Terms of Use: A Guide to Ownership

A rendering of my inner stupa next to a Trent Miller drawing.  Can you guess which one I did?!

Dear self,

Today has been a hard day.  I don't really get why, but it has!  You seem to be very worried about the future, about where all of this is going.  Which I get.  But it seems to me you are also becoming blinded by panic!  Which is both unattractive and unsettling.

I also noticed that you are depressed, which to me means you aren't settled in yourself - you are jumping out every which way.

You still feel incredibly cheated by some of your life experiences. But I see some things that you cannot change! And so - where is all this anger coming from? You seem to be very angry at yourself.  Which is a little like shooting yourself in the foot.

I wonder if you can go inside now, and forgive yourself for the things you have done that hurt you. Go inside and tell these scared places that you are sorry.  That you hear their pain.  That you feel it.  That you want to do better, and you need their help, instead of their fury.  You get it.  You get that they are pissed.  You are listening.  And yet you don't quite know what to do about it.

Last night, you were jittery jane - jumping all over the place.  When you finally sat, at the end of the night, you felt the presence of God.

Today, in little Frances' room, you heard her tell her mother, I'm right here for you - and you thought how that's what God is saying to you all the time - when you think you are lost. God is saying, I'm right here by you.  You are not alone. 

I have a friend who regularly goes through old journals to see what she was thinking and feeling at earlier points in her life.  I keep my journals but rarely go through them.  But I found this entry from six days ago that already seems profound and wise--as our creations often do when viewed from a distance.  I know six days is not a lot of time, but hey.  Leaps of faith can happen in a second, right?  A lot can happen in six days.

My sister-in-law checked in with me recently after several posts where I wrote about depression.  I don't mean to give the impression that I roll around on the floor moaning all my life.  In fact, I am often bopping around at unnatural speeds.  Okay, unnatural for me.  In any case, I write so much about healing and depression because I want to take the stigma out of being uncertain in life, out of feeling overwhelmed, and especially of feeling vulnerable.  I want to be intimate enough with life and each other to welcome the shadows of our psyches, the shadows of our world, and to get comfortable with those shadows, because they are a part of us, too. 

I guess I'm not much of a Toughen up! kind of gal.  Because the paradox of inner strength is that it does not come from emotional calisthenics, or regimes we impose on ourselves.  It comes when we learn to be so tender with ourselves that we become the mother to our inner child.  When we learn the skills of tenderness, we strengthen our relationship to ourselves so profoundly that we become nearly unshakeable.  And that is the kind of tough I believe in cultivating--tough from the tender inside out.

When I saw rediscovered this six-day-old letter above in my notebook, I thought of my dear friend, whom I spoke to yesterday.  Among such topics as fig-infused cocktails, shopping at Kohls, and a blouse-sweater-belt item I bought that my husband is now referring to as "the contraption," my friend and I talked about the nature of depression--how it is ultimately the result of betraying your inner will.  Like putting a big brick on your belly, pinning yourself in place. Remembering this sometimes helps shift my perspective when I am feeling low.  It helps me ease up on any expectations I might be placing on myself that are causing emotional discomfort. 

What also usually helps is a spontaneous run with my spastic dog. The disaster of us careening down the sidewalk, him halting to stop to pee without warning, me getting my arm jerked out of its socket, makes me laugh.  As he stops every half block, and I tug on his leash without mercy, we are not winning any competitions in speed or grace.  But we are having fun.  And in that delight--disorganized, a purpose in itself--I remember the unerring presence of the perfect in the imperfect.  And that, my friends, soothes my heart like no other balm.

So, maybe try this sometime, a letter to yourself - for those times when your head is out of whack with your heart, and someone wise must simply take the reigns.  Or don't!  Who gives a hoot what you do, as long as it pleases and provides for you.

With that, I say hello (& hello! & hello!) to Autumn, seeing what ways I can slow down, gather supplies, and go inside--the house, myself--to watch the light changing, to draw out the blankets, to get cozy with my family, and just like the trees, unwind.

With love and hope for your inner unveiling,
Kara

Tea, Sun, Chickens

What I Learned From My Mother
by Julia Kasdorf

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds.  I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape-skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn't know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

1. The Chickens
Is it wrong to one day write about the secret wisdom of chickens, and another to tell you how boiling three of their legs and making a pie from their tender meat saved my pickling soul?

All day, nothing could cure my sadness.  Not a delightful morning jog with Dog, not time at my friend's house watching her sew, not toasting bread and spreading on delicious butter, and putting tomatoes and basil on top that I myself grew.  I ask myself now, looking back on this day, Goodness, how did you miss the seed of those moments?

I don't know.  Sometimes it just happens that way.  In fact, I have lately been meditating on the fact that what we do does not matter so much as the attention and intention we bring to it. 

Perhaps that is why what did cure The Sadness, as my husband affectionately calls that beautiful friend-emotion who sometimes visits and hangs around for a while, was making my own pie crust.  Because there was no reason to make a pie crust, other than the fact that I wanted to.  In that purity of decision, and crazed focus, that slight buzz of time rush and determination, I wheedled my way beyond the fog of a near-hovering migraine and into the bone joy of blinders-on, heck with the rest of the world, cooking.

Whew!  I'm sure glad I did it, too. 

Chicken pot pie might always remind me of arriving at my friend house to retrieve a book on a cold Saturday during graduate school, and being offered a giant slab of warm pot pie made by her neighbor, our friend Gina.  The crust on that pie was so thick and delicious, eaten in the cozy dark of Gina's windowless kitchen, that I can almost mistake the memory of it for putting on a beautiful, hand-knit sweater, and pulling up a rocker to sit at a fire.

2. Tuna Noodle Casserole (For When You Are Depressed)






When I got married, my excellent maid of honor (who is famous for being in something like sixteen weddings) presented me with a box full of recipe cards she had collected from many women in my life.  Making food from these recipes is a simple, true delight.  I know that this feeling is nothing new to lots of folks; in fact, I know it is a common wedding custom to share recipes.  To this I say, Yay Tradition!  It pleases me greatly to connect my kitchen to those of my family and friends.  Moreover, I find it an honor to expand my circle of women through food.

So, yes.  Food is healing!  And cyclical and amazing!  And recipes have a life of their own!  I hear them calling from their little boxes while I sleep at night.  Days after I read one, I have a bionic urge to pluck it from its safe little bed and do whatever it tells me, give myself over to its sometimes formidable ingredients. 

This urgency is wisdom, I say.  Like today.  Baking hearty pot pie on a gorgeous sunny day? Totally called for. 

3. The Future (Egads)
I wrote a bit about my kitchen as a guest on a blog I like, which hopefully will appear soon.  The posts and pictures on this site remind me of all the delicious freedom, exploration, and colorful dreams that your twenties can and hopefully do hold. 

Today is my friend's birthday. 


She and I have talked about the nervousness that comes with tipping the scales from your twenties to your thirties.  I have been surprised by the beauty and power I have discovered in the world via my thirties, so imagine my delight when having tea with a friend this week, to hear him state that turning forty is the Absolute Best! 

So there.  No matter what our age, we have this to look forward to: growing toward more wisdom and humor, the tenderness that comes with understanding, the flavors that season our souls on the path, and the good foods we learn to make! 

To your health, to your dreams, and unfolding creations.  And yes, that sounds like a scrapbooking ad.

So, while the tomatoes slumber and old grasshoppers rub their knees, I leave you for a night's rest.
with love,
Kara

You Are the Song Behind the World

Dissolver of Sugar
by Rumi

Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me,
if this is the time.
Do it gently with a touch of a hand, or a look.
Every morning I wait at dawn.  That's when
it's happened before.  Or do it suddenly
like an execution.  How else can I get ready for death?

You breathe without a body like a spark.
You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter.
You keep me away with your arm,
but the keeping away is pulling me in.

                           ~

Pale sunlight,
pale the wall.

Love moves away.
The light changes.

I need more grace
than I thought.

Good morning, furry life.  I felt the need to jump out of bed last night to type up this Ode to Chicken Song (my title) by Alice Walker, from her memoir, The Chicken Chronicles.  The book is a marvel, in that it is so controlled at times as to be cheap (come on, Alice!  Give us more) but at other times is full of such quiet power, I wonder if I will ever forget its anecdotes.  In any case, it is a wonderful diversion from the wishy-wash days surrounding the full moon as my heart sloshes from side to side.

Ms. Walker writes to her chickens in California while she is abroad in Tibet.  The following passage comes after the author's discovery of the most ecstatic sound she has heard in her life: the buzzing prayers of monastery nuns as they gather in one room, chanting disparate prayers.  Walker writes:

...behind the world, always, there is a song...behind every country's 'leadership' and every country's 'citizenry' there is a song.  Behind Tibet, behind the spiritual 'country' the Dalai Lama...and the Tibetan Government in Exile have formed, there is the song of the nuns, which is the song of the feminine.  Without this song there is no movement, no progress.  It is this song that keeps it all going, though we may hear it infrequently or only by accident.  For millennia and to our detriment, it has been deliberately drowned out.  But it is there, nonetheless...

It is the same with you and with the other animals of the planet.  You are the song behind the world human animals inhabit.  Awww...hohohohohoho....This is the vocal song you sing as chickens, but each animal has its song in its very being: we are our songs embodied; it is the song of all of us that keeps our planet balanced.

I have been thinking about forgiveness lately, or, why I am still thinking about something that happened eleven years ago.  Growing up, I was taught that it is important to forgive, because it is a good Christian thing to do.  The whole Christian Thing To Do fixation cracks me up, by the way.  I wish there were a code for living, by which we could always find ourselves safe.  I find the truth to be closer to walking on a tightrope, when every moment is guided by the winds, and our balance, and our feeling out the next step.  Maybe that is cynical, but it seems to me, the older I get, there is no clear answer to life's questions, except as we can answer for ourselves.  And I think religions help us come to those answers.  At least, that is the case for me. 

As I made my way into adulthood, I began to understand the reasons behind these good Christian ways (etc. etc.)  I mean, the edicts were only helpful as I understood how to practice them in my life.  Without that meaning, they were rigid rules.  And there is nothing less enlightening than mechanically following rules for enlightenment.

Some wonderful things have grown to make sense in my life.  Some of these are cooking, friendship, growing tomatoes, and feeding others. When it comes to the area of forgiveness, however, I have some work to do.  A gifted friend once taught me that forgiveness does not mean, to pardon.  It means, to give back.  There are lots of ways to give back - in fact, one of the ways could be very eye-for-an-eye-ish.  But the way I thought of my friend's counsel was this: I will not hold this (insult, accusation, painful information you have handed to me).  Like a baton, I am handing it back to you.  You learn to incorporate it into your life how you must, or dissolve it through your own process of healing and transformation.  But it isn't mine to hold. 

Sounds easy, right?  Ha ha ha ha ha.

I have been giving back one painful moment for eleven stinking years now.  The missing link in my efforts has been prayer, possibly.  At least, that is my new theory.  In prayer lies the final piece of surrender; and it is surrender that ultimately heals a heart, and thus a life.

But what IS surrender?  (Besides the ding-dang hardest part of life?)  To me, it is letting go of my attachment to outcomes.  It is pausing to say, I don't know how this needs to end.  And then moving forward still - despite and with that uncertainty.

It is the willingness to discover something new.

This morning, I drew a gigantic bunny on my sketch pad.  Its ears rise up behind it, as if tuned into some other planet.  And maybe that is what is called for sometimes: opening up the whole scope of hearing, so we hear not just our own mind's complaints, but the wider world around us.  Not so we tune into those complaints, either.  But so we hear what is always being said underneath them: the prayers for peace, songs and chants for peace, the buzzing, braying truth that what lies behind our suffering is an ability to heal all things.

Last week was full of adjustments and readjustments for me.  I had to sand the wheel of my life that had been turning so smoothly before I went on vacation.  It was a little ugly, in truth - this adjustment period. But it was necessary.  And by Sunday, I was lolling about like a turtle in the sun, finally at peace in my body and life.  Because of this, when a friend came to me that night, and needed to go for a walk in the park, I was able to be totally present with him, and free of any personal distractions chattering in my head while he talked about his life. 

This is the power of the feminine - not only the ability to be there for another, but to be there for ourselves when we are having a rough time.  In fact, we have to be there for ourselves, first, in order to be any there for anyone else. 

I once made the mistake of believing that this presence with myself was hard, or complicated, or time-consuming.  Sometimes it is.  Last week, it felt like a full-time job.  But most of the time, with a little routine maintenance, it is a pretty seamless process.  And when you fall out of routine, and find a big hitch in things, there are others to call in for support.  You, me, the chickens, and the nuns.  We're all in it together.   This is the good news.   And I thank you for being part of it.

With love,
Kara

Rain Delay

When I Look At the Old Car
by Marcia F. Brown

When I look at the old car
backed into the cleared-out space in the shed,
I can almost understand
those bewildered men who leave
their softening wives in middle age, up-
and-walk-out after decades
of marriage and family, to take up
with some buffed and waxed young thing
with great lines, horsepower
to burn and a dazzling array
of untested equipment.

When I look at the old car's
headlights, dulled with disuse and staring
at me, as if to say, What did I ever do?
Wasn't I always good to you?
Turned over every morning, rain or snow,
to start your day? Kept you safe
all these years, mile after mile?
And I'm filled with guilt and say with feeling
You're absolutely right. You were the best. There'll never
be another you, as I glance surreptitiously
at my cute new model sitting in the old car's space
in the garage and explain, You just got old. 
You're falling apart. And besides, I say,
I've fallen in love. We're already living together.
And the old car looks like it might be wired
to explode. 

So I walk across the yard
and look at the new car,
and it occurs to me that before too long
the new car will be old, the suspension
will sag and things will fall off.
And like the lout who'll use up
his young fling and want to trade in again,
we'll deny that we've put on some miles ourselves,
dump this one in the shed and go shopping--

until someone lays a firm hand on our arms
and says Enough. You just can't drive any more.

I love this poem.  What an ending!  I considered sending it in a letter to my mom's friend, but thought, what if she got the wrong idea?  What if she thought I called her an old car?  I decided against it.  But her friendship with my mother reminds me of mine with a best friend from college who called out of the blue last night. I was ecstatic to see her name on my caller i.d., and surprised.  "Is everything okay?" I asked.  "Of course," she said.  "I just called to say hi." My gut fear that something was wrong reminded me of what I had discovered earlier in the day: I've been moving too fast. 

It's a cozy rainy morning and my dog has been oversleeping lately.  Because the dog is my alarm clock, I have been oversleeping too.  But rather than feel guilty or even sheepish about it, I am taking this opportunity to catch up on Nothingness, or the cozy Somethingness that is: blankets, the rain outside, sweet stacks of books and lamp light throughout the house.  Though I have been fighting the concept rigorously, I am finally surrendering to a post-vacation rest. 

In the spirit of paying attention, I will post a few pictures of the tiny moments that have been arresting my buzzing mind, bringing me back to the blissful physicality of the present tense. 

Picture 1
My gray-faced dog who paws at me continuously since I arrived home, bringing the much-needed message: Enough with your agenda already!  Let's play.



Picture 2
A front-hall composition, complete with shiny little hatchet my husband (inexplicably) deposited there.



Picture 3
Naked baby pic!  This is my nephew who, through shrill and explosive laughter, relentless requests fruits and vegetables, and a curious addiction (discovered last week) to kale green smoothies, brings me back to the present in nano-seconds, settling into the abundance that is. 



The photos are all a little blurry, but, I admit it!  I kind of like it that way.

May we all make time to count the ways we love today, 
Kara

Family In the Forest

The House on Broughton Street
by Mary Ann Larkin

Always it was a summer afternoon
I see my mother climbing the stairs
to the porch
My grandmother waiting
tiny but formidable
She'd been expecting her
the sisters smiling
brothers watching
My mother in her grey crepe
the white gloves she always wore
Her hair and eyes dark
among these fair, freckled people
My father shyly presenting her—
something of his own—
Shuffling, they made room for her
and she took her place among them
and between them
grew something new
Marie, they came to say,
This is Grant's Marie
She seldom spoke
but rested among them
a harbor she'd found

My father gave her a carnelian ring
surrounded by silver hearts
Before Grandma died
she gave my mother the diamond brooch
from Grandpa
My mother brought with her
fabrics that glistened
a touch of velvet
sometimes a feather
They noticed the light
in the rooms where she sat
And even thirty years later
after the lost jobs and the babies
after the mortgages and the wars
what they remembered most
was the way my mother
set aside her gloves

She was buried on Good Friday
There was a blizzard
After the funeral
the youngest uncle
read "Murder in the Cathedral" aloud

I have the carnelian ring now
the diamond brooch
I wear satin when I can
and I am attracted to old houses
where the light passes
across the porch to the windows, making
of the space between, a grace

I recently had a conversation with my mother where I apologized for moving so far from her.  We laughed about the apology, as if it were a reasonable thing to apologize for, as if I had run out on a family, abandoned someone and refused to pay alimony.  We both know that what Tim and I came out west to do was important to us, and how powerful it is to follow your bliss.  But I still felt the need to apologize, if only to say: I once thought I could change who I was by changing my location, but I see now that I am perfect the way that I am. 

Part of who I am comes from my mother.  My father.  My grandparents.  The glittering constellation of my inherited past. 

And part of who I am is all up to me. 

I am traveling this week, to the place I call home. I feel my life circling back to old business, to reclaim lost loves and tossed-away lives.  I also feel it opening up in whole new ways, as I discover new-to-me joys.  Between the old closing over and the new opening up, I find my full life.

I just read the introduction to a collection of short stories based on places set aside by The Nature Conservancy.  In case you haven’t noticed, place is a topic I obsess over. The introduction - written by Barbara Kingsolver - stood out to me for its articulation of something I have grown to understand about my own writing. 

Kingsolver writes: “…the natural world has always inspired authors.  From the early American novelist James Fenimore Cooper , who celebrated the ‘holy calm of Nature,’ to the contemporary writer Annie Proulx…who has said that ‘everything that happens to characters comes welling out of place’…our nation’s authors have been moved by nature and often incorporated it into their work.  Indeed…not long ago, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Henry Taylor went so far as to remark, ‘Isn’t all writing nature writing?’”

Even though the quote addresses how the natural world influences writers, Henry Taylor’s words were especially relevant to my understanding of why I write at all.  Whether I am writing a poem or a letter to a friend, I write to listen to the babbling brook inside, to take from it what glittering rocks I find and lift them up to the sun.  I find my clearest self when I write, and discover both where I come from, and where I am heading. 

As I copied the above passage, my plane descended to the ground.  To North Carolina.  To my eternal practice: Find ground.  Sink in.  Take what you’ve been given, and water it.  Watch it grow, and give thanks for whatever shape it takes.

Wherever it is you are landing, whatever shape your life is taking, may you bring quiet attention to your loves and self today.  I leave you with sweet hope and blessings for our shared future.

As always and most sincerely,

Kara

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

I baked a Leprechaun Trap Cake for my friend Amelia's totally rad blog and I'm pretty psyched about it.  Read all about baking versus cooking, and sugar versus love, here.

Then add Bon Appetempt to your Reader and have a magical day!

Love,
Kara

P.S. What's that?  A poem you say?  Certainly!  Hang on to your hats.  This one's a WILD one.  (Stay tuned for a recorded reading of this poem by a fellow nerd...any volunteers?)

I am dedicating the inclusion of this poem to J.L. Conrad, who also writes wild poems about farm and circus and other beloved animals.  Check out her astonishing book, A Cartography of Birds, and see for yourself!

P.P.S. I went to my second-only county fair on Saturday night, which is perhaps why farm animals are on the brain. 

I once told Tim that I LOVE the fact that he is from Ohio.  He says that was a first for him.  Getting to the county fair on a date for the first time when you are 33 is just one of the perils of growing up in New England.  Just kidding.  BIG LOVE, Connecticut!  All the states I've lived in are rad.  Okay.  Now for that poem...


Although I Sweeten Myself with Sugar
by Rodica Draghincescu

My hands filled with sugar
(a new being? lucky?)
I met him along the railroad tracks
watching over his ruddy goats
HOW DO YOU DO?  DID YOU SLEEP WELL?
good morning I MEAN CAN'T
YOU SEE IT'S STILL NIGHT
the DAYS have turned to grass
and GRASS isn't good for these animals any longer
I've brought you sugar
the goats bleat whenever they feel like it
their bleating has stopped - in goat language this is called
FREEDOM - I'm about to experience the sensation that I've
DISCOVERED DOCILE SOUNDS IN MY LARYNX
that won't cause me trouble
B A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A H
Dear mr. goatherd I've brought you
sugar
I reach out my hand - I don't know
why it's said THIS WAY when in FACT
the movement is made with the root fastened
between shoulder blade and breast WHICH breast
is BIGGER: it's learned to sing and TO
TALK: NURSING this other condition
scares it depresses it leads it to droop it wishes
IT HAD EYES to scope out temptations UNDERNEATH clothes
although I sweeten myself
with sugar I'M ONE OF THOSE
WHO DON'T DO a lot of good for the REPRESENTATIVE
ORGANS now for INSTANCE grass
grown on THIGHS is poisonous to goats
THAT'S WHY I reach out my hand filled with sugar
DEAR MR. goatherd TASTE it
for YOURSELF
(meanwhile) the indifferent or CAPABLE goats
have stopped the freight train at the railroad museum
where the railroad clerk MR. SCOW was celebrating his WEDDING VOWS
they were sitting DUMFOUNDED wearing IN PERPETUITY
kaleidoscopic CARDBOARD flowers attached with SAFETY
PINS TO THE CIRCUMFERENCE OF THEIR HEARTS
WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE WHEE
HEY HEY WHEE COME ON HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
(a SOLDIER escaped from his UNIT
was trying to remedy the error)
LET'S GET A MOVE ON  / farther ahead IT'S THERE /
the wedding OF dead goats
WE GONNA MAKE choice VITTLES
DEAR MR. GOATHERD
the museum's freight train is like a kind of LOVE
you've give up waiting for
(having a TOTALLY different OBJECTIVE
THAN killing goats)
(the goats were too greedy)
B A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A H
(AFTER ALL THEY can live without beings GOATS)
NO ONE will hold their FREEDOM
up to ridicule
good morning mr. goatherd
CAN'T you (EVEN) see IT'S
MORNING I'll take pains
to believe that the NOISES AND THE BLOOD
enveloping us will give FREE REIN to a new relation
between you and me
(my hands filled with sugar
I'll never be
HUNGRY or THIRSTY)
Good morning mr. goatherd
the kid hawking the morning papers has spread
the news everywhere in town
ALREADY WE'RE STARS

(Translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Antuza Genescu)

Mother Divine

Hell
by Jeff Tweedy

When the devil came
he was not red
but chrome
and he said
come with me
you must go
so I went
alone
where there was no fire
no torture
no hate
everything clean and precise
towering polished diamond skyscrapers
glittering ice avenues
translucent blues and silver signs
marking every turn
I was welcomed
with open arms
unmarked
all lines of defeat sanded away
I felt no fear
I received every kind of help
the air was crisp
sunny late winter days
springtime yawning
over the cottony horizon
hell is chrome
I believe in god
hell is chrome

Presently, a roofing crew blasts music through the neighborhood.  They have been working for a week on my neighbor's house.  One member of the crew, a particularly spirited man, sings along to the festive Hispanic music hopping out of the radio.  While hammers make perfect background music for meditation (wink wink), I love this man's uncensored joy. I find myself grinning every time he cries out in song.  A huge pine blocks my view to the house but I imagine this man leaning into the slant of the roof, crooning to each shingle as he slaps his hammer down.  Maybe he doesn't care for his work.  Maybe it is only the music he loves.  It doesn't matter.  He sounds as though he simply cannot help himself and this abandon delights me.

I have been thinking about fertility lately.  Not THAT kind of fertility - although I did watch When Harry Met Sally this weekend and appreciated Sally's line about your biological clock not really starting to tick until you are 35 in whole new ways.  No, I have been thinking about how gentleness is a quality I was not able to give myself earlier in my life, and how projects and days and relationships blossom under its loving influence. 

The summer after I got married (those storied 14 months ago!) I traveled to Santa Fe to visit a friend, and to reconnect with the old place I originally fell in love with on a road trip just after college.  Wandering around the square, I spotted a 12 foot high statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in front of Santuario de Guadalupe, the oldest church in the United States honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe.  I was drawn to the statue like a downstream current, and I circled and circled her, taking pictures from every angle, soaking in her beauty.  I drank in the golden constellation of her robe and its Statue of Liberty-esque turquoise patina.  I puzzled at the child bursting from her feet.  And I bowed beneath her towering, benevolent, powerful head, her massive shoulders, and folded-prayer hands.  I was devoted immediately, though I had no idea who this woman was, or what her story was.  I didn't care. I was in the presence of something great and loving and gorgeous.  That was enough for me. 

I later learned about Our Lady of Guadalupe's story and symbolism, but feel totally unqualified to explicate it here.  In a book titled A Woman's Journey to God, Joan Borysenko offers this: "She identified herself as 'the Mother of God, who is the God of Truth; the Mother of the Giver of Life; the Mother of the Creator; the Mother of the One who makes the sun and the earth; and the Mother of the One who is near.'" 

I adore this last name: the One who is near.  I find it so intimate and comforting and sweet.

Borysenko continues: "One of the most interesting aspects of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is that she is wearing the cintz, a tassel or maternity bond, around her wrist.  She is a pregnant goddess."

At the time I discovered the statue, I was going through an intense questioning period in my artistic life.  My journey to Santa Fe was, in many ways, a homecoming to my creative roots - to the woman I had been, and had been becoming, before I muted my free-spirited ways in the rough years after college.  Unbeknownst to me, in Santa Fe, I was journeying to get them back. 

As I stood beneath this eternal mother in the clean sun, I felt something I had no idea I had been living without.  I felt pure, utter acceptance: acceptance for who I was, for what I had been born to do, and for whatever pathways made me happy. 

No wonder my devotion was instant!  I had accessed something ancient and healing. 

When my parents visited Santa Fe,  I'm afraid they experienced the heat more than any other aspect.  But what mattered to me was my recognition that a primal energy connects my mother and I.  She is the woman who created me, housed me in her body, nurtured my own body's growth, and, ultimately, is the woman who taught me how to be a woman, living in a body that can create new life. 

My mother was on my mind all over Santa Fe.  I wanted to show her everything I discovered.  I felt incredible gratitude for her, and for all the ways she nurtured me - especially in high school when my brothers had left for college and my relationship with my mother blossomed.  My experience with the statue initiated me, and reconnected me to the universal mother energy, and thus to myself as a woman with creative powers.  This experience, and the art, and the festive embrace of God, were some of the reasons I felt so close to my mother - who was states away on the east coast - while I was in New Mexico. 

This is the energy I have been thinking about lately: the pregnant goddess energy, the woman in her creative powers, ready to give birth to the moon and the sun.  When I am in contact with this energy, which yogis call the Shakti, all my human loves and relationships connect.  They swirl together and mix and play, because I am stepping into the current drawing closer and closer to the mother's heart.  Things make more sense to me when I am in contact with this energy.  At the same time, I become aware more than ever of the mysteries I can never solve, and of the underwater shadows I cannot name.

When I am truly connected, I accept these mysteries and shadows, and even delight in them. Safe in the discovery process, I rediscover faith.

I get it now, what people mean when they say faith is a garden you have to water daily.  I am finding that my garden loves gentleness - sweet attention and listening.  I bet most gardens do, but what do I know? As Jeff Tweedy says in an interview about writing poetry in The Writer's Chronicle, "I believe that the interior landscape is much more honest because I really believe that is the only thing you can truly know...I find that the more you can get to the essence of your interior life, it actually becomes more expansive than any world view you can try and impart."

Sometimes I find efforts at self-care daunting, haunted by failures past and future.  But today, I'll slop  water on the roses, plop the house plants in the sun.  Is it really so hard to nurture and care for the soul?  Aren't there a million good ways to do so?  My hope is that we all find our own ways.  That we give ourselves permission to delight and cry out in song, or to weep and massage the blood out of welters.  Whatever the steps we take home, may we honor and keep them.  May we know where they are, even in the dark.  And may we share what we find with each other.