field notes:

10.4.2002

I've chosen to live a simple life: to do some work that makes me happy; to help my friends; to recycle and compost; to swim and walk my dog; to read and write and love and cook.

But days like today make me think I should have chosen a different life. When the idea of war brings me to tears I wish I were in a position of power, so that I could do more to try and stop it. But I've chosen a life where beauty is valued more than ambition, where peaceful days are more important than a high powered job, where being still and listening is more important than speech-making.

I'm afraid that what's to come may destroy much of what I value in the world. I know that it will bring more hatred, destruction, and division.

What can I do? Today, I swam and worked and bathed my dog...and then I made some simple phone calls and told people on the other end of the line that I don't want a war. I hope they were listening.

senate
congress
white house
posted by Lisa Thompson on 5:39 AM link | comments []

10.2.2002

Fall lurks. I feel it around the edges of morning, and in the evenings' cool, dark approach. A nip in the day's early air, less sun in my afternoon window, and a woodpile that's growing bigger but can't get big enough to console me.

This will be my first winter in this house. I've heard around town that it's cold. Total strangers have said to me, "Oh, you live at Drake's cabin. That's a tough place to keep warm."

I'm looking forward to the storms through these windows, though. El Nino is imminent and I wonder if my winter will be mild, and how long I'll be able to swim in the bay without a wetsuit.

Because we swam at low tide today the grasses had to be gone through. I've grown used to feeling them, sharp edges but lithe bodies give way finally to breast stroke. I can't see them but I know them to be brown with mud and that they are being cleaned as my body pushes through them. They are, in part, becoming green again.

In the open part of the bay the wind urged us eastward. We knew waves and spray and the last warmth of indian summer water. Wool and fleece awaited us on the beach. Fall lurks in my blue toes.
posted by Lisa Thompson on 10:16 PM link | comments []

10.1.2002

On the bank of the Klakamas river I attended a wedding last week. The rituals intertwined the couple into a marriage over several hours: sacred drumming, blessings, poetry, and song. The waters of the Klakamas converge in this place where their house sits. Scattered along the bank are beautifully prepared shrines for each of the elements: water, earth, fire, and air. A fifth altar enshrines nature or spirit -- the fifth element. Flowers sit at the base of each shrine. Nearby a teepee overlooks the waters as they come together after embracing an island in the Klakamas. On the wedding stage near the drumming circle and behind the couple is another shrine devoted to them.

The ceremony opens with drumming and then spirit is evoked and invited to be a part of the day. Suddenly, on an otherwise still, hot day, a great wind comes down the river and into our clearing by the bank and under the trees, blowing hair and dresses, sending a thrill through the gathered friends, knocking down flower vases, and reminding us that there are forces greater than our planning can know at work on a day like this.

The next to speak is Michael Meade who leans over one of the altars and knocks down a vase of flowers that had been righted after the wind came and knocked them down. He says that the flowers should not be picked up. He says that if there are no mistakes in the wedding, then there will be mistakes in the marriage. Let the mistakes happen in the wedding so they don't have to happen in the marriage.

This moment has stayed with me. Life, or nature, is messy and flowers get knocked down. Despite all our planning, trucks break down and block bridges and we sit in traffic; oakworms invade our homes; clients cancel contracts. And the soul works in this way. A slip of the tongue reveals our hidden anger; the strange path of a dream our true desires, and sitting in traffic we write a poem.

Embrace the oakworms and the traffic jams. Nature is here, invited or not, and her ways will run tangent with your plans. But notice the direction the wind is blowing. Listen to the sound it makes as it stirs the leaves, listen and let it steer your heart.

* * *

Connections

Ours is a low, curst, under-swamp land
the raccoon puts his hand in,
gazing through his mask for tendrils
that will hold it all together.

No touch can find that thread, it is too small.
Sometimes we think we learn its course--
through evidence no court allows
a sneeze may glimpse us Paradise.

But ways without a surface we can find
flash through the mask only by surprise--
a touch of mud, a raccoon smile.

And if we purify the pond, the lilies die.

William Stafford
Storie That Could Be True

* * *
posted by Lisa Thompson on 7:52 AM link | comments []