Rest beside the weary road

. . . in the midst of winter, there is within me an invincible spring . . . (I can hear) the morning laughter of hummingbirds flitting among diamond dewdrops . . .

 First came the pioneers, lean, fierce, dirty.  They wrangle and battle with the elements.  They gamble on crops, chills, ague, rheumatism.  They fight wars and put a nation on the map. They battle with blizzards, lice, wolves.  They go on a fighting trail to break sod for unnumbered millions to come.  (Paraphrased from Carl Sandberg)

It is cold this morning, and as I gaze resentfully out the window over my morning coffee, I am reminded again of my Granny Smith, who came over from “the old country” around 1740, and about whom I have written here before, she being the one who died at age 100, when “a snake crawled in the house and bit her.”  I have advantages and luxuries undreamed of to her, the greatest of which I’m sure is leisure time.

And I sit here in my warm insulated house enjoying a cup of coffee and whining to myself about 10 degree temperatures.  What a wimp I am.  What a spirit our ancestors must have had, to be and do and create what they did.

10 degrees would likely have been the least of what she had to concern her on a bright but frigid March day.  Even my overly active imagination fails me when I try to enter into the experience of what her life must have been like, what all our forebears’ lives must have been like.

Without her, I would not be here today.  And while I long for her courage, and endurance, and creativity, it is given to me to live my life.  Right now, in this moment, not hers.  She rose to the incredible challenge of her time, probably without even having the time to reflect upon it.

And I pray for the same kind of indomitable spirit out of which to make the choices that are given to me.  To rise to the fullness of what my Path is.

 

“Then you call on the name of your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord, and  the God who answers by fire, He is God.”  And all the people said,  “That is a good idea.”  (1 Kings 18:24, The Bible)

We turn to God when our foundations are shaking, only to find that it is God who is shaking them.  (West)

There are some angels whose only job is to make sure we don’t get too comfortable, and fall asleep and miss our lives.  (Andreas)

As a teenage camp counselor at a small Christian camp in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I would sit entranced as, every Friday evening at the closing campfire service for that week of camp, we were visited by fire from heaven.

“Oh, Baal, hear us!”  the camp director, a huge Goliath of a man, would bellow through the dark mountain night, and there would not be a sound from the 100 campers and staff who sat on rough wooden benches around the campfire.  “Hear us and send fire!”

And of course, true to the story of Elijah in the Bible, the ole god Baal would let his followers down by not sending even a spark.  Then, according to the scriptures, the prophet Elijah wettened down the altar and demanded fire from heaven from the “true” God.  Every week, with perfect timing, as the director Uncle John demanded “fire from heaven” from God, a huge fireball would descend and with an explosion that would rock the benches on which the campers sat, the huge campfire would burst into flame.

Startling and dramatic to say the least.

As staff, we would have spent the day preparing for the fire by chopping and lugging in wood from the surrounding mountains to build the gigantic campfire.  The wood would then be saturated with oil, and a wire would be rigged up to a tree above.  In the tree, a rag saturated with oil would be placed, and at the precise place in Uncle John’s talk where he asked God to send fire, he would press a switch and an electrical charge would ignite the rag, which would then whiz down the wire and light the fire with a huge Ka-Boom.  

No matter how often I participated, I was always thrilled, and the gasps and screams and oohs and ahs of the campers were always satisfying, and worth every log we’d carried.

Now, almost sixty years later, I think with gratitude of all the times the Powers That Be lit a fire under my butt to wake me up and get me moving.  I was always startled, and often scared, but it always worked.

Apathy and lethargy are twin gods that can keep us stagnant, stuck, unconscious . . .  Baal-like, maybe. No movement there, not a spark.

Ah, to have the guts to request a little “heavenly fire” . . .

Take chances, make mistakes.  That’s how you grow.  Pain nourishes our courage.  You have to fail to practice being brave.  (Mary Tyler Moore)

While sitting in my tax person’s waiting room the other day, I happened upon a fascinating article in the USA Today, entitled Typos Can Be an Act of Feminism.  The thrust of the article was that women’s perfectionism, their need to get it right, was doing us in, causing undue stress and limiting our creativity.  The article went on to also applaud the edgy risk-taking of women today who are daring to suggest new ways of being, of having the guts to address issues about which they are not experts but for which they have definite intuitive (and often highly creative) solutions, of taking the risk to speak out in new ways and in arenas in which they have had little experience.  Without having to get it right or have all the answers or be “as good as” or better than . . .

Because we don’t need to do that, if we ever needed to.  

At first, I was distressed and frustrated — this was a dialogue we had when I came of age in the ’60s.  Surely we’d come further than that in the last five decades.  But then I realized this was also likely the same discussion our mothers and grandmothers of the ’20s and ’30s had, and theirs before that in the suffragette era of the very early twentieth century.  And theirs before that . . .

And every generation is a bit further along!  Good for us all, as individuals and as a society.  It can indeed be somewhat dismaying to feel like we’re having to reinvent the wheel — that what should be a simple reality has to be reasserted and reasserted.  It certainly speaks to how embedded certain ideas are in our collective mentality, and how those mind-sets get entangled with our personal psychologies.

As women, we all KNOW in our heads that we do not have to meet any external standard, or other person’s opinion about our being, our performance, our appearance, or our personhood beyond that of fulfilling objective contractual responsibilities —- but sometimes, and especially because we have been and are a part of what has been a highly patriarchal society and culture with some pretty definite institutionalized  ideas about who we oughta be, it takes our hearts a little longer to catch up.

It really is okay.  Mabe we can all be breve enuf to make mor typoes.

“It’s mine.  I built it.  You bump it down, I’ll be at the window with a rifle” . . .  “It’s not me.  There’s nothing I can do.  I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it” . . .  “Who gave you the orders?  I’ll go after him” . . .  “He got his orders from the bank” . . .  “There’s a president of the bank, a board of directors.  I’ll go after them” . . .  “The bank gets their orders from the East.  The orders were,  ‘Make the land show profit or we’ll close you up.’ ” . . . “But where does it stop?  Who can we shoot?  I don’t aim to starve to death before I kill the man that’s starving me”  . . .  “I don’t know.  Maybe there’s nobody to shoot.  Maybe the thing isn’t men at all.”  (John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath)

It was on a foggy day a little while later that the old woman sat thinking about The Cow Who Ate Eggs.  She often talked to herself, and on this day, she said,  “You know, I can’t get my mind off that Cow.  Do you think there’s anyway to help her?”

And Self, who often obliged by answering her, looked thoughtful, and agreed that it was of concern. “It is a problem because of the Farmer who owns the Cow.  And then of course there is the Land that owns the Farmer.”

“I wonder who owns the Land,”  mused the old woman, and Self became rather excited.

“Mon Dieu!  I think you have asked the Question that will solve the problem.  It is a Riddle.  Who owns the Land who owns the Farmer who owns The Cow Who Eats Eggs?”

“Maybe if we put all the pieces in a bag and mix them up, it would come out all right in the end,”  the old woman said, perhaps in jest.

“H’mm.  It’s worth a try,”  said Self, and they threw all the pieces in a bag and mixed them up, and then laid them out every which way.  And they studied and studied and studied the question until they grew quite tired of studying it.  Finally they had to stop puzzling over the riddle and have A Little Something, some bread and chocolate for the old woman, and just-bread-thank-you for Self.

After quite awhile, the old woman said,  “Self, I have to tell you something.  The only thing that is in my head is a picture of a large teat.”

And Self became very excited and lifted a few feet off the ground.  “That’s it!”  Self said.  “The missing piece, the Great Teat.”

“Self,”  the old woman said, looking down her nose a bit,  “when I was a little girl, it was a Bad Word for us to even say ‘teat.’  Maybe this conversation is deteriorating.”

Self looked at her as if she were a particularly peculiar bit of debris, then turned as if remembering that It was, after all, fond of her, even though. . .

“I shall explain it to you,”  Self said, rather patiently.  “The Great Teat Just Is.  It is available for the Land and The Farmer and the Cow to use for good or ill.  If the Land and the Farmer use it wisely, all is well.  If the Land is greedy, then so is the Farmer, the Great Teat reacts accordingly, the natural order of things is disturbed, and the Cow ends up confused.  So the Great Teat holds the potential for both good and ill in it, and all of Life has the potential to return either good or ill to it.  See, it’s a Circle!”

“Self,”  the old woman said,  “this may be very Profound.”

“Yes,”  Self returned,  “or Not.”

After they were tired of trying to decide if it was Profound or not, the old woman said,  “Have we solved the problem of how to help the confused Cow?”

But she found she was only talking to Self’s rump, as upended, It groomed a particularly delicate area on its bottom.

A fable is a short story, usually featuring animals, that conveys a moral or lesson.  Usually.   (Your Dictionary)

examples:  “Don’t expect a reward when serving the wicked.”    ” No act of kindness is ever wasted.”    “Slow and steady wins the race.”    ” What is history but a fable agreed upon?”    “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”    “It is easy to impose impossible remedies.”  (Aesop)

Once upon a time there was a cow who ate eggs.  She did not mean to eat eggs, and in fact did not even like eggs, but her cow-self had become quite bewildered and confused because the farmer who tended her was a greedy sort of fellow who demanded constant and continual motherhood of her so that he could become rich by selling her calves and milk.

The chickens and the geese and the guineas who lived in the cow’s barnyard were all in quite a flap about this danger to their eggs.  Of course, there were no Swans (as Swans never live in barnyards), who would have naturally known how to handle this cow.

So one day when there was a Gathering of all the birds in the barnyard, with even a few ravens perching in the trees to listen as well, the topic on everyone’s mind was What to Do about this Cow Who Ate Eggs.  How could they save their babies?  The danger to their precious young quite frightened them, or made them angry, but what was to be done?  After all, it was not the cow’s fault.  Perhaps they could approach the farmer with the problem.  But then they rolled their eyes knowingly, and agreed sadly that he was not one to be reasoned with.

Finally they agreed to consult the wisdom of the Swans who lived on the nearby lake, for none are known who are quite so ferocious at protecting their eggs and young as Swans.  And so a delegation of farmyard fowl was sent to the Swans, which of course was a Very Wise Thing to do.

After the Swans had listened to the tale of the Cow Who Ate Eggs, they looked with tolerant forbearance at the delegation of distraught and worried birds, and said,  “The answer is simple:  DO  NOT  PUT  YOUR EGGS  WITHIN  REACH  OF  CONFUSED  COWS.”

And so the problem was solved.  Sadly the cow still has her problem, but that is Another Story.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.  (Gandhi)

At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or what you’ve accomplished, it’s about what you’ve given back.  (Laymon Lantz)

 

. . . . it’s about how much you’ve loved.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

The child is in me still, and sometimes not so still.  (Mr. Rogers)

This land which has held, and nurtured, and sustained us for over 40 years, has again become a verb rather than a noun— as in, the land is landing, or doing whatever land does when it moves, changes, morphs . . .   With all the rain we have had, our sizable garden has become a swamp this winter, now more saucer-shaped than flat.  And my beloved and ancient Narnia-like light post now lists at a definite angle, kinda like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, even though it is still firmly embedded in the ground.  Makes one wonder how much more “landing” this land is gonna do.

My fantasy is that ole Eddie-the-Troll (from Finding Gold in Hidden Places, 12/29/17 — remember him?) has become a party animal, and the ground is rocking and rolling from his shenanigans, probably with his kitty cohorts.  And deep underground, on the stillest of nights, I can indeed hear the faint ring of raucous laughter and questionable music.

And Eddie had been the calmest and quietest of neighbors.  One just never knows.  Could be that he has been driven slightly bonkers by the drip-drip-dripping of continual rain leaking into his underground chambers.  Could be that he has been in therapy, and is attempting to integrate his inner child. Could be.

Or maybe he just got tired of the solitary life, and of spending most of his time chewing on old rock in the darkness, and decided to live a little.

If so, good for you, Eddie!  We all oughta take a page, or maybe even a chapter, from that book.

But one request, dear Eddie.  Could you maybe move a little bit downstream before we’re completely inundated, and slide off the map?

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the promise of spring’s arrival is enough . . .  (unknown)

Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.  (Pulitzer)

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.  (Larson)

When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems, except where to be happiest.  (Hemingway)

The weather has taken one of those wacky swings, and the birds are whispering secrets about spring.  The sunshine streaming through my windows has a decidedly different angle as the sun seemingly speeds northward along the mountain, picking up speed every day (and exposing astonishing quantities of winter cobwebs and dust-bunnies heretofore unseen).  And the spring-thaw-mud oozes almost up to the top of my clogs in the pasture.  Yay!  I’m ignoring a forecast that says it’s gonna turn colder again — right now I can sit out in the sun and soak it up and in.

While doing an internship year in New Orleans, I can remember the moment of falling in love with that city was sitting on a patio in February, and smelling the exquisite sweetness of the sweet olive trees. Blooming flowers in February!

Now I treasure each hint of “green” I see in the fields, and each tiny blade of a crocus emerging.  And I think of the masses of wild violets that will bloom down by the creek in a couple of months.  In July I will be swatting at pesky insects and wondering why I planted so many tomatoes, but now it’s all pleasure and hope.

I am speaking of the concrete reality of my delight in some lovely weather, but I am also speaking of life. And hope.  And choices about how we are with ourselves and each other, and with the world . . .  Choices that we can make that are life-giving . . .

So I will treasure this intimation of spring, and let it soak into my soul.  In this moment, like the birds, I feel like whispering about possibilities and new beginnings.

If Candlemas Day be fair and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.  (Old proverb)

Although the sun has not yet risen over the mountain, I’m seeing enough blue sky to bet that our old groundhog friend will see his shadow today, and be scared back into his burrow for a little more shut-eye (commonly referred to in shrink-circles as avoidance).    This particular bit of weather lore or superstition has always seemed backward to my way of thinking:  if the day is fair and clear and sunny, wouldn’t our groundhog-whistlepig friend wanna come out and frolic instead of being frightened back into his hole?  Is seeing his shadow really that big a deal??  BECAUSE, as all my devoted readers who have listened to me blather on at length about “shadow” know, 95% of that part of us that is lying neglected in the recesses of our lives is POSITiVE, right?!  Yes!  Most of that shadow stuff that you and our whistlepig friend are avoiding looking at is good stuff — just stuff that sometime, somewhere in your personal history you were told by maybe well-meaning family, friends, or teachers wasn’t “nice” or “right” or “proper.”

So now’s your chance — bring it out, look at it, and decide for yourself — stuff like honesty and authenticity, anger, assertiveness, putting yourself first once in a while, choosing to be confident, feeling good about who you are, warts and wounds and all . . .   A chance, finally, to be who you were truly created to be rather than who other people have wanted you to be so that life would be easier for them.

And what does our oh-so-strange Groundhog Day weather myth tell us? — if it’s cloudy, Mr. Groundhog won’t go back to sleep, and spring — warmth and growth and green growing things will return to the earth sooner!  Yeah.  So, acknowledging our warts and limitations and yes, our glory, might be a little discombobulating temporarily, but in the long run? . . .

As I look at the 16 degrees registering on the thermometer this morning, and my thoughts turn longingly to buying tomato and marigold plants, I know it’ll be worth it.

So — here’s to acknowledging our shadows, NOT being scared of them, and having a chance to lead deeper, fuller, richer lives.

Happy Groundhog Day, my friends.

 

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