Canada Saga 2013 - July 5

 

"Be a lamp, be a lifeboat, be a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house each morning like a shepherd."  (Rumi)

"We are put on this earth to help others.  What the others are supposed to do, I haven't a clue."  (W.H. Auden)

 

And just like that, summer arrived. We went to bed on a cool drizzly Friday evening, and woke up to bright sunshine and the heat of the season, as predicted, just in time for Canada Day weekend celebrations. Michael, still in recovery from both his implant surgery and a very stress-filled week in Louisiana, decided he wanted to spend the day outside. We took the ferry to Newcastle Island, which we knew only from watching the ferries as we ate at the Dinghy Dock, one Island over. At some point as we shared fish and chips or burgers and beer, one of us would occasionally make note of the little ferry boats traveling to the next island, with the observation that we really should check it out.

 

It took us ten years and a few hours to realize we should've done this long ago. From the time we disembarked onto green fields and walked past the totem poles towards the regatta of crayola-colored spinnakers playing out in the distance against snow capped mountains, we were hooked. The map showed that to circumambulate the whole island was only 7.2 kms (roughly 5 miles, not usually challenging for us), and we had the whole day, the whole gorgeous day of brilliant blue skies, soft sea breezes, a wide easy trail all along the water, with access over driftwood and flat slate rock. In the distance, the glacier-capped peaks of the mainland watched over the large white BC ferries gliding over the water. We felt like we were walking in a fairy tale book of magic lands and perfect times.

 

Soon I noticed that Michael was walking much slower than our usual hiking pace; he finally told me that he wanted to take it easy on this one, and not stress himself at this point in his recovery. I soon realized that we would probably not make the first leg of the hike, much less the whole island. At one split in the trail, he found a piece of driftwood in the shade, and rested while I went 'just to the next bend,' to see what was ahead. It was only ten minutes to the next marker, where a panorama of beauty splayed out: sailboats, mountains, two quiet benches, a grassy field with yellow wildflowers curtsying and dancing to the ocean breeze, gnarled and leaning arbutus trees reaching greedily for the sun with their twisted leafy arms, and a landscape of small boulder-filled coves all along the island's Eastern side. When I returned, excited with my find, to see if he wanted to make the short walk, Michael told me he was quite happy where he was, and didn't want to go any further.

 

As we walked slowly back to the ferry, it hit me: this is just a small preview of how life changes. This is what my Mom began to experience as my Dad moved deeper into Parkinson's.  This is what my mother-in-law experienced as my father-in-law lapsed into Alzheimer's. My friend walked the journey with her husband, until his death, of abbreviated trips and more and more visits to doctors and hospitals, putting on hold her art and friends. Michael has put plans on hold to be a sustainer during difficult times for my family. My sister-in-law loved her husband through his terminal illness, wondering why anyone would think she needed a break, when she knew their time together was precious and limited. I saw this time and again with Hospice patients and their families, and see it in the grace of so much giving by so many today. It is not so much people putting lives on hold, as it is embracing or enduring the never-ending changing patterns of lives.

 

Emily Dickinson was talking about those journeys when she said that we never know how high we are until we're called to rise. Most of us have to experience something personally to understand the fullness of another's pain or joy. When we do, the sands shift, and life is forever different. A new normal emerges, and with it a sense of the sacrifice and struggle of those whose lives we've watched as they were changed by the love they gave.

 

We bandy about the concept of getting vs giving: we get when we give; we can't give more than we get; it is better to give than to receive. Perhaps it's less about getting or giving, and more about living in the interchangeable flow of both, that sustains us with its familiarity. The Dalai Lama expresses what he calls the paradox, and what could be referred to as the miracle, of 'wise self-fishness:'  when we give, we become happier. These not-so-minor miracles and moments of unselfish wonder are, to paraphrase Chesterton, the little white handkerchiefs that the Divine drops in daily flirtations with us.

 

The sprinklers turned off just after the sun popped over the mountains this morning, and the tiny droplets of water were shimmering like fairy crystals on each blade of grass and pine needle in the necklace of the new day. They were a reminder that for one brief drop in the ocean of time, we are prisms of divine creation, sparkling and reflecting every hue of Love in our better moments of receiving and giving kindness, until the brilliance and heat of the Divine Sun consumes us back into Being.

 

On Saturday we'll return to Louisiana for a visit, and for the completion of some medical tests, meetings and business for Michael, and to spend time with Mom. We've already decided that we'll be back on Newcastle Island this summer. We may or may not walk the entire path. The journey, after all, is not about the distance, but about dropping handkerchiefs along the way.

YAY GOD

 

 

 

 

 

Canada Saga 2013 - June 25

 

"Elders walk before us. The young follow behind. Ours is a caravan of consciousness." (Julia Cameron)

"Once upon a time...there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten: the world is meant to be celebrated." (Terry Tempest Williams)

                                            

Maya Angelou says that we can learn a lot about people by how they handle, among other things, a rainy day. There have been multiple opportunities to learn about people in the last two rainy weeks, with another few days forecast before the heat of summer appears on schedule for Canada Day.  The weather doesn't seem to inhibit Island activity, though. Walkers walk; golfers golf; bikers bike; hikers hike. Even the more adventurous venture out on beaches and in boats, undauntedly saying that at least we are better off than ______, fill in the blank with those suffering from tornados, fires, floods, or excessive heat.

 

But I love the grey that hangs so low over the coast on some mornings that it's like walking in the clouds. As I remember the bright sun above it all, I'm reminded of how often we get weighted down by the droning of the grey on the daily newscasts, caught up in the raining down of a parade of horribles, forgetting that above this, too, is the brighter Light, always present, that transcends it all.

 

And the gentle rain is never a deterrent to a walk in the Heritage, a small but magnificent forest where the silence of the 400+ year old trees invites the equally enveloping shroud of quiet reflection. Charcoal-scarred Douglas firs rise hundreds of feet above the trail, having survived fires that destroyed less hardy species. The burbling of a small creek, invisible at the base of a crevice steeped in fern and heavily treed, is its only giveaway. Nature is casual about her housekeeping, scattering debris and leaving remnants of storms lying haphazardly on her floor. Stilted roots provide nutrients to immature growth, even as they themselves eventually break down completely, leaving an elevated form from which seedlings grow.

 

Other living stumps, having no branches for photosynthesis, are provided nutrients by intertwined roots of nearby trees of the same species, thus surviving and giving what they can to the overall well-being of the forest inhabitants. A walk here is a walk in life being lived, through the miracle of creation, and the generosity of generations constantly giving.

 

Back in April, for some very good reason which now escapes me, we decided that it was time to launch our adventure into the 21st Century by buying 'smart' phones. Our old phones were - well - old. They didn't take pictures; they didn't take notes; they didn't auto 'correct' our spelling; they didn't play music, have apps or voices that talked to us. As we sat at the table in the restaurant hours after our purchase comparing our new phones, we realized with horror that we had turned into 'them:' those people who sit at tables in restaurants looking at their phones, instead of each other; those people we used to motion to with a roll of our eyes, and feel sorry for and then talk in hushed tones about, as we wondered what this world was coming to.

 

Now we've made a truce, we appreciate the features that give us freedom to roam around the continent and still stay connected. One of the best features, and the real reason I wanted a new phone, is its compact and amazing camera. On more than one occasion, I have found myself wishing that I had brought my camera, and then realized I had the next best thing.

 

There are videos that I watch regularly, when I realize just how blessed our family is, and how much I miss them. Like all good lessons, these videos are short, succinct and touch the heart. The first is a spontaneous performance by my nephew, Michael, playing an accompaniment with Grace, to her original piano composition. He sits on the piano bench, casually reaching around her to play both high and low chords to her melody, and the quickest of smiles lights up her face. Her delightful and simple tune becomes a complicated and impressive piece through his mastery. He makes her shine, generously and without effort, and mirrors the Divine Presence in our own simple lives, a Presence that fills even our simplest actions with a grace all its own, even as we are unaware of the 'arms' that surround us.

 

My favorite video, however, is my 93 year old Aunt Lizette, sitting in her wheel chair in the nursing home, being cajoled into sending greetings to my Mom. Up until she was 89, Aunt Liza was a chain smoker, and we were frankly surprised that she's lived this long. Then she fell and ended up in the hospital. When she asked my cousin for a cigarette, he told her simply that she didn't smoke anymore. She looked blank for a moment, then said "Well I'll be damn." And that's how she quit smoking. She'll tell you that she doesn't remember much, and then catch you off guard with a wry remark or a quip that you couldn't see coming. When I spoke with her years ago about some wisdom or other that I had read that was creating questions in my mind, she had some simple advice: "Well," she said, "the problem with you is that you read too much."

 

At Christmastime, we all went to sing songs with her, and Michael and Grace played the piano. She watched as much as she could, nodding along, then nodding off, but smiling. Michael put his arm around me as we were leaving the home and said quietly, "Don't worry, Aunt Cindy; I'll never let you end up in a place like this." But he and Grace go willingly, and walk through the corridors of wheel-chair souls waiting for their transitions in all states of drool and twitches and nonsense talk or screams.

 

Aunt Liza doesn't seem to fit in, and it's no wonder the aides at the home love her. They love her sassiness, and we love her because she's our sweet Aunt Liza who was our first sleep-over, took us in when we ran away from home, made us grilled cheese sandwiches, took care of our grandparents and elderly aunts tirelessly. She reflects back to us the gentler moments of our childhood, with the eyes of our Dad; the very soul of Creation seems to stare at us from her tired but wise brown eyes.

 

They say that hers is the 'greatest' generation. Like the stilted roots and living stumps of the forest, they continue to nourish us, even in their leave-taking. They give us branches, and we sit and sing their songs.  The British poet, Philip Larkin, said that children are linked to adults by the simple fact that they are in the process of turning into them. As I see Michael and Grace singing to Aunt Liza, I think that the greatest generation is always becoming, rooted in the gifts of their elders. We are born hard-wired for this compassion, and live out of the original blessing we were baptized into by the very fact of our birth as innocents.

 

I see this born into creation each morning, beyond the horizon, beyond even the clouds and Light of the new day, born deeply in the heart of each breath. It is the peace that is given in the song that is sung at the dawn of life, and the one that we sing to those at their dusk, as we celebrate with deep gratitude their world, and our place in it.

YAY GOD