Sometimes I reflect on my life and it’s hard to believe it really was me; those years of confusion, trial by fire, choices made; as grit in an oyster, collecting experiences like pearls forming, oh so slowly, though I knew not what they would reveal, nor had the insight to realize how precious they would become;
Years in the same body grant one the gift of hindsight developed no other way, and it still astounds me that it seems necessary to learn through adversity, pain, discomfort; can we discover another way, a truer path to the love-in-form that humans were meant to be?
Do we take in the good, or still believe, when presented with it, that it’s simply not there, not real?
I was raised with my fair share of negativity; product, I think, of a heavy-handed religion which diminished any female’s needs, never mind wants, and the doom and gloom of the cold war, diving under school desks to practice for when another country would invade us, drop a nuclear bomb, and how on earth were sensitive children to cope? How were any of us to manage, with annihilation looming over us?
So what did our generation do, but embrace the consumerist model, buying everything we thought would keep us safe and comfortable, embracing money like an old ratty teddy bear, the more the better, while covering ourselves with fine fabrics and sturdy roofs the way we used to cover our small heads with hands up to our elbows to protect against some phantom enemy, oh, and how and what have we changed, in our collective human destiny? Have we not arrived at a similar place to that which we thought we had abandoned?
There was no roadside rubbish when I was growing up, and I began to see it only with the wholesale appearance of soda and beer in cans and bottles and then the plastic revolution swept over us like a plague of locusts, and it was hardly possible to purchase essentials for the home and body without it, and despite recycling efforts by those of us from early on, mountains of it threaten to crush our hopes for a more sustainable future, and islands of it float yet in the Pacific or along shorelines of nearly every beach in the world, clogging drains and causing floods and requiring several generations to break down, while remaining toxic to sea life, to all life;
One of plastic’s great utilities was its ability to keep what it contained fresh, flavors locked in tight, and as our lives sped up and up until it took most hours of every day to simply survive the mound of bills and demands from the feds and state; who had time left over to simmer and stew, to taste and savor delicious sauces and fragrances, while working full time and raising children? Surely we could cheat a bit, buying this or that premade, to lighten our load?
Then in rode the pandemic, forcing the whole world’s people to stay at home, reclaim, perhaps, a love of cooking if through bare necessity, while we stayed inside with minds spinning, whirling, the ground under us all uncertain, could something so tiny it was not visible bring humanity to its ultimate demise?
Lessons have been learned, surely, yet the luxury of fantasizing a thing is real or false has become increasingly untenable, while the country remains harshly divided, some pretending to the point of believing what they hear on network news, driving them under their own metaphoric school desks, causing them to freeze in place, not knowing how or if they could ever make the difference needed to right this sinking boat, while others of us have been reclaiming our sovereign selves, our inner knowing sharpening to liberate those inner promptings which could be called essence, shaking out the love, the hope, extending hands to help where we can, minimizing consumerist urgings, eliminating toxic products and practices, and now? Now we begin again. To breathe in. And out. Join hands across divides. And breathe.
Awoke this morning to six inches of newly-fallen snow lightly blanketing the ground with silent beauty and grace, asking nothing yet giving much in return – water to a thirsty forest, shelter for ground creatures who otherwise remain targets in the sharp eyes of soaring raptors or scavengers traveling on foot across these woodlands in every season;
Hiking up the hill into the piñon and Ponderosas, the ground is generously scattered with sparkling diamonds, but try to capture them and they morph into something other than themselves; like fireflies years ago in New England, they remain an anomaly, a gift, a thing best appreciated as they are, not as a treasure to capture in order to possess, the eye is drawn to them on Their ground, in Their environment;
Just imagine if all humans understood that a wilderness encounter in and of itself can simply be a blessing to observe and behold while we take in a sight rarely glimpsed without engaging conditioned responses, must have, possess, even diminish, whether it be by snagging a trophy from a rare animal or scooping up a handful of snow diamonds;
No ring made of pressurized carbon set upon a young bride’s hand can ever take the place of these shimmering crystals refracting sunlight onto this well trodden path; nearly every week, I discover something else I had not seen before, whether an arrowhead or a twinkling bit of rhodochrosite or yesterday’s sterling silver spoon ring, likely lost by some hippie back in the ‘sixties, missed and not reclaimed, becoming another’s treasure like my great aunt’s sardonyx ring slipping from my youthful finger into a horse manure pile on a lake in Maine to be found, perhaps, one day in a future I cannot begin to fathom.
Not a desirable trait, stubbornness, lack of desire to open the mind, accept another’s viewpoint, instead wanting to preserve whatever narrow- minded perception one has in the moment, rigid not like the tree which sways gently in the breeze, rather like a statue fashioned of concrete, unmoving, staring out in the distance at nothing in particular, unable to change until one day, someone comes along and uproots it, smashes it to bits, erecting yet another in its place;
Why can we not remain supple like the willow, which even into maturity remains flexible, loving the water’s edge where it thrives by taking moisture into its roots, allowing it an agile nature as only a willow possesses, emulating the strength of another living entity which is as far from rigid as anything can be; water teaches everything that comes close the beauty and grace of flow.
The shimmering of a rising dawn spreads out and over the fields in this snowy mountain valley, and as the light of day emerges anew, I step down and out of bed, finding my feet; there’s a flight of stairs I must descend, and to remain in that foggy post-dream world is peril without intentional grounding, focusing on my roots;
Increasing light floods planet Earth in these times, as she cruises through the photon belt every 25,000 years, signaling radical change to a planet in peril; humans have harnessed their amazing creativity into too many destructive channels to the point where we have imperiled all of life on this big blue orb, and we must awaken or perish in what scientists term The Sixth Holocene Extinction, and there is no other choice, wake up or lose that which generations have worked through in our human evolution thus far, and we are, indeed, awakening;
While some of us feel these energy surges acutely, the need to remain grounded becomes requisite, feet on the earth, roots intertwined with all else fastened to her surface, head consciously in sync with the body, heart connected to all we encounter, be it red wing blackbird or a troubled human soul, where love is the salve needed to help rebalance, restore and harmonize, riveting dissonance back to harmony, beauty, serenity and peace, which our loving hearts most certainly know and remember.
Young koa trees, Mana Rd. forest, Hawaii ~ bj 2006
We’ve been flung out over water like skipping stones, not on a lake or pond, but the long, wide, never ending turquoise blue ocean of the Pacific, soaring in a metal tube while everything that followed us arrived by barge as these things do, back and forth to the blessed Hawaiian islands, and it’s a long, arduous journey we have come to appreciate increasingly the further away we are, and the more we settle our belongings, the dogs likely forgetting soft green grass and ocean sands, learning instead not to step on cactus spines and various stickers, how to stand back when a mountain lion appears out of the shadows and they are keen on her scent, how to call for help when there’s a rattlesnake in their outdoor hay beds;
The paradox of this particular paradise is that we lead runaway lives, one of us driving hours to and from work, the other motoring miles just to obtain sustenance, vast spaces ringed by mountain ranges ever in view, endless open skies that become mirrors of oceans in other worlds more our familiar, settling to sleep with the sounds of elk chuffing and bugling in the near distance, the soft hooting of an owl; screech of some wildcat or a chorus of coyotes is a sort of rapture, drawing us further away from memories of other places and into the ground of this high dry forest, and we settle like boulders and sand after a monsoon flood, crashing over whatever is in its path, be it a rusty old car or the lone highway, and the stars! The closeness of sky at nearly eight thousand feet altitude, thin crispness of morning air as I step into boots, don down and wool for our morning walk;
This is a land of juxtapositions, not the watercolor wonder of the islands, harsh winds rather than soft caressing breezes, near freezing mornings morphing into blazing hot afternoons, cooling off again in the evening for sleeping, dreaming, and the stark pale moon rises as we gather into one another, while the wild creatures cruise mountains and forests, settling down for the night in trees or fields, tucking tiny beaks into fluffed-out chest feathers or huddling close as steam rises from warm bodies attuned to imperceptible sounds and shifts in this high desert landscape, and we have come to appreciate a culture that celebrates white bones and dancing skeletons, honoring death with as much reverence as the abundant Hawaiian life, awakened by fire and mellowing into golden sunset glows.
Thunk! As the piñon jay hit the window; I heard it from the greenhouse not far away, and as I looked, albeit with a bit of trepidation, I saw the creature from behind, dazed of course, trying to get her bearings, and in two beats of a heart, she toppled to her side;
Now I hastened over, picked the bird up, turned it over to face me, his eyes wide open in question, though no signs of brain bleed, and, doubtless still dazed, I stroked his indescribably exquisite indigo head, chest, spoke tenderly to him, coal black eyes never leaving mine, asking why, why would you do something like this, and please tell your tribe to cease this destructive habit, nothing we have done, from hawk decals to hanging cd’s has worked, and the jays and doves, the most sturdy of birds, continue their intermittent hits;
One leg was folded up, the other outstretched, and as I felt momentum building, I placed her on the rock wall and she promptly listed nearly over, yet as I ventured again to pick her up, a loud squawk emitted from the beak, and I felt like well, with that kind of response, perhaps she would make it, and as I turned to go, I sensed her taking flight, and looking back, no bird was left in that spot, and I am left to wonder, as ever, if I saved or simply prolonged this exquisite winged life for just a little longer.
The hot nights we loved, twisted in sweat and cotton sheets, all the time longing for what we have now, cool breezes, sleeping temperatures below 85 degrees, then just like that, fall will jacknife into winter, and instead of agonizing in temperatures that seem to stretch one’s ability to cope, we will rail bitterly at icy howling winds, and how frostbite nearly set in after getting boots wet while hiking across that stream;
I wonder how long it will take before we collectively get it, really see the damage done by our species to our host planet, such that memories of childhood seasons wash into memory, water over those flat rocks in clear, cool mountain streams, and we bury them deep beneath the current crisis, immediacy of issues too huge to contemplate for long, as so many continue, hoping, praying for some, that science is dead wrong, but in our bones, we know it’s not, and wherever we are, we note striking contrasts to what once was;
Too many people for one, all clamoring to live in places some consider paradise, then another pristine part of the globe is ruined, trashed quite literally, full to the brim of human detritus, cast aside along with the worries about one’s own children nevermind grandchildren who will face, one assumes, much worse, and nothing can cure these nightmarish thoughts, not alcohol or drugs, not denial anymore, and choices must change at the most basic level;
City folk thinking that life in the country will be sublime, then they discover snakes, frozen pipes, distances traveled just to buy groceries, and disappointment mounts as, in their frustration, they pack up their hundred thousand dollar rvs and flood the highways, sixteen miles to the gallon, crossing and recrossing this US mainland, looking for the next big thrill, nevermind mounting debt nor a sustainable future, as long as they can make payments, and this is what the standard is in this country;
If I long for anything, it is lucidity and sanity in the midst of what clearly are the strifes and troubles of our world today, and when I miss Hawai’i, it is mostly her more manageable landmasses, the beauty and sanctity of Aloha, of a heart centered people who taught me priorities that made sense: family, community, music that lilts in context to the place, food for everyone, always calling me back to the ‘aina, to the breath that synchronizes with ocean tides, to a sane pace of living that almost matches what one can handle without fragmenting into a thousand pieces.
Fall day in southern Colorado ~ photo Chris Johnson
Winking at the gods with those luminous blue green eyes, the dragonfly sits perched on my knee, shoulder, head; and as I duck under for another cool dip, she is there, waiting, hovering in the golden bands of bright summer sunlight while the loons’ tremolo bounces off granite boulders and the clearest of waters;
Alighting on a slender blade of grass, it feels as if she is still watching me, at home on land or water as she is, and perhaps wondering how something that giant in proportion to her can stroke so effortlessly in this shared medium, all seems fantasy when the damsels are around;
How can I not carry that magic with me, as I pad barefoot through the woods and up to the cabin, regarding the trillium and lady’s slippers speckling this part of the dappled forest floor as high bush blueberries begin to bud and swell; soon we will be picking these larger shiny blue orbs, so different from the low bush kind with their powdery coating;
They thought I was crazy living that isolated in the woods, but twenty five years later, a highway would widen and encroach, bringing its jangling din to ears accustomed to silence, and pollution in the form of algae blooms to those pristine waters and where on earth does this not happen eventually, and will humans ever treasure holy places enough to leave those of us caring to steward them alone, as we prefer to be, without trashing and slashing sacred ground?
Express everything just like Mother Nature, she does not hold back! Her beauty lies everywhere, if we but observe outside the concrete and steel jungles humans have built to house their billions; though some cities take the initiative to preserve islands of green here and there, these animal bodies love it best when surrounded by substances they, themselves are comprised of, though the mind-centered focus humans have held now for centuries craves a false order, and nature’s dominion threatens those who are accustomed to the clang of routine, staying busy with small details absorbing a ceaseless inner chatter, subsuming it with a unique sort of din meant to drown out internal chaos, moment to moment, until sheer exhaustion segues into sleep, only to jangle awake with the screech of an alarm if the mental hamster wheel rests that long;
Here in the mountains night creatures roam, day has not yet stretched rays of sunlight over the land, birds are still tucked tightly into tree branches, tiny beaks buried in fluffy breast down, eyes closed as they breathe in rhythms too subtle to notice, dreaming dreams we cannot fathom while elk roam open fields, grazing on dew-laden grasses and cattle doze in groups meant to protect them from predators while tiny rodents gather seeds and detritus to kit out their burrows;
When winter ice has broken, snow opens into flowing waters that gather into dry gullies that swirl in streams seeking rivers which yearn for the sea, if humans have not drawn them dry before the cycle is completed, while buds collect like tiny dark knots on tree branches, and I water deeply with the hose, creating a false spring here in the high arid country, shaking shovelfuls of manure into driplines, trimming dead growth meant to protect tender new shoots during the harsh cold of a long winter;
Awaken now the glorious pale rose of day, as the planet rotates her face nearer the sun and we await the light too many take for granted, while life still thrums in soil and sky, the milky way hidden now from view, yet always there, moon and stars, and the yawning blackness of universes beyond.
belas bright ideas 