this is an old woods. while we still can hike in it, we are driving -without stopping- to the woods and, generally without seeing anyone else, taking a hike. it is grounding to be in a woods that is old, a woods that is natural.
around us many trees have fallen. they lay quietly on the ground, nurselogs to others, the white rot fungi that is sharing their space an invitation to symbiosis.
we spend time looking up at the very-mature-trees standing, reaching to the sky, parallel to each other, taking in the sun. they too share their space. they have endured storm and wind, snow and torrential rain; they have endured times of thirst and times of excessive heat. they are still enduring.
i suspect most of these trees are much older than us. their rings of life could tell stories of lack, stories of abundance, stories of challenge and stories of ease. yet, they quietly stand, swaying in the wind like cattails along the curves of a slow river. not one boasts of its steadfastness; not one complains of its fall. the wisdom of the ages seemingly is in the long story. not in the angrily staccato-ed punctuation of a self-indulgent-short-story.
we step into the forest and the community of trees seems to sigh, pleased to see us again. it is not the prettiest of woods. but it is deeply, silently reassuring. life goes on.
chaos (physics): ‘behavior so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions’
we were at a meeting up north this summer when mona said this, “even chaos has boundaries.” i jotted it down because it felt relevant. in the midst of a contentious situation we were trying to keep our ‘do what’s best for the organization’ hats on, trying to believe that there, indeed, would be an end to the chaos. committed to a peaceful forward-advancing plan, we kept both hands on the hats, guarding against a wave, a treacherous wave of onto-the-band-wagon-jumping, the aligning of two camps on different shores offering nothing of good import for the organization.
but there is a fine, fine line. an infinitesimal line of crossover – where one tiny change, one more jenga block, one more pick-up stick, one more stone in the cairn, tilts the seesaw and chaos reigns.
we face, today, a seesaw of the greatest sensitivity. like refraction, light passing through various mediums, the bend in light is dependent on the medium. the slightest change in density yields change.
clearly, we must be sensitive. the light we refract, our response, will determine what the next person has to work with. if we refract less light and more darkness, darkness will exist, will be pervasive. and darkness, in the way of chaos, sussing out change and a hole in the dam, will become exponential. where is critical mass, when the seesaw collapses, the cairn falls?
we must be sensitive. we must be responsible. we must respond in integrity, despite everything around us, despite the doubters, despite the rhetoric, despite the cavalierness, despite the political dogfight, despite the positioning of that ever-present caste ladder, doing what is best for each of us, for all of us. what i do affects you.
in our own worlds, for ourselves, for all, we can strive not to pull the wrong jenga block or move the wrong pick-up stick. choose your cairn-stones with care.
my emotional well was full when i woke up today. thinking of us, our children, our families, our dear friends, our community, this world. i desperately want to gather our beloveds in, hold them close, protect them.
i have no words for all of this; i have too many words for all of this. i fear that none of them are helpful, none of them are wise. it’s just me. and, like you, carrying the weight of the world one step at a time, one quiet minute at a time, staring out the window and wondering.
hundreds of them. birds galore. all sitting on the wires. one by one they flutter and change places. but they all manage to sit on the wires together. they adjust. they move over. they change wires. they allow space. they allow other birds in. and they sit. (although technically, i suppose they are standing.) they don’t seem to be exclusive. they don’t seem to be judgemental. they don’t seem to be laden with agenda. they seem to be working it out – this being-in-community-together thing. refreshing.
and then it occurs to me. they are all the same kind of bird.
what would happen if a different sort of bird showed up and wanted to sit on the wire, to be in their community? would they react like people?
blank. it’s blank. this book i carry with me. it’s a journal, but i’ve never ever written in it. created by sue bender, the plain and simple journal has photographs of amish quilts and the shortest snippets of writings, many gleaned from time that sue spent in an amish community. i’m not sure why i haven’t written in it; perhaps it is a very-prolonged beaky rule – to save it. i do know that its pages have both comforted me and made me think. perhaps my own writing-on-these-pages would distract me or, once the pages are filled with scribble, it will detract from the printed snippets and fall out of i-carry-it-with-me grace. either way, it’s blank. and it’s profoundly wise.
“an amish woman told me, ‘making a batch of vegetable soup, it’s not right for the carrot to say i taste better than the peas, or the pea to say i taste better than the cabbage. it takes all the vegetables to make a good soup.” (sue bender)
+
“to reconcile our seeming opposites, to see them as both, not one or the other, is our constant challenge.” (sue bender)
=
“we all do better when we all do better.” (paul wellstone)
for where is it that we can not glory in another’s success, mourn with another’s failure, weep with another’s grief, dance with another’s bliss? we share the space. in community. not division.
we share the ride – we are all vegetables in the soup – we are not one or the other – and yes, we all do better when we all do better.
“do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” (credit for quote is unclear)
this sounds like a good mantra for one’s life. it would seem that it would bring satisfaction and accomplishment to someone invested in its mission. it would seem that it would create joy for others. it would seem that, were everyone to simply live by this precept, the world could actually be a place of peace.
but people are not infallible and personal agendas reign over the collective. competition is fierce and the caste system hasn’t vaporized. people keep score and vindication is a driving force. people are self-serving and power-controlling and will knock those down in the way.
children are not born with the desire to exploit others or minimalize or marginize them. they are not born with hatred in their hearts. children are born with the ability to embrace all, include all. they are not born with a scorecard in their hands. they are born with the generosity of innocence. they are not born with fear of places and peoples different than them. they learn that.
we can teach our children to play nice. but we need model it first. we need do all we can.
download ALL YOU CAN from AS IT IS on iTUNES or CDBaby
it is against the odds that this tree clings to rock and doesn’t topple into the lake with a great splash and float away. instead it stubbornly holds on, a steadfast intention. the rock, the basso ostinato.
at a time when holding steadfast seems mightily important, i wonder about the questions we have been asked. will you stay? will you leave? will you love it here? in the midst of all the infighting, are you going to give up? will you hold on?
the answers may not be directly related to the actual intent of those questions.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. we will hold steadfast to our integrity. we will hold steadfast to the reasons we came here in the first place. to make a difference, to bring ideas and change, to apply that which we have learned, studied, experienced over at least 80 combined years of work, higher education and profession. to be honest and transparent and collaborative. to try and instill a sense of working together into a community divided by narratives too numerous to list.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. we will hold steadfast to our belief that people should be kind to each other, that people should not work around others nor should they undermine others, that people should instead lift each other up, not drive stakes into another.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. steadfastly. to honoring art, the driving force behind this initiative. to honoring creativity and the blossoming of beauty and wisdom, staunch tenets of artistry.
will we hold on? yes, we will hold on. steadfastly. to believing all is possible.
but, in answer to the real intent of the question asked us….will we hold on?
we will not hold on if others cannot join us in what is real, what is truth, what is most important. we will not hold on in the fire of pettiness or shameful self-serving underhandedness. we will not hold on, holding still while others take turns throwing rocks at us, at the real goals of this place, if those are indeed about art.
the answer to the question is not up to us. we can either cling to the rock, holding steadfast or we can topple, with a refreshing splash, into the lake and float away.
download HOLDING STEADFAST from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on iTUNES or CDBaby
at night, if the weather is clear, with the backdrop of waves lapping at the shore, we look up and see the milky way in the night sky. it makes us feel tiny. tiny in a vast world.
we string happy lights about our home, inside and out. they are the simplest of holiday light strands, eensy white lights on green or white cords and we use them year-round. one white light alone barely lights a space, but together, a constellation of tiny bulbs, the illumination is magical. one alone. all together. it makes a big difference.
we are working in a place that is divided. the division is deeply rooted and exacerbated by stubborn attitudes and time. we must “string the stars together” to bring hope; we must “sing light in common song” to move forward. community must prevail over a schism of proportion. no place can truly be beautiful without stringing together. we have our work cut out for us.
fair isle books is one of the sweetest spots on this island. a breath of fresh air with warm ambience and overtones of the joy of learning, this little shop is owned by deb, whose heart is gigantic. outside her shop is this plaque, a snippet of a poem ‘constellation’ by wisconsin poet laureate bruce dethlefsen, a presenter at the washington island literary festival in 2013.
how fortuitous that this poet should capture in a mere 33 words the work that is to be done. we are not alone, each of us on this tiny-planet-in-the-vastness. though seemingly individually strong, we are indeed actually weak. we must link arms, act in community, string together, work collaboratively.
division doesn’t create more for each on the sides of the chasm. it creates less.
collectively, we can create boundlessly. our constellation -together- creates hope.
on this very day, at this very time, i do not feel at home. and i believe i take home with me, so this is truly a statement of much discontent.
what is home to you?
how important is it to you to be surrounded by people who, with consciousness of others, support you? how important is it to you to be amongst those who are kind, who are magnanimous, who are respectful to all, who are collaborative? how important is to you to be around people who lead with goodness, who work together, who do not embrace divisiveness?
how important is the place? does an idyllic location exempt bitter disputes and argumentative people? does it matter if the sun rises and sets in dramatic color if the timbre of the place is ugly, combative, rift-producing, breach-exacerbating? what flowers override belligerence, competition and antagonistic voices? what soaring birds and graceful wildlife eclipse closed minds and turning a blind eye to others’ pain?
important questions, i believe. eye-opening questions.
home is indeed subjective for each of us. our hearts lead us.
from essays in the art of living (wilferd a. peterson, 1961) “no [one] stands alone. through all the centuries of recorded time, [people] have set into motion influences that affect your life today…you are the heir of the ages. [people] reaching for the stars have created for you a world of wonder and challenge…more enduring than skyscrapers, bridges, cathedrals and other material symbols of achievement are the invisible monuments of wisdom, inspiration and example erected in the hearts and minds of [all persons]…a leader glorifies the team spirit.”
it is a mighty mountain to climb without support. it is a mighty chasm to fall into without hands reaching out to form a solidarity, a community. the struggle to retain absolute and autocratic control is the antithesis of the solution, for no one person knows all, no one person can see all, no one person can create all. control will undermine, sabotage, poison the well-spring of possibility. control is not that of wonder. control is not enduring wisdom or inspiration. control is most definitely not example.
“a leader glorifies the team spirit.” “cohesion-the action of forming a united whole.”
moving into the future requires a choice. division and discord? unity and harmony?
