an easter poem

(this poem has been gestating since it was originally conceived in February, and i think today would be an appropriate day to share it!  despite any imperfections that may remain.  critiques are welcome via email...)

lilting through an afternoon sunspell

tripping over myself with joy

i press my hands

against my breast

in fear that my heart

may else come tumbling out

if I let go...

no longer could i call my heart

"mine"...

-is that what it means

 to die of love?

-it would be annihilated

by that ultimate

ever-living

Holy Fire.

-it would disintegrate

into innumerable shining flecks

burrowing into the earth

rising on the song of a sparrow

whirling in the wind

sprinkling stardust wherever it passed

enlivening all it touched

  

and I would be

-resurrected!

but hasn't this happened 

already?

these feeble human hands

in their pathetic embrace of this

fractured human heart

            -which is even now seeping out through every pore in my body!

haven’t a self-preserving chance 

in the presence of this

infinite

ever-loving God.

risking winter

After what has been (apparently) an unseasonably warm winter in Ireland (especially compared with the previous two years!), and all sorts of exclamations and excited over the first noticeable signs of spring (lambs!, noisy birds!1 blooming snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils!), we have just experienced the three coldest days of the season - the coldest since I left 2 newly fallen feet of snow in Boston a year ago!  It was below freezing in the mornings, and the hard frost left the grass white and crunchy all day long in most places.  The rocks in the courtyard fountain are coated with a thick layer of clear ice.  The skies have been sunny and cloudless.  And the sunrises have been incredible.  Here's the second draft of a poem inspired by the weather:

Risking winter
Our winters do not want
to let us go. 

If the spring comes
before its time
it opens itself,
boldly vulnerable,
to winter's clinging
claws. 

but that is the risk we take
when we let our passionate God
love us into life.

a not-quite-poem

(upon being requested to write a reflection about action and contemplation...)

over the weekend, i kept being stopped in my tracks at the sight of the way certain leaves would catch the sunlight and seem to glow almost like lightbulbs. sitting in worship on sunday, with the light streaming in through the windows i was, as often happens, filled with such a sense of joy and life and peace and, well, fullness...and i thought, “how do i share that with others?” so i spent the day looking for a metaphor, of something (in nature) that fills with light and then transmits that light to others. it would have been easy enough to use the symbol of water, of a vessel being filled with water until it overflows, but that didn’t seem very original. plus, i was looking for light. the moon also offered itself as an image, but it seemed a rather over-used cliche as well. and not quite appropriate, because the moon itself doesn’t fill with light, it just reflects it...

and then i went to the chapel to pray,
and there was the beautiful crucifix,
and there was the window which,
from my lowly vantage point (the floor)
perfectly framed a bare tree on the hillside and i thought:
     in order to keep living, the tree must
     give up its golden jewels to make space for
     new life. it is the never-ending
     cycle of growth, death, re-birth; of
     resurrection; of
     the spiritual life
through water, soil,
photosynthesis
we are fed, we grow
we are filled with the holy spirit;
and when we come to maturity,
our leaves turn into sparking jewels
     topaz and ruby
     filled with light!
but as we revel in this new-found beauty, we must
     eventually,
     by will or by force,
     let it go
     send it forth
     die to ourselves
     in order to serve the world’s needs
     for replenishment.
and yet through that very act,
we receive back again that very same gift
which after a period of rest, of dormancy, revives us
to begin again.

through prayer, silence, and contemplation, one grows and is filled with the glory of God until it can no longer contain itself, and it spills out into active service for the world, and is restored to fullness and new growth through further reflection and contemplation...

suspended joy

in the woods outside my window 

amber jewels shimmer suspended
in the air

oh the magic of sunlight in autumn!

the trees cling to their 

      beautiful ornaments their
      golden treasures their
      shining
      dying
      treasures

they offer them out to me
      fingers aflame
            see?
            look at what God can do
            !

unable to contain such joy,
the beech tree shakes with delight
and sends showers of glistening
teardrops
onto the waiting
hungry
earth below.

the trees are black

(this is the first of two poems that i wrote this past week, not noticing until rereading them later how similar their themes were...must be a lot of waiting and trusting going on inside me right now!)

the trees are black

against a deep dark blue and yet
i know that they are green:
  green-and-brown-and-yellow-and-grey
...i have seen them.

the trees are black.

they stand un-self-consciously
their beautiful half-naked figures silhouetted
by the shining blue
sapphire light of early morning

waiting.
patiently

for the earth to turn (as it always does) towards
the sun; and be illumined
in all their autumnal glory.  and yet -
for now

the trees are black.

Camas Poems

some poems i wrote while at Camas:

C reative
A dventures
M eaning
A alive
S pirit

~

J ourneying to wild places
O bserving the outdoors
H iking through heather
N oticing new things

M aking meaning out of mysteries
U nearthing the undiscovered
I nner insights and inklings
R esolving to return

 (John Muir, the man who helped Teddy Roosevelt set up the National Park system in the US, was born in Scotland.  Camas is a certified provider of the John Muir Award, which involves Discovering, Exploring, Conserving and Sharing wild places.)

~

4 Haikus

flickering candles

slugs eat the pale strawberries

simple Camas life

so remote and wild

unspoilt natural beauty

sheep poo in the grass

cold and stuck inside

what shall we do with this day?

tea break time again!

islands disappear

rain beads upon my wooly

a Scottish summer

adventures in bogland

i did a very silly thing on my day off last week, which invovled me getting very wet and tired.

i've been wanting to go to Lochbuie all season, having read about the ivy-strewn castle and the ancient stone circle located there, and being captivated by the scenic valley leading to it with its three consecutive lochs.

i left Camas at 1:30 and hitchhiked all the way, first to Bunessan, then Pennyghael, then to the top of the trailhead, arriving there at 3:45.  mistake number one: getting out of the truck there, rather than letting it take me to the Lochbuie road turnoff...  It was an insane decision, which i didn't realize until it was too late.

i had enjoyed a warm sunny walk up until that point, but about 10  minutes after i started hiking, it began to rain -- so not only was i getting wet from the top down, i was also getting wet from the group up... As the hike was along a lake, i had been expecting the path to be boggy, but it was very rough going, with uneven tufts of grass and small channels.  I couldn't say how many times I almost twisted an ankle by slipping and tripping along a path that turned out to be more bog than trail.  There were at least 7 creeks/waterfalls to ford, full of water from the previous day's rainfall, making it quite difficult to find adequate crossing points.  Eventually the rain stopped and the trail evened out, turning into a rocky creek-bed instead of a bog...  I stopped at least 3 times along the way to empty out my wellies and wring out my socks!

The last part of the hike was beautiful - the sun came out and dried out my clothes, the river turned into a waterfall, and you could see the view down to Lochbuie.  The stone circle and Moy castle (covered in scaffolding) were a disappointing reward for such a rough journey, but the shoreline was simply stunning.
 
It was past 7 by the time I started heading back, and it was at this point that I became fully aware of the predicament I'd gotten myself into.  I had only seen two people down at the Loch, and there were very few houses, meaning my chances of getting a lift back up the road to Craignure were practically nil.  I had walked one mile up the road, and just passed the marker stating "Craignure - 13 miles" when a lovely elderly couple drove by on their way to a function in town for the evening.  They let me off at the Craignure road junction, and only 5 minutes later I got another lift from a woman heading home to Bunessan -- wow did I feel lucky!
Now, Bunessan is only 2.5 miles from Camas, but it was 9pm when I got there, hungry and tired - too weak to feel brave, and not desperate enough to be bold.  So instead of seeking out the people I knew to help me get those last couple miles down the road, I just kept walking.  and walking.  and walking.

It was dark, and none of the 5 cars that passed me stopped to ask where I was going or what my situation was.  So I kept walking and jogging, with a few pauses to sit and recuperate, east some nuts, and wonder why I hadn't gone to find someone to drive me or a phone to call Camas...  my consolation was the light provided by a beautiful moon, and that my legs hadn't given out on me, even though just about everything else had...

I finally made it to the top of the track at 10:15pm, and began making my flashlight-less way back to Camas.  I was 5 minutes away when I saw the bouncing beam of a flashlight ahead of me, and Rosie and Adam were soon within sight, having come on a rescue mission to find me!  It didn't matter that I was almost back - it was still an an overwhelming feeling of relief and joy and being cared for, and I was overwhelmed with gratitude.  they even saved me some dinner, but after a small snack, i fell asleep quite promptly!  whew.

to build a forest...

back in January, Conn got excited about trees.  so excited that he applied for a free community tree pack from the Woodland Trust - a pack of native trees for wood-burning: cherry, rowan, birch, ash, and oak.  420 of them.

it fell to Mike and me to carry out the project.  to figure out where to put them, how to lay them out and space them, choose a method for planting, and organize/lead group tree planting events.  and figure out what to do with all of the extra ones!  because what Conn didn't know when he ordered them was that only 200 of them would fit in the field he had allocated for them.  there was a lot of excitement but not a lot of forethought put into this decision...

the trees were delivered on March 10.  it took us two more weeks before we were prepared to plant any of them.  on Monday, April 18th, the last of the trees were finally potted (we managed to get about 300 around the site!  the remainder have been potted).  In between, volunteers and friends of Kilcranny came by to help plant them, and we had three groups from the community: an eco-club from a local elementary school, a pre-school playgroup, and a teenagers in a job training program. 

the group plantings were exciting because i got to use skills that i haven't had a chance to since last summer, and the folks here got to see me in a different role, too.  organizing logistics, coordinating an event, leading a group...none of them was perfectly smooth and flawless, but they all went over well and everyone had fun!  the most chaotic by far was the 4-year-olds playgroup, which included parents and baby/toddler siblings and totalled about 50 people...

we invited people to make dedications, to name a tree in honor of a person, place, or concept, and it's been a really great aspect of the project, particularly to see the young people getting excited about dedicating a tree to someone they love or to their future children, or to peace -- they will not just have a cool memory about planting a tree, they've formed a meaningful connection between themselves and the earth...

so Kilcranny (which is Irish for "church (cille) of the place of many trees (crannagh)) finally has its own Cranagh!  Plus a row of cherry trees near the entrance and a tree-lined path around back.  And two volunteers who have finally figured out how to work together.  :)  

flight

i watch the birds – crows and gulls, mostly, but also that striking black and white one whose name i do not know – i watch them in the air on these windy days; how the gusts and gales push them about faster, slower, up, down, sideways, even backwards, wreaking havoc on their usually graceful flight. i imagine what it might feel like, this experience of surrendering to the powerful, unpredictable wind.

Do they find it frustrating because it only serves to make their hunt for food more difficult? Or do they choose to take wing just for the fun of it? Do they fly only because they have to, or also because they want to?

Do birds feel joy?

Flying on a day like this seems like it would be so much more exciting than on a calm day...more exhilarating, requiring more skill and awareness. It's hard to believe they do it purely out of necessity, because they make such graceful patterns in the sky, rarely seeming to have a destination. Do they know that they are beautiful?

seeing them soar always makes me wish i could fly, but instead i just watch and imagine...can i live my earth-bound life with the same kind of grace, joy, and dependency on god's wind-spirit? time to practice being a bird...

digging in the dirt

today = fabulous.

Sunny and warm, it felt like April or a warm March day, and I got to dig in the dirt! :) my endorphins are happy.

A lot of people were here today working in their allotments, just like me, beginning to prepare the beds (Kilcranny has 13 plots rented out). I'm so energized and excited about gardening! I had forgotten how good it makes me feel.

In this case, I think it makes me extra-happy because it gives me a project I can take [at least partial] ownership of, and gives me a sense of purpose and direction that I've been lacking so far. With no one else assigning me tasks or schedules, it gives me something to do that I know how to do and that I can structure my day around.

and it's spring! (at least compared to being buried under snow in Boston!)

temporarily uncentered

If I didn't know that this lifestyle I'm living right now was temporary, I think I'd be going crazy. I'd be trying to find a way to become part of a community, looking for meaning, having a spiritual crisis even, and in general be really frustrated with my life.

I've found that in this urban, independent, work-a-day lifestyle (even though I love my job!), I don't know how to be centered in God. I've been using a Celtic prayer book to do brief morning and nighttime prayers to try and ground myself spiritually at least a little, but ironically, it sometimes makes it harder! Here's why: for the past year I've been living in the woods and the countryside, surrounded by nature, which is where I feel closest to God and most connected to my spirituality, and the prayer book uses a lot of nature imagery and metaphor. But I'm living in the city now! And that language simply doesn't connect with what I'm experiencing. In fact, sometimes it makes me resent what I'm experiencing, which is exactly NOT what prayer is supposed to do. It's supposed to help you connect with your own soul, and to God and to center you spiritually in your reality (among other things). So if I were to stay in the city longer, I would need to find a prayer resource that helps me do that in an urban context, using urban imagery and metaphors to speak of the spiritual experience.

But I'm not frustrated with my life or worried about getting stuck in an unfulfilling rut, because instead, I'm leaving in two weeks!

cohoot connections

our parents always forget that the two of us haven't met. just because we're the same age and interested in farming and live on the east coast and because our parents live in the same cohousing community in oregon where we've both spent time doesn't mean we know each other!

but now we do. i decided to make our parents' delusions a reality by calling up Laura and visiting her in Brattleboro, VT. and we had a fabulous time. :) lots of beautiful fall hiking, planting garlic, and cooking of garden-fresh produce! pumpkin pie, pumkin bread, minestrone soup, brussels sprouts, kale, squash...and a giant miatake mushroom found in the woods.

can life be like this all the time?

so mom, dad, yes - now we are friends, and not just in your imaginations. :)

Cold Pond Community Land Trust

South Acworth, NH

My stay here at Cold Pond has been quite nice - and very quiet. I got here just in time yesterday for Steve to greet me before he went off to go bowling, and then I was on my own until almost 11pm to figure out how to make a wood cookstove work, take a walk, build a fire in my little cabin, and search unsuccessfully for matches, among other things (including talk to the neighbor about the horses that had gotten loose and were in the road...).

Today, it snowed. It was heavy, wet snow, mixed with rain at times - like the way it snows in Western Oregon. And it was windy. So, we didn't do anything. In fact, from the time I walked over the house at 9:30am, I didn't set foot outside again until I walked back to the cabin at 9:30pm. We made potato-leek soup, and Steve made an apple cobbler - yum yum!



It's down to Brattleboro tomorrow!

on the river that flows both ways

"River, take me along
In your sunshine, sing me your song
Ever moving and winding and free
You rolling old river, you changing old river
Let's you and me river run down to the sea!"


I just spent 10 incredible days with 17 incredible people on the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. It was loads of fun, and I loved it, but I think I discovered that even though I love the water, I'm not a sailor. Or a chemistry teacher. I was originally only supposed to be on the boat from Sunday through Saturday, but I ended up staying 3 extra days because they were short on staff and volunteers. I'm glad I did, because there was a lot of lousy, rainy, windy weather the first week and 4 groups cancelled their sails!

My job description as a volunteer was to help in every way I could - with boat operation, maintenance, and education. So I learned how to tie a highwayman's cutaway, a round turn and two half hitches, and a stopper knot; how to clip the lizard onto the otter trawl net line; how to coil a line (always clockwise!) and make a butterfly coil; how to tie a reef in the sail. I did 7am saltwater deckwashes, scrubbed soleboards, cleaned the hold shelves, washed dishes in the galley, and helped furl the jib. I slid a lot of fenders between the rub-rail and the pilings, manned the tiller, and did bow watch in the rain keeping a lookout for logs and moving vessels.

On the days we had group sails, I taught kids about dissolved oxygen and turbidity, tides and salinity, navigating on a river, the history of Hudson River sloops, how to identify an oyster toadfish, tell the difference between male and female blue crabs, what a hogchoker is and how it got its name, and how to touch a fish (use one finger - your "fishy finger"- to stroke it, not poke it, because we don't want to squish the fish!). I even played some music. And of course I hauled away on those halyards to help raise that gigantic 3,000 pound mainsail!

"Come along with me upon this broad old river
and we will see what we can do,
for when we work together in all kinds of weather,
there's no telling what the power of the people and the river can do!"

Bear foot prayer

i prayed today with my bare feet pressed
against the sun-warmed stone at the top of Bear Mountain
overlooking the Hudson River Valley
and the steep deep green of the Appalachians

beautiful view, beautiful feeling, beautiful day.

poem: a gardener like me

i long
for god to make a garden
of my heart
to turn it into a
growing, blooming, fruitful –useful-
place

loving hands immersed in its
soft soil
massaging it, picking out
the stones – those
all-pervasive impediments to growth;
passionately carving their way
through the closed cage of my ribs and into
the secret interior of my soul
opening up long furrows upon its
too-smooth surface deep enough
to find its tender places;
expertly, carefully, planting
each seed
one by one
gently and eagerly encouraging it to
take root and rise up!

i envision this gardener
approaching my heart-bed joyfully in anticipation
each and every day
to water the seeds;
crouching closely – hoping
to witness the first sign of growth
whispering and
singing come out!
come out, my loves!
arise!
dancing and
clapping her hands in delight
at each new green sliver of
life - yes!

yes.

i want my heart to feel like this
i want my god to be like this
-a gardener like me.

Unpacking “Ware”

A member of the United Church of Ware told me the story of the origin of the town’s curious name.  It has nothing to do with a creative spelling of “where” or with the selling of “wares”; it is not someone’s last name or the name of a town in England.  It comes from the word “weir” (no, not as in “The Weir of Hermiston,” which was my immediate association, even though I don’t even know what that means…). 

Weir (wear/weer) is a native Nipmuk word meaning “many fish.” 

Before the white settlers took over and built dams for their mills, there was a natural falls on the river.  The Nipmuks used to build nets that they would stretch across the falls to catch the salmon going upstream.

By the time Ware was incorporated, there was already a town in Massachusetts named “weir”, so they had to change the spelling, which also changed the pronunciation.

That was in the 1700s.  The Dalles Dam was built on the Columbia River in the 1950s…  A ruling was just passed last week to allow the construction of a dam in the Amazon. 

When will we ever learn?

can a mountain die?

Today I went for a hike on Mount Wachusett, the highest peak in Massachusetts east of the Berkshires. The view from the top was a 360-degree panorama with Boston to the East and New Hampshire to the North. Unfortunately, it happened to be a somewhat hazy day, but I could just barely make out the lookout tower at the southern end of the Quabbin reservoir in Ware…

The mountain contains 1,000 of the state’s 10,000 remaining acres of old growth forest. It was a crazy trail, and not what I was expecting at all! A lot of it was walking on basalt slabs, part of it was a stone staircase, and in other places I was clambering up a hillside over rocks and roots following the blue blazes.

Part of the trail went through a hemlock forest and short, alpine-like deciduous trees. Another side of the hill was practically barren of undergrowth with a lot of downed trees and branches.

I couldn’t figure out the sensation I was having until the very end of the hike when the word “desolation” settled in my mind and I was overwhelmed by this sense that “the mountain is dying.” It looked like some giant behemoth had clambered along the hillside, pushing trees over, uprooting them, tromping on them once they’d fallen. I don’t understand why the western side of the mountain in particular was so strewn with broken trees. Weather? Is it the effects of wind, ice, water, and snow? It was pretty tragic. I was grateful for every little sign of spring I found along the way.

here comes the spring!

It’s spring in MA! The ground is thawed and the birds are singing. Listening to the birdsong reminds me of being in Honduras.  There’s a pair of bluebirds living in the birdhouse right in front of Francis House. Royal blue backsides, reddish fronts.  beautiful creatures. 

Trees are pruned and beginning to bud, lettuce has been planted in the greenhouse, garden beds are being turned, mosquitoes are hatching…  We had almost 2 full weeks of over 60-degree weather with sunshine! With a few days of flood-inducing rain in between…

We had 2 college groups here on work trips during that time, so we were able to get a LOT of work done!  My body got really tired the first few days because it wasn’t used to doing that amount of physical work in one day – hasn’t happened since the fall!  We did lots of wood hauling down from the woods.

I can’t wait for everything to be green and colorful – a season I haven’t experienced since I’ve been at Agape!

moonsong

Oh mystic moon,

before we knew what you were,

you gazed on us

lovingly,

pulling us with you

into some great unknown.

We gazed back,

and were gifted with

sacred glimpses

of God.

We danced,

as the waters of the oceans,

moving to your mysterious rhythm.

Then science explained away

your incredible patterns

and we,

disenchanted,

no longer followed your lunar dance.

But oh glorious glowing globe,

you still gaze on us

lovingly,

mournfully? hopefully?

and waltz with the waters

to the music of an unending

universal

heartsong