we’re not afraid of the big, bad wolf. so we’re building our houses with sticks. one of the funnest summer projects, ever!
when i was little, i had this imaginary world i would go to before i fell asleep. we lived in the trees of a thick forest, and there were bridges that stretched from one tree to another. i miss that place.
graphite pencil and watercolor on arches hot press paper; birthday gift for my dear friend
Quietness
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.
The speechless full moon
comes out now.
(Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks)
A fish swims through the sea,
while the sea is in a certain sense
contained within the fish!
Ah, what am I to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans ink?
(mewithoutYou, the dryness and the rain)
i haven’t been dreaming for weeks. dammit, i always dream. but i woke the other day with a faint memory of an image that was the ocean. then there was a quote (a couple, actually) on twitter about the ocean that moved me, and a link to a song that referenced the ocean. then i put my ipod in and heard a song that i hadn’t yet listened to, which ended up being about the ocean. and the public tv show i sat down to watch with shortcake, while listening to the song about the ocean, was . . . about the ocean. i’m a little bit annoyed with the whole sign thing, and i fought with my ego regarding the agenda here (trip to tahiti, anyone?), but i thought, ok ok fine. got it. ocean. fine.
then a package arrived in the mail. a gift from pixie, torch-bearer-sister-parachute-medicine-woman-extraordinaire, beautifully crafted by lauren: a necklace, called “whale song,” with an abalone shell pendant. lauren listed the beads and explained their unique properties, all extremely relevant to me right now. and the abalone shell, of course: “intimately connected to the sea . . . harmony . . . tides of emotion . . . trust in intuition.” she also made a sachet of herbs and crystals for me that contained the same wonderful things as her dream pillows.
so, you know, i cried. a lot.
in colorado, i bought a turquoise necklace from a native american woman parked at a mountain pass. i let it absorb the energy of the mountains, the peaks and valleys, and knew that it would always remind me of the awe i felt there, the connection to Creation, to the earth’s natural power and beauty. so now, apparently, i am collecting the elements, because this talisman is ocean. and it is washing over me, through me: the tides, the currents, the refracted light, the jagged teeth of the sharks, the whale songs, the warm salt water, the remnants of a sunken ship.
i took this picture for pixie and lauren, planning to just crop out the face. yyyyes. i am aware of the puffy eyes and dark circles. they were well earned. (as were the unplucked eyebrows! and also that notch on my nose. and also the poor exposure.) but there is something so raw and honest about how wrecked i am in this photo, and the strength i feel regardless, that i’m showing you all.
pixie also led me to this poem. and so i’m paying it forward.
The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.
from mesa verde
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save
(p.s. no. i am not running away… not today, at least. i just found the poem to be thought-provoking.)
i had intended something a little more obscene with this week’s illustration friday prompt, “double.” but then the lines in her hair reminded me of a rainbow, and i couldn’t help but think of the double rainbow guy. i lummeesum double rainbow guy. in my current state, i would not need to be intoxicated to be so deeply moved by a double rainbow. i can assure you, i too would sob and plead with the universe for the meaning. what does it meeeeeean? and i would answer myself: it means absolutely nothing and “full-on” everything at once. it all has meaning, and then double meaning. it all counts. every breath, every thought, every glimmer, every shadow, every sound, every letter, every space, every single punctuation mark.
[breaks down, sobbing]
!
i don’t belong here, in this
Place where i Belong.
i close my eyes as the mountains fade into the horizon behind me
and think that if this were an addiction, i’d be in the tremors of withdrawal.
but though there are tears, and indeed, there is trembling, i sense that
everything remains
that separation is an illusion
that the peaks that brush the faces of stars, and
the canyons that pierce the heart of the earth, and
all the wild, natural magic—all
is within me.
and with gratitude, i learn that my longing
is essential to the experience of life,
and to my return.
dimples, holga, tri-x, kettle moraine
someone once said that the definition of insanity is taking four children on a cross-country road trip. i think maybe that someone was me, precisely one year ago, when we did such a thing. but then i forgot, because now we are doing it again. this one will be shorter than last year’s trip, only 22 hours of driving each way. last year i spent the entire time in the passenger seat puting newborn dreadlocks into my hair. this year, i plan to spend the entire time tweeting. so, follow me through the thrills of iowa and nebraska, through the joys of altitude sickness in colorado. it’ll be fun. i promise. if i can figure it out, i’ll upload an occasional shot of my journals (watercolor, ink, writing, i’m feeling ambitious). we leave tomorrow morning. i wonder if i should consider packing?
Sweet Darkness
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except
the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the
sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
—David Whyte
Cheers! to the weekend, and to living, as opposed to existing. And one more toast to those who know the difference.
This is worth pondering. Does nature in her wisdom intentionally produce nonconformists, or find a use for them, enlisting their disparate talents in her service. Is there a place for everybody, a reason for everything, and we fail to understand some underlying cosmic logic?
Do acts that appear the most senseless to us have a rationale that we fail to appreciate? Are what we consider errors and mistakes really part of the grand design? How encompassing and integrated is the mosaic of life? Just how big and complex is this world that we define so freely and understand so poorly?
The Queen Must Die, And Other Affairs of Bees and Man – William Longgood
(thanks for the words, Lisa, and for the model, Julie!)
