Bind to Each Other

Offer comfort and know it's hardly a delicate thing.  It's winding a grief or fear or apathy with spring.


Wrap the darkness up in endurance. In the covenant of splits and tears and heaving and transformation.


Give faith , the way the morning light cleaves auguries of wonder to a trembling heart , and bears all things.

Fold the suffering and the lonely and tired into  sanctuary.  Bring the peace of bewilderment .


 Of life rising up from fragments and the flung and the buried under. 

** finished quilt . wrapping a friend in love and courage as she did for us

still quiet and still

' Never lose a holy curiosity, ' Einstein said ; and so I lift my microscope down from the shelf, spread a drop of duck pond on a glass slide, and try to look spring in the eye.

                                                  Annie Dillard

The male red-winged blackbirds almost command with their puffed up glossy audacity. 

 Not here.  Go.

I crouch under the railing .

 Watch a muted reserved female tend to her nest in the low line of the marsh. 

Finding life underground takes purpose I think.  Takes a whole back to back piling on of mornings and just before sunset and hours bowed down,  just in case.

  It's a path you take alone sometimes. Until you realize you aren't of course.

time

Telling a friend you are making her something as a small token of gratitude is not the same as actually making it of course.




Sharing a  poem written by Galway Kinnell while I play catch up for a bit....




The Still Time




I know there is still time  --
time for the hands 
to open, for the bones of them 
to be filled 
by those failed harvests of want,
the bread imagined of the days of not having.


Now that the fear
has been rummaged down to it's husk, 
and the wind blowing 
the flesh away translates itself
into flesh and the flesh 
gives itself in its reveries to the wind.


I remember those summer nights
when I was young and empty,
when I lay through the darkness
wanting, wanting,
knowing
I would have nothing of anything I wanted --
that total craving 
that hollows the heart out irreversibly.


So it surprises me now to hear
the steps of my life following me --
so much of it gone
it returns, everything that drove me crazy 
comes back, blessing the misery
of each step it took me into the world;
as though a prayer had ended 
and the bit of changed air
between the palms goes free
to become the glitter
on some common thing that inexplicably shines.


And the old voice,
which once made its broken-off, choked, parrot-incoherences,
speaks again, 
this time on the palatum cordis,
this time saying there is time, still time,
for one who can groan
to sing,
for one who can sing to be healed.

the gift of the day

I was ...   hugged, tickled, cuddled, and kissed. I had my make-up done, my hair analyzed, my body critiqued. My voice, both the talking and yelling one, was scrutinized and belittled. Endearingly so. I was thanked for my cooking, told I don't cook enough, appreciated and not. All by my own children no less. It was the best Easter weekend ever. Even though I was as close to seeking therapy for anxiety as I've ever been. Or maybe because. And they were blissfully unaware of this. I think.


I am ...   amazed at how the morning light ignites leafing out trees.  The earth all feverish with the new. The possibility.


I think ...  that I need to start running early in the morning again. I tried to convince myself that it was a relief to be free of that schedule , but um, I haven't run in over a month. I need to run. See above .

I wonder ... what the next few weeks are going to bring. I  am like spring perhaps. Unfurling all empowered and becoming.


I wish ... my children a long and healthy love and laugh filled life.  That they are wise and discerning , honest, humble, and strong. And when times test and stretch and grow dark that they feel loved and Beloved and a peace that passes understanding . .

I save ... conversations and smells and sounds and song. Body language and sighs and the way you looked when you were sleeping and just woke up . What you wore, how weren't afraid to dance, and the light on the field just before the game started. The air in stairwells of rented flats and homes in Montreal and the cooling relief of a cheek pressed against the wall next to my bed on hot summer nights in them. The sound of my babies crying and laughing and their little voices and their very grown ones when they call me on the phone to tell me they're sick.  I probably don't save near enough things and someday my hands will long to run over them , but for now they take up too much space where I've got so many voices and longings and memories and life. 

I can't imagine  ...  my life any different than it is .  I could make a  list of things I'd like and love and prefer some days more than others of course.  I'm resting quite peacefully in the "things worked out better than I could have ever imagined", so I'm content to leave it at that. Especially this past year. Especially. 

I believe ... my husband is the most incredible person ever. Also?  He  spends a great deal of time and effort making others feel incredible.  

I love ... that I woke up this morning. It's a crazy broken world . It's days of chaos and mundane, uncertainty and faith. It's the anguish or the abundance feeling like poetry. Everyone trying to know what to say and what not to and touching and eating and sipping and smiling just enough or too much.  Giving and trying not to take so much.  Trying to be awake and amazed by the coming of a new season even as we mourn our losses and carry regrets and bend a little more with age and burden and reality. It's a word or a connection or the radiance of heaven right here on earth.

A YEAR OF PATHS AND LANDSCAPE : Lent to Lent - FIVE

A YEAR OF PATHS AND LANDSCAPE: Lent to Lent - FIVE



PRAISE


~~~   April is a month of life and death.  Of loss and hope . 


          It is the month in which I lost my father as a little girl of ten, 
                 the one I chose to get married in 
                 the one where I gave birth to a very unplanned daughter almost 14 years ago
                 and the one to mark a year that has passed since I chose to knock on the door of my now late      mother's home again after many  had come between us.


 this Monday of Holy Week,
 I am quieted by the sudden death of my husband's colleague and friend a few days ago and the thought of the funeral tomorrow,
by the bruised and limp too early blooms of the neighbourhood magnolia trees as colder weather returned



It's fitting that it's National Poetry Month. 


It's fitting that I look at old photos and give praise.

A List of Praises
by Anne Porter
Give praise with psalms that tell the trees to sing, Give praise with Gospel choirs in storefront churches, Mad with the joy of the Sabbath, Give praise with the babble of infants, who wake with the sun, Give praise with children chanting their skip-rope rhymes, A poetry not in books, a vagrant mischievous poetry living wild on the Streets through generations of children. Give praise with the sound of the milk-train far away With its mutter of wheels and long-drawn-out sweet whistle As it speeds through the fields of sleep at three in the morning, Give praise with the immense and peaceful sigh Of the wind in the pinewoods, At night give praise with starry silences. Give praise with the skirling of seagulls And the rattle and flap of sails And gongs of buoys rocked by the sea-swell Out in the shipping-lanes beyond the harbor. Give praise with the humpback whales, Huge in the ocean they sing to one another. Give praise with the rasp and sizzle of crickets, katydids and cicadas, Give praise with hum of bees, Give praise with the little peepers who live near water. When they fill the marsh with a shimmer of bell-like cries We know that the winter is over. Give praise with mockingbirds, day's nightingales. Hour by hour they sing in the crepe myrtle And glossy tulip trees On quiet side streets in southern towns. Give praise with the rippling speech Of the eider-duck and her ducklings As they paddle their way downstream In the red-gold morning On Restiguche, their cold river, Salmon river, Wilderness river. Give praise with the whitethroat sparrow. Far, far from the cities, Far even from the towns, With piercing innocence He sings in the spruce-tree tops, Always four notes And four notes only. Give praise with water, With storms of rain and thunder And the small rains that sparkle as they dry, And the faint floating ocean roar That fills the seaside villages, And the clear brooks that travel down the mountains And with this poem, a leaf on the vast flood, And with the angels in that other country.

looking for spring

I wish I had the innocence of a child . Then I could give you this homemade gift with anticipation and a bursting heart and a  way to say thank you and I love you spilling all out a little messy.


Instead I'm a shy and not at all tech savvy picture taker and poem and prose maker. I  can't help but want to attach a post of reasons why I shouldn't share this . And yet?


I'm going to . 


 I'm not expert anything except in trying to learn and asking questions and seeing and looking for life underground. Being awake. 
 In place of a  stream of photos from my recent trip to Massachusetts, I made a slideshow set to music for you. I hope it brings you a few minutes of peace. And hope.


The song is called Spring, from the album my room in the trees , by Innocence Mission.  I cannot thank the beautiful inside and out  Jodi enough for introducing me to them. 


here  are the lyrics ; 





Spring
Look out for Spring,
the life underground,
the life underground.
The thawing and the overflow.
Oh early, early in the morning
we’ll go.


Seven shades of green
are painted on your door,
painted on your door,
the field alive under the snow.
Oh early, early in the morning.
we’ll go.


Oh world of rooftops,
hearing one field song.
The walk in raincoats,
the wait for Easter, Tom.
We are awake or waking,
awake or waking from.
Here that day comes.






Looking for Spring


( and if you liked it or know someone who might? please share. like a re-gift:) )

A YEAR OF PATHS AND THINGSCAPE: Lent to Lent - FOUR

A YEAR OF PATHS AND THINGSCAPE: Lent to Lent - FOUR 

I circle and crisscross and come upon the same again and discover something entirely unexpected.

 I suppose it's true that we never see the gift of the thing until after, but this feels different. Everything is burning and I'm all praise and pen and revery.

 I make a note to google the man I watch from a bench outside yet another coffee place. He zigzags his way up and down the main street and I want his name. His story.
 I am struck with the idea that  it might be the way to know mine.

 He is barefoot. Mottled with dirt ever so.  No one seems to notice him except the odd person I hear yelling from their car when he's in the middle of the road. But he's noticed yet more  garbage and uses his pick up stick with precision and just keeps at it . Going and mumbling and getting done what he aims to.

 I like to keep my sin from flaking off. From having it strewn about where you might judge .

 Sometimes we get a sense of the centre by slowly circumventing yet again.

Perhaps we shouldn't wait until death to learn how much we are loved in spite of our humanness.

But because of it.



I left a heavy stone behind.

in which I can't resist saying hello

I'm waving my hello  from Amherst, MA. , where I'm visiting my oldest daughter. She  is sharing her world with me.

No shortage of learning and wonder and gratitude ever.

 sigh.

Wishing you a weekend of the same.

A YEAR OF PATHS AND THINGSCAPE: Lent to Lent - THREE

A YEAR OF PATHS AND THINGSCAPE: Lent to Lent 



THREE



Spiritual Journey

And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles,
no matter how long,
but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,
very arduous and humbling and joyful,
by which we arrive at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.


                                                   Wendell Berry

When I Forget to Be Quiet

Most Important  Thing I Learned This Week 


Listening is loving

 Just that.

My heart receiving yours .





Wishing you a weekend of peace in the valleys. 

A YEAR OF PATHS AND THINGSCAPE: Lent to Lent - TWO

TWO


Why all the bells and whistles then? The extravagance of whorls and shadow and nubs. The wrong shoes sloshing and caked heavy with mud barely distract.
 Have  I come upon it all at the exact right moment ? Ah, decomposing leaves, you can be so slick.
 Ever the expert in things unfurling.
 I try to manage the incoming , the interruptions, the conflict , yet here is skunk cabbage far too early. Except it isn't of course, burning through the patch of snow in purple streaky glory. A flower before the leaves. Contrary and prior to  the usual ephemeral of a spring hike. 
All this embellishment crying out stop and look.
 Sometimes, this intermittent life, with all it 's seasons of dreams coming true and the less than, the hammering away at putting down roots and the  dry spells ; they can make it all murky. 


The fluctuating makes the sap run.


 I swear I can hear it . A life force established.  A work of art.


 I'm all eyes . 

life together

Perhaps it is not what I can bring to the table.  But who comes. 

Thy gifts. Not of my making.

:::  Do you have a 'table' story? Photo? Poem? Musing? Care to share in the comments? :::

Link your post so others may find you, visit the tables others have set, share in the communion of .

{ read the first 'at our table' post and some explanation here }

Random Gratitude

Random things I am grateful for ....




::  a friend liking  a photo I shared to Pinterest. which prompted me to look through the other ones from that trip to Grand Canyon a few years ago. and I realized YET again how very lucky I am. and how very incredible my husband is . 


::  my youngest daughter astounding me with her maturity, composure and grace as she was confirmed in our  faith . 


::  family gatherings . large and small, formal or not so much. the absolute gift of them every.single.time.


::  a last minute getaway to downtown Toronto. just me and that incredible husband .  a love that endures and grows and understands. 


::  used bookstores


::  clear and sunny spring like days in winter . for walking and walking and walking. 


::  red wine


::  the hotel fitness centre 


::  grace . for unanswered emails and unread blog posts and still to come replies to comments on mine. 


::  for a daughter who lit up every nook and cranny of the house and our hearts during her too short reading week visit 


::  for a son healthy enough to travel to visit his sister and friends on his


::  moments of insight and clarity and  wisdom . a little by little journey to peace of mind and heart. 

~~ sharing with Ann Voskamp and the Gratitude Community 

of things we offer

A child of mine stringing lights . A long morning's labour ; sequins across a kitchen table . Trays of joy to give away.  This is the melancholy of tables sometimes.  Dawn letting go into the day. I think of peonies all flamboyant , lush.  Evanescent. Petals melting , relinquishing.  No vainglory here.  Love from the kitchen like gold that stays.  

:::  Do you have a 'table' story? Photo? Poem? Musing? Care to share in the comments? :::

{ read the first 'at our table' post and some explanation here }

Link your post so others may find you, visit the tables others have set, share in the communion of .


( button code thingy? today . promise.  Linky thingy? still not sure. Leave a link to your post in the comments for now okay? Thank you. )

A YEAR OF PATHS AND THINGSCAPE : Lent to Lent

ONE

Those who went ahead 

of us in the forest

bent the early trees

so that they grew to signals :

        In the morning I advance
        through the doorway:  the sun
        on the bark, the inter-
        twisted branches, here
        a blue movement in the leaves, dispersed
        calls/ no trails ; rocks
        and grey tufts of moss




                                                 from PATHS AND THINGSCAPE  Margaret Atwood 

at our table

A Day of Those Days  ( our son in the hospital )


it wasn't so much a forsaking or betrayal
just a drift into the current
all that rain
a river
a going under
we begged the pain to ease and let you sleep
we didn't know where to touch you
and had to  let go
don our coats
like shrouds
step lifeless through the doorway


it was soundless
just a flow
we avoided cars , nurses
the expanse between us
subjects

gripped what we saved each hour
by hour
to our chests
breathing
above the liquid ash
the journey
 shoreless



you drank too much coffee
I let mine grow cold
we slumped

sediment

the table bearing us
our thoughts  clay
homesteading in the wash of a river
breeding in the  abundance
a house upon a rock

:::  Do you have a 'table' story? Photo? Poem? Musing? Care to share in the comments? :::

Tables are our life together. Fellowship. Becoming more fully human. It is in the gathering, serving, the


 sacred presence of something past and present and future that we are all bound to one another .


 One. 


Tables are the places of struggles and triumphs, blessings and joy, shared heartaches, and GRACE.


They are the wells and the rafts and the places for creating, study , solitude and song and LIFE. 






Come to this table then , perhaps?  A community on Thursdays of BEING. Elizabeth and Amber are breathtaking examples that I read yesterday while trying to talk myself out of doing this :). Thank you for  brilliance and art that always transcends. Thank you for reminding me how I love and need to live communion.

Thank you for sharing something that is yours. To become ours.






{ and you can use this button , or not. tell me I should do the Linky thing or not . notice that I'm posting quite late on Thursday. feel free to join at any point then , like say Friday :) }

live in love

the spreading of light

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

                                                                                      from Mary Oliver's The Swan

Friday

I am :

remembering how I absolutely need the spreading light and have found a place to call my pond and will continue to become and to share

you? 




** and the usual request for grace - am fiddling with the blog a bit and it's not co-operating and  I meant to add LinkLove , Best of links, etc. sigh. calling it a night. It is Friday after all :)

why I run

 

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake.  Henry David Thoreau

I run because I realized I can. Because I was a mother of five children turning 40 and walking wasn't getting me away from it all fast enough. Soon the post to post became kilometres and I ran because that felt like power. 

I found in a best friend neighbour a running partner and together the rain and snow and wind and unbearable heat became years of running and laughing and walk breaks and tears. I realized I had power. 

I could fight through the urge to quit, the fear of falling on trails, the early mornings over and over and yet again because I said I would. I could conquer the frustration  of always being slower, weaker, or  dehydrated so I won't have to pee .   I shout and chatter  and sweat out  all the daily mundane, the  battles and hurts , worry and heartbreak. 

I fly. Slog. Shuffle. Transcend. 

I run because I am now on my way to being 50 and what if I can't? 

Night after night I sense the howl of a wind closer and louder and stronger and I know come morning I will choose to be awake. To see . To run. 




:: I'm joining the always inspirational and talented writer Jo @ Mylestones  . To run for the lives of others.  To Run For Their Lives because they need our awareness and help and power. To transcend. 


The Love 146 Mission is to abolish child sex slavery and exploitation.  To make a difference.  I can help. One step of faith at a time. 




Love146 Overview from LOVE146 on Vimeo.

:: quite certain I came last in that church picnic race:) . quite certain you aren't supposed to post half-marathon proof shots without purchasing them :)

each day a journey

Yes, you say, as if you'd been asleep a hundred years, this is it, this is the real weather, the lavender light fading , the moisture in your lungs, the heat from the pavement on your lips and palms----not the dry orange dust from horses' hooves, the salt sea, the sour Coke---but this solid air, the blood pumping up your thighs again, your fingers alive.  And on the way home you drive exhilarated, energized, under scented, silhouetted trees.       Annie Dillard , Pilgrim at Tinker Creek 

* photos Mayan Riviera 2011