days (which we did.) the incident that hovered over my walk (and the rest of my time away) came that first day. a minor slip and fall on scree early on. a shifting of weight in my already heavy pack. my own inexperience—not having the wherewithal to stop and correct my load and adjust my straps. a few hours into a 15-mile day noticing increasing pain in my left knee and a feeling of “listing to the left.”

“june,” i finally called out to my friend, “something is off.” patiently she assesses the mess of me. corrects my pack. but the hours’ long strain on the left side of my body—it has taken a toll. the slip. the off-weight pack (“why do i carry so much?” i feel shame start to well up inside.) by the end of the day, each step is not the delightful engagement with the Land i had planned, but a painful step-by-step endurance. reaching our day’s end point is my only goal.

this self-guided walking holiday is organized by Northwest Walks. our accommodations are set ahead of time and our our luggage transported between stops. our “responsibility” is to follow the marked path, carrying our day-packs (or in my case, a pack readied for a global emergency???) and take in the beauty of our surroundings, noticing historical markers, (this was, after all St. Cuthbert’s Way. (for a nice summary of the walk, i will send you over to The Long Ways post, Who is Cuddy? 7 Days on St. Cuthbert’s Way, by Mike, who we traveled with for a day and shared some great meals and conversation on the path. Mike, BTW, does some very interesting work in the world, so dig a little deeper and see what mischief he gets into, if you are so inclined.)

at home and when i visit any Land, my desire is to listen to what that Land may wish to share with me. what stories the Beings of that Land may offer. breathe. place my feet on Land. pay attention. listen with my whole body. i’ve written several posts about the wisdom of other Beings and my heartache at our human species seeming unwillingness to pause and listen. to look less for answers to what ails our world and simply sitting with the questions with thoughtfulness and letting go of language. to allow for the uncomfortableness of being in the interstitial spaces. (okay, i just wrote these last sentences via intuition…so am going to let it be and trust it.)

why do i keep going back to the UK and Ireland? it is my personal heritage. both my parents were English. on a cellular level it feels like home and a place of connections. my prior two visits i felt times of deep connection with Land and the Beings of Place. for several years now i’ve been exploring belonging, longing, and home…but that is another post.

as the pain on the left side of my body throbbed throughout the rest of the walk and was compounded by a growing pain in my right foot (compensation due to shifting weight to that side of my body), i found it difficult to listen deeply, or even superficially. yes, i took time to stop (i had to literally stop so i wouldn’t trip and hurt myself further!) and take in the beauty of Land. the symphony of Birdsong. calm trill of Stream and River. we had the most glorious weather. i have never been to England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland or Ireland when i didn’t get doused in torrential rain, so this was an unexpected delight. and there was the Gorse, always fragrant. always bright. cheering me on (though, also a warning to be careful, for it is a spiky plant.)

was there an option to not “complete” the walk? i didn’t consider it. i would get up in the morning, wrap my knees, pop pain relievers, and plod along, hoping for a better day. did i not want to disappoint my friend? myself? what did i think i would miss out on? these questions whirl around as i settle back home. what beliefs do i have around “just keep going, no matter what.”? and what about shame? at my third time around, “shouldn’t” i have already gotten this sorted? ah shame, such a lovely companion. and there is Grief stirring too.

i’d like to say i didn’t have expectations for the walk or the larger sojourn i was on…but i would be lying to myself and you. i “expected” this walk to be easier than the previous two. it really didn’t look that challenging. the Cheviot Hills may not be the Cascade Range of my homeland with peaked mountains, but, my the wind did blow and they have their own way of asking a person to test their metal and i was shown otherwise. hubris alongside shame. oof.

it wasn’t all discomfort. beside Lambs and Gorse, my friend and i met some kind and generous folks. other walkers on the path and locals. besides being with the Land and the Beings of place, that is one reason i keep coming back, to meet people and hear their stories. to expand my world.

i never did find a rhythm during my time away (three weeks total.) even prior to my leaving there was some unease that i pushed aside. i was trying something new with not planning my last two and half weeks! i was going to explore my “wildness.” and this i do not regret (it actually made it easier to pack up early and come home.)

perhaps my unease reflects these unsettled times. likely reflects these unsettled times. the static. the loss of deep connection with the Land i usually find. that my injury made me keenly aware of my own vulnerability. i know that i did have options that others don’t (those being uprooted from their homes, those in war zones, an extensive list) like rearranging my flight home knowing i had a home to come home to.

so this is not a post about feeling sorry for myself, which i don’t. i am sorting the mirco of my experience and seeing how, maybe, it might expand into something larger. or maybe not. maybe it stands alone in my own life. i am still feeling unsettled…

home now two weeks, i watch the birds, the Juncos, Song Sparrows, House Finches, argue over bathing times for my birdbath. yesterday i witnessed the male Finch attempt to woo the female, red breast feathers jutting out as he would leap over her. she looked unimpressed, but after a minute or so, they did fly off together. it is these small noticings i appreciate and honor. help ease my unease that as my body heals, there can be healing beyond my small microscopic view.

and, this is important: as i read back through my journal from when i was away the common thread was gratitude. grateful for how my body did hang in there. for my walking companion who was caring and patient. for my cousin and her husband (where i stayed after my walk and had some recuperation time) who generously cared for me. for the lemonade i was able to make out my lemons from visiting museums and a deeper dive into the history of place (that was interesting and yes to another post as this one is focused on the walk,) for the wisdom to finally realize i didn’t need to “tough it out” and the permission i gave myself to come home a week early.

so unease, unsettled, reflecting on internal beliefs, grief, shame, appreciating the beauty i witnessed and the gratitude i have alongside the pain i felt…was this the sojourn i desired? no. but then, the world is in flux. it is what i’ve been writing about for a while now. may i take this experience and expand my compassion for others, human and non-human beings.

for your reflection:

• have you ever been on a journey, excursion, trip and had it go sideways? how did you cope? what did you take away from the experience?

• how do you engage with the Land and Beings where you live? where you visit? is this a new concept for you? what stirs your curiosity about where you live and where you visit?

  Leave a comment

it has been way too long since i posted. i came home and promptly got sick—airplane/airport germs. rearranging my flight meant i was traveling about 30 hours with long layovers! i hope to get back on track with more timely posts. though i journal almost daily, it helps me to put my words out here, even if only a few folks read them.

anyway, i hope you are taking the gentlest care of your hearts. and i will do the same with mine.

in gratitude, anne

buy me a cuppa

bonus photos of sheep, lambs, and cows just because i LOVE them!

dear sojourners,

well, hello. it has been awhile🧡. i started a post mid-february after snow stopped by to briefly visit my pacific nw city. schools closed. kids squealed in joy sledding the slope in the scant 2” accumulation in the park out back (yes 2” will shut down our city…don’t laugh). white landscapes muffled the earliest signs of spring. my fingers hovered over the keyboard, words, brewing in my head like the tea in my cup, seemed ready to tumble out and then…

i sat and wrote a couple of paragraphs as the snow thawed. but for some reason, though the external weather the last four weeks has gone from thaw to short sleeve warmth to frosty mornings to atmospheric rivers back to jaunty sunshine and now back to march rain, my thoughts continued to be mired in post-thaw mud. nothing moved. it has been…frustrating. still, it seems time to move the fingers and see what comes out, like this Magnolia bloom that was, only a few days ago, still tight in its fuzzy bud scale protected from winter’s chill deciding to risk frost on the promise of spring.

winter is my co-favorite season alongside autumn. as i age i long to linger in winter’s dark nest. the call to quiet. to rest. to allow ideas and beliefs to ferment. spring’s enthusiasm, while endearing, can overwhelm this introvert’s senses. “please, can i have just a little longer before the song and dance begins,” i half-heartedly protest as those warm-up notes from song birds play pianissimo pre-dawn. they too, are waking up to the change in seasons.

yet the latter half of this winter i have struggled to settled into a deeper rest. my dreams are disturbing as i seem to link into a wider energetic field. though my living space is quiet, my mind is restless. i limit social media, but would have to live a cloistered existence to not be aware of the breakdown of structures in the country i call home.

it is easy to feel powerless in these unsettled times. and from my evolving studies in postactivism and learning more about paraontology (i’m not going to deep dive into these today) i “know” that systems need to breakdown, to compost, to be rebuilt. i “work” to hold multiple places of uncomfortableness and understandings. i can acknowledge powerlessness AND take small actions that empower those Beings (humans and non-human) i engage with. i have come to understand that to dismantle this world based on white structures of neurotypicality (white not meaning skin color, but longstanding structures of how the rules are defined) means this period of being unsettled is going to be beyond messy. deadly. that even calling for a return to “progressive” politics is still a return to the same structures that will gyrate back and forth within the same white structure. (i recently listened to a conversation between Báyò Akómoláfé and Erin Manning called: Becoming Unsettled: Why White Virtue Will Not Save Us…(you can watch it on YouTube).) i recommend if you want to dive deeper.

i realize the comfortable distance i maintain as i sit in my safe abode watching the House Finches, Song Sparrows, Black-Capped Chickadees, Robins and other feathered creatures revving up their vocals as Daffodils, Crocus, Camilias and other blooming beauties color the Landscape. while i ponder the destruction of the country i grew up in…knowing how many folks i personally know are affected, let alone those beyond my personal ripple, i fall into intellectualizing what is transpiring which keeps me removed in a way that disturbs my heart. so while i can “get” this unraveling, this cracking open that has been coming, it is another to be living in the midst of it still protected (for now) from the direct ramifications.

and so i shake myself to wakefulness. how easy it is to play “what if…” when it is all theory. have you ever done that? “what if my house was on fire, what would i grab as i went out the door?” or “what treatment choices would i make if i had an advance serious illness?” (having worked in hospice and now volunteer as a facilitator for those actually facing these choices, i “play” this game a lot). i ask myself a wide spectrum of “what if?" questions. what ones do you ponder? and no matter how “sure” i am of the answers, i can’t be. as someone who now qualifies for Medicare and in a couple of years plans to access my Social Security benefits, i want to say i’m comfortable with the disintegration of these capitalistic systems that need to compost so, eventually, something else more in tune to songs of Earth will emerge…but damn if i’m not comfortable. i like “my" cozy space. i am full of conflicts when i need to move from theory to practice.

so in my small little world, i remind myself to invest in my three c’s: community, connection, and create (from my prior post). at least that way i don’t become immobile.

some honest thoughts i’ve tried not to overthink, though i actually first started typing last week when the Worm Full Moon was tugging at me (then i would close my laptop and distract myself for a day…or two) and now, look the vernal equinox is upon us northern hemisphere folks!

books worth your time (i think)

in early february Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavich arrived and was soon subjected to marginalia as i underlined and wrote notes in the margins at the raw wisdom of her words. the heart of it all. while Lidia’s circuitous embodied path is different than mine, much of how she wrote into this book resonated. the theme of how we “carry” our stories in our bodies and what perspectives we can allow to shift as we age resonated. written not only to be a memoir, but a way for anyone to reflect on the possibilities of their life. what do we chose to carry…willingly or unwillingly? can we rewrite the story? are we willing to?

the last chapter of the book is titled Solaces. brief thoughts about how you, i, might engage with what she has offered. here is one on “carrying” that resonated:

“YOU MAY HAVE to lay some bodies down; you do not need to carry every body forever. We take turns moving the burdens from body to body to dirt to water to sky. Sometimes people who have the bodies for carrying life forget that carrying life is not the only way to be in a body. We have to remind each other there are many ways to carry life, to share life, to transfer life, to let go. Ask the animals. Ask the trees. Ask water.”

another book i picked up and, again, marked up, was Sophie Strand’s, The Body is a Doorway (follow her Substack: Make Me Good Soil). i have followed Sophie for a few years now, finding her initially through SAND (Science and Nonduality)presentations (she has several available now on their website).

if you know anyone with a chronic illness, have a chronic illness, have felt beleaguered trying to navigate the health and wellness industrial complex even if you are “healthy” in our culture, i recommend Sophie’s book. yes, it is a memoir (i do like memoirs), but she weaves in in-depth research in mythology, science, and i would say mysticism, alongside her personal narrative. she avoids binary thinking, acknowledging that, yes, we do need to engage with the western medical model while also understanding its exhausting limits. Sophie memoir ends, but her story, which continues on her Substack, is ongoing as she continues to journey with her illness. i have learned so much from following her. as she writes toward the end of the book:

”But I do not want to lie. … I never planned to write about being sick. I worried—still worry—that labeling myself as sick is the kind of self-capture our capitalist culture so readily encourages. Is writing a book about being sick a nocebo? Does it convince my body that it must continue to live into the disease?…But my body is bigger and wilder than even that superstition….

[…]

“I run into an acquaintance in the grocery store as I try to decide what food is not going to kill me today. My safe foods are dwindling again….’Congrats on all your success with you books! You’re really glowing. I’m glad you’re feeling better.’ ‘Thanks…’ I swallow back bile. My pain. I erase the complexity of my experience to pacify someone else’s inability to stay with pain and sorrow. I am not feeling better, I want to say to her. And I may feel worse. But I am feeling every part of me. Can you feel with me?”

somewhere between these two seep-into-the-marrow-of-my-bone books, i read the classic Illness as Metaphor and Aids and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag. while some reference were outdated, still a fascinating read about how we have used the language of illness in our culture over last few centuries.

my other reads tend toward women who roam the wilds or were told “no” and said “yes” anyway to their inner voice. my “hold” list at the library and TBR continues to grow. even as my words are mired in my brain for my own writing, i feel nourished with a variety of readings. maybe i am over watering my “knowledge garden?” nah.

wisdom that still lingers 10 years on

i listened to a resent series of interviews with Stephen Jenkinson, author of Die Wise, a Manifesto of Sanity and Soul—which has reached a 10-year publication anniversary. Die Wise was one of those books that radically shifted my beliefs about dying and death and how i consider my own mortality (though see theory vs reality above.) the recordings are available for purchase for a short time (until March 24) and includes four conversations between Stephen and folks that have been given terminal diagnoses, plus two interviews with Stephen, who himself now has an advanced serious illness. here is a short video about Die Wise. i also recommend the movie “Grief Walker” (available on YouTube) if you would like to get a sense of Stephen’s work.

in our western world we are adverse to talking about death and dying. and Grief. (though we have made a few small improvements.) if you are wanting to be more open to these conversations, watch the video, read the book, perhaps purchase the recordings.

sometimes Grief sneaks up on you

one other item has touched my tender heart unexpectedly. when i was much younger i read the “All Creatures Great and Small” book series by James Herriott. then i watched the first tv series years ago when they ran on our local public tv station…i think even some with my folks. i just finished watching season 5 of the current rendering. the world is at war and the small Yorkshire village is contributing and influenced by the war effort in ways large and small. my parents were from England. as teens they lived in London during the war. yes, bombings. rations. my grandad serving away from home. my mum, younger than my dad, was even sent to Wales to school for a time.

i have found this season particularly touching, often finding myself in tears. as those in power ceaselessly pursue war as if children’s lives (if they survive) are not effected, i thought of my parents. the stories they never shared. and the few they did.

in considering the children, this poem, [You were so small in my hands] by Mosab Abu Toha in Poem-a-Day speaks to the ongoing heartbreak of Gaza. i hope you will take a moment to read it. please let your heart be broken. maybe that will allow this unsettled world to begin the work of composting into something beautiful.

for your reflection

• what is breaking your heart these days?

• what conflicts dance around in your inner world?

• when has your “theory” of what you would do become a “reality” and what did you discover about yourself?

• how are you taking care of your tender heart? how are you staying connected to others? remember, being part of a caring community (human and non-human) is (hopefully) nourishment.

• let me know what else is on your mind and heart.

Leave a comment

as i close (who knew i had so much to say after my hiatus!) i am about a month away from my third sojourn to the UK. i’ll be walking St. Cuthbert’s Way with a friend and then heading further into Scotland by myself to wander the land for another three weeks. thanks to the lovely Katy Wheatley for her suggestions of places to visit in Scotland (i recommend her two Substacks: Shenanigans and Stuff and OddGoodLife). if you have suggestions send them my way, as this over planning Virgo is going free-form. i plan on writing while away (and hopefully post again before i leave.) thank you, as always, for reading the rambling post.

please take tender care of your hearts.

anne

buy me a cuppa

ps: (there’s always a ps!) the work i do in the world (all that experience as a hospice chaplain) is primarily coming alongside folks on their Grief journeys as a spiritual companion. and we use Zoom if you don’t live close to me (how did we get along before Zoom)? to find out more, please check out my webpage at Nurture Your Journey to find out more about the gift of having someone listen to you deeply and to read about my background.

dear sojourners,

during a lengthy stretch of moistureless days, nights dip below freezing. birdbaths are mini-skating rinks. i must remember to add fresh water each morning before House Finches, Song Sparrows, Black-capped Chickadees stop by. i swear they give me stink eye if i forget. seventeen days lacking rain. no puddles to sip from. my small contribution to their well-being. the red breasts of male Finches flashes in the bare branches of Dogwood. momentary awe if i remember to pause. pay attention.

seventeen days lacking Rain. looks like we set a record for minimal rainfall for january. this is not a record to crow about in the Pacific NW. grateful that Rain finally returned today. it is tumbling gleefully outside. i scowl at anyone who complains. we need this wetness to flow us into february’s first week. it was predicted for six days but the icon for Rain keeps falling away. five. four. now three days. instead they’ve subbed in Snow. i’ll accept what relief is offered. and we need snowpack on the Mountains. even blue Skies need a winter’s pause.

i spent a four nights at my beloved North Oregon Coast last week. january Ocean chose calm murmurs over riotous clatter (unlike my november visit, when storm dominated Coast). Sky blue as Lapis. Wind still most hours—even in the evening. chilled morning gave way to shedding coats as Sun warmed Sand. a pair of Eagles eyed humans, Dogs, Debris. they watched a lone fisherman in the shallow Surf atop the vantage point of the renown Monolith. no migratory Birds are present. Gulls and Crows are not interested in engaging. perhaps Eagles will have more success fishing than the lone man.

Ocean, ancient in her oceaning, ever ephemeral dance of Waves and Tide, once again offered me perspective: humans as a species and the mischief we create is a blip in time. a destructive blip though. i find solace in knowing Ocean knows no borders despite our desire to name and confine Oceans (and many other “bodies” of Water.) Ocean as a being is comprised of many Beings. is a multitude of entangled Beings.

the more i study about this amazing world, the more foolish i find the concept of “the individual,” though for simplicity in our noun based language we tidy ourselves into a neat package of “one.” much energy spent focused on claiming what is “mine,” though i am willing to admit i take up much space looking very much like a solo being.

then there are “Western” Gulls. Gulls, these Beings that have been around 30 million years. gathering as community in the calm at a convergence point where Creek flows into Ocean. i have an enduring fascination with Gulls. what i perceive as their playfulness. persistence. squabbling robust community. and beauty. when they rise en masse from Sand and Surf it appears as chaos…or dance. i vote for dance. winter is food scarce for them i assume, and yet even the dead Jellyfish that were strewn from one end of the Beach to the other did not appeal to their not finicky tastes.

death usually finds me when i am at the Coast…or perhaps i am more aware. one of my quirks. dead Birds usually. last time a Seal. occasionally scant remains of a Whale. perhaps due to lack of recent storms and lower Tides, at first it was “only” the Jellyfish that Ocean had laid upon Shore. then i considered Driftwood.

Driftwood was once, obviously, a Tree. as it has come to rest upon Beach it now appears as stump, log, cut wood, ship debris, or in another form. it dawned on me that these selections of wood before me in various sizes, decay, form were once seeds, then seedlings and grew and grew and grew into Trees that held Birds and Nests and Fledglings. Owls peered from the top of their branches seeking prey in the dark of night. Squirrels, Martens, and other Critters used them for shelters and homes. Spiders wove intricate webs among their branches or against their bark. bark that was covered with Lichen and Moss. a world of Insects, Bees, and other small Beings thrived in this community, and sometimes were the cause of their demise. some held the scars of scorching fires. their roots were complex communications networks, aided by Mycelia. and so much more. the stories held in each piece of Driftwood would fill a human library. what could i learn from these “castoffs” scattered along the Coast? would i even know what questions to ask them? perhaps it was enough to appreciate their beauty. and notice life in death. decay as life. in its complexity it is simple. in its simplicity it is complex.

and then there was the setting of Sun each evening. each night brought a different arrangement of color depending on clouds that rose from the horizon. one night blazed heart-beat red. another tangerine and melon flesh. while another evening calmed to peach with hints of lavender. the final night a duvet of gray covered the sky. as Sun slipped away, a frayed piece of the duvet gave way to allow hints of Salmonberry to adorn the fading day. Ocean murmured in my ear. Eagles that sat atop the Monolith in daylight had left. i held my own tender heart. held my own ephemeral nature. remembered that though i could not see early rising Venus in the night sky like i had the other three nights, Venus was there. far away planet another reminder that Earth is but one of a multitude.

my vision is different when i slow. an ephemeral vision? tied less to time…more to Tides. Ocean has always been here—always would be in some form. and the Gulls, Crows, Jellyfish, Driftwood. life and death and life and death would continue to cycle.

ephemeral and quiescence—two words that have fallen into my life recently. one familiar. one new to me.

ephemeral: synonyms: fleeting, transitory, momentary, brevity, fugitive, evanescent. a word that is buoying me in these unsettled times. hard times. it doesn’t give me a pass on sorrow. or uncertainty. or Grief. but does offer perspective. and focus. if i am embodied momentarily on the timeline of this planet (which i don’t see as a line…but that’s another post), well then how do i want to engage? a question not seeking an answer so much as being held with tenderness.

quiescence: discovered in Nan Shepherd’s book, The Living Mountain. gorgeous book that i borrowed from the library and wanted underline and mark up! so now looking for my own used copy. (summary below.) anyway, one of her chapters was on “sleep” and she used the word quiescence. synonyms: inactivity, dormancy, quiet, induce sleep-like qualities, calm, rest. as the human world seems to be in constant chaos, constant exhale, taking time for quiescence is vital for me (and perhaps you) to maintain the energy i need to engage in ways that are, i hope, nurturing and kind.

which brings me to the three c’s:

the three c’s: i am not a “front-line” person. but as i was walking along the Coast last week, i wondered about how i could support my small bit of the world. i may not be able to stop the disintegration. the upheaval. but i do believe in the capacity of human kindness is as deep and wide as the capacity for cruelty.

Community: i am continuing to engage in my communities. i have several in my life. reaching out. staying engaged. being that open person who listens. noticing and seeing where i can be of support.

Connect: i am sending notes to my “beloveds”…friends and acquaintances to let them know they make a difference, they are loved and appreciated. if i have physical addresses i send cards. otherwise a photo or text with encouragement.

Creativity: photos, writing, even reading to stretch my curiosity is a creative practice for me. when i first started engaging with Corporeal Writing, they had a saying “Make Art in the Face of Fuck.” i wasn’t as clear on the concept as i am these days. art is salve. a balm. it is fluid. create people!!

so these are my three c’s: community/connection/creativity. if they appeal to you, please engage as you wish. oh, i also limit my amount of social media intake as an act of self-kindness.

insights from Lichen

i can’t close this post without sharing this: i’m slow reading “Entangled Life, How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change our Minds & Shape Our Futures” by Merlin Sheldrake. the chapter on Lichen blew my mind. i already thought Moss and Lichen were cool, but after reading this chapter i thought “queer ways are flexible and adaptive. rigid forms/structures stand for a while, but they can’t last. hmm, isn’t creativity and art queer?”

here is a link to the paper, “Queer theory for lichens” where lichenologist Toby Spribille draws on information to make these arguments shared in Sheldrake’s book.

“Its author [of the paper] argues that lichens are queer beings that present ways for humans to think beyond a rigid binary framework: The identity of lichens is a question rather than answer known in advance. In turn, Spribille has found queer theory a helpful framework to apply to lichen. ‘The human binary view has made it difficult to ask questions that aren’t binary,’ he explained. ‘Our strictures about sexuality make it difficult to ask questions about sexuality, and so on…Yet it is no longer possible to conceive of any organism—humans included—as distinct from the microbial community they share a body with [note: Lichen are an “extroverted” symbiotic being]…Our bodies, like those of other organisms, are dwelling places. Life is nested biomes all the way down.” (pg 90-1)

as i read about Fungi/Lichen and continue to read Erin Manning’s book, “The Minor Gesture”, (mentioned in my last post, wild are Fires, wild are Crones,) i see how seeped our system of study is in one way of viewing the world…and that is through a neurotypical, western lens. b has to follow a. intellect is restricted to a narrow view of understanding. even in doing research certain boxes have to be checked for grants. it stifles creativity. there needs to be room for expansion and an openness to be uncomfortable. allowing for mystery.

for your reflection:

• what/who/where are your communities? how are you engaging? what does “being supportive look like to you?”

• who are your connections (some of this may overlap with community)? how do you strengthen these ties?

• what does creativity look like to you? how are you creating these days?

• have you considered the idea the “binary thought” may be a human construct and that the natural world offers many examples of symbiotic relationships that may ask us to expand our views? what do you think about the concept of our bodies being “dwelling places?”

• how are you being in the midst of all that is transpiring? how are you extending kindness to yourself? are you holding your own heart in kindness?

• i’d be interested in hearing how you are navigating these churning seas.

Leave a comment

humor is another way i cope. if you have followed me for very long, you know i admire Crows, those shapeshifters between this world and what is beyond. i honor and respect them, so i had to laugh when i came back from doing an evening ramble the other night and they had “love bombed” my car with clear abandon. where i live we are told we have a “Crow problem,” though i would guess they beg to differ. it took two trips through the car wash to get my Luna clean! i said to no Crow in particular, “why me? i’m one of the ‘good humans.’” talk about binaries…”good” and “bad!” i’m sure there are some Crows caw-chuckling at that thought somewhere.

take care of your hearts. wear a hat around Crows.

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa

ps: if you have access to Netflix and you want to watch something on the light side, there is a new Wallace and Gromit movie: Revenge Most Fowl. it is stop-gap animation. even rewatching the preview i was laughing.

dear sojourner,

dark Earth lacked sleep at dawn, stirred by howling Wolf Moon…first full Moon of the year. Fog crept out of soil rising with Sun. Earth seeking a blanket, seeking sleep lost from her wild night of light. Wolf Moon urging me to finish this post, first words rising on the page six days ago. “allow fragments. frayed threads. even in my fullness i am never complete,” her howling advice. here then, fragmented thoughts:

wilding Fires consuming parched land, named los angeles for news consumption, dominate social media. tongue dry land—Fire lapping it up, not yet sated. it has been months since Water has sated southern california landscapes. Rain evaporating from Sky before a thought is formed. few hints of language between Sky and Earth since early summer…those autumn|winter Rains never arriving for that catch-up conversation. like long ago lovers, over the years the conversations have become briefer—until this. structures|landscapes|dwellings burn. up north my feet squelch in Mud after days of heavy Rain. even before distant wildFires started i didn’t complain. Mud composes a song beneath my feet.

i have lived through wildFire seasons. Sun becoming a mystery-sky-orb. lungs becoming tainted with Tree screams. night becoming dream fallow. so yes, i welcome drenched paths and swollen Creeks. and when Clouds abandon Skies and roar wilding blue for two, three days, if we are fortunate a week (a break we are in the midst of now,) winter Sun skirting Tree tops and glaring in my eyes, i soak that in too. i look toward Mountains, now wrapped in white layers. each inch accumulated—needed Snow pack for summer’s heat. heat that will return. evaporating what will linger of my winter spirit.

i am curious how we use language to describe Fire|Wind|Water|Earth events with human characteristics. the words we use that match our own descriptors of how we move through life: raging, devouring, sated, engulfed, whipped. at times it seems we want to blame the element itself for the destruction as if it were personal. as you listen to social media portray climate events, what words do you hear and how do they stir your emotions? how do you feel connected? i’m not judging this. actually as i write, i am aware of my own usage. simply noticing.

this is a fragmented post. it sputters. it mutters back to me “insignificant in the face of a crumbling world.” trying to write about what it means to be “wild” as a crone. as an aging woman. i have thoughts. many of them actually. and i’ve been asked to share by a few folks. so i start, then i stumble. anything i offer is from a cisgendered white woman seeped in western modernity. one who questionsquestionsquestions almost everything these days. and the threads dangling in my thoughts seem unweavable…engagement with Sharon Blackies’ mythology and fairy tale studies on Wise Women. with The Emergent Network and Báyò Akómoláfé. reading about Fungi (The Entangled Life, How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake.) reading ever so slowly Erin Manning’s book on The Minor Gesture. learning just a tiny bit about a Neutrino and being amazed (after all, i’m old enough that when i was a kid, i was taught the smallest particle was an atom-ha!).

and then this recent iteration of wildFires erupts and though a distance away from where i live (though always on the mind of those of us living on the west coast of the usa,) the suffering feels near. can you sense it too? this on top of gaza, sudan, ukraine, andandand… this on top of other ways the “natural” world (are we not the natural world?) is impacting our human sense of safety and boundaries? no wonder we look for so many ways to distract ourselves (i saw the movies Wicked and A Complete Unknown…i appreciate distraction.)

so a few rambling thoughts on being “wild” post-menopausal based on my experience, gender, culture, readings, biases (some undoubtedly unrecognized). my invitation to you is to take what might be useful to play with, reflect on, be annoyed with, or disregard altogether, thinking “she’s a cranky hag.”

i did some uncomfortable exploration of my own wildness recently. what might it look like to be “more wild?” wrapping that around a younger person model. or an extroverted model. it didn’t take long that being wild for me (and perhaps for Croning females?) is an inner state of being. for me it is reflected in my writing, my presence in relationships, my approach to engaging in Nature, etc. in these areas i am quite “wild” (back to that wild introvert which prods me on to deeper and more out of the box pondering.) what is reflected to the outer world starts internally. what i choose to read, watch, listen to. activities i engage in. time spent in stillness. looking toward other Beings on the Land where i dwell for connection.

i’m discovering being “wild” means exploring boundaries of words and meanings. what has been imposed on them by the culture i am immersed in. what am i assuming? what am i noticing? my engagement with The Emergent Network and Báyò Akómoláfé has stretched me in ways i couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

words like “relationship,” “justice,” “freedom,” “gender,” “community” are jacketed by the dominate culture’s prescriptions. even words i have a deep association with: Grief, Loss, Joy. words that have sustained me as archetypal mentors need to be refreshed (though even as i type this i haven’t cracked open that lid.)

“wild” may be hiking along a windy ridge line, skinny-dipping in a ice-melting mountain stream, traveling solo…but it is also breaking thought patterns and asking questions, not so much for answers, but to internally shake things up. watch the shapeshifters…those Crows that adorn the Land where i live. what might they teach me?

as a avid follower of Sharon Blackie (subscribe to her on Substack to receive her monthly newsletter,) i recently finished her newest book, Wise Women, Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond which offers role models for aging women in a “dazzling array of not-to-be-messed-with older characters.” this complements last year’s read of her book Hagitude, Reimagining the Second Half of Life. i began my journey with Sharon several years ago with her book “If Women Rose Rooted.” her work has deeply informed how i have shifted my being with the Land.

in her research on Old Women in mythology and fairy tales, we see them not as the protagonists, but has the ones sought out for wisdom. they may be kind, or not. they are not glamorous. they don’t give a Rats’ ass what you think of them. you can tutelage under their care, if you are invited. or be offered shelter and the knowledge you need to journey on. they live on the edges, not in the center of village life. you need to seek them out. there are those i seek out. as i age, i find some younger folks even seek me out!

Note: most of Sharon’s stories are focused on Northern Europe, Ireland, and the UK (this is her area of expertise and she is always careful to “stay in her lane”.) many resonate with my life because that is my ancestry. they may or may not resonate with you. and i am curious about myths and fairy tales from other cultures and finding wisdom to glean from them, so an open-hearted approach is my way.

what myths and stories about older women have you sought out? what elements are you looking for? (if you are of another gender, shift these questions in a way that resonates for you.) i am drawn to the ones that are welcoming and yet go about their business no matter what the current “trend” is. i am observing that as corporations have discovered the marketing (i.e. money) potential in selling “beauty” products (to look younger and/or pleasing) to this aging demographic, my own desire to rebel grows. the execs at Beauty Inc are not interested in older women claiming their edgy wildness. letting warts show…literally and figuratively. nope, it is about the bottom line. it is something to ponder when some ad is advocating for “your" well-being.

being “wild” also means being tender…with myself and with the Beings and Land i engage with. it is about allowing a slow unfolding. this is winter…my slow time. i need more rest. (also likely another reason this post has taken so long to write.) part of being a “wild crone” means saying “no” to tasks and “yes” to stillness. i also understand i am in a place i can do this by choice. i want to honor that not everyone has this choice for many reasons dictated beyond their control.

“wild” for me is exploring what makes my heart expand with curiosity (even as my mind is befuddled…even as on some level i believe it is all connected…even as those Neutrinos continue darting through my body|the Universe.)

let me know what “wild” looks like to you?

as i mentioned above, i’ve started, the Slow Study course, We Will Dance With Mountains: Vunja! through For The Wild. this alongside reading The Minor Gesture by Erin Manning (read the below quote and you’ll see how the Neutrino interests me! hint-it has to do with passing almost unpreceived) has my brain feeling like someone put information in a blender and hit “puree.” it is nourishing…and a lot. as Báyò says, “this is not about accumulating ‘knowledge’ to ‘understand and fix.’” (breathing a sigh of relief here.) we are in a shifting world. i’m learning about “fugitive” ways of thinking. and, how art is vital. again, lots of threads yet to be woven into anything looking like a tapestry. what makes your heartmind curious? how do you expand your ways of understanding?

The minor gesture, although it may pass almost unperceived, transforms the field of relations. More than a chance variation, less than a volition, it requires rethinking common assumptions about human agency and political action. To embrace the minor gesture's power to fashion relations, its capacity to open new modes of experience and manners of expression, is to challenge the ways in which the neurotypical image of the human devalues alternative ways of being moved by and moving through the world in particular what Manning terms "autistic perception."

from The Minor Gesture by Erin Manning

there is more floating around in my own being…like inner meteor showers that pop in. i watched this short film, Aralkum, on the Aral Desert (previously known as the Aral Sea but was dried up by 2010) that left me sad…and wondering what “body” of Water will go from “lake xyz” to “desert xyz” next. the great salt lake???

since my last following dandelion seeds post i wandered back to my other blog at Nurture Your Journey (a quarterly newsletter) where i wrote about a longest night event i engaged in planning and facilitating, and shared about the theme from that evening: “what we carry; what carries us.” if that interested you, please pop over and take a look.

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thank you for reading this fractured post this far. likely full of typos and other oops. letting it go. if you keep going, there’s a poem at the end. know i appreciate you.

where i live in winter, bird song is muted, close to absent. besides Crows, House Finches, Black-Capped Chickadees, Robins, various Raptors and Owls, Song Sparrows stay year round. theirs’ is the one song that cuts through Fog, Rain, traffic noise. i assume these melodies are not for mating this time of year. perhaps it is chatter between neighbors, reaching out in the dim light of winter gray. or for pleasure to brighten days of scrounging for less abundant food. i know the purpose is based on Song Sparrow needs, not human, but i can’t help but smile when i hear them sing. i’m grateful for the gracious melody. the lilt. the gift. a wild crone appreciates the songs of Kin.

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa!

ps: my poem dry was featured on the Tiny Seed Literary Journal website. their current theme is “water,” please go to their site and sign up to receive poems in your email. the daily gift of poetry!

Here’s my poem:

dry

before the rain returns i
want to remember skin
peeling on my lips,
hands rubbing rough
against my arms on

cooling nights. i
want to remember
leaves veined brown
like rivers naked with
stale silt; spinning on

rusted clotheslines rustling
like taffeta skirts. i
want to remember the
season where there was
an abundance of

lacking. where the
wounds had no energy to
to scar. remember before storm
grates become masked in amber,
scarlet, sienna, creating pools knee

deep that tidal with
each passing car, threatening
to pull me under. i want
to remember grass pinpricking
against my sweat drenched body

as i gaze at morning
stars, salt beads sliding to
earth, a feeble offering of dew.
i want to remember
before i forget and grow

weary of oil slick streets,
clouds outpouring rivers’
fluted songs, when
abundance shifts to
another lack.

© anne richardson

dear sojourner,

tender. perhaps it is the full moon. the persistent rain and gray. my father’s upcoming birthday (he would have been 102 on tuesday.) some personal ebbs. or another layer of internal dissolving. these days i wake tender. my heart. my belly. my soul. tears rise to the surface then fall back inward, not quite able to erupt. the other day the gardeners were tending the grounds where i rent|reside, raking leaves from beneath the shrubs and my heart hurt for the small Beings whose homes were disrupted. destroyed. when i asked if it was necessary, the kind man said that those who directed their work (the condo association) liked it to be “neat and tidy.” he knew about letting the leaves decay where they lie, but does as requested. “neat and tidy.” nothing in our world is neat and tidy these days, so i suppose folks are trying to invoke an illusion where they can.

winter Sun arcs low in the sky as Solstice draws near, barely scrapping the tops of the Douglas Firs and Red Cedars. when Clouds are scant Sun beams into my living space, a natural warming against the cold. Crows, which are murderously plentiful where i live, fly back and forth over the building. their shadows glide inside, flying through as if walls did not exist. fly through me. “take me with you,” i whisper, extending my shadowy-wing arms, hoping to lift off and pierce the walls.

what, after all is “shadow?" is it only shade and not an extension of a Being’s essence? of me? where does our shadow start and stop? our shadows are longest this time of year in the low state of Sun, extending out out out along the ground, embracing the rest this time of year invites. in this deepening state of more dissolving, i feel more shadow than flesh some days. a tender shadow. a shadow that wants to rest.

i dream of visiting a “dark sky sanctuary,” where ambient light is absent. where Stars|Planets|Moon and more fill the night sky. to rest on Land all night and listen. watch. wonder. weep.

the dance of Dark and Light fascinates me. Dark being first in creation myths and evolving discoveries about the Universe. Dark giving up totality to invite in Light. the first loss perhaps. the first time Grief entered the room. that Dark out of loneliness allowed in the companionship of Light. in her book Winter Solstice, Nina Maclaughlin tells the myth of Khaos:

“Khaos emerged at the birth of the universe, preceding the rest of the primeval gods. A state of disordered darkness, a void where nothing was named. Her name meant gap, chasm, yawn. Absense. Form was exhaled from the lung of that darkness. Right now, the darkness takes a deep breath in. […] There’s no flying without land, no emptiness without an edge. The boundaries begin to dissolve.” pg 18

i spent nourishing time with one of my dearest friends the other day. i shared about the new to me discovery of Whale falls (so fascinating! click the link for a short video.) we continued an ongoing discussion about my attempt to try and live a less “human-centric” life. one thought was to push back against the idea that humans are the only beings that makes meaning by creating myths. origin stories. that pass along stories from generation-to-generation. or even tell stories every day. imagine what Whale fairy tales might be?

consider Whales, these beings with complex songs and language that we have little understanding of. they have been around longer than humans, navigating Oceans and survived multiple epochs over 50 million years. how have they made sense of their becoming. of humans massacring their pods. polluting Oceans with sound and garbage. stealing their children. what songs have the Whales sung to make sense of their own probable extinction?

as i watched the brief Whale fall video, i imagine a time when the bones of all the Whales are scavanged clean. a time their stories and songs, those held deep in their bone essense, will rise rise rise to the surface as a lament. heard beyond the atmophere of Earth, out beyond the bounds of our Universe. songs of Dark and Light. stories of wild tenderness. in a language beyond language. always resounding at the edge of somewhere.

tender. these thoughts churning, like a stormy sea in my body. a month ago i visited the North Oregon Coast on retreat. visited during a Bomb Cyclone and high, high tides. even low tides followed a call to disrupt the definition of “low” and clamored to rail against the grasses that offered boundary between Ocean and human structure. Shoreline, where the life-death-life cycle are in liminal conversation moment-by-moment, the ever shifting Seascape offered me much needed perspective on my own tiny place on this planet. the Monoliths that speak in a language so ancient, so slow that it is only by remaining still in patience that i can glimpse a glimmer of their souls. a gift they’ve allowed me over multiple visits. moments after i leave the Coast, my heart wants to return.

and slowly, ever so slowly, i am listening to recordings from the Becoming Monster Festival that seems so long ago during Samhain (what is time again?) when the veil was so thin. where talk of Death and Grief where not shied away from. where “cure” and “care” were brought back to their roots and allowed space away from the pathologizing of today’s healthcare establishment.

the question of what is “cure” and “healing” in a world that monetizes both under a multi-billion dollar industry called “wellness” has me holding these words loosely. wanting them to breathe and not be trapped under the weight of “business models” and other boxes that have constrained them. where promises are made to make us “whole,” but i am coming to understand that “whole” is no longer what i seek.

all these questions stirring and i don’t expect an answer but oh, i long for the Crows to come back for me! then i remembered the poem “Sometimes a Wild God” by Tom Hirons and have listened to it several times over the last few of days (if you click on no other link, please click this one.) “yes” my heart said, “this is speaking to your wildness and your tenderness.” yes, to the wound not being “healed.” and yes to the shadow.

as i listened to a Becoming Monster’s conversation between Sophie Strand and David Abram (sorry the recording is not publicly available) on the topic “Becoming Bodily,” what is lingering as i write this is that our bodies (and all bodies and Beings) are in constant flux. we are “matter meeting matter in the world,” as Sophie stated. to be “whole” is not possible because with every breath we take we exhale a part of our being and those that reside in us and inhale what is in the world around us. reciprocity. as Báyò Akómoláfé said in a 12-12-24 Facebook post “….selves and bodies are neither resolved nor resolvable.”

i am prone as anyone in the “health and wellness” community (the box i have to check for my business) to use the generic and vague words of healing, wholeness, balance, etc. i desire(d) these for myself. and i honestly feel i offer a service to those i meet with in holding tender space, even while i continue to reevaluate my own internal concepts of healing, well-being and spirituality. i am not opposed to going to doctors and seeking medical and complimentary/alternative care. AND i continue listen to the longings of the Earth. to the shifting nature of all Beings and see what is no longer working. asking “why am i drawn to this Monstrous way?” remaining curious amid the complexity.

Monstering. i heard a “definition” from Sophie and David last night that i felt i could finally repeat with out tripping over myself—at least in this moment: “the Monstrous is always not the norm. what we define against. humans have been killing and destroying for 1,000’s of years. being kind is Monstrous. leading with tenderness. noticing with the heart. that is Monstrous.” (not verbatim…my best listening of the recording!)

allowing tenderness. allowing one to lead with the heart. allowing leaves to lie because Beings we can’t see but are critical to the ecology exist amid the unsettling clutter. allowing tears to rise and erupt because that is what the heart asks.

we are living in a time of disruption. living in wild tenderness. or tender wildness is Monstrous. i don’t know how this will unfold in my life. besides tender and wild, the other word that keeps poking at me is “allow.” listening with my heart to the Whales, Robins, Fog, gurgling of my own digestive “biome” and being patient. being aware of life-death-life cycles: the Seal that washed up where Ecola Creek converged with Ocean and became a feast for Western Gulls and other Beings. the wonderous awe of it.

i’m curious about what is stirring in you (i realize as a “wild introvert” i tend to wander down a lot of rabbit holes!) plus it has been a while since my last post, so a lot of unwoven threads. if you want to take a moment to reflect:

• does a sense of order (“neat and tidy”) help you through your days? no judging here, i do like my rituals and routines!

• what would it look like for you to be wild. if you listened to the reading of the poem, “Sometimes a Wild God,” was there a line or part of the poem that resonated with you?

• how about the movement between Dark and Light? do you find yourself wanting to flood Dark with Light? what is your relationship with your shadow?

• have you been to a “dark sky sanctuary?” if so, i would love to hear about your experience!

• what does “wholeness,” “healing” “wellness” and other “health” related concepts mean to you? feel free to share your thoughts. i realize i am a bit out of the box, so don’t expect others to agree, but i do hope you are curious. that is how i started this journey. (and i have friends who are receiving/have received care under this complicated system that would likely not be here. i am grateful for the care they receive(d). no bianary thinking here.)

• how are you being tender and kind to your heart? and to those around you?

  Leave a comment

usually it is small birds that stop by to sip from the birdbaths, Song Sparrow, Black Capped Chickadee, House Finches. the other day is was Robin, large by comparison. in my old ways of thinking i would have thought “oh, you came to see me.” now i am grateful for the gift of my noticing…the brilliant red-orange feathers on his breast, the sharp black eyes that met mine for a moment, my choice to not get my iPhone for a photo and simply be present, like Robin. tender and wonderous.

in gratitude,

anne

buy me a cuppa

ps: Sophie Strand has a new book you can pre-order (from your local indie if you can): “The Body is a Doorway”. you can also subscribe to her Substack, Make Me Good Soil, where she shares her wise insights on navigating the “healthcare” system as a “glitching” body, her gift of storytelling and weaving her deep and broad range of information on the ecology into posts that leave the reader (i think) more aware of the world around them.

dear sojourners,

though the Celtic calendar announced we crossed the threshold into winter last week, clear Skies allow the low hanging Sun to warm my abode naturally. i am lingering in the harvest feel of the season where tomatoes and leafy greens are still available at the farmers’ market. it seems late but i am appreciative. root vegetables will be the star attraction soon enough. root vegetables, those below-the-ground reminders that what ripens beneath our vision is as nurturing and nourishing as the fruits of late summer we pick off greening vines and limbs. that the grit of soil and loam holds an ancient story our bodies yearn to receive in the stews and soups shared round the community table or alone by the hearth.

these few days of Sun are sandwiched between our seasonally normative days of Rain and drear. i don’t mind the drear. i think it is in my bones having been born to english parents, though my father found the long, dark of Winter of his adopted home was his season of “discontent.” born in the season of dark, he seemed to always be looking for light. one of my last memories of him was our walking together in downtown portland in december. an East Wind, singing a siren’s song, swept in from the Gorge having collected the frosty exhales of Basalt Rock faces and the white-capping cries off the columbia River. Wind seeped between the seams of our coats. he stopped several times to try and catch the breath Wind squeezed out of his lungs, his heart struggling to keep pace. a heart letting us know that soon it wouldn’t be able to keep up. for 24 years since his first heart attack, that heart had outlasted Winter and emerged each Spring like the scarred and aged Apple Trees that were part of our orchard—Wounded from seasons of storms and cold, but still able to bear fruit. but this year Winter would have the last word. my father died in January, a month after his 63rd birthday. i was 26.

Grief was an unknown language in my family. we operated under the “stiff upper lip” paradigm. my brother and i took care to attend to my mother, but we were all soon back to work and “moving forward.” it was my mother’s death in 2018 that awoke my sleeping Grief for my father. a Wound i didn’t even know was lingering and needed attending. Grief, i have come to understand, is the invitation to attend to our Wounds.

when i was younger i wanted to rush through Winter (perhaps an unconscious response to my father’s death.) older, and hopefully wiser, it has become the season i am drawn to, as i wrote about in my previous post: slow down. listen. the veil is thin. in Winter where i live, our hands and lips are raw and chapped. we hide our Wounds under sweaters, stockings, scarves, mittens. we ugly cry with our windows closed and buried under blankets. no one will hear. the tender Wounds of our hearts not exposed to the world. and yet Wounds can be our portals (borrowing this idea from Corporeal Writing and Becoming Monster). our gateways to something deeper…

Wounds: how we define, treat, avoid, live and dance with them…that has been nudging at me for a while now. in Oct i read an article in the New York Times wellness section, Her Face was Unrecognizable After an Explosion. A Placenta Restored It. fascinating about how the human placenta, specifically the “amniotic membrane, the innermost layer of the placenta that faces the fetus, is peeled off and sterilized” can be used to heal certain Wounds.

the article is an interesting read from a medical-healing-our-physical-bodies standpoint, but what has drawn my attention concerning Wounds as portal is that a Wound is created to obtain the placenta. see, only placentas obtained by planned cesarean sections are used (has to do with less risk of bacterial contamination, because vaginal childbirth is so messy. and yes, i am being snarky.) but back to my point, the use of a created Wound to draw out the amniotic sac along with the baby. the sacred birth fluids. this complex conversation between mother and child (which can itself become a Wound even in utero) brought out of the dark womb space into glaring surgery lights. there is so much about this that gives me pause.

what is this a portal into? as we slice through the Mother’s body and extract the amniotic sac along with the child what do we see? taste? feel? hear? smell? what is left behind? we are quick to suture up our Wounds, but metaphorically do we need to leave this one open? or as we turn to commodifying this natural part of the gestation and birthing process, what does this say about how we approach being with each other in the Wounded spaces? how comfortable are we with the open gashes? the burned flesh? the sightless eye? (and don’t hear me as saying i am against the healing properties of the placenta. i haven’t looked, but my hunch is the wise women of yore used the placenta to heal.) i am just recognizing in myself how quickly i want the outside of something/someone to “look” ascetically appealing according to societal norms. how i struggle to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

i live in a country that is, in my opinion, existing as an open Wound. has built a foundation on Wounds. yet collectively we place small bandages across huge gashes and hope for “healing,” however you want to define that. Báyò Akómoláfé has talked about a new way of looking at care and wellness to shift thinking away from binaries we have about healing and our current wellness industries. i appreciated what he posted on Facebook november 5th,in response to the US election, this final thought particularly resonating: “we need new forms of care now. may we be found anew.”

the image that keeps coming up over and over, especially as i participated in Becoming Monster last week, was the Earth as Mother and wondering where her amniotic fluids, her placenta, are resting these days as she gestates what is next. i thought of underground rivers and caves where walls could have a layer similar to the one used for healing the physical bodies found in human placentas. waiting to heal the Wounds humans have inflicted on her. or the deepest depths of Oceans that have yet to be extracted, uhm, explored, that are rich with life and story. these don’t need to be torn open, but to be birth naturally in time. in time. in time.

the non-human beings of this planet have Wounds too. it is part of existing. i learn so much from being among Trees. noticing their scars, their Wounds. listening. (i wrote about my relationship with “The Sisters” and my Grief after an ice storm downed three of them on this blog post.)

we are quick to “clean up” downed Trees after a storm. and yes, i appreciate having roads and trails cleared. but how much would we learn if we could lean into being with the Wound of cracked and downed Trees that were not “blocking” our way. to witness the life-death-life cycle. to allow the “dead” Snags to stand, for they are life giving for so many beings, critical to the life-death-life cycle. for when we risk going head long into Wound portals, we risk death. the death of some part of ourselves. whether that be a belief. a relationship. our place in society. and more

and then there were these words from lidia yuknavitch on Facebook 10/11 that gave me pause:

“like so many of you i navigate daily heart contortions. if we live to love with others, we can't live our lives as usual, we know, and we cannot NOT live our lives, so we keep on living in the dumbest puny human ways almost as a buffer against atrocity and despair. there is no moral high ground to genocide. in any epoch. there is only brutality in the viewpoint oh, hey, this genocide over here was horrific, but this other one in a different epoch over here is fine. carry on. for me dead children are dead children. nations and nationalisms are built from the logic that slaughter is not just justifiable, it's valuable, and that creating the enemy other is endlessly righteous. that's not moral clarity. that's blood lust. from the get-go. always a stain, a gash, an unsuturable wound on the possibility of a better world. i can't change anyone else's life, but i can give myself a calling: do not turn away from the wound. the wound is a mouth. a portal. the wound is screaming. as is the eye of the hurricane. The heart of a solar flair. Love isn’t just comfort.”

there are not enough placentas to heal the Wounds of genocides. we need to go into the Wound. i am learning to not turn away, thanks to engaging with Becoming Monster, Báyò, Lidia, and Corporeal Writing.

i am still journaling to offer some container for last week’s Becoming Monster. but like Monstrous Wounds, it is difficult to contain in words. this post feels like a Wound. open. porous. uncharted territory. i often feel my heart will pound right out of my chest. was that what my father’s heart was doing that day the Siren Wind wrap her song around us?

and yet the openness to the gash, the blood, the muck, the mess…that portal also allows in wonder and awe. i know. sounds strange. but being with the Wound means being alive. noticing two House Finches stopped by the birdbath for the first time in ages. hello Beauties! lovely to see you again. and last night Moon shone bright while Stars patterned the still dark Sky this morning before i swam, before Sun rose and filled the day.

and then to close, there is this. the midnight before the election, trickster Coyote stopped by. yes, i have heard them in my urban neighborhood since moving here a year ago (and used to see them in my old neighborhood,) so Coyotes are not unusual. but what was unusual was the length of time the yip-howling lasted. after the pack (likely only two or three, but sounded like more) moved on, one lone Coyote sang an aria for well over half-an-hour. a penetrating few notes that sounded, well, Wounded. no other sounds in the neighborhood. no dogs yapping in reply. no people grumbling. just Coyote reminding us to pay attention to to the Trickster. what we “see” is not always real. remember to lean into Mystery.

and a few reflection questions for you to ponder, if you wish:

• what is your relationship with your Wounds? what is your response to being with them as portals?

• what is the language of Grief in your world?

• how have you seen the Trickster show up in your life?

• what resonated in what i wrote and what feels uncomfortable?

• other thoughts?

Leave a comment

thank you for following this loosely woven post to the end. most days i wander between two worlds (as i shared in my last post.) i may not always make sense. what is making sense? i’m not sure i know anymore. i wasn’t going to write about my father, but that story tapped its way onto the keyboard. that is a kind of mystery. so again, i appreciate you for following/subscribing.

and please, be gentle with your hearts.

anne

please buy me a cuppa

ps: this didn’t fit into the “odd flow” of the post, but when i was in high school we studied Macbeth. the line kept coming to me was of the prophesy between the Witches and Macbeth: “no man born of woman would be able to harm him,” leaving Macbeth feeling invincible. Macduff, the Thane who kills Macbeth, is born by Cesarean. make of that what you will.

pps: and a poem of mine that was published in Tiny Seed Literary Journal in august 2021:

Snags

“At the time a tree dies, it has only partially fulfilled its potential ecological function,” Dr. Jerry Franklin, University of Washington.

body::ragged/weathered/heart (worn)

stories::(still) expanding/greening (ceased)

home::rootedness(less) redefined (unfolding)

death::redefining (appearances aren’t everything)

life::defined by what the eye (can’t) see

vitality::roosts/dens/feasts (indulge)

lacking

blossom/leaf/fruit

nothing left

(but to)

collapse into

essence

dear sojourners,

Rain overflows the birdbaths. Oak leaves gather in small bundles on the deck where Wind has tossed them as an offering during recent gusty days. i see no need to sweep them away and make a deposit into the compost bin, at least not yet. they might be shelter for some small Being on my concrete deck. shelter looks different this time of year.

we finally had a “visible breath” morning where i live in the pacific nw…cold enough so my warm exhale created a mini-fog to walk through as i approached my car for a morning outing to swim, the opening of day still wrapped in dark. the waning Moon high in Sky. Stars maintaining vigil. Rain a few days off. i offered gratitude. with all that is unfolding in the world, it helps ground me, blowing a kiss to Moon and thanking cold Air for revealing my breath’s presence. gratitude reminds me i am not alone. awe and wonder are two of my mentors that remind me to stay present to mystery. something i need reminding of these days…

these days i am raw. porous. those “thundertides” from my last post, being unsettled, are the dominate feeling that rivulets my body. i know not everyone “feels” as deep as i do (that’s not a judgment, it is part of my being’s make-up) AND i want to check in before i get going. how are you? what feelings, if any, are stirring in you? how are you taking in the world around you? after all, we are the world around us, there is no separation. please take a moment to sit and be with yourself. if you it feel comfortable, give yourself a hug.

i’ve return to my (almost) annual read, Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May. what has called me back to this read? it could be the nights closing in earlier and earlier. or the bare hints of sunrises that greet me post lap swim at the community center where only four, five weeks ago rising Sun blinded me as i drove toward home. but those are the cyclical Earth/Moon/Sun reminders. my need to reread Wintering is a noticing from within…plus that rawness. there are internal cycles that have my body saying “remember when?” and “time to slow slow slow down”

this season is when the veil thins between this “above” world and the Otherworld (see “pps” below for definitions and history.) for me many anniversaries of deaths and transitions are clustered from october through mid-february. in the past nine years alone my marriage ended, my beloved pug died, my mother and mother-in-law died, i chose to move from the first place i ever lived alone (a nest of safety,) i started a significant relationship which is now twilighting. plus 29 years ago this coming january my father died. my body, my spirit, my whole being wants me to be present at the veil and listen. aware. these composting winter landscapes invite nothing less than my whole attention.

and yes, other significant life transitions happened outside this “window.” they tap at the door and ask to be let in. "we mark your life too,” they whisper. “let us in, let us in, let us in.” like a mouse secreted behind walls nibbling at yellowed and covered over paper. “welcome. come in,” i respond.

in Wintering Katherine May says:

“There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world, and sometimes they open up and you fall through them into somewhere else. Somewhere Else runs at a different pace to the here and now, where everyone else carries on. Somewhere Else is where ghosts live, concealed from view and only glimpsed by people in the real world. Somewhere Else exists at the delay, so that you can’t quite keep pace. Perhaps I was already teetering on the brink of Somewhere Else anyway; but now I fell through, as simply and discreetly as dust sifting between floorboards. I was surprised to find that I felt at home there.” pg 9-10

most days Somewhere Else feels less like a world i’ve fallen into and more a country i’ve been given immigration papers to live in for the past nine years. reading Katherine’s words again, are a timely reminder that existing Somewhere Else while simultaneously navigating the “normal” world is work. no wonder i’m tired. they also dovetail into Becoming Monster, the meeting|gathering|festival i’m participating in this week (this was also mentioned in my last post.) after i signed up, i received this in a welcome email:

“You click the button. You join the meeting. You are here and not here. You are in a place that is no place, yet the air around you is charged with a sense of something happening. It is a strange magic. It breaks your heart. And in that moment we feel the monster in our fingers, our posture, our anticipation, and we notice, together, how we are already in the weird alchemy of dissolving and coming back together as something other. To enter a threshold is neither a beginning nor a step towards arrival. It is, perhaps, a moment when we name this condition of in-between being, this being unmade in the confluence of currents coming together. What does it mean to enter this space, this time, the time of the festival, the time of the monster?”

a welcome into a confluence. a liminal space. a noticing. the Somewhere Else. to be assured there is no fixing, no arriving at some destination. no map necessary…or even a compass. this other than human-centric space. to me it means entering with curiosity. to allow time to drift away. i also feel shy. what do i have to offer? i have some things to shed. to grieve…and celebrate. to be open to mystery. to name.

in the spring of 2019 i sojourned to the UK where i returned some of my mother’s ashes. as i continued to grieve her death the following year and all that unfolded on that journey of “going home” i wrote about “losing the map” and needing “new compass points” in a blog post on Nurture Your Journey, Grief's Dance Card, Loss Reminders, and Compass Points. as i approach this spiral return toward her death and sit with all the other dissolving landscapes in our world, this metaphor seems to have been prophetic for what was to come. i savor those teachings from that first sojourn.

Báyò Akómoláfé is involved in Becoming Monster (no surprise there.) ah, he always gets my pondering mind pondering and one link offered from The Emergent Network, who is Becoming Monster’s host, was to a presentation Bayo gave at Macalaster College in Minnesota where this comment on “home” caught me up short: “home has been stripped away beneath our feet.” (to offer context it is at around 17 minutes.) this is why it resonated with me: last week i went for a walk. up up up the hills where i live until i reached a summit. once there i wandered around council crest park until i came to a Grandmother Red Cedar. after i asked permission, i placed my hands against her bark and breathed in her dry musty scent. and then the word “home” filled me and an urgent sense to be “home.” my intuition said it was more than my physical abode, but in that moment, that was all i wanted, to walk home to my nest. so to hear these words in Báyò’s talk, just moves that experience to another level. our concept, my concept, of “home” is undergoing radical changes, whether we/i can receive that or not. and a reminder that Tree Beings are wise teachers that have been around longer than humans. that whisper of “home”…when i move away from my human-centeredness, i can hear differently.

i dreamed the other night i was on a Beach making sand castles with my niece and sister-in-law. they were young and i was my current age. i looked up and saw a Tsunami wave of Sand coming at us. they ran one way and i ran another, the wave following me. in my dream i am thinking to myself “if Sandwave overtakes me, i will suffocate and that will be it. or maybe the Sandwave will create a well around me and i will be able to breathe.” ahead of me is Stream|River. human beings on the other side are waving for me to come across. Water is moving swiftly. there are partially submerged Stones that are hard to see, that could be used as “steps.” i need to decide if i want to cross the threshold. Sandwave, i “know,” cannot get across Stream|River. i wake up.

i have been pondering this dream. at first it seemed obvious it was about crossing a current threshold since that is where much of my life is spent. but as i listen to Báyò and Aerin Dunford, Lead Weaver for Becoming Monster, (she was a guest on a recent episode of You’re Going to Die: the Podcast and is well worth a listen) and prepare for Becoming Monster, i began to consider my old beliefs about thresholds, i wonder if i need to stay with Sandwave. perhaps that is the threshold. crossing Stream|River would take me to familiar places. maybe i need to be metabolized by Sandwave. perhaps we all do.

since my move last november, i’ve been dancing intimately with winter. shedding. shifting. restless. unsettled. it’s no wonder my relationship drifted. i wandered off on an unmarked path and stumbled further into a terrain without language. further into the land of “Somewhere Else.” a place of dissolving and coming back together, but still very much in the muck state. how does one share a map for an undefined cartography? a place where compasses have no use. where “home” refuses to be stable? (and trust me, i love my routines and stability.)

it has helped to name (a recent occurrence) what has been drifting like fog from place to place in my embodied self. these loose threads not willing to be woven into a complete story, try as i might. threads that break free from my body into time beyond time. a thread of Red Cedar, Rain splatter, Song Sparrow, a wind scattered Oak leaf…we are all part of each other and part of this “home.” we are leaking beyond what we are told defines us. does it scare me sometimes? yes. but then i remember the gift of fog. how it slows me down. seeps into my pours. wraps me in my own breath. our breath. the breath of Sandwave. where maps and compasses are useless and i must trust.

what is Winter to you? what maps are you still using to navigate your life? are there any you are willing to set aside? as the veil thins this season, how do you plan to honor those in your life that have crossed to the other side? how will you be with your Grief?

Leave a comment

thank you for journeying with me in this raw space. i hope you are taking tender care of your hearts and reaching out to beings, human and non, for support.

in gratitude

anne

buy me a cuppa tea

ps: one of my favorite Substacks is Death and Birds by Chloe Hope. Though i haven’t met Chloe, she feels like a kindred spirit. Her latest post is embers, first flights and final words. if you listen to her post, you might find it is a meditative experience. i do.

pps: the thin places: if you are curious about the Celtic Roots of Halloween and the days surrounding oct 31st, here’s a good read for you: What is Samhain? (Definition & Etymology.)

dear sojourner,

the hanging baskets that added a splash of color on my deck throughout the summer are looking ragged now. almost devoid of the blooms that reached for the sky-high Sun a month ago, i am allowing them to linger, the few remaining blossoms a source of nourishment for the hummingbird that stops by for a sip. it has been weeks since the house finches have visited to take advantage of one of the birdbaths. from what i’ve read they are not migratory though i suppose they could have moved within the neighborhood after their young fledged.

recently a new bird emerged from the Laurels that create a natural screen at the side edge of my deck, a Song Sparrow. Sparrow drinks or splashes in the shallower birdbath, momentarily hangs out on the rim of a chair, swoops down to a planter to see what’s of interest to snack on, then dives back into the safety of the hedge. some days Sparrow pauses long enough to offer a call or song. but most days Sparrow never rests in any one place for more than two, three seconds.

Sparrow’s flitting movements could be construed as being nervous…or instinctual, safety being a priority for such a small being. though i don’t see Cooper’s Hawks or other birds that would prey on my guest, i occasionally hear their calls and Sparrow would be much more aware than i, sensing something beyond my “knowing.”

i am unsettled these days. restless. as i watch Sparrow i see a mirror of myself flitting around inside my own abode. meandering around my mind, often unable to stay with any one thought for more than a few minutes. this unsettledness infiltrates my dreams. dreams, which i don’t expect to have a rhyme or reason, but at least have an archetypal underpinning. these days they are in chaos. my thoughts too are jumbled. i try to write cohesive sentences. instead words stammer, tumble, overlap, trip each other. they emulsify into a gooey pulp. frustrated i set my writing aside. first one day, then another until a week…now almost two has passed.

so i offer this post to you knowing it will never be “finished” but as an “offering.” why? perhaps you too are feeling unsettled. i imagine i am not the only one sensitive to the disquieted energy pooling at my feet and vining up my body. i am reading and (over)hearing about tendrils of unease in other Substacks, in conversations, in “random” encounters with strangers. so here, my fellow sojourner, are threads for you to weave in a way that makes sense to you, even as it is still unfolding for me

my head has been tired. my whole body weary. been dancing around with my migraines with more frequency than my dance card allows. one left me flattened for the better part of a day last week. already one this week with one tapping on the edges as i write this. when i lie down my body hums with a low vibration. is that coming from Earth? Oak outside my window? Moon as she ebbs and flows?

the Hunter Moon, a Super Moon, had a momentary reprieve from cloud cover wednesday night and dazzled me and was so bright my attempt at photos looked like a flashlight beam.

i was born in the darkest hours of night. my body syncs with Moon, but she is also one contributor to my migraines. still, i am faithful in my love of her.

unsettled is a kind of scattering. writing is scattering words on the page. word seeds. idea seeds. blank-spaces-between-letters-not-seeds that are really seeds. i don’t know how they will land. which will find soil that will root them. which will become nourishment or decay (which is nourishment too.) which will lie dormant for years, waitingwaitingwaiting. some may fall into a dark crevasse and fossilize. seed fossils for some being to find as this Earth becomes its next self.

i notice the word|metaphor|concept of “seed” appearing in posts, poems, art at every turn. what is being seeded in me? in us? in the world? what am i planting? are we planting? what would it look like to be a seed?

emotions: mine are unsettled. as someone who tends to not be anxious, and, as i guess a therapist would say, “emotionally regulated,” i am finding this a rich area to be curious about (though not particularly comfortable.) my exploration as led me to this: i want new names for emotions. thundertides. quakesnaps. nightstills. owlshrills. talongrabs. windwinding-sandchatter. sheepcurls. emotions tied to landscapes|seascapes|desertscapes|animal bodies. raw and sensual. emotions with names so when you say them aloud your body responds viscerally. a room full of bodies vibrating with thundertides. softening into each other with sheepcurls. what emotions would you conjure in these unsettled times? please send me your names and ideas. let’s rewrite the “feelings chart.” (note: the word “emotion” and “feeling” are often used interchangeably, though if we were being picky they are not “the same.” we are not being picky.)

a lament is a song, poem, or piece of music expressing deep grief, sorrow, regret, or mourning about a thing or person now gone. (definition from online dictionary)

i’m an advocate for bringing the lament back into our public spaces. laments can be used to freely express emotions of grief, loss, sorrow. wailing, rending clothing, gutteral moaning are part of lamenting. in our button-up society only certain folks are allowed to express anger…and wailing, rending, moaning…well that might be considered “hysterics.” so the rest of us need to “regulate” anger and those other “troublesome” emotions. crying may be allowed at “sad” movies or other socially sanctioned events within reason. there are so many cultural rules as to when one can display what emotion, it is no wonder anxiety is on the rise in the west. i will likely annoy the therapists out there when i say perhaps we have gone too far in trying to “regulate” our emotions. so be it.

while i wholeheartedly find time in stillness and solitude that nourishes my soul, what i wouldn’t give to be able to wail, scream, and moan. but, alas, what would the neighbors think! what to do with all the thundertides roiling inside? the ever shifting inner landscape that has me unsettled. scattered. pacing.

once, when i was working as a hospice chaplain, the wonderful social worker i teamed up with and i did a Grief event at a skilled nursing facility where folks could throw eggs against a sheet. if they wanted they could yell, name their feelings, or anything else that needed a voice. it was powerful. got any eggs you want to throw? have you ever engaged in a lament? does it interest you? please share.

i find reassurance that i am not alone in my unsettledness. this is a time of deep transition. it is why i am drawn to the ponderings (and that feels like a puny description) of Báyò Akómoláfé and engagement with the emergent network (ten), where those in “community” (a word that is open to definition) dance with monsters and edges and thresholds. there is no striving for consensus or answers. instead an openness to imagining what will be as we let go of control as humans. ten is hosting a festival, becoming monster, a convening at the end of human from oct 30th-nov 3rd, 2024. it is a mix of zoom, hybrid, and in-person events.

to spark your curiosity this is from the registration page:

Welcome to the Threshold

Close your eyes. Let your senses blur. Breathe. What do you feel when you encounter the words “becoming monster?” What might it mean for you to see yourself as a process of encountering between modes of sensing? Is there resistance, fear, confusion, a queasy sense of disorientation? Or maybe there is a feeling of release or relief, limbs loosening, posture shifting.  Perhaps there’s excitement, a curious agitation or erotic stirring that you can’t quite name. Maybe it is the bewilderment of all at once.

Welcome to Becoming Monster, an ecology of spaces to feel, share, experiment and practice opening ourselves to the unknown, the unthinkable and unsayable. The aim of the festival is not to identify or name monsters, nor to redraw hard lines around the right and the good. Becoming Monster isn’t a prescription to cure the world’s ills. It is an exploration into a different materiality of grief and care in a time of loss, a celebration of our failures to become, an invitation to reimagine, re-feel and re-intuit what else it might mean to be human beyond the carceral narratives of white modernity.

thresholds. once i realized my call in the world was to be a “threshold dweller|dancer|navigator|guide” i couldn’t avoid the call, even if i wanted to. the sacredness of being in threshold spaces with others is not about being a dominate presence, but about paying attention. about noticing the wisping threads of stories and weaving a cloth to be used by the recipient however they desire, offered without attachment.

in my own unsettled time, this time where i sense i am in the midst of my own threshold, i grasp at wispy threads and wonder what they will weave. i watch Moon as she cycles around us. note the decay of summer abundance. wait for the first morning chill to mirror my breath. i allow practices that ground me to offer some “settling”…my regular lap swims and walks. time with friends. moving to favorite songs at the end of the day to connect with my body. and talking to my ancestors, especially now as we enter into the time of year when the veil is thin. and i wait. i wait. i wait.

substacks that resonated with me this week that might interest you:

gratitude: in their oct 8th substack, to make a snow angel on a stranger’s grave, Andrea Gibson shares their list of their “tiniest biggest dreams,” a kind of “bucket list” (Andrea is living with a terminal cancer diagnosis.) Andrea says:

My bucket list of little things aims to live every moment as if it’s my first. To find the glory in what a seasoned eye might falsely consider mundane. In the process of writing it, I was reminded how incredible every single moment can be if I allow myself to be truly present.

a timely reminder to focus on the small things, like the hummingbird that stops by for a sip, or the friend who sends a text to check in just because. and something for my list: to thank the crickets for their last chirp even though they have packed up their instruments for the season.

discovery: in her oct 8th substack, “do you have a ‘nerdy dopamine pathway,’?'“ Susan Cain’s (she writes about introverts) guest poster, Scott Barry Kaufman wrote about “wild introverts” and i saw myself. i feel seen! here’s a wee bit from the post:

“Here are a few statements that will give you a sense of how active your nerdy dopamine pathway is:

• I love spending time reflecting on things.

• I am full of ideas.

• I have a vivid imagination.

• I am interested in abstract ideas.

• I am curious about many different things.”

perhaps you have noticed this as you have read some of my posts as i try to get all that is flooding my inner landscape onto the page. how about you? do you identify as an introvert or extrovert (understanding it is continuum.)

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there is more, but if i don’t wrap this post up, it will meander into next week, so thank you for hanging in with these unsettled, scattered words.

as we enter fully into autumn in the northern hemisphere, i am appreciating the shoulder season in my local farmers’ market (where i now volunteer) where fruits and veggies are plentiful and fresh, the assortment mimicking a crazy quilt of color. the rains returning to the pacific nw with predictions of early and plentiful snow in the Cascade Mountain range (and hoping for a much needed deep snow pack as a tincture for seasonal droughts.) Sun is laying lower in the sky as winter approaches, pulling Clouds over like a duvet. when Sun does radiate through, Maples and Oaks, not yet bare of leaves, filters the light like prayer, knowing november will bring storms, their leaves whisked away into the threshold. yes, it is threshold season.

in gratitude,

anne

dear sojourner,

i wake in the dark hours. my window is open and cool wraps the room. i burrow under the petal-like covers of summer. soon i’ll pull out the heavy weights—ones that are like drawing Earth herself up to my chin. there is an intimacy in the quiet (never silent) neighborhood in the tiny hours. i eavesdrop on the murmuring conversations that make a home in the night. in the distance a train calls out to a future destination. overhead a plane’s engines imitate Thunder. it is a poor imitation. no tingling follows as unseen contrails dissipate above. there will be no Lightening brightening Hills, scattering Bunnies, their white tails alert fleeing for cover. no Storm tonight, though the engine sound lasts longer than i anticipate, spreading out until it finally thins to hum. to none.

a car speeds up the road. then another. then nothing—until Coyotes begin a round of yipping that i’m sure makes Bunnies actually scatter for cover. as i fall back into my dreams, Oak leaves rustle a few feet from my window. late summer Breeze? Squirrel crawling back into their nest? the voice of an ancestor talking to the Land?

as the equinox approaches my body is shifting. i am dropping into a familiar place of comfort. while summer leaves me feeling evaporated, autumn’s harvest and decay nurtures me. allows me to curl into a book with a cup of herbal tea as the evenings draw in, the words adventuring my curiosity. my journal a meandering path for my own words and reflections. even on warmer-to-hot days, and we still have a fair amount of those, they are gone after a brief burst of comeuppance to autumn’s arrival rivalry.

autumn always arrives in the pacific nw. always brings relief to our worsening wildfire seasons and droughts. sometimes the relief comes early—or late. sometimes it comes as plenty—or scarcity. but it always arrives and my own relief with it.

for my birthday the first week of this month i treated myself to an overnight at the Coast. to the place that sings to my soul. the Coast reminds me the language of Sand is one of constant movement, while the 15 million year old Monoliths that call this stretch of Coast home, speak in the tongue of rooted-abiding. between the two extremes are Cormorants, Western Gulls, Brown Pelicans, Crows, Sea Stars, Mussels, Lion’s Mane Jellyfish, Kelp, Crabs, Eagles, and more Beings that bring their own language of movement to the threshold space of a shoreline. some live here year round. for others it is part of their migratory pattern. some wash up on the shore with tidal flows or as storm debris. they all have a story. we humans try to decipher the language of these older-than-us Beings, but we are poor interpreters. science speaks in one tongue and has its uses. yet we forget their are many ways to communicate beyond our basic senses. will we be open to learning what they might be?

Ocean has a language—many languages. stand still and listen to the conversations between Rock, Sand, Shell, Bird as Waves chatter, pausing for response. call and response. call and response. call and response. what do you notice? are you being asked to join in?

and the dialog between Ocean and Moon…an ancient love story.

for me this is a place i am drawn to for refuge, but not yet to live. maybe sometime in the future. or not. do you have a place or places that call to you? that feel so strongly aligned with your soul you sigh-weep when you return? i have a few and feel blessed to live a short drive away from this one. oh do tell me of your places.

in my absence from posting, i have been reading excellent Substacks (note to self: need to update my “recommends”) and books. listening to some new and favorite podcasts. ha! “in my absence “…each week i am brimming with ideas, jotting notes in my journal, and then allow diversions. dang me.

when i started this stack a year ago (september 13th, 2023 was my first post, wisdom in a tiny seed,) my intention was to jot down my pondering and wandering thoughts, perhaps reflect on Grief and Loss (though i was doing that on another traditional blog since 2016,) maybe offer a few poems and see what unfolded. i invited folks on my other blog who were curious to pop over to Substack but did not want to be pushy (i intended to keep blogging on Grief and Loss on that site but it proved too difficult to keep up with both, so just do a quarterly newsletter there.) i posted on social media (FB and IG) when i posted on Substack. other than that i haven’t promoted following dandelion seeds, so i’m all smiley that i just passed the hundred subscriber mark (and even more followers.) thank you everyone!

i know i am not consistent. and i won’t promise that i will be in the future, but perhaps shorter posts would be the way to go. will see, because even as i write this post so much is bubbling up. just a few ideas:

• i really want to reflect on a podcast that has stirred up a lot of internal shame about my weight and body image journey (Weight For It).

• my former spouse and i have been sorting through photos from “way back when” and the stories we attach to memories over time and how they shift. also reading a book on how we make memories, A Sense of Self. Memory, The Brain, and Who We Are, by Veronica O’Keane. been going down the memory rabbit hole!

• read a great Marginalian sunday, The Great Blue Heron, Signs vs. Omens, and Our Search for Meaning, by Maria Popova that has me desiring to delve deeper into my last post on meaning. and if you are unfamiliar with Maria Popova, check out her newsletter at the Marginalian. Here’s a quote from that newsletter that has me pondering and, perhaps, will encourage you to head over:

• i’ve been spending time sitting in the quiet pondering the next season of my life (re: that birthday i just had) and all sorts of “stuff” is wanting a voice at the imaginary table. just how will my deep call to dwell in the threshold spaces and to be with Grief and Loss unfold moving forward? how do you discern shifts in your life? how do i/you keep for “ossifying?”

these all need their own space and i hope as i ponder in future posts you will find they spark interest for you to ponder how they relate to your life (or not.)

as this Substack continues to evolve, consider it an invitation to you and to myself to keep noticing. and pondering. to (and forgive me Mary Oliver for messing with your poem, When Death Comes) be “a bride to married to curiosity.”

currently following dandelion seeds is a free subscription. i don’t have plans to put up a paywall. not quite sure what would be behind there. i do notice some folks use “buy me a coffee.” or optional “pay if you want to support my writing but you still receive everything.” i’m toying with one or both of those options. i have a history of undervaluing myself. i know, silly, but i spin all sorts of stories in my head. need to change some of my own narratives!

what about you? what are some of your favorite Substacks and why? what do you find valuable when you have so many in your inbox you have to chose what to read, skim, and delete? what drew you to this space?

the pool has been closed for two weeks of annual maintenance. instead of my morning water meditation, i pull on my trekking shoes, don my reflective vest, cup my flashlight in my hand, and head out for a walk. in the darkness paths that are familiar in the light disappear and i am confused. i veer toward streets that feel less foreboding. even after ten months in this new neighborhood, my feet do not yet have the assurance of “the familiar” of my old neighborhood. still, i am leaning into these new ways of being. so many different routes i can choose.

as dark became day one morning, the still unhorizoned Sun painted the clouds a deep purple only to erase purple and opt for 60’s vibe of oranges and yellows as soon his tangerine Self had risen above the horizon, primping in every window and plexiglass barrier as if to say “am i not hot.”

another morning the call of a Great Horned Owl overlapped with Song Sparrow. Owl, out after-hours, perhaps wanting to witness the dawning of day before tucking in for their rest. or another morning, when, still dark, a flash of wing erupted from a limb. though a blur in the dark, the span and power said “Owl.” Owl…perhaps the reason Mouse was so quick to dart into the bushes and escape the beam of my flashlight.

when i walk, i listen with a whole body to witness days’ opening. listen with my heart. when i swim, i also listen with a whole body as i move through Water, my eye on the over-large windows, catching the season as it unfolds reflected in the shifting light. my day may come with joy. with loss. with boredom. with creativity. with busyness. with connections to those i hold dear. with stumbles and hurts…some caused by me. an assemblage that doesn’t need assembling.

time is many things. a day as i live it, is a linear unfolding and yet within that, as those ancient Coastal Monoliths tell me, it is more. expanding. contracting. spiraling. abiding. thresholding.

threshold times. morning walk. lap swim-meditation. night wakings. evening time with a journal. dancing alone in the dark (yes, i do that.) my birthday reflection time reminded me how important it is to slow down and notice. and so i ask myself daily, “what am i noticing?” and as i close i ask you, ”what are you noticing as the seasons shift?”

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in deepest gratitude,

anne

ps-noticing: a few photos of my north oregon coast time and other recent outings

dear sojourners,

i miss the House Finches. once regular visitors to the birdbaths, sightings are now sparse. was it something i did? said? i forget sometimes that i avail the water and few blooming plants on my deck as offerings to these Beings, as well as the Anna's Hummingbirds, Black-Capped Chickadees, Song Sparrows and, yes, the Wasps, as part of co-existing, not so they will entertain me. still, i miss the flurry of activity that likely coincided with nesting|brooding|tending|fledging. these wild Beings are listening to the seasonal beat of Earth. so listen, i say to myself.

a fury of a Thunder|Lightening|Wind|Rain storm raged through last Saturday evening. an august’s worth of Rain let loose in two, three hours. filled the birdbaths to the rim. the official amount: 0.4”, though a friend said her Rain gauge measured an inch. the dry-dirt Ground said, too much too fast though the weary patches of crisped-to-brown Grass accepted the sacrament into Roots and blushed with pale spring memory the next day. our collective prayer was for No-Lightening-Caused-Fires. our state has set a record for charred acreage and the season is still at its height. no more human-caused or natural-caused fires we beseech the dark skies and our fellow humans, though these days, both are intertwined.

water|flow|meaning-making. whatever i pick up to read or tune in for a listen seems to have that theme. so pay attention, i say to myself.

i read Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, A memoir (2010,)….finally. i don’t know that i could have read it five, 10, 14 years ago (when it was first published.) you have to be open to not flinching. to allowing the story to be. lidia doesn’t write to please you. she writes because stories and language matter. factual retelling is not the point, because our memories are not a digitally accurate archive. memory is a corporeal experience. memories and the stories they tell will change over time because they are not static. they are water. at least this is how i absorbed her words, but i also offer you a few of her own words from the Q&A section at the end of the book so you can see where i’m coming from:

“Turns out, according to neuroscience, the more you actively ‘remember’ something, the more the headstory you carry around changes. Every time you recall something, you modify it a little bit and that’s because brains…work through a mixture of images, pictures, feelings, words, facts and fiction—all ‘recollected.’ Eventually you are not remembering what happened at all, but your story or head movie about it. The safest memories are probably those embedded in the brains of people who have lost the ability to retrieve them.”

“In writing, every narrative and linguistic choice you make forecloses others, directs the story a certain way, focuses on a particular image, extends a metaphor that on another day, you might have chosen differently. Form has everything to do with content in this sense. So what is ‘true’ in non-fiction writing is also always being ‘crafted’—given shape and composition and emotional intensity—through our narrative choices as writers. And that’s in addition to the science of memory. So the true story is always a fiction. This is why I have come to believe that non-fiction and fiction are as inextricably linked as memory and imagination—which, as it turns out, also use the same brain circuits when they are active.” (Chronology of Water, pg 299)

her thought on “safest memories” makes me wonder about folks with dementia (my mother had Alzheimer’s, plus i engaged with many folks with dementia when i worked as a hospice chaplain). has someone who has dementia lost their ability to retrieve memories and therefore those memories are held in a “safe place” (even if those memories are perhaps not “safe?”)

or, maybe, unable to sequester a memory one doesn’t want to engage with, it is unintentionally retrieved and “storied” and “imagined” but within the languaging capacities of the dementia brain (however that is unfolding at a particular point in time and dependent on the type of dementia.)

i find this all fascinating, for the stories that arose as i sat with my mother and those with dementia often had metaphorical images and a way of playing with language that when listened to with patience and curiosity, seem to fall under this idea that “non-fiction and fiction are as inextricably linked as memory and imagination.” i am curious to hear what you think.

the pool where i swim laps has been unusually busy this week. the water thick with energy. i crawl through the enclosed Water as i do my crawl stroke. i am grateful to Water for holding me. i want the other swimmers to leave their unsettled energy out of the pool. maybe its me. it is me.

i dreamed last night that a woman, a brown-skinned woman, in a war zone had a baby. she wrapped the baby as securely as she could and placed the baby in a porcelain toilet that had no lid or tank and was in the open and the woman, bare-breasted, waited beside her infant. then, as dreams often do, she was in some sort of clinic, still without covering, still dusty. no one seemed to care about her as she sat with her child, trying to breastfeed. someone came and took her child and left her alone. offered no explanation. no words of when/if her child would be returned. she sat, legs splayed, on a white sterile table in a white sterile room with a small spot of blood between her legs on a white sheet. i woke sad. i woke feeling this was a bigger dream. not a dream to “figure out” but to be with. there was no water in the dream. my dreams have been filled with water. where was the water? i share this dream with you not for your thoughts on what it means for me, but as an offering.

is it necessary for humans to make meaning out of life to have a well, “meaningful life”? death? for suffering to have a sense of purpose or order? when you dwell in Grief world and abide in the thresholds as i do, “meaning-making” is “part of the process.” at least that is what my education has led me to believe.

i remember when i first read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” (1946,) i was both troubled and anguished (or perhaps something else…it has been a while and, memories, right?) it offered a path through suffering. or maybe that is what i wanted to believe.

most of today’s Grief theories and books focus on meaning-making after loss. the consensus has formed that by making sense of the loss, or at least making space for how to move forward in life with the loss, one needs to find meaning (i won’t list research here, but if you are interested, i can offer sources.) i am not opposed to this…mostly. and…i’m wanting to push back. but then i wonder: would that leave only a meaningless life? it isn’t about one or the other. there is a story in here somewhere. where is the imagination?

we place SO much emphasis not only on grievers, but on everyone in our culture having a “meaningful” life (and yes, i am guilty of this.) can we simply “be” for a bit? after loss can we just allow ourselves to be present to being with whatever feelings are arising (or even if no feelings are arising) ? take our time. when our kiddos graduate from school. when we finish a “big project.” when something good happens in our day. can we just be with it for what it is without having to turn it over and inside out and make it “meaningful?” and i am coming clean here…i do this all the time! why do i keep coming upon “water|flow” themed writings? what does this “mean?” what are the connections? i drive myself nuts some days.

and then there is this other random “meaning thought” that is bouncing around in my mind. if we, as humans, are drawn to being “meaning-makers” with our relatively short span as a species on the planet, what other Beings are “meaning-makers?” one of my favorite places is Northern California where the ginormous Redwoods abide , some thousands of years old. we know Trees have complex webs of communication (often engaging Mycelia). why wouldn’t they try to make meaning of Wildfires, of clearcutting, of disease? these ancient wise elders, Trees, navigating the Earth, have stories…i imagine meaning-filled stories.

and not only Trees, consider Whales, Corvids, Moss, Lichen, Rocks…a lengthy list. so do they language meaning into their communication? we know so little. mystery.

and when i work with folks in my role as a spiritual companion, finding meaning in loss or the spiritual journey often arises, but also having permission to not seek one seems refreshing.

part of this meaning meander came from reading Ghosts of Tsumani, Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone, (2018) by Richard Lloyd Perry. toward the end of the book Lloyd Perry recounts some of his conversations with a Buddhist priest who has spent time with families directly impacted by the Tsunami. he also had a profound experience the night of the Tsunami. his temple is located on a hill a distance away from the Tsunami’s impact, but power is out and all is dark. there is no communication. he is unable to see the carnage below, but ”knows something enormous has happened….[and] it was entirely natural.”

yet he knew in supporting families, “…I realized that when I began my work, giving support to people who lives had been destroyed, I had to attend to the heart of human beings and their suffering and anguish. But I also had to understand those sorrows from the cosmic perspective.” a both/and tension. the priest share that a grandparent wanted to know why their grandchild died but not them. why the randomness of “who?” “People wanted to understand their survival.”

the author and the priest don’t offer glib answers. no answers at all except to conclude that to walk alongside and allow more stories to be told is the best we can offer one another until the people sharing stories can “find the answer on their own.” i would add that it may take a lifetime as the stories will keep being rewritten from that “inextricable link between memory and imagination”…and, dare i say it, a need to find meaning.

Báyò Akómoláfé recently posted on FB (8/15) a new word, panrheic (all, to flow).

“A word that suggests we are all in flow; that difference is not separation; that we are not 'things' that 'move' in the world - instead we are movements that 'thing' with the world. All-flowing, all-moving, lines emerging and vanishing.”

like most ideas Báyò writes, it takes me time to ponder, but this one resonated because it related to water and flow, those themes appearing over and over in my life these days. i suppose i’m trying to make “meaning.” or just allowing. noticing. i wonder how the Buddhist priest who had the profound experience of the Universe and sorrow and natural occurrences after the Tsumani would read these words.

i went to the Coast with a friend a couple of weeks ago. couple of nights away. we played Scrabble. i may love words, but i am a lousy Scrabble player. it was still fun. the house sat above a Bay. Brown Pelicans dove in for snacks. White Egrets and Blue Herons waded in the shallow depths. took their time feasting. the second morning a man was walking in the bay. not canoeing or kayaking. walking. slowly. perhaps he dreamed of being a Heron. a dream i could relate to. tide was out in the morning. folks were clamming and crabbing. holes dotted the wet sand as the tide crept outward. holes…sudden water projectiles. step. squirt! step. squirt! squirt squirt! step. like a fountain at a kid’s park, without the timing. bouts of laughter. ah the Coast. my place of restoration and refreshment. no need to poke around for meaning

my summer project has been to sort through old photos and papers. not just from my kiddo’s childhood or mine, but those stored by my mum (who died 6.5 years ago) and my grandparents’ (long gone, but we hold onto the photo and paper trails of memories in my family.) this project will linger well into autumn as the handling of photos and papers entails handling energy. the stories left unsaid. i don’t know everyone in the older photos and still i am unable to “toss them.” a wise friend said that perhaps they still have a story to share. fiction or non-fiction. it is all linked together.

i did pawn some off on my brother and cousin. and i have found treasures. photos of my nana, who i don’t remember ever smiling—smiling! a postcard send to her from my granddad before my father was born because my aunt is mentioned as “baby Betty.” my granddad in uniform with eight others. it must of have been WWI, though the postal date has faded. this grandfather died when my father was a lad. a man i know few stories of. i can’t even identify which one is him in the photo. my grandmother called an abbreviated version of her name i had never heard before. so yes, this is a slow, slow process because story and memory and there is no one left to tell them, so i have to allow the photos to speak. and they only speak in hushed tones i have yet to decipher.

as i tried to unpack some of what is flowing through me with my spiritual director last week, i realize am in a place of unknowing. of allowing myself to be comfortable with not knowing and some days being quite uncomfortable. a sense of dissolving many of my previous roles. of not being a threshold dweller but being threshold. dissolving into threshold. maybe i am imagining this. maybe i am a fiction.

when i walk my new neighborhood, coming home with purple-stained fingers from nibbling ripe Himalayan blackberries along roadsides, it is gift. noticing the feast of fallen Apples from aged Trees ready to feed all comers, it is gift. sighing into cooler days before a final fit of hot weather arrives to close out summer, it is gift.

summer’s end, less than a month until the equinox. the harvest season is about loss as fruit is released from the vine. letting go nourishes::sounds meaningful. or just how these wild Beings are listening to the seasonal beat of Earth.

the nights draw in sooner and the Crickets have returned. their chirp, my gateway sound to autumn as sun sets. window open and fan-free for now, i drift into sleep amid their frenzied desires. then, deep into night the Coyotes, now maturing, their yips fill the air. the other evening they set off a Dog barking. i could almost see them sauntering away into the full blue Moon shadows, flowing like Water, flaunting their freedom.

i would love to hear your thoughts on meaning-making. or how you dwell in the change of seasons. or how does Water (or any element) present in your life? or are your feeling unsettled/dissolving (i’ve heard that from others, so i am not the only one)? what is on your mind|heart?

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with deepest gratitude,

anne

a few extras:

• way back in february i was one of five readers on Coffee Talk, a monthly event hosted by Coffee and Grief Community (on FB.) the recording of the talk was release on the podcast, Coffee, Grief and Gratitude as episode #55. the monthly talks are always the BEST heart balm and the other readers that night were amazing (okay, they are every month.) the next Coffee Talk is sept 5th. request to join the Coffee and Grief Community on FB so you can receive the links.

• Christine Vaughan Davies in her Substack, Journeying Alongside, also reflected on meaning-making recently in Why (Not) Me?. a chaplain, educator, and spiritual director, Christine offers her own wisdom in facing life’s existential questions.

• lidia yuknavitch’s new memoir, Reading the Waves, is due out february 2025, and it can be preordered, if you are so inclined. from your local indie bookstore if that is your preference.

• a pitch for the work i do. i meet with folks in person or via Zoom. yes, i have my evolving way of being in the world, but when i meet with folks, i hold space for your story. if you are interested in finding out more, please head over to my website: spiritual direction. or use this link to reach out and we can always set up a time for a chat to answer questions. i am always honored by stories folks allow my to witness.

• i invite a lot of photos into my phone and point-and-shot cameras. a hobby and also how i reflect on the world metaphorically. photography can also be used in working with Grief and Loss. in Choosing Light, Transforming Grief through the Practice of Mindful Photography and Self-Reflection,(2024,) Jessica Thomas, PhD., MS, shares her research into Mindful Photography as well as practical ways to use the method to engage with Grief and Loss for both individuals and professionals. a book i recommend.

dear sojourners,

next week will be the mid-point between Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox and days are visibly shortening. it is Golden hour when my alarm sounds to rouse me from my sleep. it is calmer. the birds are rousing later. quieter, they are no longer under the spell of mating season—the frenzy to impress and build. the songs and conversations have shifted to tending, nurturing, defending, mourning the loss of the fledglings that did not survive. even the Crows take their time starting their day.

the hot spell broke Sunday when an unexpected Thunderstorm rolled through, dropping fat droplets on the annual outdoor-fundraiser-pancake-breakfast-used-book-sale and usual Farmers’ Market. the Air, refreshed, sighed with the unburdening of the heat. the neighborhood sighed. even the Crows. the books were sponged off, tables wiped down, festivities resumed and soon the Rain was memory.

even brief Rainstorms are welcome after extended dry spells, though not enough to end our drought. no hint of Rain in areas where the Wildfires are burning Forests and Grasslands like kindling at a bonfire. parts of the Pacific NW are covered in a haze of Air the color of bruised apricot flesh, and quality of what is taken into the lungs is hazardous not only to children and those with pre-existing conditions, but to any Being that takes oxygen into their body. dry Lightening has been the cause of some of these fires. the rumble of Thunder that preceded the fat droplets we welcomed with smiles on Sunday, sends shivers to my neighbors in these tinderbox landscapes. it is two, three months until the “official” end of Wildfire season and already more acreage has burned than in 2023. and while it has cooled off where i live (at least for a few more days,) that is not the case where these Wildfires are most prevalent. the seasonal Rains of late Autumn can’t come soon enough.

Water storms through my dreams. it seems every place i turn in books, on social media, magazines, Water is the theme. or maybe it is what i am drawn to. i keep swimming five days a week. even when i am tired and would rather sleep in. i need to be in the pool. in Water.

the Creek where i walk is almost dry. i don’t know where it starts. where it goes. what Stream-River-HeadWater gave this Creek birth. i want to go to Ocean. is that where this Water wants to go? if i followed Creek in Winter, when it is full, would it lead me there?

the theme of the Summer issue of Orion magazine is Flooding. how using concrete, dredging, dams, and other engineering to shape Rivers’, Oceans’ and other bodies of Waters’ natural flow has, in the long term, caused more problems than they have solved. interesting how we call Water “bodies.” they are living Beings.|are they living Beings? they feel alive to me.

humans, our bodies containing 55-60% Water, are drawn to be close to these bodies. to wander the threshold edge. to live on the threshold edge. to be on Water. in Water. the ancients took time to watch how Moon and Tide and Wave and Flow and Land were in conversation. a Flood story is in most traditions. our need to be aware of, in tune with, in awe of the power of Water is part of our human story. the Earth’s story.

why do we try to contain or redirect what so naturally wants to flow? i appreciate having a shower. a glass to sip clean(ish) water to quench my thirst. a pool to swim in. a pool to swim in. in it’s absence is when i become most appreciative. the pandemic shut my local pool down for months. i would walk past and yearn to break in. swim.

why DO we try to contain or redirect what so naturally wants to flow? this is a question of curiosity. of unknowing. humans, we are an innovative species. impactful on our environment. and so i read and notice and wonder.

i read Lidia Yuknavitch’s “Thrust” in the Spring. the book is Water. it is future. it is hope, though not easy hope. i recommend. Lidia is a Water being. i’ve been fortunate to be in workshops facilitated by her and the Corporeal Writing squad, where she is a member/founder (i also recommend their offerings. many are online.) i follow her on social media. her posts are Water. they are portals to another world.

where i live we are waiting for “the big one.” i know, that sounds like a real downer. it isn’t. it’s just reality. everywhere has some “event” to be aware of. so an Earthquake of 8 or 9+ magnitude is in our mix (along with Wildfires.) we are “due.” it may happen off the Northern Pacific Coast, where the tectonic plates are shifting in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. then it will be an Earthquake & Tsunami combo special; a two-for-one. all along the Coastline “Tsunami Evacuation Routes” are posted. would folks make it out in time? how much time would they have?

when i was i child, i had a recurring dream of being on the beach and a huge wave was coming to get me. i ran, looking for my mother. i always woke before i was swept away. there was a Tsunami in Oregon 1964, not long after we moved here. it wove into my dreams. now when i am walking along the Coast i wonder, “will this be the day?” folks continue to build close to Ocean’s edge. there is no shortage of information about the dangers. we are drawn to be close to thresholds. to live on thresholds. (to find out more about the 1964 Tsunami and our present situation watch Oregon Field Guide’s Tsunami Anniversary. just under 10 minutes.)

Tsunamis are a powerful reflection of Water’s sheer force…a contrast to our human frailty. i am reading “Ghosts of the Tsunami, Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone,” by Richard Lloyd Parry (thank you for the recommendation.) occurring on March 11, 2011, an area of Northeast Japan was decimated, including 18,500 deaths. Parry’s narrative style weaves the research of the “what happened” into the stories of the people whose lives were forever altered with a tenderness i appreciate when dealing with matters of the heart.

living in a region where the possibility of an Earthquake and a Tsunami will likely be as devastating due to our population density is a reminder to be humble.

i’m visiting the Coast soon with a friend. i looked at moving to the Coast a year ago. when it is dry for days on end and Rain is scarce, the idea of being close to Ocean makes my heart beat faster. i take that back, any time of year, the thought of living by Ocean makes my heart beat faster.

in my new dream, the Tsumani swallows me and i’m okay. i belong in Ocean. in Water.

last saturday i did the Naked Goddess Swim with dozens of other Goddesses. we gathered. we frolicked. we laughed. it was joyous. so much joy! the River received us with a wink. it had been a hot day. the water temperature was cool. refreshing. the Sun had just set. the full Buck Moon was rising (though just out of sight.) the swim-float proceeds benefited the Human Access Project. the idea was for those participating to feel comfortable with their bodies. it was my first time skinny-dipping (yup, some of us are late to the party.) no shaming. just women embracing their beautiful, magnificent bodies. next year it will be held july 12th. see you there!

to leap into River. fall into the Dark of her. down, down, down, until kick, kick, kick up i surface, my ennui washed away and sent to Ocean, at least for a while. it was ecstatic. and i’ll be honest, i’m back in a malaise. a funk. back in that ennui i wrote about in my last post. i’m allowing myself to be okay with it. Water, Earth, Fire, Air. all the elements are shifting. my body is noticing. my sense is: i’m drawn to Water in particular because, along with Earth, Water has been my strong connecting element since i was young. it is how this Universe communicates to me, if i’m listening.

what about you? is there an element you are drawn to these days? what are you noticing upon waking or going to sleep? any noticings in your dreams? have you ever been in a natural disaster and if so, how did it alter the trajectory of your life? my call/work in the world is with Grief and Loss and natural disasters certainly bring about complex losses and Grief. whatever is flowing through your life, please take tender care of your hearts.

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when day is well gone, in the dark of night, juvenile Coyotes have been finding their voice in the park outside my bedroom window. yip, yip, yip. quiet. yip, yip. silence. this stretch of land where Dogs romp throughout the day, it is Coyotes who romp and mark territory as waning Moonlight hones in on a mouse out late. or lucky cat outwitting these unpracticed youth. these youngsters finding their voice in the night as i listen for mine under Water.

in gratitude

anne

ps: did you know Los Angeles had a full and lush River at one time? the history of why the Los Angeles River is mostly encased in concrete is shared in this 99% Invisible podcast, A River Runs Through Los Angeles. so interesting!

pps: exciting news! with the cooler weather, the Sweet Basil i mentioned in my last post has bounced back. wohoo!

dear sojourners,

the herbs and flowers in my pots on my deck look weary. burnt from long days of Sun exposure. the last two, three weeks our temperatures have breached at least 90º most days, with a succession of days tipping over 100º. when the high is predicted for 89º, i do mental gymnastics to trick myself into thinking it is “cool” out. and 85º, well, i’m almost donning a wool jacket.

with little shade to protect my tiny “garden,” daily watering is the best i can do. the shallow birdbath evaporates by mid-afternoon, though the Wasps find remnants of water to sip. i don’t like Wasps and consider buying one of those plastic, yellow, cylindrical traps, but then it is too hot to sit outside and eat (where they would aggressively pester me), so for now i let them be, telling myself “Wasps must have a purpose on this planet,” and pat myself on the back for being so inclusive. but i still don’t like them and given the chance will deny all arguments for their usefulness and vote to exterminate. so much for inclusiveness.

at least the deeper birdbath stays viable all day long and provides refreshment for the House Finches that are frequent visitors. when two males arrive at the same time they stare at each other, hop up and down on the rim, refuse to share, and eventually both fly away, neither getting a drink. when two females arrive, they share. make of that what you will.

there has been no rain for the past two-and-a-half weeks. not even a sweat-soaked bead from a wayward cloud. before that rain was rare as Spring turned into Summer. the rain that came late June: it was in a humidity soaked afternoon where Clouds gathered up our collective ennui and dumped it back on us.

the closest Creeks are shrinking to dribbles. no Rain is forecast anytime soon. we’ve had extended dry periods in past summers, but the “below average rainfall” this Winter and Spring leaves little reserves. House Finches are not the only visitors to my birdbaths. Black-capped Chickadees and Dark-eyed Juncos stop by. the occasional Crow. and yes, those damn Wasps take deep sips from that Water source, too. we are all thirsty for something.

when i was a kid i couldn’t wait for Summer. or is that a mis-remembering? not having any girl neighbors close by, or even boys close to my age, i spent a lot of time with my books, reading in my “secret” space between two old Cedars at the top of our ragged yard. when your father buys an equally ragged orchard, his dream to escape smog-filled skies of Los Angeles, the yard is the last thing to get tended. the dandelions grew no matter the amount of rainfall while the grass browned and crisped under the Sun. scratchy on bare legs.

dust would coat everything as cars, trucks, and tractors drove by the unnamed gravel road that bordered one length of our property. i couldn’t wait until i was old enough (12) to ride my bike or catch the beat-up picking bus to the local berry farms and pick Strawberries, Blackberries, Marionberries. i ate a fair share of dust-covered, insecticide-sprayed berries, drank too little water, and wore no sunscreen, but i was with friends and i made some pocket money. i know there were hot hot days then too. hot stretches without rain where the irrigation pipes would pump jets of water over crops as if those sources would last forever. if i felt the heat was “too much,” i could choose to stay home. the “migrant” workers had no choice. rotating from harvest-to-harvest was their livelihood. but i had no concept of such things back then

look up a photo of Thai Basil and you will see leaves more slender than the Sweet Basil used for pesto. Usually a spirited green leaf with purple stems, the Thai Basil on my deck has delicate blossoms the color of orchids that i swear have been the same height since i planted it two months ago. the leaves sprouting from the stems look like underfunded crowdsourcing. too small to add to a recipe. i allow that this season it will be a pollinator. the Cilantro and Flat Leaf Parsley are the opposite of robust—more comb-over than lush. no salsa in their future. and my attempt at Dill this year…a few spindly stalks.

i thought my Sweet Basil was going to pull through as i was able to offer it some protection, but i was either over zealous in my watering in trying to save it or it got overheated, because the full-fleshed foresty green leaves have dulled and drooped. it is on palliative care. with the highs predicted to hover in the high 80’s and even bounce back to the mid-90’s the rest of the week, i’m not sure my Basil will pull through. but there is nothing like a handful of sweet, peppery Basil added to a dish, so i’ll hold out hope.

at least my hardy Rosemary, going on three, four years old, is staying the course. and Sage is being, well, sage in its navigating the heat as is the Oregano, Thyme, and Tarragon. so all is not lost. and my funky Geranium that i wintered over from last year. brought inside when Winter froze us and tumbled trees all around, is a handful of magenta blooms on a thick woody stalk. maybe not a state fair winner, but has attitude.

like many of these plants on my deck, i grow weary from the days of heat. i close the windows and the drapes against the high-in-the-sky pulsing orb once the cooler night air begins swapping out for hot in my abode. the portable air conditioning unit i am grateful to have maintains comfortable conditions in my main living area the first few days of a heat blast, but if the nights don’t cool, the heat accumulates over time. i find it difficult to sleep. i become restless. my creativity caves. ennui is my default. i am beginning to crave Winter.

i relate to this quote from Summer Solstice by Nina Maclaughlin:

doing what experts suggest to keep my abode “cool” during a heat wave (closing drapes and windows as soon as it heats up outside, fans on at night to bring in cool air) leaves me feeling entombed. i am not a claustrophobic person, but being closed in when light is seeping beneath windows, is like splinters of glass pricking my eyes. heat is oppressive.

i know each season where i live is necessary for the beauty this region is known for. the luscious bounty available at the Farmers’ Market i walk to Sunday mornings. still, Summer and i are not on the best of terms. sorry if i sound cranky.

on mornings i walk, i set off early before the heat ramps up. walking sustains me and i need to get out of my tomb. this new neighborhood has bends and twists in the roads with repeating street names that make it easy to get confused for the uninitiated. a healthy share of steep hills, “trails” that veer from paved streets through mini-forests, and several parks are part of the landscape. the neighborhood is a mix of old and new construction. several gardens are signed: “bird habitat certification in process,” “certified backyard habitat,” or “pollinator friendly.” there is also residue from the January storm: fallen trees left to return to the Earth as nurse logs, blue tarps still protecting gaping holes in roof tops. was it only six months ago we were in a deep freeze?

on Saturday i met a new park that beyond having playground equipment and ball fields, had a nature restoration area. Thistles and Queen Anne’s Lace seemed un-phased by the heatwave, or perhaps the small trickle of a Creek was still sustaining the preserve. Oak, Maple, Fir, Cedar, and Ash ranged from young to wise. i miss the intimacy i had with the trees in my old neighborhood. the “Sister” Maples. the Douglas Firs that stood watch over my apartment and on the path i walked. i have been slow to meet me new neighbors.

one of two of the Dogwoods outside my new abode is looking distressed from the heat. leaves sagging, browning on the edges. the other Dogwood seems to be fairing better. this Dogwood offers the Hydrangea in front of my abode enough shade to keep most of the blooms from sunburning, the periwinkle clustered pompoms are composed of small blossoms…a joyous Summer shrub. just after i moved in last November, the gardener was cutting the dying blooms off. i asked for a bunch and they still sit, deep purple in their dried-died state, on my dresser.

over the long holiday (in the States) weekend, i visited family on the “other side” of the Cascade Range, the High Desert part of the region. dryer and higher, the flora and fauna varies from the west side where i live. the forested areas are less dense. there are more Junipers and Ponderosa Pines spread out like a fanned hands than Douglas Firs clustered together. there are more ranches than orchards and wineries. drought conditions have been more prevalent over the years in an area that already received scant rainfall. wildfires, though now a concern throughout our region, are already “popping up” earlier and earlier on the calendar. and it is a stunning landscape with the Painted Hills, Smith Rock, and Lava River Cave, for example, showcasing geologic shifts reflecting how land is formed over time. a reminder how short my time on Earth is. it one of my favorite places to visit.

witnessing Water cascading over hidden Rocks at Tumalo Falls reminded me that even in the midst of drought, the cycle of Winter Snow and Spring thaw continues to feed Tumalo Creek. Summer heat and lack of rainfall may slow the flow sooner than in previous years, but it was powerful when we were there.

watching Water carve through Canyons, gliding over Rocks fascinates me. the slowness of Time to alter/create beyond my “seeing.” there are Trees that have tumbled into the flow, only to remain in a semi-permanent state. for me it is mystery, though science, too, has a say in sorting the “how’s.”

as we walked the trail, small clouds of dust stirred by our feet rose in the air. the air was dry. it got hotter. the sound of the Falls and the impatient Creek fell away. a stray spark from lightening or fireworks (and yes, they are illegal, but…) would set the whole area ablaze. you hope at least the humans would practice common sense.

today the House Finches continue to stop by for sips. the Wasps, too. i have gratitude alongside the ennui. i am aware how much bounty i have. and the House Finches, they bring me Joy with their comings and goings. the Wasps, not so much.

are you weary? feeling a bit of ennui? maybe being entombed in a quiet, uneventful space sounds delightful, or at least a respite. come over and i’ll offer you a cuppa tea. and as i allow my own ennui brought on by the heat (or, perhaps a smidge of overwhelm and need to filter out the barrage of “news,”) i choose to be gentle and tender with my own heart. can you be that with your own, please?

or maybe you love Summer. the long days. the hot. the Sun. maybe you are already noticing the shorter days and bemoaning the coming of Autumn. what are these shifting seasons like for you? and is it different as you’ve aged? or what “season” of life you are in? if you like, i’d be curious to know.

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and a bit of fun on the horizon. yes, i need some fun. on Saturday i will be doing the Naked Goddess Swim. gliding my Goddess body in the Willamette River after dark with other Goddesses. it will be cold water. River water. on-the-way-to Ocean water. perhaps i will let my ennui flow downstream to the Pacific.

and so, yes, a bit cranky today. and also appreciative. appreciative of your reading, subscribing (please, if you please). once the heat fog clears from my “mostly useless mass of gray-pink meat-matter underneath my skull,” i’ll be back with something less ennui-ish. more in tune with the world-ish.

as always, in gratitude,

anne

dear sojourners,

to be roused in sleep by an Great Horned Owl’s call is to shed skin and fly into the night. to desire a new Moon and eyes seeing all without Sun’s dominating presence. the Great Horned Owl’s “hoo hoohoo HOO hoo” tendriling from hidden roosts invites a dreamer to go wild. to reconfigure landscaped spaces. fenced yards. mowed lawns. even designated habitats for wildlife into unfettered meadows, harvest-free forests, culvert-less streams. a gridless map. to be a creature at home aloft or treed. waiting for time to unravel.

i crack my bedroom window open. nature and city hums and moans creating the nightscape for sleeping. dream fodder. leaves rustle in the wind. trains rumble along a track making a plaintive call to no one in particular. my new nest no longer abutting a parking lot, but park. Oaks, Apples, Pears dot the Hillside crowned with Firs and Maples. before the golden hour chorus of Sparrows, Crows, Dark-Eyed Juncos, Chick-a-dees, a Great Horned Owl calls, stirring a memory of pre-dawn walks before my move. pandemic walks where Owls shared the late night wrap-up in the shadows beyond my sight. i would stop and listen. their soft calls, while not for me, still felt like message. “pay attention.”

Owl. i am (re)paying attention. what might Owl want me to know? the literal bird being Owl. the metaphorical Owl. totem Owl. powerful spiritual Owl. i forgot that Owl asked me to pay attention as this year dawned, despite having representations at various focus points and altars in my home. despite my focus poem of the year is William Stafford’s “Be A Person Here” with the opening lines including Owls:

“Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke

the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.”

and having started reading but sidelined the book “What An Owl Knows, The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds,” by Jennifer Ackerman, because other books from my TBR keep nosing their way in (bad books!)

still, Owl has their way of reminding. last tuesday evening as i walked with my Mazamas Street Rambles, we ambled along a stony path though a canyon in our city’s Forest Park sharing stories and companionship. it was a hot evening and we appreciated the cool air nestled in the trees. though a few days past Solstice, sunset was still 90+ minutes away. one of our keen-eyed walkers spotted a Barred Owl perched on a fallen log, maybe 100 yards away? we stopped, gawked and ooooed and took poor quality photos on our phones as Owl seemed to wait for us and then, with a few flaps of their massive wings, left for a nearby Doug Fir. had we not watched, we wouldn’t have noticed Owl, for once ensconced against the side of the Fir, feathers and bark were perfectly blended. it was truly a “wonder and awe” moment.

still buzzing from the gift of this sighting, minutes later up the path our leader spotted two fledgling Barred Owls testing their wings. gripping limbs with strengthening talons, wings would stretch and flap, stretch and flap until one lifted off, almost bouncing, almost graceful, to the next limb. i imagined it was mama we had just seen down the path, her needing to stay away to let her fledglings lean into their growing bodies. mama, out of sight, but not too far, part of her parenting her babes. it was a double wonder and awe evening!

a tap-on-the-shoulder evening. Owl giving me that wide-eyes look: “what invitations had been extended this year?” i had forgotten. so i’m going back, forward, gazing upward, sitting still, checking in.

what is the invitation of Owl in all those forms i listed above? Owl’s ability to see and be in the world that is foreign to my own. a wildness. to be in the dark. Owl is one of my teachers (i keep coming back to that, don’t i?) a guide to help me weave together some of what i’ve been listening to and reading. the synchronicity of what at first seems random. here is a sample:

a favorite podcast, 99% Invisible is doing a year long series on the book The Power Broker (one episode a month.) i stumbled into the middle (#6) but was so fascinated, have gone back through to catch up. basically how one man, Robert Moses, shaped New York City from 1920’s-forward. it has me thinking how much i don’t consider how our cities and landscapes are shaped and determined by “rules” and “regulations” and workings from times past that are close to being set in stone based in 18th and 19th century beliefs. my brain is still pondering. and there are six more episodes left until the end of the year!

then i read an article in Orion Magazine, Reaching the Light of Day, about Ghost Rivers. Rivers, Streams, and other beings of Water that have been sent underground because they were “inconvenient” when building cities. and yes, Robert Moses’s name was mentioned about one in New York City! i had no idea. human hubris around Water, which i believe is a living being, has led to real 21st century concerns around flooding and droughts. “Daylighting” waterways is not uncontroversial or inexpensive. reminded me of the ongoing conversations about dam removal projects. again, just taking in this information.

oh, and an article in the New York Times, The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet about “how the Earth’s crust teems with subterranean life that we are only now beginning to understand.” yup the Earth is really an actual living Being. not just a crust that we all live upon. microbes miles below the surface growing, changing. it is a long article but i found it a worthwhile read. here is the closing paragraph:

“For more than two centuries, Western science has re­garded the origin of life as something that happened on or in Earth, as if the planet were simply the setting for a singular phenomenon, the manger that housed a miracle. But the two cannot be separated in this way. Life does not merely reside on the planet; it is an extension of the planet. Life emerged from, is made of and returns to Earth. Earth is not simply a terrestrial planet with a bit of life on its surface; it’s a planet that came to life. Earth is a rock that broiled, gushed and bloomed: the flowering callus of a half-sealed Vesuvius suspended in a bubble of breath. Earth is a stone that eats starlight and radiates song, whirling through the inscrutable emptiness of space — pulsing, breathing, evolving — and just as vulnerable to death as we are.”

the memoir i’m reading, The Eight Moon, A Member of Belonging and Rebellion by Jennifer Kabat. her personal story weaving in the anti-rent rebellions in the 1800’s in the NE US as she begins rooting herself to her new home. and wait, what? i don’t remember learning about tenat rebellions in my history classes. tenant farmers rebelled due to not being able to pay rent to their wealthy landlords. New York City is woven into this story too, as well as the financial crisis of 2008. the election of Donald Trump in 2016. i’m waiting for Robert Moses to pop up! i am not quite halfway and it is soooo well written. recommend.

it has me pondering how we live in the 21st century under 18th and 19th (even older) paradigms. how is it we still have landLORDS in america? i owned a home (along with the bank) for almost three decades. but did i really? i have mixed feeling about our western relationship with property “ownership” (my opening dream about being Owl.) how we have come to negotiate being sheltered and caring for each other in community is fraught with division. and i admit, i like my rented condo. “my” space.

i wonder how do we create new cartographies? what am i willing to give up?

so much whirling around in my inner brain/body/heart cartography. i was just going to write a little post about hearing the Owls on tuesday, because, feeling stuck. i said to a writer friend the other night “i can’t finish a thought” and she wrote me a “no pressure” permission slip. “it’s summer” she said, adding “my writing always slows down in the summer.” ah, permission. then i sat down and this all tumbled out. is it tightly woven together? nope. but my thoughts aren’t either. i’ve got a gauzy summer brain. thoughts wafting about on the breeze.

what thoughts are wafting about for you? i’d love to hear if there is an animal or other being that you’ve been listening to. what wisdom are you gleaning? if you are entering into Winter in the southern exposures, first, i’m jealous, and second how is the season of Winter settling into your body? for us Summer folks, how is the season settling (or unsettling) your body?

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i’m slow reading nina maclaughlin’s “summer solstice, an essay.” her care for words shows in how each is placed in a sentence, as if she were planting an english garden. an example:

“In summer we tend skyward. It invites us out and up. We no longer hunch against the cold. We can stand outside when it’s dark and lift our faces to the sky and get spun back to childhood or swung into the swishing infinity above.”

there’s a lot going on in human spaces around the world. i feel it in my body (empath here.) can you feel it too? wherever you are, please take extra tender care of your heart.

in gratitude

anne

dear sojourners,

before night ends and light arrives. when Sun stretches one faint finger toward dawn, it begins. the cawing. the prolific Crows that roost in this part of the Pacific NW rouse one another from their slumber. begin sharing their plans for the day before even the House Finches, Dark-eyed Juncos, or Song Sparrows can trill a first song. some might find it annoying, for a Crow’s caw is not melodious to the human ear (a “song” recording is not included in their listing under the Merlin Bird App, just multiple “calls.”) and while i won’t tell you i find it pleasant, i find comfort in their pre-dawn gossip.

then, before Sun reaches a few more finger tips above the horizon all the birds, including Crows, are silent. a ruckus of caws and bird song. and then nothing. a pause. like a well-crafted piece of music that has me leaning into next, there is a whole measure of rest to build anticipation. then the conductor flicks the baton, points to those black, feathered bodies poised, instruments ready in shadowed limbs. Crows start their cawing again, the chorus of the melodious ones join in and dawn is truly awakening.

this time of year my bedroom window is open to welcome faint spring scents. an allowing for what is beyond vision. i turn my face toward the window, curtains still drawn, and listen with my whole body. is there wind stirring? now the Oaks are in full foliage, a rustling of leaves might hint at breezes or rain skipping from leaf to leaf. a ripple of my curtains would confirm stronger winds—a late spring storm pending? how close i gather the covers to my skin announces the temperature outside. my body syncing with the day.

i squeeze my eyes closed, trying to fall back into my pre-waking, looking for that baffling dream in the haze, but the images have faded. the last thing i remember before waking has fallen back into the night, lost to the tug of Crows’ voices. my first wake-up alarm of the day.

i ponder in my drowsiness: what do i want this day to be? how do i want to be present to myself and those i’ll meet? i consider gratitude. i try to not think about peeing. i still have a few minutes before i need to leave my cocoon. i continue to listen to the birds and wonder about their language. what are they saying? and now i hear a few dog walkers chat back and forth as their companions yip and bark. i want to linger in my own pause. a long measure of rest.

there are dawns when Crows convene as a multitude. their cawing bouncing off buildings and hillsides, screeching around street corners, flooding the webbing of screened windows and bombarding ears hidden beneath pillows scrunched around heads. the definition of a cacophony. add to that the garbage trucks’ aching arms lifting, hoisting glass, plastic, paper, and waste. so much waste into their yawing maws. add that to the singing Finches, Juncos, Chickadees, Robins, Sparrows and more. add that to the vrooming of trucks and cars of early workers heading to jobs they love or hate or tolerate. there is no denying morning has broken.

on wee-hour dawns when only two or three Crows are calling forth the Sun, i wonder what is up in Crow-world. was it a particularly grueling night? are they sleeping in? are they laying low because word spread that the Barred Owl i heard earlier is looking for a snack, wanting to prey on their fledglings tucked deep into their camouflaged nests? are they blending their onyx-feathered bodies into the recesses of Pine, Fir, Oak as a defense from being spotted by one who has built-in night vision goggles? so many questions that don’t require an answer. part of the mystery that surrounds the ordinary.

Crows (and all Corvids) are wise wise birds. wiser than humans i think many days. i have been honored to have them cross my path in the places i have lived and visited. they are one of my teachers. they have taught me about death. about being in the liminal space. about grieving and mourning. about being open to mystery. and joy. and, yes, mischievousness.

as i sat down to write this post after a long hiatus, (a hiatus due to working on a presentation that stirred my obsessive need to hone and perfect and, ugh, i wore myself out (buy hey, i learned a lot about myself and that always continual reminder i need about how much room i have to grow…)) i noodled on stories of previous Crow encounters. went down Rabbit Holes about Crows in mythology, folk and fairy tales, Crows as medicine. and then the scientific aspect because wouldn’t you want to know all that! interesting (and perhaps for another post,) but realized i needed to let it go because what i discovered once i wrote all those other words is the essence of this post are the questions i posed to myself:

• where are the pause(s) in your day?

• how do you make room for a whole measure of rest?

• what songs (or caws) do you welcome in as melodies of your heart?

• where do you notice the mystery in the ordinary of your day?

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i hope to get back to regular posting. missing a month, one gets out of practice. and i’ve missed you!

i hope you have been taking tender care of your hearts,

in gratitude,

anne

ps: if you find pondering about birds (or death) as meaningful as i do, i recommend

Death & Birds by . her writing is a exquisite.

dear sojourners,

if your are a new follower or subscriber, thank you for joining the journey! when i start writing posts, i am never sure where they will lead and this one was no different. so off we go… the riotous colored Dogwoods outside my abode are finally fadingfadingdfading. oh my they have been glorious the last six or so weeks. their showing-off was astonishing this Spring. i am not the only one who has noticed according to my informal astonishment survey. a daily astonishment survey. hmmm. i might answer the phone for that one.

a “quick” google search of “Dogwoods” (and yes, i went down a rabbit hole) reveals that the pink and white blossoms that keep drawing me into conversation are actually modified leaves known as bracts. the purpose of these bracts is to protect the flower. wait, where is the flower? it is toward the center of the bract, but tiny. fortunately the pollinators know where to find them. whew. then tiny seeds cluster in the center providing food for the locals as they ripen: swallows, thrushes, and assorted other birds. chipmunks, squirrels, deer, bears and more seek them out as the seasons flow from spring into summer into autumn into winter. those tiny berries source of nourishment for animals small and large. i had no idea.

Dogwood is native to north america and there are several “varieties.” of course we have hybridize them to appeal to our sense of what looks “best” in our stylized, organized, weed-ridden gardens. where i live in the pacific nw, as one wanders along local trails and wilderness, they can still be spotted growing free. from mid March to late May their whipped-cream whites and lip-luscious pinks wink between the partial-shade understory as Douglas Firs and Red Cedars climb high toward the sky. i’d like to think that color is there for our human enjoyment, but i know it serves the larger ecology of the region.

the Indigenous Peoples of north america discovered many of the benefits Dogwood offered, including using the bark for medicinal purposes, deriving a bitter bitter tea that aided in calming fevers, among others symptoms.

the durable and hard wood has/is used for tools such as shuttles for weaving and handles of chisels and mauls. (and for golf club heads…can’t forget the golfers, now can we?) during the (un)civil war, when quinine was in short supply (quinine being used to treat malaria and fevers) Dogwood medicine was a substitute, as well as providing a tincture to make an astringent to keep wounds from bleeding out. there is more! all that yummy stuff you discover when you are curious. but i will spare you.

all this is to say Slowing Down (which i mentioned in my last post, Failure|Fall|Wonder|Awe,) can lead to noticing can lead to wonder can lead to being astonished. those two Dogwood trees that were part of the garden-scaping of my new abode(s), bare-twigged when i arrived in november waiting to leaf (bract?) out this Spring…i didn’t know what type of tree they were. i wondered and waited. it wasn’t until the bracts displayed those tiny baby-berries that i recalled my acquaintance with my previous neighborhood Dogwoods. tree identification is not my strong suit. the “aha” of recognition fluttered my heart.

this sunday is mother’s day in the usa. thirty-three years ago i received a hummingbird feeder from my almost three year old daughter and her dad. it may have been a sunny day? cloudy? rainy? i know we didn’t have a Dogwood planted in our garden and i don’t remember if the ones in the neighborhood were extra-extravagant that year. thirty-three years ago i was more aware of the little being inside me who was due in 13 days. 13 days. my thinking: i can keep working for at least another week. 13 days. still time to get a few more things done before this second child arrives. 13 days until…uh oh! my water breaks! and my best mother’s day gift arrives two, three hours later. all the rest is pretty hazy memory-wise.

my former spouse tells the welcome-to-the-world story with great flourish, though over time with the addition of a few tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. a heart now full of living fully, overflowing. call to my mum to hurry over to watch our daughter. the rush to the hospital, the gasp by the ER nurse as she checks to see how dilated i am. code something urgent she calls out. my OBG arriving to “catch” our fella “just in time.” my son rolls his eyes with each telling, though he is a tender-hearted soul.

my Dogwood fella, bloomed into my life on mother’s day and his birthday rolls around on mother’s day again this year. 33. a quick internet search and you can find turning 33 is significant…or not. 3 and 3. 3 is my special number. always has been. he was “supposed” to be a gemini. my taurus fella, grounded. taurus like his grandma. rooted like a Dogwood. came when he was supposed to. quick quick. and then leaned into life at his own pace. teaching me even when i wasn’t ready to learn. our kids as our teachers. it was difficult to accept those early lessons. hard to take them in through my own roots. now i am grateful.

another something about Dogwoods: they are fairly “quiet” when it comes to mythology and folklore (despite those showy bracts.) a few places say it symbolizes rebirth and resurrection (but doesn’t everything in the Spring season?) don’t we all go through various births, deaths, and rebirths in our lives if we are open to what is offered? my fella, though a quiet sort now, wasn’t a smooth road. like the bark of a Dogwood, rough in those years leading up to adulthood. on the “spectrum” they say these days. confused is what we all were early on. not sure what tectonic plates were positioned beneath the landscape we were navigating. lots of tremors as plates shifted. deaths of expectations. rebirths with expanded understanding. those lessons to be learned. a bitter tea not ready to be digested until the heart was ready to receive. the gift of a rearview mirror. and please don’t misunderstand me, because when the ground was stable there was joy and joy and joy that came with each small expansion. each lesson learned.

that old neighborhood had an assortment of Dogwoods. last year the ones at the highest elevation (about 800’) never bloomed. i waited and waited. an expectation. it felt like friends who stood me up. end of May, then June. nothing. there was another Dogwood in the neighborhood that is tucked in a shady spot between two houses. a creamy, dreamy white. it bloomed late every year. well into june. even early july a few bloom-leaves would linger. a neurodivergent tree? or least one who knows how to be their self in their environment. who my fella has become. yes, i’m going to gush a bit, because i love who he (and his sister) have become. we learned to lean into the teachings of life. are still learning. we are all students and teachers.

we gathered as a family on this day to celebrate my son and on what we call “mother’s day;.” my daughter, son, former spouse, two significant bonus lovelies who are important to the landscape we call family. for this i am grateful. without openness to those “deaths” and possibility of rebirths (i’m speaking for myself here and i think i can safely assume for my former spouse) it could have gone sideways so many ways. again, grateful.

“mother’s day” is a manufactured holiday…this i readily acknowledge. the maw of capitalism ignoring the complex archetypal and mythological images. roses, brunch and chocolate is so much easier settle on the tongue of the consumer. this “day” is painful for many for an abundance of reasons. there are numerous resources (podcasts, Substacks, articles, etc) to support those who would rather the day not exist. i was fortunate in having a loving and mostly resolved relationship with my mother. i was honored to support her through the final years of her life with Alzheimer’s, difficult as it was. if you are interested in resources, please reach out.

what stirs for you around these manufactured holidays of “honoring” someone in your life you may or may not want to honor? how do you filter the advertisements and messages in a way that keeps you from “buying into the shoulds" of the system? how do you choose to honor the folks that are important to you?

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and i appreciate that my kiddos appreciate my imperfect mothering of them. and whew, they made it adulthood! and, whew, we are all still talking and gathering and learning about and growing from each others’ messiness, our entangled landscapes more nutrient rich because we have been willing to add our own compost to the soil. may it continue to be so.

i have been wanting to do something in the craft and art arena. use my hands so i can get out of my head. i signed up for a weaving class through WildCraft Studio a few months ago and it finally came to pass on thursday. what fun! i was totally inept. this is okay. i learned what a weft and a warp is. two kinds of weave (straight and box) and a couple of ways to play with materials. i brought home a small hand loom and my incomplete project that my best intentions tell me i “will complete.” an Ocean theme. or a tangle of threads. but, as said in her last post, life is a big, beautiful problem, learning something new is good for our brain.

i also retreated to the north oregon coast for a three night retreat. ah. big exhale (i did remember to occasionally inhale.) every time i go it is medicine for my body, mind, soul, spirit, parts of me yet to be named. i saw an Eagle up close. so many birds. sea stars. and the clouds the evening i arrived were astonishment worthy. oh, and something that i understand is not rare, but was a first more me, Velella velella (by-the-wind sailors) had washed up on shore by the thousands)…a blue-green fading to white translucent carpet of Hydrozoa (wee Jellyfish.) i would say their concentric circle patterns and entwining with kelp is what took first my breath away, but it was the smell…think hanging out behind your favorite seafood restaurant when the garbage hasn’t been picked up for a few days. these wee dead Beings asked me to write a poem, which i’ll post at the bottom.

to retreat. to be able to walk for long stretches on a Coast that is open to the public. to be offered the perspective that Ocean offers…that with every wave that tongues the shore, the sea-scape changes. to never take anything for granted. every visit i make i notice something different. the way Sand is dune-ing or Water time-elapsing Rocks. or number of Crows bothering the Gulls ebbs and flows. if i go with expectations, i will be disappointed. if i go to be a part of, then i am, well, a part of that moment’s Coastal unfolding. is there a place you go the step away from your day-to-day routines? of course, define what ”place” is for you.

poetry unbound, hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama has a short series on Poems as Teachers devoted to poems with wisdom to offer about conflict and humanity. you can listen to the Podcast through Substack or your favorite podcast link. to step away from the 24/7 news cycle and listen deep into what these poets wrote addressing conflict calls us to check in with our hearts.

in my last post i shared about wonder and awe and attending Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s Literary Arts event. it is now available to listen to on the podcast, Literary Arts Archive Project. so many gems, but here are a couple:

“When wonder is a practice, you feel less alone.”

“Everyday ask yourself: what are five things on the planet you are curious about?”

when i say curiosity and wonder and awe and amazement leads to us being connected, this is, in part, what i mean. i do hope you will take time to listen. she is an absolute delight.

what astonished you today? perhaps you are in the midst of something difficult. is there room for a wee bit of astonishment? it’s okay if you don’t feel it. perhaps tomorrow. or the next day. when you are ready. in the meantime the aurora borealis stirred a lot of awe, wonder, and amazement in my neck of the woods. i tried to spy it with my little i(Phone) camera, but was not “in just the right spot.” oh well. a bit envious, but other’s photos have brought joy. i am gladly “settling” for Dogwoods, the culinary Thyme and Fuschia that were gifted to me, a wee painting of an Ocean seascape, and the abundance of Beauty that surrounds me.

in gratitude,

anne

ps: the poem!

phenomena

translucent child souls shepherded 

from wars: Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan…don’t forget the children of Israel killed

October 7th.    remember the Holocaust. remember the

Siege of Leningrad. remember forced

famines. yes, Ireland, your children too.    so

many to remember      we forget      i forget until

Ocean laid them at my feet by the thousands

tens of thousands

scattering funeral bouquets like unloosed 

reliquaries for forgotten saints  Ocean’s flowers 

tending these quiet souls    no longer able to speak

they say we humans ascribe the meaning to natural

phenomena needed to wake us up

Ocean waves tongue the sand in

eternal conversation      never sleeping