Posts Categorized: Noticing

The Grace of Everyday Epiphanies

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

Image

On January 6 many years ago, I stumbled on a holiday that looked like it had it all: Epiphany. Only one word at the bottom of a plastic billboard outside a church. Not a part of the early training in my Southern Baptist youth, it had all the exotic mystery of whatever Catholics did. 

As I grew into the English major I was in college, I discovered the meaning of the word epiphany, which came from the Greek and meant “to reveal.” In the thirteenth century this referred to the revealing of Jesus’ presence in the world.

But my time in history and culture is more mid-century modern. I had felt Jesus “knockin on my heart” at summer camp, sure. But in my teen angst (and associated depression), I rejected childish beliefs. But I had also lost the magic of insight that had seemed to burst out of nowhere. In those moments, it felt to me like some ancient inner sage pierced through the fog and revealed the vast possibilities on the other side of the ordinary world.

On the day that the word epiphany beckoned from the billboard, I was a mother of two young children. I taught literature in public schools. I had written papers on epiphanies in literature and I brought that interest to my teaching.

The idea of declaring time to consciously invite epiphanies into my life tickled me, inside out. I figured that an early bedtime was just what my children, ages three and six, needed for their health, but I needed that time for me, too. I spent a couple of quiet hours on that evening with candles lit, reading wisdom texts, meditating, and imagining a future.

Over the years I came to think of this day as my own personal holiday. I treasure these early memories. I’ve revisited them in my blog Reclaiming Epiphany.

This year will be the 40th year I celebrate epiphany, which I now understand has always had its own following besides me. As a church holy day, Epiphany (with a capital E) is also known as Three Kings Day. In Latin America the day is commemorating the Three Wise Men’s arrival at the humble stable. It’s also the day that Hispanic children to awaken to find the gifts the Three Kings have left them. 

Irish women seized on the January 6th date and renamed it Women’s Christmas, a time when all the fuss is over and the women and mothers who (mostly) put on the event can finally rest and have their own celebration. That’s my kind of epiphany right there: Celebrating that the festive season has passed and things are finally settling down enough to focus on our own lives or share in the sisterhood of other women.

Some female Christian leaders have carried the message and the invitation for introspection to women in their community. If this catches your soul’s fancy, here’s a link to one such program:https://sanctuaryofwomen.com/WomensChristmasRetreat2025.pdf

What might you do this year to celebrate Women’s Christmas or Epiphany? With the holiday hoopla and travel mostly behind you, what can you do to claim some time for your heart to rest? How can you slow down enough to hear an inner voice suggest how you might care for your spiritual Self?

For many of us, the power of rest itself is the epiphany. If that’s true for you, why not kindly grant it to your tired self?  You don’t need a grand plan. You might need to at least find time to declare a long-needed beauty sleep so that you can begin to catch up and go forth with a bit of vigor. Or maybe vigor itself if a good place to start and a walk right now is the ticket. Nature, of course, is almost always the ticket.

Go a bit further. If you were your own kindest fairy godmother, what would you grant yourself? Why not give yourself a bit of that this year, even if it’s a tiny part of your true wish? Consider it a down payment from the part of you who willingly gives to loved ones more than you think you can.

I now have more time and means to make good on my promise to my younger self. As my favorite poet William Stafford said, Armageddon is possible. But so is love. And salvation. And so this year I wake up and marvel at all the bonuses of this life.

One of those is you. May your inner fairy godmother grant you your fondest wish in the form of an Aha! Moment or two in nature or on the city street. Or perhaps a meaningful connection with a spiritual guide or teacher from your tradition or training. Or as a pop-up epiphany in meditation or prayer. Even an extra hour of sleep can be holy. Just as holy as is the ability to truly witness any of life’s bonus surprises.

From the darkness of Winter, I wish you the grace of many epiphanies in your ordinary life.

SgB

Curiosity and Wisdom

in Confusion to Clarity, Fall, Noticing, Surrendering

Image

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

in Body or Aging, Identity, Noticing, Power of Connection

IMG 3129

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

Serving This Body

in Body or Aging, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering, Surrendering

IMG 3133

Until I arrived at a ripened middle age, I truly had no idea how little attention I paid to my body, mostly expecting it to function fully with little supervision, whether I was asking it to conceive and give birth or to run a couple of miles. And this body just did as required, with only a few protests or sprains. I realize now how very lucky this is. Also, how oblivious I was. While I was believing that youth made me impervious, some of my peers were already quietly dealing with life-altering diagnoses.

I turned fifty and then sixty, and gradually a bit more maintenance was required. Next came surgery. I replaced twisted and worn-out old parts. Not painless, but I’ve been able to walk and dance and do most yoga poses again. And, hey, at least I haven’t found myself in the organ-replacement line.

Since I hit seventy, more of my friends have been visited by serious conditions that have taken over their lives. A few have had the time in their bodies run out. Gratitude visits daily as I recognize this good fortune.

During this past decade an irregular heartbeat required a couple of trips out of state to get back in rhythm. Since then I’ve needed a few heart-stopping reboots (aka cardioversions, nowhere near as scary as they sound). And still through the miracles of modern medicine I’ve been allowed to basically ignore my body once again, although I do feed and water it regularly,

Although my outer hearing is still good, my inner hearing could use serious amplification. Sometimes when I’m meditating I scan this body and I see how hard it still is to attend to the signals, which might as well be made of smoke some days. 

I remember the part of my younger self that either ignored or bullied this immaculate living machine, while it went about handling its business without my head’s intervention. And I marvel at the many automatic systems that keep things running. But I also live with the consequences of my own bullying and self-neglect. I sincerely want to make it up to myself by finally giving my body the respect it has earned.

I have begun to wonder what it would mean to claim mature leadership of my body. Recently the phrase Servant Leadership popped into my mind. This was something I’d learned about years ago when I studied organizational development. In a nutshell, a servant leader is one who shares power and puts the needs of the employees first, with the goal of helping people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.

Now this sounds just like the kind of relationship I want with my body, I think. Today I ask what it would be like to be a true Servant Leader of my body, as if I worked for it? This seems like a worthy goal as I mature fully into my wizened old age. 

And for once I listen. My body says Yes, somewhere around my belly button. It’s a good start. 

Saluting all your good starts.
IMG 3009

Call and Response

This body, this loyal servant 

with promptings and desires 

once manageable 

or at least quiet and discreet,

unobtrusive as it went about 

its everyday business,

This very body just expanded 

its tech department,

added a Response Center Tower 

with a basement ready to catch complaints 

as they pump in from every organ and limb.

Lines are always busy, 

but I try to check in at least once every day,

sometimes just so I can ignore 

Its advice all over again.

— SgB 2023

Life Is a Demanding Lover

in Body or Aging, Confusion to Clarity, Identity, Noticing, Remembering, Surrendering

Image

This summer I turned a new page in my imagined book of life. Perhaps it’s even a new chapter. I’ve done the math so many ways: I’m entering the last quarter of my life (if I live to a hundred). Or, more realistically it’s the last one-sixth of life coming up (if I top out at ninety). In other words, I turned 75. 

It took me a while to come out because, for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel so proud of my age. Perhaps all the ageist humor about my generation has taken root in my head. Or maybe it’s the Post-it notes I unintentionally slap on to “people of that age,” a lifetime habit. Yesterday when I was at the hospital for a routine procedure, a nurse looked at my chart and asked if they got my age right and gave me a Girlfriend Thumbs-up.

For a long time now people have seemed sincerely surprised when I reveal my age, having assumed that I’m still in my youthful sixties. Or at least that’s what they say. So maybe I’m not the only one with the Post-It notes.

I spent most of the early summer in a Life Review Project. What a luxury to be able to take slow-down time to question childhood assumptions and discover lessons that life just keeps teaching me! The more I look inside, the more I see. I still have a host of other assumptions and beliefs about EVERYTHING having to do with aging. The truth is I’m fortunate to be reasonably healthy. As far as I know, no wicked cells are lurking in my body planning a coup. And, although my memory for details is sometimes hazy, it feels like something stronger has taken hold. Perhaps it’s wisdom, grounded in the losses of these years which serve as continual reminders of life’s impermanence. 

Besides, it’s very clear to me that my Eternal Self has no age whatsoever. She also doesn’t even have a name, she reminds me, usually with a wink.

A T-shirt caught my eye while I was on a recent ramble. Reality is a Demanding Lover, it said. The phrase resonates like a Zen koan.  I remember all the times I’ve bet against Reality and lost, discovering in the process what it takes to truly cooperate with Life. The longer I think, the more I notice myself writing another, equal, message, perhaps for the back of the T-shirt: Reality is a Generous Lover. 

And I know both are true. Life has sometimes slapped me with demands that I never would have believed that that I would be able to meet. And then it has generously showed me that there is more than enough support to meet it all.  The more often I surrender to reality, the easier life goes. And so I surrender once more. When all is said and done, my initiation to the last one-sixth of my life has left me with more clarity. I’m officially committing to spend the rest of my life learning to love life better, whether reality is demanding or generous. I’m down for all of it.

May your passages be as gentle.

  • ——

Wounded Love

     I

Last night a drawing caught my fancy.

Wounded Man.

500 years old, 

A cookie cutter outline of a human form

Impaled by knives,

by swords, by arrows 

pierced ten, twenty times, more, 

soon to become an index for the very

first doctors.

Wound Woman,

I thought,

That’s what I feel like today,

I see this body,

riddled as it is 

by wear,

by steps and missteps

held together

for a time

by miracles

and titanium.

I think of this

brave heart, 

how it expands

again, again, again after each break.

I looked down to see 

a landscape carved by life.

In gratitude,

I call all of this Me.

              II

I take Me out to a concert in the park.

How’s your summer going?

The standard greeting rushes out

when I see my

long-missed friend.

Then, remembering his body’s battle with cancer, 

I tender the next question

How are you feeling?

Okay, he answers, 

on the weeks I don’t have chemo,

That’s half the time, 

which is pretty good.

He tells me of trips to see his sons, 

stare at the stars, listen to music

savor the company of friends

How do you keep going?  I ask, 

suddenly aware of my complaints 

of creakiness and fatigue.

He gently holds my eye.

I love life, he says simply.

And that answer catches the breath

and still rings bright and true

as summer breeze turns to fall.

— SgB 2023

Spring in the Land of Longing

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Power of Connection, Remembering, Spring

IMG 2629 (1)

Happy Spring!

Wherever I go lately, people are lit up. It started here when we were graced with two straight days of sun following three full weeks of rain. Trees delayed by a very late winter suddenly flowered with a vengeance, as did allergies, but we didn’t mind. Spring has always drawn people here in the Northwest out from under our rocks to bask wherever (and whenever) we can. But this year is different, with a communal sense that we’ve made it through Something Big, Or several Somethings Big all at once. Global pandemic and Rampant Wildfire Big, just to start the list. 

The fires are behind us for now, but we’re still assessing the damage. Old haunts and hidden gems have been erased. The mountains are still blackened with falling trees. But undergrowth and wildflowers are returning, and gradually homes and businesses are too, at least those that can. Even if it were possible to rebuild, the communities that burned to the ground will never be the same.

Wherever you live, whatever natural (or national) disaster you’ve faced, human hearts around you are just beginning to recover, still bruised from so many losses and so much fear. This is the great tragedy of all the Big Somethings we’ve faced: a reluctance to trust or rely on each other like we did before. Many of us are deeply lonely: statistics for the US say over 30% of adults and higher for young people, and these numbers are growing throughout the world. Even if we’re not lonely, we all long for connection, a problem that can seem overwhelming at first. But nothing could be more important. In the end, the best way to cure the cost of social distance is with social connection, which is the best glue to hold us all together as we move forward.

The facts are these: we’re all humans who are facing hard realities. AND we desperately need to be with others for mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. According to the brand-new US Surgeon General’s Advisory, a lack of social connection (or belonging) is a mortality risk greater than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The report is packed with research results, and it’s presented in a colorful, clear, and comprehensive form. The writing and graphics are compelling and easy to read, which is a bit surprising in a government document. Check it out here.

It’s a good thing that human beings usually have a strong need to belong. After all, our survival is at stake. But, just as important, we also have a longing to connect to something Bigger. Something Much Bigger. Bigger and Kinder.

Easier said than done. Loneliness and a desire to interact may motivate us to rebuild our lives, but the old ways don’t feel natural. We have changed and so has the world.

Social media, although lifesaving, doesn’t meet the biological desire for real presence. With eye contact. And conversation. (I know. I’m old fashioned.) So here we are: Longing to connect others and yet finding it uncomfortable to reach out. It may no longer feel intuitive to reach out to strangers, but we can do it.

All each of us can do is take a next step. The one that hasn’t happened yet. A smile, a wave, a kind word. Help a neighbor out. Assume good intentions. Notice the places you’d like to belong. Take the step you know to take. A coffee date, a volunteer shift, a language or yoga class, a family or community celebration, involvement with a cause that has meaning for you and for the world. Make your own list.

Each day brings a new opportunity to take the next awkward step. This is how we learned to walk, and it’s how we welcome ourselves back to humanity. Little by little.

May all of us find the courage and creativity to greet whatever (and whoever) awaits us as we honor the importance of belonging. Together.

 

Spring in the Land of Longing

I am from the land of cinnamon and longing

Chocolate and longing

Incense and longing

And I don’t belong here.

I don’t belong anywhere.

This is how we are in the Land of Longing.

We do not belong anywhere.

Take springtime. 

Even though

we feel the hope of flowering blossoms

Spring isn’t for us 

because it reminds us (screams at us really)

that it’s leaving soon and so are we

and besides

it’s never as sweet 

as that one time.

The people from my land 

do not belong anywhere

Except that one place

the one that hasn’t happened yet.

That one. That’s the place.

 

A place to start.

—SgB

May, 2023

Resorting and Re-Sorting

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Winter

IMG 2558 (1)

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

IMG 2425

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

IMG 2358 (1)

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.

The Magic of the Crack Between Worlds

in Identity, Noticing, Remembering, Summer

Image

Here in the Northwest, reliable sunny summer weather typically lasts for only a few weeks. Summer can feel like a crack in time between seasons. So many of us try to wring out every little drop of out-of-door essence, condense it, and bring it home as a hedge against winter (or other unforeseen quarantines). 

After our family’s mountain cabin burned down in the conflagration of 2020, after hanging out for a couple of years in pandemic isolation, my long-time husband and I decided earlier this summer that it was a good time to drive down memory lane. So we headed out, bikes in tow, to visit outposts from our early lives, when we were in our early twenties and worked for the forest service on recreation and fire crews, usually in remote locations. It felt like peeking back through a crack in time. Fifty years of time.

Our trip began with the lookout tower where we resided and kept fire watch in our early twenties, George was designated main lookout, but he was also a fire fighter. When there was a lightning bust, he’d put on his hardhat and drive a fire tanker down the hill to try to find spot fires. Then it was my turn in the tower to track the lightning hits, using binoculars to detect an orange glow, trusting an amazing device called an azimuth finder to align it with his headlights. This all had to happen while standing on a glass stool, careful not to touch metal so as not to get fried by lightning.In other words, boredom bookended with occasional hits of adrenaline. 

We lived in our workspace, so we spent 24 hours a day in the same room for six months. Edward Abbey, an acclaimed environmental writer who lived and wrote in a lookout tower for three years, said that the best test of a marriage was to assign a husband and wife a job on a lookout. According to him, “Couples who survived this were destined for a long marriage, and they deserve it.” In my humble experience, it also helps if you’re young or in that “merge” stage of love that makes small spaces cozy and desirable. Lots of things have changed in our marriage during that gap of time, including our relationship with personal space, but we seem to still be living examples of Abbey’s contention.

One lookout where we lived was at the top of a steep road that wound its way up a cinder cone. The entire range of the central Oregon Cascades was our wallpaper. At night the stars and flirtatious visits by the Northern Lights were our entertainment. The tower stood out as a sentinel on the caldera, and it was also the first structure of an area that is now a national monument. So our little cabin on stilts served as an interface between the wild world and humans. We were only one flight up some stairs, so during the day the same refrain drifted through our windows: the sound of winded tourists would gasp for breath while they read the altitude sign. At high volume. And the altitude never once changed in all that time.

Most of the time we laughed at life there on the crack between humans and the wildness of nature. We hung out, staring out over the land for a blue haze, binoculars at the ready. While one or the other of us did that responsible thing, the other read or played an instrument. I planned to learn to play the banjo and never progressed past “poorly.” But we worked up a fake-bluegrass version of Smokey the Bear to torture the visitors at the end of the season. We got back at those altitude readers. I marvel now at our ingenuity and ability to entertain ourselves.

We were the last people to live in this particular tower, which is now staffed only during the day. It was a bit of a shock during our first stop on this summer’s nostalgia tour, then, when were boarded on a shuttle bus stuffed with other tourists that disgorged passengers about every half hour at the top of the caldera. I gasped my way to the top of the crater, stopping to read the altitude sign. Out loud. Once there, it almost seemed as if we were able to enter a crack in changeless time because it was all so familiar. Except the number of people swarming the caldera. I was taken aback by how rugged the living was, with a far steeper hike than I remembered, especially round trip down the little switchbacks to the only bathroom, a pit toilet.

We continued our trip to a couple of once-isolated resorts, now full of people, even though the pristine areas remain protected and once again seemed much the same, and there was an odd sense of comfort consistency in nature. We biked through stunning meadows and looped a whole lake, grateful for new bike baths. Another day we pedaled through the remains of whole towns that burned down and are now being replaced with manufactured villages, stripped of gardens and trees. Blackened ghost trees hovered dark and tall over new growth of grasses and ferns along the creeks, witnesses to the cracks in the world created by wildfire.

Ever since that trip, I notice that little cracks of wonder are everywhere, in so many places: old times and now times, honeymooners and silver anniversary celebraters, wild spaces and civilized ones, children and grandparents, night and day, destruction, damage, and renewal, summer and fall, There’s a magic in this simple but profound peek between worlds. A sense of being held by all of it, despite occasional evidence to the contrary. 

May you find yourself held when the cracks in your world don’t seem kind.

 

Long View

Over fifty years ago 

we went to sleep every night 

in a glass house tied on top of poles 

perched on a lava cone.

Our enemy was a flash of lightning, 

a pewter puff in the distance 

a glimmer in the dark 

a smudge in a valley.

Our tools were a radio, 

a behemoth metal fire finder

and a platoon ready to pounce.

 

We woke up embraced by mountains, 

watched the snow dissolve until it was gone,

went to bed to among stars and sometimes

the green petticoat of northern lights flounced our way.

 

Our fears then were lightning busts,

renegade campfires

and the thought that

we might end up living ordinary lives.

First one and then the other of us 

was the on-duty watcher 

while the other one was left 

to dream and scheme.

And right there on the caldera we began

to gradually glimpse our future 

circled by an entire range of mountains,

and all the time in the world. 

 

And when autumn came and socked us in

we surrendered, unready as we were, and 

began to grope our way 

into what was next.

 

—SgB

August, 2022