busy adventure

I'm in the middle of an eleven-day stretch at work, so I thought I'd share this poem by Pat Schneider that I read this morning and fell in love with:

The Patience of Ordinary Things

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

poetry adventure

I've been able to work ahead a little bit with my discussion posts for school and I was so excited when I got to the linked haiku assignment that I thought I'd share it with you here. It's so fun to think of connecting prose and haiku to create a little word movie. I hope you enjoy it, too!

* * *
There are home movies from the late ‘60s of my father carrying me as a crying toddler through the lush gardens at my grandparents’ house, holding me suspended over the plants and flowers, showing me a close-up view of the place that meant so much to him, trying to soothe me, teaching me to find refuge in nature. Now, several decades later, it’s the natural world we return to, where we find points of connection. “Look at this!” we say across the distance. “Ah!” the other one says.

by the Pacific –
circling and swooping up
the swallows are back

goldfinches all day
downy woodpeckers give chase –
springtime in the South

each in our own world
the silver moon rises high
miles away from us

* * *
Also, if you're in the mood for poetry these days, like me, check out the new Poet Laureate, Charles Wright - he's rocking my world!

magic adventure

My class for school this quarter is "Time, Place, Space, and the Ecology of Creative Expression" and I'd just been reading the new posts on the discussion board that included a conversation about rain along with a classmate's beautiful photograph of a double rainbow from where she lives in Hawaii as well as several conversations about crows, when I pulled myself away to get dinner going. That's when I looked out the window to see this! And they hung around, like "Take the picture already!" This is sort of how it is feeling over here these days, like everything is connected and the pieces are falling into place. In my experience these phases never last for long, but I've learned to enjoy it while it's happening.

anniversary adventure

My sweetie and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this week. For years we'd talked about going to Venice, then it was New York City, and then a short boat ride on the Cumberland River. But life had different plans for us. Instead we had a wonderful day of creativity and conversation - just like 20 years ago, but deeper and richer. I haven't always thought I was one for commitments. Left to my own devices I can be a cut-and-run kind of gal. But I had the good fortune to marry someone who really grounds me and helps me to grow roots. Growing up I moved a lot and I think that factored in to my natural ability to just drop things and go to something new, especially when things get hard. And I'm really grateful for the variety of experiences I'd had by the time I met Rodg in my early twenties. But since then I've been married for 20 years, lived in my house for 16, worked at the library for 14, and been with my farmers for 13. I've been able to see what it's like to stick around, to go through the challenges and grow together, and the vast rewards that come out of it all. I was reading an interview with Pete Seeger in the Sun this week and a line from it jumped out at me: "You may not decide you are going to live for the rest of your life where you were born, but wherever you decide to settle down, stick it out." I feel so lucky to have ended up in such a sweet life and so grateful to have learned how to stay. So it really felt just right to spend our anniversary here, in this beautiful life that we've created together. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

inspiration adventure

One of the wonderful things about just taking one class at a time is that I have time for things other than school and can really enjoy them! Yesterday I had the most lovely, leisurely lunch with two completely inspiring women, one of whom wrote the beautiful book, Married to Bhutan, and one of whom has a gorgeous book just waiting in her. I feel so lucky to have so many remarkable people in my life and don't take any of it for granted. What a treat!

big adventure

The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!

-Matsuo Basho, translated by Alan Watts
This was a big week! I spent a long weekend working on my active imagination paper, then helped present the upcoming gallery exhibit information at the library's Board meeting, Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey came to town and we did programming with them at the library and at Zeitgeist Gallery, and then I've spent the weekend with some art conservators working on the public art at the library, and coordinated a bookmaking workshop on Saturday. I'd seen this week coming on my calendar and knew it was going to be a big one, but as it goes with these things, all we can do is try not to panic. And it has actually been a wonderful experience! I am incredibly lucky to have the best support team of all time of family and friends and coworkers who were right there to step in any time I needed any kind of assistance. Amazing! And I've gotten better at asking for and accepting help, which honestly makes it all possible. We just can't do these things alone, and it is so much more fun to do them together!

Also, every morning I do some active imagination - I tell you, I love this stuff! I'll get into a relaxed state and wait to see if anyone or anything shows up. This week I've received incredible wisdom from a little Zen frog who appeared on a lily pad in a pond and told me that he likes to sit in the sun and then hop into the pond and then sit in the sun and sometimes sing. I've experienced frog singing at Joe's and it is amazing! Anyway, wise Mr. Frog has been a very helpful reminder to keep it simple and stay present - just what has been needed this week.

And Ingrid and Tom were completely lovely and fun and their music blew our minds, as we knew it would. Rodger gives a moving account of his experience of it here.

I hope you are having a fun holiday weekend! Enjoy!

paper adventure

My final paper for this quarter is due on Wednesday and I've had so much fun this weekend working on it. The class this quarter has been on active imagination and I've been really intrigued by the use of this Jungian technique to explore our unlived lives. So that's what I've been up to. Not much to share, but I remembered that I'd mentioned sharing part of my final project for another class and never did. So here's part of that. Enjoy!


Sitting in the large meditation hall, I’m trying not to fall asleep, feeling both tired and agitated. The man behind me is too close. I can feel his face inches from the back of my neck. I’m worried that I’ll doze off and drop my pen and notebook, my eyelids getting heavier and heavier with each blink.

The talk is on stabilization, our natural ability to be present and to know what’s happening, and here I am actively falling into unconsciousness over and over, drifting off and coming back and drifting off again. Well, at least I am being kind to myself about it, momentarily practicing acceptance, and looking forward to climbing into my soft, warm bed.

It is hard to know what’s more uncomfortable, when the hall is hot and stuffy or when the air conditioning kicks on and a cold blast of air makes me shiver and wrap my scarf even tighter around my neck. My stomach growls – the vegan lasagna might not have been the best choice. What will I have for breakfast tomorrow? Oh, right, the talk. What have I traveled halfway across the country to hear?

The older woman in her maroon robes and short Buddhist nun haircut, whose kind face smiles out at me from the countless books and CDs on my shelves at home, is describing her fellow practitioners who’ve dedicated their lives to seeing everything about themselves with kindness, without trying to change anything, and she says she feels this is an example of how to be fully human.

“Sounds like individuation,” I think to myself, struck by the similarity between Buddhist teachings and what I’ve been studying in my classes on Jung. And then she says something that wakes me up completely: “Things become doorways to a bigger, more profound reality.”