Inhabitation

I've just begun reading David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous. I was ready to be judgmental ... just some fly-by-night new-ager trying to appear to be scholarly while stealing from the traditions of indigenous peoples. I was (or at least, so far) entirely wrong. Even in the first few chapters he's offered me a way to look at the world from a different perspective.

I'm not going to get into the book itself here, but I do want to write briefly about what has been stirred up in the soup pot of my skull.

It's about relationship ... discovering and renewing an intimate relationship with the world we live in. Not the earth as a whole, not the ecosystem as some concept, but with the streets we drive on, the sidewalks we walk on, the paths that carry our feet further than we imagined. I'ts about listening to bird calls and the songs of insects and the rustling of leaves in a strong wind or sweet breeze and to listen in a way that isn't about us. To know the world that we intimately live is each and every day, to respect it (respect ... to look again, perhaps with a new way of seeing), to enJoy it, to attempt to understand it on it's own terms, not ours.

To participate in this intimate relationship with the non-human world (foxes, hummingbirds, fireflies, pebbles, rivers, and clouds) takes the same kind of attention and time that we give to intimate relationships with our human companions. That's difficult for most of us. Certainly it has been for me.

I spent (like money? spent?) a winter afternoon when I lived in Sheffield, Massachusetts watching a fox in the field that spread outwards from my home. It was a sunny afternoon and the fox came out from the cover of a small copse of trees and began to play. Perhaps chasing a mouse, perhaps chasing sunbeams - it was a joyful expression of Life. And then, after it had finished with play, it rested ... curled up into a small bundle and napped in that winter sunshine. As I watched I could feel the silent clock of expectations: tick tick tick ... what are you doing ... tick tick tick ... what are you doing? It was difficult to justify to that part of self that had expectations of achievement that I was simply witnessing the Other. And that it was a worthy use of my time.

Another afternoon in the late summer I sat on the front stoop and watched the clouds sail overhead. One after another, forming and reforming, shifting forms and loosing pieces of themselves. I was fascinated as I witnessed a small and temporary inhabitant of my intimate world. Later, I wrote a small piece and had it published in some magazine ... both the piece and the name of the magazine are now lost to multiple moves and memory.

These experiences, Abrams' book, the articles and comments that I've been analyzing for my thesis, all these were on my mind this afternoon when I took a short stroll on 'my' path before heading up to campus to spend a few more hours on that thesis.

I silenced myself, I became attentive to the inhabitants of this piece of the world that I inhabit also. I became aware of the differences in the scattered trees, the snow-covered grasses how each of them moved differently in the winds shifting out of the west. I listened for what birdcalls there might be in the noticeable absence of ravens. I wondered about the experiences of snow, melting icewater, rocks glittering in sun. I did not try to 'become' them ... I tried to understand the momentary and emerging relationships between all of us in that moment. Complexity.

These are all important thoughts. I believe this because of the work of my thesis ... because of the words and thoughts and beliefs exposed by humans to humans about the non-human world ... because of what is not considered when choosing to destroy a pristine landscape in the search for gold and copper or when choosing which product to purchase in the supermarket or when choosing to have a(nother) child.

* * *

 I'm still contemplating, considering, allowing myself to be open to new perspectives, allowing myself to become intimate with the human and non-human entities that inhabit my little world. I know that I'll be leaving Butte sometime in the next six months or so. I look for ways to allow Butte and southwest Montana to inhabit me also, so that I can carry that particular intimacy always.

Yom Kippur

In a few minutes the annual celebration of Yom Kippur will end. Across the street in the lovely old synagogue, the small Jewish community of Butte has gathered to pray and sing, to ask forgiveness for the sins they have committed in past years against themselves, others, and God. After the final prayer, the Ne'ilah, the gates of prayer will close and God will have made the final inscription for the past year regarding our worth.

I've moved away from these practices over the years--the prayers and songs are full of mourning and self-blame. I find my own spiritual practice to be full of joy and empowerment--so much that I can't go back to dragging that old sorrow any longer.

I stand at my window, the breeze is chill with autumn, the leaves of the tree outside my window and those up on the East Ridge turn yellow, the clouds hang heavy and gray. I am listening to Joanne Shenandoah, an Iroquois musician--her music is deep and slow, celebrating the cycles of seasons and change. She inspires me into loosening my own voice.

And somehow I can feel the gates of prayer. I stand before them and they remain open wide. My prayers are not a duty, they do not flow begging forgiveness--instead they rise gently and fall into place--like leaves loosened by the autumn winds. My prayers are wordless, but no less sincere, and they flow in joy and appreciation for all that is--the challenges as well as the smooth paths.

Have I sinned? Yes, if you see sin in the old Aramaic way--actions that have missed the mark based on thoughts that have not fully ripened. I know that I have hurt myself and others in my words and actions that are sometimes less than skillful. In fact, sometimes they are purposeful. I am, as I have read in the Egyptian Book of the Dead "a human becoming" and in the process I do my best.

Have I sinned against God? No, if you see God as I do--the Essence of All that is. Not a Being ... like me, a Becoming. Does a tree sin if it is planted in the shade of a building and does not flourish as it could have if planted in the full sun? I am sometimes planted in the shade ... sometimes in the sun ... I have experienced "years that the locust has eaten" and others where I have been repaid in full and more.

My Jewish ancestors believed that the gates of prayer/forgiveness are closed and locked each year--that they had to wait until the following Rosh Hashanah for those gates to swing open again. I honor them for their devotion, sacrifices, and their survival. I honor myself as I choose not to stand outside, a beggar at the gates. Instead, I claim my home and stroll inside the heart of that Essence that has no name but holds all.

Fragments of Eternity

When I was traveling from Massachusetts to Montana I passed through South Dakota. I remembered from my cross country travels in 1985 how much I loved the Black Hills, but before I got that far, I passed through the grasslands and they were beautiful to me. I pulled over at one point, got out of my car, and began walking through the grasses into the north. My logical mind told me that I would eventually reach something human-made … but I felt another truth alongside that one … I had entered into a fragment of eternity. I seriously thought about stopping right then and there and finding a place to settle somewhere in that ocean of grass.

This weekend I am staying at a cabin of some rancher friends. It’s south of Butte and north of Dillon. I can hear ‘my’ river just to the east of this lovely little home. I’m writing this on Friday night and will post it when I return to Butte sometime on Sunday … though I must admit – if there was a chance that I might stay here … for a very very long time … I would jump at it.

Just before sunset I decided that I would  head out back of the cabin and walk up the dirt road into the eastern hills. (Even though I was warned about the rattlesnakes warming their bellies before the dark set in!) I walked past rusted pickups and antique haying equipment … I passed up the road watching the almost-full moon rise above a new set of mountains. I opened … and politely re-locked the gate … and continued as far as I could, passing off the main road onto a little path that led up a small rise.

I stood there in the twilight that rushed down from the Pioneer Mountains just across the valley and I was again placed into another fragment of eternity … similar and different from they way I felt in the grasslands of South Dakota. Here there are no grasses waving in the strong breeze … just sage and cactus, stones and rocky hills. I turned to the south and to my left the moon was rising higher into the night sky and to my right Venus fell toward the western mountain peaks. This felt like home.

I’m writing this in the loft bedroom of the cabin … it’s 10:30 pm, but there is still enough light so that I can see the sillhouettes of the bare peaks against the darkening sky as I glance out the windows. The ceiling fans above in this loft and below in the main room create a gentle breeze and hum and outside… ah, outside I hear crickets, the river, an occasional car as it  passes by on the distant highway. It is a blessing to be here.

I’ve always said that when I move (and I’ve moved many times from home to home to home) I want to move someplace I find to be  “this or something better” than wherever I am at the moment. And as I mature and gain perspective and discover what it is I love out in the world and in myself “better” changes its definition. Or I change.

My move from Egremont in Massachusetts to Dillon in Montana was better for me for so many reasons. And my move from Dillon to Butte – even better than before. I know that this particular little cabin is not my home … and … I feel that I’m being given a taste of possibility for my next ‘better’. Maybe here … maybe someplace very much like here – with the faint scent of eternity waiting behind the leaves of the cottonwoods in the breeze and the broad splash of stars across the night sky.

Letting Go

Sometimes you just have to let go of that thread you've been clinging to ... desperately ... and ... let go. I think of trapeze artists...

... and the deep trust in yourself, in your skills, in the other artists that you must muster up ... time and again ... so that you are willing to let go because you trust that something ... a rope, a slender wooden bar, a firm hand ... will be there to help you along the way.

I've done this before--many times--and I'm sure that I will continue the cycle of wanting things to be a particular way, clinging to that desire, and then finally letting go of it. It's the particularity of how that seems to get in the way--not the desire itself. The desire is clean, sharp, clear.

So, I let go of my thesis. No! Don't misunderstand - I am entirely dedicated to the goal of completing a well-written, interesting, and useful thesis. I've let go of the how ... of the rigid schedule ... of the expectations of how this is going to happen.

I've let go of how I'm going to re-emerge into health. I've let go of how I'm going to figure out what comes next - after grad school - after Butte. I've let go.

I'm out there, soaring and falling at the same time. I fill my days with the tasks associated with the responsibilities that I've chosen. I fill my evenings with gentle walks ... with song, dance, and drums ... with the words of others that inspire me ... with writing that fulfills me. I fill my heart with friends ... I empty my mind of expectations and leave the door open for ...

Bends in the Road

The morning of July 10, 1983 I woke up to bright sunshine and the Sunday comics on the side of the bed. My new husband, Stephen, had left them as a sweet gift before he headed out to Gloucester to meet friends for a day of scuba diving. A few hours later, I received a phone call from friends that a former co-worker had been in a roll-over the night before on her way from Boston back to Yale. I called the wife of Stephen's diving partner asking her to let him know that I would be with Susan and Peter waiting on more news about our friend, Mia. An hour or so later, the phone rang and Peter went to answer it. He walked back into the living room, pale. We thought that Mia had died. But no. It was Stephen. Drowned in the waters of Gloucester Harbor. Two days later I was back at the synagogue for the funeral. It was four months, to the day, of our wedding.

A few years later I received a letter from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with the court date for the divorce from my second husband. The date: July 11th. I called him to laugh about it, "I guess the timing means this is really over". We drove to our divorce together, used the same lawyer. It was as amicable as could be.

July 10, 11, and 12 are significant anniversaries in my life. Each year they also mark an opportunity for me to pause and reflect on how I have changed ... through imposition from the 'outside' as with Stephen's death or as a result of choice from the 'inside' as with the divorce. Change comes from the same root as barter (exchange) and also bend.

I like those two ways of seeing change in our life. We exchange on set of experiences for another, we exchange one set of beliefs for another, we give away something of the past in return for something new into the future. Change is a bend in the road, sometimes a gentle turn on a slow country road where whatever is around the bend may be unknown, but can be anticipated:

Other changes can be more dramatic, like these sharp turns in a trail at Carlsbad Canyon that lead into the darkness:

In the early and mid-90s, I studied with a tarot master. She was a remarkable woman, an intelligent, intense, scholar with a deeply dramatic flair. On the surface she and I could not be more different. She expanded my understanding of the world and I am so grateful for the years that we spent together - we studied history, symbolism, feminism, herbalism, esoterica, communication, theater, religion and spirituality, and our selves. She challenged my beliefs and limitations and gave me an opportunity to learn how to be both immersed in an experience and at the same time able to stand outside the experience and observe.

The tarot is a picture book with images that are like doorways into rooms where you can contemplate the commonalities of human experience. It is tempting to many to use it as a tool of prediction ... there are so many people who would like to believe in the words of others rather than in their own self-knowledge. People who would like to believe that we can know the future rather than accept that each moment, each choice, each experience changes our possible future.

I prefer to use the tarot as a means for insight into the present moment. And I know that there are many, many tools for that kind of insight.The tarot offers four cards to indicate the various kinds of change that we experience.

The Wheel of Fortune symbolizes those changes that feel out of your control - Fate turns the wheel and your fortunes rise and fall without any rhyme or reason - you are at the mercy of other powers: parents, mate, children, boss, the economy. Whatever it may be, you are powerless.

Then there are those moments where change comes sudden and out of the blue. This is The Tower. There are no storm clouds on the horizon and yet the lightening strikes and you and your world tumbles down. There are choices here - live amid the ruins, live in the past, never move on; rebuild the same structure and hope that it was a fluke (usually, its not); take what's useful and re-build something new; or walk away.

Some changes are like the 6 of Swords: a long, slow and weary change. You know why you're leaving the situation, you know where you're headed and its just a matter of taking it one step at a time until the change is complete.

The jongleur in the 2 of Disks is the last of the symbol for change in the Tarot deck. These are the cyclic changes that we can expect in life - the gentle rise and fall of good days and bad ones, the highs and lows of moving from birth to death, the ones we consider natural and normal.

Of course, each day of the year has some kind of resonance of joy or loss - especially as we travel along the years of life. The changes that I contemplate each year were made possible because of those losses and those joys.

The Wheel is from a Swiss tarot deck from the 1800s

The Tower is from an Italian deck from the 1800s

The 6 of Swords and 2 of Disks are variations of the Rider-Waite deck

An amazing variety of tarot images can be found at www.trionfi.com.

No One Told Us

There have been many phases of life that I might not have been truly prepared for ... but at least I anticipated that they would arrive. This phase has come as a surprise - and not entirely welcome. I wish more older people would mentor the rest of us as we move through life. I surely try to do that with my younger friends.

In conversations with friends who are of a similar age ... a few years younger or older ... we find ourselves faced with life experiences both personal and social that force us to re-evaluate who we believed we are ... and what it is we truly value. I'm not sure if this is what 'mid-life crisis' is ... I had always assumed that was a phenomenon associated with men and most seemed to fail the test by turning away from self-knowledge and toward red sports cars and younger women who would never be their true peers or partners.

We stand in the face of children growing up and leaving to create their own lives or children refusing to grow up and unable to leave ... in the face of life partners turning cold--turning away and leaving to create different lives apart ... in the face of losing lifelong careers because of financial problems or health problems ... we are at a loss. And the loss is our understanding of self.

When the house empties at the end of the day and we are left in silence and darkness that can't be filled with the faces and voices of the familiar ... who are we? What is our value? Where is the meaning that our days seemed to be filled with? These are questions that my friends struggle with.

It's easy enough to fill what seems to be a void. Our culture offers many choices: there is busy-ness. There are plenty of chores and responsibilities that we can use to fill the time, the dark, the quiet. As friends have said, when moving numbly through their nights: it's important to stay on task. There is the bottle of wine, beer, whiskey ... choose your poison, they say. There is the bowl, the joint, the needle, the pill. There is TV ... the new "opiate of the people". There are a million different ways to avoid the void until our last breath.

Facing that void is no bowl of cherries ... it is a privilege, can seem like a curse, and in the end is no promise of future happiness. Our small segment of the world --middle and upper middle class, mostly white people--have the time, luxury, and space to face this void. We're not starving, we're not faced with war and intercultural violence, we're not tied to the cycle of agriculture with the seasons of farming or raising animals that don't ever go on vacation or get sick days. We're free to explore this dark place.

And maybe ... facing the void isn't necessary. Maybe the various "opiates of the people" that allow for pleasure in the moment are the best choice of all. "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" says Ecclesiastes. I'm sure I'd be a lot more fun to be around if I took that advice instead of always seriously creasing my brow in thought and contemplation ... looking to scratch out meaning from every darn experience I face.

My friends and I, we look at our selves, our friends, our families, our children - we cast our gazes out further and we see the same problems, the same struggles, the same suffering as far as our sight will take us. We are good people--we work in various ways to create space for a 'better world' for our children and our children's children. We know that it feels that our work--professional and personal--is just a drop in the bucket.

And so we're left to create meaning. We're left to shape our lives into some form of value. I have friends who are artists, they pick up the brush and dab it into color and spread it across the canvas and they create meaning and value and, more often than not, they create beauty. The beauty is there for all to see. I look around my home. I have artwork from many friends that grace these walls and space. The beauty gives me pleasure, and it is also a source of strength. Their art reminds me of the more ephemeral art of my own life that I shape and create each and every day.

I dreamed last night that I was lost and stopped to ask directions. The problem was ... I couldn't remember where I had been or where I was going .. and I sure didn't know where I was. I don't have any answers here. And I know that my answers are only my own, shaped by who I've been and who I want to be. Most days I am able to find enough meaning in the way that light shifts over the East Ridge, or the sound of a child's laughter as she passes by, or the soft fur of a friendly dog, or a rich red glass of wine that mixes perfectly with a great conversation with a dear friend. These things have always sustained me. I didn't expect this particular struggle at this time of life ... I'm just grateful that I can offer storm warning and suggestions for safe passage to others.

Another Full Moon

One of the great gifts of living in Butte is watching the moon rise over the East Ridge. Even when I lived an hour south, in Dillon, I would often make the evening drive to watch the event. And, although it is a soft and subtle process, it still feels like an event to me.

Last night I climbed up the stairs from the trail to the college after watching the sun set over the Pintlers. I know that the moonrise drops back about 40 minutes each evening after the full moon, and that I could expect to see it just about ten minutes after 10pm. An auspicious set of numbers - if you believe in auspiciousness.

I sat on a wooden bench above Leonard Field and the city below me blossomed with occasional fireworks. I imagine that most people are saving their hoard til this coming weekend and that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday will be full of sound and fury in the Butte tradition. Mostly, I don't mind ... although an acquaintance told me yesterday that a few years ago he had a friend visit from Argentina who noted that Butte during fireworks season could easily be mistaken for living in a war zone in other parts of the world.

As the fireworks soared upward and wrote briefly on the night sky, I thought about how transient they are ... a poor attempt to ape the grandeur of the natural world. I wasn't sure how far north or south the moon would be rising - I hadn't been keeping track recently of her progress - but then I noticed a glow emanating from the scant cloud cover toward the south of the Ridge and I watched as the moon nudged her way slowly into view.

I don't know how old the East Ridge is but I do know that the moon has been rising above it every single day/night for all that time ... that the full moon has risen every single month (in human terminology) for 4.5 billion years and it has been witnessed by "all creatures great and small". I do know that although 4.5 billion years and counting seems like the opposite of transience ... it it is still temporary. Some day - whether through natural means or human arrogance - that moon will no longer be there ... nor will this earth.

I don't know if any of the other "creatures great and small" have attempted to interpret or make a symbol of the moon as we human creatures have. The moon has been seen as god and goddess, as a symbol of fertility and nurturing, it is the symbol of Islam, and on the flags of Algeria, Tunisa and Uzbekistan. In some native cultures, the moon is a warrior chasing, but rarely catching, his beloved - the sun.

Shakespeare says: "Oh swear not by the moon / the fickle moon / the inconstant moon that monthly changes in her circle orb" and yet, there is nothing more constant than the moon that may change throughout the month but always returns: new moon to full moon to dark moon to new. As human creatures in these old old animal bodies we hold to these cyclic changes that express our understanding of constant change and renewal ... of the familiarity within impermanence.

In most western/european mythological traditions the moon is seen as feminine. She is the soft reflection of the masculine sun.  She is symbolic of intuition and emotions. She is mystery - we only ever see her one face and must wonderful about the other ... the dark side.She is the symbol of three ages of women: maiden - mother - crone.

I've said goodby to myself as maiden long ago, and I'm learning to say goodbye to myself as mother ... learning to be friend and peer with my daughter. I see the signs of approaching crone-hood. The dictionary defines crone as "ugly, withered, old hag". I'm not anticipating an aging that extreme. Feminist scholar, Mary Daly, defines Crone as a Wise, Wild Woman. I find myself becoming a little wilder - not in terms of excitement or violence - but less tame in word and deed and stepping more into my own, natural essence. I find myself becoming wiser - able to integrate knowledge and experience into something ... more.

The moon continues to fascinate and delight me. I try to find a way to watch her rise in fullness each month over the East Ridge and to also witness the new crescent as she falls into the sharp arms of the Pintlers. I know what she is ... and I know what she symbolizes - just as I know these things for myself.

*these photos were taken in February 2010

A Day in the Life

It's late. I should probably be settling down to sleep - or at least finishing the dishes in the sink - just a few tea cups, but it will ruin the entire rhythm of my morning if I don't have the 'correct' cups available for the series of teas, coffee, and water as I move through morning. I know I'm becoming a bit too ritualized, but some days that's what gets me through all the uncertainties - the comfort of knowing that my blue lotus tea cup will be there waiting for me on the stove top to fill it with green tea when I wake and the cup that I've been sipping my morning coffee from for more than 20 years with wonderful vibrant tribal images will be dry in the red dish drain hovering over the chocolate brown double porcelain kitchen sink.

Summer is here, and the rhythms of my days are settling down - waking slowly into the day - reading a good book w/breakfast and then shifting into work mode for a few hours. I'm doing a lot of writing ... press releases, newsletters, and brainstorming for community outreach and education. I'm so grateful to be finished--for a short time--with the database work. It's boring beyond all measure. I'd rather fold and stuff envelopes than do database entry..and even worse ... database corrections!, but--for the time being its a necessary part of my job. I'll be glad in a year or so when I start a PhD program and don't have to do this business/management type of work. If a miracle occurred (and I'm still open to miracles) and I had financial support to finish this last semester of school w/out working - I would jump at the chance. I find myself not enjoying it when my time and attention is being pulled in two entirely different directions.

I like to walk in the early afternoon for a while (thunderstorms allowing), come home for a light lunch, and then nap. Napping has become essential in the day for the time being. I'm learning not to resent it - in fact, learning to enjoy the feeling of slipping in and out of consciousness the way I used to slip in and out of the warm water of the local streams when I lived in upstate New York. Back to work for a few more hours, cook a simple dinner, and enjoy a good meal. I take an hour or so to review some portion of my thesis and then take those thoughts out walking as the sun sets and twilight falls over Butte.

This is the third summer that I've been walking the same trail almost every evening. I am still not bored with it. In fact, its become more beautiful to me knowing that my time here may be over in the next year or less. The city ... well, I could do without the trash in the alleys, the stray dogs wandering the streets and howling at 2 a.m., the drunken teenagers racing up and down the streets, the empty buildings with broken windows, and the culture of mediocrity that spreads over the populace and scrapes them into the local bars. I often walk along the trail and imagine razing the entire city to the ground - the historic buildings, the shacks and trailers, the gallus frames and the shiny neighborhoods of the flats. All of it. And then rebuilding it from the ground up. With care and with pride. It's a nice fantasy.

Meantime, I wander down the trail watching the evening sky and the ever changing colors and textures of clouds and eternity. I soak in the Pintlers while I listen to the robins and watch the swallows and I hope for a glimpse of the fox. When I turn back, the East Ridge fills the east, and the Highlands still reflect the last light of the sun. It's almost full dark when I head back to my car and often I can only hear the jingling collar of the sweet springer spaniel in the nearby field running in a long arc of joy.

Gimme Shelter

My friend, Amy, posted a link to this video of Ray Lamontagne yesterday and I've been captivated by this song since first hearing it: (keep reading)



I am writing this as a storm blows through Butte - thunder rolls and rain pours down on streets and rooftops. I am, of course, sheltered safe inside my little home - able to witness the storm, but less vulnerable.

We have this rich and beautiful world that allows us to use external experiences to attempt to describe our internal worlds. The Buddha used the unfolding lotus to describe the beautiful process of the soul opening, again and again, to the light. Jesus of Nazareth used the tiny mustard seed to talk about the hidden bounty within. William Wordsworth wandered "lonely as a cloud". Bob Dylan finds"shelter from the storm".

Life is ... a battle, a prison, a garden, a mountain to climb, a desert to cross, a garden rich and full, a journey, a game, a roller coaster, a race, a river ...

Life is full of ... stones, flowers, obstacles, possibilities, choices, beauty, mystery, surprises, questions, valleys and peaks ... life is full of storms.

I think of myself as a child of storms. Growing up on Long Island off the coast of New York, we had tremendous storms blow through from the ocean. I don't recall being afraid of thunder and lightening when I was a child, and as I grew older I loved to be out in the storm - to feel the rain and wind - especially to be on the beach to witness the full waves crashing onto the shore. I can remember my first thunderstorm in the Catskills - my first experience in the mountains - and the thunder rolled back and forth between the mountainsides and echoed over and again. I've watched tornadoes in the Berkshires until the last moment and then took shelter w/friends. I went to college just south of Lake Ontario and the winter snow storms were incredible. I developed a love for walking through the winds and falling snow and the unique silence that falls afterward.

My life has been full of inner storms that reflect the many kinds of outer storms. And, to be honest, there hasn't been much shelter. In fact, shelter isn't really my metaphor. I like to think instead of 'safe harbor'. We can't protect one another from the storms of life - but we can offer a safe space for a span of time. A place where the storms fall less harshly. A place to rest a while until we return to the endless seas of life.

I'm deeply grateful for the friends who have offered me "shelter from the storm" and the lovers in whose arms I've found a safe harbor. I am also grateful for the opportunity to offer that same safe harbor to others.

Be Kind to Yourself

I wanted to share this email that I recently sent to a friend - I think it may be helpful to others - I know it's helpful to me:

I think it's important for you to remember that you have received quite a few serious shocks to your physical, emotional, and thought-systems in the past few months. In a weird way, physical shocks are easier to deal with than the other two - illness and injury to the body are 'real' and we can point to 'evidence' and we can attempt to 'fix' it and bring those problems back to some kind of 'normal' or 'balanced' state.

Emotional and thought shocks are more difficult - what do you point to? How to even express it? And in this culture, we don't have much compassion for the process of life that brings constant change, large and small, into our experience. In the year after Stephen's death, I wished we still had the cultural habit of wearing only black to express the fact that we are in mourning, that our behaviors could be … not excused … but understood and that we were given the time and social space to figure out who we were in this new phase of life.

The only break we give ourselves now is if our bodies take over and shut us down. I have a feeling that part of the reason that I'm experiencing so much physical pain and weakness, the experience I get to label as "lupus flare", is because I don't have the time/space/support to express the emotional pain and the intellectual confusion that I am also experiencing. Some of us even create physical damage to show evidence of the emotional/intellectual damage that we feel. When JT and I were breaking up … it took us well over a year … we had moved into separate places, but still were in the same workplace. He would flirt, agressively, with the women around us, and often go home with them. He would often then knock on my door at 2 or 3am and ask me to let him sleep on the couch because he didn't want to drive all the way home. (and … it was on the couch, I at least had that much sense!). Some days at work, I would watch him, and it would hurt my heart so deeply … I had no skills when I was so young to deal with those raw feelings. I used to go in the back room and literally bang my head against the cement wall so that I had some physical damage to point to. I imagine it must be similar for young people who cut themselves, or do some other damage.

So, we are left to defend our selves and our vulnerable hearts and minds … often feeling quite alone. Along with dealing with illness and heartache, we also have to defend the walls of who we believe we are. We have to make the effort to protect our time, our space, our feelings. No wonder you feel tired.

I urge you to be kind to yourself. To allow yourself the grace that you don't often allow others to show you. I urge you to care for the tender parts of yourself. This caring in no way negates the rest of who you are: brilliant, powerful, effective, funny, and respected by the people in your community and in your field.

What's It Worth?

So many questions - so little time.

I've been speaking with women recently who are experiencing a variety of mid-life changes. Some of the are self-chosen and others are imposed by other people and/or circumstances. As I look at the wide range of experiences, and listen closely, I hear one similar thread that ties them to one another. Worthiness. They are no longer sure what they are worth.

In this culture, there's quite a lot of pressure to prove your worth. I don't know what it's like for men - it seems to have something to do with pushing, shoving, and peeing to mark territory (mostly in a figurative sense, though I've seen them do it literally ... ). It seems to have something to do with who has the most toys, the most up-to-date toys, and those toys include 'stuff', money, women, and children. I've seen houses filled to the brim with 'stuff' so that it seems like a suit of armor rather than a home that could be filled with love, laughter, and companionship. Anyway.

Women are, to my dismay, catching up with the more patriarchal modes of determining their own self worth, but for the most part - we look at our worth as dependent upon our relationships and how we serve others. And so, when a woman in her late 40s loses a breast, her sense of self-worth can diminish because she is no longer an up-to-date toy for her male partner. When a woman in her 50s suddenly find herself single, she wonders what is her worth without a male partner in her life. When the children move out of the house and on with their lives, the women are most likely to wonder ... did I give enough? did I do enough?

Those of you who know me also know that I don't have a perfect body. I've struggled with health ... I'm a plump middle-aged woman who looks into the mirror and sees ... beauty, humor, intelligence, and compassion. I am satisfied. But its a struggle - there is pressure from all sides to think less of myself because there is more of myself than this culture prefers.


I've been single most of my adult life - am I less worthy because I'm not partnered in a culture that determines my value as partially dependent upon my (male) partner and my ability to 'keep' him. The lovers that I've taken from time to time have been good and decent men, each and every one of them. Life circumstances have conspired so that the relationships have not lasted.

My primary relationship for 18 years was with my daughter. I raised her alone and we worked to create a relationship that was based on love, trust and respect. And then,  she upped and left - moved to the other side of the state. And then, I upped and left - moved to the other side of the country. Did I give enough? Nope. Did I do enough? Nope. It's just not possible to give ... do ... be enough to fill another person. Am I less worthy because I didn't supply her with enough 'stuff' ... with trips around the country or around the world ... because I didn't supply her with daddy-mommy-brothers and sisters? No. I gave her the tools that I understand - and then I let go ... I trusted her, I valued her, and I watch her develop a life that is filled, like mine, with joy and with grief, with fear and with laughter.

So how do we determine our worth? What is is based on? Do we look in the mirror or do we wait for the reflections in the eyes of others? When I look up 'worth' I see that the first, third, and fourth definitions (out of four) are all about money, financial exchange, and wealth ... but the origin is all about honor. So how do we take this understanding of integral worth back?

It's work. It's a commitment to seeing our and being our own, personal concept of honor-able. It's a continual return to the source of your own self and finding way to express it ... for your own satisfaction. It's looking in the mirror and seeing the full truth ... the beauty and the flaws ... the abundance and the lack ... and determining that, all in all, it's good. Plenty good.

Note: I acknowledge fully that this is a very hetero point of view ... but I remind you that my writings come from my point of view, my experiences, and the people in my life. Would it be that my experiences and friends were more diverse, but that ain't happening anytime in the near future in Butte America.

Meditation on Pain

I was out walking earlier today, my hands loosely balled in the pockets of my jacket and the phrase "my hands are cups of pain" ran through my mind. It took the phrase for me to focus my attention on my hands and to realize that, yes, there was a great deal of pain flowing through them. I have familiar companions these days, returned to visit after years away--pain, weakness, exhaustion. The symptoms of Lupus are active once again and I, dancing in a new place in the spiral of life, am faced with integrating this experience into the woman I am today.

Lupus is an immune system disorder with a variety of symptoms which, in addition to the pain, weakness, and exhaustion, include a red rash across the face (like a butterfly ... or a wolf bite), swollen joints, edema, chest pains when breathing deeply, sensitivity to the sun (and light), circulatory issues (my fingers become white and very cold when temperatures drop even just a bit), anemia, and a compromised ability to deal with other illnesses.

 But, like so many immune system and other illness, I "look just fine". I hear things like, "well, everyone gets tired from time to time," or "it's probably just stress--you should relax more," or "you can expect aches and pains after 50". Uh huh. I know people mean well... and... I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy ... well ... maybe my worst enemy ... but nobody else.

The pain can be extraordinary. On a day-to-day basis, when I'm feeling well, my pain level hovers between 3 & 5 on a scale of 10. Over the years I have learned to experience pain as sensation rather than as suffering and I can manage it pretty well. The pain during a Lupus 'flare' causes me to look for a new scale--or to feel that my pain level is at a 30 or 40 on a scale of 10. There is no way to manage it. I can only ride it out--like riding heavy waves in the ocean and hoping/trusting that I will find my way back, somehow, to a solid shore.

There is no cure for Lupus. It is a progressive disorder that can leap quickly into new symptoms or lie quietly in remission for years. The treatments for Lupus are limited and often worse than the illness. During my years in Massachusetts I tried many different pain killers - they do not touch the pain. They do put me in a state of mind where I simply don't care about the pain ... or anything else. I'd rather live with pain than live without passion.

It's frustrating and frightening to experience these symptoms. There is a great deal of vulnerability in knowing that when I go out for my evening stroll that what appears to be a contemplative walking meditation is actually just as fast as I can go... and that I am fully aware of the potential for collapse at any time. It is frustrating and frightening to experience these symptoms and to know that they could last a few days ... weeks ... months ... even years ... and I can't know if I'll feel better soon ... or never. It is frustrating and frightening to realize that I must deliberately limit myself to situations that I can handle by myself.

Those of you who have followed "Into the West" since my trip in October 2007, and those who know me well, have heard about the many changes in my life since the move--each one for the better. My life in Montana has expanded into opportunities and experiences that were entirely unexpected ... and quite wonderful. I have had the time, space, and the health to develop my interests, my skills, my abilities, and my self more deeply than ever before. It is frustrating and frightening to think that this time of growth may be over.

"My hands are cups of pain" ... it's true more often than not these past days and weeks. The pain slows me down, forces me to focus on be-ing rather than do-ing. It gives me the opportunity to contemplate the years ahead in which I will age and eventually (like everyone else) die. It allows me to consider how I want to live these remaining years, to think about and name the experiences, the people, the situations that are ... and are not ... important to me. It allows me the opportunity for deeper understanding, deeper gratitude, and deeper compassion. These are gifts to me - and the cost is very high some days. But, I think, worth it.

Floating Boats

April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month and I've been reading a Feminist Blog that posted each day a different set of thoughts about some of the issues regarding sexual assault in this troubled culture where a wholehearted "yes" is not often said in sexual encounters--nor looked for.

This morning I came across two articles: Rescuing girls from sex slavery and a facebook post from Nicholas Kristof about  The Somaly Mam Foundation. Both focus on the sex trade in southeast Asia, and it's easy enough to feel a moment of sorrow or outrage for these women ... far far away from our place and our common experiences ... and then move on. A bit later in the afternoon I was waiting at a stop light and noticed a young woman heading into one of Butte's many bars. She was young, attractive, dressed nicely, unlike the atmosphere of the bar itself, and she was clearly going in to work the bar ... bartending, waitressing, serving the (mostly) men who come to drink. The 'take home' messages of the blog and the two articles leaped back into my mind.

The topic of sex is a complex one. I know my personal preferences, which are constantly shaped and reshaped by culture, nature, upbringing, personal experiences, experiences of others, contemplation, and other influences I am likely unaware of entirely.

For some, sex is a sacred obligation between a couple ... for others it's just like any other sport activity - you don't become intimately involved with your handball partner, so why become intimate with your handjob partner ... for others sex is just another form of masturbation that happens to include another person instead of a vibrator or a bottle of moisturizer ... for some its a desperate cry for connection ... for others its a form of payback for past hurts. You just never know what your partner(s) are bringing to the table ... the bed ... the living room floor ... the back of the pickup truck.

For me, sex is a deeply intimate form of communication ... communion ... the sharing of a common experience. I respect that this is the preference that I have developed and chosen over the years - and I respect that others have developed other preferences that are very different from my own. "Whatever floats your boat" you might say - but I wouldn't - because that focuses on the act of sex being defined in terms of male arousal - and so, male pleasure.

And therein lies the problem: it's all defined in terms of male arousal and male pleasure. Women are--still--seen as a commodity in most of the world. Women take care of things ... children, filing, housework, travel arrangements, blowjobs, copying, serving the needs of others.

The young woman going to work at the bar is also an active part of the sex trade. She was hired so that men would be able to watch her, to fantasize about her and ... depending how drunk they get ... to paw, grab, accost in some subtle or not-so-subtle manner. And truly, I see the same in coffee shops and cafes - I see it wherever women are placed in the path of the male leer in order to 'float their boats' and bring in the bucks. These woman are (sex)slaves to economic need and social pressure to pleasure men - visually if not physically. And, these women (all women?) are being (sexually)assaulted as they are watched, grabbed, fondled, and judged for their (sexual)service for floating boats.

It's a problem.

It's a problem because women do not have the full freedom to be beautiful - to be sexual - to say a wholehearted "YES" to being their gorgeous animal selves.

First Robin

It's late, just finished dinner after my sunset walk, and am listening to John Hiatt's "Have a Little Bit of Faith in Me" ...



It's been a while since I've felt that little bit of faith, although it was the path that I followed from the Berkshires to Butte ... from a dead-end job and a deadening existence to the privilege of following my intellectual abilities and a flowering of my Self.

Pursuing my studies, developing my thinking, delving more deeply into matters that I'd only skimmed in the past has brought much into question for me - and I wondered, during the more difficult days and nights: a little bit of faith in ... who? ... what? and why?

It seemed that the still, small voice of my heart that I followed here abandoned me about a year ago. Left me, as they say, high and dry. Instead of flowing with Life, I was grounded ... stranded ... and not only couldn't I see the waters of life flowing - I couldn't even hear them in the distance.

The voice of the mind - it's neither still nor small - it's in constant motion and and it's damn loud. Without my heart, it leads me in circles - nothing is more, or less, true than anything else and really - depending on your point of view ... where you're standing in the moment ... almost anything can make sense. I appreciate my mind - it's interesting and interested - it's supple and open - it's willing to both listen and speak ... but without my heart, it's empty of meaning.

A few days ago I was in the cafe on campus to take some time to study and focus. My daughter called to celebrate her last day of work, and I caught sight of someone who has become dear to and yet distant from me. Outside, a sudden spring storm reflected my inner storm - full of sound and fury and signifying ... ?

Yesterday, all the stress of work, health, family, and school came to a head - feeling my obligations tugging me in too many directions and I was coming unraveled. I had a few minutes to stroll around the campus before the first meeting with my thesis committee and I focused on slowing my footsteps, slowing my breath, focusing on the beautiful, wind-filled day. Just before I walked back into the building, the first robin of spring flew past. A symbol of hope ... faith ... even though we can't see it - spring has returned. Plump bodies, soft red breasts, sharp eyes and beaks, a brash song, and wings to carry them places I wish I could go.

This evening I went out just before sunset. The winds had died back and the world was softly filled with gray clouds. As I walked - the first robin turned into the first hundred ... or it seemed so anyway. Their songs and wings filled the air. I walked slowly, appreciating the time and space. Allowing my thoughts to pull me forward as I contemplated some of the challenges of my thesis, I also left room to be attentive to the grasses, the ravens, the mountains, the fading light. Mostly though, it was the robins that caught and snagged my attention. The little namesakes of my own past - the name I released, but not the hope.

On the last rise, that still, small voice returned. Soft, yes - strong, yes. It reminded me of the faith in my heart. To have a little faith - in me, in my connection to my love, to my passions, to my delight, to my joy. It made a promise that I doubted ... but wanted to believe. And then, a few steps later, an unexpected synchronicity. A sign? Perhaps. A reason to believe? Perhaps. It's how I got from the Berkshires to Butte ... it's how I got from the dark winter of Dillon to the bright promises of Butte. I know that signs don't always mean what I think ... but they usually do signify something more than sound and fury. Today, they signify hope, faith, and the return of the promises of Life.

Just because I don't ... doesn't mean I don't want to.

More of What is Hidden

Thinking more about what's hidden in plain sight. What do you see here?

Since I'm reading alot of feminist theory, I'm thinking about how women are hidden in plain view - they are hidden as individuals, they are hidden as 'people', and their forms of communication are also hidden. Men might say "secret" - not because we try to hide it - but because men have not learned/been taught the signs that women recognize. There are plenty of books and journal articles out there about the forms of communication used by an underclass. Yiddish, for example, uses many words from the German language, but twists the meanings, so that what a German would have heard and understood would be entirely different than what another Jew heard and understood.

As in most communication, most of the signs in hidden languages are non-verbal: its in the posture, the inflection, the particular pattern of how 'innocuous' words are placed together. Since this communication is not known/seen by men - it often is considered not to exist. "You're imagining it" is a response. "I haven't seen that" is another. Yet... it is real. And, impossible to "prove".

I've been in situations recently in two of my professional roles where women in positions of power/authority have been using that 'secret language' to abuse their power and authority for their (supposed) benefit. They disrespect, dismiss, and disempower the other women in their realm in order to please/impress/gain more power with the men who have greater power and authority in the situations. They do it for financial gain, they do it for ego gain, they do it to walk over those they see as weaker, they do it because they are so aware of their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities and have never found another way toward their own strength.

On the one hand, I feel kinda sorry for these women. Their desperation for acceptance from the outside, especially from men, rather than the inner knowing of their own self-worth is pitiable. On the other hand, I am not interested in standing by, quietly, when I see this kind of abuse going on. Speaking up, however, has its own dangers.

If these were younger women, I might take them in hand - judiciously model better behavior, have conversations about the effects of their own behavior. I've done it in the past. It's been effective. But, these women are peers - in terms of age-group anyway. I'm no longer interested in saving everyone I come into contact with - I give everyone a chance to show me that they have basic integrity and respect for others. I give them a second change - sometimes even a third. But after that - I'm done. And, quoting Joni Mitchell, I'm like a mama lion - and I have the desire to protect my territory when I'm able to do so.

When my open hand and open heart are met with veiled (and not so veiled) insults, when I see women abusing other, younger women, I'm not interested in teaching them better behavior. If they haven't learned through life experiences by now - they ain't gonna. Unless each individual is personally and deeply motivated to make changes in their own thought and behaviors - nothing that someone on the outside does is going to make a damn bit of difference.

I spent a good part of my adult life hiding. I know what its like. I know how hard it is to change. I know that changing is worth it. I know that I'm not interested any longer in hiding. My communication is open to the levels permitted in each situation. And if I can't say anything productive - I don't say anything at all. That, unnerving to others, is also a form of communication. It may be silent, but, it's not hidden.

(What did you see in the image above? 

Pretty pebbles - or chocolate? 

Something hard and dry - or something soft and sweet?)

What's Hidden

Busy, busy, busy.

And, even better--I'm learning how to deal with it...go with the flow...enjoy most of the moments no matter what I'm doing.

I've created a new website from scratch for my advisor's NSF final grant report on Science, Society, and Superfund (the link is on the sidebar) and its simple but effective. Like me? Perhaps. I've also entirely updated the BHWC website - well, not really entirely - but I did give it a new makeover an reorganized stuff. That was fun. It's on the sidebar as well.

I'm plowing through a renovation of the BHWC database ... it's one of those forever projects, like that poor guy who eternally pushed a boulder up the steep hill--Sisyphus. We all have projects like that.

My classes this semester are really great. I'm so excited by the readings I get to do: wolves, literature, semiotics, linguistics, philosophy, ethics, environmental communication, marxist theory, feminist theory, visual communication, nature writing ... I have four pages of references for my thesis proposal - and it grows every time I pick up a new book and find something else I want to explore.

Last week I had conversations with a few of my professors about how the way we choose to label things often hides other things. Not a real surprise to any of them. So - when I real the phrase "environmental problems" over and over and over and over again, I get cranky. That's because we don't have environmental problems - we have people problems.

The environment isn't going around making trouble--trashing playgrounds, slashing tires, beating up old ladies in the parks, stealing handbags. No, the environment is doing its best to cope with the people. People who are trashing forest, streams, and oceans; people who are slashing the earth wide open to mine for minerals, diamonds, and coal; people are beating up on responsible hiking trails with their four-wheelers; and people ... people are stealing the future.

By saying that we have "environmental problems" we are hiding our own responsibility. When I read that phrase, over and over again, I kept thinking of an abusive relationship. The abuser says "you've got a problem" and the abused one keeps trying to figure out how to change themselves, adapt to the situation, to fix themselves so as not to exacerbate the abuse. But, at some point one of three things can happen: the abuser kills the abused one; the abused one 'snaps' and kills the abuser; or ... the abused one walks away.

Is that where we are now with people and the environment?