Choices, Choices

For the past few years, I've received TUT's Notes From the Universe, via email, Monday - Friday. Mike Dooley, one of the contributors to The Secret, created these as a way to remind people of the power of thought, that thoughts becomes things. They have often mirrored right where I am in my thinking, or offered me a mirror to look at something a bit more closely. Sometimes, it has reflected life in some amusing and intriguing ways. For instance, almost three years ago, I read his note in the morning about how life is a carnival, complete with rides, cotton candy, and all the goodies associated with them. After I read it, I drove into town (a town I had only recently moved to when I first returned to Minnesota), to discover a carnival had been set up on the edge of it, complete with rides, and animals, and cotton candy. That kind of thing.

Anyway, this morning's note was sent with a request to pass it on to as many people as possible. I do think it's worth passing on and so I am.

The Top 10 Ways People Give Away Their Power:

1.  Asking others what they should do.
2.  Thinking God decides who gets what.
3.  Worrying about how their dreams will come true.
4.  Thinking they have dues to pay.
5.  Attaching to unimportant details and outcomes.
6.  Believing in soul mates.
7.  Thinking karma or spiritual contracts are absolute.
8.  Fear of anything, especially falling in love.
9.  Waiting for their ducks to line up before acting.
10. Choosing to be unhappy.


A funny thing happened as I wrote them down in a notebook, something I often do with notes, quotes, and things I want to remember. As I was writing down #7, I found it took up a bit more than one line in my notebook, so the words "are absolute," had to be written on the next line. Then, as I wrote down #8, I found that space was again lacking and so this is how it ended up in my notebook:

8. Fear of anything, especially
                                               falling
                                                          in
                                                             love.


As a result, #9 (see above) didn't exactly line up....

Which takes me to #10, a reminder that to be happy or not is always a choice. Always.

Today, I've chosen to be happy. I think I'm going to choose that tomorrow, too.



www.tut.com


Image: Joseph Cornell's "Hotel Eden"

Listening to the Trees

"When I Am Among the Trees"

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
   but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."


~Mary Oliver, from Thirst





The photograph is mine.

Butterflies and Thistles: the Science of Poetry

Well, I certainly got my comeuppance.

In responding to a comment on my last post, I did some complaining about thistles, which I first noticed last summer in a low-lying area of the meadow, and now, seeds being seeds, a few of them have found their way onto the lawn, surprising my bare feet a time or two. I decided to just dig them out in order to make walking around more pleasant, allowing for a little just-ification. And then, yesterday, I got this in the mail, email that is, from the Writer's Almanac, as though in response to my complaint, like the thistles themselves were listening and wanted to let me know the perfect place they have in the Big Picture, and they sent it in a language I could understand: poetry.

"A Pasture Poem"

This upstart thistle
Is young and touchy; it is
All barb and bristle,

Threatening to wield
Its green, jagged armament
Against the whole field.

Butterflies will dare
Nonetheless to lay their eggs
In that angle where

The leaf meets the stem,
So that ants or browsing cows
Cannot trouble them.

Summer will grow old
As will the thistle, letting
A clenched bloom unfold

To which the small hum

Of bee wings and the flash of
Goldfinch wings will come,

Till its purple crown
Blanches, and the breezes strew
The whole field with down.

~Richard Wilbur

Look at that thing. King of the Thistles, pre-purple crown.  It's taller than I am. Yeah, those sons of guns knew I couldn't resist a butterfly story.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Weedy

When I asked for rain to help my garden grow and make it possible to take a break from toting hoses around, I didn't have this in mind, not exactly. I know I said, 'Never ever be afraid to work in the rain', but I have to draw some lines when it comes to thunder and lightning. There's been an intermittent rumbling of thunder for two days now, and all I've been able to do is rescue the last of my peonies from drowning. Part of a birch tree, that I thought was healthy, is now lying on the edge of the cabin roof. It's messed with the tin just a bit, but I really need to think it over, how I'm going to accomplish its removal. I know it will require another person just to keep an eye on me, to keep me from doing something stupid. You don't take your eyes off the tree and you better know where's its going. My grandfather learned that the hard way, at a lumber camp in Wisconsin way back around the turn of the last century.

In the meantime, my flower gardens, which have already been less attended to than is the accepted norm, are sprouting new... let's just call them plants. Once known as weeds, I have taken to seeing them in a new light. The gardens are now officially known as, "The Place of a Thousand Butterflies." I have never before (before the rain, anyway) seen so many butterflies. They're everywhere, of all colors and sizes. I'd rather have butterflies than a "weed-free" garden. Much rather. So, why is it that weeds, which almost without fail produce some type of flower, are seen as producing inferior flowers? How can there possibly be an inferior flower?  Is there something I'm missing?  Anyway, I'm learning to live with myself. If the occasional visitor looks askance at them, well, they can just get over it.

Out at the vegetable garden, not entirely weed-free either, but very presentable and healthy, the potential produce is coming on strong. Besides the potatoes, parsnips, and sugar-snap peas, which I mentioned in a post earlier this spring, I will have onions, radishes, carrots, beets, and kohlrabi. Also, cucumbers, zucchini, winter squash and cantaloupe. Can't wait for the cantaloupe. It's looking good, proverbial fingers are crossed.

I'm also happy to report that the neighbors, who have two really nice root cellars, have declared my basement will work just fine, not too moist and yet cool enough to keep things well into the fall and possibly the early winter. The root cellar out by the shed was used in the past when the basement was Otis's workshop in the winter, Otis being the man who created this place out of the woods, but no point in having things so far away now, especially when the snow flies. It is nice to know it's there, though. Anyway, I won't have enough this year requiring longer storage, but there's always next year. I would like to reach the point where I'm growing most of my own food.

I've decided not to raise chickens, not yet, anyway, as I get all the fresh eggs I want from the farm across the bridge. The difference between store bought and farm fresh is like night and day. I like mine sunny-side up. Which reminds me of my father, who liked to use diner lingo whenever we went to a cafe, especially at breakfast. He would order his "over easy and stepped on." When I was a very young girl, I never knew whether to be embarrassed or pleased. Now, that's an easy one.

It might be fun, though, to raise animals again, in a conscientious and loving way. A lot of work, but fun. Which reminds me: if you'd like some daily news about what's right in this world, I recommend you read this: practicingresurrection.wordpress.com. Bill and Cherie (she has also done wonderful work in Haiti), have White Flint Farm. They are two people who are truly making a difference.

BTW: I love the name Bill chose for his blog, which comes from a really great poem by Wendell Berry, "Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front." If you're not already familiar with it, you can read it here: teresaevangeline.blogspot.com/2011/03/songs-that-are-to-come.html

Paintings by Herman Herzog (1832 - 1932): "Country Cabin, Summer" and  "Making Hay While the Sun Shines."

The Nature of Obsession

I suppose I shouldn't say it, but I'm going to anyway:  I'm stalking my peonies.

Light Through the Window

As much as I love walking around outside and seeing what's out there, and there is always something new, I also appreciate those things I see in a new light here inside, how the morning light plays with the objects I walk by every day. On this particular morning, I was struck by the shadows on the ottoman next to the bookshelves, reflected in the rug at their feet.

However, it was not the first thing I noticed this morning. It was that the petals had fallen from the small bouquet of peonies I'd picked two days ago. The scent was heavenly, and what remained, though a bit gangly, gave me a whole new view of their soft beauty. I noticed the small knob on the stem standing out in the light, the veins in the leaves just above it and how the water created little bubbles of moisture at the top of the vase. Later today, I'll pick a fresh bouquet. I love having enough for a few inside as well.

Last night, a thunderstorm passed through. Actually, it did more than pass, it stayed around for the entire evening. So, I unplugged myself from all technology, and curled up with Buddy in the corner of the sectional next to the window. I love storms and am so grateful Buddy doesn't get unnerved by them. We watched and listened. Now, this morning, the light coming through the windows is creating a really nice postlude.

While checking out new posts by fellow bloggers, I came across two, each offering music as the perfect accompaniment to the beginning of the day. I found the video at the bottom over at coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com. I hope you'll go to this link (you'll need to check for it on his sidebar), because just below the video there is an equally perfect poem by Mary Oliver: "The Sun."

,

And Will, at verticalsearcher.blogspot.com has a wonderful music video posted of, "A Small Measure of Peace," from the movie, "The Last Samurai." Between these two musical selections, a poem by Mary Oliver, and the light coming through the windows, it's been one fine morning.

What the Bumblebee Said

When I first bought this place, almost two years ago now, I made a promise to myself that I would come to know every nook and cranny, that I would teach myself to fully see everything around me and it would become as familiar to me as my childhood home was, after years of exploration. 

Every day, on our walk in the meadow behind the house, Buddy covers the now familiar ground as though for the first time. He never seems to tire of it. Together, we're seeing things (well, he's mostly smelling things) from a renewed perspective.

For example: the other day, a tree that sits along the fence line, and which appears to be half-dead, was alive with butterflies. A variety of them floated around my head and some even posed for me. I was particularly smitten by this beauty.  Her velvety brown wings tipped with circles of blue and fringed with white, reminded me of a dress I wore to a Christmas concert when I was 15. I played the clarinet, rather poorly, and that's not a humble statement. It was really bad.

Just across from the butterfly tree is my garden, where I was faced with yet another tree that's in dire need of pruning, but the pink blossoms sprouting from the almost bare branches asked me to wait until later in the season, and then only with great care. Where there is life, there is hope. That's what the bumblebee said.

When I turned, I saw my cabin through the trees. From the back, the green and blue reflected in the windows caught my attention.

As did the vines starting to fill out around the roof line of the chicken coop and garden shed:

Then it was the old snow fence lying curled up in the corner...

...several patches of little white flowers next to the skeletal remains of a long-abandoned shed, and the play of shadows on what is left of its walls:

Back at the garage (a term I use loosely), a collection of blue shovels Otis left behind (I trust he didn't need them where he was going) was reflected in the metal siding, along with some of the irises he planted:

When I went to get some garden tools from the shed, the mama bird, who created this magnificent nest in the rafters, sat on the lilac bush just outside and expressed concern for my presence, as her offspring patiently waited with open beaks. Of course, when they knew I was there they quickly closed them.

No, it doesn't look like Buddy and I will be running out of things to see, or smell, any time soon. The wild roses that line the north side of my vegetable garden are just starting to bloom:

Buddy, grown tired of posing, says hi.

Here's Joni Mitchell performing "Woodstock" at Big Sur, in 1969: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBqodL2OJ1A

"I dreamed I saw the bombers
riding shotgun in the sky
turn right into butterflies
above our nation."

~ Joni

Lieutenant Hope is Adjusting my Helmet

"The Future"

On the afternoon talk shows of America
the guests have suffered life's sorrows
long enough. All they require now
is the opportunity for closure,
to put the whole thing behind them
and get on with their lives. That their lives,
in fact, are getting on with them even
as they announce their requirement
is written on the faces of the younger ones
wrinkling their brows, and the skin
of their elders collecting just under their
set chins. It's not easy to escape the past,
but who wouldn't want to live in a future
where the worst has already happened
and Americans can finally relax after daring
to demand a different way? For the rest of us,
the future, barring variations, turns out
to be not so different from the present
where we have always lived -- the same
struggle of wishes and losses, and hope,
that old lieutenant, picking us up
every so often to dust us off and adjust
our helmets. Adjustment, for that matter,
may be the one lesson hope has to give,
serving us best when we begin to find
what we didn't know we wanted in what
the future brings. Nobody would have asked
for the ice storm that takes down trees
and knocks the power out, leaving nothing
but two buckets of snow melting
on the wood stove and candlelight so weak,
the old man sitting at the kitchen table
can hardly see to play cards. Yet how else
but by the old woman's laughter
when he mistakes a jack for a queen
would he look at her face in the half-light as if
for the first time while the kitchen around them
and the very cards he holds in his hands
disappear?  In the deep moment of his looking
and her looking back, there is no future,
only right now, all, anyway, each one of us
has ever had, and all the two of them,
sitting together in the dark among the cracked
notes of the snow thawing beside them
on the stove, right now will ever need.

~ Wesley McNair


wesleymcnair.com/


"Main Street Mansion," by Grant Wood. Pencil, chalk, charcoal on brown paper, 20 x 15 3/4.
It was one of the illustrations used in the Grant Wood illustrated edition of Sinclair Lewis', Main Street.

Some Enchanted Evening Along the Santa Fe Trail

One of my favorite poets is Naomi Shihab Nye. There's something gentle and kind about her writing and it comes through in every word. When I read her poem, "Full Day," which you'll find below, I was reminded of my own small box of treasures filled with memories gathered many years ago. My mother bought it for me for my twelfth birthday.

We had been out shopping together, perhaps for my birthday present but I'm not certain, when we stopped in a store very near to where I am now living. While there, I spotted a beautiful, black lacquer music box with a Japanese design and doors inside to hold jewelry, should I ever have any. I stared at it, turned the mechanism underneath, opened it so I could listen to its tune, "Some Enchanted Evening," then glanced at my mother a time or two to let her quietly know I had found something absolutely perfect. Did I think she'd actually buy it?  It seemed far-fetched from where I stood.

But, a few minutes later she did just that. I felt like the richest girl alive when we left that store. I can remember sitting in the car on the way home with the music box in my lap, unable to believe it was actually mine.

It's a tad travel worn now, but it still contains some treasures from earlier times. The mechanism that played the music as well as the inner hinges broke a long time ago so I haven't been able to listen to its tune for over twenty years. Except for this ...

I was getting ready to move from Santa Fe back to Minnesota, carefully carrying it from the house out to the garage where I planned to pack it in a box filled with newspaper before its return home. I held it close in both hands, as you do when you're carrying a box of treasure. As I stepped through the door into the garage the music started playing. I stood in disbelief and quietly waited as it played, "Some Enchanted Evening," all the way through, with the lid closed. And then it ended. Though I tried several times it never played again.  That is, until today. The deeply meaningful reason I received this message today shall remain my private understanding. But I'd like to share the poem with you that brought forth this memory.


"Full Day"

The pilot on the plane says:
In one minute and fifty seconds
we're going as far
as the covered wagon went
in a full day.
We look down
on clouds,
mountains of froth and foam.
We eat a neat
and subdivided lunch.
How was it for the people in
the covered wagon?
They bumped and jostled.
Their wheels broke.
Their biscuits were tough.
They got hot and cold and old.
Their shirts tore on the branches
they passed.
But they saw the pebbles
and the long grass
and the sweet shine of evening
settling on the fields.
They knew the ruts and the rocks.
They threw their furniture out
to make the wagons lighter.
They carried their treasures
in a crooked box.


~ Naomi Shihab Nye, from Come with Me



Among the treasures in my own "crooked box" is a small amber hair comb that belonged to my mother, long before she became my mother, as well as an amber beaded necklace from her youth.

Images:
The music box.
My mother, at the age of 16. She passed on in the year 2000.

A Tale Called Time

It's been many years since I read Born on the Fourth of July, the story of Ron Kovic and the terrible aftermath of his time served in Viet Nam, yet I still can recall my response and the tears shed while reading his closing words remembering a particular day in his young life, a moment of almost unbearable poignancy, before the war and the wheelchair. He wrote, "There was a song called "Runaway" by a guy named Dell Shannon playing one Saturday at the baseball field. I remember it was a beautiful spring day and we were young back then and really alive and the air smelled fresh...."

This seemingly small moment in time had somehow remained fixed, as though the day itself had just happened and all of life was yet to come. We probably all have these moments, moments that come to define us. I am very grateful that my own have not been marked by tragedy.

On days such as this one, it's easier to sense the goodness life has wrought. The sun is shining bright in a cloudless blue sky, a slight breeze comes up every few minutes and rustles the leaves on the trees. Three goldfinches share the bird feeder with a pair of red-winged blackbirds, the deep pink blossoms of a crab apple tree as their backdrop. The shadows created by the tree limbs, outlined on the grass below, feel peaceful and right.

Earlier, I had walked to the almost-overgrown orchard next to the field and watched as a bumblebee buried its nose in a soft white apple blossom, while a small yellow butterfly settled briefly in the tall grass, flew a few inches and settled again, doing this over and over until it moved out of sight.

On my way back to the house, I stopped to look at the old license plates Otis had nailed to the shed in the years before I arrived, a simple progression of numbers telling a tale called time.

Then, I looked over at my garden gate and thought of the sugar snap peas, quietly pushing their way through the dark earth to the waiting sunlight.

"Runaway," for those who might want to remember:

Philosophy and Potato Planting

After coming in from planting two rows of potatoes, 36 soon-to-be-hills of a variety of red and Yukon gold, I had me a little nap and then I started messing around on the computer. Next thing I know, here I am talking about it. Good grief. You'd think I'd have something better to do on a Saturday night. But, I don't. Hey, I have my potatoes planted. There's a super-moon tonight. And all is well with the world. Well, maybe not, but let's pretend, just for tonight, shall we?  Even this Linda Pastan poem I found a short while ago seems to fit right into the scheme of things. I've read only a few poems by her thus far, but every one resonates in some fashion.

"Clock"

Sometimes it really upsets me --
the way the clock's hands keep moving,

even when I'm just sitting here
not doing anything at all,

not even thinking about anything
except, right now, about the clock

and how it can't keep its hands still.
Even in the dark I picture it, and all

its brother and sister clocks and watches,
even sundials, all those compulsive timepieces

whose only purpose seems to be
to hurry me out of this world.

~Linda Pastan


Speaking of being hurried out of this world: today is Soren Kierkegaard's birthday (1813-1855). On a bookshelf behind my chair sits a framed quote (I like to think of it as my prayer) by this Danish philosopher and theologian. I've included it in a previous post, probably two years ago now, but I'm re-posting it today not only as a way to honor him, but also to remind myself to pray for this daily and to live it more effectively:

"As my prayer became more and more attentive and inward, I had less and less to say. I finally became completely silent.... This is how it is. To pray does not mean to listen to oneself speaking. Prayer involves becoming silent, and being silent, and waiting until God is heard."   ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Both images are paintings by van Gogh.

If interested in Kierkegaard, here's a good site: plato.stanford.edu/entries/Kierkegaard

Followed by a Jackson Pollock Morning

A few evenings ago, I was taken by surprise at the sound of seagulls flying overhead. I've seen them congregating in parking lots where they expect to find fast food flung out of car windows, and they're usually found on larger lakes in the area throughout the summer, but I wasn't expecting to see flocks of them flying over Lonewolf in late April.

To enhance the scene, they were flying against the backdrop of a waxing crescent moon, lit by the sun still sinking in the west. Off the moon's shoulder sat Venus, like a lantern suspended by thick twilight. The sound and the scene kept me standing there for several minutes. It was a really beautiful sight. I thought about my favorite seagull of all, Jonathan Livingston. He taught me valuable lessons way back in the '70's, lessons that have stayed with me and continue to serve me well.

The next morning, as I was leaving to have lunch with a friend, I found my blue car covered in white splotches of seagull poop. It looked like Jackson Pollock had paid a visit. I almost felt avant garde as I drove the ten miles to the nearest car wash. Almost.

Images: Jackson Pollock's 1 - 4

A Maxfield Parrish Evening

It doesn't take much to make me happy. For instance, the sunset this evening ...


"You Reading This, Be Ready"

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a greater gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life.

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

~ William Stafford





www.parrish-house.com

The photograph is mine.