As if the past were riding up to meet you as if the past could ride a horse
as if the past were a horse wandering riderless along a dusty road
as if the horse had never been ridden
/
They say a horse is broken when the rider can stay on
they say the past is broken when you can let go of it
I have broken with the past, she says
I have erased it from my phone I have blindered my eyes from her eyes
/
I didn’t know the past was made of horses I didn’t even call it a horse until now
I didn’t even call it strange until I looked back on it
the past was a horse crossing a desert a body draped over it
this is how we get the beloved home
/
Strange now to never hear a horse upon waking or when out in the field
I didn’t know the past would come for me I didn’t even call it the past until now
sometimes one gallops past but no one else ever sees it ~Nick Flynn ” Unbroken” from “Low.”
photo by Brandon Dieleman
The past has a way of galloping away with me if I let it. I try to slow it down to a slow amble, enjoying the scenery along the way. But memories have a way of wanting to go their own way, not listening to pressure from the leg or a pull on the bit.
The past can’t be controlled or redirected any more than a horse can be ridden through my thoughts alone.
It must be a partnership, an agreement to keep moving forward, no matter what is being left behind. A horse prefers not to back up into the unseen unknown when there is so much ahead yet to be explored. I need to stop looking back and start looking between golden ears at where I’m going next.
It just might be the adventure of a lifetime.
photo by Emily Vander Haak
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
No longer do I cover tables filled with food and laughter My seams are frayed my hems falling my strength no longer able To hold the hot and cold
I wish for those first days When just woven I could keep water From seeping through Repelled stains with the tightness of my weave Dazzled the sunlight with my Reflection
I grow old though pleased with my memories The tasks I can no longer complete Are balanced by the love of the tasks gone past
I offer no apology only this plea:
When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the end Please someone cut a square and put me in a quilt That I might keep some child warm
And some old person with no one else to talk to Will hear my whispers
I make them warm to keep my family from freezing; I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking. –From the journal of a prairie woman, 1870
To keep a husband and five children warm, she quilts them covers thick as drifts against the door. Through every fleshy square white threads needle their almost invisible tracks; her hours count each small suture that holds together the raw-cut, uncolored edges of her life. She pieces each one beautiful, and summer bright to thaw her frozen soul. Under her fingers the scraps grow to green birds and purple improbable leaves; deeper than calico, her mid-winter mind bursts into flowers. She watches them unfold between the double stars, the wedding rings. ~Luci Shaw “Quiltmaker”
When I no longer have strength or the usefulness to perform my daily tasks, piece me up and sew me into a greater whole along with pieces of others who are also fading.
We are so much better together, so much more colorful and bold, becoming art and function in our fraying state.
Full of warmth and beauty and fun covering all who sleep and love and cuddle, or in their frailty may drift off to heaven on a quilt-cloud as their last breath is breathed.
~~click each quilt to enlarge and admire the handiwork~~
thank you again to the talented quilters displaying their art at the NW Washington Fair in Lynden (see previous years’ work here, here, here, here, here, and here )
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
This is the country road we live on. I know where it ends to the east: at the very edge of the Cascade foothills, right in the middle of a small tribal nation trying to survive challenging economic times on their reservation land.
Heading west from here, there is another tribal nation trying to survive.
In between are farmers who are having to sell their dairy herds because milk prices aren’t keeping up with the cost of maintaining their business. There are families now without sustainable wage employment because large industries have pulled up stakes and closed their doors. There is land that is overpriced as people flee the chaos and lawlessness of the cities, hoping to find peace and quiet.
There is much sadness along the road we travel that leads to heaven, but as a diverse people who struggle together on this journey, we take turns carrying one another when one has what another does not. We still have the sun and the rain and the soil, the turning of the seasons and the rhythm of a sun that rises up and comes down.
On our way to there, why not share?
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
I prefer to sit all day like a sack in a chair and to lie all night like a stone in my bed.
When food comes I open my mouth. When sleep comes I close my eyes.
My body sings only one song; the wind turns gray in my arms.
Flowers bloom. Flowers die. More is less. I long for more. ~Mark Strand “The One Song” from Collected Poems
“fly-by feeding” video taken by Harry Rodenberger
windy day photo by Nate Lovegren
Sometimes, I feel I have been asleep for years. My eyes close easily, my ears turn off rather than listen to what is too hard to bear. Even then, my mouth opens, waiting to be fed more.
More and more and more…
We always want more than we have. In fact, we’re served “more” on a huge platter every day – such extravagant blessings placed right before us, even if we don’t recognize them as such.
It’s in every one of us to open up both our eyes, to listen closely and then open our mouths to sing one song together – in peace, in harmony, in love – and only then we’ll see what more tomorrow will bring…
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
They are not long, The weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate.
They are not long, The days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream. ~Ernest Dowson “They are not long…” “Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam” (Our brief sum of life forbids us to embark upon a protracted hope)
photo by Joel DeWaard
When I consider the bittersweet brevity of life, I don’t think how much I will miss wine and roses. Eventually, when I pass through the gate, it will be other loves that determine my path into the misty night:
My husband’s kind eyes and gentle hands Hugs and snuggles with grandkids Worship and prayer and potlucks with church family Just-baked bread and dark chocolate The smell and sound of long-awaited rain Ponies and puppies Scent of sweetpeas and taste of green peas in the pod Tunes of bouncy bluegrass and familiar folk songs Birdsong in the morning and frog chorus at night Wistful sunsets, and more so, welcoming sunrises
and ever so much more…
We are called forth from here to a hope beyond imagining. This is only a taste.
Yours a dog’s life, do you moan? Courage, brother! cease to groan. Many men, as on they jog, Live much worse than any dog.
Yours a dog’s life? Then, my boy, It’s a life crammed full of joy!— Merry breezes, meadows fair, Birds and brooks and sunny air.
Dogs? why, dogs are never sad! See them capering like mad! See them frisk their jolly way Through the livelong laughing day!
Dog’s life? Then you’ll never rust. Dog’s life? Then you’ll hope and trust; Then you’ll say in jaunty glee, “Bones have been, and bones will be.”
Cheery, active, trusting, true,— There’s a canine goal for you! Live a dog’s life, if you can: You will be the better man! ~Anonymous
photo by Nate Gibson
I had a dog who loved flowers. Briskly she went through the fields,
yet paused for the honeysuckle or the rose, her dark head
and her wet nose touching the face of every one
with its petals of silk, with its fragrance rising
into the air where the bees, their bodies heavy with pollen,
hovered— and easily she adored every blossom,
not in the serious, careful way that we choose this blossom or that blossom—
the way we praise or don’t praise— the way we love or don’t love— but the way
we long to be— that happy in the heaven of earth— that wild, that loving. ~Mary Oliver “Luke”from Dog Songs
More than once I’ve seen a dog waiting for its owner outside a café practically implode with worry. “Oh, God, what if she doesn’t come back this time? What will I do? Who will take care of me? I loved her so much and now she’s gone and I’m tied to a post surrounded by people who don’t look or smell or sound like her at all.” And when she does come, what a flurry of commotion, what a chorus of yelping and cooing and leaps straight up into the air! It’s almost unbearable, this sudden fullness after such total loss, to see the world made whole again by a hand on the shoulder and a voice like no other. ~John Brehm from “If Feeling Isn’t In It”
photo by Brandon Dieleman
We all need to know a love like this: so binding, so complete, so profoundly filling: its loss so empties our world of all meaning, our flowing tears run dry.
So abandoned, we woeful wait, longing for the return of the gentle voice, the familiar smile, the tender touch and encompassing embrace.
With unexpected restoration when we’ve done nothing whatsoever to deserve it- we leap and shout with unsurpassed joy, this world without form and void is made whole again.
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
As the tide rises, the closed mollusc Opens a fraction to the ocean’s food, Bathed in its riches. Do not ask What force would do, or if force could.
A knife is of no use against a fortress. You might break it to pieces as gulls do. No, only the rising tide and its slow progress Opens the shell. Lovers, I tell you true.
You who have held yourselves closed hard Against warm sun and wind, shelled up in fears And hostile to a touch or tender word— The ocean rises, salt as unshed tears.
Now you are floated on this gentle flood That cannot force or be forced, welcome food Salt as your tears, the rich ocean’s blood, Eat, rest, be nourished on the tide of love. ~May Sarton “Of Molluscs” from Complete Poems
photo by Josh Scholten
No question when I was younger, I tried to be a tough shell to crack. Over my years of medical training, I was warned to keep what is soft and tender closed and protected, or I would be picked clean, with my hard remains exposed and emptied.
Yet during those stressful years as a young physician, as one of a handful of female students, I didn’t feel attacked, nor was I forced to float through battering tides to hostile shores. Bathed in salty tears at times, I was comforted when the stormy winds came. My teachers were kind and gentle. Soothing words and heartfelt praise flowed around and through me.
I was treated just as I wanted to treat my patients: with respect and nurture.
All these years later, I have not forgotten this gift of love I was shown by my teachers and colleagues. Even when buried in the muck and sand up to my eyeballs, I could trust enough to open up my hard and crusty parts so I could feel the tide rise over and carry me home.
Hey little boy, whatcha got there? Kind sir it’s a mollusk i’ve found Did you find it in the sandy ground? Does it emulate the ocean’s sound? Yes I found it on the ground Emulating the ocean’s sound Bring forth the mollusk cast unto me Let’s be forever let forever be free
Hey little boy come walk with me And bring your new found mollusk along Does it speaketh of the trinity Can it gaze at the sun with its wandering eye Yes it speaks of the trinity Casting light at the sun with its wandering eye Bring forth the mollusk, cast unto me Let’s be forever let forever be free
You see there are three things that spur the mollusk from the sand The waking of all creatures that live on the land And with just one faint glance, back into the sea The mollusk lingers, with it’s wandering eye ~Gene Ween
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
I wait for you In the grassland Where small lilies bloom. On the corners of the field, The rainbow shows up. 小百合さく 小草がなかに 君まてば 野末にほいて 虹あらはれぬ ~Yosano Akiko Tanka Poem (1878-1942)
Who loves the rain And loves his home, And looks on life with quiet eyes, Him will I follow through the storm; And at his hearth-fire keep me warm; Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise, Who loves the rain, And loves his home, And looks on life with quiet eyes. ~Frances Shaw, “Who loves the rain” from Look To the Rainbow
For Dan’s 70th birthday…
In this journey together, we inhabit each other, however long may be the road we travel; you have become the air I breathe, refreshing, renewing, restoring~~ you are that necessary to me, and that beloved.
Each year, as we grow older together: grayer, softer, gentler with ourselves, each other, and the world.
I pause, on this day you were born, to thank God yet again for bringing you to earth so we could meet, raise our three amazing children, and now our grandchildren, walking life together with faith and hope and dreams.
It was your quiet brown eyes I trusted first and just knew I’d follow you anywhere and I have…
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
The whole idea of it makes me feel like I’m coming down with something, something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light- a kind of measles of the spirit, a mumps of the psyche, a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.
You tell me it is too early to be looking back, but that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two. But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit. At four I was an Arabian wizard. I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way. At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.
But now I am mostly at the window watching the late afternoon light. Back then it never fell so solemnly against the side of my tree house, and my bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today, all the dark blue speed drained out of it.
This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself, as I walk through the universe in my sneakers. It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends, time to turn the first big number.
It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed. ~Billy Collins “On Turning Ten”
photo by Danyale Tamminga
No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you’re nine, you think you’ve always been nine years old and will always be. When you’re thirty, it seems you’ve always been balanced there on that bright rim of middle life. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You’re in the present, you’re trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen. ~ Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer and, as I say, get sadder younger than anyone else in the world. I know, for I’m one of them. ~Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
Some reflections on moving from one decade of life to the next:
Turning ten is a big deal, no going back to single digits. Turning twenty is a bid goodbye to a fleeting childhood. Turning thirty is down to business of family, job and debt. Turning forty is a mid-life muddle, a surging forth into the second half. Turning fifty is settling in while finding the nest emptying. Turning sixty is grateful hope for a fruitful third life trimester. Turning seventy is just around the corner – there is no other now. Turning eighty, ninety or hundred would be pure gift of grace.
I hope once again, as when I was nine, I might only bleed out rays of light when cut – I pray these final decades shine bright with meaning and purpose.
I like to cry. After I cry hard it’s like it’s morning again and I’m starting the day over. ~Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Consider The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:— We are as they; Like them we fade away, As doth a leaf.
Consider The sparrows of the air of small account: Our God doth view Whether they fall or mount,— He guards us too.
Consider The lilies that do neither spin nor toil, Yet are most fair:— What profits all this care And all this coil?
Consider The birds that have no barn nor harvest-weeks; God gives them food:— Much more our Father seeks To do us good. ~Christina Rossetti from “Consider”
…if I were a lily I think I would wait all day for the green face of the hummingbird to touch me. ~Mary Oliver from “Lilies”
Homer Smith: [the final English lesson] Oh, *I* built a chapel…
All of the sisters: *I* built a chapel.
Homer Smith: *You* built a chapel…
All of the sisters: *You* built a chapel.
Homer Smith: *We” built a chapel…
Mother Maria: [points to heaven] *He* built a chapel.
From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention… pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.
Literature, painting, music—the most basic lesson that all art teaches us is to stop, look, and listen to life on this planet, including our own lives, as a vastly richer, deeper, more mysterious business than most of the time it ever occurs to us to suspect as we bumble along from day to day on automatic pilot. In a world that for the most part steers clear of the whole idea of holiness, art is one of the few places left where we can speak to each other of holy things.
Is it too much to say that Stop, Look, and Listen is also the most basic lesson that the Judeo-Christian tradition teaches us? Listen to history is the cry of the ancient prophets of Israel. Listen to social injustice, says Amos; to head-in-the-sand religiosity, says Jeremiah; to international treacheries and power-plays, says Isaiah; because it is precisely through them that God speaks his word of judgment and command.
And when Jesus comes along saying that the greatest command of all is to love God and to love our neighbor, he too is asking us to pay attention. If we are to love God, we must first stop, look, and listen for him in what is happening around us and inside us. If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.
In a letter to a friend Emily Dickinson wrote that “Consider the lilies of the field” was the only commandment she never broke. She could have done a lot worse. Consider the lilies. It is the sine qua non of art and religion both. ~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark
I have broken the Biblical mandate to “consider the lilies” way too many times. In my daily life I am considering almost anything else – my own worries and concerns as I walk past so much beauty and meaning and holiness. My mind dwells within, blind and deaf to what is outside.
It is so necessary to be reminded that I need to pay attention beyond my own bubble, to be reminded to love and care for my neighbor, to remember what history has to teach us, to search for the sacred in all things.
Stop, Look, Listen, Consider: all is grace, all is gift, all is holiness brought to life – stunning, amazing, wondrous.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me. As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.
He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave, He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave, So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave, Our God is marching on.
(Chorus) Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah! While God is marching on. ~Julia Ward Howe — final original verses of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”
One-Time
Monthly
Yearly
Make a one-time or recurring donation to support daily Barnstorming posts
Barnstorming 