More Evidence - Part 2

2.

Where are you when you’re not thinking?

Frightening, isn’t it?

Where are you when you’re not feeling anything?

Oh, worse!

Except for faith and imagination, nature is that hard fortress you can’t get out of.

Some person are captive to love, other would make the beloved a captive. Which one are you?

As we travel through Guyana, conversations frequently turn to experiencing birds in the wild that in our home countries are kept in cages, often with harm, suffering, and death as a consequence.  There is no doubt that humans love their birds, but in so doing, they make the beloved a captive. What would it look like if instead we were bound by love instead of being the binders?

Perhaps I would not even be here to hear the sound of the White Bell Bird.  I would not be using the earth’s resources to travel so far to behold beauty and to save it.  Instead I would be at home with a simple bell calling me to meditation, to awakening, and to liberation.  I would be swooning with every sunrise that lights the grandeur of the tall pines in the oak hammock.  Yet it is the beloved birds that bind me and bring me to these places in Latin America to be with them, and perhaps contribute if I can.  I am ever captive, and the captor.

We go through our days, with cages around us and the door open. 

We can step out into freedom, or we can lure others in with us.

Which will you do this day?

Thinking of the Swirler

One day I went out into a wonderful ongoing afternoon, in was fall,

the pine trees were brushing themselves against the sky as though they were painting it, and Swirler,

who was alive then, was walking slowly through the green bog, his neck

as thick as an ox, his antlers brushing against the trees,

his three good feet tapping

the softness beneath him and the fourth, from an old wound, swirling. I know he saw me

for he gave me a long look which was as precious as a few good words, since his eyes

were without terror  What do the creatures know? What in this world can we be certain about?  How did he know I was nothing

but a harmless mumbler of words, some of which would be about him

and this wind-whipped day?  In a week he would be dead,

arrowed down by a young man I like, though with some difficulty.

In my house there are a hundred half-done poems.  Each of us leaves an unfinished life.

My son recently returned home from a month's visit to his native country, Honduras.  He and his brother had been down at the river swimming, and growing bored, his brother raised his slingshot and killed two birds.  My son showed me pictures of the dead birds, one of which I could see was  a brightly colored "Mountain Trogon."  My son said he and his brother had never seen such a bird near their home before.  I wonder if they ever will again.

At the end of December, 3 Whooping Cranes were shot in Georgia.  These were young birds that had been raised in Wisconsin and this was their first migration south.    I wonder if hunters had gotten bored.

When I was 21 I visited a night club and sitting at a table full of locals, we told each other of our lives.  He asked what I did and I answered that I was a bird veterinarian.  He then said, "Shucks. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I shoot hawks. Sometimes when I'm waiting for a deer or a duck, I get so bored. I just have to empty my gun into something."  I wonder what ever happened to that man.

What is it that pulls our kind to finish off another before their time?  Boredom?  Anxiety and despair mixed with feelings of being overwhelmed and perhaps mental incoherence?  Why did the shooter fire into the crowd, killing six and severely wounding Representative Gaby Gifford in Arizona a few days ago?

 I have hundreds of unanswered questions swirling around in my head, the fog of this morning echoing the murkiness in so many minds.  I wonder what we shall make of all these unfinished lives.

Is there something you wish to finish, or leave unfinished in your life?       

Percy at His Bath, or, Ambivalence (Eleven)

Today Jill is cutting my snags and my curls.

My legs grow longer.

My tail gets brushed.

Then, the bath.

Mary has been reading a book about

a woman who made a secret journey

to Lhasa. She reads aloud to me the parts

about the village dogs, who are big and

fearless and full of bark. And, all

their lives, dirty. I am filled

with envy.

then it's over and I am in my bed

as white as snow and soft and all

the sea salt gone. And over every part of me

an absurd but lovely fragrance.

This morning I heard of a book, "My Princess Boy."  A mother wrote about her journey dealing with her young son who wanted to dress up in pink and frilly clothes.  She and her husband came to terms to not judge their son on what a "male" should and should not do, but to accept the beauty of the boy as he choose to live his life. 

As I listened to this mother and her child on national TV this morning being interviewed, I thought of my own childhood.  I fought stubbornly with my parents when they wished that I would not dress "like a boy" and who would say, "For gosh shakes, can you wash your face now and then?" My  mother even one time told me, "If I had a dog, I would shave its rear end and make it walk backwards, and it would still look better than you!"  (oh Percy, are you more handsome than me?)

That was an "ouch" at the time, though I can now understand  her frustration as I look back and ponder what her life must have been like with 4 teen agers in the house.  I have changed a bit, and will done dresses now and then, and indeed, have my share of frilly things.  I also still love the dirt, the rough and tumble, and the freedom from gender constraints. 

I will be going on a 12 day trip to the rain forests of Guyana in 3 months and we are only allowed 25 pounds baggage.  With about 17 pounds of camera/video gear, this doesn't leave much room for clothes and personal items. I'm so looking forward to competing with the others on the trip - how few clothes can I get by with, how dirty can I get, and who by the end of the trip will be mas macho?  At the same time, it will be delicious to get home and in a clean bed with fresh clothes.

Ambiguity, my liberator!  Our liberator! The liberator of future generations of children.  May they not be bullied for difference, diversity, and choice.

Where does ambiguity liberate you?

Carrying The Snake To The Garden

In the cellar

was the smallest snake

I have ever seen.

It coiled itself

in a corner

and watched me

with eyes

like two little stars

set into coal,

and a tail

that quivered.

One step

of my foot

and it fled

like a running shoelace,

but a scoop of the wrist

and I had it

in my hand.

I was sorry

for the fear,

so I hurried

upstairs and out the kitchen door

to the warm grass

and the sunlight

and the garden.

It turned and turned

in my hand

but when I put it down

it didn't move.

I thought

it was going to flow

up my leg

and into my pocket.

I thought, for a moment,

as it lifted it's face,

it was going to sing.

And then it was gone.

We evolved to focus our attention on nonhuman animals - we were predators and we were prey. Somehow we dealt with this tension to bring other species into our communities to help feed us, keep us clothed, and provide transportation, work, and protection.  Somewhere in all that evolved circuitry I also imagine that we desired company.  This is such a tangled web today.  Our brain patterns say: flee, eat, befriend, love, capture, free, destroy, conserve.   So it is no wonder that animals capture our attention and are one of the top draws for news and entertainment, as well as for philosophical and language studies.

I perhaps appear very ratio national as I describe Mary's response to the snake, that she hears him/her sing.  I am far from consistent or clear on my response with animals, including snakes.

 I once was up in the high mountains of California in a hunting cabin one night.  I was the guest of a 5th generation California, a hunter and fisher, and spent the time there with him and all his similarly focused buddies. The conversation that night was "snake stories."  Each man, hardened and wise from endless miles of traversing the peaks, confessed to being afraid of snakes and gave examples of snake encounters. I thought, and forgive me, "what a bunch of pussies!"

The next day I was out fly fishing with a buddy.  He would fish one pool, and I the next.  I had just passed him and was going over a small rise to the next spot on the river when a rattler lifted her head right where I was to put my foot.  I threw my rod down (oh forgive me again ye gods of fishing), ran back to my friend, and threw myself in his arms.  Yes, I had now joined the ranks of the honest and the embarrassed.

I wrote this beginning piece well before the sun rose, as  I was out all day participating in the local Christmas Bird Count.  We "owled" an hour before sunrise and stood on a rise listening for Wood Cocks and hour after sunset.  This was a day of wonder, which included much walking in fields finding and indentifying sparrows.  We formed sparrow lines and walked in patterns to cover our territory.   In one such field, the man next to me cried out and jumped towards me.  He had put his foot down inches from a Water Moccasin.  Our line collapsed to gape at the snake, whose lifted head was all mouth agape, ready to defend if necessary through teeth and toxins. 

In that fearful, focused awestruck moment while sparrows sang, we joined with them, singing the same song, the first song, and the only song. 

What song do you hear when you fear something or someone?

The Chance to Love Everything

All summer I made friends

with the creatures nearby ---

they flowed through the fields

and under the tent walls,

or padded through the door,

grinning through their many teeth,

looking for seeds,

suet, sugar; muttering and humming,

opening the breadbox, happiest when

there was milk and music. But once

in the night I heard a sound

outside the door, the canvas

bulged slightly ---something

was pressing inward at eye level.

I watched, trembling, sure I had heard

the click of claws, the smack of lips

outside my gauzy house ---

I imagined the red eyes,

the broad tongue, the enormous lap.

Would it be friendly too?

Fear defeated me. And yet,

not in faith and not in madness

but with the courage I thought

my dream deserved,

I stepped outside. It was gone.

Then I whirled at the sound of some

shambling tonnage.

Did I see a black haunch slipping

back through the trees? Did I see

the moonlight shining on it?

Did I actually reach out my arms

toward it, toward paradise falling, like

the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---

the dark heart of the story that is all

the reason for its telling?

Once, a thrice of decades ago, I was in a tent on a New Mexico plateau.  In the night there came a sniffing and prodding at the tent, much as Mary describes in her poem.  The animal(s) circled many times and I held my breath trying to not be noticed in the silence, and to also listen. Were those the feet of bear, coyote, wolf?  And depending on which, what was the best strategy?  To charge, to run, to cower? I had no weapon in the tent.  Fear defeated me and I had no courage to step outside to see who was stalking my body and my house for possible food.

Since that time whenever I go camping, I take something to bludgeon life with me in the tent - a bat, a golf club, my camping knives. I've heard too many bear stories to have my life story end with, "The bear ran with her off into the wilds and she was never seen again."

Yet, what better ending might there be?  To be taken into the wilds, to become one with teeth, earth, the spring's cubs, and droppings?   

In fact, is any other ending possible?

How would you have your life end?

Small Bodies

It is almost summer. In the pond

the pickerel leap,

and the delicate teal have brought forth

their many charming young,

and the turtle is ravenous.

It is hard sometimes, oh Lord,

to be faithful.

I am more boldly made

than the little ducks, paddling and laughing.

But not so bold

as the turtle

with his greasy mouth.

I know you know everything—

I rely on this.

Still, there are so many small bodies in the world,

for which I am afraid.

Buddhist teachings say we may rely on this, "There is suffering."  Little bodies will get trashed, and even the fierce tortoise with her protective shell, gets  mashed in our roads.  Now, tell me again, how might we rely on this truth?  Perhaps because death and tragedy is reality, and there is much of which to be afraid.  But who wants to go through the day embodying this knowing?

 Instead of living a life based on  the suffering before us, the left hemisphere of our brain gains dominance.  The processes there do not wish to give into the emotions that the right side of our  brain is processing from our fear center - the amygdala in the limbic system.  Instead we tell stories that there "should not be suffering" and do our best to end the suffering, or perhaps more often, end our discomfort over witnessing it.  We might say that it must be someone's fault that baby ducks get eaten by voracious fish and tortured by kids at the city pond.  Or we forget that ducks fear, feel, and know pain and loneliness, and don't recall how hard their lives are in the brutal farms in which we as a species cage them until slaughter.  Don't get me wrong.  I make tragic choices all the time that result in suffering - mine and others.  I forget the beauty that gets swept away by the disdainful and painful, or I forget the hurt in favor of beauty.  How can I know everything and hold both poles of this tension?

I don't have an answer, but I do believe that I have a choice; we can lived based on the fear that won't go away, or live based on the beauty and love, that too, won't go away.

In your day, where are you motivated by fear, and when by love?  Or are motivations always arise from both?

Maker of All Things, Even Healings

All night under the pines the fox

moves through the darkness

with a mouthful of teeth

and a reputation for death which it deserves.

In the spicy villages of the mice he is famous,

his nose in the grass

is like an earthquake,

his feet on the path

is a message so absolute

that the mouse, hearing it, makes himself

as small as he can as he sits silent

or, trembling, goes on

hunting among the grasses for the ripe seeds.

Maker of All Things,

including appetite, including stealth,

including the fear that makes

all of us sometime or other,

flee for the sake

of our small and precious lives,

let me abide in your shadow-

let me hold on

to the edge of your robe

as you determine what you must let be lost

and what will be saved.

Here is the teeth of the matter. What is in your life that you do not accept, yet because it exists at all, comes from the Maker of All Things (however you so describe the process/power by which you came to be)? Here's my short list:

• · The two-party political system in the U.S.
• · The power of money
• · Nonhumans treated as if objects without inherent worth or dignity
• · Alzheimer's, especially in my mother and father-in-law
• · Women subjugated to men
• · The loss of biodiversity and the abundant nonhuman wildlife that existed before the industrial age

So my anger or despair, so the suffering and the fear, so absolutely everything belongs here in this world and in my life. How hard this is to accept, and how I anguish that the world cannot be different. My big powerful brain complains that I feel so separate from the rest of life, and brings this suffering upon itself. For if I do not accept what must be lost, including myself and all I love, how can I be saved and all that I love?

What does your short list look like? What are you doing to accept that which you currently reject?

Bear

It’s not my track,

I say, seeing

The ball of the foot and the wide heel

And the naily, untrimmed

Toes. And I say again,

For emphasis,

To no one but myself, since no one is

With me. This is

Not my track, and this is an extremely

Large foot, I wonder

How large a body must be to make

Such a track, I am beginning to make

Bad jokes .I have read probably

A hundred narratives where someone saw

Just what I am seeing. Various things

Happened next. A fairly long list, I won’t

Go into it. But not one of them told

What happened next-I mean, before whatever happens-

How the distances light up, how the clouds

Are the most lovely shapes you have ever seen, how

The wild flowers at your feet begin distilling a fragrances

Different, and sweeter than any you ever stood upon-how

Every leaf on the whole mountain is aflutter.

I have come across bear tracks and sign in the wilds of Alaska. Every near encounter focused my attention ever greater to fire side stories told by others who had actually interacted with wild grizzly bears. What would I do if I saw a bear, and if s/he charged me, what would be the best strategy for evading harm? Such goes the allure of bear stories – what would I do? Would I survive? The fascination of bear stories and spoor seems to be fueled by fear and ignites further anxiety. But what of the fragrance of flowers? When teaching Nonviolent Communication I often have given an example of the distinction between stimulus and cause with emotions. Does the bear cause us to be afraid? One person might see a bear bounce out of the berry bushes and feel extreme fear and start running .The next person might see the bear and be overwhelmed with a sense of beauty and connection (although probably also retreating to put distance between them and the bear). The bear stimulates our emotion, but isn’t the “cause” of emotion, or at least not the pure cause. Our cognition and history of bear stories informs our emotional response. So we can choose: to flee from this life or to be embraced by wondrous clarity and interconnection.

Do you have themes in your life that cause fear, such as bear stories, shark stories, or broken relationship stories?

Moss

Maybe the idea of the world as flat isn’t a tribal memory or an archetypal memory, but something far older-a fox memory, a worm memory, a moss memory.

Memory of leaping or crawling or shrugging rootlet by rootlet forward, across the flatness of everything.

To perceive of the earth as round needed something else – standing up!-that hadn’t yet happened.

What a wild family! Fox and giraffe and wart hog, of course .But these also: bodies like tiny strings, bodies like blades and blossoms! Cord grass, Christmas fern, soldier moss! And here comes grasshopper, all toes and knees and eyes, over the little mountains of dust.

When I see the black cricket in the woodpile, in autumn, I don’t frighten her. And when I see the moss grazing upon the rock, I touch her tenderly,

Sweet cousin.

Key words: family, wild, insect, season, fear, stone, animal, plant, world, evolution

In our congregation we often say that we are a community of memory and hope. We lift up values, stories, and science to remind us of what we already know – the deeper wisdom underneath the quotidian events of our lives. What is that wisdom? It seems that deep within our psyche is the knowing that we are all family. And let be me frank here. We have the just as deep knowing that we’d like to be done with this family – a family that brings pain, suffering, war, disease, broken relationships, and death. So we leave the trees for the savannah, stand up, run, chase, fly, and enter in space. One day I imagine we will leave this planet, some remembering in the millennia to come that it was round, a circle of life unbroken with connections, and others thinking it was flat, empty of depth and full of death and misery. The moss sees level beauty, and we humans can see into multidimensional universes. God of glory, god of wisdom, may we never forget either!

How do you see the world?

Three Prose Poems

1

Oh, yesterday, that one, we all cry out. Oh, that one! How rich and possible everything was! How ripe, ready, lavish, and filled with excitement-how hopeful we were on those summer days, under the clean, white racing clouds. Oh yesterday!

2

I was in the hold burn dump-no longer used…Here a pair of hummingbirds lived every summer, as if the only ones of their kind…I strolled, and was almost always sure to see the male hummingbird on his favorite high perch near the top of a wild cherry tree, looking out across his kingdom with bright eye, and even brighter throat…a plane, a black triangle, flew screaming from the horizon, heavy talons clenched and lumpy on its undersides. And, lo, the hummingbird cringed, it hugged itself to the limb, it hunkered, it quivered. It was God’s gorgeous, flashing jewel: afraid. All narrative is metaphor.

3

After the storm the ocean returned..so there was the world: sky, water, the pale sand and, where the tide had reached the day’s destination, the snow. And this detail: the body of a duck, a golden-eye; and beside it one black-backed gull. In the body of the duck, among the breast feathers, a hole perhaps an inch across: the color within the hole a shouting red. And bend it as you might, nothing was to blame: storms must toss, and the great black-backed gawker must eat, and so on. It was merely a moment. The sun, angling out from the bunched clouds, cast one could easily imagine tenderly over the landscape its extraordinary light.

Is life just a moment, balanced between fear and tenderness? Does the tide come in and yesterday was lush and we feel expansive and open, and then the tide goes out and we constrict with fear and scarcity? It seems to be so. We are God’s precious jewels sparkling in the sand, eater and eaten, afraid. Okay, maybe I can accept this. What brings me angst and a hollow thumping of the heart though, is that I will seek to blame God, the world, the gull, the plane, you, me. And as the tide goes out and the sun sets, I will think that I am lonely, alone worthy of praise or blame, of praising of blaming. Oh be still my cognitive self and let the story rest for a while in the calm of an intertidal zone, for all stories are metaphor as Mary says. Beneath it all lies shared being – no life, no death, just sparkling amazement lying amongst the ever present grains of fear.

Who or what do you blame? Praise?