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.