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Serenity in the Active Voice

2009-01-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

I did not purchase our Christmas tree this year. Did not trek to the lot and cull the choices. Did not load up the tree and take it home. This year, I was not the one to lug the tree into the house and wrestle it into the stand in the annual Protean struggle. Nor did I slither upon the hardwoods to tighten the bolts into the trunk - turning one first to the left, and then again: diagonally.

This year, I did not locate the boxes of ornaments hidden away in those secret places where I am wont to hide ornamentation. I did not unravel the mysteries of the lights. I neither decorated the tree nor cloaked its foundation.

Not one gift did I place beneath the verdant boughs.

I watered the tree. Once. And plugged in the lights. Once.

And when the time came (as time always seems to do), I did not unwind the strands of lights, vowing that next year I would make sense of them rather than stuff them once again into a grocery bag. Did not gingerly wrap the globes and glasses, placing them into boxes as if they were hummingbird eggs.

I did, however, release the Christmas tree from its shackles. I did lift up the tree and carry it butt-first across the threshold of the front door - a breech delivery all the way to the curb.

And with squirrels as my witness, I saluted this bristling Fir, recognizing how I had been defined, once again, by the activities occurring around me. As the wizened needles sighed towards the asphalt, I whispered, "Give me the courage to change the things I refuse to accept."

amen.

A Space for Contemplating Life's Journey

2008-12-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I wandered about on an old peach orchard and plantation. The main house had been converted to a nite club called "The Cotton Patch". I stumbled upon an old fence row. The trees had grown over the old wagon path and interlaced their limbs in a sylvan prayer. In the summer I could rest upon the grass and watch the sun through the lace of leaves - the twinkling light a voiceless dialogue. In the winter the bare branches exposed their very framing and taught me the valuable lesson of process.

In designing a chapel for Hospice, I recall that place. That sacred place. As an adult I understand more the historical connotations and layerings attached to that Southern land with pitch and tar. And yet that narrow space remains sacred. The grass imprinted on my back like a tattoo.

It brings forth the question: is a place intrinsically sacred, or do we humans (in our creative finest) make a space sacred. Is it a gift, or a construction?

"Expulsion From the Garden (study)"

2008-11-25T15:10:00.000-08:00

Myth has it that knowledge propelled the inhabitants of the Garden from Paradise. Or that the thirst for knowledge (couched in rebellion) was the culprit. A forked tongue, creating a division. Bifurcation, splitting realities. Then atoms. Then Adam.

Others say that a Mighty and Righteous God - acting in wrath - expelled these naughty children into their Earthly corners. You know: to think about what they had done.

And they thought.

And thought some more.

They thought of things like fear. And concepts of sin. And poverty, deprivation, envy.

They took lots of time to think. And then got bored.

Like children often do.

And then (as children often do), they created games. Just to pass the time, don't you know.

And the games begat institutions. And the institutions begat bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy begat time frames, divestment, hierarchies, expectations.

Roads diverged in hoary woods.

or, oar, ore:

veins of opportunity.

Perhaps it was time to go. Perhaps we were never sent out without a map. After all,

Isn't knowledge just that:

an interfacing with locust, loci, context and desire?

"Falling From Grace"

2008-11-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

Maybe we don't fall from Grace. Maybe we tumble into Grace. Maybe Grace is the connecting Pool of Shiloh - imperiously dark and foreboding on the surface. But the soothing bath of release calls from beneath the plane (once broken).

"Drawing is diving into the murky back waters without my glasses."

Shirley, Goodness, and Marcy

2008-11-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

I don't think I can not never do no thinking about the macrocosm without thinking about the microcosm. New genes? Old jeans. Both are remarkably comfortable.

"A new idea is different by nature -- it's off the beaten path -- and it takes courage to risk failure or rejection. For example, how do you know that your brilliant insight isn't going to lead you into a blind alley, make you look stupid, cost you money, or worse? You don't. Thus, a crucial element of creative thinking is having the courage to take a risk."
Roger von Oech (A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, 1986)

I thought to myself - wouldn't it be cool to have a movie made of my life? So, I had one made. I'm watching it now. You are in it. And so are you. You look marvelous, by the way. Is that light in your eyes or an amber speck? Is it both? Have you always made so much space for me? I didn't know until I saw it on the big screen.

Thank you so much. Would you like some popcorn? My treat.

WHEN NO ONE IS WITH ME, I'M ALWAYS ALONE

2008-11-10T20:26:00.000-08:00

Love. Habit. Expectation. Songs, promises, vows. Sonnets, qualifiers, laws (of all persuasions). Disappointments, separations, reparations. Change, commitment, suspensions, suspicions. Abject, protect, suspect, neglect. Smothering, mothering. Closeness, distance - dancing ever outward. Apogee, perigee, orbit, jettison. Clarity, over cast. Notions of poverty while embracing wealth. Wood smoke on an autumn's eve. Snow peas, chick peace, appease, oh: please.

I wish I could kic

k love's ass.

MANY MOUTHS

2008-11-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

We, each of us, bring the very best that we can to any given situation. There is quite enough to go around, thank you very much. Some scented vinaigrette might be nice. Kudos for the suggestion. I was thinking it's thyme. And you?

Moving Beyond Cause and Effect

2008-11-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

The marvelous thing about the labyrinth is that it provides no blind alleys - no dead ends. As humans, we typically provide those impediments free of charge. We are generous that way.

We become accustomed to using the overarching term fear to describe these cryptic blockades - the gesso that all to often primes our personal canvases. Occasionally, we trim the wick of illumination that is faith and (so guided), wend first out and then again back until we find our way.

The beginning becomes the end. Which, of course (paradoxically) becomes the beginning.

"Red States, Blue States"

2008-11-03T20:29:00.000-08:00

When the blue states this, and the red states that, then there becomes an overlapping of estates. This is the ruling of the grid. When a belief system becomes an affront to new beliefs, then it winds itself into barbed wire - that which is kept out then, becomes akin to that which is kept in. Osmosis is a funny, funny, phenomenon.

We are always on the eve of change.

ACCESS.

2008-09-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

What is it about a closed door that specifically makes us feel shut out? What type of personal perspective allows for that view?
Maybe a closed door indicates to us that we have been cast from our individual Edens. That no matter what land we currently occupy, its landscape is diminished by the fact that it is other than what we perceive that we are being denied.
And what are we being denied? We aren’t sure. We just are sure that it is not available to us. And so we stare at the closed door and obsess. Or we storm the castle to retrieve some treasure, though we know not the treasure’s name, only that is must sparkle in it’s shimmering value.
I woke up this morning wondering what part we play. What part I play. In the construction of a closed door. Am I the wild thing that needs to be shut off? Do I require the boundaries that a closed door provides?
In the murky moments of egress from night to day, I saw that the door was transparent – permeable.
There was no key. No threshold that required crossing. And in this receptiveness was access.

Change

2008-09-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Seems like a whole lot of people are holding up signs that demand change. And change is good. But (as a society) are we looking for change that is framed within the confines of what we know? Is it possible to peek behind the curtain of the known and embrace a cultural move towards that which we do not know? Try this: have a conversation with another person (yes, it must involve another person). If you are able to listen without calibrating your response while the other person is talking, then change may be possible.

I'm not talking about the inevitable collapse of any moment or circumstance. That is change that does not necessarily demand our conscious involvement.

I'm talking about shake the foundations and the rafters, practice and practice: change.

Fresh start like sweet pea sprouts

2008-08-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

I never knew they were edible until 2003. Spring the the great teacher, costs less and lasts til frost.