![]() In a World Where Everything is Sacred “There are no sacred and unsacred places; there are only sacred and desecrated places. My belief is that the world and our life in it are conditional gifts.” ~ Wendell Berry Why do we continue to imagine we can mess with nature? Somehow out-think her millennial depths of flat out oceanic smarts?* You know the list already: plastic filled oceans petrol poisoned air chemically poisoned soil commercially poisoned dwellings corporately poisoned hearts. We can only start from where we are and that list is where we are. So from the stillness of contemplation and the urgency of converging crises we can start to notice the street lamp in front of our home we can sit with it honour the light is shines on our darkness feel the pain it feels from its journey from mineral in stone, from oils in holes to a static end-game of majesty standing temporarily before its demise in a dump when we can grieve its passing honour it for its loveliness and utility. Then we can call into our sacred circle the asphalt, the mailboxes, the fences, the sidewalks, lonely street trees and the cars. Imagine when we honour each bus shelter and storefront and help them re-establish their holy places in the midst of the mystery and the earth. Notice what happens to the hearts of parking meters and bridges when they learn to love again. Pretty soon all the spaces between things and the walls at the edges are no longer distances and barriers that separate us they’re what we have in common what connects us what we all honour and we notice that we are starting to think like nature acting from our stillness and holding it all reverently. * with inspiration from Wax Leader by Hannah Berry
0 Comments
Community Circle
Feb 21, 2017 How do you create a magic circle into which the world could turn? An open space held down by its cryptic centre. A cha-ordic vortex of transformation. A place of inner pilgrimage fueled by an inner economy that pulls black cats into the light. Land that dances its stories into the brains of the broken colonial map. A nursery of plants and children that feed each other. Adults that grieve and play their way into elderhood creating circles into which the world could turn. Sometimes, I've been fortunate to come across words written by someone else that articulate something that resonates for me as well. That happened again to me this morning as I took a lingering morning finishing Sarah Winman's A Year of Marvellous Ways. A lovely book.
I like to cook. I particularly like to cook when I have space to take my time. I rarely use a recipe, but sometime I'll scan several recipes on-line to get a feel for something new and then go do my own thing. Some things, like soup, I never use a recipe for and the results are never the same, but usually yummy. Sometimes it's awful. I've not exactly looked for a way to explain what I do when I cook, but when I saw these few paragraphs in Winman's book I knew I'd found it. "Finally, the last thing he needed to tell her about was his recipes. He told her something he had never told anyone: that his secret ingredient was the life he had lived. "Peace stared at him. What do you mean? she said. "Wilfred leant in close and whispered, Everything goes into my bread. Names. Songs. Memories. Every batch comes out different to the next but what we are looking for is not consistency buy excellence. You have to risk failure to become excellent." p 214 When my daughter was tiny I used to nap when she did since neither of us slept much at night. Our next door neighbour got a puppy and would put him out in the back yard on a lead at about the same time as we napped. He would bark the whole time. It was making me furious. I was exhausted and really needed the sleep. I'd asked the dog's owner several times to put him out at our off-nap times, but she didn't do it.
I was at my wits ends. I was so tired I was quite sure that a solid month of sleep and food and nothing else wouldn't be enough to regain any version of feeling awake and whole. Then I remembered a story about a violet, who, when stepped on responded by leaving a beautiful scent on the bottom of that person's foot. I was feeling pretty stepped on. I thought about how I too could be a violet. I made our neighbour a card using a wee footprint from my daughter as a picture on the front. She loved babies, including mine, and so I also included a photo of her. I wrote something like: I don't know when your birthday is, but please enjoy this card for today and all days, birthday or not. Then I signed it from my daughter and her mom. Then we walked over and put it in her mailbox. The dog was never out at our nap times again. Gravity
It is a privilege to learn something and a responsibility to know it. Knowing comes with weight over time a gravitas of substance that is held in the field like lovely stone sure solid present Maybe that’s why it’s called the cloud of UNknowing. Unknowing floats. It’s beautiful too as it murmurs into and out of shape mysteriously aloft in liminal space ‘midst pulls of gravity. Not yet knowledge unknowing is held in silent trust not yet able to be shared and still without heft. Not knowing insubstantiates itself, until, it knows. Then with speed and certainty knowing drops to earth, plants itself in a body of wisdom is held gently mute until it’s time to share it with those privileged to learn. originally written April 12, 2015 ![]() The Silence of the Little Things (2) Every morning I take my wee dog Peace out into the yard where he releases the night’s accumulation of water back into the earth. OK. Ya. He pees. Today his tiny friend Matilda was there with her grey/white yin/yang face. I crouched to greet her. With the silence of the little things she stood on her back feet and smelled my face her paw almost not touching my knee. The sweet force of her curiosity toppled me back and we laughed as Peace held the space and Matilda winked. originally written October 2015 I’m No War Monger
Early today Water showed up on my doorstep asking me how I was going to vote. Water! Can you believe that?! I was honoured and humbled to say: I’m voting for you. But I admit I was a little star struck. Later a small group of children came too. They were arm in arm with Tree, Prairie Grasses, Wolf, Salamander and I’m sure I saw Honey Bee hitching a ride on Wolf’s ear tip. Lazy bug. They asked too, that holy crew, How are you going to vote? I squirmed a bit when I said Water, but they put my heart at ease when they wisely pointed out that a vote for Water was a vote for them. Then they partied on over to the next house. An hour or so later I was startled by the arrival of Dirty Whirlwind (a ferocious couple: Earth and Air) who blasted their way to my home. Settling on the porch into a noble pile of rich soil and a lovely breeze, they too asked me how I was going to vote. Wow! I thought, Air AND Earth asking ME, little ol’ me, this important question? When I told them Water a breeze of relief wafted over me and Earth left me a tiny gift of mycelium strands. I didn’t event have a chance to say Thank You! because just like that, they whirled away. I could see where this was going and I wasn’t about to wait for fire to show her face so I picked up my purse and like my mother before me, and her mother before her (during whose lifetime it became possible for me to do so) I went to vote. I’m no war monger but today, and all my days, I will fight for all these visitors. originally written October 19, 2015 The Silence of the Little Things
When I was 12 a robin crashed into the cathedral glass knocking itself cold. I picked it up and placed it in a small box lined with soft. I put the box on the porch and watched. Soon revivified it blinked with shock tumbled and fluffed then settled in with the silence of the little things sourcing life’s energy from mystery calm and time. Later, with not even a split second’s notice or a small nod of thanks it stood and flew. originally written October 2015 Weak In. Weak Out.
With what do you feed yourself? What passes from without through your lips, eyes, ears and heart? What nourishment fuels the fires you build the structures you errect the words you set down the touch you give week in and week out? From where comes your strength, your depth, your care and your light? Substantiality, ferocity, open hearts and grief aren’t built in a day. They emerge in the chaotic order of consuming the goodness on offer, in amounts enough, just enough. Or, let’s just put it this way: White bread, coffee and bad news fuel fluff, hype and fear. Weak in. Weak out. originally written April 2014 |
Nicole Marie MoenPoems, stories, quotes and musings about beauty, mystery, humans and all life on earth. Archives
August 2017
Categories
All
|