Writing

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Applying our Hearts Unto Wisdom

Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
Moses, maybe

When last I blogged, I decided to work on my howl. Howling to find my pack.

Perhaps because of that, a friend who Tom and I last saw years ago (as in over 40), came to dinner. He was in town for a high school reunion. Kelly was a part of the group called Auxiliary Players – a group comprising audacious high school and home-for-the-summer college students – that produced plays and performances during the summer.

Our friend Jim joined us. Tom has known Jim since they were both in the seventh grade. I’ve known him as long probably; his mom was my mom’s best friend. They played bridge together for more than 40 years. Marge sorely misses my mom. They were the only liberals in their bridge group.

The conversation turned to memories of high school and what they have done since. There were no stories of missed field goals, favorite cars, or even girls that got away. Instead they talked about music – and how their experience in high school nourished them as musicians.

At one point, Tom put on the CD recording of Psalm 90, a psalm that he set to music when he was nineteen. The recording was of the 1969 a cappella choir’s performance – a high school a cappella choir.

Tom set Psalm 90 to music after hearing it recited over the graves of four students – eighteen-year old boys – who had been killed in a dorm fire set by a disturbed resident. For Tom, I think the most important verse is the one that reads “ . . . establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

Let our lives matter.

His mentor, the high school music teacher, asked the choir in September if they were up to the choral piece – a fairly complex piece of music (anyone who knows Tom’s music knows of what I speak). Kelly told us that he thought if Tom wrote it, it would be okay. The choir worked on it through the year and performed it for their Spring concert.

As we listened to the recording, Tom heard the voice of a friend of his who died fifteen years ago of brain cancer. Kelly reminded him that the friend he had visited a day earlier was in the choir as well – a friend who is desperately ill with cancer and is not likely to live much longer. He asked for a copy of it so he could share it with his friend on his next visit, scheduled in two days.

The next time we saw Kelly, he had just returned from visiting his friend. Midway through the recording, Kelly said, his friend broke down in tears.

And I understood that this was my tribe.

People who transform and are transformed. These are not tiny-hearted men. They are men with enormous hearts. Men who had the courage as adolescents to follow the call of their creative souls and now, with the fragility of life staring them in the face, speak with a wisdom of the heart that had its seed in adolescence.

For me, the verse that resonates is the one I quoted at the beginning of this blog, “ . . . teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

For me, that means being willing to experience life through a mortal body. To be willing to own what being alive means to me, and not shrink from either the joy or sorrow that might bring.

To honor my spirit.

To howl.

Note: The verses that precede my favorite one talk a lot about god’s wrath. I’m not big on that. But given who wrote these verses (Moses, maybe, then translated into English during the time of Shakespeare, by people who think monothesitcally) I think that the point is if you really want to piss off god, waste your life by not living it.

And on another note: I’ll see if I can post the recording of Psalm 90. Stay tuned.

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Imagining with a Big Heart

DSCN0184I said in my last blog that there would be more.

More about the Wild Woman.

More about giving up all hope that there is room for me in the landscape imagined with a tiny heart.

So now my job is to imagine my own landscape. A landscape imagined with a big heart.

I watched Across the Universe the other night. The Julie Taymor film that uses Beatles songs to tell the story of an era. Boy, does Julie Taymor imagine with a big heart.

One of the most poignant scenes is the one she imagined for the song “Let it Be”. It is sung as a gospel over images of the Detroit riots, the funeral of a soldier (no older than 19) killed in Vietnam, and the funeral of a young boy (no older than 12 or 13) who was killed in the Detroit riots.

There will be an answer. Let it be.

The special features includes the audition of the woman who sings “Let it Be” in the film. Julie tells her to just put all the rage and pain over what happened in that era into the song and let loose.

And she does.

There will be an answer.

Let it be.

She finishes singing. Members of the crew are speechless – no – wordless.

Seeking words of wisdom, let it be.

Julie goes to her, gathers her in her arms, and holds her as she sobs.

Let it be.

So in my landscape imagined with a big heart, hope that things will change is replaced with faith that there will be an answer. It is home for the Wild Woman.

Let it be.

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Thriving With a Big Heart

When seeking guidance, don’t ever listen to the tiny-hearted.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run With the Wolves

“If you’ve ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious,” writes Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run With the Wolves, “you’re on the right track. Wild Woman is close by.”

Phew.

Wild Woman is close by.

I’ve been excavating lately, as part of rewriting my life story, looking in the nooks and crannies of my psyche to find the noxious notions that rob my spirit of its nourishment the way a tumor steals nourishment away from the body.

I’m rewriting my story so that thriving is the theme, not surviving. I’ve been an excellent survivor my whole life. There is definitely a certain kind of toughness you get from surviving, but toughness is just for getting you through the thorns.

DSCN0162Thriving is what happens when you get past the thorns. The place where the Wild Woman dances an ecstatic dance in celebration of being alive.

I mentioned a few blogs back that a tree in our yard had died. At the same time, I noticed that the birds weren’t singing in the morning. I was afraid that birds had abandoned me.

Then this morning, before I headed out to my Writing Shed, the yard was filled with birds, including a kind I don’t think I’d ever seen before. As I watched from the window, they feasted on the grapes hanging from the arbor and bathed in the fountain. DSCN0168

I’ve always thought of Fall as the beginning of the year. I wondered if that’s what this was about. Are the birds returning because it’s the beginning of a new year? Or have they been here and I haven’t noticed them?

Whatever, stopping to watch the birds be birds brought me a much needed sense of calm.

For the past few days, I’ve been making my way through the emotional fallout from an epiphany I woke up to on Monday morning. The epiphany being: I believe there is enough (talent, love, life) to go around; I live in a local culture that is terrified that there isn’t enough – so terrified that even the possibility of there being enough is terrifying.

That’s what keeps a heart tiny. Fear that there isn’t enough. It inhibits grace and generosity and enables solipsism.

That’s why one should not seek advice from the tiny hearted.

What’s the emotional fallout from the epiphany? Letting go of being able to change the landscape. Giving up all hope that I can fit in with a tribe whose bond is based on the agreement to keep the heart tiny.

It’s a bit scary to give up that hope.

Fortunately, Wild Woman is close by.

More to follow . . .
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Bombarded by Coconuts of Wakefulness – An Animal-Wise-Tarot-The-Places-That-Scare-You Blog

“In other traditions, demons are expelled externally. But in my tradition, they are welcome with compassion.”

Machik Labdron

The new tree in the yard

The new tree in the yard

I’ve developed a pretty good habit of at a minimum writing morning pages. Then I draw three cards from the Animal Wise Tarot deck. Today I drew the Raven (as I did yesterday but in a different order), then the Loon, and then the Eagle. Raven and Eagle are higher trump cards, Loon is from the Winged Ones suit, which in more traditional Tarot decks is Swords.

The first card I draw represents what’s come before; the second one represents my heart – the emotional center; the third has something to do with action. I’m kind of making this up as I go along, but then I do see living my life as an improvisation.

So the meanings today were:

Raven: Light in the Dark: Shapeshifting (wrote about that yesterday)
Loon: Answers and Hopes in Dreams
Eagle: Vision, Power, Healing

Loon is the one that struck me the most. Here’s what the book concludes: “Loon’s appearance tells us when we deal with the past that haunts us, we open doors to fulfilling our greatest dreams and imaginings in the future.”

I like that. Especially that bit about dealing with the past that haunts us. And that what haunts us are the dreams, wishes, and hopes we tucked to the back of our hearts.

What an interesting way to look at a ghost. Not so much the undead, as something that doesn’t die because its spirit transcends.

Our hopes, dreams, and wishes.

View of new tree from my writingshed

View of new tree from my writingshed

My parents were haunted by their hopes, dreams, and wishes. They’d tucked them away in their hearts so they could endure a Depression and then a War and then an era defined by the search for security. They even had security clearances – my dad worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab and my mom at Sandia.

It wasn’t security from fear; in fact, it was quite the opposite. Security was quite tenuous. If you signed the wrong statement, were a homosexual, belonged to the wrong organization, they believed, you would lose your security clearance. And then you would starve.

Fear was the sovereign emotion. Not a nourishing environment for dreams, wishes, and hopes.

The phrase “bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness,” comes from the book The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times, by Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun.

My books are a mess right now, strewn about my writingshed because I don’t have enough shelves to hold them all. So after looking on the shelves for a book I go through the piles on the floor, and often am surprised by what I find. That’s how I came across The Places That Scare You.

As I said, my life is an improvisation.

Compassion, Chodron, says is more emotionally challenging than loving kindness, because “it involves the willingness to feel pain.”

I think that’s what welcoming our demons with compassion means. Listening to what the demon is crying out for, which might be our dreams, hopes, and wishes yearning to be freed from where they have been tucked away.

My parents never really got the chance to do that. My dad got possessed by Alzheimer’s. My mother got closer to releasing them, but never really trusted that it was okay to do that.

And yet, another view of the new tree in my yard

And yet, another view of the new tree in my yard

I wonder if times are so difficult right now because that which has been tucked away for generations needs to be released. Maybe we are being bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness so we’ll wake up and smell the coffee, feel the pain of compassion, and yield to the yearning of our hopes, dreams, and wishes to be free.

Maybe the ghost that has been haunting us is Casper the friendly ghost.

So, here’s to finding light in the dark; answers and hopes in dreams and vision; and power and healing.

And may each of our days start by being bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.

The full quote, by the way is “In the garden of gentle sanity/May you be bombarded by coconuts of wakefulness.” Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
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About the new tree in the yard: One of the trees in my yard died. It was called a redbud. Apparently new soil got added to it and adding dirt to the base of a tree can suffocate it. I did not know this could happen.

I felt very sad about the tree dying. Really quite awful. And then this morning, as I wrote this blog, a new tree joined my yard. It’s a crepe myrtle. And gloriously red. Life continues.