Category: Community

The Sweet Ache of Memories

barnstormingblog2 Comments

All day the stars watch from long ago
my mother said I am going now
when you are alone you will be all right
whether or not you know you will know
look at the old house in the dawn rain
all the flowers are forms of water
the sun reminds them through a white cloud
touches the patchwork spread on the hill
the washed colors of the afterlife
that lived there long before you were born
see how they wake without a question
even though the whole world is burning
~W.S. Merwin “Rain Light”

Well-away and be it so,
To the stranger let them go.
Even cheerfully I yield
Pasture, orchard, mowing-field,
Yea and wish him all the gain
I required of them in vain.
Yea and I can yield him house,
Barn, and shed, with rat and mouse
To dispute possession of.
These I can unlearn to love.
Since I cannot help it? Good!
Only be it understood,
It shall be no trespassing
If I come again some spring
In the grey disguise of years,
Seeking ache of memory here.
~Robert Frost from “On the Sale of My Farm”

the farm where I grew up in east Stanwood
the Stanwood farm from the road

From the road, each of the two small farms where I grew up in western Washington state (Stanwood and Olympia) look nothing like they did in my childhood.  When I drive past now, whether on Google Earth virtually or for real, the outbuildings have changed and are unfamiliar, fences pulled down, the trees exponentially taller or gone altogether, the fields no longer well-tended. Instead the familiarity is in the road to get there, the lean into the curves, the acceleration in and out of dips, the landscape which triggers a simultaneous comfort and disquiet deep in my DNA.

Though my brother once stopped and got permission to look around our long-ago childhood home, and sent me pictures that looked barely recognizable, I myself have never stopped to knock; instead I have driven slowly past to sense if I feel what I used to feel in these places.  My memories are indeed triggered but feel a bit as if they must have happened to someone else.

I have the same feeling when driving past my parents’ childhood farms on Similk Bay on Fidalgo Island and in the Palouse wheat fields. Part of me belongs to these places even though they have never been truly “mine” – only part of sweet memories from my own childhood.

barn on Olympia farm
Olympia house
the driveway to my mother’s Palouse farm where she grew up
my mother’s childhood home in Spring Valley, the Palouse

One clinic day years ago, I glanced at the home address of a young man I was about to see for a medical issue and I realized he now lived in my childhood home located over 100 miles away.  When I greeted him I told him we had something in common: we had grown up under the same roof, inside the same walls, though children of two different generations. 

He was curious but seemed skeptical — how could this gray-haired middle aged woman know anything about his home?  He told me a bit about the house, the barn, the fields, the garden and how he experienced it felt altogether strange to me.  He and I had shared nothing but a patch of real estate — our recollections were so completely disparate.

The two daughters of the family who sold our current farm to us over thirty years ago have been back to visit a time or two, and have driven by whenever they are in the area. Many things remain familiar to them but also too much has changed – it is not quite the same farm they remember from their childhood. I know it aches to visit here but they do let me know when a photo I post has a particular sweet memory for them.

I worry for the fearsome ache if someday, due to age or finances, we must sell this farm we cherish ~ this beloved place our children were raised, animals bred and cared for, fruit picked from an ancient orchard, plants tended and soil turned over. It will remain on the map surely as the other two farms of my past, visible as we pass by slowly on the road, but primarily preserved in the words and photos I harvest here.

Only be it understood,
It shall be no trespassing
If I come again some spring
In the grey disguise of years,
Seeking ache of memory here.

There will always be hoping something will still remain familiar on the map of my memory. After all, there is no such beauty as the place where I belonged – now and forever ago.

eveningporch51218

Tell me, where is the road
I can call my own
That I left, that I lost
So long ago?
All these years I have wandered
Oh, when will I know
There’s a way, there’s a road
That will lead me home

After wind, after rain
When the dark is done
As I wake from a dream
In the gold of day
Through the air there’s a calling
From far away
There’s a voice I can hear
That will lead me home

Rise up, follow me
Come away, is the call
With the love in your heart
As the only song
There is no such beauty
As where you belong
Rise up, follow me
I will lead you home
~Michael Dennis Browne

Come and See: Who Would Be First to Throw Stones?

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

They went each to their own house but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.  

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?”  This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.  

But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, Lord.”

And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
John 7:53 – John 8:11

[The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53.]

The adulterous woman is brought alone by the Jewish authorities for judgement, to be humiliated by serving as a test case for Jesus. This incident was not so much about justice as it was about seeing how Jesus would react to her situation.

His response is not what they expected.

He stoops to the ground, taking his time, avoiding their gaze, writing something (inscrutable to the reader) in the dirt. He then stands to look them in the eye to state what is necessary before acting out the law’s justice: only those who have not sinned will be first to cast the stone at a sinner.

Then he kneels again to trace His finger through the dirt —
outlining each person’s sin? naming names?
buying time for things to calm down?
keeping them guessing? just doodling?

The authorities, knowing their own burden of sin,
the oldest of them initially,
turn to leave one by one.
Soon only the accused woman and Jesus remain.

As St. Augustine writes about this powerful gospel story:
“relicti sunt duo, misera et misericordia” which translates to
“two were left: misery and mercy.”
She, standing in the misery of her sin;
He, standing in the glory of His mercy.

No longer condemned while He takes it all on Himself.
No stones to throw; free to go; sin no more.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

Gift of a Day

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

A hundred thousand birds salute the day:–
        One solitary bird salutes the night:
Its mellow grieving wiles our grief away,
        And tunes our weary watches to delight;
It seems to sing the thoughts we cannot say,
        To know and sing them, and to set them right;
Until we feel once more that May is May,
        And hope some buds may bloom without a blight.
This solitary bird outweighs, outvies,
        The hundred thousand merry-making birds
Whose innocent warblings yet might make us wise
Would we but follow when they bid us rise,
        Would we but set their notes of praise to words
And launch our hearts up with them to the skies.
~Christina Rossetti “A Hundred Thousand Birds”

Every day is perfect, if
when you wake, you hear birds
in the garden, in the yard. Birds

up and down, ushering in one more day
in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds
on telephone lines, light posts. Birds

twit, twittering on trees
hailing fellow birds
with a nod of  beak—gray kingbird;

top-hatted, streamertail
tuxedoed, doctor bird—
busy-bodied hummingbird

tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras
punch-drunk in love. Birds
preening for, chatting up other birds—

the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song
on the lawn, in a dance of  birds
an all-day-long conference of bird;

red-headed woodpecker
—drummer boy, or girl bird
in this daily symphony of  birds

—an orchestra on Shaker Way
in serenade of each perfect day with birds—
from the very first mockingbird

heralding, in solo warble
one more day, filled with birds—
brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:

precious, diamond-throated
sweet song, miracle-toting birds
the-gift-of-day-is-here birds.

Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird.
You lift me up bird.
You sing the day beautiful, bird.
~Ann-Margaret Lim “Birdsong of Shaker Way”

Birds afloat in air’s current,
sacred breath? No, not breath of God,
it seems, but God
the air enveloping the whole
globe of being.
It’s we who breathe, in, out, in, the sacred,
leaves astir, our wings
rising, ruffled—but only saints
take flight…
But storm or still,
numb or poised in attention,
we inhale, exhale, inhale,
encompassed, encompassed.
~Denise Levertov from “In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being” from The Stream and the Sapphire

As if reluctant to let go the setting sun last night,
one lone bird still sang a twilight song,
long after the others fell asleep,
their heads tucked neatly under their wings.

This lone bird had not yet finished the day,
breathing in and out its plaintive melody,
articulating what my own thoughts could not say.

And before a hint of light this June morning,
I am swept from my dreams at 4:30 AM
by a full chorus singing from the same tree,
no longer a lone voice, but hundreds.

Although my day is launched early by warbling songs,
I cannot forget twilight’s one reluctant bird
who fought back the impending darkness using only its voice.

I too resist the darkness with what I write here,
if only I can keep it at bay:
inhaling, exhaling, encompassed in holy Breath.

I want to sing out light and love to Light:
encompassed by no darkness here.

I hear a bird chirping, up in the sky
I’d like to be free like that spread my wings so high I
see the river flowing water running by
I’d like to be that river, see what I might find

I feel the wind a blowin’, slowly changing time
I’d like to be that wind, I’d swirl and the shape sky
I smell the flowers blooming, opening for spring
I’d like to be those flowers, open to everything

I feel the seasons change, the leaves, the snow and sun
I’d like to be those seasons, made up and undone
I taste the living earth, the seeds that grow within
I’d like to be that earth, a home where life begins

I see the moon a risin’, reaching into night
I’d like to be that moon, a knowing glowing light
I know the silence as the world begins to wake
I’d like to be that silence as the morning breaks

He doesn’t know the world at all
Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out.
He doesn’t know what birds know best
Nor what I sing about, Nor what I sing about, Nor what sing about:
That the world is full of loveliness.

When dew-drops sparkle in the grass
And earth is aflood with morning light. light
A blackbird sings upon a bush
To greet the dawning after night,
the dawning after night,
the dawning after night.
Then I know how fine it is to live.

Hey, try to open your heart to beauty;
Go to the woods someday
And weave a wreath of memory there.
Then if tears obscure your way
You’ll know how wonderful it is
To be alive.
~Paul Read

Cut and Tumble, Sickness and Weeping

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

God keep my jewel this day from danger;
From tinker and pooka and bad-hearted stranger.
From harm of the water, from hurt of the fire.
From the horns of the cows going home to the byre.
From the sight of the fairies that maybe might change her.
From teasing the ass when he’s tied to the manger.
From stones that would bruise her, from thorns of the briar.
From evil red berries that wake her desire.
From hunting the gander and vexing the goat.
From the depths o’ sea water by Danny’s old boat.
From cut and from tumble, from sickness and weeping;
May God have my jewel this day in his keeping.
~Winifred Lett (1882-1973) “Prayer for a Child“

photo by Nate Gibson

I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.
~C.S. Lewis

I want to make a case for the Lighthouse Parent, a term that the pediatrician Kenneth Ginsburg and others have used. A Lighthouse Parent stands as a steady, reliable guide, providing safety and clarity without controlling every aspect of their child’s journey. 

Like a lighthouse that helps sailors avoid crashing into rocks, Lighthouse Parents provide firm boundaries and emotional support while allowing their children the freedom to navigate their own challenges. They demonstrate that they trust their kids to handle difficult situations independently. The key is learning when to step back and let them find their own way.
~Russell Shaw from “Lighthouse Parents Have More Confident Kids”

celebrating a long-awaited pregnancy – 1985

This “prayer for a child” has hung on the wall in our home for four decades, purchased when I was pregnant with our first of three children.

The drawing of the praying mother watching her toddler leave the safety of the home to explore the wide world addressed my worries as a new mama. I would glance at it daily, knowing the world is full of peril; it would remind me of God’s care for our family through every scary thing, real or imagined.

It helped me smile at a few of my irrational fears. Tinkers and pookas and fairies were unlikely to find our children in our rural landscape but at times the world seems full of “black-hearted strangers” and other threats, known and unknown.

Decades later, I continue to pray for our grown children and their God-given spouses, and for six adventuresome grandchildren.

I pray because I can’t not pray, and because I’m helpless without the care and compassion of our sovereign God for each of us, especially when we are brand new, completely dependent and helpless. He is a true “lighthouse” in our lives,

May I be changed by my prayers, molded into a “grand” mother and a light for our half dozen cherished grandchildren, each a jewel in His keeping.

Blossoms Pure and White…

barnstormingblog1 Comment

O! my heart now feels so cheerful as I go with footsteps light
      In the daily toil of my dear home; 
And I’ll tell to you the secret that now makes my life so bright—
      There’s a flower at my window in full bloom. 

It is radiant in the sunshine, and so cheerful after rain; 
        And it wafts upon the air its sweet perfume. 
It is very, very lovely! May its beauties never wane—
        This dear flower at my window in full bloom. 

Nature has so clothed it in such glorious array, 
      And it does so cheer our home, and hearts illume; 
Its dear mem’ry I will cherish though the flower fade away—
      This dear flower at my window in full bloom. 

Oft I gaze upon this flower with its blossoms pure and white. 
        And I think as I behold its gay costume, 
While through life we all are passing may our lives be always bright 
        Like this flower at my window in full bloom.
~Lucian Watkins “The Flower at My Window” from Voices of Solitude

Details of the life of poet Lucian Watkins are few: a black man born in 1879 in Virginia, educated as a teacher, a writer and poet, then served as a U.S. Army Sergeant during WWI in the Philippines and France, dying of an unknown illness in Fort McHenry hospital in 1921.

He leaves behind only a handful of poems, including the one above.

Among the sparse information available about Lucian are three letters written by him. This was a young man who earnestly wanted to have both a writing career and a “bread-winning vocation.” He describes feeling compelled to compose poetry, no matter what else he accomplishes.

The obvious challenges he faced –
–as a black man looking for a suitable place to live in Illinois so he can attend a college where there are no other people of color nearby,
–as a veteran of a most horrific war,
–as a creative mind trying to find a way to make a living.

He writes passionately about the aspirational purity of a white flower outside his window. Its bright radiance represents what he longs for in his own life.

From his letter to President Bissell of Bissell Colleges in Effingham, Illinois in 1919 after President Bissell is unable to assist in finding him a place to live, having suggested that the war veteran might consider “doing light housekeeping” – essentially live as a servant in a white household:

“About this matter of a boarding place. While I had hoped to obtain board with a member of my own race in Effingham, I had not thought it imperative that I should do so. I feel sure that there is enough Christianity in Effingham to provide that a brother-stranger in their midst shall not die of hunger.

What would Jesus do?

It seems that some places in the south they rise more readily to our American ideal of democracy than in the North and Middle-West. ‘The Richmond Planet’ of Richmond, Va., states that ‘right here in Richmond, the capital of the late Confederacy, colored soldiers are welcomed to aristocratic Westhampton, and with no sigh of racial discrimination or antipathy to their being there.’

What is the matter with Illinois?

I am not sure as to what your question involves. We shall talk it over when I arrive. There must be a way that is just and that will be good for all concerned. Very respectfully, signed Lucian B. Watkins“

**This man was not only a poet. He was a statesman.**

And a few months later, to the Editor of Crisis Magazine, the publication for the NAACP:

I have tried my best to forget poetry since being here – this with the hope I could the better prepare for a sure-enough bread-winning vocation. But the spell is on me again.

With me, this thing is a madness. I hope you understand me, as it is really a painful matter that I have never expressed to anyone before. I have always felt that people can never know as to what this fever means.

Had I the world to give, I would give it freely for my ability to concentrate my mental and physical forces on real money-earning work as I seem compelled to do in the making of a quatrain. Now unless I can get away from this verse-making obsession, I must fail in everything, because success as a poet means very little, in a material way, even for those who are called masters in the art.

I hope you will pardon me for this much of your time I have taken.

Though Lucian Watkins’ life was cut short by an unknown illness, and his portfolio of poetry is small, he is nonetheless a gift to generations of future poets and readers.

This black artist did not let the inevitable rainfall in his life discourage his world view; he himself is radiant with illumination, showing a budding cheerfulness. His work reminds us:

Something as simple as observing a resilient flower outside our window can help heal painful hurts and fulfill our deepest longing.

Something as basic as seeing life through different perspectives or lenses can make all the difference in how we feel about our existence.

In his writing, Lucian Watkins draws a thin line between joy and sorrow, embracing joy in a simple white flower in full bloom —
before it, as will we all, fades away.

From this low-lying valley; Oh, how sweet 
And cool and calm and great is life, I ween, 
There on yon mountain-throne—that sun-gold crest! 

From this uplifted, mighty mountain-seat: 
How bright and still and warm and soft and green
Seems yon low lily-vale of peace and rest! 
~Lucian Watkins “Two Points of View”

from Artist Point
photo by Josh Scholten — view of Mt Shuksan from the top of Mt. Baker
photo by Josh Scholten – dawn from the top of Mt. Baker, seeing its shadow to the west

Flower gleam and glow
let your power shine
make the Clock reverse
bring back what once was mine
What once was mine
Heal what has been hurt
change the fate’s design
Save what has been lost
bring back what once was mine
what once was mine
~Healing Song from Tangled

https://www.youtube.com/embed/gYyasBjwoCc?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparentNo matter if you’re bornTo play the king or pawnFor the line is thinly drawn ‘tween joy and sorrowSo my fantasy becomes realityAnd I must be what I must be and face tomorrowSo I’ll continue to continue to pretendMy life will never endAnd flowers never bend with the rainfall~Paul Simon

Come and See: Hidden in Plain Sight

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said,
“Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? 
And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him!
Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” 

So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, 
“You know me, and you know where I come from.
But I have not come of my own accord. 
He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. 
I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.”  

So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”

The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. 
Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.”  

The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 

What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
John 7:25-36

Where is my God ? what hidden place
Conceals Thee still?
What covert dare eclipse Thy face?
Is it Thy will?

O let not that of anything;
Let rather brass,
Or steel, or mountains be Thy ring,
And I will pass.

Thy will such a strange distance is,
As that to it
East and West touch, the poles do kiss,
And parallels meet.
~George Herbert from “The Search”

I try to find you, yet you are not here.
I’ve studied absence, fought to fill it in –
courage comes easier with a grasp of why.

A secret’s camouflaged when unconcealed.
I chose to not see/saw the thing too near?
Absence turns thicker, muscled by its strain.

A moon in daylight, whitest blue on blue,
surprises briefly, to appear surreal
until it slips to rights…

… plain sight goes blind through chasing clarity.
I looked for you, so couldn’t see you gone.

I sensed your not-there in its burning life.
I listened out to feel its silence beat.
It does not speak with any human mouth.
~Denise Riley from “Hiding in Plain Sight” from Say Something Back 

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem in plain sight to the people there,
but they did not trust what they saw Him do
nor trust His Words, unable to fathom
He could be the long-awaited Christ.

Their partial understanding
of who they believe the Christ would be
blinds them to the Christ who is right before their eyes.

Later on, the resurrected Jesus –
appearing as a gardener,
a stranger on the road to Emmaus,
a figure cooking fish over a charcoal fire on the beach –
is the Christ hidden in plain sight.

Jesus’ presence among us –
a paradox from beginning to end.
Our limited vision and knowledge challenge us
to accept His divinity when we see only the man.
Yet He is so much more…

The veil pulls back to show us who He is.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

The Light and Shadow of Faith

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
~Victor Hugo from Les Miserables

Be comforted; the world is very old,
  And generations pass, as they have passed,
  A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
  The world belongs to those who come the last,
  They will find hope and strength as we have done.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from “A Shadow”

The shadow’s the thing. 
If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,” 
as do the newly sighted,
then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light.
They give the light distance;
they put it in its place.
They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel,
here in the world’s flawed sculpture,
here in the flickering shade of the nothingness
between me and the light.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.
~Blaise Pascal

These days I find myself seeking safety hiding in the shadows under a rock where lukewarm moderates tend to congregate in times of disagreement and dispute.

Extremist views often predominate simply for the sake of differentiating one’s political turf from the opposition.

The chasm is most gaping in any discussion of faith issues. Religion and politics have become angry neighbors constantly arguing over how high to build the fence between them, what it should be made out of, what color it should be, should there be peek holes, should it be electrified with barbed wire to prevent moving back and forth, should there be a gate with or without a lock and who pays for the labor.

And so it goes. We bring out the worst in our leaders as facts are distorted, the truth is stretched or completely abandoned, unseemly pandering abounds and curried favors are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Enough already.
In the midst of this morass, we who believe still choose to believe.

There is just enough Light for those who seek it. No need to remain blinded in the shadowlands.

I’ll come out from under my rock if you do.

In fact…I think I just did.

A Delicate Sadness of Dusk

barnstormingblog1 Comment

The talkative guest has gone,
and we sit in the yard
saying nothing. The slender moon
comes over the peak of the barn.

The air is damp, and dense
with the scent of honeysuckle. . . .
The last clever story has been told
and answered with laughter.

With my sleeping self I met
my obligations, but now I am aware
of the silence, and your affection,
and the delicate sadness of dusk.
~Jane Kenyon, “The Visit” from Collected Poems

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.
~Philip Freneau from “The Wild Honey Suckle”

It sprang up wild along the chain link fence—thick,
with glorious white
and yellow summer blooms, and green tips that we
pinched and pulled for one
perfect drop of gold honey. But Dad hated
it—hated its lack
of rows and containment, its disorder. Each
year, he dug, bulldozed,
and set fire to those determined vines. But each
year, they just grew back
stronger. Maybe that’s why I felt the urge to
plant it that one day
in May, when cancer stepped onto my front porch
and rang the doorbell,
loose matches spilling out of its ugly fists.
~Karla Morton “Honeysuckle” from Accidental Origami: New and Selected Works

Some things are very dear to me–
Such things as flowers bathed by rain
Or patterns traced upon the sea
Or crocuses where snow has lain . . .
The iridescence of a gem,
The moon’s cool opalescent light,
Azaleas and the scent of them,
And honeysuckles in the night.
And many sounds are also dear–
Like winds that sing among the trees
Or crickets calling from the weir
Or Negroes humming melodies.
But dearer far than all surmise
Are sudden tear-drops in your eyes
~Gwendolyn Bennett— Sonnet 2

I am an easy cryer. It takes very little to tip me over the edge: a hymn, a poem, simply witnessing a child’s joy.

Suddenly my eyes fill up.

I blame this on my paternal grandmother who was in tears much of the time while visiting our family, crying happy, crying sad, crying frustrated and angry tears, crying desperate tears after being diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer. I think of her often as she was the age I am now, grateful I too have not been visited with such dire news.

My greatest trigger to weep myself is watching someone else tear up.
I think my grandmother left behind some powerful empathy genes and I will honor that when I visit her grave this weekend to lay flowers.

I needed to desensitize my response to others’ tears to be effective as a physician/healer. Witnessing tears in the exam room is a normal part of the job: patients are anxious, ill, in pain or just need to decompress in safety. I learned early on to be unobtrusive and not interrupt, letting the flow of tears be part of how the patient was trying to communicate their distress. It was a struggle when my inclination was to cry right along with them.

But I needed to remain the rock in the room, solid and steady. I could understand their tears as yet another symptom of a clinical presentation, allowing me to observe without being clouded by my own emotional response.

Sometimes that worked. Sometimes not. At times overwhelmed myself, I wept at births, I wept at deaths, I wept at the sharing of bad news.

Now retired and liberated from the exam room, I freely and regularly weep at the state of the world, or when I read of disaster and tragedy, and especially when I witness intentional harm and cruelty in others. I’m no longer a stone, but more like an over-filled sponge being squeezed – everything builds up until I can hold it no more.

Reading headlines in the news is sometimes more than I can bear.
I cry myself dry.

And that is okay, thanks to Grandma. Once emptied out, I can be filled again by so much that is good and precious and beautiful in this life – a sad and delicate dusk, the promising light of dawn, the persistence of the wild honeysuckles, the raindrops on colorful blooms, the resonance of a heartfelt spiritual, the love of my husband, children, grandchildren and friends.

Now those are worth weeping over.

The Bee-Loud Glade

barnstormingblogLeave a comment

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
~William Butler Yeats “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

O gentle bees, I have come to say
That grandfather fell to sleep to-day.
And we know by the smile on grandfather’s face.
He has found his dear one’s biding place.
So, bees, sing soft, and, bees, sing low.
As over the honey-fields you sweep,—
To the trees a-bloom and the flowers a-blow
Sing of grandfather fast asleep;
And ever beneath these orchard trees
Find cheer and shelter, gentle bees.
~Eugene Field from “Telling the Bees”

Here is the place; right over the hill    
Runs the path I took; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still,    
And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,    
And the poplars tall; 
And the barn’s brown length, and the cattle-yard,    
And the white horns tossing above the wall. 

There are the beehives ranged in the sun;    
And down by the brink 
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o’errun,    
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,    
Heavy and slow; 
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,    
And the same brook sings of a year ago. 

I can see it all now,—the slantwise rain    
Of light through the leaves, 
The sundown’s blaze on her window-pane,    
The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 

Just the same as a month before,—    
The house and the trees, 
The barn’s brown gable, the vine by the door,—    
Nothing changed but the hives of bees. 

Before them, under the garden wall,    
Forward and back, 
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,    
Draping each hive with a shred of black. 

Trembling, I listened: the summer sun    
Had the chill of snow; 
For I knew she was telling the bees of one    
Gone on the journey we all must go! 
~John Greenleaf Whittier from “Telling the Bees”

If you talk to him,
he will not pretend to be
an ordinary man.
He won’t let on
he is one who isn’t afraid to hold
in his outstretched hands
the buzzing gold.

He won’t tell you he is the man who keeps farmers
warm in their livelihood,
or the man who keeps the grocery shelves
full, then adds, simply for good measure,
jars of his shining honey.
He won’t explain that he is the one
who sets his suffering neighbors
free from their pain
with gifts of jars that sting.

He won’t let on to be the lifegiver or a god.
He will pretend he is just an old man with sand-colored hair,
a blue truck heavy with breezy hives,
and a comb-spinner in his cellar.
~Sidney Hall Jr., from This Understated Land

…The world was really one bee yard,
and the same rules work fine in both places.
Don’t be afraid, as no life-loving bee wants to sting you.
Still, don’t be an idiot; wear long sleeves and pants.
Don’t swat. Don’t even think about swatting.
If you feel angry, whistle.
Anger agitates while whistling melts a bee’s temper.
Act like you know what you’re doing, even if you don’t.
Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.
~Sue Monk Kidd from The Secret Life of Bees

He calls the honeybees his girls although
he tells me they’re ungendered workers
who never produce offspring. Some hour drops,
the bees shut off. In the long, cool slant of sun,
spent flowers fold into cups. He asks me if I’ve ever
seen a Solitary Bee where it sleeps. I say I’ve not.
The nearest bud’s a long-throated peach hollyhock.
He cradles it in his palm, holds it up so I spy
the intimacy of the sleeping bee. Little life safe in a petal,
little girl, your few furious buzzings as you stir
stay with me all winter, remind me of my work undone.
~Heid E. Erdrich, from “Intimate Detail” from The Mother’s Tongue

It was just like I was telling the bees last night. I saw two of them asleep inside the cup of a hollyhock, covered in pollen, just holding each other’s feet, just sleeping in the flower waiting for the sun to warm them so they could fly off. To see two of them curled up like that, it was very sweet.
~Diana Gabaldon/Matt Roberts from the final episode of Outlander TV series

A beekeeper must be a loving and patient person; the bees know who loves them, and who will always be there to care for them.

An old Celtic tradition necessitates sharing any news from the household with the farm’s bee hives, whether cheery like a new birth or a wedding celebration or sad like a family death.  This ensures the hives’ well-being and continued connection to home and community – the bees are kept in the loop, so to speak, so they stay at home, not swarm and move on to a more hospitable place.

Each little life safe at home, each little life with work still undone.

Good news seems always easy to share; we tend to keep bad news to ourselves so this tradition helps remind us that what affects one of us, affects us all.

These days, with instant news at our fingertips at any moment, bad news is constantly bombarding us. Like the bees in the hives of the field, we want to flee from it and find a more hospitable home.

Our Creator (the ultimate Beekeeper) says personally to each of us:
“Here is what has happened. All will be well, dear one. We will navigate your life together.”

Only a Visitor

barnstormingblog2 Comments

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.
~Margaret Atwood “The Moment”from Eating Fire

The farm where we live has fields on a hill with woods. Evening walks are listening walks, with birdsong now identifiable thanks to our Merlin app on our phones.

There is always plenty to hear.

It is an immense relief to listen to something other than talking heads on TV or podcasts. The voices we hear in the woods remain unconcerned about politics, hantavirus outbreaks or the state of the economy.

I also listen to the sound of breezes rustling the tree branches, the crunch of sticks and dry leaves under my boots, and more often than not, woodpeckers tapping away at tree trunks, eagles chittering from the treetops, and unseen owls visiting back and forth from their hidey-holes.

So, like the outside world, our farm does have its own talking heads and drama, but I know who I will listen to and where I prefer to hang out if given a choice.

I know I’m only a visitor to their world –
there is no owning this land, only temporary stewardship.
We will be invited back as long as we tread softly.

Until next time then, until next time.