Posts Categorized: Confusion to Clarity

Resorting and Re-Sorting

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Winter

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It’s late winter and once again I’m torn by two competing drives, each a response to cabin fever. First, there’s the strong desire to simply get out of cold, wet Oregon, trusting wide open sky as an antidote to the encroaching indoor walls and sunshine to the bronchial tickle the flu left behind. 

And then here at said cabin there’s a (sometimes small) inclination to sort through detritus of indoor living.

Both desires are as primal as the two paths of my Neanderthal ancestors: those who pursued friendlier climates, and those who settled down to sort out things, like seeds and families and agrarian life.

Resorting

Last month found us following the first path, traveling south to a bay in Mexico, where we resorted, mostly by just staring at the sea and basking in warmth. The empty skies and the constancy of waves gave my head a break from its never-ending efforts to create order in my everyday world. The phrase “last resort” came to mind throughout the trip because it felt like one. Covid strategies and stress had multiplied my ill-fated tendency manage the unmanageable. And so this seemed like a last chance to get a break from routine headaches and to downshift my nervous system.

While hanging out at our small hotel, I studied the wildly exotic but ordinary pelicans in the bay outside our casita. For days I watched each pelican as it dove again and again headfirst into the surf, each time filling its beak. After collecting their dinner, these strange creatures simply float on the water, placidly allowing the crazy filtering system in their expanded necks to sort the edible from the non-edible while they bobbled in the sunset and gradually absorbed their nutrition from the sea around them. We have a lot in common, I realized. I was also allowing my unconscious self some time to rest and take in sustenance from life as it is.

Re-sorting 

The seed-sorters. That’s my tribe, I think as I unpack from the tropical resort. Time to unfeather my nest. 

The impulse is right on time. Every year toward the end of winter a need for order rises up. If I were a serious gardener or a farmer, I’d be sorting seeds from last season’s crop, letting go of over-ambitious experiments from last growing season. I’d look forward to the fallow winter cabin time, when snow covers dormant plants and rain creates slick fields of mud and there’s time to pause by the warm fire, taking stock, dreaming, seed catalogues in hand.

It’s in that spirit that late winter weather inspires me to to take stock and sort out my own personal growth experiments. This inclination is especially strong during this past year of re-emergence. Holidays and resolutions are over. I’ve absorbed lots of spiritual nourishment along the way, so I’m filtering out what hasn’t served me. Same with clothes that no longer fit comfortably or reflect my sense of who I’m becoming. During this in-between time on the calendar, it’s also more possible for me to drift a bit away from old habits. To separate the seeds from the chaff, to sort through the detritus of the recent past, to imagine myself into whatever’s next.

I remind myself of all the myths and fairy tales in which sorting (and re-sorting) is a part of the hero’s journey. In classic Greek mythology, Athena orders the mortal Psyche to prove her devotion to Cupid, Athena’s son, by separating all the wheat, barley, millet, and beans in her enormous warehouse. Some ants came along and took care of the sorting in short order. In the famous Grimm fairy tale, Cinderella got her reputation by picking out peas and lentils her stepsisters mixed with ashes. Again, just in time, magical helpers (in this case pigeons and mice) pitched in so that she could make her grand entrance (and her dramatic exit) from the ball.

These ancient tales describe the heroine’s path of discernment. Mere mortals, who don’t have access to magical ants or mice, must look elsewhere—inside and outside—for the help we need to sort the seeds of growth from those that keep us stuck in loops of the past. These days, as the world offers distraction after distraction, it’s more important than ever to do some sorting. Or re-sorting. Like a good pelican, moving at a pace closer to the speed of life.

Reclaiming Epiphany

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering, Winter

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It was 1984. As a mother of two young kids who taught teenagers during the day I had no alone time. But this didn’t keep me from trying to save the lives of my rapidly disintegrating family half a continent away by telephone. I reveled in my ability to do all of it because that’s what it meant to me to be a feminist pioneer.

The first day of the new year found me packing up from the holiday while I made school lunches and lesson plans. I came up with some vague resolutions, grabbing random shoulds out of the air and jotting them down as I gulped my early morning coffee. And so began another year as the same old Achievement Bunny Rabbit. 

Then one year my husband left for a conference in early January, leaving me a few more duties and the gift of early bedtimes, which offered a little more time to myself. The first couple of days I polished off the leftover fudge, thinking now I was beginning to get in the mood for a real holiday, now that the decks were clear. 

On January 6 my desk calendar said Epiphany. Since I had no experience of a liturgical calendars, I thought the Universe was setting me up with my own private holiday, as requested. Perfect. A day for me to devote to big insights from powers greater than me. What I did that day was sleep and write a note in my journal about what to eliminate from the holiday crazies next year. And I reminded myself to claim this holiday every year from now on.

It was a couple of years before I found about the Catholic holy day of Epiphany. A few years later in Mexico I discovered the Three Kings Day holiday on the same day. I decided it was best to be generous with these interlopers and share my holiday.

And so I began the day as usual two years ago on January 6, with my usual devotional plan. I leaned into the hope that a new year always brings. Halfway through the day my little bubble was breached, but this was nothing compared to another breaching going on that day. I later heard the Speaker of the House of Representatives, a devout Catholic, was praying for an epiphany–a jolt of insight that would somehow put an end to the unfolding tragedy. I continue to hold out hope that my country’s leaders will have multiple strokes of insight that will lead to a brighter future.

And this brings me back to my little “private” holy day. At first it was a huge revelation that I could even claim a day for my inner life right in the middle of the darkest time of year. Since then, I knew it was there waiting after everything wound down. That knowledge has been like a star lighting my way through the holiday crazies.

So I’m reclaiming January 6 as a time of introspection. Journaling usually figures into the mix. This year, I’ve been inspired by Suleika Jouard’s Isolation Journals: https://theisolationjournals.substack.com/p/our-new-years-journaling-challenge?utm

This may be my personal holiday, but I’m happy to share it with you. What if you took a day for you to recover, heal, dream, and listen right about now? To take down some dictation from your inner self? It turns out I have an idea for a name. We could call it Epiphany, honoring the rich history and symbolism of the inner tradition. We could celebrate the wise elders among us, those seekers who have traveled far to embrace the light within the darkness.

We could reclaim Epiphany for our deepest selves. Join me?

Warmly,

Susan Grace

Becoming Human

 

What’s it like, becoming human?

Words from a dream long ago.

I had no answer, only

unformed words that mostly

floated past,  

slower than the pace 

of learning to be here 

on this blue planet 

 

It’s like being baptized in living waters,

I could have said, 

steady feet 

muddy in the shallows 

hardly noticing the drift 

until you’re hauled 

out of the deep 

by your hair

and then you figure out

just how to move your legs 

so that the water 

miraculously

holds you up

 

It’s like that time before you could swim,

I could’ve said,

When your friends held your prone body

 tenderly above the deep water

on a raft made by touching 

the tips of their fingers together, 

and then you found out 

that you could float

but they didn’t let go anyway

just stayed 

circled around you, 

fingers joined, but you 

just kept breathing. 

—SgB

January, 2023

photo by

George Beekman

Antidote for Worry? Soup!

in Confusion to Clarity, Fall, Family Stress, Noticing, Remembering

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My worries have worries. So I built little matchstick houses

with large ceilings, a garden for them to grow tomatoes, cilantro, & carrots

their worry babies will eat.

—Laura Villareal, Poetry Unbound

Last week my friend Jenni sent me this snippet of a poem. And there it was, in one perfect image. Everything I’ve been hearing from friends and strangers alike for the last five years. “Worry babies” seem to be invading the planet: growing in gardens, dropping from trees. Once they get established, worries, like crabgrass, tend to take over, setting up residency in our brains and getting busy raising their own worry families. Sometimes they take cover in dreams, full of spikes and hooks that keep drawing us in when we’re just minding our own business. This is the work of the Nightime Worry Family, whose patchwork ticky-tacky housing development parties get wild about 3:00 am.

One of my favorite thoughts about worry comes from Bridge of Spies. Tom Hanks’ character, who is trying to save a spy who might well be executed at any moment, repeats his one question three times: “Aren’t you worried?” The reply is always the same:  “Would it help?” If you’d like to check it out this link.

Lately I’ve been asking Wilma, my inner Worry Wart, if she’s trying to help,  because it sure seems the opposite. She made the case that ignoring her completely might mean turning off flashing yellow lights that keep me safe. But often, especially in the middle of the night, her honest answer is “no.”

Although an actual worry may contain the seed of a solvable problem (or at least an action item) by the light of day, the ones that set up housekeeping and wake you up at night do NOT offer solutions. Their job is to feed on any anxieties the body may have stored. In unprotected moments, when you forget to ask if it helps to worry, they can have their way with you, repeating past regrets or imagining fearful futures in an endless loop.

The best hope for evading the Nighttime Worries is to notice the quick moment when we start to feel ourselves getting hooked at other times in our daily lives. This can be especially challenging during the holidays because that’s when worry families thrive.

Try it out for yourself. sometime, in one of those elusive moments a when a worry first arises. Ask yourself whether it’s helpful. Breathe deeply once or twice. Just this much might be enough. Sometimes simply remembering to pay attention at that moment can calm the system. Next, find a quick way to tend to your actual body in some way, even if that means washing your hands or stretching for a couple minutes. Embrace whatever acts of self-care you can, even if it means a quick bathroom Time Out in a moment of overwhelm.

When the time is right, you might ask your version of Wilma the Worrier to help develop a long-term plan. Allow some time to listen to what calms her, especially if you tend toward worry loops. Ask her to prioritize your to-do list, quietly eliminating her crazier ideas. If you listen closely, she might suggest you cut out unnecessary duties or dance or take a walk move excess energy. Or perhaps she’d like a little Time Out for herself. Send her to the spa and then give your body and spirit a few minutes (or hours) for a nervous system reset. Cozy up. Take a quick nap if you can. Simply stare out the window while savoring a comforting hot drink.

Even better, nurture yourself by getting soupy.

Warmly,

PS. Below is a great soup created from a couple of other recipes by way of my friend Martha. The first is from relishmag.com for African Peanut Stew. The second  is from  http://wpr.org/zorba/recipes/z07-0203r.htm (African Peanut Soup). Enjoy!

 

Getting Soupy

I get all soupy in the fall

Squash and pumpkin soupy

Mulligatawney soupy 

Chicken noodle soupy

Muertos with salty tears soupy

Sacred soupy

with your face 

in every spoonful,

each memory of you, 

all that and more

reduced now to a rich melange

congealed on the serving spoon

at the end of this meal.

But I’m still the same greedy monkey

who sops it up, every bit,

with a soft sourdough roll.

—SgB

November, 2022

Martha’s Peanut Soup w/Veggies 

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 onion finely chopped (about 1 ½ cups)

1 medium bell pepper (chopped)

1 large yam (peeled and diced)

1/2 chopped carrot (2 small)

1/2 cup chopped celery

1 cup zucchini, diced

3 cloves garlic (more to taste)

2 tablespoons minced, fresh peeled ginger, more to taste

Jalapeno pepper to taste

*1 tablespoon curry powder 

(or this combination of spices: 1 tsp. ea. mustard seed,

ground cumin,. turmeric, coriander, cinnamon plus ¼ tsp. cayenne

1 (14 ½ oz.) can diced tomatoes, drained (or may use combo. of diced toms. and salsa)

4 – 8 cups veggie or chicken broth to desired thickness

1 bay leaf

1 ½ cups edamame

1 cup garbanzo beans 

¼ cup creamy or crunchy natural peanut butter or almond butter (mix in bowl with some of the broth)

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

5 oz. baby spinach or kale, torn into bite-size pieces

Salt and pepper to taste

Brown rice

1) Heat olive oil in a large saucepan, add fresh veggies (zucchini last), sauté until soft and translucent.

2) Add garlic, ginger and curry spices and sauté until fragrant.  Add tomatoes and bay leaf, cook uncovered until tomatoes are slightly reduced.

3) Add broth, diluted peanut butter, edamame and garbanzo beans and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer.  Cook until thoroughly heated.  Stir in cilantro and spinach until spinach wilts.  Season with salt and pepper.  May  top with fresh cilantro, diced green onion and/or plain yoghurt.  Serve over rice.  Serves  8.

Mother, Simon, and Me

in Confusion to Clarity, Power of Connection, Remembering

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Nearly every recess in second grade, I raced to the playground to play one of my favorite games, either Mother May I or Simon Says. I didn’t care which. I don’t remember loving the power of telling the other kids how many baby or giant steps they could take. I just liked the way the rules were so easy, as long as you paid attention. If you weren’t listening or you didn’t mind Simon or moved without Mother’s permission, you were O-U-T. 
 
So very simple and clear. 
 
Ever since 2020 I’ve been longing for that old certainty. At first I studied daily updates and followed the leads, somewhat obsessively focused on decoding pandemic rules. Mostly I obeyed them, which wasn’t too hard since I’m of the certain age that makes caution advisable. But lately Simon has been MIA and I haven’t been able to get a clear answer from Mother. So, like everyone else, I’ve been following my best educated guess about re-entering the world of people. 
 
At least that’s my excuse for my questionable decision to fly to Las Vegas last month for an extended family errand. Somehow the first night, looking for a restaurant, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of several crowd events, mostly outdoors, but still. I was not prepared for the overstimulation that is Las Vegas, a place I hadn’t visited in years. And having been (mostly) sheltered, it was a lot. 
 
A part of me was excited. At the same time another part (my whole nervous system?) began to scream for shelter. After a couple of days of entertainment laced with terror, my husband and I drove a few hours to pick up an RV. We drove it nearly a thousand miles back home to Oregon. This involved learning how to manage all the systems along the way and included a short Siri-directed diversion through San Francisco’s winding streets. Did I mention we were in an unfamiliar vehicle? In an RV? I’m still unpacking from the adventure of the trip. 
 
In the end I didn’t get Covid, something I’ve resigned myself to experiencing as it becomes endemic. As it turns out, several of my friends, both traveling and stationary, did contract the virus. What to do? I’m hearing from lots of other folks about how awkward it is to make plans to reconnect, even though we know itwill probably be worth it in the end. Yesterday, a friend pointed out a people-friendly website: https://covidactnow.org. Having this resource has opened the door to more clarity in summer planning, began with a BIG stretch: indoor singing (with mask). ALMOST like the good old days. But I’ve mostly returned to my old cautious ways.
 
I don’t want to forget the quieter pleasures of the life lived at a slower pace. Walking my elderly dog. Quiet time in solitude by the sea. Following the rise and fall of the ocean, the graceful arc of seagulls and raptors. Life lived on my own terms.
 
I think Mother would approve.
 
Be well,
Remembering Las Vegas 
(or How Not to Emerge from Pandemic Isolation)
Brilliant collage of magenta
Cosmic calliope of punk
Decibels killing to the human ear
Street zipping over the projected sky
“Nuns” with pasties, fishnets and thongs twerking,
Moonwalking the tricky world between sacred and profane.
 
Mother May I?
Take one small step into morning 
this moment of arising 
of drifting in and out without effort
into not being a me and then being one,
becoming and unbecoming 
again and again.
in the dark margin. 
May I taste this tiny slice of life
and savor this small knowledge of death?
 
—SgB 5/2022

Is Spring enough to match the war of hell?

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Remembering, Spring

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Words have been eluding me this month, mostly because news of war is always lurking, even in the early rays of morning light. I recently recovered from the bad habit of doom scrolling over Covid or presidential politics, and I was finally settling into the soothing early-morning habit of meditating and reading or writing poetry. Then along came Russian invasion of Ukraine, and tragic scenes from Kiev and Karkov (and other places I can’t even pronounce) flooded my mind.
 
I became acutely aware my own helplessness in the face of such enormous tragedy. Then I thought of our sister city Uzhrogod in the Ukraine. And so Geo and I went down to the courthouse and held a sign in solidarity. We donated money for supplies. Then we gave some more to support a local couple who were traveling to the warfront with medical supplies. This helped, but it didn’t feel like enough to match the hell of that war. 
 
Then I thought of the painful losses within my own family from suicide and addiction, another hell in another time of life. And I remembered William Carlos Williams’ words: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” The last few days I’ve managed to pick up a pen or remember a few words from trusted source Mary Oliver, determined to save the only life I can, my own. When I do that, the day dawns with a new dimension. If I’m lucky, I can be absorbed by a different world, the one that has been right beside me, all around me, all along.
 
To my amazement, Spring has come. Yesterday I sat in the sunshine on my deck in the woods on the meadow with a poet friend. The plum blossoms blushed pink and, and one of them floated like a tiny lotus in the bird bath, accompanied by the bubbling fountain over my shoulder. I knew right then what it is to be in heaven. Sometimes it feels as if there’s no place big enough to contain all the contradictions of life. Guilt came up, along with one image of starving people in Mariupol. Suddenly, the plum tree, along with the song of the yellow-rumped warblers, all of it was gone. This is how it is for me nowadays. My heart breaks from the hell of war. I try to do something to useful. But all the while there’s the heaven of spring, right outside my door. 
 
Meditation helps. Walking and biking and yoga help. But what helps most of all is simply stopping, breathing, and looking around to take in the wonders of the world where I’m embedded right here and now.
 
Yesterday I saw a photo of a subway car in Karkhiv where many families shelter. A mother had placed a tin can with tulips in the window where she and her two sons were sheltering. (Check it out here.) May this be an image we all remember, a moment of spring poetry. A piece of heaven to honor the soul in us all.
 
There is a quick moment
somewhere between dark and light.
Neither this or that.
Mystery sits there.
Nightmares become dreams and dreams nightmares.
Dome of sky offers a day uncut by sorrow
and morning is born again
with news of war waiting
unbidden in the shadows 
 
—SgB 3/2022
 

Dead Puppy Christmas and Carbonated Holiness

in Confusion to Clarity, Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Remembering, Surrendering, Winter

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One Christmas past, my daughter and her friend brought home fifteen sick puppies from a kill shelter rescue mission that had gone awry. I imagined a family home Christmas as a video, swarming with curious, slightly weak puppies around the Christmas tree.
 
I didn’t know much about Parvo at the time. Reality hit quickly. When we saw how sick the puppies were, we rallied to a new mission, setting up an emergency vet clinic. 
 
For the two days leading to Christmas we nursed half-pound infants, trying desperately to save them from the grim effects of the disease. We kept our arms full, set alarms and devised a way to hydrate with homemade IV’s. Instead of going to a midnight service we prayed for their survival as we held them and watched them fade. Hour after hour the little pile of bodies in the corner grew. In the end only one survived, born miraculously on Christmas Eve.
 
My blog post that season said “This will be the Christmas of Dead Puppies soon, and we will laugh. Someday.” When my son Ben read it, he said he cried, and I saw how powerful my protective shield had been, and how truly traumatic it had been for all of us. We needed to grieve. Now, ten years later, I have the distance to see the whole picture and appreciate how we coped.. We cried plenty, but somehow even in the midst of it all there were moments of hilarity.
 
What saved us was being able to see our own powerlessness in the face of the absolute absurdity of the scene. We told ourselves that it couldn’t get any worse and then it did. Again and again. I guess you could say that dark humor became our greatest ally. This and the power of distraction. My memories of the year feature us stumbling through some Christmas carols, playing Pictionary, and awkwardly dancing to a Wii Rock Band workout featuring Beatles music. But mostly I remember the laughter.
 
It may seem strange, but ten years later I realize that this may be have been our most deeply soulful Christmas of all, working together through the crisis and still finding a kind of humor in the midst of an awful situation. Later I heard Anne Lamott call laughter “carbonated holiness,” and I knew just what she was talking about.
 
This is what I wish for each of you this holiday season. 
 
Without the dead puppies.
 
Just some carbonated holiness. 
 
With love,
 
Susan Grace
 
Dead Puppy Christmas
 
Today in the mist of a stroll 
through the Advent calendar
I open tiny windows of Christmases past,
The first scene is one I tenderly recall, 
Dead Puppy Christmas
There we are, five of us humans,
 jostling fifteen half-pound puppies 
recently rescued 
before the Grinch of Parvo took over,
now sick and getting sicker.
Across from the tree in this diorama 
is a small I-V stand
Each hour another pup stops breathing 
and a tiny body Is added
to the pile in the corner.
In between we cry, 
stumble through carols,
distract ourselves with sugar cookies,
eggnog, gingerbread and games,
Tending to life and to death,
Awaiting the miracle of Christmas Eve, 
one surviving puppy.
 
—SgB 12/2021

Mothers Dreaming Daughters and a Future

in Confusion to Clarity, Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Identity, Noticing, Power of Connection, Remembering, Surrendering

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Dear friends,
 
It’s complicated here in this Bardo, this world between worlds that we call 2021. Like any animal emerging from a cocoon or hibernation, many of us are tender and tentative. As we take each step toward “normal,” we ask ourselves, Now where was I?  (in the Before World). But in all the excitement, we can easily forget to ask Who am I Now? No longer in the old safe world of traditional etiquette, we’re on our own to find some graciousness as the world keeps changing. Daily. Mask on or off? How to come up with safety agreements with people we love who nonetheless disagree with us on the red-hot subject of vaccinations?
 
Decision fatigue alone is enough to make you want to crawl back into lockdown. There’s no One Size Fits All, and we’re on our own to fashion something that works each time we engage with our families and friends. Even if we figure something out, there’s no guarantee that things won’t all change again. Quite the opposite. This requires a flexibility and equanimity I’m only beginning to feel in this life. If we were butterflies emerging from the cocoon, we’d flap our new wings before flying into this new world. The human equivalent is to take that second question about who I am now more seriously. To take time to adjust to this new reality before taking a giant leap back OR forward in this Simon Says world of the pandemic.
 
Sometimes when I need perspective I look to my ancestors for inspiration. I found some by going all the way back to the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1870. My great great grandmother Maria Raum, a new immigrant, lost her husband and an unborn baby to the Yellow Fever plague in Memphis after his beer wagon was commandeered to remove bodies. Maria was left penniless and unable to feed herself and her 3 and 5 year old daughters. Unable to go back home to Germany, unable to speak the language of the new world, she did what she had to do so that they would survive. She sent them off to a Lutheran orphanage while she worked as domestic help and saved enough money to be able to support them. After three years she emerged from the world of pandemic domestic service to find they had been packed up and loaded onto an Orphan Train headed west. Hundreds of miles and inquiries later she found them living with their new farm families.
 
What she did next is my favorite page of family history. Instead of fighting to reclaim her girls, she and her new husband built a house down the road to watch them grow and have children of their own. She’s buried in a small German cemetery near her daughters and their adoptive families. Now that’s a radical form of resilience, an example of true Motherlove. 
 
I call on this grace and resilience as I dream of what this next world might become. I’m beginning right here, where I am today, dreaming this new future, knowing even if it all changes love will find a way. Always does in the end.
 
 
Poetry reading posterPS. I’ve been writing more poetry during our current pandemic. I’ll be reading this new poem about my mother’s mother’s mother, this week, along with my Open Handed Writers’ group and friends. It’s a free Zoom call (with the support of our local bookstore)
 
If you’re reading this May 5th, come listen tonight at 7 PT and join us as we celebrate Mothering as a Verb. Just visit this page for the link.
 
 
 
Dreaming Daughters
 
The women in my family dream their daughters,
And so I dreamed you up, a strong Baby Woman. 
Just as my mother dreamed herself a sister instead of a baby
And her mother dreamed a prodigy, Shirley Temple of Saline County.
And her mother before her dreamed up a milliner.
But the mother before that, a new immigrant turned into a widow by Yellow Fever,
That mother just dreamed of getting her daughters’ bellies fed
 
And so she let them go by boat to an orphanage, 
signs hanging from necks in the only language she knew,
saying keep them safe and I will come.
And when she didn’t, couldn’t, an orphan train took them 
To new farm families with mothers who at least spoke the old tongue,
who adopted them and who fed them
and put them to work cooking for farm hands until
they began to have dreams in this strange, new language
and when their German mother traveled hundreds of miles to find them happy, 
she built a little house the size of her new dream 
down the road from their full-bellied lives. 
But she just kept on dreaming and watching in that new place
because that’s what mothers do sometimes.

The Other Side of Through

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering, Spring, Surrendering

Here 2 There Trail

The tight pink buds on the tree outside my window and the daffodils everywhere are broadcast spring here in the early warning channel that is the Northwest. Diminishing Covid numbers bring hope, and it feels like an enormous cloud is about to lift. It’s not lifted yet, but patches of blue are now visible. In related news, on Friday I’ll get my vaccine booster shot. 

Words from my gospel choir days come to mind: There’s another side of through/ the whole world waits for you. You got to hold on, hold, on, till you’re on the Other Side of Through.

I loved swaying back and forth, belting out these lines when I was in the midst of wave after wave of turmoil in my life.  There was a long time there when I just needed the reminder that there WAS another side.  I clung to the thin refrain and did just what it said.  I kept on.

Then one day, one week, one season, I began to notice it was true.  I was no longer in the eye of the storm.  I was on the other side.  I was through.

Next another image comes to mind from up the hill in the ancient forest where my family had a cabin for years. There’s a trail sign that reads Here 2, marking a trail, one that ends at a There sign at the bottom of the hill. Funky hand-lettered signs marked the start and the end. All of this went up in smoke last September, including the forest and all human habitats. What was left behind is scorched earth, memories, and at least one good insight: It was not possible to be either “here” or “there” at once. And there was a whole wooded hillside to navigate between those two points. 

That’s how it feels this early spring. Not yet There, to the end of this pandemic and all the cautions it entails, but not Here 2 either, focused every day about each detail of quarantined life. We’re somewhere on the trail to There, and we are still moving to the Other Side of Through.

I’m keeping in mind another memory: The trail of soft forest duff wound gently down a hill, one careful step at a time. 

Be well. 

 

New Beginning or Groundhogs’ Day?

in Confusion to Clarity, Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Identity, Radical Kindness, Remembering

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Friends,

It’s been weeks since the official inauguration, where we all learned about the power of poetry from Amanda Gorman, a gift from the next generation. (Just for a couple of feel-good moments, check it out here). Ever since that day only two weeks ago the word “inauguration” has been tumbling around in my mind. Technically, an inauguration is simply the acknowledgment of a new beginning, and this is a time of year and a time in human history when the whole world is longing for a shot at that. And yet most of us are still waking up each day on Groundhog’s Day, only worse because, along with the isolation caused by weather, there’s another little wrinkle called the pandemic. Our coping skills are limited and the usual go-to’s aren’t open anyway. What we once may have faced as a test of discipline or creativity has started to get on our collective nerves. Folks who do well with January resolutions may be sailing off into some unknown socially isolated sunset to live happily ever after. But for many of us, it’s still Groundhog’s Day.

As I was contemplating these deep thoughts, I realized what I needed was not a resolution, but an inauguration of my very own. I started thinking about a pledge of allegiance and I wrote the poem I’m sharing this month. This year I’m determined to no longer be a self-improvement project in my own mind. As long as it’s my own personal inauguration of this new season, I pledge to myself to bring along all of me as I create each new day, beginning again, practicing kindness in a world torn by suspicion and doubt. Now all that I need is a bumper sticker, I thought. Then just yesterday I stumbled on the perfect words from Raymond Carver, suitable for slapping on the best of bumpers:

It is the tenderness that I care about. That’s the gift this morning that moves and holds me.

May we celebrate tenderness and the soft pink pearls of morning light. And may this be what moves and holds us through the coming year. My inaugural prayer for us all.

With love,

Susan Grace

Poem: “Inaugural Pledge”

I believe in Life in Breath in Love,
in the United States of Mind.
But I pledge allegiance
to the scattered states, too.
The confusion sloth and torpor.
the many everyday sins.
All have a place at this table
as long as they lay down their weapons
and show up with big appetites.
We’ll break bread, drink wine,
surrender to the slaughter
of what we thought we knew
about ourselves, about each other.

And then we’d arise and go forth
day after day,
step by creaky step,
restoring the peace,
marching to the promised land.
welcoming the forgotten and scorned,
uniting against the common enemy,
the masters of lies and deceit,
but most of all
delighted by the soft pink pearls
of morning light
– Susan Grace, 2021

Remembering the Inner Sanctum

in Confusion to Clarity, Fall, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering, Wordlessness

Windowsill altar

6 am. November 10th. Silence. Solitude.

I creep around my room in the worshipful dark, lighting beeswax candles and placing the last of the season’s peach dahlias on the windowsill altar. The first real fog of the season has newly landed on the hills outside the window.

For this moment, before the fog lifts, I embrace this inner sanctum. 

There’s a big breath and a sigh as I surrender to a deeper peace than I have felt for months.

I create a little altar for the family cabin which burned to the ground on Labor Day:

Altar to Breitenbush cabin
And then I remember what I’ve forgotten during the tumult and strife of recent life. Something ancient and deep and comforting. A peace that has been here all along, beneath the screaming headlines and the pandemic fear. And like a spell has been broken, here I am, with all my parts. I am Re-membered.

The Remembering Thing is big enough to be the basis of ritual in nearly every world religion. It’s the prime directive that enables the words of sages to resonate through the ages.

I understand this now in a whole new way. So much is forgotten when I’m in reactivity, no matter what spiritual tools I use to maintain peace of mind. And so, today, this morning, I’m welcoming myself back home with an act of remembrance, perhaps as simple as lighting a candle. Or creating a little altar to remember something I loved and lost.

Because fall is the time for remembering what we have, what we’ve lost, and what is never truly gone. 

Join me?

SgB

 

Breitenbush Hot Springs Sanctuary

Breitenbush Hot Springs Sanctuary from Trip Advisor/HappyMunching

Poem: “Sanctuary”
(for Breitenbush, 2020 )
They say the firestorm took the Sanctuary.
The vaulted wooden arches, the soft carpet
built to receive the deep bows of a child,
windows opening to the sound of
roaring river in the gully below.
The setting small enough for quiet whispers
Or the sound of voices meeting voices in song
Yet big enough for rampant drumming,
under tall tall trees and blue bowl sky.

Here this winter morning,
within this home sanctuary,
the big beyond exposes herself,
draped not in smoke but only a mauve whisp of cloud.
Here the slow dawn reveals
glimpses of the great beauty.
Here candles greet morning light, 
gently waking up the far hillside.
And love of what was shines bright,
Tucked close in this heart 
and in little altars Everywhere.