Curiosity and Wisdom

Happy Autumn!
There’s an acorn woodpecker just on the other side of the window, the red streak at the back of its head highlighting the hard work of getting real nutrition from the world around it.
Its motive and mine are not so different, I think. It’s more and more difficult to find truth when being fed a refined diet of alarmist headlines. I often balance on the hairline tightrope between fear and love. Then I remember what really matters. This perspective brings some comfort.
Unless your superpower is tunnel vision, you’re also exposed to a toxic drip of fear, lies and hatred, which is way more than a normal human brain can process. Or at least this human brain. I often forget even the most basic wisdom that my long life has offered. I sometimes even begin to doubt a foundational faith that has carried me before through dark times.
During the last few months, my brain, trying to be a helper, put the words of Julian of Norwich on autoplay: All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. What a very wise brain! It turns out these words of wisdom came as a mystic visitation to the 13thcentury anchorite nun in England. Since she lived during times that were a bit chaotic, given the plague, starvation, inquisitions, and the hunting and burning of women, I thought her words might have a little relevance in our current world. After all, her wisdom was sought and followed by religious and secular leaders of the time, and they were up against some hard stuff.
Long ago, inspired by the Carlos Castaneda books, I made a commitment to a Path of Heart. I was 29 when I posted the declaration on my office door: For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length—and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.
During the last 45 years these words have found sturdy legs in all my various roles as a teacher, author, mother, counselor, and coach. I have tested this path, and it has not let me down. Although I have amended it after practicing the breathless thing again and again. If I could now I would edit that sign. Today, it would end, and there I travel, breath by breath, led by curiosity and wonder.
Going back to the basics gives me comfort. It reminds me to learn from all sources of deep wisdom. To trust grace to carry me above the confusion and to guide me to land on the next best action.
And so, with a whole lot less anxiety, I will sit down today to write one more batch of post cards reminding people to vote their conscience in the upcoming election. I will drop them in a mailbox soon, sprinkled with a prayer for the good of all beings.
Including you.
SGB
curiosity is my girlfriend demanding but patient she was once easily satisfied by whimsy while I attended to grown-up matters like family and job and living a serious life we’d paint my pinky nail with glitter to mark our secret engagement to remind me that we need each other in the grown-up world and to remember that laughter is always a choice after dark weeks of rain we’d go on short drives to discover there really was an opening of blue just over the hill nowadays she demands a good wander raises an eyebrow at any excuse she speaks now in the language of rustling trees and crickets at sunset and nudges me with each step to pause to listen in wonder to ask the next question and love the next as yet unfinished answer. —SgB 2024 |
photos by George Beekman and Ben Beekman |
Being Grandmothered

It’s official now, I have been Grandmothered. At first I had a hard time embracing that identity, but not because I’m attached to my youthful image. I passed the youthful grandmother phase long ago, landing firmly in the Great Grandmother category.
For the last ten or fifteen years almost every one of my friends has become a grandmother, usually many times. I’ve delighted in their photos and cute kid stories, from to toddlerhood through puberty and sometimes college. I’ve loved witnessing that special bond between grandchild and grandparent. I only occasionally thought I might be missing out on something. Mostly I was too busy celebrating my new life of freedom. Having spent large swaths of my life trying (and often failing) to manage my original family from afar, I was taking a big break.
Besides. both of my adult children were skittish about bringing a new being into this fragile world, and that’s been okay with me. I knew they weren’t the only ones of their generation weighing the costs of parenthood in a new light. I joyfully embraced the joys of being Not a Grandmother in other ways, seeing myself as a space holder, an elder hoping to share a bit of life wisdom in a culture gone mad.
So when my son and his partner, both in their early forties, slipped a sonagram into a slide show on Christmas Eve I was flummoxed. Once I realized what it was, I assumed that maybe it was an early photo of a new puppy to add to their interspecies family. I was totally unprepared for how my body reacted to the actual news. Something about the wonder of new life, I guess. But for a while tears kept showing up inconveniently.
In a New Year’s text strand with lifetime friends, I dropped the grandbaby news as an afterthought Everyone weighed in immediately. Holding that baby will change you, they concurred. This tickled my curiosity. Then I remembered my own grandfather, who always kind of glowed when I was around. He never stopped telling me how special I was, what a wonder: his Very First Grandchild. Like no other.
So you might say I had a few expectations during the second and third trimesters of waiting. When I tried to imagine holding a newborn, a fog would roll in. For one thing, the very fact of birth itself seemed incomprehensible. Confronted by the enormity of the reality of life, I gave up.
Then a few weeks ago it happened. Life’s biggest miracle. Birth. She is, of course, the most beautiful newborn in the world, a tiny and fragile frog, her cry like a rusty gate opening at first, building into full-throated protest. She will need that voice, I think. The world will need her voice.
So how was it to hold my one and likely only grandbaby for the very first time? At first, it was basic. Natural. But lately the epiphanies have been multiplying. I look at her classic oblong-shaped face, the one I recognize from long-gone ancestors, and I am moved by a deep connection to the flow of life through generations. And then there was the discovery that she also has a jumbo-sized little toe on the left foot like me. Okay. I may be making that up. We’ll see how this turns out.
Mostly I wonder every time I hold her what ‘s going on in her brain while she sleeps herself into readiness for this world. And then there’s that mysterious newborn smile, the one my mother explained to me as angels whispering in the baby’s ear. This is as good in my mind as any other theory, like for instance the gas and pooping hypothesis.
Because this has been a holy time. Words just can’t do it. I’m still mesmerized by the mystery of whatever world came from. Perhaps it’s because it’s a lot like where I’m going. Back to the ultimate mystery.
What does it mean to be a part of the flow of life from one generation to the next? I’m still finding out. Right now I feel more exposed, more vulnerable to the evils and craziness of this world.
But I’m also newly hopeful and motivated.
I see possibilities on the horizon. And I want that future more than ever. I want to spend my remaining time building and uplifting this world, fueled by that hope. I want to make the calls, write the letters. I also want to sing. Maybe I’ll return to my beloved women’s choir, or maybe I’ll join the Raging Grannies. A loving, raging, granny and a joyful peace warrior.
But today when I hold her tiny body I take a long whiff of her tiny fragrant head. A fragrance like no other. I’m aware that I’m breathing in the most essential scent of life itself. And this is enough. More than enough.
Letter to a New Life Welcome to this World, Baby J! Sorry about the rough trip, that being untwisted like a light bulb part. Your mother will be okay. More than okay it turns out. And now that your light is here, Let us tend it for a while. Let us hold your swaddled body, passing it ever so carefully, human to human. Let us hold hope in our arms for this moment, as we take vows for your future, for the future of this world. You will always be cherished, your mother’s breast says, and your papa’s chest hair tickles your face right here, in this big noisy bright place, saying You are fresh. You are whole. You are loved beyond measure asleep to us now but safe. Always safe. —SgB August, 2024 |
photos by Ben Beekman |
Remembering to Keep My Mouth Shut

Being quick-witted and sassy is what women in my family have always been known for. I used to have such fun racing to pop off an answer framed as a question, Jeopardy style. I always won. I’ve also always loved pulling off a good rescue mission.
Stir together the impulse response and the Rescuer persona. Apply a long career aa a teacher and counselor. Bake for about 65 years. What comes out is someone like me: a human being who is constantly learning to keep her mouth shut.
Nowadays I at least know to slow myself down. And when I do slip up, it’s because I’ve somehow convinced myself of my own brilliance and wisdom. Based (of course) on an ample lifetime of learning the hard way.
The best worst news of getting older is that the quick-witted trick doesn’t quite work the same.Now I think of the very best snappy comeback and then I sometimes stop mid-sentence, awkwardly waiting for someone’s name or a common everyday noun to emerge from the murky bowels of my memory. Just like the old days when I frequently blew a good punchline.
It’s strange to be That Person, and the one who forgets important things like where she stashed an item of some importance (say a car title, or perhaps her very own head). Day by day it’s apparent that I’m over it (my head, that is).
Who is This One now she’s in the third act of life? Not the same. And yet that’s not true either. There’s a very big, calm part that always knows, when asked, what’s truly important to remember. It lives somewhere and nowhere and everywhere, and it has always had my back.
When I remember this I don’t need the cheap memory tricks anymore. but what I do need I’ve had all along, and she’s a hella good navigator, calm and wise. One with the Big Picture in mind. One who knows the wisdom of silence, or at least the secret of when to listen well. One who wants nothing and whose fuel is a calm, loving heart. And that knowing is far more powerful than any one word could ever be.
I relearn this nearly every day.
Gratitude for all these moments of clarity, even when I forget.
Nourishment I want to eat the morning light by the tablespoon. No. By the cupful. Stalking it ambushing it as it butters its way across the room, moves at a certain slant, creeps up behind the shadows tucked into corners swallows everything in its way I scoop it up for free like capturing snow for a cone. Three cupsful of radiance in a giant waffle cone, please. Savoring its smooth glow, I swallow its essence whole, ready now to face the news of the day —SgB June, 2024 |
photo by George Beekman |
Fuse for Your Pocket: Green on Green

Green on Green
Here in Oregon the color is always on-brand, just like rain, her more-famous sister brand. When spring first rolls around, the infinitude of colors of green flood the landscape. No one has yet invented Spring foliage tours, but the potential is there.
Oregon Leaf Peeping tours. come drink in the colors during our spring greening event, at its best for only a couple or three weeks. (Just remember: you heard the idea here.)
Ever since the increased loss of ancient forest lands to wildfire in the last five years, I try to stay focused on gratitude for what’s left. Spring always makes this less of a struggle, with its constant reminders of renewal.
Earlier this month I went on a retreat in HG Andrews Experimental Forest. It’s in the Cascade mountains a couple hours from my home. It’s also the very first US Forest Service outpost devoted to forest research, centered in an ancient forest stand. It was established around the time of my birth, a more innocent and less fiery time.
I had been there exactly a year ago. Since then 70% of the surrounding forest acreage had burned. In addition, windfall from last winter’s ice storm damage surrounding us served as a constant reminder of nature’s growing vulnerability. Seeing all of this damage hit me hard.
How do I open up enough space for hope along with this sorrow? This was my heart’s cry as I walked the trail. After a good cry, I just might’ve needed to distracted myself a bit because before I knew it I was trying to name all the colors of green in a Crayola box. (The kind with 120 colors and a sharpener embedded in the box.)
I sat on a stump on a virgin forest riverbank to contemplate this, ancient trees all around. The longer I perched there the more I could see. I began to imagine breathing it all in. I gazed at a cluster of moss for a while, slowly letting in what was right in front of me. I counted at least five different species of moss, layered in deepening shades of my new favorite color.
Fir, hemlock, and cedar created a canopy which sheltered their moss friends. A few trillium flowers trumpeted the arrival of spring and tiny calypso orchids poked shyly out of the earth. It was like a Disney movie.
I drank it all in and closed my eyes. When I opened them again the words forest magic drifted through my mind. In its spell, I forgot to name anything at all, no matter what color. I was flooded by a deep sense of the ineffable beauty and comfort of all creation. I remembered a few words by poet Dylan Thomas. “The force that through the green fuse lights the world.” There was a sweet moment of being completely taken over by that powerful source of renewal. Then a flood of profound peace. Followed by a desire to protect the fragile land.
There’s comfort in knowing that I’m not alone. And I still carry the green fuse in the pocket of my mind. Maybe you’d like to put it in your pocket too, as you revel in the new life that spring offers.
Mourning Dove soft cry first sound new day rising voice of hope or a question. Are you there? the answer a beat away but steady now, now, now. a slow dissolve and a surrender to a landing and a resolution and a repetition or a preparation for the next call. Are you there? Where? Where, where, where? Same chord with the same soft insistence on a mournful tone of longing and a forever call with the same always response. just this, this, this, and this here, here, here. and here. Home, home, and home —SgB 2023 |
photo by George Beekman |