All Wet and Shine
It sounds like the cracks and clicks of the house settling
as the room warms in morning, it sounds like a fan
whispered up. It tastes of wood smoke—sweet and then stale.
It looks like the curve of a mountain
under streaked sky, and everything pale blue
just before sunrise, everything translucent,
even stone. The stone is blue, it tastes, after all,
like tea in a glass cup, it feels like wanting a
blanket on your lap, nesting, hovering around
a wound, no a break, where the mountain opens,
wanting to heal, to soften the gap, to close it,
like an empty room inside of me, and I want to give it fire
and fill it with humming, and make it hum
and vibrate—the resound of a chamber
opened and filled with air—with beating.
I want to fill the gap
but it keeps opening, pressing
inside to outside, unhousing
and unseeding the husk of me.
I am not a house with an empty room,
a broken window in a wall.
I am not sleep battered open by a dream,
not even a mountain turning solid again
as light rises, I am not a cave in the mountain. I
am not I—that’s what it feels like
today, waking alone in late winter. A spider
hanging her web in the doorjamb, spinning in three
dimensions—to catch what passes,
trembling with capture, all wet and shine,
moments when everything is a door.
- Cynthia Huntington
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Deep Freeze
It seems too soon--it always does--but it's that time of year again, already. Time to start thinking about Spring planting.
Earlier today I was wondering if there was any chance I'd get my catalog from Saint Lawrence Nurseries in time to make an early order this year, having failed to do so last year. I spent hours researching varieties of cherries and pears, tied myself in knots over what kinds of plums I wanted (or could hope to grow), finally came up with a plan (for Year 1, mind you, with the intent of adding more in Years Following), wrote a fat check and put it in the mail (this is an old-fashioned family business) only to have it returned to me, because not a single one of those I'd asked for could be delivered. That was something of a what some people might call a disappointment, but which from now on I'm going to refer to as "a blessing in disguise (of a kick in the crotch)", which it probably was, because it was a challenging Spring even without a half dozen precious little trees to keep alive (on top of the other 200...). Anyway, lo and behold, look what arrived in the mail today!
Now, don't go rushing to conclusions and mistake that exclamation point for excitement... I just put it there because it was the only sensible way to end that sentence.
I have deeply mixed feelings about delving into the work of planning this season's plantings. The many changes in my life that took place during the past year have put a question mark at the end of nearly every aspect of my plans, hopes and dreams for my family's land. The idea of working on the five, ten, thirty, one-hundred year plan, of building orchards and berry patches, medicinal herb cultures, native habitat, better soil, better habits, a greenhouse or two, the summer kitchen, large-scale composting, irrigation systems, experiments in sustainability and permaculture, a haven for generations of families, ours among others... all of that has, for me, been put "on hold" rather indefinitely and, quite possibly, permanently.
It takes a lot of energy--both real and personal--to make an investment in a long-distance relationship with the land. True, it's not a long drive, but the distance between knowing and not knowing is vast. From here the very important details of the passage of each day cannot be known, gauged or understood. Is there dew on the garden at dawn? Will that leaf uncurl today, tonight, tomorrow? Is this herb sweeter in the morning or the evening, before or after the rain? Without this experience, how can I learn?
There is, also, and perhaps more pressingly, the problem of actually being physically present to do the work there is to be done, when it needs to happen. Spending an hour or two in the garden every day is a chore but also a pleasure, a meditation, a lesson. Spending 8 or 10 hours in a weekend can be exhausting, especially for those with fair skin and aging backs. Weekends are a gamble when it comes to weather, driving, and other obligations, needs, demands or desires. Beyond being present, there is being able. I am not as strong as I used to be (though I do hope to make gains) and my folks are getting on in years, despite their best intentions. It's one thing to take a broadfork to 2500 sf of soil, another to tend to dozens of fruit trees, another to turn the compost, another to weed, another to seed, another to harvest...
As I've written before, this work is a labor of love. The question for me is not, do I want to do this? but rather can I do this? or perhaps will this actually work? and is this important enough to do anyway, even if it doesn't? I have a home of my own, a large yard full of untapped potential and a very real and middle-aged need to focus some attention on my life's occupation, not to mention my sagging ass and my unpainted kitchen. Can I really afford to spend hundreds of dollars on plants and seeds and trees and gasoline in exchange for a few pounds of produce, and devote all my weekends to a place that I don't have the pleasure of even being able to enjoy, in my time and my way? What are we really trying to build, and is any of this really sustainable, if it takes so much to maintain it? And who's going to do all of this, now and in the future?
It's these questions, and others, that lie under the cover of that catalog, in between the names of heirloom English cider apples and Japanese plums. I know I'm going to have to open it, in just a moment, and start coming up with some answers.
(Check's already written.)
Earlier today I was wondering if there was any chance I'd get my catalog from Saint Lawrence Nurseries in time to make an early order this year, having failed to do so last year. I spent hours researching varieties of cherries and pears, tied myself in knots over what kinds of plums I wanted (or could hope to grow), finally came up with a plan (for Year 1, mind you, with the intent of adding more in Years Following), wrote a fat check and put it in the mail (this is an old-fashioned family business) only to have it returned to me, because not a single one of those I'd asked for could be delivered. That was something of a what some people might call a disappointment, but which from now on I'm going to refer to as "a blessing in disguise (of a kick in the crotch)", which it probably was, because it was a challenging Spring even without a half dozen precious little trees to keep alive (on top of the other 200...). Anyway, lo and behold, look what arrived in the mail today!
Now, don't go rushing to conclusions and mistake that exclamation point for excitement... I just put it there because it was the only sensible way to end that sentence.
I have deeply mixed feelings about delving into the work of planning this season's plantings. The many changes in my life that took place during the past year have put a question mark at the end of nearly every aspect of my plans, hopes and dreams for my family's land. The idea of working on the five, ten, thirty, one-hundred year plan, of building orchards and berry patches, medicinal herb cultures, native habitat, better soil, better habits, a greenhouse or two, the summer kitchen, large-scale composting, irrigation systems, experiments in sustainability and permaculture, a haven for generations of families, ours among others... all of that has, for me, been put "on hold" rather indefinitely and, quite possibly, permanently.
It takes a lot of energy--both real and personal--to make an investment in a long-distance relationship with the land. True, it's not a long drive, but the distance between knowing and not knowing is vast. From here the very important details of the passage of each day cannot be known, gauged or understood. Is there dew on the garden at dawn? Will that leaf uncurl today, tonight, tomorrow? Is this herb sweeter in the morning or the evening, before or after the rain? Without this experience, how can I learn?
There is, also, and perhaps more pressingly, the problem of actually being physically present to do the work there is to be done, when it needs to happen. Spending an hour or two in the garden every day is a chore but also a pleasure, a meditation, a lesson. Spending 8 or 10 hours in a weekend can be exhausting, especially for those with fair skin and aging backs. Weekends are a gamble when it comes to weather, driving, and other obligations, needs, demands or desires. Beyond being present, there is being able. I am not as strong as I used to be (though I do hope to make gains) and my folks are getting on in years, despite their best intentions. It's one thing to take a broadfork to 2500 sf of soil, another to tend to dozens of fruit trees, another to turn the compost, another to weed, another to seed, another to harvest...
As I've written before, this work is a labor of love. The question for me is not, do I want to do this? but rather can I do this? or perhaps will this actually work? and is this important enough to do anyway, even if it doesn't? I have a home of my own, a large yard full of untapped potential and a very real and middle-aged need to focus some attention on my life's occupation, not to mention my sagging ass and my unpainted kitchen. Can I really afford to spend hundreds of dollars on plants and seeds and trees and gasoline in exchange for a few pounds of produce, and devote all my weekends to a place that I don't have the pleasure of even being able to enjoy, in my time and my way? What are we really trying to build, and is any of this really sustainable, if it takes so much to maintain it? And who's going to do all of this, now and in the future?
It's these questions, and others, that lie under the cover of that catalog, in between the names of heirloom English cider apples and Japanese plums. I know I'm going to have to open it, in just a moment, and start coming up with some answers.
(Check's already written.)
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Not Starting, but Beginning
Ah, ha ha. The sun's going down and I have totally blown another beautifully cold day in front of my computer... Yesterday I did that on purpose, mostly. Today I did it out of total and utter laziness, just to avoid all the other things I have not yet begun, limited to but not including: getting up early, doing yoga, painting the kitchen, sanding the bedroom, cleaning the something or other, repotting the plants, mending my sweater, buying a soup pot, making soup, learning how to use my camera, reading, cutting my hair, clipping my toenails, learning a thing or two, blah blah blah etc.
I did manage, however, to spend a pretty penny on a ticket to Paris. Not being much of a city- or people-person (or one particularly infatuated with European culture) I have to wonder what the hell I'm going to do there for three days on my own, much less seven more with my sister and her husband... Wander, check. Eat, check. Get lost, check. Look at stuff, check. Talk to myself, check. So how does this differ from what I'm already doing in my living room?
Actually I'm rather looking forward to going off on a little solo adventure, if only for a few days. I seem to recall enjoying the hell out of New York the last time I was there (albeit with my dear sister as steadfast companion) and wishing we'd had more time, so chances seem good that I'll find something to love about Paris. I guess if all those supposed masterpieces and obscene buildings get to be a drag I can always go find something unnameable to eat.
On another note entirely, I'd like to share a few thoughts about the past year, while they might still be timely.
A week or so ago it struck me that, for the better part of 2009, I diverted quite an enormous amount of my personal energy into, paradoxically, trying to divert my energy. I struck down my thoughts, drowned myself in doubt, belittled my heart, swallowed my voice (and perhaps my pride...), heckled my inner child, neglected (if not abused) my adult body and generally treated myself--and, I suppose, by attrition, others close to me--like crap. You may think I'm being too hard on myself here, and you may be right, but the truth is that I spent far more time working to tear myself apart than to get myself together (bearing in mind that, with any hope, one might follow the other...). Partly this was (like sitting around all day yesterday) intentional on my part, a rather childish attempt to avoid the difficult work in front of me which, ironically, was all that dragged me through last year. But this subjugation of my truer self began to take its toll, and it was just after the Solstice that I began to realize that I was not just losing steam, I was losing life energy, my chi, as if my whole person had been perforated. This was, for those of you familiar with the Tarot, the year I began to truly understand the meaning of the suit of Swords.
Perhaps most striking to me about all of this is that during this time I tried, again and again, in myriads of ways, to crush my senses. I didn't want to know the story that my breath told me, or feel the blood in my belly, hear a song in the grass or let my eyes rest on stars. I lost strength, I lost time, I lost my wilderness. There were moments, yes--some which I've shared with you here--but for so much of the year I toiled to stamp out the life inside of me, that I cannot help but wonder how much easier things might have been, how less strange to me, if I had made another choice.
I have no wish to dwell in regret, only to put this down here, now, so that I might continue on in a different way. The last time I read my cards there were Swords, many, but also hard-earned Coins and sweet, full Cups. In the promise of a new year, I offer you all this wisdom from The Medicine Woman's Roots and hope that you will take it to heart, in your own way. May we all come to our senses, sooner or later...truly.
Oh, yeah, and my car won't start, so it looks like I'm going to have to waste a whole 'nother day here tomorrow. Darn.
I did manage, however, to spend a pretty penny on a ticket to Paris. Not being much of a city- or people-person (or one particularly infatuated with European culture) I have to wonder what the hell I'm going to do there for three days on my own, much less seven more with my sister and her husband... Wander, check. Eat, check. Get lost, check. Look at stuff, check. Talk to myself, check. So how does this differ from what I'm already doing in my living room?
Actually I'm rather looking forward to going off on a little solo adventure, if only for a few days. I seem to recall enjoying the hell out of New York the last time I was there (albeit with my dear sister as steadfast companion) and wishing we'd had more time, so chances seem good that I'll find something to love about Paris. I guess if all those supposed masterpieces and obscene buildings get to be a drag I can always go find something unnameable to eat.
On another note entirely, I'd like to share a few thoughts about the past year, while they might still be timely.
A week or so ago it struck me that, for the better part of 2009, I diverted quite an enormous amount of my personal energy into, paradoxically, trying to divert my energy. I struck down my thoughts, drowned myself in doubt, belittled my heart, swallowed my voice (and perhaps my pride...), heckled my inner child, neglected (if not abused) my adult body and generally treated myself--and, I suppose, by attrition, others close to me--like crap. You may think I'm being too hard on myself here, and you may be right, but the truth is that I spent far more time working to tear myself apart than to get myself together (bearing in mind that, with any hope, one might follow the other...). Partly this was (like sitting around all day yesterday) intentional on my part, a rather childish attempt to avoid the difficult work in front of me which, ironically, was all that dragged me through last year. But this subjugation of my truer self began to take its toll, and it was just after the Solstice that I began to realize that I was not just losing steam, I was losing life energy, my chi, as if my whole person had been perforated. This was, for those of you familiar with the Tarot, the year I began to truly understand the meaning of the suit of Swords.
Perhaps most striking to me about all of this is that during this time I tried, again and again, in myriads of ways, to crush my senses. I didn't want to know the story that my breath told me, or feel the blood in my belly, hear a song in the grass or let my eyes rest on stars. I lost strength, I lost time, I lost my wilderness. There were moments, yes--some which I've shared with you here--but for so much of the year I toiled to stamp out the life inside of me, that I cannot help but wonder how much easier things might have been, how less strange to me, if I had made another choice.
I have no wish to dwell in regret, only to put this down here, now, so that I might continue on in a different way. The last time I read my cards there were Swords, many, but also hard-earned Coins and sweet, full Cups. In the promise of a new year, I offer you all this wisdom from The Medicine Woman's Roots and hope that you will take it to heart, in your own way. May we all come to our senses, sooner or later...truly.
Oh, yeah, and my car won't start, so it looks like I'm going to have to waste a whole 'nother day here tomorrow. Darn.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
On the Eve
In a moment today it hit me that this year is really over, and I'm still here, alive, and there's no way I can possibly even begin to try to describe just how very, very happy that makes me.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Magnificently Failing
Ah, my dears, Winter has arrived at last, and with it comes the return of light to those of us in Northern latitudes. I hope you have weathered this year's darkness with fortitude and resolve. It's not been an easy year for many of us, I know.
For my part, I can say only that despite my being blanketed by blessings over the past year, I could not have imagined it possible to shed so many tears. It has been a heart-rending, heart-mending time, graced by serendipity and circumstance, progress and setbacks. Lately it seems that the latter have overrun my senses, and I am aching with failure--to paint the kitchen, to bring my camera, to furnish my home, to speak my mind, to keep up with my work, to care for my family, to treat myself with kindness, to make the time, to listen, to love.
I am reading again, another beautiful story by Martin Prechtel. From it these words, among so many companions, have caught my heart in a whispering net of spiders' webs, smoke and flowering vines: that there may be nothing quite so beautiful as to be (as we so often are) magnificently failing in our attempts to live and to love each other. That the tears we shed will make their way, eventually, to the sea and the sky and back onto our cheeks as summer rain, or perfect snowflakes. Thus I can but hope to fail, again and again and again.
I don't typically go in for New Year's nostalgia or resolutions, but as tumultuous as the past year has been, and as harried as the past week has, and having spent the evening of the Solstice moving all of my belongings into the basement in anticipation of having my floors re-finished (and not in any act of conscious recognition of the annual or metaphorical transformation from dark to light), I feel compelled to spend at least a few hours in meditation in the coming days. The moon will be full--and blue, depending on one's feelings on that matter--on New Year's Eve. A moment, perhaps, then... I will be thinking of you. Peace.
For my part, I can say only that despite my being blanketed by blessings over the past year, I could not have imagined it possible to shed so many tears. It has been a heart-rending, heart-mending time, graced by serendipity and circumstance, progress and setbacks. Lately it seems that the latter have overrun my senses, and I am aching with failure--to paint the kitchen, to bring my camera, to furnish my home, to speak my mind, to keep up with my work, to care for my family, to treat myself with kindness, to make the time, to listen, to love.
I am reading again, another beautiful story by Martin Prechtel. From it these words, among so many companions, have caught my heart in a whispering net of spiders' webs, smoke and flowering vines: that there may be nothing quite so beautiful as to be (as we so often are) magnificently failing in our attempts to live and to love each other. That the tears we shed will make their way, eventually, to the sea and the sky and back onto our cheeks as summer rain, or perfect snowflakes. Thus I can but hope to fail, again and again and again.
I don't typically go in for New Year's nostalgia or resolutions, but as tumultuous as the past year has been, and as harried as the past week has, and having spent the evening of the Solstice moving all of my belongings into the basement in anticipation of having my floors re-finished (and not in any act of conscious recognition of the annual or metaphorical transformation from dark to light), I feel compelled to spend at least a few hours in meditation in the coming days. The moon will be full--and blue, depending on one's feelings on that matter--on New Year's Eve. A moment, perhaps, then... I will be thinking of you. Peace.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Wish I Were Here.
Hello dear readers,
How I've missed you. There's so much I'd like to catch up on but I'm still on hiatus, and it looks like it's going to be another couple of weeks before I'm reconnected. In the meantime, I send you this to ponder, with thanks to CM for the tip.
Hope to be back before the Solstice...
How I've missed you. There's so much I'd like to catch up on but I'm still on hiatus, and it looks like it's going to be another couple of weeks before I'm reconnected. In the meantime, I send you this to ponder, with thanks to CM for the tip.
Hope to be back before the Solstice...
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