The Riders

When the Pony Express needed riders, it advertised

a preference for orphans-

that way, no one was likely

to ask questions when the carriers

failed to arrive, or the frightened ponies

stumbled in with their dead

from the flanks of the prairies....

There were plenty of orphans and the point of course

was to get the mail through, so the theory was sound....

think of those rough, lean boys-

how light and hard they would rise

fleeing the great loneliness.

Some examples of sound theories:

There are plenty of chickens, so what if by the billions they lead lives of suffering?

There are plenty of trees, so what if we lose the remaining forests?

There are plenty of cats and dogs, so what if we euthanize them by the millions?

There are plenty of people, so what if 2 billion of them live with inadequate shelter, food, or water?

In trying to flee a great loneliness, we have become lean and hard towards others.   

My theory, how does it sound?

Broken, Unbroken

The lonely stand in the dark corners of their hearts.

I have seen them in cities, and in my own neighborhood,

nor could I touch them with the magic that they crave

to be unbroken. Then, I myself, lonely,

said hello to good fortune.  Someone

came along and lingered and little by little

became everything that makes the difference.

Oh, I wish such good luck

to everyone. How beautiful it is to be unbroken.

Is Mary saying that we are only whole when in relationship with those that linger in our lives?

Well then, aren't we always unbroken, for we are woven into the web of life from birth to death.

Maybe it's just at times that the strands that connect us are so faint that we can barely see them. 

Maybe in our sleep we grind our teeth on what binds us to life

So it is to us to wake up to the beauty

It is to us to open our eyes and train them to see the interconnection

It is to us today to bind up the broken.

What shall you weave today?

Mink

A mink, jointless as heat, was

tip-toeing along the edge of the creek,

which was still in its coat of snow, yet singing-I could hear it!-

the old song of brightness....

the mink had a hunger in him

bigger than his shadow, which was gathered

like a sheet of darkness under his

neat feet which were busy

making dents in the snow. 

He sniffed slowly and thoroughly in all

four directions, as though

it was a payer to the whole world...

For me, it was a the gift of the winter

 to see him.  Once, like a hot, dark-brown pillar,

he stood up-and then he ran forward, and was gone. 

I stood awhile and then walked on

over the white snow:  the terrible, gleaming

loneliness.  I took me, I suppose,

something like six more weeks to reach

finally a patch of green, I paused so often

to be glad, and grateful, and even then carefully across

 the vast, deep woods I kept looking back.

In the winter of our lives, are there patches of experience for which we can be grateful? And the ultimate test, can we see beauty in the harshness and the dying back?  My sister recently was diagnosed with bone cancer, probably metastasized from a previous bout of breast cancer.  For me, this is devastating news.  There are some hard years for her coming up, and I'm guessing, not too many of them either.  Yet, in our phone calls she has times of laughing, nearly giggling.  Yesterday her retort to the mess her affairs are in, was, "At least I got to see a hawk."  She had seen a Sharp-shinned hawk foraging around in her snow covered bushes for sparrows, and fly away talons empty. 

She is like a beautiful sleek mink, and now is the time for me to look at how her life is a prayer to the whole world.

Who or what is your mink in the winter time?

Coyote in the Dark, Coyotes Remembered

The darkest thing met me in the dark.

It was only a face and a brace of teeth

that held no words, though I felt a salty breath

sighing in my direction.

Once, in an autumn that is long gone,

I was down on my knees in the cranberry bog

and heard, in that lonely place,

two voices coming down the hill, and I was thrilled

to be granted this secret,

that the coyotes, walking together can talk together,

for I thought, what else could it be?

And even though what emerged

were two young women, two-legged for sure

and not at all aware of me,

their nimble, young women tongues

telling and answering, and though I knew

I have believed something probably not true,

yet it was wonderful to have believed it.

And it has stayed with me

as a present once given is forever given.

Easy and happy they sounded,

those two maidens of the wilderness

from which we have-

who knows to what furious, pitiful extent-

banished ourselves.

I have my whole life longed for animals to human speak through voice or thought transfer, such as seen in the movie Avitar.  What I would I give to be able to talk and walk with a nonhuman companion at my side!  In recent years this has lessened a bit as I learn more about behavior, interspecies neurobiology, and cognitive ethology, and apply all of this through conservation behavior.  What has shifted is that I am better at listening.

To me the Barred Owl laughs at the world in the night, well, maybe it's not laughing really, but no less clear for me.  For I feel the coolness and dark of the night, the feathered companion, competitor, or prey calling in the night, and I yearn to bring something good back to the three in the hollow of my nest tree.  As Owl perhaps I don't describe in this way, but as human my mirror neurons light up as I imagine myself staring at the blood red eclipsed moon.  I too fly silently in the night.  We have not left the wilderness.  It lives in us: our brains, our blood, our DNA, and in you. 

We walk and talk together - with words, or without words. In this space, may no beings be banished from our hearts or from this earth.

With whom will you walk and talk today?

Someday

Even the oldest of trees continues its wonderful labor.

Hummingbird lives in one of them.

He's there for the white blossoms, and the secrecy.

The blossoms could be snow, with a dash of pink.

At first the fruit is small and green and hard.

Everything has dreams, hope, ambition.

If I could I would always live in such shining obedience

where nothing but the wind trims the boughs.

I am sorry for every mistake I have made in my life.

I'm sorry I wasn't wiser sooner.

I'm sorry I ever spoke of myself as lonely.

Oh, love, lay your hands upon me again.

Some of the fruit ripens and is picked and is delicious.

Some of it falls and the ants are delighted.

Some of it hides under the snow and the famished deer are saved.

Perhaps our love is never enough, but love, no matter how small, feeds some being.  Maybe we don't see the results, only the small hardness of our hearts when love is not accepted or acknowledged. 

Just today when I was out walking upon our local prairie, I gave a list to my companion of what I regretted in my life.  We had been looking at the birds upon the flooded grassland, and as a pair of dowitchers or lesser yellowlegs or something along that line flew over I said, "I wished I knew birds better."  Then without  missing a beat, I added to the list, "I wish I knew Spanish better."  I wish I was in better shape.  I wish my knee didn't hurt so much.  I wish I wasn't so old.

 All of this comes from seeing such beauty and feeling such love, and wanting to dance with the world and give back to this earth all that she has invested in me.

One day the winter of my years will come upon me.  Then, all my gifts may well be hidden by snow white hair and withered hands. My labor then will be that I can still love and be loved. This work, perhaps the only work that ever really matters, never ends.  Amen.

What is on your list of regrets?

The Teachers - November 1, 2010 -

Owl in the black morning,

mockingbird in the burning

slants of the sunny afternoon

declare so simply

to the world

everything I have tried but still

haven't been able

to put into words,

so I do not go

far from that school...

I listen hard

to the exuberances

of the mockingbird and the owl,

the waves and the wind.

And then, like peace after perfect speech,

such stillness.

In purposeful meditation, we invite in the silence and listen to ourselves, and hence the world. In walking meditation and nature walks, we listen to what is about us, and are able to hear ourselves as we become still. So then, I ask, is there stillness without listening? Is there listening without stillness? The two seem like a pair of wings of liberated interdependence. Perhaps stillness is not a state to invite or at which to arrive, but is woven into the chatter of house wren, the beating of our heart, and the spat with a loved one. Each is perfect speech, yelling at us that we can love, even still.

Where do you encounter the silence?

When the Roses Speak, I Pay Attention - September 11, 2010

“As long as we are able to be extravagant we will be

Hugely and damply extravagant. Then we will drop

Foil by foil to the ground. This is our unalterable task,

And we do it joyfully.”

And they went on. “Listen,

The heart-shackles are not, as you think,

Death, illness, pain,

Unrequited hope, not loneliness, but

Lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, selfishness.”

Their fragrance all the while rising from their blind bodies, making me

Spin with joy.

Today is 9/11. It is not a day of lassitude. There is too much death and pain associated with this date, though last year the date seemed to slip by noiselessly. Not so this year, for we have in our own town the threat of a small congregation burning a Koran. The media response is spinning out of control, and the whole circus gives rise to more violence, hatred, and fear. In the crowds that may gather if this church goes through with it, I heard of a stealth plan. A group of people trained in non-violent communication hope to infiltrate the gathered and offer empathy where they may.

They, roses in the garden.

If ever there was a day to do so, let us breathe in the fragrance of beauty, so that we may breathe out joy.

The Snow Cricket

Just beyond the leaves and the white faces

Of the lilies,

I saw the wings

Of the green snow cricket

As it went flying

From vine to vine,

Searching, then finding a shadowed place in which

To sing and sing…

One repeated

Rippling phrase

Built of loneliness

And its consequences: longing

And hope…

It was trembling

With the force of its crying out,

And in truth I couldn’t wait to see if another would come to it

For fear that it wouldn’t,

And I wouldn’t be able to bear it

I wished it good luck, with all my heart,

And went back over the lawn, to where the lilies were standing

On their calm, cob feet,

Each in the ease

Of a single, waxy body

Breathing contentedly in the chill night air;

And I swear I pitied them, as I looked down

into the theater of their perfect faces-

That frozen, bottomless glare.

Have you ever cried out in the night from lonliness? I don’t think I am alone if I were to answer, yes. There have been plenty of long, hard nights – of illness, of risk, of foolishness, and just plain ole human despair. Do you have nights where you wish someone would come join you, almost anyone, just as long as they embraced you for all of who you are and would be your silent companion? And they don’t come. Some time then in the long hours as you cry alone and come through the depths of pain you look up and see the stars or perhaps the sun’s light peaks into your soul or maybe you fall into a dreamscape. Either way some relief comes, for you have seen the essence of living, and of dying. What seems remarkable to me that in the next day, if anyone was to see those who have had these nights of longing, we couldn’t tell. For we return to the waking world asleep, with a frozen face signaling as well as we might that we are okay, we are perfect, and no need to worry about me. What if we carried that longing, that song, that trembling, that hope throughout the day? What if I did? What if you did?

The Lamps - February 16, 2010

...You light the lamps...

...You light the lamps because

you are alone in your small house

And the wicks sputtering gold

Are like two visitors with good stories...

...But of course the darkness keeps

its appointment. Each evening,

An inscrutable presence, it has the final word

Outside every door.

What story does darkness say? Are there not good stories within the enveloping reaches that connect us to all others - the stories of light, shadow, and black night? In the day light, we might imagine ourselves as separate, capable to go it alone, ego driven to get the day's chores done. But when the power of night comes with the threat of foxes that pull birds out of trees, we see that we need each other to affirm that the sun will rise once again. When the dark comes, we listen to stories of light and life. So that in the next day, we can bear the stories of dark and death.

What are nights like for you?

On Winter's Margin - January 12, 2010

...By time snow's down, the birds amassed with sing

Like children for their sire to walk abroad!

But what I love, is the gray stubborn hawk

Who floats alone beyond the frozen vies;....

They are what saves the world: who choose to grow

Thin to a starting point beyond this squalor.

Here I think of charity of crumbs for birds, for the marginalized of the world, the poor. Here I think how we mindlessly throw off what has gone stale for us and rejoice in how the oppressed will sing our praises if we but show our scant love in trails of broken crusts for those breaking upon earth's crust. Here I think in this month of 2010's beginnings I strive to grow thin so that I might in each moment begin again in love. May this thinness not be of sacrifice, but of joy as the light from within which reflects the bright beauty without has an easier and easier time of shining through.

Where do you choose to grow thin so that you might see beauty, and empower your community beyond acts of charity into actions of justice's strength?

Morning in New Land - January 9, 2010

...And under the trees, beyond time's brittle drift,

I stood like Adam in his lonely garden

On that first morning, shaken out of sleep,

Rubbing his eyes, listening, parting the leaves,

Like tissue on some vast, incredible gift.

I awake today to a cold day - the day's work before me when I'd rather roam under the trees listening to the random song of life. So I step out under the stars and circle once, as if in the center of a gentle whirlpool of a lake's womb, thanking Eve, the mother of us all.

How do you see the gift of the world on those morning where waking seems to be the same old thing day after day?

The Swimming Lesson - January 8, 2010

...Somebody, I suppose,

Remembering the medieval maxim,

Had tossed me in,

Had wanted me to learn to swim,

Not knowing that none of us, who ever came back

From that long lonely fall and frenzied rising,

ever learned anything at all

About swimming, but only

How to put off, once by one,

dreams and pity, love and grace,-

How to survive in any place.

Below is a story of how once I threw in a juvenile penguin into icy waters so that she would be forced to learn to swim. At that time it was joyous to hold and release such wildness. Now I recall how with so many animals, friends, and family I have "forced" them to learn something so that they learn to survive, while I unlearn love and close the door to grace. I, the inheritor of ancient maxims, long to live beyond laws into love.

From: http://liberatingwings.typepad.com/liberating_wings/2008/11/penguin-toss.html

I have loved penguins since I was a small child. They are birds and can swim, and can withstand harsh ocean environments. This combination made them irresistible and heroic to me. I was a swimmer myself who sometimes felt, like the penguins, a little round and off balance on land.

When I was in my early thirties, I lived in Alaska and California. I traveled often up and down the West Coast. One of my favorite stops was the Portland Zoo. A good friend worked there and would let me wander around with her while she fulfilled her obligations. One day she invited me into the Penguin enclosure. There the penguin caretaker introduced me to the fledgling Humboldt penguins and let me feed them their silver, slippery fish. After we fed the young penguins the caretaker picked up one of the young, somewhat fluffy birds and threw her or him into the swirling mass of penguins swimming around the rocks. The shock to me was as great as it must have been to the bird. "Why did you do that?" I asked.

"It’s because the birds need to learn to swim and need to socialize with the flock, and they won’t go into the water unless there is a physiological impulse, which we don’t have here in captivity. So we have to throw them in. Would you like to throw one?" I was appalled and shook my head no. I watched her throw a number of penguins. It didn’t seem to hurt the birds. The urge to throw one began to grow along with the awareness that I might never get another chance. So I stepped up the mound of rock upon which the remaining dubious looking youngsters huddled, choose a likely candidate, did my penguin pitchers wind up, and let her fly. With a satisfying plunk the bird entered the water, came up bobbing, and scrambled onto the rocks next to me. I smiled deeply and broadly, my glee originating in imagining someone picking me up and throwing me in so that I could swim with these mighty ocean goers.