Canada Saga 2008 September 28

"Stories move in circles...There are stories inside stories and stories between stories, and finding your way through them is as easy and as hard as finding your way home. (Deena Metzger)

 As we drove across the desolate landscape of southern Wyoming, brown where there was any vegetation at all, the tan dry dust blew an occasional tumbleweed across a grey interstate which blended in with the grey sky.  The road stretched relentlessly on, between bluffs, over ridges, around high curves with a panaroma of more of the same.  The occasional gopher popped up, there were range cattle, and a few horses marching fence lines, sharing grazing land with prong-horn antelope, and a coyote raced across the Interstate in front of us.  Whatever communities there were appeared far in the distance, isolated and purposeful - a single ranch home, nestled in a few trees, a convenience store to serve the interstate traffic, unidentifiable clusters of  buildings, their smoke stacks covered with red clay dust. 

We flew past one of these at mach-Audi speed, and I read the blurred road sign to Michael: "Solvay." It was one-word short-hand,  available in lengthy relationships where so many memories have been accumulated, and now serve as connections to our shared stories. He immediately smiled, and related a story: when he was a young boy, his father, worked at the Solvay plant in Baton Rouge, which was making soda ash out of chemicals.  He came home for dinner and told them that there was a place out in Wyoming where they were actually mining soda ash right out of the ground. Here we were, in another part of the story of time, driving through Wyoming and Michael's boyhood memory. His Dad was suddenly in the car with us.

Long unhurried road trips do this for us: they provide the time and the vistas that become movie screens for the projections and reflections of our mind.  We rarely listen to the radio, maybe some few select CD's along the way.  We watch Americana as surely as it could ever be described in a living dictionary, and marvel at the differences of the topography and the lifestyles, as well as the sameness of the human spirit in its universal desires for happiness, kindness, purpose in life, family and love.

Many of the CD's we bring for the trip were given to us by Brett, created from his own memories of songs played in the home when he was a child, as well as those selected by him from stories he's heard growing up over the years.  The others, songs I'm not familiar with, I listen to very carefully, because they were chosen by my child, and give me a glimpse into the man that he is. It is joyful to listen to them all because they, too, represent our stories, and this is a way that Precious Child can be a part of our journey as we tour across the wild cowboy West and he works in Manhattan.

On one particular day, the strains of "I Can See Clearly Now" fill the car, and tears suddenly fill my eyes.  As Brett knew when he recorded this, it is the song of my brother - the one he 'gave' me two days after he died.  Mostly these days I listen to it with a warm joy; but every now and then it catches me off-guard, and it's as if his death happened yesterday. In these moments the tears are close and overflowing, in the memory of my sweet brother, and in my heart's swelling that my child could touch me this way.  It's another gift of our shared stories - no explanations were needed now in the car when the song and the tears flowed together.  And suddenly David was in the car with us.

Before we got to Colorado Springs the car was filled with 60 years of living and 40 years of marriage, memories, family, extended family and friends.  Then suddenly John Denver's mellifluous voice sang the grace of our early Colorado years as the front range of the Rockies came into view: "He was born in the summer of his 27th year, going home to a place he'd never been before...Rocky Mountain High."  There  we were: the young couple, just married, traveling cross-country to their new lives, new home, new child, all of the possibilities of life stretching out in front of them like these endless rolling highways.  How could it have been 33 years ago when it all happened yesterday?  The child who wasn't born then had gifted us now with this CD of song, piercingly bittersweet awareness of how quickly it all becomes memory, and story.

"Stories inside stories," are shared with those who have been a part of ours.  We stayed in Colorado Springs with our friends from those early Colorado years, who have a place next to ours in Canada.  They are the reason we are in Qualicum Beach at all, and summer after summer we continue to share our lives and experiences.  They have just returned from a cruise which included visits to Pompeii and Ephasus, and report that they feel very very small after visiting ruins and walking in chariot tracks frozen thousands of years ago.

Part of our finding our way home each year, on these long driving trips, is to remember that our place in time is not frozen at all. It is as changing as the scenery along the road, and is a part of a moving, living, vibrant Love.  Brett and Stephanie are living the story that we lived, as our parents lived it before us, and generations upon generations before them. The sweet joys and pains of life, the desires for suffering to cease and happiness to fill our lives, are common to those we know, and those we have yet to meet.

"Part of our finding is the getting lost,"  Deena Metzger continues in her wonderful quote about stories, "and when you're lost, you start to listen."  When we listen to each other, we realize that the stories are not OUR stories, but THE story - ever unfolding, through our children, our nieces and nephews, into and through the next generations.  "In the silence of listening, "Rachel Naomi Remen says, " you can know yourself in everyone, the Unseen singing softly to itself and to you," the Word made manifest in the lyrics of living.

We sing along with the Unseen.  Ultimately we bring our songs and stories to each other, songs and stories of challenge and wonder and awe and miracle. As we make our way back and to the building of our new home, we don't know what the winter holds, or where we will be next summer.   Whatever unfolds, there will be stories. 

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 September 21

"All around, in every direction: Holy of Holies." (Ez 45:1)

 

Last week a friend was talking about his 100-year old mother, who passed years ago.  This friend is now 87 years old, and is in that sacred state of reflection that is given to those who have survived, thrived, remained open and are now unwitting mentors for so many of us.  He visits his wife daily in the Alzheimer's unit of a local skilled nursing facility, and he himself has just been diagnosed with lung cancer, a condition he was determined not to 'fight,' but to experience as his next life-challenge.

 

He said that his mother had given him a gift, a wonderful metaphor for looking at life.  It's like a funnel as you get older, she told him.  If you think of your early years as the large side, your vision narrows as you get older.  But if you think of your earlier time as the narrow side, then your vision widens as you get older - you have the capacity to see things with the larger wisdom of your learning, and life gets more expansive.  He said she 'lived life' until she died, and he wanted to do the same, even with his cancer. 

 

Another widowed friend and neighbor, who has macular degeneration and is slowly losing more and more of her eyesight, has just torn the rotator cuff in her shoulder.  She already depends on friends for many things; she invites us in with joy, not a sense of neediness, and remains active with her philosophy course, her daily walks, her unbridled inquisitiveness about the adventure of life.   Whenever I ask her to do something (go for a ride for an ice cream cone, go to a drumming circle), her enthusiasm is infectious.  She tells me she collapses into bed each night in a state of weary happiness with two words: "Thank you."  She sees her vision problem as a huge blessing, because it has offered her a different way of seeing (no pun intended) the events and people in her life. 

 

As I walked along the beach at the Tin Wis (Calm Water) resort near Tofino on the West side of the island, the rush of the ocean was a chorus for the lyrical reflections of the summer, for all of these souls that had been a part of its grace.  They embody the adage that when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. Perhaps the same is true of hearing. Michael stood on the balcony of our room, and as I walked towards him, the urgency and intensity of the pounding surf shifted and became more muted.  The individual waves became blended in a harmony that embraced the whole shoreline. I thought our prayers are like that: powerful in proximity to awakened Presence, and an undercurrent through our days thereafter.  The waves, like the memories of the summer, rolled in, ran along the shore, escaped back to sea or evaporated.  To the percussion of the surf, the thoughts ebbed and flowed, memories of the now-ending summer with its life passages of our son's wedding, the taking down of our precious house, and now the rebuilding of our new home. 

 

We drove over the mountains in their bubble-bath of clouds back towards Qualicum, and a weekend of planning and packing for our drive home on Tuesday.  I knew once he returned, Michael would be anxious to get on the road, and he is.  It is always bittersweet for me; as much as I look forward to being with family and friends and our lives in Louisiana, I miss being up here with the cool clear air, the mountains available for a glance at any given moment, the tumultuous or breathlessly calm water, the friends and neighbors who have been so kind.

 

One day while Michael was back in Louisiana, I took the ferry over to Hornby Island for a walk in the park, because Hornby is one of those "merge" places for me,  where the aboriginals tell us that nature, mankind and spirit dwell in balance.  Each time we go, we drive past the cemetery on our way across the island.  There is something about cemeteries, and the stories they tell, that intrigue me.  Since Hornby has its own eccentricity - even the sign for the ferry landing is whimsical and unorthodox - the cemetery must have a story to tell.  So I wandered through the gravesites, haphazard as they were, placed here and there with no order.  There was an old rusted-out bike leaning against a tree with beads and a placard on it; there was driftwood for headstones, and seashells and shore rocks as markers.  The Blessed Mother stood near the Buddha, and rocks were painted like lady-bugs on the burial sites of children.  As I turned to walk out, I noticed one last epitaph that made me smile, the way Hornby always does.  It was an elderly man by the name of Joe, and it read simply, "Gone to find out for myself."

 

That's what our travels and our lives are all about, really. We explore. We reflect.  If we're fortunate, we survive, we thrive, we remain open and perhaps become one of those unwitting mentors, like my 87 year old friend.  As we age, we look through that funnel and into the fullness of our lives. We realize that all around us, in every direction, we live in the Holy of Holies.

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 September 17

 "And though I oft have passed them by, A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the moon, East of the sun" (Tolkien)

 

The harvest moon has been hanging around in the morning, posing just above the forest clearings in the pre-dawn sky.  With this in mind, I decided to get up very early and walk with my camera.  The entrance to Rathtrevor is dark, surrounded by the thick tall imposing trees that make it so inviting, although a bit eerie at this hour in September.  Everything in me was calling out for more sleep.  It was dark, chilly, EARLY, but Michael was arriving in the afternoon, and there were errands to run, healthy food to buy, ice cream cartons to dispose of and empty pizza boxes to hide.

 

So I made my way into the park and through the shadows on the narrow path out to the ocean.  The deep silence of the woods had me listening intently to the lack of bird calls, the softness of a barely rippling rising tide, and the quiet of a windless morning.  All of the show was in the sky to the East, with its ever-changing palette of sunrise glory.  The only other presence was a sea lion playing about 20 yards away, occasionally blowing before he dove under the calm waters for food.

 

When I was finally in a position to take a photograph of a fuzzy moon, veiled by incoming clouds and framed by two magnificent red cedars, the battery in my camera died.  So I walked on, in ecstasy at the scene unfolding over the water. Finally, a bright red sun scattered the dark clouds and laid a path to my feet as a flock of Canada Geese flew low above the sea, with their gently beating wings.  I was walking on air.

 

On my return to the car, I spied the tiny pine tree that I had been meaning to visit all summer.  There were shiny objects dangling from her branches but the tree was barely visible at the edge of the water, and on the other side of a split-rail fence placed to protect the fragile vegetation alongside the trail.  The deer had trod a path through the now high fall-yellow grass, a path previously hidden from view.  I suddenly decided that this was the morning I'd follow it.

 

As I approached the tree, I saw small laminated pictures hanging, dangling in the wind, catching the light of the rising sun.  The emerald green needles of the tree were soft to the touch, and after turning two or three of the pictures around, it was clear they were all of children, some toddlers, some young adults, all with Christmas stickers on them - and dates.  Then I noticed the long typed card toward the back of the tree, read the first line, and felt chills of connection, awe, reverence, and mystery.  I thought immediately of my elderly gentleman friend from Sunday, and the saga I had just written that had brought pain and reflections from many of you, each with your own story of children lost to mental illness, estrangement or death.  "In Memory of Missing Children," it said. 

 

I read the whole card, touched each of the pictures with the innocent and smiling faces.  Some hadn't been sealed properly, and these ghostly images of indiscernible features looked out past happy snowman stickers. The tree itself, barely taller than the grasses that now surrounded her, sat on a small rise facing the beauty of the ocean, and the wrath and fury of the seasonal storms.  

 

The memorial card went on: "Early in every morn' when the sun lights the rooms of this house, you are here.  Here inside pictures on the wall - here in the silence of memories. Your movements are felt inside of us, and we reach out to find you against grey walls, sensing your smile all around us when thinking your name...You are lost to us, but not far from the single quiet whisper of hope, nor from the eyes of the angels and hearts of those who will come to the silent waves, in wait of light's flicker, watching from the shore.  You are not alone."

 

"Missing;" "Died;" "Lost:"  all of the words are just an emotional thesaurus for 'grief.'

As I turned to walk away, I cried.  So much pain in the midst of such beauty.  Shortly before, I had been marveling at the exquisite lacing of light over Mistaken Island at sunrise, and now, I was in tears at the exquisitely piercing pain in the world, and the strangely gentle sense that had guided me to this tree on this morning.

 

When Sister Macrina Wiederkehr said that "Every tree is full of angels," she was surely talking about this one, representing the joys of birth and childhood, and the pains of loss.  The synchronicity of finding this tree at this time, by following this hidden path 'West of the moon, East of the sun,' experiencing the elation of the morning with this indelible sorrow - all of it becomes the dance of the mystery of life.  The world had once again given its gift of unspeakable beauty, accompanied by incomprehensible pain.  They are both part of our experience.  I thought of the words Brett and Stephanie chose in their vows of committed love to each other,  "through the best and the worst of what is to come," and the sincerity and generosity of the love that makes such a promise.  It's one, that we could make each morning to life itself, as we follow our own hidden paths.

 

After a long three weeks apart, Michael arrived back home safely this evening.  We enjoyed a lovely dinner at our favorite restaurant, The Final Approach at the airport, where the chef has a Louisiana heritage and a mean pecan pie.  When we got back home, we walked slowly out to the water, with the sense now of the unseen presences of those who "come to the silent waves, in wait of light's flicker, watching from the shore." The tide had returned, the shorebirds were busily and noisily having their own meal, and the day ended as it had begun - in beauty and unspeakable peace.

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 September 16

"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in." ( Leonard Cohen)

 

There is a different feel to the air now, although the sun shines as brightly as it has all summer.  The cooler nights, finally lengthening into earlier sunsets and later sunrises, give way to crisp chilly mornings, sweatshirts and long pants.   This morning, as I drove towards Rathtrevor forest at dawn, I saw pale rose and yellow in a sky that backlit the tall cedars and the arbutus and maples, every leaf and needle etched in relief.  There is so much beauty in the mystical glow; my eyes wandered heaven-ward, even as I watched for deer and rabbits along the road.  In my rear-view mirror an incredibly full moon hovered above the road in the darkness still to the West.  For such brief moments, when I'm alone in this sacred place and time, I think of Thomas Merton's counsel that we should keep our "daily appointment with mystery."  In being faithful to those appointments, we encounter Mystery itself. 

 

Yesterday morning, on the path into the park, I met an elderly gentleman whom I had spoken with back in July.  At that time, he was looking forward to his 89th birthday, two days after Brett's marriage.  I wished him a belated happy birthday, and he invited me to have a cup of coffee with him at the local A & W after my walk. 

 

As we shared our coffee and our stories, and time passed, I found myself in that space where common-place words continue to flow, even as a heightened energy builds, a sense that something larger is imminent. It happens sometimes when we linger on the phone or in casual conversation, all business having been taken care of and all plans made. We linger with a feeling that there is something else.  And if the talk goes on a big longer, it happens: a synchronicity, a miracle, a wonder, an answer received or a wisdom revealed seemingly from nowhere.  Most times we are in too much of a rush to allow this natural process, which requires time and patience and awareness, to emerge.  We hurry our calls to return to our tasks, and we lose the rhythm of grace.  We have forgotten how to listen with all of our senses.

 

My new friend remembered that my son had gotten married, and we talked about the wedding.  I asked if he had children.  He looked down, then away, then directly at me. He had two sons, he said.  One was struck by a car and killed at the age of 12, just 12 days before Christmas.  The other had visited he and his now-deceased wife one evening back in 1984, walked out of the door, and was never heard from again. 

 

When I think about his tone and his words and the moment, it seems that everything else in the restaurant had stopped.  I'm sure there were voices and sounds and movement, but for me there was only stillness and the depth of pain and grief in his pale blue eyes.  "I was a church-goer," he continued, "and a scout leader, and I think I did right by my sons."  An ever-so-subtle tone of doubt crept into his words.  "But I hate the holidays now, and I haven't stepped foot into a church since."

 

He said this last in a challenging way, scrutinizing my face, I guess, for some form of judgment.  But I found myself telling him, instead, about the  woman I met, owner of a B&B in the wine country of California, six months after my brother was murdered.  She had a beautiful picture of her three cotton-topped, blue-eyed boys on her piano, and when she found out about David, she quietly shared with me that her youngest son disappeared without a trace at the age of 17, only 18 months earlier.  She told me then, though I didn't tell this grieving father, that her faith was the only thing that sustained her.

 

As I told him the story, he looked almost relieved. His sorrow, his personal guilt and agony were now shared with that mother who would never know the blessing she was giving thirteen years after divulging her own incomprehensible pain.  He had the same questions about her missing son as I had about his: was there conflict beforehand; was foul play considered; were there any signs of discontent?  We speak of mystery, of wanting to know answers, but confusion and chaos appear in our lives more often.  We are closer to God when we ask questions, Rabbi Heschel said, than when we get answers.

 

Then I told him that I didn't know so much that it was about going to Church as it was about knowing that we are part of something larger than just the events in our lives.  He was quiet; he nodded.  I don't know if it was in agreement, or just in acknowledging that this part of our talking was over.  His quick smile returned, and he told me had to leave to pack and get ready for the 5:15 ferry the next morning.  He was traveling to Dawson City in the Yukon territories because he had read a lot about it, had always wanted to visit there, and felt he was running out of time.  He laughed, and said he was hoping to make it to his 90th birthday next July.

 

Later that day, I read: "Our practice is not to clear up the mystery.  It is to make the mystery clear." (Robert Aitken Roshi) We do that by showing up for our daily appointments with it.  We do that by sharing the cracks in our own lives, never knowing when doing so will shine light into the life of another, even 13 years later, even people we will never know.  Sometimes these turn out to be perfect offerings after all.

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 July 31

"Deep peace of the Running Wave To You" (Gaelic Blessing)

All waves are all like that in the end, having spent their fury or their gentle ripple, returning to a Shore that has been awaiting them for eternity. The froth of  passion breaking on rocks; the joyous whitecaps skittering in dance to the music of a playful blow; the swells rolling mournfully to the dirge of a howling wind; a lifetime of surges, bellows, storms, sweet calm:  the undercurrent of peace passes through the ocean of life below them all.

Each person who joined us during the wedding week came with their own lifetime of rolling waves, storms, joys and calm.  Looking around the sea of faces at the wedding and reception, I saw the stories of us all - and the hopes for love and happiness that everyone held in their hearts for Brett and Stephanie.  No doubt some were reliving their own experiences, as Michael and I remembered our own ceremony those short 40 years ago, and the adventures - and misadventures - of our precious child in his growing.  "Is this the little boy I carried?  Is this the little girl at play?  I don't remember growing older; when did they?"  Brett and Stephanie's grandparents once stood as lovingly committed to each other a blink-of-an-eye ago, then stood at some time each cradling one of these precious children in infancy,  and stood with us now, on this lovely rise above Lopez Sound, their unseen presence embracing their progeny with that same love.

Family and friends gathered from afar on tiny Lopez Island, coming from England and Scotland and points North, South, East and West in North America, a delightful array of peerage and peers and Presences of love, joy and support.  Michael's sister and husband drove their grand-daughters from Baton Rouge, through what will be memories for a lifetime for these two small girls.  Lady Jane and Paul flew from England, and one of Brett's groom 'chicas' came from her acting gig in Scotland.  So many came from so far to stand together and witness the vows, spoken by the bride and groom, but echoed in the hearts of all who were there.

There are details of the week to write about, too many for a short summer Saga.  From the initial casual dinner on Sunday where two families first merged, to the wedding on Friday where two young people emerged as one couple committed in love before family and friends, there were activities and adventures non-stop.  Hiking, seal-watching, eagle-spotting, boat rides, a mid-week multi-family co-mingling barbecue, mini-family gatherings and a few rare moments of chill-time made the week go by quickly.  The extra events gave us all time to meet and greet the people who will be part of Brett and Stephanie's lives together, to put faces with the names of the stories we've heard over the years, to learn more of who these young people are by meeting those who have helped shape their lives.

Stephanie and Brett set the tone for the joy, love and friendship of the week by seeming to be everywhere at once, totally at ease with each other and the dual families that delighted in their attention.  "Team work," Brett said at one point, as they split up and worked the crowded deck of the barbecue.  We watched the team-work as the incredible efforts of their friends got the tent put up, the dance floor set, the lights strung, the lanterns hung, the luminaries set out and lit, and turned this magical spot on Lopez into a wedding wonderland.  On cue, a sailboat anchored in the Sound below us and the sun came out mid-afternoon, glittering the water and spreading a blanket of light over the setting to the gentle chords of "Simple Gifts," played by Brett's aunt and his 12 year old cousin.

"Tis a gift to be simple; tis a gift to be free, 'tis the gift to come down where we ought to be...and when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'Twill be in the valley of love and delight."  The lyrics, unsung,  hung softly in the air. 

So much work had gone into creating this moment.  Stephanie and Brett's vision had become the perfect reality, with the tremendous help of her parents and their willingness and joy in turning over their home to all of us.  The gardens glowed with multi-hued flowers; the tables sparkled with their white tablecloths and perfect place-settings, and an air of holy festivity settled on the gathering in the cool afternoon.

As we sat quietly, each with our own thoughts and emotions, we all said "I do," by our simple Presence.  "I do" to the love of family, and the commitment to support this new fledgling flame of promised love;  "I do" to the hopes, not just of this wedding on this day, but to the eternal quest for the freedom of leaving self behind and becoming One;  "I do" to the endurance of travels and travails throughout our lifetime of faith in partnership with each other;  "I do", in the acknowledgement that, like the waves, we do not dwell long individually, but forever enter the deeper mystery of Union;  "I do," ultimately, to life, with all of its awes and woes and wonders.

To my darling son and new daughter-in-love: I see you holding hands above Lopez Sound, the brilliance of the afternoon a pale reflection of the glow on your faces, the tears in your eyes, Brett, matching my own.  Life is like this: you will never know the joy you gave, as it was hopefully given to you;  you will never know the example you set, as it was hopefully set for you;  you will never completely understand the love that rippled out from your quiet exchange of vows, love, gentle affection and sweet laughter.  What we do know is that it is the Oneness, larger than any two. 

"Deep peace of the Flowing Air to you;

 Deep peace of the Quiet Earth to you;

 Deep peace of the Shining Stars to you;

 Deep peace of the Gentle Night to you;

 Moon and Stars pour their healing light on you;

 Deep peace to you..."

I love you both.

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 July 7

"There is always some mysterious wind, shaking the tapestry that veils the mysteries of life.  This wind can lift that tapestry.  It can lift you...and carry your soul across the sky.  Where does it come from, this wind?  And where does it go?"  (Tom Cowan)

Weddings, of course, create their own tapestry in this lovely mystery of life.  Michael and I have spent the last weekend on Lopez Island, mostly just enjoying the generous hospitality of Stephanie's parents, Bruce and Marcia, while tending to some details surrounding the July 25th event. 

It was also, of course, a time to get to know these people who will be such a significant part of the lives of Brett and Stephanie as they create a future together. They have done an incredible amount of work to make sure that the setting is idyllic, the garden colorful, that everyone will be comfortable and the wedding itself memorable for all of us. The whole gift is tied up and laced with the colorful strands of the love of parents for their daughter. 

Bruce set his crab pot for the first time this season, and treated us to some steamed dungenesse crab Saturday evening, as we opened champagne and toasted the new direction in the lives of our children.  We figured that between the two couples, Brett and Stephanie have 73 years of experience to draw on in their own adventure, and there was a moment of freedom in the realization that a part of our own journey was coming to a close, as a new moment in theirs was opening.

In the overcast evening that followed, we watched out over the edge of the lawn where the wedding will take place, as a rainbow-sliver touched one of the distant islands across the water. The sliver grew into a stunning huge arc of color, as a misty double appeared behind it, the new outshining the old.  In the moments that followed, the setting sun Van-Goghed another small island with a glowing soft orange, kindling for night dreams.  

The following morning, I sat outside on the now-quiet deck, overlooking the sloping lawn that in less than 3 weeks will be crowded with family, friends and loved-ones.  The only sounds now, though, were herons, song-birds,the occasional hummingbird drawn to the English-cottage garden that Marcia has been so lovingly-tending, and the sputtering motor of a lone fishing boat as it moved through the channels between the islands.  Bubble-wrap clouds enfolded the precious treasure of this priceless morning.  Soon Abbey and Cody, the family labs, would come bounding out to greet me with their infectious joy, welcoming me with unconditional love into their world. 

But for the moment, I was left with a mother's reflections and memories and anticipations.  Years ago, before other life events colored my own tapestry, I might have been more inclined to wonder along worry-lines: have we done everything to prepare Brett for this next leap into adulthood? will Stephanie realize how much we love her and be comfortable in our family? what will the future hold for these two? will they be alright?   But earth-time is a wonderful thing, and as much pain as we have endured to get to this place, we now realize that events will unfold for them, as they have for us: perfectly.  There will be moments of pure love and joy, moments of boredom, moments of deep sorrow and pain, moments where love will be tested and strengthened.  Through all of this, they will be companions. 

And in the midst of these ruminations, a mother turkey and her two young ones wandered through the yard, grazing warily, aware of my presence but not frightened enough to change their course.  They were comical to watch, with their awkward neck-straining and jerky movements, so unlike the eagles we had watched from the charming Bay Cafe the night before, gliding over the water with fish in their talons, at home and at ease in their element.   I'm sure there are metaphors here for life and marriage with their turkey and eagle moments.  For now,  I'll only say that there will be times for both, and each will have its place.

Through them all, we are as real as a breath in the wind of God, walking through this Psalm of life. In the midst of the old growth forest of this part of the world, craning my neck to watch the filtered light as it drops softly around me, the spiritual teachings of the saints and mystics who have walked this holy earth before us arise like the tall cedars and redwoods.  I feel like the tiny fern snuggled at the roots of the trees, gently responding to an imperceptible movement in the air.  "Where does it come from, this wind?  And where does it go?"

It sweeps along, generation to generation, through commitments of loving ritual.  Those who provide us with opportunities to witness their own passage into this love remind us of the ever-renewing love in our own lives. They give us a window down through past generations of ancestors who stand beside them now and repeat ancient vows through our words.  And if, as Henry Vaughan says, each oak and bush doth know I AM, then surely each word spoken in this setting of Love, carries that great I AM, radiant, out into the world. This is the Love that lifts the tapestry and carries our souls across the sky.  It brings us double-rainbows at dusk and grazing turkeys at dawn, and weaves all of our loves in patterns we cannot see this side of heaven. 

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 June 26

"The world is holy.  We are holy.  All life is holy.  Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves." (Terry Tempest Williams)

 

Michael has a picture on the computer desk here.  It is my first encounter with the Pacific Ocean, back in the early 90's.   I am standing on the typical Northern California 'beach',  its gravelly dark rock  and foaming surf at my feet, grey skies overhead, and pasture land and LA 1 behind me.  I'm a very small part of the photo, which was obviously taken from a distance, and the whole scene sums up our relationship with the magnificence of Nature and her gifts.  With the entire ocean at my feet, I am standing with binoculars, looking off into the distance for ????  How could anything be more than what I am already being offered in that moment on that spot?  Why am I looking 'through a glass darkly,' as St. Paul says, adjusting a lens that is constantly out-of-focus, straining to see more, when the graces are whispering at my feet?

 

For the first time this summer, it was sunny and warm enough to walk the beach here, and every step was a journey and a Saga unto itself.  Each smooth rock called for the attention it deserved as divine creation.  I am fascinated with the tiny white crab scurrying sideways and burying itself in sand perfectly sculpted with the tide's artistry.  A mother and her two little girls strolled along at vacation pace, poking feet into tiny holes and squealing with the cold water of the buried clams' geysers.  We were the only ones on the beach, and other than their laughter, the noise was all Nature.

 

To my chanted "Om," the 'amen' of universal Oneness, the gentle surf responded with a soft gurgling 'shanti,' the peace of Sanskrit, the oldest language in the world.  I wasn't walking alone; we never are, but sometimes it's more available for us to sense a Presence that is always waiting to be found...in the next beat of the eagle's wing, in the next murmur - or roar - of the surf, in the next phone call or encounter with a loved one. And we, with our 'binoculars,' stand instead looking into the distance for a future moment of happiness or a past experience of pleasure, while the great "I AM" softly cloaks us with mystery and wonder.

 

On a prayer-walk in Rathtrevor yesterday morning, as the path meandered out of the dark forest and up towards the water, a movement caught my attention.  Standing about 30 feet from me on the edge of the clearing was a two-point buck, silhouetted by the old growth cedars and a rising sun.  We watched each other quietly, his velvet antlers at attention, each muscle in his lean body tensed, ready to bolt if necessary.  As I talked softly to him, he began to walk with the ease and fluidity of an animal in its element, total grace in motion.  He came towards me for another 10 feet, then disappeared onto a mostly invisible trail,  swallowed by the shadows in the cool woods.  He may as well have stepped into another dimension.

 

When the buck appeared, it startled me from praying for the recently deceased father of my sister-in-law, and for her family. It reminded me that the rituals of our traditional faith arise in such moments, and the Psalm (42?) rose spontaneously within: "As the deer thirsts for the running water, so my soul thirsts for you, Oh my God."  A loving Creator has placed puzzle pieces along the way, offering little hints that the world IS holy, even in grief,  and we, especially in those moments, carry the pieces for each other.

 

We had a lovely week while Michael was here, enjoying the cold rainy weather (me), catching up on some reading (him), and hiking our favorite trail on Hornby Island.  We even got to take in the colorful Farmer's Market on Salt Spring Island, he got to hit a few buckets of golf balls, and we attended a wonderful performance of South Pacific down in Chemainus with our dear friends, Gordon and Carrol.  Michael comes alive in Gordon's presence the way we do when someone has seen our inner essence, and holds the space for us to be our best.  As I teared-up hugging  Carrol, the events of the last year came flooding back, with the knowledge that this very safe friend understood.  I know it was healing for both of us to be with them.

 

Michael has since returned to Louisiana, and calls regularly, mostly to tell me that it's very very hot in Louisiana.  He is working, visiting with family and looking forward to the next phase of our summer, the wedding.  No sooner will he get back than we'll be off to Lopez and Orcas Island to make a few arrangements for the event.  Our friends from Colorado will be here soon after we return from the San Juans, and then we travel again to Lopez,  to take on our next roles in life: in-laws.  When I look at Stephanie, though, and think of introductions in the future, I hear myself calling her my 'daughter-in-love,' because it seems that's how she's entering the sanctuary of our family.  It is already a blessed summer.

 

For now, I'm enjoying the luxury of early morning encounters with heaven-on-earth, the genteel ways of our little community, playing in the garden, wondering at the holiness all around, and listening to the grace of the ever-present Om, Shanti.

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 June 15

"Anything, everything, little or big, becomes an adventure when the right person shares it." (Kathleen Norris)

 

When he was about 8 years old, Brett and his Dad went out on a little pier on the water in the State Park at Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Michael was going to teach him how to fish, figuring the evening was long, we had all the time in the world, and Brett might learn a bit about patience.  Michael baited Brett's hook, cast his line into the water, and gave the rod to Brett.  No sooner had Michael turned to prepare his own pole than Brett yelled with surprise: he had his first fish.  For the next hour, each time the bait hit the water, Brett had a bite.  The catch was small, and released immediately, but he had a great time.  The next day, they again went out to the pier.  After five minutes of fishing with no bites, Brett was bored.  It was a long time before he went fishing again. 

 

That memory came back to me as Michael described their trip through the Tetons and Yellowstone, where in one day they watched a magnificent sunset over the freshly snow-packed Tetons from Jackson Lake Lodge, then encountered a wolf on the side of the road, a grizzly and black bear in battle, a stampede by a herd of bison, two spectacular water falls, and Old Faithful doing her thing.  So much magic and wonder were packed into such a short time period, when the beauty and mysticism of nature are equally stunning in small quiet nuances. 

 

In her wonderful book, High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver says: "A great many people will live out their days without ever seeing such sights, or if they do, never gasping. My parents taught me this - to gasp, and feel lucky.  They gave me the gift of making mountains out of nature's exquisite molehills. " I could hear in Michael's tone his sense of wonder and appreciation, and I was grateful to my own Dad who taught his love of the outdoors by example, just as Michael was teaching Brett.  If Brett grows to 'gasp and feel lucky,' we will have accomplished much as parents.

 

As it was, Brett tells me he learned a lot about his father on the trip, and a lot about himself that he needed to learn.  He has reached the age and stage in life where he wants to know some of the history that makes him the man he is today.  He asked questions about us as a couple in relationship for 40 years and about his father's reflections and challenges in life.  There is no better school room than an enclosed car for six days, and the journey had its ups and downs, geographically as well as emotionally.  It is clear that the experience deepened both of them, and the timing was perfect as he embarks on this next life-changing phase. 

 

Michael told me, with obvious pleasure, that as soon as Brett knew that Stephanie would meet them in Seattle to accompany Brett back to New York, Brett's whole focus and energy changed to one of anticipation.  The past and the future are merging, the man gleaning from the father the commitments, the loyalties, the responsibilities of being the loving husband.  I just still can't believe that they survived all of this without me.

 

Michael 'surprised' me by arriving very late Saturday night instead of Sunday morning, but I suspected he would, and had his welcome card out waiting for him.  We spent a lazy day Sunday at the annual Show-And-Shine Father's Day car extravaganza in downtown Qualicum, on a spectacularly sunny day - the first of the summer.  It's amazing how quickly we adapt to the pace and joy of being here.  We spent an hour by the water yesterday evening, again counting our blessings, perhaps a bit more deeply this year, and enjoying the beauty all around us.

 

The day before Michael arrived I had finally made it over to the Heritage Forest to walk and pray.  I had forgotten how deeply peaceful it was, and as I entered thought immediately of Frost's poem: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep."  And cool.  And soft with its mulch trail and filtered light.  It was the grace of the sweet release of deep breathing, when every muscle in the body relaxes, and there is no other place to be.  In the soothing quiet, prayers came easily for my sister-in-law's family, grieving the loss of her father who would be buried the day before Father's Day, and for others who are in varying stages of healing, joy and gratitude.  There was a bench in the center of the park and I had my own little moment of delight as I read the plaque: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep," it read, and continued, "but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep."

 

Then I heard them: the white ravens, twins born a few weeks ago with three other black siblings.  They were playing and cavorting, calling with their rich thick voices, exploring tree trunks and flitting about a clearing on the side of the forest.  Since they have blue eyes, they are not albino, but ravens with a "genetic defect."  What a funny term for a miracle.  They are a text divinely written about one of nature's 'exquisite molehills.'

 

Now that I have the right person to share it with, I'm hoping they'll play again in the forest tomorrow for Michael, and we can gasp - and feel lucky - together.

YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2008 - June 6

"In the most sacred places, we do not perceive spirits, but only the silence of the Great Mystery.  We go to those places to touch the deepest wisdom and to renew our being."

(Kenneth Cohen)

Spring birds of soft yellows and pale reds twitter and frolic and tease each other in the junipers outside our back window.   They don't seem at all dismayed that the temperature is a very un-seasonal 50 degrees, the skies a deep pre-snow grey over the mountains, and the winds are picking up, although the rains have stopped for the moment.  Our neighbors' bright, colorful hanging basket across the way is the only sign that this is not a winter day.

"June-uary," the locals are calling it; me, I'm loving it.  After sweating for the last few weeks, wearing sweats and turtle necks is a very welcome change.  Hopefully the temps will be somewhat warmer when Michael arrives next Sunday.  He doesn't share my joy in this type of Pacific Northwest weather.  He and Brett  left New Orleans this morning on their father/son trek across the country to Seattle, where it will end, appropriately, on Father's Day. Brett will fly back to NYC, and Michael will continue on, arriving here in Qualicum, hopefully, that evening.

My own arrival last week was accompanied by a welcoming committee of one.  As our plane cleared the tall pine trees surrounding the tiny Qualicum Airport last Wednesday evening (after my twelve hour odyssey of flights and airports), a lone bald eagle watched the runway. And since Daigle, in its French form d'Aigle, means 'of the eagle', it seemed to book-end a journey that had begun with another bald 'eagle' dropping me off in New Orleans earlier that morning.  Somehow, in between,  I had managed to pick up a ferocious flu virus which set in Thursday night, accompanied by 102 degrees fever, and associated muscle aches and pains.  It was a good weekend, chilly and damp, to rest, keep warm and heal, and be grateful that my doctor had insisted I bring flu virus medicine with me last year.

Although I knew my neighbors and friends would willingly assist me by going to the store, getting me movies, and making me comfortable, there was another part of me that needed this enforced solitude after the past year.  It was a time of stillness that I probably would not have taken otherwise.  I remembered my wise old Doctor's prescription for rest from years ago: two hours in bed: no TV, no reading, no music, just rest; then one hour up - alternate this pattern for as long as necessary. 

So for 2 days I floated between worlds - groggy dreams, hazy bouts of aches, deep sleep, warm memories.  I thought of such beautiful people who have been so sick recently, and called out their names for blessings, feeling like some Romper Room Teacher: "I see Tommy, and I see Chris, and I see Pat, and I see Paula and I see Denny."  From our own wish to be well emerges the most honest prayer for the healing of all who are suffering - a measure of the individual's innate unity with all of creation.

It wasn't until I got to my precious Rathtrevor Provincial Park this morning, however, that I felt fully on the mend, from the sickness, and from the jolts of last year.  When I entered the park, with all of her familiar fragrances and sounds and silences, I had to agree with Elizabeth Bibesco, who wrote in Balloons: "Talk about the joys of the unexpected, can they compare with the joys of the expected, of finding everything delightfully and completely what you knew it was going to be?"  Sumptuous pink wild roses were everywhere, their sweet odor layered above the cedar forest floor;  fresh sea breezes swirled in occasionally.  It was all balm, washing over the experiences, inviting new awarenesses and gently supporting the very act of breathing and living.

Before I could walk the park, though, I had to sit, to be still, as if I could ever take all of the Mystery, the Wonder, the All of it in.  It didn't escape me, however, that the wondrous mystery of All could - and does and will - take in all of me.  So I chose a large old tree, fallen, weathered smooth and washed-up by the seashore, to sit on while I just  listened.  Soon all sound was fading into a gentle surf mantra, its steadiness a chorus to life, to the benevolence that surrounds us, always.

With each soft rush came the awareness: these waves would never hit these rocks in this way under this sky ever again.  Life was all happening, right here, right now as it does in every moment, for the first and last time, and it was painfully, extraordinarily beautiful and sad.  The whole winter came flooding back, filling the mind first, through memories of numbing medical jargon and hospital experiences, then the heart with emotions of those days and nights of wondering, and finally welling-up in tears, of release and relief and gratitude and joy and being. 

Heart attack, congestive heart failure, life-style shift, Brett's joyfully anticipated marriage, tearing-down our beloved old home, rebuilding, acknowledgement of our parents' hard-fought wisdom, illnesses of loved ones, the reality of endings and impermanence, the groaning of the world in its rebirthing, the ecstatic breath-taking beauty of our crazy quick lives.  How can we be anything but grateful?

Eckhart Tolle, on his Findhorn Retreat DVD, tells the story of a commercial someone sent to him.  It depicts an infant being born, shot out of the womb like a cannon ball into the sky, screaming.  As it climbs higher, it ages, becoming a young boy, a teen, a young man, reaching its zenith as an adult, then beginning its descent, still screaming until it crashes into its grave as an old man.  The entire life is depicted in this 30 second commercial with its message that life is short.  Such a profound message, taught by mystics of the ages, and captured in such dramatic fashion by what Eckhart remembered as something as banal as a beer ad. 

Sometimes our lives do seem like that.  The young, caught up in the exhilaration of ascent, turn the newborns' terrified scream into a youthful, joyful cry.  At our peak, we groan as we realize the descent is coming.  When we are wise, we see the beauty, perhaps screaming it indistinguishably to those on their way up, and holding it for those falling around and before us, our voices raised now in their final cry of awe and recognition, praying that someone will do the same for us.

"Beauty," Thomas Moore has written, "takes you out of your cramped, merely personal worries, and sets you down in a field of eternity...The experience may last only a moment, but in these matters a moment is enough."  Whether it's viewing a work of art, hearing an eagle at sunrise, spending time with a precious child, hearing a loved one's voice on the phone, sharing memories and laughter, or listening to an ocean chorus of ecstatic joy, each experience touches our deepest wisdom and renews our being.

It's good to be home.

YAY GOD