Creating Space

In my decision to blog I created a promise to myself to once a week polish up some words presentable enough to post. This week was a challenge however and this morning I found myself without a paragraph and uninspired. I was only inspired to clean. Friday was always cleaning day when I was growing up and I suppose I unconsciously tap into the rhythm of that cycle each week. My Mom said it was better to get it done on Friday and then have the weekend free. Having five kids and a full time job I don’t think her weekends were ever really free but I understood the intention. I realized my intention recently has been to try and create space. It is a way of cleaning up to free myself and not be a caretaker of “things.” I’ve concluded that by getting rid of things that no longer serve me I can create space to grow. My practical goal is ten things each weekend. Last weekend I succeeded and this weekend I will try again. Earlier this month in my Yoga class Stacy spoke of creating space as well through different asanas and breath. It reaffirmed that my goal was worthwhile, universal and a benefit to me on internal and external levels. Even with the best of intentions it’s daunting. Attachments grow strong and quiet, cluttering up the space I believe I have. Identifying what to let go of is a challenge but I am inspired by the wisdom of Maggi Horseman’s quote, “Letting go is flying”. Meanwhile, I’m off to dust my broom.

Awakening

Today dreamed of spring

And the earth felt the beauty of awakening

The sky smiled blue

Each moment reflected in a different shade of happy

Until from the West a setting sun

Blessed the Way

For the rising Hunter

Sparkling in the twilight of the January sky

Touched by today’s dream of spring.

Last Thursday I woke remembering a dream fragment. I was looking up in the dark night sky at the constellation Orion. Nothing else from the dream returned to me. This time of year he is clearly visible and so the dream fragment and Mondays beautiful weather were my inspiration for the poem. I wrote it Monday night without an intention to post it here. I write poems and rarely share them. For some reason they are important to me and I am afraid to own up to it. I began to do it because they gave clarity to my day, especially if it was a really bad day. I could fix it in a poem and make it beautiful. Or at least try to. Meanwhile even if the rest of my day could fall apart I had the poem to keep changing til it was perfectly beautiful. Anyway, now you get the reason for the cowardly lion J

Smile du Jour

The Song du Jour on the Dakotah Blue Facebook page quells my desire to share music and sometimes sparks a memory or an interesting dialogue. Yesterday I posted a Richard Thompson song called ‘Beeswing’. It is one of my absolute favorites although I haven’t known it long. I don’t remember the first time I heard it but somehow it missed being on my radar until recently. Richard Thompson however I have known of for (ouch, this is a reality check) forty years. I grew up loving Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and early English ballads and music. Together with Steve Winwood and Traffic, their music was a kind of soundtrack to my childhood and growing up years. Fast forward to October 2006. I am all grown up and accompanied my friend Assunta to San Francisco. Her husband Tony was playing at a huge free 3-day concert in Golden Gate Park called Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. He had left several days earlier to rehearse and teach a workshop in the Bay area. Assunta and I spent time with Tony when he was able, touring the city and visiting Chez Panisse in Berkley for a most memorable lunch. Primarily though it was three full days and evenings of music. It began on Friday with Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Elvis Costello. On Saturday we heard Gillian Welch, Guy Clark, Steve Earle, Jerry Douglas, Earl Scruggs and Billy Bragg. Sunday was filled with the music of Hazel Dickens, Tim O’Brien, Molly O’Brien, the Del McCoury Band, Emmy Lou Harris, Iris Dement, T Bone Burnett, Hot Tuna, Richie Furay and the Waybacks w/special guest Bob Weir. Besides hearing all this music I was able to meet many of the performers and for the most part saw the shows from the stage. It was an unbelievable experience and I am still in awe of it. I learned that weekend that Assunta and I shared a love for Richard Thompson’s music as well and although we tried to hear everyone we loved, there were 5 stages and Thompson was performing on a stage we wouldn’t have reached in time. He was on late Sunday afternoon and we had to catch the red eye home. Time was running out and the sun was beginning to set. We looked for the courtesy van for performers and family to return us to the hotel. We found it and had to wait for a few more people to arrive before it was ready to leave. Our hotel was a half hour away and we had just enough time to get our luggage and a taxi to the airport. Hardly Strictly had been a phenomenal time however we were both bummed a little but resigned to the fact that we had missed Richard Thompson. Assunta was having a cigarette when I decided I was too cold to wait outside so I climbed into the back of the van where it was warm. There was one other person already waiting inside. I chose the last seat as it was away from the open door and as I turned to move my pocketbook I realized the only other passenger waiting with me was Richard Thompson. He too was waiting to get back to the hotel….We were joined a minute or two later by his sound guy, Assunta and several other band members. Through the streets of San Francisco there were jokes to be traded and conversation with the driver who was a Hardly Strictly volunteer. The smile traded between Assunta and I though was hardly strictly anything but happy and for my part filled with wonder of the way of the Universe. Remember Serendipity? An aptitude for making fortunate and magical discoveries….unexpectedly.

LONDON CALLING

My phone rang repeatedly while I was in the shower. It rang again soon after I got out and I answered to a familiar voice saying Hello. It was the Band Director calling from London. It was the day before my son Eric was to return from a weeklong trip with the High School Marching and Jazz Band. Two conversations immediately began. One dialogue was internal and one was external, requiring control. I knew something was very wrong. As he spoke the Mommy alarm began to go off in my head while my mind was running rampant through an inner list of things. What went wrong was not on the list though. I thought illness, accident, drinking, smoking, partying…….The Director was saying missing. My son was missing. He had turned the corner with a group of ten and then he was gone. I immediately recognized that missing meant “can’t find him” companion phrase of, “don’t know what happened.” It was different from Lost. I wanted Lost. Lost belongs with Found. There are Lost and Founds all over the world in schools, workplaces, libraries, etc……Lost includes the hope that sooner or later the partner Found will arrive and Reclaim can take place. It’s a Holy Trinity of universal energy. My son was missing and it happened in a flash. The Director wanted me to know should Eric call home I could reach back to the group, from Ramsey, with Eric’s location. I hung up shaking like a leaf on an oak tree when the November wind blows and the leaf is frightened about where she will land. Just like the leaf must wonder what happened to the warm summer sun, I wondered what happened to my son. Shaking and feeling helpless as well I heard my husband come home and I went down to the kitchen to tell him. He too was so upset that I had to leave the room. It was my own need for damage control. Confusion and fear had filled up the kitchen and it was a recipe of unknown outcome. I needed to walk away, light a candle and say a prayer. Saint Anthony is invoked for all things missing, lost or in need. I lit the candle with a match that sparked all over my bedroom. I begged him to see the light in my darkness and answer my call to find my son, my sun…..an incomprehensible hour went by and the phone rang again to let me know he had walked into a hotel in London and that they were going to pick him up. He had been lost and was now found…. I could only thank his guardian angel, St Anthony and the Band Director for this happy ending. The echo though, from London Calling, has left me to carry a tiny teardrop of the understanding of the nightmare when someone becomes missing, not lost. Even now I still reel from the clash.

Follow the Red Brick Walk

The Freedom Trail begins in Boston Common and is a self-guided tour that meanders for several miles through Boston’s historic neighborhoods. I’m familiar with it having followed the red brick walkway several times since I was in my teens. Last November I walked the trail for the first time with Steven, my youngest. My husband and son Eric were visiting Berklee College of Music. Steven and I were free to explore the city. It was his first time seeing the historically significant places in Boston. We began at the beginning, just like the yellow brick road, except we picked up a map full of “points of interest” at the tourist kiosk in the Common. (I don’t remember Dorothy finding a tourist kiosk in Oz.)…… We walked by historic buildings and churches, entered ancient graveyards (at out own risk) and visited Paul Reveres house in the North End. We learned when Mr. Revere bought the house it was already 100 years old. Two hundred forty years later it is surrounded by Boston’s Italian neighborhood and it is a couple of blocks away from the Old North Church. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Paul Revere and the Old North Church with his poem of “Paul Revere’s Ride”. Also, the oldest bells in North America are at the Old North Church. They are rung every Saturday morning. We left the Historic Revere House and continued to follow the red brick walkway toward the church. The approach is through a rear courtyard to the front entrance. It is a brick lined, park like area with an enormous statue of Paul Revere on his horse. We had been on the Freedom Trail for four hours and my expectation was to quickly tour the church with Steven and end the trail there. We walked quickly because the sun was beginning to set and the wind had begun to grow stronger. As we walked a few people looking at something near the garden caught my eye. Curious, I automatically went toward them and that was when I first heard the sound. It was kind if a jangle and I didn’t recognize it. I was also unsure of what I was approaching. The small group there was quiet. After a moment they stepped aside and I read the sign that stated simply it was a Memorial to each of the fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every dog tag represented someone who had lost his or her life in these wars. The dog tags chimed and as they did I realized that the same breeze moving the dog tags and caressing my face my have been the same breeze that was in Iraq or Afghanistan on the day when these soldiers spirits moved on. The same sun that touched upon them blessing them with a new day was now setting and softly illuminating their memory with a hazy glow. The same moon now rising shares the secret of the pain of those who loose loved ones.

Standing in front of the memorial was the most profound moment of 2009 for me. Reflecting on the constant chiming of the dog tags in the shadow of the church that held the oldest bells in North America gave me chills. Let freedom ring. “America”, was first sung at another of Boston church, on the steps of the Park Street Church, across from the Common where we had started. I had learned that earlier in the day when I read about it on the map. The Freedom Trail that I had walked several times before this time walked me to a place unknown in my heart. I didn’t notice a destination of the heart on the tourist map or the change in the pattern on the walk way or how it got me there. I did however recognize how heart wrenching and poignant this memorial was and I was aware I wasn’t in Kansas anymore…

Spirit of Christmas

I never met Rina however I met and knew a little of the woman Rina later became. Mrs. Cross lived two doors up from my family’s home in a tiny English Tudor style house. I don’t remember speaking to her unless the holiday was Halloween and I was in costume standing on the brick patio that over looked her sleepy October Garden. The garden is really how I think of her and may represent what she really was, a flower unknown to me. In place of her front lawn, Mrs. Cross had created little brick and stone pathways around which different flowers bloomed throughout spring and summer. In a wide brimmed straw hat she was either tending the garden or sitting on her porch with her husband reading the paper. Years later, after she, her husband and son were gone and the house was being sold, my mother acquired an antique writing desk from the family. There, in a secret drawer, very neatly folded was this letter she wrote to her parents on Christmas Day in 1905 when she herself was a little flower……It is framed now and I hang it every Winter in my family room. It has become one of my favorite holiday things maybe because it prompts me to slow down during the holidays. Each time I read it I wonder about this woman as I glimpse into her own long ago childhood…..To think that each Halloween dressed as my usual witch or ghost I would trick or treat at her house as a child and now each year her childhood haunts me with the sweetness of a childhood garden and the spirit of Christmas past…..The postscript here is that even though I scanned the letter and the original is easily readable, this was too pixilated, and so it reads..........

December 25, 1905

My Dear Father and Mother,

As Christmas is here I thought I would write you a short Christmas letter. I hope you are glad that Christmas is here, and hope that Santa Claus brought you many presents. I am not very old and cannot write a very long letter. I am glad you both told Santa to bring me so many presents. I wish you both a very, merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Your loving daughter, Rina

JOYEUX NOEL MES AMIS ~Helene

Code Talkers

Last week the telephone rang jarring me out of a daydream. I reached for it with reluctance until….my eye caught the area code that had appeared on the caller id. 605. A happy rush flooded me as I was greeted with “Hello”. Cheryl Between Lodges was calling to shoot the breeze from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. Pine Ridge is the heartbeat of the Oglala Indians of the Lakota Nation. The reservation is in Shannon County, the poorest in the United States. Due to some crafty politicking it is not identified as such with the census because Independent Indian Nations are not included in the census statistics. The photo on the left was taken by Hector Emanuel. More of his work can be seen at www.still-standing.com. Recently photographer Aaron Huey visited and the link on the right will bring you to his photo essay. Please visit these sites to learn what teachers never taught you in school. Anyway, I have never met Cheryl however I consider her a highlight in my life and believe we became friends through an unseen code of the universe.

In the early winter of 1997 I was in Barnes and Noble with my kids so they could spend their Christmas gift cards. Through a miscellany of means, actually Russell Means, I bent down to tie my youngest child’s shoe and when I looked up on the shelf was a book entitled “Where White Men Fear to Tread”. I remembered news reports of the author Russell Means. Back in the day, before TV was censored, the Vietnam War raged daily, protests shed light on “everyday” peoples perspective and Wounded Knee unfolded on the TV screen in my mothers kitchen. The book ignited my desire to filter through my childhood memories and to hear his story. The book captivated me and I was unable to put it down. I finished it a week later feeling angry and lost. I needed to hear more stories. I went through the “Mom motions” at home but my thoughts wandered to Pine Ridge wondering constantly what it was like. On the third day after I finished the book, just as the sun was setting, my phone rang. It was before caller id. I picked it up and a woman identified herself as Violet Means. She was calling from the Native American Heritage Association looking for money to help with their fuel drive to heat the homes of elders. I was stunned and said yes to everything she asked. She seemed stunned that I was so agreeable. The next day I sent a check for $25 to NAHA. Several months later South Dakota called again. This time I asked how they got my number and was told they have a list that they call seeking donations. To this day I have no idea how I got on the list. I had asked my Ramsey friends and none of them were ever called. Also, I had paid for the book with the gift card so there was no way to track it….

“Mean” while I began to look on line and found a woman seeking toy donations for the Head Start Program in Pine Ridge. I had many things to send having four children and working in an area preschool. I sent along boxes and from then on did so almost obsessively. Cheryl left Head Start but fosters 3 boys slightly younger than my own so I have sent new and gently used books, toys, clothes and food for about 13 years now. She calls me from time to time and we share stories of family, work and life. I feel so lucky to be able to send things and fortunate to share the code of friendship with her.

To me, area code 605 is synonymous with the Universe sharing its very own code of Love. It’s another story of serendipitous magick that can reach anywhere and tie together heartstrings, not shoe strings. And now I have to go, I hear the phone ringing…It may be area code 605. Can you hear me smile?