Tag: Learning

The Beauty and the Broken

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I am sitting this morning in the stillness and the beauty that surrounds me here in my small home. Wrapped in the ever-powerful presence of the Doug Firs that stand guard outside. These trees that have become such dear friends to me, the tall ones that stand in protection, sentinels looking out over the land with their roots reaching deep into the fertile dark soil.

I am sitting with the presence of a weight, a heaviness resting on my heart and my shoulders. There is so much to grieve in this time, I feel myself wanting to run away. Wanting to not be with this weight, the intensity of change I feel in my own life and maybe even more acutely in the over culture, the political climate, and the actual climate. Which we must remember is not an abstraction, is our ability to live on this beautiful green jewel we call home.

I see so much suffering, increasing poverty, spiritual disconnection, desperation in the eyes of people in the streets. The faces that meet mine as I walk through the grocery store. The increasing number of people living on the streets in the city near my home. It is all too much to bear. And yet, I have no choice. This is the time in which I was born, and in which i am responsible for being a faithful witness to the truth of these times, both the beauty, and the broken.

What is the appropriate response to this weight and darkness? Maybe a better question is what is my appropriate response? Being that I know truly in my bones that the one thing I am actually responsible for is the way that I move through this world and my life. What do we do in dark times? What comes forward to me in this moment, as  clear as day is this – we make beauty from the broken.

The shattered vessel mended with lines of gold. The shattered heart mended with a healing balm of love and devotion. In times of darkness, we must remember who we are. Not get lost in the clamoring of voices that would tell us that it’s over, that we’ve gone too far into the darkness to be able to heal the horrors that we are witnessing all around us. It is easy to reach for despair. It is also easy to reach for hope. I do not think that either of these are the path to healing. The path to healing lies in our individual and collective actions that bring beauty and wholeness into our own lives and communities.

This is outside the realm of despair or the realm of hope. This is a sober and truthful look at the situation in which we find ourselves. Being a faithful witness to what is unfolding all around us and not looking away, not burying our heads in the sand. Not burying our pain under rage, or a frantic busyness that never ends. We must make beauty from the broken.

I step outside under an uncharacteristically blue frozen sky. The heavy clouds and rain that normally meet me on a January morning are gone. And though my heart is filled with wreckage the sky is so blue and the trees are so green. The birds continue to sing, heralding a new day with life force flowing from their bodies, and strong wings that meet the cool crisp air. When I look to this wild and holy world I know that crumbling under the weight of it all is not an option. Doom scrolling through social media, watching the news, being pulled into all of the insanity, for me – is not an option.

So I choose the path that my heart speaks, the path that is true for me… I place my cornmeal on the ground with prayers. I lift my voice in song with the birds. I commit myself to another day of walking in beauty. I keep my heart open. I keep my eyes open.

The poet in me knows that even the darkest places in my life are fertile ground. As I walk this path I gather treasures and put them in my basket. The suffering of the world can become medicince when I hold my aperture open to see the fullness of the whole picture. It is in our descent to darkness that we really learn who we are in this world. I would never wish suffering on another human, and yet I know that my own suffering has been, again and again, the doorway into the truth of who I am.

I choose to believe that this collective underworld  it feels like we are walking in right now, can be that doorway into the truth that we all so desperately need to see, that we are humans who are born to praise life and make beauty. That it is through this turning to the sacred  through this passageway of hardship that we can begin to once again weave a fabric of humanity and consciousness that can bring us into the new world our hearts you know as possible.

That may sound like overly optimistic, spiritual mumbo jumbo… but all I have to trust in this moment is my own heart. My own heart, and the way that the trees are still standing tall so tall, and the way that the birds are singing to me, and the grass under my feet covered in heavy frost. All I have to make sense of this time is what was given to me. And in this moment my grief ladened heart is also singing like a bird.

May it be that our wounds, personal and collective, be alchemized into medicine to heal the whole. This is the prayer I place on the earth this morning. The prayer I share with you now, so tender and small. But seeds too are small, and they live in the darkness, and they, in good time grow to be grand trees that bear fruit and feed life. Remember the seed that was planted in your own heart. Trust in its ability to withstand the cold winter darkness, set the taproot, then the branch roots, then the blooming.

Seasons Turning – Autumn Comes

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Today is the autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere. We arrive again at the threshold, crafted by seasons and time, the changing of the sun, the tide ebbs. I’ve been feeling the change since the middle of August, the sun hanging lower in the sky, a little bit of chill in the air at night, dry grasses giving the land that tawny autumnal glow. It’s a bittersweet time, in some ways I’m always ready for the seasons to change, to step into something new, to recenter. And yet its hard to let summer go.

 Summer is a season of incredible energetic outpouring, working on the land, outdoor adventures, later nights and less sleep. Summer feels full of fervor and exuberance, and I truly love it. This whole span of time from late spring until the end of harvest season I am out on the land so much. Hands in the soil, feet in the soil, body in the river, hair soaked with sweat. I’m watching the seeds go into the ground and whispering prayers over them, I’m watching the little shoots sprout up and begin their cycle of life, watching them put on leaves and fruit, harvesting and eating and preserving. I love it, and I am exhausted.

And now autumn calls, with her soup pots bubbling and long walks with falling leaves. With quiet evenings at home, hot tea in my favorite mug, dreams of art supplies littering my little table, and driving home in the dark again. It seems to me that each year I get older the seasons grow sweeter, and I feel the changes more acutely, both in the earth around me and inside of my own body. The earth within me. It feels good to let things change, it feels good to surrender to the cycle of the year, the wheel of time, and the ever changing present. As if we had any choice! And yet, to see the pleasure of this seasonal arc, and feel held within it, is somehow so tender for me.

I think part of that is because there’s a way that I’m able to pay attention to life that is exquisite to me, and it hasn’t always been this way. So many years were spent in anxious survival. Being a young mother, and then in an absolute disaster of a marriage, never really making enough money, throw a little bit of addiction into the mix, and you can imagine from there…  It hasn’t been an easy ride. which makes me all the more grateful for the simple beauty in which I sit in my days now.

I can’t claim luxury, I have such a simple life. But it’s beautiful, and it’s handmade and crafted by me to suit my needs and my desires. I get to be present in my life, to be free of the chronic and painful tensions I lived with for so long. I get to craft my days so that I have time to be with the earth and the sky, time for writing, time to notice the changing seasons, to grow food and eat good food, to gather herbs and make medicine, to spend hours in the evening reading poetry, or lying on the floor of my beautiful little home with my cat purring at my side. It’s all so simple, and I’m simply so grateful.

In this time of seasons changing, this time of surrender, of looking within as the autumn calls us to do, I’m thinking about what skins need to shed. About what I’m ready to set down. About what I’m releasing and who I’m becoming. It doesn’t all feel clear yet, and that’s completely OK with me. Answers come when answers come, and the inquiry is really the interesting part of the journey anyway.

Over the summer months, there’s been a lot of inner work happening around some wounds that I have carried and the ways they manifest in the world. I’ve become aware of this cloak of fear that I’ve lived with throughout all of my conscious life. The fear of somehow not being enough, not belonging, being too much, being exiled. This undercurrent of fear has caused me to shape-shift and morph myself into a way of being that I perceive to be more pleasant to others. This is one of the big endings that I’ve been undertaking. The ending of the story that I need to be anything different than I am.

I’ve been growing braver, I’ve been speaking my mind more, expressing how I truly feel, even when it scares the shit out of me, I’ve been asking for more money, learning not to say yes when I want to say no, and figuring out how to truly listen to the signals of my body so that I can make choices that are in alignment with my true needs. It’s been subtle, my life looks much the same as it did in May, but my experience of being in it is really quite different. There’s a fierceness in me that I didn’t know before. There’s a resoluteness, something inside of me isn’t standing up. Broad-shouldered, strong-eyed, Free of the giggling simpering of girlhood. I think I’m truly becoming a woman. Which, at 42, you may think about time… But I would argue that many adults never really leave the stage of late adolescence. So I’ll take it. I’ll take this broad-shouldered, broad-smiled, strong spine, soft-bellied, wide open-hearted woman, I’m becoming.

So the seasons turn, and we turn with them. And as autumn arrives I take this opportunity to turn inside. I take this opportunity to close the hatches a bit, to lay off the throttle, to sit back into the sweetness of my life, and the unknown unfolding of my becoming. Before long rain will start to drip down my windows, and the tawny grasses will grow green again. And then, I’ll be dreaming of planting seeds in the soil and pea shoots and early blooms. But for now, just for now, I’m going to get still. I’m going to sit in the beauty of the simple life that I have created. I’m going to look into my own heart and see what’s ready to be set down. Emptying out the oil to make space for the new. Some interior sorting I suppose you could say. Sounds like a good thing to do as the days grow shorter.  I’m going to leave you with some beautiful words from David Whyte, this line hums in my heart so often…autumn blessings to you all.

“You must learn one thing.
The world was meant to be free in. “

Sweet Darkness
by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

She of the Snake

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We are one in this spiral dance ….image from a sight at Mesa Verde

This is a poem that birthed itself. The words beginning to spill from me, catching me off guard, without pen in hand. i’m beginning to be able to recognize this sensation more quickly, and quite literally run to get a writing instrument if there is not one in reach. Mary Oliver said that a writer should never be without a small pad of paper and a pen, I haven’t quite learned this lesson yet.

Snake has been growing in me for sometime now. I have never been afraid of snakes, in fact I’m enchanted by them, The cool smoothness of their bellies, their direct eye contact, the flick of a forked tongue tasting air, so beautiful to me. Yet this thing snake and I have going on, is really tied to the divine mother. Since I began in earnest last year reclaiming my relationship with Mary, now in a garment untied to any religion, and since finding a deep love of praying the rosary, snake has decided to show up in a big way.

Mary is often pictured with her foot upon the snake, some folks have said that she was squashing out evil, casting out the serpent, the temptress, the snake in the garden. I don’t believe this to be true. Yes, Mary has her foot resting on the snakes back, but perhaps more as a sign, A signature mark of her affiliation with the wild and wise serpent ones. Back and back through Time the snake has been a symbol of the goddess. And Mary is, with no doubt in my mind, a manifestation of the goddess. Not only is she the mother of God, she is God the mother. The fruit of her womb is life, and life is sacred. She rests her foot upon the snake with tenderness, and kind regard, a shared lineage of women and serpent, an ancient contract, steeped in magic and mystery.

When I was recently in the desert I was hoping so much to be visited by snake, I spoke aloud calling her, I drew her, as pictured here, courting her with my pen and my tongue. But she did not appear in her corporeal form, only in this poem, dropped into my heart whole and complete. Notice, I did not say that she did not arrive. Indeed she did arrive, hearing my calls and coming to me, gifting me with her presence through my own words. Sly like a snake she is…

What could it be that I have to learn from a snake? There is something about waiting, about not being too hot blooded, about taking the moment of opportunity when it arrives, without hesitation. Snap! Her jaws clamp shut, she does not wait for the perfect, precious moment, she needs to eat now. And all of life is death too. As I fall deeper into the practice of seeing nature as a mirror for my inner world, there is so much to be contemplated, and the thoughts that come into my mind and heart, the creatures I see with my eyes, the way I move through the wind and the rain, all become gifts meant entirely for me. I know how much I do not know, and how much I am willing to unlearn to be open to learning anew.

Blessed are we, creatures living on this earth and under the sun to be gifted teachers, teachers that come in all forms. Today I am giving thanks for snake, and all of her relations, and the gentle wisdom I am learning through contemplation of their ways.

Journal sketch to honor snake

The Fertile Dark

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The wheel of time turns on. Autumn Faded to winter, which here in Portland really means grey skies, rain, and squishy ground, rather than the picture of snowdrifts that the word “winter” evokes in our minds. And now we find ourselves again Holding on to times wheel as she turns us from winter solstice to Imbolc. The halfway point between the longest night and the spring equinox.

Each year I age I feel the wheel more solidly, I feel my place in time and feel it spinning all around me, or maybe it’s me spinning with it. It seems so long ago, the days when I cared not what season we were in, unless it meant that I could be next to the river with the summer sun shining on my skin. Now I pace my days, my work, and my energy in relationship to where we are in the wheel of the year. This time, this gestational time “the in the belly” time,  when traditionally  livestock would be carrying their babes in the belly, feels of such great importance. I too, in my own way am gestating, not a baby, but a whole new life.

Here on our little farmlette, as my momma likes to call it , we too had hopes of young ones being in the belly this winter, but the small goat who was sent for breeding did not receive the seed and so we wait for spring to try again. This time is still fertile, I feel myself putting down a taproot. Learning to be of this land. Not quite a year yet under my belt in my tiny home in the Doug fir trees, yet it’s beginning to feel like my place in the world. And I know my tall standing friends, are growing used to me as well.

Just tonight as I came out of my parents’ house after a nice shower in the hot wate, making my way across the dark yard, my footsteps know the way, I don’t need a light anymore. Out of the darkness came a sound, a large, low hoot of an owl. An owl who must be very grand to see with your eyes indeed because their voice was so resonant, I could feel it in my belly. I stopped and called a greeting. “Hello owl, hello!” and gave a hoot of my own. The owl responded, as they tend to do. I never stop delighting in this fact, that I can converse with an owl. So I stood there for a moment with the wind blowing and a few raindrops coming down around me, and my wet hair streaming down my back, and I sang, just a small song for that owl. Thinking maybe if I try to speak owl, he will think I’m a bit Daft, but if I speak human and offer a song with a certain lilt and cadence perhaps it will be well received. Owl didn’t seem to mind, but hooted again, as I said goodnight.

It’s been a quarter of a year since I was in New Mexico tending to  my beloved  uncle John through his death. Only three moon since then… a quarter of a year more of this pandemic, a quarter of a year more of learning how to be a woman on my own without a husband, a quarter of a year more of living in my little home with my cat under these tall trees. It seems such a short burst of time, and yet also so drawn out. Another sign from the gods that time truly does not exist even though we dance with it.

We’ve been looking at seed catalogs, dreaming about little ones to plant in the ground and raise up and grow come spring and then summer. And I’ve been looking inside the catalogues of my heart wondering what pieces of myself I would like to attend to and grow up into something flourishing and bright as the sun again returns to the land.

I take such comfort in this quiet dark, such comfort in not having to know anything, rather just feeling my way through my life, just like the baby plants feel their roots sinking down through layers of soil and when they hit a pebble they don’t freak out, they just gently go around it and keep on rooting. We humans, we are much like baby plants. And we are also much like tall trees.

Each morning when I say my prayers, I finish by smudging my body, my brow, my heart, my belly, and then drawing the smoke down each leg and grounding my hands to the floor, and through the floor to the earth. I often refer to this as smudging myself in. Smudging myself into my body and into my life, into my commitment to my ancestors and my descendants.  I use Cedar for my smudge bundle right now, Cedar gathered from the land here on which I live. And I send up a prayer every day for Cedar to help me be a little more like them, a little more regal and tall in my stature, a little more rooted deep to the earth, a little more sweet smelling when the rain of life falls on me.

There’s nothing left to do this evening, except for make some tea and pour it in my cup. Give my cat a little bit of a snuggle and settle into bed with my book. I’m grateful to be aware of the pause this time of year. I’m grateful for the silent darkness, this potent present, the pregnant fullness that lives in the dark.  

Cartography 

I have lost my map.
The whole, well structured cartography of my life
slips and shifts before my very eyes.
North now points, gods know where
South spins on some unknown axis,
and I am spun as well.

All I knew to be true now in question,
One thousand planned futures
collapse around me,
the unknown looms like a sneaker wave
not yet seen, but growing.

How do I step forward when there is no ground?
Beneath my feet is only shift and play,
no solid earth to hold me.
where do I step when I cannot see?
only darkness, fog and shadow.

Perhaps stepping is not the issue at hand
As a wise man says –
“The times are urgent, we must slowdown.”

Maybe I plant my feet here
like the roots of a mighty tree
maybe my roots will, in good time
hold the earth solid,
and me along with her.

My roots snaking and growing once again
to create a new cartography of my life.

In darkness I was born
and will be born again.
now I wait,
spreading roots, spreading roots.

The Land Knows

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Another unedited poem, from my morning writing practice.
I love how my home place is a theme in my writings lately. There is something about  learning to be in the place where I am and inhabit it fully. Something about courtship of this land and all the ones who live here with me. Something about wonder and wondering and a little bit of wisdom…roots running deep.

The Land Knows

The land knows me, even when I am lost
My inner compass seems to bring me somehow always back to – here.
This cedar knows my name and the feel of my fingertips
this soil know my voice in murmured mornings and song filled afternoons
this creek bubbles on her path, always moving
my feet know well her stony body and cool sweet breath.

Here I speak to fern and hawthorn – blackberry and clover
They, who have lived here long before I came, and seem to sing a welcome to me.
When I am low and lost in the waves and swells of this- my life
I bring my heart to the garden – to the trees – to the earth beneath my feet
I lay down my troubles and my fears
the one hundred things I need to do
that scornful glance that hurt so much
the harsh words rattling around my heart cave.

The earth knows it all- and loves me anyway.
Just as a mother does, she holds me close, caresses my cheek, tends my sorrows
She is always generous.
Chickadee perches over head and call – Chicka dee dee dee…
Let it be be be…
And I listen.
Who could ignore the wisdom of the birds?

© Marianna Jones 2019

 

 

Slowing Down-Breaking the Spell of Constant Doing

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Tonight I am writing, cup of tea already finished and the house is quite. I’ve been off work most of the day, had a lovely lunch with my Mama, cleaned the hen house and pulled some weeds. Sun was shining today and though cold wind whipped and gusted being out of doors and not damp was a delight.

As I settle in to my study, letting the day settle around me I am just quietly content. My body tired, my heart full from love and laughter, an easeful feeling in my bones. Such a simple day, fulfilling for me one of my needs, unstructured, unscheduled time.

In my pursuit of a simpler and more spacious life I have been actually creating some of that space, working less, saying no to functions or requests, making simpler food. It all feels quite radical. And I am learning how much I need this- down time- see? we even have a phrase to name this, uncommitted, self directed time. It’s a rarity in our culture and must be guarded fiercely.

I am not a huge new years person, not reveler nor resolution maker, yet I found myself early last month, thinking about my life, my time, joy, commitments, mortality and what the fuck I am doing here…you know the everyday existential  dilemma. In response to all this swirling around in me it seemed the only solution I could find was to slow down. Slow down my schedule, my commitments, spending, consuming in all forms.

I said earlier that this feels quite radical, and you know it really is. Our whole society is telling us constantly in everyway to hurry up, do more, be more productive, spend more, earn more. Madness. Absolute madness. It is no great wonder why so many of us are sick, stressed, spiritually bankrupt and exhausted. How could we not be??

I want to take a moment here, to acknowledge that me having the space to consider such things and the implications in my life, is inherently a sign of my privileged life. There are so many women who’s lives do not bare space for such questioning. Let alone for working less and spending more time with their families. I bow in gratitude for the space and the safety I have in this life.

What does it mean to live a life of simple purpose? What does it mean to give up the pursuit of “becoming” something, anything…wealthier, more lovely, as long as it is something you have to work towards, something that makes you not actually – here.
I don’t actually know yet, because you see I am just beginning to discover, one choice at a time. And its easy to get distracted, and thrown off course. For me it is starting with paying attention, choosing rather than reacting, looking at what actually brings joy, and what resilience means… this is enough for now. It is an awful lot actually.

It’s winter, and my mind is tumbling around all sorts of things, my body snuggling in warm wraps, a hot cup of tea in hand and a good pile of books. I let myself enjoy some space, some time to rest. A period of calm before roots and shoots start clamoring for my attention and the evenings are filled again with birdsong and muddy boots. I just want to enjoy this thing called life, trust in the goodness of it all. Another day will come, and God willing I will greet that dawn, humble and quite, no words are needed when the chickadee speaks so well…
I’ll just feed the birds and go muck the hen house, simple work is good enough for me.

 

 

Climate grief- the sorrow of endings

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I am stirring inside, something sharp teethed is nipping at my heals tonight. It is more than the restless wind that blows through my sails with some frequency, more than the weary discontent I know so well. This sensation of being pursued is darker, rougher, it has grit and weight. Its alive, real, and vicious. This, this stirring that is following me, brewing inside me, this is fear.

I see it on the news, though I do not purposefully engage in the habit of news watching, I still catch glimpses. Or I hear it on the radio. Homes burned to the ground in California, the fastest moving fire on record, starving children in Yemen, and Congo, and here too, in Oregon many are food insecure, though not( to my knowledge) starving to death. But there are houseless families in the streets, and folks lying on the side of the road in their own piss, as we all drive by. Too busy to lend a hand, or a dollar. Refugees wait at our borders to seek asylum, fleeing lives far darker than I can even wrap my mind around. This is happening all around me, the times are baring down now, its getting hotter and heavier, it’s hard for me to breath….

In the face of these sorrows I have mentioned, and the thousand more that wait in the wings, I feel the desire to run away. To run from the city, find a small patch of earth and live out my years in quite, maybe quite desperation but still, quite. I want to turn away from what I see, from what I feel, from this nipping at my heals, this fear, and maybe even more than fear – dread. Thing is, there is no where left to run, this whole place, our sweet and kind blue planet is heating up, systems changing. Even if I found the little patch of earth to live on, there is no guarantee that summer sun and spring rain will bless my fields, no knowing that life will go on as life has always done.

I have long espoused my desire for an all out revolution. Not just in America, but globally. For the people to rise up and say “No More!” In this dream we come together for the voiceless, we tear down systems of oppression and we are victorious, united, a human family. I have a revolutionary heart, an inner fire and the courage to stand for what I believe in. This has long led me to hold this belief that change is coming, and that we will all be ok in the end (cue the triumphant yet soothing end of scene music.)

I am somehow just now, at 37 years, seeing that this ain’t no Hollywood movie, this is real life, and revolution means blood on the ground, maybe mine, most definitely that of at least one I love. Even if we did somehow come together in the name of all life and stand  against the corruption and greed, would we have any where to stand? I guess I am saying – is it too late for us? Have we passed the tipping point and now all we can do is maybe learn to become human in the face of this heart wrenching catastrophe we face?
And if we see the days has come, and darkness gathers all around, can we find the strength to see this ship down. Or will we claw our way over top of the broken ones, fighting for the last breath of clean air, the last sip of sweet water, the last gaze of cedar reaching her tips high to the sky….

My mind keep spitting out lyrics to The Future by the esteemed and grieved over Leonard Cohen
“Give me back the berlin wall
Give me stalin and st paul
I’ve seen the future, brother
It is murder”
When I feel dark, and dread filled, I long for music that seems to mirror that back to me, or perhaps even increase the intensity of feeling. I want to wade deeper into the mire, feel the sorrow and despair rising around me, put aside all my over used hope and succumb. This is scary, we are slowly, and so quickly loosing the world that we know. And it’s not pretty, and we are not ok, and I am terrified, raging and desperately sorrow filled.

Even here and now, as I write these quavering truths, just feeling the immensity of this fear and sorrow, I find myself wanting to turn it around some how, find a positive hope filled spin. Finish it off with some well wrought words pacifying the gut deep fear for a moment more….I am not going to do it. I do not comply.

I am broken hearted, sometimes it feels finished, but no, life still blooms so strongly all around us. I hold my loves closely tonight…the future so uncertain.

May love be with you all.

 

 

 

We’re going to die one day….

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I might not wake up tomorrow morning. Yes I am 37, and in apparent good health, but this is not a guarantee of another day breathing, not for me, nor for you dear reader. No matter your age. Life is precarious. Unlikely in fact, and the fortune that finds us here, me behind my screen typing away, and you reading me on yours is almost to much to bare.
This fact that we are alive, alive! and breathing is enough to make me draw that same breath in sharply with wonder, the awe of it all….but only when I am paying attention. Which I do confess I am not always doing, and more likely than not, even though today I am writing of the incredible power, fortune and beauty of being alive, by tomorrow morning I will most likely be griping about going to work and feeling less than charmed by my circumstances. This seems to be the way of it for me, at least for now.

And yet even in that, the remembering and forgetting, the high and the low, is life.  In the words of Mary Oliver- my one wild and precious life. Which is not guaranteed, it has no warranty, no insurance, no claim, only presence. The only claim is the one I stake, the stake I put in my own fertile ground. How alive am I willing to be while I am still alive? How much can I love being here in this body? Today, it is enough to make me kneel and kiss the ground.

There is so much unlikely fortune at play in my life, small wonders that I so often take for granted, the spices and salt I use with such abandon, the foods in my fridge, my fridge itself! Water that runs clean, well reasonably so anyway, from the tap – warm or cold. I know my ancestors would have been in disbelief at these luxuries. My aim, my prayer is that my life be a living testament to the gratitude I feel for all this I am blessed with. For all this abundance and ease and wealth beyond what most women living in this world will ever see or know. These wealth’s I reference here are only a drop, a small one at that, of all that I am grateful for…truly. And sometimes I am still a shitty whiney human being. Sometimes I am pissed off cause I have to plan and cook my own dinner, and I am tired and worn down and so so lonely.

When I try to write about this I feel lost, spiraling around in my mind, the absolute wonder I have at being alive, the knowing that it will end. I will die, all this, all this beauty and wonder and love and aliveness will be gone…. I know it. I know it, deep in my bones kind of knowing, feel it in my belly kind of knowing. Its not a theory or an inkling, or an idea. I am going to die one day. Wouldn’t it seem, that in knowing this I would stay present to the magic that is my life? That I would each moment of each day be singing praise for all that has been given by this great blue planet and my ancestors that dreamed me into being here? If I am going to die, why in Gods name would I ever watch  a TV show?!

But I do, in fact Outlanders upcoming new season is being eagerly anticipated by me right now. I can’t wait for more Jamie Frazier in my life, or on my screen anyway.
So what gives with this dichotomy? Am I missing something, does my lack of vigilance with how I use my time mean that I am less than stunned by the beauty of this human beingness? I am not sure. I seem today to only have many, many questions. Perhaps there are more question marks in this post than any prior one I have written. I say perhaps because I have not counted and I will not, I have more important things to do! Like sit and type and wonder at the apparent insanity of my own existence.

I just don’t want to miss a thing. When I get to the end of this run, this life of mine, I want to leave knowing I drank every drop. Be it next year or 70 years from now, I want to leave this earth exhausted by the beauty of it all. So I wrestle with myself, with my choices, my done and undone deeds. I suppose it is human to do so, to take a tally every now and then. Thing is, I don’t think there is a score per say, only a knowing, a felt sense of purpose, fulfillment or lack there of, connection or disassociation. All in all I think I am pretty damn present to my life. And yet, there is learning to happen there as well.

As I go to sleep each night, I do take time to reflect on the beauty of my days and ways. As I rise I rejoice to feel breath moving in my body once again. I bless my food and know that it is not a given to be well fed and housed. I know I am here by the grace of those who came before me, my kin, human, animal, plant, stone…. the truth is, if I was truly present each moment to the majesty this all is, I would be weeping on the ground. It is to beautiful to ever fully grasp it. This life. To precious for words.

May I wake up tomorrow, another day to learn and love, and maybe even watch a little Outlander.  May you wake up as well. And if the Gods are willing, someday perhaps our paths will cross, and we can speak of such things as life and death, beauty and sorrow, the meaning of it all, the majesty of this life. Until then, may you be known by your old ones, and may you in turn teach your young ones well.

Marianna

 

In Defense of a Simple Life

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I can’t sleep. Up too late with thoughts running circles round my mind. It seems that life is moving faster all the time, each year, no, each month, swifter than the last. I can’t catch up. Here, in this culture where woman wear busyness like a badge of honor, I just want it all to slow down.

I an eternal optimist, I can’t help it, I try to be surly at times but to no avail. I always optimistically believe, despite evidence to the contrary, that I will have more “free” time, sometime in the near future…but sometime is never here. It looms, ever in the future, just out of reach, I could almost touch it if I just reach a little bit farther.

The ideal of the woman who can do everything is a crock of shit. I know this,I feel it in my bones. I know how marketing works, how swindled we all are. If it isn’t a fashion mag we are comparing ourselves with, its that perfect remodel on HGTV. There is no end to the cascade of false ideals dumped on our doorsteps each day. How can we know what is real amidst this storm of consumerist coercion? It insidiously creeps into our minds, thoughts we thought were our own, when opened for examination have no origin in us. This is madness. This drives us to madness.

I myself, am in a daily struggle. The desire to “produce” more, be it income, social capital, or even beauty. Weighed against the truth that I am tired, and I don’t want to play the game anymore.  I cannot hold it all up, and hold it to the standard that I desire to. Things begin to crumble. I cannot be it all, I cannot do it all. I feel this, and I am in a two income family with one grown child. What must this feel like for my friends with little ones at home and bills piling up on bills? Is this the equality we have been fighting for? Somehow it feels like we have missed the mark. “killin it” seems to be killing us.
And yes, of course this is a grand generalization, and I can only speak from my point of view. Still, I see so many women suffering under the delusion that we can multi-task our way to a picture perfect life, that it is time to pull back the curtain on that lie, expose it’s ugly underbelly and begin to engage in some real revolutionary work.

Could it be that in my relentless pursuit of becoming, I have lost myself? Lost the thread I am meant to hold throughout my life, the thread that William Stafford calls to us to cling tightly to? If this is what matters, and I think it does, what has to be sacrificed? What must I lay down in order to have a hand to hold the thread in?

There is this thing, called “too much” that surrounds us. We are so inundated by the cultural messages of acquisition that we fail to see how deep this patterning is. Peers of mine who eschew the commercialized ideals of the “American Dream” (who knows what that even means anymore) still ascribe to the doctrine of acquisition and hope, through a Hodge podge of progressive spiritual ideals that are in fact selling us the same thing. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. I am not above this, how many weekend courses have I taken trying to become a better version of me? How many crystals and smudges do I have right now in this very room where I write? Spiritual capitalism at its finest.

It seems that the only way to get off this mad train is to turn and face it looming behind me. To stand firmly in my two shoes and say “no more!” I am unwilling to trade growth for depth any longer. I am unwilling to sacrifice the sanctity of my life to meet some ideal that is not even my own. I will no longer be 3 miles wide and 2 inches deep, I want to be a  well, a spring,  dig deep and find sweet water, here.

I am learning to identify barriers to connection in my life, competition is one, perfectionism is right up there as well. What can I reclaim, or claim for the first time to bring sanity back into my life? I’ve been thinking on this and simple as it sounds, and not surprisingly, I think it has something to do with vulnerability and acceptance. If I can learn to see all the ways I am striving towards unreal expectations or doctrines, than maybe I can turn myself around. Connection is the antidote to bullshit, in fact,  I am pretty sure it is the antidote to all the woes of western civilization.

When I allow myself to be vulnerable, to show my multi layered imperfection, I am open to connection. I can have friends at my house that is messy, I can eat with joy and abandon without concern for what others think of my size or shape, I can speak my mind and heart, not tip toe around others. Which in this PC world feels like it is more an more necessary. Truly, it is not. Disagreeing with someone does not mean you don’t love them. In fact, differing opinions are a healthy thing, if we are all the same it is pretty boring out there.

So I am learning to be uncomfortable, to listen when the feelings of ” I need to be….” arise. It takes so many forms, there are so many things and ways I have been taught I need to be to, to  be worthy, to be accepted. It is a lie. I am, and will be, a whole healthy human woman, even if I don’t meet the standards, even if I look a little frazzled at the edges. I am taking a stand. Because you know what? No one else is going to do it for me. I am going deep, holy well deep. I plant my feet on this soil I call home and I will stay here. I will joyfully  grow my food, raise my hens, sleep beside my husband. I will listen to the quite yearning of my own sweet heart, and stay, home. I will, day by day divorce myself from the system that says I must be more. I am enough. I am woman,  I am home, and I am grateful.

Marianna Louise Jones

*image is of St Fumac’s holy well, Canmore Scotland

 

 

 

 

 

 

Burn

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The skies have been dark this week, the air stagnant and toxic. I can feel the burn in my throat. I can only think “this is how it will be forever now. Every summer now will burn.” Summer skies filled with smoke, blue turns grey, and ashen. I am sad, the kind of sad you’re not supposed to talk about. I  didn’t know I would see the change in my lifetime, not really. You know your hear about these things, this climate disaster, global warming. But it is all far away, apocalypse abstract.

These last few summers its been in no way abstract, it has been here, present and beside me. I am unable to turn away. My once blue summer Oregon skies have gone dark. We can not ignore the  truth. It’s closing time. This is only the beginning. Get ready for the fall, there will be darkness.

Our world burns.
Today smoke fills the skies
my throat, lungs and eyes.
Blue sky, a memory of summer gone now.
The earth is hot
103 in Redding yesterday
10,000 people evacuate
running from the flames.
Their cars are hot, on scorched highways
the fumes from their tailpipes fill the sky.
What of those that cannot run?
No gas in their tanks or
money in their banks.
What if they are ill?
In body or mind, those who choose to stay behind.
What of the winged ones, and the 4 legged
It is all too much to bear.
Tonight- the moon is orange and amber
a dark glow in the sky.
It seems to me she is looking down and weeping.
So am I.

 

Marianna Louise Jones