Ever notice how people act differently when they're around their family?
Read MoreGrief Tending
Grief Tending Ritual, October 2015. A poem.
Read MoreThe Healing Power of Nature, Community and the Sacred
A medicine day walk with women from the YWCA's Domestic Violence Shelter sheds new light on the healing power of nature, community and the sacred.
Read MoreThe Man of Awakened Heart
What is a Man of Awakened Heart? A most delightsome creature . . .
Read MoreAdam Ondra Changed My Life
How a 22-year-old Czechoslovakian fellow (who happens to be one of the best sport climbers in the world) changed my life.
Read MoreWhy Does Wildness Matter Today?
What does being in our wildness mean and why is it important in the modern world?
Read MoreThe Nature of Practice
About the nature of practice — whatever you are inspired to master.
Read MoreCrucible
Lost wax casting as a metaphor for suffering the heat and melt down of transformation. Ode to a friend.
Read MoreFigure/Ground
Enlightenment is knowing yourself as the Ground.
Read MoreTake A Break and Be One With All Things
Spending a Sunday Being One With All Things. Good for the brain!
Read MoreThe Metaphysics of Coal Spinning
Being the Change.
Read MoreThe Gift of A Good Death
The gift of a good death, and a do-it-yourself-the-old-fashioned-way burial.
Read MoreThe Gap
Last night I had the occasion to hang out at my house with several 20-somethings, kids who were quite self-possessed, very cool, dressed in black, tattooed and working in the world of contemporary style and fashion — of which I am remarkably ignorant, even after 50+ years of life. So much of their world I have no idea about; so many crazy things go on in my own fair city!
For example, they traveled to my place via Uber. I didn’t know about this new ride industry, where through a phone app, you put in the address of where you are, click to request a ride and you can see how long it will take for an independent Uber driver to come pick you up. Cheaper than a cab, and way, way more cool. Brilliant, eh?
It's true; there is more happening in this world than I could ever wrap my brain around.
I certainly felt a gap, a gap about the size of the Grand Canyon, between my world and theirs. (And how strange to now be on the north rim of the gap!)
At the same time I felt a gap about the size a crack in the sidewalk, between my soul and theirs. I felt this strange yearning to really connect . . . like, to connect for real. I wanted so much to sit in circle with them and ask them about what’s really in their hearts, what they fear, what they know. And I wanted to open myself to any questions they might have, about life and meaning. Somehow I felt that perhaps they too wanted to connect at a deeper level. Perhaps they are starving for elders to truly listen to them, to hear their hearts, though the yearning may be only semi-conscious, as mine was at their age.
But there is no structure for that connection to happen in 2014 where our villages have become re-stratified into self-chosen groupings based on affinity. It would be socially weird to share my depths with kids that live on the far south rim of this Grand Canyon. And so our worlds go on, not touching each other, even as something inside reaches out.
It makes me sad.
Yet, who’s to say that our souls aren’t connecting? Outside of space and time, beyond the reaches of our personalities?
Because if there is one thing I have come to know from my short half a century on this planet, there that is more Mystery happening in this world than I could ever wrap my brain around . . . for who really knows how far our souls are able to jump?
Leaning into Shadows Together: Ubuntu
Community, shadows, grief and ubuntu at the 6th International Wilderness Guides Gathering in South Africa.
Read MoreThe Glory of Sluggishness
A morning encounter with slug reminds me of something I adore. Going S-L-O-W.
Read MorePetting Bees
My sister and her husband live on ranch property on the shores of Bear Lake in northern Utah that has been in our family for four generations. She is raising her two kids, Wesley and Sylvia on this high desert cattle country land.
The landscape up at Bear Lake is beautiful, in a sort of harsh, intense way. There are rattlesnakes. It gets really cold in the winter. The sun burns skin quickly in the summer. There are ticks in spring and fall. The growing season is short. The economy is slow, and seasonal.
Last week, I was up at the ranch for a summer gathering with siblings and their children. One afternoon, Sylvia and I went on a walk down to the lake. Or rather, she rode her purple bike and I walked. The lake has been low in recent years and as a result, lots of vegetation has grown up on its shores; reedy plants and small trees and large patches of tall wavy green things with teensy yellow flowers that bees like.
Sylvia was ready to turn around and ride home once we got to the turn in the road that paralleled the lake shore, but I suggested we just go dip our toes in the water first. She hopped off her bike and walked straight toward the large patch of tall wavy green things that were between us and the lakeshore. I offered to plow a path through.
As I swam carefully through weeds taller than my head and saw all the bumble bees hovering around, I thought about a video on re-wilding [2:06] I had come upon several months ago while surfing the web.
We stood in the shallow water of the lake for a few minutes and then after we decided to start back, I said to Sylvia, “Hey did you know you can pet bees? I saw it in a video. This little, tiny girl, maybe two or three years old was petting a bee. It was really cool. The little girl wasn’t afraid at all!” It must have caught her imagination because before I had finished my last sentence, she said “I want to try it!” and set about doing so.
Her first attempts were tentative, but soon lost her fear as she had success in touching the fuzzy soft backs of the big bumble bees who were busy gathering pollen and not bothered by small seven-year-old fingers gently stroking them. Enthusiastically she wandered about in the tall wavy green things, blonde braids shining in the warm sun, following the bees.
“You should try.” Sylvia remarked to me, wisely. I did try and found it a little unnerving, but possible. (But, interestingly, because my fingertips are calloused from climbing, I could not feel anything.)
I asked Sylvia how the bees responded to her petting them. They just went about their business and didn’t mind. I asked her what she learned from the experience of petting bees. “BEES ARE SAFE!!” was her immediate and enthusiastic reply. She could hardly wait to tell her mom and brother and dad that she had petted bees.
As she straddled her bike to set off on the half mile dirt road back to the ranch, I asked her if she’d ever been stung by a bee. She replied that she had been stung just once — in the hollyhocks by the new chicken coop, about two weeks ago. She had just brushed by a flower and the bee stung her through her legging tights.
Learning to pet bees is not something we do very much. But it is an intimate and empowering experience; one that reminds us of our wild, original self. And another really cool thing is that wild children sense immediately what they need, and what is good for them.
Versimilitude
ver·i·si·mil·i·tude [ver-uh-si-mil-i-tood, -tyood]
noun
1. the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability: The play lacked verisimilitude.
2. something, as an assertion, having merely the appearance of truth.
Origin: 1595–1605; < Latin vērīsimilitūdō, equivalent to vērī (genitive singular of vērum truth) + similitūdō similitude
Last summer on a women’s Wild Nature Retreat that I co-guided, a participant returned from her 48-hour solo fast on the land with the question “what is real?” reverberating in her body and soul.
She questioned civilization, the social masks we wear, the asphalt and air-conditioned cubicles we comfortably live in. Her experience of fasting for two days and nights with only the bare minimum physical comforts, and nothing to DO, allowed her to have a meeting with what is real for her . . . something that could not be put into words, but only felt.
For the past couple of months, I’ve been wrestling with what to do with the gift of my father’s Samick grand piano. I played piano from about three years old until I chose to study graphic design in my sophomore year of college. I grew up playing classical music on a 7-foot Steinway grand piano — the Mercedes of pianos — but didn’t realize my good fortune until I was forced to start shopping around because the grand piano I had been gifted was too large for my home.
I’ve gone to big piano stores and small piano stores, playing and listening to uprights, baby grands and expensive pianos I can’t afford. And every time, I came home feeling depressed — my mind chasing its tail around the fact the nothing sounded as good as a piano that I can’t afford and won’t fit in my living room.
But then an emotionally intelligent salesman — and a professional musician himself — suggested on a whim (on the third time I’d been into the place) that I take a look at the digital pianos: electronic gadgets that emit the recorded sound of a real piano.
I would never have considered this option, except . . . these pianos sample from a $170,000 (yes, that is the correct number of 0’s) 9-foot concert grand piano. The bass and treble sound surprisingly full. There are five different kinds of grand piano sounds you can choose from, with the touch of a button. You can change the tone from bright to muted. You can change the acoustics to mimic the sound of playing in a smaller room or a bigger hall or on a stage. You can plug in your iPad and download a free app that gives you access to a gazillion choices of sheet music in all genres, including the Hannon finger exercises. You can record your piano playing or play other high-quality un-compressed music files through its electronic sound system. It comes in shiny ebony black finish, and it fits into my living room.
THIS is an entirely different reality.
So, is playing a digital piano merely verisimilitude? If the ear is there to hear it, the sound is not the same as real strings being hit by real hammers resonating within real wood.
What is real?
Well, after leaving that piano store for the third time, presented with an entirely new reality, I found myself feeling excited. I felt excited about the possibilities of making music with a new tool, a new kind of instrument. I had been presented with new, uncharted territory that also made me look at my identity as a musician, and the cultural symbols of my upbringing. I could feel the excitement and lightness in my body as I unwound my own expectations and saw things from a new point of view.
I believe I am deeply connected, from age three, to the real sound of a Steinway grand piano, that this 'real' sound is embedded in my bones. So if I’m grounded in this ‘real’ sound, can I now explore music utilizing an electronic approximation of a piano and be OK with it? Or will I still pine for something that's not feasible in my life right now?
Here’s what I've settled on as being real for me:
Life is full of ‘compromises’ that we can make up a million stories about. We make the best choices we can, based on our limitations. Freedom comes from accepting our choices and making the best music we are able to with what we’ve got.
The Mysterious "We" Space
Take-aways from the Wild Nature Retreat for Women, July 2013.
Read MoreCourting the Ancient Feminine Part II: Paris
I had done an Internet search before we left to see if there were any Black Madonna statues in Paris, being familiar with the Black Madonnas that can be found around France and Northern Spain. There was one, in Notre Dame de Bonne Délivrance, in a wealthy suburb just northwest of Paris proper. I made my intentions to visit the Black Madonna in Paris, on this honeymoon trip to Europe. And so it was.
After two full days of walking our legs off visiting museums, catacombs and basillicas, I was to take the last morning to myself, for long Metro ride to Neuilly-sur-Siene to visit the Black Madonna of de Bonne Délivrance.
The morning was dark—from black thunder clouds that boomed and crashed outside the large French window of our postage-stamp-sized room, facing an inner courtyard. Thunder, lightening, and then tropical-style pouring rain.
I could have bagged it, but I donned my dark pink rain jacket, armed with my husband’s iPhone (with address bookmarked in Google Maps), and to his dismay, marched out into the pouring rain.
I only had to go half a block, to the Metro station.
A quick 20 minutes later, I was at my stop. Emerging from the Metro, I followed the iPhone blinking blue dot along the streets of a very nice, well-kept and friendly-feeling neighborhood.
The storm had cleared and the sun was shining.
With ease, I found my destination — the Chateau de Neuilly, behind whose gates the chapel was housed. The large, black iron gate was open. I followed the signs for the Chapel de Bonne Délivrance, around the corner, along a well-kept gravel path. And there it was.
Inside the small chapel, it was cool and quiet. A nun, black as night, was gently moving around the alter, putting away accoutrements from the 11:00 am Monday morning mass, which I apparently had just missed. Two women were sitting silently in the pews.
And behind the alter was the Black Madonna, graceful in her flowing robes, with the child Jesus on her flung out hip.
I walked reverently up the side isle, standing behind a pillar, and took a couple of photos. Then sat in a middle pew and felt inside myself—what kind of feeling did I have here in this place?
Actually, immediately upon entering the space, I felt a very quiet gentleness. Walking near her, I was struck very strongly with the energy of utter and complete purity and innocence. The gentle sweetness of a young girl child.
I was quite taken off guard. My idea of the Black Madonna was a strong and mysterious energy, something powerful yet hidden.
I sat on a pew in front of her and wondered at how long it had been since I had felt that unscathed sweetness in myself, that untainted purity of heart.
A long time.
I soaked it in and soaked it in, intending to have my bones remember it.
An elderly white nun, hunched over but walking briskly, motored to the back of the chapel and I could hear her carrying on a conversation with a patron, in musical and hushed French tones that echoed and reverberated soothingly throughout the space.
Within a half hour or so, the chapel was closing, as the sweet black nun told me in accented English, with the kindest of smiles.
I retraced the steps of my journey with a great peace in my heart. Here was an aspect of the Feminine that I had completely forgotten about, that perhaps I did not take seriously, because it wasn’t ‘strong.’ Yet in truth, there was an incredible strength, I discovered, in the purity of Her innocence.
You may notice that the photo I took of this Black Madonna is NOT the same statue as the Black Madonna in the blog where I’d found her first. Similar, but not the same. Another mystery never to be solved.
Courting the Ancient Feminine Part I: Greece
I recently was in Greece, on a honeymoon trip. We stayed for one night in a hotel near Athens that was (ostensibly) near the airport and (famously) near the ruins of an ancient Sanctuary of Artemis. I was pleased that I would have the time and opportunity to check out an ancient Greek temple. (I didn’t check out Wikipedia before I left, which would have been a good idea! )
Upon our arrival at the swank but deserted hotel near Athens, the lovely concierge told me that unfortunately, the Sanctuary of Artemis was closed for renovation, but the museum of the temple was open.
The next morning, when I had planned on visiting the temple, it was raining a light rain. I could have bagged it, but decided to go anyway. It was in walking distance and I was able to borrow a nice pink umbrella from the front desk, where the lovely concierge gave me directions to the temple, even though I couldn’t get in.
It was a beautiful walk, down a winding country road, in a light rain.
I followed the concierge’s walking directions until, around one bend, I could see a grove of larger trees that struck me as the place. A interpretive sign on the side of the road . . . in English, no less, let me know that this area was a wetlands, and sported a nice basic trail map. With that, I had enough information, and so took a left, on a wet and grassy trail that seemed to lead toward the grove of trees.
Indeed it soon did.
I found myself on the back side of the sanctuary grounds, with a rather permanent-looking chain link fence between me and the ruins. (I’m sure these renovation projects take years . . . )
I’d had a small premonition about what happened next.
Neat stacks of plastic-wrapped and numbered stone blocks, and a large pile of cement bags stood at the far end of the fence. I saw a workman moving the cement bags.
By now it had stopped raining, and the sun had come out.
I walked along the fenceline (took a photo) and the man saw me. Obviously I was very interested in the structure . . . he beckoned me over, opened a heavy iron gate at the very back, and let me in. He led me a little way toward the structure near the large trees, saying in broken English (better than my Greek) that I could only go "to here because of camera". Security camera.
I paid attention to what I felt in this place. From some inside place, this is what I sensed the place might have said to me:
“I am here. It matters to me not whether I’m being renovated. It matters to me not if you come visit me. I am about my own business.”
A strong, almost imperious Feminine energy. I liked this Artemis.
“Artemis was bathing in the woods when the hunter Actaeon stumbled across her, thus seeing her naked. He stopped and stared, amazed at her ravishing beauty. Discovering she had been seen, Artemis became angry and forbade Actaeon to speak. If he tried to speak, he would be changed into a stag, she warned. Upon hearing the call of his hunting party, he called out to them . . . and was immediately changed into a stag. He fled into the woods. Stopping briefly at a pond, Actaeon saw his reflection and moaned in fear, moments before the hounds of his own hunting party sprang upon him and tore him to pieces, as he raised his eyes to Mount Olympus.” —Wikipedia, with my edits.