Tree of Life

I was out in the yard with the dog last night, taking a break from a house full of friends and neighbors who had gathered here to watch the passing of time together.  Looking back, I saw our magnificent beech tree, and it looked like the Tree of Life to me.

I have always loved the symbol of the Tree of Life.  Its roots ground us in our ancestors and our homeland.  In the branches are the fruits of our creativity and our hard work, along with the lessons and losses that we learn as we grow. Some of those branches get broken or scarred along the way. And at the top, new life continues to expand, just as curiosity and an endless desire to learn helps the tree open out bigger and stronger as it grows older.

Here’s wishing us all a New Year full of hope, kindness and love. Let’s all take care of each other, so our roots will be nourished and our branches will be full of sweet, new buds.

This Is Happiness

Christmas with the ones I love......

I hope yours is as happy as mine!  
Blessings and hugs to all of you!

Thank You

Last night, we took some time to visit the Sandy Hook shrines that have blossomed on the corners near the school. The gifts and words come from all over the world. I wanted to share some pictures with you, but what I can’t convey is something I never expected. The scent was incredible. So many candles and flowers combined to create a fragrance that was as strong and powerful a blending as all the tributes and messages of love.

Yesterday, as I went about my errands in town, I could feel the blanket of sadness and pain, but hovering above that sorrow is another aura that is so healing. It’s a million thoughts of kindness and love that are really palpable. You can almost reach out and feel the hugs and hands holding all of us.

I cannot begin to imagine how hard it is for the parents and families of the little angels and the heroes who died to now have to pick up the pieces and go on. As I wrap presents and bake cookies, I think of how it must be almost unbearable for them. I found this message from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, the guardian angel of hope, about crossing over:

“As I tell the souls who have been harmed by a terrible disaster, murder or massacre or devastation... the wounded will not remember words, nor philosophies, nor politically correct psychological b.s. The souls will remember kindness, tone of voice, soft eyes, the sweet or mild touch that asks for nothing in return.

It is so much simpler than some might imagine. Just be there. In your own way, long distance, up close, in prayer, in contemplation, in person, by proxy. Be there. It will be enough. And more than enough.”

So, I just wanted to let you all know that we can feel you with us and  to say thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Our Brave Town

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. Last Friday, I had just come in from my morning barn chores when at 9:30 the phone rang. It was the school superintendent, an automated message saying there was a lockdown at all schools. I told my husband, and the phone rang again. It was a neighbor saying the rumor that there was a shooter at the high school. My heart started pounding, and for a half an hour, we frantically searched the Internet and TV to find some more information. Then, the news began to rush in, the reality of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, a few miles from the high school. We could hear sirens and helicopters. Friends began calling, crying, showing up at our house to stare mesmerized at the television while the horror was revealed.

At one point, I had to take the dog outside and I stood in the sunshine, breathing fresh air and noticing, almost as if for the first time, how beautiful it is here. I looked all over the East Coast to find a safe community with good schools when we moved here eight years ago. Now, I reflected that this hideous violence was a random act, and while it could have happened anywhere, it happened here in this place where we are. I wondered what the meaning of it would be for us, my daughter who is 17, my husband and myself. I also knew that it was too soon to understand why we were about to be a part of something so tragic, but that eventually, it would have a meaning and would be something that changed our lives.

It’s impossible to describe the last week, so I will only focus on the moments of kindness and compassion that we have experienced.  My daughter’s teachers and the school staff have been so brave and sensitive and caring, especially as the kids went back to school on Tuesday. One great source of comfort for my child was the K9 Comfort therapy dogs that were here to cuddle and distract everyone if they needed a moment to compose themselves and find strength. My daughter has provided solace to her friends and classmates as they struggle to overcome their fears and now, as they attend wakes and funerals, and I am so proud of her.  People here are wide open, vulnerable and so loving.

At every turn, there is a reminder of what happened. Little shrines and handmade signs dot the country roads. On the main highway, there had been a recent construction project and the big lighted signs that once said “Roadwork ahead” now say, “God bless our angels. Thanks to our heroes.”  It’s been hard to get around town with the media and the visitors from all over the country. There were seven camera crews hovering around the high school when I picked up my daughter on Tuesday afternoon.  If I drive to the grocery store, I wait and cry as the funeral processions pass by. When I go to nearby towns, total strangers see the little sticker with the rooster that is our town mascot on my car, and they stop me to give me hugs and offer condolences. I am so proud tell people that I live here.

We struggle to decorate the tree, send the presents to our family in California, try to act like everything is fine and normal when we visit my mom at the nursing home.  This morning, I got up at 5 am and made a huge casserole dish of bbq turkey meatballs for a teacher appreciation luncheon being held at school. We carry on, and each day, receive an email update from the high school principal that begins and ends with these words:

Our collective strength and resilience will serve as an example to the rest of the world. Be strong, Newtown.

Enough

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “enough”.  I read Wayne Muller’s thought-provoking book, A Life of Being, Having and Doing Enough, and it struck such a strong chord with me.  The pace of the holiday season seems to be racing even faster than normal this year. It’s probably more noticeable to me since I have been forced by my limitations still imposed on my right arm to go slower, do less, not strain. So everyone around me appears to be flying by while I wander around picking out gifts and deliberately weighing how much I want to do to maintain the holiday spirit without feeling exhausted.

Muller says, “Enough is not a relationship; it is played out in this moment and the next, and the next. We can only experience a sense of enough when we are fully present and awake in this moment…. The farther we get from this moment – the more we project outward into next week, next month, next year – the less and less we can truly know about who we will become or how the world may have completely reshaped its way around us.”  He also points out that as we grow older, our needs and wants change so that our desires when we were young are almost unrecognizable to those we experience later in life.

This is certainly true for me. I was in New York City this week with my daughter, and I could feel the same happy energy and enthusiasm flowing from her that I had myself when I was in my twenties, living in the city. She can’t get enough of the excitement and glamour. What I wanted then when I was a diehard New Yorker has no resemblance to what looks like the good life to me now.  By the end of the day, I couldn’t wait to get home and rub my hands on Silk’s furry neck and snuggle up on the couch with my velvet puppy, Stella. I was overwhelmed by how grateful I am for what I have and how it is truly more than enough.

We had old friends come to visit last weekend. They are very urban and sophisticated, and seemed a little disoriented to be here.  “I had forgotten how rural it is,” my girlfriend commented as we stood in the way back looking at the bridle trails blocked by the trees that fell during the hurricane. I had a feeling that she was torn between wanting the peace and serenity and thinking that it would drive her crazy.

As we fed carrots to the horses, I told her that I often think about one of my favorite quotes from E.B. White: “ I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” I guess at this point in my life, I’m going to concentrate on what it feels like to just do enough and not too much.

Gratitude AND Togetherness

Happy Thanksgiving!  I turned to anthropologist and gratitude master Angeles Arrien this morning as I drank my coffee and thought about all the things that I have to be thankful for this year.

Here's what she is thinking about this month:

"Every language in the world has the word “and” in its language. This simple word functions in diverse ways; such as joining, bridging, including and adding. It is a word of generosity and simplicity and opens us up to possibilities that we have not considered. For these reasons, Richard Rohr in his book The Naked Now calls it “a shining word”. After the election, and as we move towards Thanksgiving and the Holiday Season, we have the opportunity, individually and collectively, to use “and” as a way of connecting, joining and adding to each other’s experience in the following ways:

“The Shining Word ‘And’                                                                    

“And” allows us to be both-and.

“And” keeps us from either-or.

“And” is willing to wait for insight and integration.

“And” keeps us from dualistic thinking.

“And” demands that our contemplation become action.

“And” allows us to critique both sides of things.

“And” is the mystery of paradox in all things.

“And” does not trust love if it is not also justice.

“And” does not trust justice if it is not also love.

“And” allows us to be both distinct and yet united.”

 --excerpts from Richard Rohr’s book, The Naked Now, pages 180-181

I hope you have a good day wherever you are and whatever you are doing AND I thank you from my heart for coming by here to visit me again and again!

Crafting a Nest

 
 When the huge pine tree in our front yard came crashing down during the hurricane, it disrupted a lot of lives. “Piney”, as my husband referred to it, was home to many birds and squirrels over the seventy years that it stood magnificently as a landmark in front of our home.  I remember when my mother rescued a baby bird from Siete’s stall, and wearing her soft white gloves, carefully placed it on the broad boughs of “Piney”. The little bird’s mother appeared a few moments later to sit in the tree with her baby.  My mom always gathered leftover bread and potato chips and sprinkled it under the tree, especially in the snow. We always teased her about it. After she moved to the nursing home, I surprised myself by keeping up with the ritual, tromping across the yard to scatter stale crumbs and Fritos so the cardinals and squirrels would have some treats.  Now, there’s only a big circle of dirt that marks the footprint of our popular “bird hotel”.

    As we cut up the tree and dragged the branches away to be shredded, I found this tiny nest on the ground. It is made entirely of horsehair, with one turquoise thread from the string that tied a hay bale.  I brought it in the house to add to my nest collection, and my neighbor told me that she believed it was made by a hummingbird.  It got me thinking about giving some much needed attention to my own nest.  Since I injured my arm in June, I have not been able to do much housekeeping and as winter approaches, I’ve decided that it’s time to thoroughly wash, dust, clean and de-clutter our nest.  I think that it will help me welcome in the holidays, which are bearing down on us with all the force of another hurricane. 

    The one resident in our yard who is really happy that the big tree is gone is the skunk. Almost every morning, when Stella and I get up in the dark and go outside, Ms. Skunk is right there in the dirt, enjoying a feast of grubs. So far, thanks to a serious flashlight that floods the yard, I’ve been able to stop dead in my tracks and hold on tight to the dog on her flexi-leash. The skunk just kind of glances up, “oh, hello, it’s you”, and then ambles off to the safety of the forsythia bush.  My heart pounds, and Stella bounces wildly until the coast is clear.

   I looked up the meaning of a skunk entering your life in Ted Andrews’ “AnimalSpeak” book.  He says that the skunk is a sign that you should demand respect in your life and be assertive. He also points out that even though skunks might have rabies and can eat a cat, they are basically peaceful creatures. I thought about getting a Havaheart trap and trying to relocate Ms. Skunk to the woods on the other side of the pond, but it turns out that it’s illegal in this state to trap a skunk because of the rabies danger.  I found a recipe for spraying detergent and castor oil, which skunks are supposed to find distasteful, and I will annoint the ground where Piney rested and the grubs live. For now, I’m inclined to live and let live, and hopefully, Stella won’t get sprayed.

   This week, I went to the doctor, expecting to have a battle over whether he wanted to operate or manipulate my right elbow some more.  I thought about the skunk and respecting my wishes as I waited in his examining room. Amazingly, he was very pleased with my progress and felt that I had “turned the corner”.  So, he sees almost full recovery in my future as long as I continue to use my splints and do my exercises.  When I saw the skunk this morning, I thanked her from a distance for helping me keep my resolve. Now, I’m going to turn my attention to decorating and feathering our nest.