Currently my husband and I are in escrow on our lovely historic property and home we brought back from the dead in 2006-09. If I miss one of my two regular posts in the next week or three, please forgive me. I’ll be back on track very soon!
We are indeed fortunate to have discovered a wonderful retreat for rent almost directly up the hill from our current location until we can get our bearings and decide what the next move will be. The three dogs have three fenced acres in the trees, and we will again enjoy privacy. The house is a designer’s creation, though not entirely practical, as such structures can be. But it will be a fun place to live, tucked up in the ironwoods in the interim – with nice ocean and Maui views. Meanwhile I am reminded of the last time we were in an all-electric kitchen – and this is what I wrote back at that time:
I should bend to technology, thrill to the clink of a perfectly planed pot belly flopping onto glass surface illuminated by orange spirals of heat. Instead I long for blue fire, the sizzle of condensation kissing a living flame; yearn to heft cast iron onto burner grate – vessels requiring careful washing, swipe of olive oil – surfaces pitted like basalt from generations of honest service.
Who seeks to improve upon what is serviceable? If electricity were generated cleanly, I would understand and support such technology. But here in Hawaii, an over-reliance on oil is fortunately bringing this shortfall to the public’s attention, and the hope is that, instead of the truckloads of eucalpytus forest being leveled to ship to O’ahu for burning, we will continue developing the abundant natural and renewable resources of solar, wind, waves and geothermal energy available right here on the Big Island.
Before we knew anything about the Alanuihaha channel and after moving to the Big Island, we promptly struck out and bought ourselves a Triyak (3-seater ocean kayak). The thought was to go out and paddle on a regular basis, and so for our first sojourn slipped the boat easily into the water at the boat launch in Kawaihae. Keeping to the shoreline, we headed north. Soon a pod of spinner dolphins jumped and cruised alongside, and I thought wow – this is going to be common enough! How lucky are we? What I did not know – and rarely grasped until much later – is that this kind of magic is not my birthright, though I’ve certainly experienced more than my share. Blessings are blessings because they are unpredictable and doled out in rarely repeated themes.
The day was calm enough, though my arms were tired by the time we returned and portaged the vessel onto the truck racks. It was that good kind of exhaustion, where no meal tastes better; when water is the only liquid that truly satisfies. In our naiveté, little did we know how quickly the winds could gust there and how strong; how suddenly and profoundly the water’s currents could shift. But Mother Ocean was kind, and we learned in increments.
Kawaihae harbor as seen from the Kohala Mountain Road
The scariest time was when my young athletic daughter accompanied us, which put me in the middle non-paddling seat. Heading out was no problem, as there was an offshore wind that seemed so subtle we barely noticed. Without a job as such, I happened to capture a look of concern creasing the features of a Japanese fisherman as we rounded the breakwater out onto the open sea. I brushed off any sense of foreboding until we headed back and it slapped me squarely in the face; when my strong and rarely-complaining husband, in an escalating voice nearing panic, shouted that his shoulder muscles felt like they were tearing. Feeling helpless and without something to keep me busy, all I could do was attune more acutely to the fear creeping up in both of these loved ones. And though we did return to shore, it seemed to all of us that it took forever.
The moral of the story has been enduring: this particular channel, positioned between Maui’s Haleakala and Mauna Kea, one of the planet’s highest peaks, is known to be one of the most dangerous in the world. One never knows – and though islanders who have lived and fished here all their lives have a better grasp of the signs and symptoms of impending trouble, there is still the occasional unobtrusive article slipped into page three of the paper or beyond – about one of these folks losing their lives on the blue road.
moms and babies in Kealakekua Bay
We paddled again further south in the more protected Kealakekua Bay during whale season, but never spotted a whale that day, nor did we ever again cruise alongside dolphins – although after hauling the ‘yak out, we swam with moms and babies in a delightful, pirouetting display. I finally got out of the water when the cold seeped into my bones.
Two months ago, we sold the Triyak to a nice local family.
When I was young I learned to pray in church. There was a specific protocol for prayer: gratitude always came first. Then I was free to do the asking. As a child in a home fraught with strife, praying for God to release me into a life I could claim as my own was something I could hardly wait to do. Repetition couldn’t hurt, as God must have been pretty busy and I wasn’t ever quite sure I was being heard – things at home only reinforced the sentiment, while strife in general escalated rather than calming down. I never did lose faith, however; never ceased communication with the forces of Creation. I held the epithet ask and ye shall receive closer still to my heart. And gobbled up that asking like jellybeans.
If I reflect on the thankfulness part (and I always strove to get the order right, being just that kind of person), I have to admit it slowly magnified in importance. As my independent life blossomed, along came parenthood and a few painful and profound life experiences. All served to deepen my understanding of gratitude. After all, there was much to be grateful for. When I better understood the cyclical nature of things; grasped the nature of ebb and flow – my thankfulness multiplied each time abundance chanced to spill into my lap. I realized it for the gift it was. Perspectives began shifting: that metaphoric Christmas longing to open as many gifts as possible transformed into a genuine love of giving, increasingly preferential to receiving.
I certainly know people who find it hard to express heartfelt gratitude – they are either too beaten down by circumstances or they do it by rote, like memorizing a mantra. Gratefulness can’t be forced – only life and life itself can grant us experiences which pry our hearts open, whether from sheer joy or from wracking loss. If understood for what they are, both stimulate humility – and if one is truly open to the gifts hidden even and perhaps especially in the swamp, it’s easy to realize that all are beneficial. From this understanding emerges profound gratitude. And the funny thing is that attitude of gratitude unlocks all sorts of doorways, until life itself is accepted for the miracle that it is. Nothing’s changed really – just a frame of reference.
[And if you crank up the volume on this link and move your body to the feel of the music, I don't know how anybody could possibly feel anything but gratitude for life, itself. Peace.]
There you stood on the edge of your feather, expecting to fly …
~ Neil Young
As I wait with great anticipation for the next grand phase of life to fully fledge, I am drawn inexplicably to large windows overlooking the vast Pacific. Almost as if pulled along by some gossamer thread – then standing, stock-still, gazing down at a small cluster of yellow and green:
I’ve heard these babies screaming in their nest to the east, but this morning, they have clearly moved on. Gripping tightly to the Texas ranger’s brittle limbs, they gather close – huddle in tight as Easter peeps in cellophane. One tucks its head back into the warmth of a downy soft wing while two siblings remain facing forward. The wind is fierce today, sweeping the bodies of small saplings into uttanasana. WhyMother Nature telegraphs “fly” to these tiny creatures in such circumstances remains one of life’s great mysteries. Yet even as my mind ponders miracles, here comes the mother bird – feathers ruffling in the gusts – prodding her offspring with an insistent beak to get on with it, while tucking the odd morsel into waiting mouths.
Perhaps it is with all beings, not solely us humans, to flock to the safety of the familiar.
I marvel at the wisdom of creatures – the inherent intelligence that inspires each purposeful movement. If humans were nearly as frugal – conserving our energies for only what is essential – we would all live well and happily into our hundreds.
But it is a useless fascination – we are each and all endowed with the drive to break through self imposed limitations – unique motivations in this Universal dance of life.
There’s a sweet spot that exists every morning – when the light returns and dreams taper into images the eye can gather into focus. There is a right time to arise. I do not wake up to alarms, and even though I gifted my husband with a Zen clock that gently chimes at a selected hour, I can sense even his arm reaching, before daybreak, stifling the small click that precedes the tone.
Arising in darkness conjures years spent on the road in sales – cruising behind hopped up tractor trailer drivers on icy highways headed too far north – recalls chunky salted gravel and cracked windshields, gold jewelry and high heels; competitive striving and the stale breath of poverty blowing straight down the back of my youthful neck. If I were to whitewash memories a bit, I’d cast back to a childhood spent in anticipation of oceans and lakes, deserts and mountains – places out of the city where my young soul gulped the rarified air of freedom. But it meant arising at four, and even then it seemed a sacrilege to shuffle about before the sun decided to broadcast another day.
Before society inures us to bustle – in a time preceding the noise of family squabbles, electronics and the overall din of civilization – beats a heart yearning for serenity. The head conditions itself to busyness while the soul basks in silence. The further I have returned to that innate longing, the stronger my penchant for solace in open oceans and in quiet forest glades.
It is enough when, startled, a murder of crows ascends to the sky – gathering like a torrid thundercloud seeking to release itself once again upon a verdant land. The beating of a hundred pairs of shiny black wings telegraphs a bolt of voltage clear down to my toes. Alarm clock be damned, if I need to rise, I have only to remember that flock of birds or the thrill of a giant manta gliding right toward me out of the blue. Seeded long enough in memory, these and a million other startling images prove adequate to awaken me from the deepest slumber.
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
~ Henry David Thoreau
My remaining brother’s life ended yesterday. This makes three brothers who died before reaching their sixtieth year – one who predeceased our father and two who closed their eyes on this world after. What can be said about a family which loses its sons at life’s midpoint, when, crisis be damned, the fog begins to clear and one is able to chart one’s course with hands firmly on the wheel – having culled enough life experience to understand the nature of its ebb and flow? To look back and forward at the same time, extending a helping hand to those who follow in our wake? Instead of assessing accomplishments and resolving not to repeat one’s failures – does one simply relinquish faith and capitulate to self loathing? Thus far, this has been the case for all three sons. All three had lifelong struggles getting wedged in the crack between fundamentalist religion and substance abuse. All three were products of a murky past, as was their progenitor before them. Are we forever doomed to repeat the idiosyncrasies of those whose shoes we attempt to fill?
Perhaps it is birthing children that has saved my sisters and me. Somehow nurturing and giving rise to life, though exhausting to the body and the mind, possess enduring merit. There is a visceral memory of carrying another within the confines of our skeleton and skin – a responsibility to gather the fragile to the fold – that keeps us focused on the incredulous and fleeting nature of life, itself. It is facile to focus an unwavering eye on miracles when we have witnessed them spring from our own flesh. It somehow seems easier to rise above the pettiness of pride and egoism when confronted with the needs of our offspring.
I wonder at the bottomless void in these men. I contemplate a society which demands its sons man up in order to grow up. For where are the role models for sensitive souls born into male bodies – the poets and artists among us? That men reach adulthood with any sense of their spirits intact seems to me an overwhelming accomplishment. And though it is easier for love to engender love, kindness to beget kindness, it is possible for damage to strengthen into resolve; for what is broken to gather its pieces like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice’s brooms and strengthen in numbers, multiplying compassion and understanding until our world is healed and made whole, one sentient being at a time.
You may say I’m a dreamer – but I’m not the only one.
We were never meant to be completely fulfilled; we were meant to taste it, to long for it, and to grow toward it. The secret to living life as it was meant to be is to befriend our yearning instead of avoiding it, to live into our longing rather than trying to resolve it, to enter the spaciousness of our emptiness instead of trying to fill it up.
~ Gerald May
image: timothyssketchpad.blogspot.com
I can’t get hungry ghosts out of my mind. People who, despite all they have, want more; have an insatiable desire or craving. We live in times where it seems we are being invited to participate in global community. A gathering of kindred spirits. A better understanding that our family is the human family, and that when one suffers, we all suffer. We may be overdue to level the playing field. Americans have guarded and defended and provisionally enjoyed the lion’s share long enough. The global shakedown of ’08 has shown us, more than at any other time in memory, how and from what humility is born. Not a concept any longer, it becomes real the moment we recognize the nature of the lives of most of the planet’s inhabitants. We have consumed and gobbled up more than our share of the world’s resources – and still, we are left wanting more. A nation of Hungry Ghosts - entities with huge bellies and necks as narrow as pins. Consequently we collectively remain in a state of constant craving; unable to gulp down enough to fill that cavernous space within.
This past couple of years I have worked with my own Hungry Ghost energy. I’m not a person who craves so much as I am a person who shares. But food has always been my weakness – I love cooking and love eating good, wholesome food. I love it so much in fact that I have a hard time stopping before I’m filled to the brim. And so I’ve been cleaning up my act; getting my body in shape. As I approach sixty, I want the best quality of life possible. If I have an excess of flesh, that indicates to me that my system is overloaded; toxic. Time then, to listen deeply to the fragile house of my spirit and get on board with its agenda rather than simply that of my desire. The body has its own profound sagacity, if I can but attune to it.
What I have learned has turned my life around. But it’s not something I can share. It’s not because I’m stingy or want to write a best seller. Instead I’ve discovered at this stage of life that each body is unique, just like our personalities. What works for me may not work for others. There is no one-size-fits-all, though the barrage of diet books and advertisements that glut the media would have us believe otherwise. Instead I have discovered profound soundness in the somewhat complex system of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I remember a Chinese doctor saying to me that many Asians suffer from deprivation, but that Americans generally suffer from conditions of excess. At that time, maybe five or six years ago, I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what he was saying. I guess I wasn’t ready to hear it.
Americans seem always in motion, trying to fill each minute of each day with something, anything – to avoid the longing and emptiness Gerald May speaks of. I realize that, with all good intentions, we Westerners try and quell our existential emptiness with things; with food; with substances. We even try and cure disease by adding more: vitamins, minerals, supplements of all kinds – when what would be kinder to the body – what might well eliminate many of our ills and diseases – is likely lessof everything we are conditioned to want most. The plus is, we can have more of the stuff that really matters. Less food, more exercise. Less television and computer time, more reading and human interaction. Less talking, more listening. Less action, more reflection. Less taking and more giving. Less craving, more quality of life. And in that, dear readers, you are invited to discover a wellspring of wisdom.
It always seems premature somehow to arise before day has broken. Before that glorious ball of fire that lights and warms the earth sees fit to rise, there is surely beauty in the pre-dawn. A sacred silence before resort workers hit the highway – bound for the altered worlds that irrigation and obscene amounts of money create like worlds contained within themselves.
Missing the daybreak, I am content in conserving my contemplative energy for the sun’s navel as he lowers himself onto his bed of horizon each evening. Whether melting into the sea or flashing green like a strobe, theatrics reign here on the north shore of Hawaii island. Old Lā always bows out in superb style, night after night. Sometimes low clouds obscure his passage, but rays that bleed through streaks and puffs of pink, grey and black slice through these obscurations as if their source is tilting his head back and laughing. Zeus in his chariot pulled by four black horses, necks arched, nostrils flaring, thunders through his sky. He is not daunted, and liquid joy seeps out, around and through.
Sunsets have always drawn me into their palette, as saturated colors in a painting are wont to do. Watercolors belong to the dawn – those muted, diluted rosy hues streaked with a wet brush onto pebbled canvas. Living in Maine for thirty-two years, I caught sunrise over the first mountaintop to glimpse the light of day in the eastern United States – Cadillac – but once. It was a cloudy morning, and though fog proves lovely as it spills over Maine’s coastal islands like water over the backs of porcupines, it further muted morning’s hues as if a painter had swished her brushes one time too many in the same glass of water.
image: Sue Ann Hodges
Instead my days climaxed in a sun setting over the hills surrounding Goose Pond; eyes dancing with summer damselflies flittering about on gossamer wings, tickling shoulders as we pulled oars through dark water. While beavers settled into lodges after a long day’s work, tails slapping, osprey nestled into the tallest treetops. The buzz of cicadas joined bullfrogs in a nightly serenade that waned with the flair of Venus emerging into darkening skies, gathering less brilliant companions to her flanks until they congregated like bees populating a hive, turning out the sweetest product imaginable.
image: msnbc.msn.com
Stars are the reward for ushering day into night. Last December I witnessed a full lunar eclipse – stepping out, at intervals, into the wee morning hours to photograph and gape, dumbstruck, at what early humans surely considered a portent. It was magnificent enough that I would repeat the ritual without hesitation. But until then, I’m content to sleep until daylight restores my vision and breaks over the land.
It’s almost unbelievable, the degree to which I become my own undoer. Life has brought me more magic than many, yet these days all seems static as a windless day. Perhaps it is the times we are living in or maybe it’s my own personal evolution. Either way, the past couple of years have presented more than a modicum of confusion and revolving doors.
I have not quite known what to make of this new turn in my life. Perhaps it’s the result of a second Saturn return – that pivotal change in the astrological purview arriving thrice in a long lifetime – life, death, and, perhaps, the pursuit of happiness, all bound into one bouncing ball of confusion. Profound transformation on a massive scale.
The first return brought me my first girl baby – a little stranger I least expected – who changed my life utterly; absolutely, positively. This time around the wheel seems to be gestating something else inside as baffling as the first, though I am yet mystified as to what that might be. Perhaps it’s restitching the fabric of my very being; something to do with my own birth into heretofore unknown realms of possibility. All I know is that a human pregnancy seemed a lot easier, though it is said that subsequent Saturn returns spaced at twenty-eight year intervals in a human life are themselves somehow simpler. Then again due to congealing life patterns, that might not entirely hold true.
Perhaps with all the global change occurring at the same time, much is thrown into confusion. What used to transpire with the snap of my will no longer rivets about in lightning-quick fashion. It’s like I’m wading thigh-deep in honey which is itself in the process of crystallizing. And it slows me down right into the present. Residing in that place of unknowing – remaining as peaceful as possible while wrapped in the precarious here and now as if swaddled in some divine straightjacket – is settling me into my skin in a brand-new way. Just when I think I have mastered serenity – when I’m smug in the knowing of my own mind – I discover its unsettled places; its childish demands that life dance to my own tune. Clearly this is a time to embolden the wisdom and magic of the universe – and I’m open to it – if kicking and spitting just a little.
I have been blessed to have several caring souls nominate me for various awards or keep me on their Blogrolls over the past year I’ve been part of this fabulous WordPress community. Have a Dream. morristownmemos. Partial View. All Write. So Far From Heaven. Vikram Roy. If I have forgotten you, please forgive me. I want to take the opportunity to offer thanks once again for that recognition and validation, and also to explain my lack of traditional response. Typically I offer posts to address some of the questions these awards ask a writer to share, as answering pat questions somehow doesn’t mesh with my brain chemistry. I’ve never been much for following diagrams or rules for their own sake. I leave that to my husband, a stalwart individual who can read a manual about anything and sort it out. (He once rebuilt a truck transmission this very way, having never had a mechanic’s training.) Thus while I greatly respect and appreciate these qualities in others – for better or for worse, I seem to march to a different drummer.
I’m always searching under rocks and behind walls to discover what lies beyond proscribed reality. Where my husband is solid, patient, enduring – I’m rather like thunder – lightning – fleet. I haven’t the patience the gods gave a flower to open. I am aware, however, that patience is a virtue worth cultivating. Almost everything that has been worth anything to me in this life has demanded I wait for it. Born in June and astrologically ruled by the god Mercury, I have come by my winged feet honestly. Geminis think – all the time: on our feet, on our heads, and no doubt to the utter consternation of many a partner, on our backs. And while I can slow this mind down and even capture the interstices between thoughts in contemplation, I’ve come to appreciate how easily inspiration strikes home. It then becomes about sorting through and sifting out – getting onto the page what first gathers as an amorphous mental jumble. For folks like me, it’s not about forcing or schedules. Instead what seems to work well is attuning to the subtle signs and cues while getting it written down. Harness the thought before it flies on through, over and out. Craft it later.
image: Dexter Bellows - sunset, Mauna Kea beach
As for favorite colors, flowers or times of day, it is now and has always been nature’s ever-changing palette that enthralls. Again in that open-minded, open-ended, spontaneous way, a sunrise will awaken me from slumber to beguile with periwinkle, heliotrope, violet, purple-pink hues. A sunset will blend gold with a fiery melon, rose, cerise and finally indigo. How any of these colors could curry favor over another in my consciousness, I do not know. The magnificent nectar of magnolia blossoms, paklan, stemmadenia – all unremarkably white – any of which sends me straight to heaven.
Mention food or drink and I cannot begin to sort out the delight of the pure and simple: freshly picked and juiced carrot, beet, daikon, ginger. Squeezed Kona orange juice, often blended with that of giant tangelos. Press guava or lilikoi (passionfruit) or Calmonsi lime into half a strawberry papaya and I cannot imagine a soda or cocktail that approaches that kind of glory to the tastebuds. And don’t get me started on the virtues of organic unsulphured California Blenheim apricots. I am also a fair ethnic cook – I love Indian food and preparing it, from cashew or saag chicken to samosas and fried pineapple. A great coconut rice pudding. I love to bake, and making pies is about as easy as walking, for me. Fresh peach pie, tarte au fruite, blueberry, apple, lemon meringue. Throw in a Boston Crème Pie, though that’s not really fair, as it’s a cake with a thick custard in the middle, topped with melted dark Valrona chocolate. And so I might as well toss yeasted breads into the mix, sweet and plain – while longing to try sourdough.
image: Fleur Weymouth - my pulla (Finnish coffee bread)
I love creatures of all kinds, especially dogs and horses, with whom I share a gentle understanding. I love our neighbor Boolcow – his hard shiny nose and the way he sniffs and licks our hands in greeting with his long pointy tongue. And although I think of myself as too serious at times, I delight in small children who, even upon first take, seem to recognize the impish child that lies within me and respond to it favorably – giving me license to cut free a bit and be silly.
noble Boolcow
And finally, I am happiest among those I love who enjoy the things I’ve mentioned, and more. Sunsets. A long hike or a swim in the ocean. A bracing bike ride. A great meal. Quiet company. Gut laughter. Deep conversation. A good film. Touch. The warmth and honesty and undeniable goodness and heart-rendering satisfaction of proximity, one to another. Our time together is always too short. Then again, too much stimulation and I crave time alone. Paradox. Gemini. Me, in a nutshell.
