Is there anyone else up there?

December greetings

2011-12-01T16:56:00.001-06:00

I'm going to try again to do some daily "small stones" - or some days, at least - here:

I snapped this picture of a stone near my workplace. It's some kind of iron ore-laden rock, and has a polished surface that is almost mirror-like. The river is behind me.

I cross that river, back and forth, sometimes several times a day.

Funny thing - just imagining NOT having that strip of wildness, that gap in the concrete city, makes me feel like I wouldn't be able to breathe.

Here's another one of the decorative iron-rich rocks:

May your December be full of unexpected gifts of beauty.

Is this the last day?

2011-11-14T15:52:00.000-06:00

Every day for the past several, the weather prediction has been for unseasonable warmth, sunshine - and an immediate end to same, with cold and snow coming shortly. But again today it's in the 50's, feeling much more early to mid-October than mid-November. Some remnants of brilliant color - even some hardy flowers. (But tomorrow is REALLY going to be much colder, they say.)

But - the sun is arcing through the southern sky, never getting much higher than what would be evening in the summer. Here we are - evening at 3:40:

May your November continue mild and steady. Soak up what little light you can.

Gently comes November

2011-11-01T16:38:00.001-05:00

Today is mild. There are still trees fully leaved, orange and brown. I'm in a coffee shop doing (somewhat delayed) grading, while an early song from Bob Marley plays in the background. I am thankful for all the pieces of my life. The challenge is -- to bring them into better balance.

May your November be mild and balanced - not too bleak, not too cold.

Apologies to Alice Munro

2011-10-30T22:08:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in my last post that I didn't appreciate fiction that describes the pain of human lives but doesn't offer redemption. That was in response to a couple of the early stories in Alice Munro's 2009 collection, Too Much Happiness, where some pretty dreadful things happened, and people mostly endure. But in other stories, people respond courageously, or quixotically, or stoically, or intelligently to events, which can be horrific or mundane - or really surprising. The stories deftly sketch whole lives, where a childhood mishap can be revealed in much later life to have been the pivot around which the life turned. The title story is a fictional treatment of a Russian woman in the late 1800s who was both a mathematician and novelist, Sophia Kovalevsky, which I enjoyed very much.

A rich collection, and worth reading. So, apologies to Alice Munro for my first impressions.

How about NaBloWriMo?

2011-10-28T18:02:00.000-05:00

Over the last few days, I've been sorely tempted to launch into the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge of writing a (50,000 word) novel in the month of November. This is true despite my lack of almost any fiction writing experience - (um, except for a few chapters of a Young Adult fantasy started probably 15 years ago and then abandoned).

The NaNoWriMo challenge began in 1999, with a group of 21 people in the San Francisco Bay area. The history of the movement is quite interesting - with the rising popularity of blogs, the information about the challenge spread rapidly in the first few years, as people flocked to join the challenge, and schools and universities joined in too.

For me, imagining doing the challenge is revisiting the old daydream of being a writer full-time. The closest I ever got was when I was doing the serious churning-out-chapters phase of my dissertation, now more than ten years ago. The rhythm of research and writing was exciting - ideas churning in my sleep, as I drove my car, everywhere where I went. I felt that something was moving through me, not that I was willfully making something happen. The ideas opened up to me - I didn't fabricate them.

But fiction? I don't know about writing fiction. I read fiction all the time - I have dreams that could be short stories, of a sort - and fiction feels like a necessary nutrient for me, somehow. Not every kind of fiction though. I'm not very refreshed by writing that reveals the pain of human lives but doesn't offer some kind of redemption.

But - isn't reading a pastime, and not a calling? Or - what is a calling anyway? What is the purpose of the calling of writing? Oh, I guess that's as silly as asking what is the purpose of breathing.

So - perhaps what I can do during the grim, gray, dark month of November is commit to writing every day in some form or other. For me, it can be the National Blog Writing Month (NaBloWriMo). Why not? Just - put my hands on the keyboard and see what wants to pop out of my brain today.

Happy continued writing, everyone!

Autumnal Musings - and Marriage Equality

2011-10-16T18:42:00.003-05:00

What a sleepy weekend. Long, somewhat incapacitating naps each afternoon. Chilly, windy, true fall weather, but with lots of sun. Life Partner and I actually tackled the kitchen cupboards and refrigerator instead of going yard-saling. Laying large amounts of food from Costco - it must be the impulse to have a full larder once the cooler weather sets in.

Friends ask me how I'm doing - meaning with the gender transition experience of youngest offspring. Truthfully, I don't know how "I" am doing - it doesn't feel entirely real, I guess, since the person is still here, even though the boy clothes aren't.

I have, however, been quietly steaming about the local archbishop's move to train and exhort the area priests to become political action leaders. He is expecting them to mobilize the faithful in support of an amendment to the state constitution to restrict marriage to one man and one woman. This just feels so wrong on so many levels. My own Quaker community is - and has been - working for marriage equality. Nearly 25 years ago, the Meeting approved performing weddings for same-sex couples, after some difficult months of discussion. More recently, in solidarity with same-sex couples who can't get legally married, our Meeting chooses not to sign the wedding certificate to legally marry anyone - for those with access to legal marriage, they need to do this as a second step.

There was a strong and well-reasoned opinion piece in today's paper written by an elderly Republican (85-year-old Wheelock Whitney) against the marriage amendment. It gave me hope - hope that even those with differing political perspectives can see the obvious issues of human rights, and not be swayed by fear or misplaced religious zeal. http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/131888533.html.

Here's the photographic fruit of our late afternoon walk in the Wildflower Garden. Next week may be the last for this year.

(Thank you, Google folks, for making Picasa uploads so much easier!)

My goodness, halfway through October!

2011-10-15T21:34:00.001-05:00

Somehow - completely undeserved - we've just had something like three more weeks of summer in late September / early October. I've been taking photographs along the way that document the season's change, but I haven't really believed time was passing, not really. The last couple of days have been true autumn again, still lovely, but properly cool.

Here are some digests of blogs thought of, even photographed for, but not written:

(Early September) - my wonderful new computer - the redoubtable MacBook Air. I spent all summer dithering between getting the Air or getting the faculty/staff personal laptop sponsored by the U, which is a perfectly dandy little Dell Latitude (business class). Lots of power - lots of features - all that. But I got seduced by the light weight and ease of use of my Mac. Actually, it was the iPad that set me up for the Air - and now I don't carry around the iPad anymore. But you'd think I would get more writing done with this sleek item.

(Early September) - the (young adult) Kid moved home - the transition from male to female is taking all of /her/ time and energy.

Cleaning and purging the boy clothes - purchased by me over the past few years - now off to Salvation Army.

(Mid September) - fall begins in earnest - full color starting up on the trees.

An early leaf - striking in its utter perfection.

(Late September) - two evening parties, both with wonderful views of downtown Minneapolis lights. One a gathering of fellow adjunct faculty; one a celebration of Peter's church friend's 50th. (Oh, honey - you're just a kid.)

Condo near Loring Park - Metro department party

A law firm overlooking the Art Institute for the 50 birthday bash

(Early October) - days in the 70s and 80s - warm nights - we have been transported to California. We celebrate by going to a neighborhood-wide yard sale in this lovely neighborhood . . .

Summit Hill area house - not an option in this lifetime for me!

. . . and several trips to our favorite tame bit of the wild, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.

May your autumn be lovely and serene. I'll try to do some actual posts as I go along from here.

When they were all brave and good

2011-09-22T11:27:00.000-05:00

I'm watching a live streaming inauguration ceremony for the incoming president of my University, Eric Kaler. The faculty in all their robes and silly hats have just processed in to the stirring notes of a student orchestra. Faces are appropriately solemn as the colorfully-robed assembly of dignified academics stand wait for the national anthem. Three uniformed ROTC students carried in the flags - the nation, state, and University.

It just occurs to me, seeing these academic faces, both of people I know and many I don't, that there's a point to this pomp and formality. It can be a catalyst for endeavors beyond the call of duty - to service to what these individuals find to be their personal lodestone, conecting them back to the core of why they have entered into these careers, what they deeply care about. And channeling that sort of engagement and commitment is like creating a laser beam.

We do so much need something to believe in and care about, something to bring us together for the common good, something to help ease us past our petty daily preoccupations.

May this day, and all of our institutional ceremonies (in this, our national civil religion), help bring out what is brave and good in us.

Changing season - changing household

2011-09-05T22:17:00.000-05:00

My youngest progeny, age 23, is back home, having graduated from college (in the spring) and then filled out the year-long lease without finding a job and new place to live. It's OK, though challenging for all of us. We're trying to make the upstairs into actual living space after having it turn into a large and jam-packed storage area (like the basement is . . . and much of the rest of the house too, unfortunately).

I'm thinking - if not working for someone else, the kid can work for us to earn spending money - and has been doing so, yard work for the last couple of days. After that - some household dreck purging? Helping us part with some of the thousands of books / videotapes / magazines?

The hardest part of the transition is working to adjust pronouns, as the former young man moves through the steps to become a young woman. Can't say "he" anymore, but "she" doesn't come trippingly to the tongue either.

I don't know how to talk about it, really. Gender transition hasn't become as common as same-sex preference. My mom lamented, when told about the situation, that it would have been so much easier to handle the kid's coming out as gay - we've got cousins, friends, etc., who have done that, and it's a known quantity.

Will love and trust and a good sense of humor pull us all through this?

In a fairly small house with only one bathroom?

July 30

2011-08-01T00:05:00.002-05:00

In the afternoon, going home,

Text from my son:

My old friend's death - too late now

For that talk over old times

My dear, sweet troubadour of the city

July 29

2011-07-31T23:51:00.001-05:00

Yes, the river view is lovely

Evening light glows blue

Above river's edge, city profile --

But what am I doing here

In the office?

Another Fantasy/SF Con

2011-07-30T14:44:00.001-05:00

I went to the library on Thursday to pick up a collection of short stories by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, having gotten reintroduced to their work at the 4th Street Convention last month, and picked up a flier for yet another small local Sf/Fantasy con, also held in a small local hotel (Diversicon). The draw for me was two-fold: the presence of an acquaintance from years past, a local poet who has apparently been writing (in part) for SF publications, and the presence of Joan Slonczewski, a long-time favorite SF writer, who has at long last a new book coming out.

Joan is a feminist, Quaker biology professor at, I believe, Kenyon College, who has published several SF books involving ethical dilemmas humanity will face with scientific advances in genetics, among other things.

The new novel is being marketed for the Young Adult market, which is fine with me, posits an orbiting college. Packed with ideas.

More later.

Back in Lovely Idaho

2011-07-24T18:52:00.000-05:00

We're just about at the end of a visit to my family in southern Idaho. As always, the time has flashed by. My sense of myself - the young person who left the state in 1969, the person now bewilderingly graying with young adult children - keeps fluctuating back and forth. While I'm here, too, time seems to operate in different ways, speeding and slowing elastically.

The weather has been hot and clear. The mountains assert themselves as fixtures in my psyche, revealed again as bedrock. Leaving again (early tomorrow morning) seems unbelievable - how can it be that I've lived for decades and aged somewhere else, somewhere rather flat and moist?

The street where I spent my first six years.

Layout tweaks - need more gladness, here. . .

2011-07-13T22:14:00.000-05:00

I've tweaked my font sizes - it occurred to me I was having trouble reading my own blog without coming up a bit close to the screen. It took a while, though. Hope it's helpful.

Dinking around on the set-up - I never noticed the "stats" tab before. Just as soon I didn't know about it - too tempting to see if anyone's reading. Which is NOT the point of writing.

The weather was a touch crisp today - the hot, muggy, deep-in-the-heart-of-summer feeling of last week vanished with the flow of Canadian air.

I continue to post on my daily "small stones" blog (http://daystone.blogspot.com/). That's been a fun challenge - I have to ask myself, did I notice anything in particular during the day? Or - what was there that was worth noticing, that perhaps I missed? Because otherwise it's easy to slide through a day so busy or distracted or generally low-spirited that nothing has much sparkle. And that's not really being alive, is it?

Being alive is all these youngsters are about (from this morning - and also on my "small stones" blog):

How to recapture that openness, that gladness?

I'm doing my daily small stones thing

2011-07-07T22:58:00.000-05:00

You're welcome to take a peek at my daily "small stones" (and photos) of July days.

http://daystone.blogspot.com/

Meanwhile, it is sure hard to keep up the energy at work. The long weekend (even longer, as I had Tuesday off) was delicious - I read numbers of library books.

Discovery: Jo Walton - impossible to describe how smart and imaginative this woman's writing is. I've just started Farthing - a typical murder mystery in a gracious English manor in the 1950s, but . . . over in Europe, Hitler won. So everything is different, but subtly so.

4th Street Fantasy Conversation

2011-06-25T22:48:00.003-05:00

I spent the day at the 4th Street Fantasy Conversation. I've never attended a fantasy or sci fi conference, and this one is pretty unique - very small, largely attended by writers, a mix of well-known, beginning, and unknown writers. The panels are made up of some very well-known folks, some I am extremely fond of. But it's conducted as a conversation, and for many of them, it seems, an almost unbroken conversation that has been going on for years.

It raises the question again for me about why I didn't go down that path - other than falling into a career and having bills to pay, of course. Starting at 60 seems unlikely. But there's nothing at all keeping me from becoming really informed about some of the best new emerging writing.

Some sad news I discovered was that one of my most favorite authors of fantasy and YA fantasy, Diana Wynn Jones, passed away recently. I was pleased to see how revered her work is by these writers I respect.

I spent some time during what were sometimes disorganized sessions doing some Web cruising to see if any of my other all-time favorite authors were publishing and was pleased to note that R. A. Macavoy, who hadn't published for years (except a little downloadable fragment from Amazon) has a new-ish novella out - it sounds like an expanded version of what I downloaded some years back.

A couple of other writers who were important for me weren't mentioned at the 4th Street Conversation: Pat Cadigan and Joan Slonjewski. I'll need to follow up with folks in the group later on about them - if there is some follow-up conversation.

All in all - I had something approaching a mini-vacation! Now it's back to work.

Solstice greetings

2011-06-21T23:04:00.001-05:00

Imagine an

image related to

the summer solstice here.

I chickened out on downloading an image from the internet to celebrate Summer Solstice with because I got a virus-warning scam from looking at one of them (at least I hope it wasn't a real virus warning).

How can it be that the summer is hitting its peak - and I haven't finished my spring projects yet?

Life is good - perhaps too abundant. The neighborhood is largely recovered from the tornado of a few weeks ago, though crazily-tilted tree stumps still remain, with the sidewalk pavement humped and dislodged. Much more sky, and less canopy. Many, many houses still sport the stylish blue plastic coverings, waiting for a new roof. And we are getting a new roof too - probably from hail damage that happened prior to the tornado.

Progeny #2 has graduated with an early childhood education major - and no job in sight. Distracted by going through a major personal shift, which you will know all about if you are friends on Facebook.

May your summer have lazy, useless, delicious days in it. May your state government not implode the way ours is doing. May you enjoy these sweet, long evenings.

A week after the destruction

2011-05-29T12:33:00.001-05:00

Just a week ago, I was sitting and doing emails and projects when I heard an odd sound like a freight train approaching the house. I looked up to see wildly thrashing trees, doing bends that trees aren't designed for. I grabbed Charlie, the dog, and went to sit in the hallway, out of direct view of the windows.

My ears popped. The electricity went off. It was over in a minute or two, and I looked out the door and called Peter to describe what I was seeing. The tornado warning sounded just as the wind moved on, and shortly afterward, sirens near and far. We had just experienced a tornado, a half-mile wide, which touched down twice, going through the heart of the Minneapolis north side.

Our own losses were not large, though sad: We lost two and a half trees, which all fell into the street and were cleared out by the city the next day. Two days without electricity were novel experiences, teaching me how much I rely on the Internet.

The main impact on me personally was the emotional exhaustion from rambling around the neighborhood and seeing
so much damage, especially to the trees, but buildings as well. A positive experience was actually seeing so many of my neighbors out in the streets checking up on each other - many of whom I hadn't ever seen. What a rich diversity we represent - in age, race, and culture. I hope to find more opportunities to connect with neighbors in happier ways.

A Happy (Chilly) May Day to All!

2011-05-02T00:34:00.001-05:00

I wrote this earlier today while waiting for a ride home.

Last year, the May Day festival in my town was held in a summer-like glow of blooming lilacs and late tulips, the leaves fully emerged on most trees. This year, the tulips are up, bravely, but the tree buds have been shy to come forth, leaves still mostly just peeking their noses out, but unwilling to spread out into the chilly air. Around Powderhorn Lake, after the parade, the temperature seemed to drop even more, as a few flakes of snow skittered into my face. I got too chilled to stay for the pageant, in spite of full winter garb (heavy fleece pants, long johns, heavy fleece shirt, winter coat, winter gloves). Children's faces were a bit pinched from the cold, yet they called out, "Happy Mayday!" with gusto.

Now I am taking refuge in the May Day Cafe, a block or two from the park. There were lines when I came in - for the hot drinks and bathroom - but most people have filtered out now, either back to the park or home for the day.

The walls here are decorated with photos from earlier May Day parades, the well-worn wooden tables littered with the program from this year. The theme was "Caws to Unite!"

Thinking of the images and of the parade itself makes me a bit teary - not in a sentimental way, but from a place of deep unease. Our generally progressive state ended up with a Republican congress and a Democrat governor. So to avoid having legislation vetoed, the Republicans are proposing two state constitutional amendments: one to (in perpetuity) define marriage as between one man and one woman, and the other to require a state-issued picture ID with current address for someone to be able to exercise their "privilege" (as one legislator put it) to vote. The estimate I read this morning is that up to 440,000 people could be potentially disenfranchised in any given election . This is being rammed quickly through despite no evidence of any measurable voter fraud. I have seldom felt this sucker-punched.

Yet - these happy children today, dressed as crows of warning on their stilts, or carried in wagons as seedlings and hatchlings of the future, do provide hope. Surely - if not in my lifetime - the powers of love and respect in this country will overcome the powers of fear and ignorance.

Click to see the sleeping fledglings

This gathering was more somber than some, in the black garb of the crows beginning and ending the parade, and in the wintery gray sky -- yet surprisingly, the crowd lining the streets was large and glad. The goodness and power of the springtime is free for us all. Laughter can't be taxed, or packaged for the market. Our children to come won't hate us if we fail to hold strong against the political backlash of fear and ignorance, but they will pity us.

May we hold strong instead, and leave a legacy of celebration, inclusion, and wisdom. From the street chants of my youth: the people // united // will never be defeated.

A taste of summer - but just a taste for now

2011-04-12T21:10:00.000-05:00

It's that rare kind of day, when the season seems to have sped up and stumbles nearly into the next one. (But we'll have a relapse into chilly and even rain-mixed-with-snowy weather in a couple of days.) I thought I'd celebrate by showing some "then and now" pictures.

Then - two weeks ago:

And now - today:

Yes, folks, those are actually wild turkeys in my neighbor's yard.

(And yes - there is a Twins game today.)

Morning Bus-Riding Thoughts

2011-03-02T18:41:00.003-06:00

Bus photo from minnesota.cbslocal.com

I think the stress is getting to me, or I'm choosing to be stressed. Some of both, probably. I'm too sponge-like for my own good. I tend to absorb the political angst around me - Republican efforts to dismantle unions, most recently. It's sad seeing the ranks whipped up to hate and fear their own neighbors, their own public servants. Meanwhile, corporate leaders preach about how American labor is too expensive, so they'll just move to Ireland.

I'm reading Thich Nhat Hahn's new book, Peace is Every Breath. I so often get seduced into thinking that all my worry-energy is something real, that some real kind of work is going on in my whirring brain. Meanwhile I don't connect with the people right in front of me (right now, also on the bus, a couple of neighbors, Michelle and Barb, talking abuut cooking some kind of potsticker, or how best to handle tofu).

The sun is veiled with a thin cover of cirrus clouds over the downtown buildings as we pause at Nicollet Mall to do the big bus-rider exchange, letting my neighbors go on to their connecting routes and bringing on new passengers for the University's West Bank or South Minneapolis. It's unexpectedly cold this morning, an icy wind bringing down the temperature in spite of the sun's efforts to melt the skating rinks on the sidewalks. I've started leaving my big clunky Sorel® boots at home (handed down from a growing son), as most sidewalks are clear by now. I'll don them again tomorrow, with yet another snow fall predicted.

Let me pledge to return to awareness of my breath, of my body moving in space, surrounded by other breathing, parka-wrapped mammals. Let me pause to savor moments of beauty. Let me pause before speaking, with intention that my words reflect kindness and compassion, not an aim to defend myself. Let me cultivate hope. Let me know and express gratitude. Let me dare to be alive, to try newness, to grow.

It's Thawing a Bit

2011-02-06T18:10:00.001-06:00

Now that I'm done with my January challenge of writing a "small stone" each day, I'm not sure what rhythm I'll find for blogging. But I'm having fun with photos. In the last few days, it's thawed a bit, which made going out for a friend's Ph.D. graduation party feel fun instead of daunting, and which has made the river flow more openly. I even switched to a parka instead of my boot-length down coat!

But the weekend itself has been pretty gray, a bit foggy at times. Good napping weather.

Where have I been? Stacking up small stones.

2011-01-24T23:25:00.021-06:00

My January challenge to do a "small stone" each day (moment captured in language) is coming along nicely- take a peek.

Having fun with small stones

2011-01-04T22:41:00.001-06:00

I accepted a challenge to write a "small stone" each day in January, and so far have done so. For more info about this challenge, see the notice at the right.

It's unexpectedly - challenging! (The point is to actually pay close attention, at least one moment during the day, and describe it in words.)

I happened upon this challenge at Mel's place - she's doing it too.

Write Hard / Die Free

2010-12-30T18:28:00.000-06:00

I am just now catching my breath from the Christmas part of the holidays. Last-minute shopping, wrapping, delivering, unwrapping, and feeding has taken place. My son Tim, living in NYC, has come and gone for a quick visit (dropped off at the airport at 6:00 a.m. this morning). The University made the decision to be closed over this whole week, though faculty and academic staff have ostensibly been working from home. I have done some email, and have some other projects I'll try to get to tomorrow, but I'm likely not to have much to show for myself work-wise for this week. There is still some smoked salmon left over for tonight in the refrigerator, and I'm feeling no urgency.

My favorite present came early, perhaps intended partly as a birthday present, from my youngest brother in Alaska. Here it is:

Actual size less than an inch wide - with a hook to use it as a zipper pull. It's a riff on a Hells Angels motto, and I'm delighted to have it.

I'm never quite as much alive as when I am writing, though meditation is good to do as well. Writing brings me back to a sense of being myself, irreducible, unchanging at the core. It helps me dive below the flotsam and jetsam at the surface to what lies below. I think I've been waiting for things to clear on their own, instead of pushing aside the surface distractions to reconnect with what is important.

I've been spending the last couple of days, in between things, catching up on some blogs, and being inspired once again to clear my throat and and find voice for my thoughts and observations.

Let this be my New Year's endeavor to Write Free, to write freely, to be free to write, to free up the writing.

Addendum: if any of you are particularly interested in an online writing community (fiction, poetry, and more) particularly oriented to young adults (or writers with young adult readers in mind), check out Figment. I've recently spent a couple of late evenings browsing among the posted writings, some by published authors trying out new material, and some by unpublished young writers looking for feedback.

Autumn visit to Idaho

2010-10-02T23:01:00.000-05:00

I didn't get a summer vacation trip this year, but I did take a short autumn trip to Idaho last week - more like summer, as it turned out, with heat in the mid to upper 80s all week. But the shadows were long, morning and afternoon, and the evening came early. My younger brothers were down from Alaska, each of them for a month but overlapping for the week I was there. My older brother and younger sister live in Idaho, so the five of us were all there for the first time in several years. Our parents are amazingly fit - little change over the past decades, with their travel and church involvement and keeping up a very attractive house. But they are in their 80s, which is hard to believe.

I found myself with an odd double-vision - seeing my brothers and sister as young when they are, at least chronologically, middle-aged at the very least. My parents seem unchanging, and I feel very much my youngish, unformed self when I am there.

The time passed too quickly. I was back in Minnesota before I had a chance to have any real insights into the big questions of time passing, love and yearning and loss. I also didn't get quite caught up on my sleep while I was there, then was propelled into rapid motion for the rest of the work week when I returned.

It's full-bore autumn back here in Minnesota. I watched a swirling mass of leaves torn from the trees yesterday on campus. For some reason it came as a big surprise.

And the neighbors are already decorating for Halloween.

Gee - where have I been all my life?

2010-09-17T13:27:00.000-05:00

Well - I'm back. Sorry it's been a while since I've showed up in this place. When I was wondering what I could say about the quickly-vanished summer, it felt as though there wasn't much there that I could even remember, and I haven't laid down much of a bread-crumb trail of photos. Lots of fun with our curly, snuggly dog, certainly. A couple days of vacation here and there, mostly used in sleeping. Reading/listening to some cool books (the star event was The Yiddish Policemen's Union - now, that was amazing).

The main event has been another in the long repeated-earthquake-series changes in my workplace, but they say that's the new normal. I have a new boss and a new office (which has, however, the same view over the playground across the street).

My colleagues are mostly the same. My duties haven't changed much (some responsibilities gone, some added).

I've been wondering if external change is so exhausting because there's so much internal change that I'm not quite conscious of, in this year-I'm-pushing-60. Sounds - and feels - so old, right now. (No offense meant to those of you comfortably past that benchmark.)

I just did a google image search on the phrase, and the slogan below popped up several times. I guess that's the next stage to contemplate.

As the days go by. . .

2010-06-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

Same as it ever was . . .
Same as it ever was . . .

I had one of those poor-pitiful-me spates of feeling the time was just flipping by too dang fast today, so turned to trusty ol' Google to try to find what my memory wouldn't cough up in a hurry, that Talking Heads video about the futility of our Western way of life, or whatever it was about, that's haunted (and amused) me for some years. But I couldn't remember the name of the group or the song, or any of the lyrics. Putting in "Eighties Rock Music," and checking down the list of the first site I came to, I quickly found Talking Heads and equally quickly found a copy of the video.

What always worked for me with this song was the undercurrent of the water running underground - from archetypal/Jungian work, it's been my image of the Unconscious, which is the source of being/consciousness itself, as well as the source of all creativity.

This is a concert version rather than the original music video - I've enabled the privacy setting.

This evening's hour of journal writing - which is always good for me - and also finding, through a link to the first T.H. video, a blog by a young woman who writes against violence (and just today linked to a disturbing, recently-released MIA video imagining a fascist state rounding up and killing red-headed young men) - I'm feeling somewhat better about life, the universe, and everything. Pushing 60 doesn't need to mean, as it did for my very much loved grandmother, giving up on everything I've ever dreamed about and imploding to late-in-life cancer. There are spiritual and intellectual and imaginative adventures (and works) still before me.

But it's also the case that hanging onto any fantasy of Making A Big Difference in the world is increasingly obvious as a big waste of time.

The Shaker hymn has it right: by turning, turning, we come round right.

Back to where we began, to know it truly for the first time. Which is in my case, an arid land of mountains and sagebrush. (A big contrast to this rainy, rainy Minnesota green dripping place these past weeks.)

When the rain started (again) tonight, I had a series of quick memories of rainstorms coming through my mountain city in my girlhood, which was often a blessing - the drama of the building stormclouds, the echoes rocking back and forth, and lashing rain, and the cleansed, sparkling, cooled-down freshness after the storm had blown itself out. These could come and go in an hour's time. It always made me feel excited and secure, at the same time, summer storms. None of the endless stickiness of this high humidity.

Perhaps I need to do some digging back and find the day-dreaming, hopeful girl I was (and still am), so I can ask the question: where do I want to go, with the arc of years ahead of me?

Before . . . and after . . .

2010-05-16T20:07:00.000-05:00

Before . . .

. . . and after:

Happy spring, from Charlie the Dog.

Happy Friday on a cool but sunny mid-May day!

2010-05-14T17:53:00.002-05:00

I'm still experimenting with my blog layout and have picked one of my May Day parade photos for now behind the title.

Breathe: a good reminder for the end of an unusually hectic week, no?

Yesterday, which was chilly and rainy, my colleagues and I were helpers at our college Commencement ceremony. Because of the rain, we were forced to line students up along the basement corridors of Northrup Auditorium, using some ancient practice rooms to get people to fill out their name cards and put on their robes and (for the masters-level grads) their hoods, an archaic bit of velvet and silk that is a bit tricky to get on right (it needs to be pinned in the front if you aren't a male graduate, in which case the loop for your shirt button works; and it needs to be draped right, with the silk side pulled out at the bottom, but not too much). Helping with the hoods allowed us to give people a bit of a reassuring pat, as they nervously fumbled with their caps and tassels and bobby pins and such.

These adult masters-level graduates were, it seemed, suddenly very young and shaky. Starting something new, something unknown. The energy is always amazing at these events. Something about ceremony touches us deeply.

One young graduate, rushing through at the very last minute, left something precious on the table - a plastic bag with a certificate of cremation and a clay paw print of her recently deceased dog. We could only speculate that she was bringing the spirit of a beloved long-time companion animal with her through this transition in her life. Fortunately, the student's name and address was on the package, so I went back to my office after the graduates were safely delivered to the auditorium and hunted down her phone number and e-mail address. Early today, I got a response - she had gone back hunting for this lost memento, and was pleased that I had kept it safe for her.

I had the sense that there was a story to be told about this beloved pet, but can only speculate about the loss coming right at the point of completing this difficult task of a masters' degree.

May she fare well in her new professional life.

How do you like my new stretchy layout?

2010-05-11T14:04:00.001-05:00

I've chosen a new template - I will do some customization of it, but I'm wondering how you like it so far. The main difference is that the main column isn't a fixed width, which allows for bigger photos / slide shows to be embedded.

I think the text font and size are pretty much the same as my old format. Is the text readable enough?

Do I need a photo or design behind the title?

Here's the slide show I couldn't figure out for last year's fourth of July photos (refresh the page to restart the slide show):

Magical May Day Merriment in Minneapolis

2010-05-08T15:57:00.013-05:00

I love my city, though I don't always remember this. Last weekend was the annual MayDay Parade and Pageant, orchestrated by the Powderhorn Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater. A community-based event, this is 1970s hippydom come mature, embracing the diversity of the core city. It is also a renaissance of ancient, earth-based celebrations such as Beltane - modernized to take in contemporary issues and visions.

I'm trying an experiment with putting in a slide show of the parade and the later Powderhorn Park pageant and festival.

Parade first (refresh the page to start the slide show):

Cool! That seems to work!

In the park, it was a festive atmosphere as I threaded my way through the throngs of people, and found a spot on the hillside to watch the pageant. The best view was from high in the tree ahead of us, but I could see what was happening. The drama was more mythic than some years, and less political: the burdened people (coming in with huge rocks on their backs, while the narrators shouted out in Spanish and English all of the negativity that we carry in our heads) were transformed/released by some bird-headed figures, then the forces of nature (river, woods, plains, and sky) along with the Tree of Life, welcomed back the sun - which arrived in a red canoe, paddling to the drumbeats. Before the sun's return, the Tree of Life did a lovely pavane with the figure of death, gave herself in to dying - then was raised anew in her summer splendor.

The rest of the photos are the festival after the pageant, as I moved back through the happy folks, looking at food booths and cause booths and displays on the grass and many, many people. (Again, refresh the page to restart.)

At the end, I walked many blocks to my car (past the flowering yards of the Powderhorn neighborhood) and did a photo of my shadow.

From MayDay Pageant at Powderhorn

A long, and magical day.

More blossoming trees - what do we need to bloom?

2010-04-26T00:01:00.003-05:00

I have had a very reflective weekend (in addition to getting some quality-length naps). On Thursday, on the way to work, I found a new crop of flowering trees - crab apples, I guess, with a rich, deep color and very sweet smell. They must have just popped out in bloom.

Lilacs are starting up too - it's been slow and easy in the past couple of cooler, rainy days.

None of this has happened before in April here in the north-lands, in my recollection. But even though it raises fears of global warming, this mild month of early, slow, exquisite spring has been a blessing. Previous springs have seemed to flash by in a week's time.

Now - what will it take for us to bloom? For me to bloom?

Flowering trees - spring bursting out in blossom

2010-04-20T22:37:00.001-05:00

I wrote a little post this morning in my pocket-sized notebook as I rode on the bus - but left it at work. (I'll try to retrieve it tomorrow and add it below.) The first shot (from my phone camera) was out the window of the bus, as I watched in amazement all of the blossoming trees lining the city streets. It seems this just happened overnight! Or I haven't been paying attention.

= = = = = = = = =

The morning post: The trees have been leafing out and budding for two weeks - many still half-emerged, as cool nights have slowed what in "normal" May springs seems to take about three days in total. This slower pace allows me to notice and marvel at each new manifestation - yesterday, a swath of royal red tulips along the sidewalk on the way to the student health center, where I do yoga on Mondays. They were glowing with life's intensity, each quite perfect and fresh, no sagging yet of any petaled cup. I longed for my camera, but didn't have it. (See camera photo below taken the next day.)

Internal weather: not as spring-y. I attended a talk by two university V.P.s on the attitudes and approaches we need for the "new normal" of unending fiscal emergency. We're not alone, they assured us. We need to reinvent the university continually by unleasing creativity, by constantly asking we we do things as we do. But - this group was the choir they were preaching to - a joint meeting of grass-roots profssionals (communicators and project managers) who are working for personal and institutional improvement - and none of us has tenure. Academic culture is hard to change, and our employment class (neither faculty nor unionized civil service) makes us the most vulnerable to cutbacks. Still, a historic first: the faculty voted for a 1.3 percent cutback of their salaries (and ours too) for the year to avoid deeper staff cuts.

The trees dopwntown as I ride an extra-early bus to work, are flowering everywhere - a promise of the abundance and power of planetary life. May your spring days bring renewal and hope, energy and strength, gladness and peace.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

More from the day: on my walk to the office, I got up close to some blossoming trees. They smell wonderful.

In the afternoon, on the way back from a meeting, I took a side trip to revisit the tulips I had seen the day before. They are still close to perfect.

I had to take this picture too, because daffodils last so short a time.

In the evening, we visited the wildflower garden - this time, I had my camera, which allowed me to take some lovely close-up pictures. Some day, I will learn how to embed a slide show of a series of photos into the blog. (Reya does this from time to time, most recently here, and I've always admired it. It appears to be a PhotoBucket thing.)

Click on these - what are they? marsh-marigolds? - and see them shine.

Spring days in our city of lakes

2010-04-10T21:56:00.001-05:00

Spring is an amazing season here in the City of Lakes, in the State of 10,000 lakes. In recent years, I haven't spent much time doing what a large percentage of the population is doing every weekend, which is to stroll around one or another of our lovely lakes. Back in the day, a very left-leaning governor (Floyd B. Olson, I believe) was instrumental in keeping the lakeside and riverside properties within the Minneapolis city limits as public parklands. It certainly has made our city liveable.

So today, we visited for the first time one of the city parks off-leash areas, where dogs can be dogs and people can enjoy them. We have been going to an indoor dog-play hour each week, so that Charlie can become socialized. Today, in the dog park, he was more active and social than he's been in that indoor setting, so we'll certainly return. (He had particular fun with a young and speedy dachshund, racing around the park.)

So - two photos taken afterward, as we joined our fellow Minneapolitans on a Saturday early evening stroll along the Lake of the Isles shore:

The first is looking across to one of the little islands nestled in this lake.

Next, a view of Charlie (that's Peter on the other end of the leash) - Charlie still pulls ahead on the leash despite being in Level Three dog training. He'll walk by my side if I have treats in my hand, but we haven't gotten it to a point of doing so when out on a walk. Nor have I gotten him to stop jumping up on people (including a very tiny but intrepid little girl this evening).

Happy Vernal Days!

2010-03-22T17:52:00.001-05:00

Catching up to the rest of the country - happy vernal days!

Our transition from winter to early spring happened rather abruptly, over just a few days. We went from this...

to this...

in the space of four or five days. The melting ice and snow sent a steady stream down the gutters all week. Temperatures rose above freezing - then into the 40s - then 50s - then 60s, just for a couple of days.

It's much cooler now, but still more like April than March.

In Minnesota, weather is a never-failing subject for conversation. Perhaps it is everywhere, but it seems especially so here. What if the global warming means we aren't subject to the same degree of suffering? Would that weaken our character, make us less prepared for stark, life-threatening emergencies?

But I love the sun and cool-touched warmth anyway. It lifts my spirits, gives me energy enough to work without flagging through the days, takes me outside with the dog for longer and longer walks. Happy spring to you all.

Even a little bit helps

2010-02-21T10:01:00.000-06:00

Feeling a bit sheepish by revisiting junior high school the other day, I spent time on the bus ride to work the next day in meditation - not too ambitious, following breath, inwardly repeating the mantra I got from reading Eat, Pray, Love (Om Namah Shivaya). I had recognized this was playing on a recording at my yoga class last Monday, and Holly (the wonderful yoga instructor) said it was directed to Shiva, which pleased me to hear. During the bus ride, I was conscious of the chant being praise to the Source, and also a means of accepting and appreciating the creation and the dissolution of everything encountered, inside and outside of myself.

The long and the short of it: things went better. I felt in synch with the day- I use the word "attunement," which brings up the image of the orchestra players at the beginning of any performance making sure their instruments are in tune with each other, with the music to be played. With no greater effort during the day, I was able to sense when to contribute to conversations and when to listen in (yet again) a meeting of fellow student services administrative types. I remembered to eat lunch. I noticed more of the flowing experiences around me, rather than being locked in my head. No great revelations, here, just a reminder of the need for rudimentary psychic housekeeping.

(The image is a crystal I bought at a rock show - I was searching the Web for images of meditation and thought, I should show something of my own. If you hold it just right, there are rainbows in this little orb - I think the picture caught that a bit if you enlarge by clicking.)

My comings and my goings (to work)

2010-02-16T13:49:00.002-06:00

(Going to work in the morning - our building is ahead.)

My day is framed by crossing and then re-crossing over the Mississippi River. That has been true for many years, but is very apparent now that I am walking over the river instead of zipping by car or bus over on a bridge that is continuous with the road, with time for an idle glance to the river bank in its changing seasons.

But now that I can see the river many times a day as I pass along the bank of windows in the corridor of our third-story office suite, I am more and more conscious of the river and its ecosystem as a presence in my life. Campus to the east of the river; downtown Minneapolis to the west of the river; my home on the other side of downtown.

I wish (sigh) that I had gotten one of the three administrative offices facing the river instead of mine with a side-window looking at the edge of the riverbank (those folks get to watch the wheeling eagle who nests somewhere along the bank). On the other hand, perhaps I would gaze too often, and get lost in reverie.

(A late work day ends - view of walk bridge from the window.)

(After hours - nighttime view of walk bridge and city.)

Why DO I blog?

2010-02-12T09:15:00.004-06:00

A lovely young woman in my Twin Cities Friends Meeting is putting together an article for our monthly newsletter on the bloggers in our Quaker community, and sent some questions for us to ponder and reply to. I found myself writing a bit more than she really asked for (which was an answer to at least one of her questions), so thought I'd post the whole thing here. Why DO I blog?

- When did you start blogging & why did you start blogging?

I started blogging a little over a year ago, with a blog that was so well hidden that nobody ever found it. A couple of months later, I started a new one, and later merged in the entries from the first one.

My purpose was two-fold: to get writing again, and (with the first blog) to reflect on my spiritual process/discoveries/concerns. The second blog was less focused in topic, so includes descriptions of what’s going on in my life, with my family, etc. I also bought a small camera so I could take pictures on the fly and post them, as that seemed to be an attractive feature of blogs I liked.

- How often do you post & what keeps you blogging?

I post at least every month, sometimes closer to every week – usually not any oftener than that. I keep posting because it satisfies that initial urge to express what’s important in my experience. Increasingly, I also feel myself to be in dialogue with others, as I get readers who comment on my posts. (I also do a fair amount of commenting on the blogs that I particularly like, when I have time.)

- What is it you like about blogging?

It’s becoming a community. Actually, it’s two communities for me, as I have a group of Quaker blogs I follow and comment on, and a group of “other” blogs – many interested in some of the same life-issues and political issues as my Quaker bloggers.

- How has blogging affected your life?

I feel guilty when I get too busy to blog, partly because I want to be a participating part of the blogging community, and partly because I miss out on that reflection and expression that are important to me.

- What is your advice for people who are thinking about blogging?

What I told myself as I plunged in: don’t think, just write. Don’t stop to wonder who will read it, what they will think of you, whether you are worthy, etc. etc. – just write. Take pictures or find them on the Web, if that makes it more fun, but don’t feel you have to. Dress up your blog or not – it doesn’t matter. It’s also really a plus if you take time to read others’ blogs and respond to those that speak to you, as it increases the likelihood that you will have interested readers responding to your ideas.

And don’t start measuring your worth by the number of comments you get, or anything – there may be readers who don’t have time to comment, but are really appreciating your writing. In the final analysis, though, you are Writing in the Light – finding words to connect, share, celebrate what is important to you, and may be life-giving (or at least thought-provoking) for others.

Blessed Bride's Day

2010-02-02T21:02:00.006-06:00

I noticed on several blogs recently (here is a collection) that there was an open poetry posting invitation for St. Brigid's day. (Reya started it!) While I wasn't (initially) energized enough to find some poetry to post, I did some reflection on the bus this morning about what this day could stand for, speculating on what it meant historically. When I got to my office and peeked at Wikipedia, I found I wasn't far off. I'll share my morning reflections and a couple of surprising points about the day. (Then I did dig up a poem from about this time of year several years ago.)

First, the picture above: it was taken - believe it or not - at *five* *o'clock* *in* *the* *afternoon*. Unthinkable, not too long ago, that there would still be sun visible as I trudged over the snow-covered walk bridge spanning the Mississippi River (that curves right behind my workplace building - one of the best views in town).

My reflection this morning on the bus was about how I was feeling a new stirring of energy, not just faith in the promise of new life that is the hallmark of the Solstice / Christmas, but a real stirring of the real thing - new energy, new ideas starting to stir, starting to spark. The new light is becoming strong enough to keep the cold spells shorter, and start melting the new snow pretty quickly. Yesterday, a light snow fell all through the afternoon into the late evening, accumulating a couple of inches of sparkles, which I waded through to the bus this morning. By this evening, it had started to melt, and lacked much of the fluffiness. (But it was still excellent for the folks down the nearby hill where there are miles of cross-country ski paths and a great big hill for sledding. You could hear the distant, happy cries from my corner.)

What Wikipedia told me was very consistent with my reflections: St. Brigid's Day, or Imbolc, is the mid-point between the Solstice and the Equinox. Christianized, it is Candlemas, which is consistent with the theme in earlier time of the stirring light. The name "Imbolc" has to do with the ewes getting ready to lamb - apparently they start lactating before giving birth. Brigid (before becoming a Christian nun and saint) was a goddess of healing, poetry, and - get this - smith craft. According to Wikipedia, celebrations included hearth fires and candles, "divination and watching for omens." Wikipedia suggested that our Groundhog's Day is an echo of ancient folktales of the hedgehog seeing its shadow, or the hag having a bright day to gather more firewood, determining that we will have more winter.

Well, as you can see by my afternoon photo, we had sunshine today, so I guess we're in it for a while longer yet. Even so, the returning light will make it easier to pick up my steps, focus my mind, sustain my attention, and feel less like I have a head full of Swiss cheese (with holes where my memory should be).

And now for some poetry after all - after (literally) dusting off a stack of little hard-bound record books I kept for that purpose some years back. Er - more than ten years back, I find to my surprise.

2/1 (some years back - and I typed this from the handwritten record of a remembered dream without re-reading it first)

Leaving the mother's house

The house of my childhood
and really, my house
that I live in now
is caving in.

Stuck by lightning!
or some natural
stroke
of disaster.

I can hear the beams crumble
off elsewhere in the house
this hallway seems solid
for now
my mother's room
an odd, unused door
an odd, unused closet
has a quick robe for me

to be expelled, willy nilly
out into the cold
from my mother's house
nothing but a robe!
I pause, though,
to rummage through her things.

The jewel-box on the dresser -
can't find it -
I take beads,
great-grandmother's handkerchiefs
I worry her heart
will be broken
to lose it all.

I pause to hustle
my friends away
from their card games
and Monopoly -
no time for leisure.

I am so hesitant to go,
then I reassure myself
surely
we can come back later
when it's all over and done
and pick through the pieces

surely the jewels,
the small, precious memories
will still be there
for mining.
But this house
is no longer
a habitation
half-wrecked, crumbling
even if it should stand
we must pull it down
it's unstable.

And now, I wonder,
what this house is
what it means
that I have lived there
all along.

And now, I wonder
will the neighbors help me
in the night and cold
if I show up
in this ancient, musty bathrobe?
(My pockets stuffed
with my mother's keepsakes.)

How could I go on
working, living, making progress
with nothing to my name?

If I must leave
my mother's house
the house of the mother
the mothering house
the unchanging house

where I live as mothers do

how will I live?

how will I act,
if not as a mother
acting as all mothers act?

How will I work
if I live somewhere else -

Is mothering just a job
and not my dwelling place?

But there's no time
to preserve, linger,
wonder, second-guess -
shock! the building cracks
and pieces crash and fall
it's time to go now!

(illustration from Wikipedia on Imbolc - not labeled except Stonehenge, sunrise)

Self-Hood and No-Self - or who's in there anyway?

2010-01-23T15:00:00.005-06:00

(Picture taken by my mini-computer.)

It's raining, raining - turning all that snow into sullen gray mush. (It will all freeze solid tonight, though.) It's actually quite dangerous walking around out there, as some of the sidewalks are water on top of ice.

I've been thinking about "self-hood" and the idea of "no-self" in Buddhist thought. The aim of mindfulness training is to extinguish the illusion that we are someone in particular, rather than an endless series of conditioned actions and reactions. Coming to this awareness is coolness instead of heat, openness instead of constriction. But it doesn't feel all that appealing to me, or rather, flies in the face of the effort to find voice and establish a sense of personhood that many, especially women, have been engaged in. (And which is the sub-text of many blogs - why else the frequent memes of "25 secrets" and such?)

Perhaps we need to have a solid sense of self before we can let go of it?

Another stopping place in my mind for this Buddhist understanding is the insight from parenting that the person-hood of my children was there from the beginning - they never felt like unfolding buds of potential humanity, but as fully present selves at whatever stage they were. And it always seemed to me that they had a strong engine of internally-generated action, rather than being molded from the outside.

How can we love each other as random collections of conditioned action and reaction?

On this point, I rather prefer the Judeo/Christian/Islamic understanding of the creation of individuals as unique and lovable. There are other Western doctrines I'm not as fond of, certainly. (And I readily confess that this "no-self" concept is much more complex than I'm presenting it.)

At least Siddhārtha Gautama kept it clear that none of his doctrines were themselves actuality - just pointers to experiencing and understanding from the inside. That I can completely agree with.

Thanks, blogging companions

2010-01-18T17:46:00.009-06:00

I've had the happy fortune to have had two days largely spent in rest and reflection, thanks to the car acting up and my trusty mechanics at Gorshe Auto not having time to work on it today (AND it being a holiday from work). Today I read through the blog entries for the year. I hadn't realized it had been a year - one that started with a secret blog (on spirituality), which I merged later on after I started this one, in a lighthearted mood one day. As I remember it, starting up the first one was a pretty big deal at this time last year - a ray of light and hopefulness in a fairly bleak period of time. I'm glad I loosened up, though, and found a balance of daily life along with more intense reflections.

It's been a highlight of my year, writing this blog, and especially finding others out there in the Hamlet of Blogville to be blogging companions.

What did I learn from re-reading my blogs?

How many weeks blurred by in a workaholic fog . . .

How I celebrated my elderly dog, Rufus, creaking along for so many months in his late life, and how hard it was to let him go . . .

How much fun it was to buy my new pocket-sized Nikon and try it out (reminder to self: I should carry it around more of the time, to catch life happening around me). . .

What fun it was to travel, and to share the beauties of my home state of Idaho (and more here) . . .

How besotted I could get over a curly young pup . . .

And, perhaps most importantly, that writing is a form of mindfulness for me, and it helps to bring me most fully alive. Also, that it is writing in the context of a community, especially a multi-generational community of women.

Here's to a new year of blogging. I might even try writing some more static sketches to post in my "other" blog, "More about me (than you wanted to know)."

Flash! Just found that this blog is now the first hit when I Google "is there anyone else up there" . . . fame!

Bye for now - and thanks!

Now, in the new year

2010-01-17T13:55:00.007-06:00

(Sound track today: Graceland, by Anonymous 4. Sorry - I don't know how to post sound files, but there are samples at the link.)

I've just spent an hour or two rereading a series of writing exercises I did a bit more than a year ago. This was a process outlined in a book I found in a church basement sale (where I also got four little matching bone-china plates with vines etched around their rims): Writing the Mind Alive: The Propriaceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice.

In brief, the method involves a 30-minute span of time, writing while listening to music by Bach, a candle flame burning nearby, employing an approach of writing-while-listening to the thin trail of the most authentic possible inner voice, asking (and answering) from time to time the question, "What do I mean by . . . ".

What I wrote about, over and over (through the four months that Peter and I did this exercise sporadically together, often late in the evening, at the dining room table) was my long-standing question of life purpose, or purposes, I guess. I reflected on the core tension of my life, haunted by a yearning to be a writer but instead plunged into the more public/pragmatic work of raising a family, working with students and student services administrative apparatus, along with part-time teaching. Throughout has been the quest for a spiritual path and commitment to my Quaker community - which is another way of saying, a search for the Divine.

In the wavering but faithful light of these months of reflective, candlelit writing, it became clear that the compartments of my life were still one life, and at the core was the question of attention - of being aware, of being wholly present, in whichever activity I engage in.

Today, I made the decision to stay home from Meeting or shopping or other errands that would require me to drive, as the pump that supports the power steering in the car is beginning to fail. I'll take the car in to be fixed as soon as I can. I had a fearful fantasy of having the power steering fail and trying to wrestle the un-powered steering wheel on my way to or from activities today, and decided to let the car sit.

Perhaps what I really needed, this last weekend before the spring semester starts at the University, is to finally take some concentrated time reflecting on this year's turning from the deepest dark to the slowly strengthening light of a infant spring. Now that I am really "pushing 60" - or at least willing to accept it - what might change? Is it time to let go of the tensions that held me for so many years: the pull between creative introversion and competent outward activity? What's next?

Part of me, inevitably, feels this reflection is self-indulgent - well-known voices from childhood onward, no doubt, pushing me to productive activity, instead of wallowing in whatever feeling or fantasy has captured my attention. But long years of the inner-outer dance have taught me of the importance of pulling myself out of the usual round of activities, of taking some time to gather the threads together, to recognize patterns, to discern the next steps.

Writing does seem to be part of the enduring pattern. It is one way I have of celebrating the gifts of my life - the weak but growing sunlight on the tired snowbanks outside; my family of origin (some now down in Baja, Mexico, basking in the stronger sun); my tawny, curly, inadequately trained little pooch; my life companion upstairs napping. Both the inward quest and the outward bustle are gifts to me, in their faithful constancy. Music is a gift. Friendship - a gift I don't reach for enough. The gift of sleep. The gift of reasonable health and strength. All of it - given over and over, changing and slipping away, renewed past hope. The life I am carried along by, more than orchestrating. I do create within this life, but I am also more a witness to its flow, its unexpected or long-predicted turns and tumbles. So let me let go of fears to flow most joyfully, most open-heartedly, in this cascade of time and turning years.

Here's something from Gloryland - sums it up: "SAINT’S DELIGHT" (lyrics Isaac Watts.

When I can read my title clear
To mansions in the skies,
I’ll bid farewell to ev’ry fear,
And wipe my weeping eyes.

I feel like, I feel like I’m on my journey home,
I feel like, I feel like I’m on my journey home.

Should earth against my soul engage,
And fiery darts be hurled,
Then I can smile at Satan’s rage
And face a frowning world.

I feel like, I feel like I’m on my journey home,
I feel like, I feel like I’m on my journey home.

There I shall bathe my weary soul
In seas of heav’nly rest,
And not a wave of trouble roll,
Across my peaceful breast.

I feel like, I feel like I’m on my journey home,
I feel like, I feel like I’m on my journey home.

Over the hill - or turning a corner?

2009-12-25T10:57:00.007-06:00

(last visit to Wildflower Garden - click to expand.)

Most of my adult life, I've held a belief that there was purpose and direction to my life, and that there were reasonably dependable ways of tuning in to what I needed to do to move forward. Meditation, journaling, prayer (as in, holding the issue in the Light and waiting for discernment, as the Quakers would put it), consulting with friends, and occasional coin-tossing for I Ching readings have played a part. For many years, a reasonably faithful practice of dream recall and reflection provided an important source of tracing out the underground streams of energy and movement that often were running in opposition to my conscious intentions.

However, recent directions of life change have been less clear to me. Rather than finding the clues and then following them, it's been more that I'm finding myself making the changes, and only then seeing what the new patterns and energies look like.

Over the years, I've chosen to compromise, in many ways, with the underground currents that I discerned. Perhaps I wasn't brave enough to plunge into the Wild Mind to fully develop my writing (see Natalie Goldberg's book, which I'm re-reading), or disciplined enough to develop the spiritual muscles to become a dependable channel of healing energy in the world. I've earned a living, though, doing useful work that benefits society, or at least does very little harm, and I've provided a container that allowed my two sons to stay who they are becoming, with (I hope) not too many nasty recordings of my worried nagging voice looping in their brains. They are both actively creative, too. They will inherit my challenge of how to make a living and keep that creative self alive.

I'm feeling retrospective-ish, right now, because I feel that my recent birthday - turning 59 - marks turning a corner - and, in a way, a decision to start going downhill, rather than continuing to climb uphill in my job.

In my workplace, I shifted three years ago from being an academic adviser with some administrative duties (some years, fairly heavy ones) to doing administrative work entirely, supporting the direct service of my colleagues. In this new role, I have also supervised a small group of support staff. However, I had applied for and had not been offered the "other job" - of directing the advising unit and supervising the advisers. This last August, the advising associate director position was vacated. We've been scrambling somewhat ever since, and I've pitched in to cover some duties, but eventually we got permission (there's a hiring freeze on at my university) to replace this position within a new structure.

Ever since August, I was clear about seeing this advising associate director as the next step for me, and only recently began to question it. By the time the position was actually posted recently, to my surprise, the job no longer felt like it had my name on it. I didn't apply. Why not?

It's really connected to some underground shift in how I perceive myself. I begin to see the value of letting younger people step into positions that offer them a good stretch, a place to grow. But growing in this public, collective, external way seems to hold less appeal for me. And I feel I can let go because I begin to trust I can contribute in other ways than in being the person in charge. I can mentor others without being their boss. I can put more energy into the committee work I'm doing, some of which directly impacts the values of diversity and inclusion that have been core for me in my career.

And I can turn some of my (increasingly diminishing) energy back to my house and home, my family, my health, my own creativity.

In early November, when we stood in line to check out at the Humane Society with Charlie in his brand-new red harness clipped to one of our old leashes, I felt like I was walking through a door into something new. I didn't feel "this is jolly fun" - but rather a certain amount of sadness and even some fear. I recognized this was a somewhat different path than what I had been thinking I was on - one that held me on a leash, too, of needing to re-balance work and home. I knew at some level that this new situation would put limits on me, bring me down to earth. Also, that this new completely dependent curly bit of embodied life-force would bring care, worry, even sadness into my life. But I knew it was a good decision, and I was right. Now, Charlie is firmly fixed at the heart of our family unit (except that Tim hasn't met him yet), and is droll and winning and so danged cute, 24/7. When I wake up, he springs up from his cushion next to the bed ready for me to stumble to the front door to let him out to pee. He tends to be within a few feet range at all times, sleeping or chewing his rawhide bone, or inviting me to pick him up for napping on my lap. He seems to like it here. He gets us out of doors in all kinds of weather. He did a great job at keeping Ben from panicking with his late-semester crunch. Peter has decided our goal for Christmas day is to get ourselves cleaned up and take a holiday greeting card photo with Charlie on our laps.

Well - looking out the window this Christmas morning, I see another onslaught of the three-day-snowstorm is kicking in. Last night, instead of 5-6 inches of the fluffy white, we got 2-3 inches of slush, because it warmed up enough to be rain mixed with the snow. Heavy stuff! We stayed home all day yesterday (except for slogging around the block with the dog, looking at all the picture-postcard houses with festive lights in the snow), and will stay home again today. I'm forced to really see the clutter in the house. Perhaps I'll have some energy to tackle it.

May the holidays bring us all back to what is essential in our lives. May we take some time to breathe in the spark of awakening light and allow it to fill our dark and constricted places. May the new year's path open up us, and may we tread our unique paths gladly and surely, trusting in the wisdom of what we cannot see.

It's a lamb - no, it's a dog - it's - Super Charlie!

2009-12-22T18:34:00.007-06:00

Hmm . . . I wonder . . .

Is it a lamb? Or . . .

maybe it's a dog!

(His eyes don't usually glow like torchlights, though . . . )

I'm saving up the more ponderous reflections about My Life for another post. In brief: taking a few days off; finished my course grading; haven't taken in the solstice yet; house in great need of cleaning; youngest Young Adult Son squeaking through his finals (he moved home to get some support for the last couple of weeks); and . . . I'm choosing not to apply for the job opening in my office that would be a logical next step up the ladder, if I needed to climb any more ladders. Maybe I don't.

I think getting Charlie was some kind of statement to myself that there is life outside the office.

I'll write more when I'm rested up! Happy turn of the year into the Light!

This just in - new family member.

2009-11-21T00:00:00.005-06:00

I've not been in the blog'o'sphere for some time lately - it just occurred to me today how much I've been missing some folks. Also, without some reflective writing, I end up feeling a bit too much like my days are calendar pages flipping past in a strong wind. BUT I have news to share - a recent somewhat impulsive trip to the Humane Society resulted in being captivated by our newest family member, Charlie.

The tag said "red poodle mix" but we've come to believe he's a gold-colored Pootalian (or Italian Poohound?). We first thought he was poodle mixed with Martian, but some YouTube footage of Italian Greyhound pups does make his heritage clear. It's most obvious when he's outside on a walk. The vet we took him to for his free check-up came to the same conclusion.

He's the sweetest little long-legged lapdog ever, and seems totally willing to love anything alive (not tested on cats or squirrels, though).

We're keeping Charlie in his kennel when we're gone during the day and also at night, which is the one thing he is most unhappy about, not because he doesn't like being there in general, but because I'm off in the other room (and not allowing him to sleep on my bed, which he has discovered to be the nicest place around). That's hard. But I have enough trouble getting good-quality sleep that I can't risk having that disturbed.

I'm not comfortable, in the long run, keeping him on the commercial food that came with him, as he has frequent sneezing fits and may have somewhat itchy skin (licking though not chewing his feet) - so I've spent some time reading up on people's internet conversations about pet food and allergies. Will do some shopping for an alternative this weekend. Any suggestions? I've certainly read lots of opposing opinions out there on the internet! Don't think I'm quite up for the raw-food diet, though we did some of that with Rufus when he stopped being willing to eat anything commercially prepared (except some of the pricier whole-food types of canned food).

I'll take some more pictures of Charlie in action so you can see his arched back and perky ears. He's beginning to get some fur back (they had clipped him pretty much to the skin - which worried me with winter coming on and all). (Oh - and I bought a little kid vest at a used clothes store and stitched some tucks in it so he has a little lumpy jacket for the chilliest days.) Besotted?

What happened to fall?

2009-10-12T12:28:00.005-05:00

A surprise snow shower has loaded the still-green leaves with a soppy burden this morning (this is a cell-phone pic from my office window - see the little wet playground at the left). What happened to fall?

Fortunately, I had hurried off to Emit Shoes last Saturday (a little store that sells overstock shoes out of big cardboard bins) to buy some cheap waterproof boots ($10.95) and some shoes that aren't my usual Chaco sandals - and found some $20 Earth shoes that fit. I love a bargain!

I'm very aware these last two weeks how much a spacious, airy workspace adds to my general happiness at work. Walking down the hall to the elevator or 'facilities,' I see the Mississippi River expanse and downtown Minneapolis open up all along the windowed corridor - one of the best views in town. Cut off from even the view of the weather and trees all summer, I felt like an underground troll, and it was easy to have the whole summer season pass by me only half aware. I know that there were several large storm systems that passed through during those weeks that I knew nothing about until I emerged, blinking, at the end of the day.

Now - to put some attention to work-life balance - which will be harder to do if I don't get my home space feeling a bit more inviting than my work space.

Well - stepping over into Autumn!

2009-10-01T18:02:00.008-05:00

In my town, we had a very long, extended summer-like season all through September. That ended a bit abruptly just a couple of days ago. I guess I shouldn't complain - but it is a bit of a rude shock to the system (not to mention I never got around to bringing out my warmer clothes).

In other news, I'm out of my summer-long dingy cubicle and into a recently refurbished building (as of one week ago). My corner office on the third floor (see below) is as big as the department director's - but I'm sharing it with a colleague. For the moment, though, it's just me and my books, which have been transplanted onto the ample shelves. (Presently no room for them at home. . . .) I'm waiting for a ride home because it's cold and rainy out there - not fun to drag my wheelie backpack through the sloppy wetness.

On the job front, there's still no word on the reorganization of our unit, which makes me feel unsettled, but also insulates me (somewhat) from feeling I have to take on all the responsibility for the work that isn't getting done.

To distract myself, I've purchased a mini computer that is my favorite toy for now (except for trying to keep the software from updating itself into filling up the hard drive, which at 8 gigabits is minuscule in today's terms):

Fall always ushers in a very busy time, as I'm teaching my evening course as an overload to a jam-packed day job, but I usually also gain some energy from the brisk winds and sense of planetary tilting toward a new state of being.

I know I'm heading for some days of breathtaking beauty. Hope I can get outdoors enough to enjoy them.

May all of us be safe and contented this season
May our efforts come to harvest
May the gathering dusk not dampen our hearts
May we join together to keep spirits alight
May we all be free from strife
May we be free from suffering

Farewell dear Rufus

2009-09-05T23:53:00.004-05:00

Sitting in the hubbub that is night
in this neighborhood

moon tucked behind tree branches
and diminished by streetlamps

a steady thrum pulse of cicada
and strokes of other insect calls

near and far and farther yet
dogs speak
their high and low
sharp remarks

jet noise travels through the sky
from right to left
from beyond the city
to its heart

car tires pass by

a distant siren shouts urgency

the moon stays white
and round
and silent

something has caught me - a childhood sense
of dogs in the night
of everyone busy living

is this what touches the sadness
to come out of hiding?

my brown, stiff, geriatric canine
companion
who trusted us
who took for granted
our goodness and care

as we sustained him through illness
accident
and a very long old age

bending our comings and goings
to meet his needs

week in and out

waiting and worried and paying close attention

and glad he could keep on going

what gave us the right to decide
not to carry you further

it was too hard

we weren't free enough
to give you a few more days

probably full of stumbling and pain

(but how could we not ease that pain?)

you came back in a dream
young and low, like a seal
swimming through air
full of delighted motion
heading straight for me

why were you
with my father, old friend?

do you know
how I learn now
to treasure what remains?

this line came to me
in my scanty spatter of tears
(not yet full-bodied)

how our weary hearts
rebel
at this mortality

so we talk of you as absence

in a heartbeat, gone
from lively part of this family
to a sad furry remnant
not even holding much resemblance --

a mystery!
or a cheat

how shaken we were
to walk away, off
to ordinary bustle

with this absence
as if you had never been

an absence that catches
as habit turns to care for you
to plan to return to you
to expect you at doorway
or heavily asleep on your mat
in the morning

but we're free
now, after so many years,
not to attend to your needs
and when alone in the house
we are truly alone
undisturbed - uncompanioned

from one heartbeat
to no heartbeats left

as if you were resting
as if you were at peace

at least there's
no more pain
no more turning your head away
from offered food

no more stumbling
on uneven ground

I'm sorry we didn't have one more
long, clear, open, unhurried day
to spend with you

I'm sorry we tucked
your ending into a busy afternoon

getting ready
for a trip
to a wedding

I'm sorry
I've been too busy since
to say goodbye

to say I miss you

your leash still in the car
where we dropped it that day

your uneaten food in the cupboard

your ashes gone
with other unclaimed pets' --
we had no need for them

but perhaps ashes would have been something --
more than the lingering fur
in every unswept corner

more than this absence
less palpable than a shadow

just out of view

more than a silence

forgive us
every neglect
or shutting you out of awareness
-- for convenience
-- for busyness

for not loving you
gladly enough,
often enough

for having to make this decision
without knowing
what you would have wanted
if you could know
if you could choose

forgive us, all of you

earth animals
driven away,
poisoned,
or cherished without wisdom

you have stayed our healing companions

you have taught us
life's persistence
life's joy

thank you

and peace
be upon you

Too busy to blog much this summer. . .

2009-08-29T13:15:00.020-05:00

Here's a recap on the last month, when I've been too busy to do much blogging. Mostly pictures. (Note: click to enlarge - and I've just discovered it's MUCH easier to move pictures around if you use the "Edit Html" option than dragging them around in "Compose".)

The rest of my journey to Idaho at the beginning of the month was spectacular, starting with a lovely visit my brother R. and I had with my friends in Boise, where we always eat wonderful food and stay out late by their koi pond catching up with each others' families, jobs, travels, and thoughts.

They also introduced us to a hilarious British stand-up comedian, Eddie Izzard, by showing a video of a show done on a visit to the U.S. some years ago (in drag).

This kept us up until 3:00 or so, but we managed to get off on our drive through some of the most scenic parts of central Idaho the next morning,

. . . stopping in Stanley, a little touristy town, where a sudden cloudburst brought a scattering of hail, which our waitress (a student from south China) had never seen. She was very excited!

Spending a couple of days in Mackay, Idaho, where my family maintains a little vacation home bought by my grandparents, was a trip back into the 1960s, when I was a teenager. The furnishings are mostly the same, and there is even a stash of old magazines from the late 60s.

(Here's the view from the house, across the road to the Lost River Mountains.)

The end of my trip was a lovely evening soak in the pools at Lava Hot Springs with my sister, as the weather had cooled off enough to handle these naturally-heated pools (no sulphur smell). My mother's family grew up there in the Depression years.

The day after getting back to the Twin Cities, I picked up the younger of my young adult sons from his summer camp job.

Our dog Rufus had unexpectedly rallied a bit, which allowed B. time to visit and say goodbye. Then he was off to Chicago on the super-cheap Megabus to visit his good friends who had migrated down there this year for school.

At the end of that week, we picked B. up in Chicago on a very long day's road trip to Cincinnati. We faced heavy rain, heavy traffic, and interminable road construction, pulling into Cincinnati fairly late at night. Older son T. had arrived from New York by plane, but was stranded on the tarmac for a couple of hours due to heavy weather there, coming in five or six hours later than planned. Here's a shot of a downtown boulevard. Those are little red-hot peppers growing alongside the road among the flowers.

The wedding was lovely, and the spare belts and ties and shirts I had brought with me came in handy. My niece was lovely and seemed genuinely happy. Her two young nephews were ring-bearers - the youngest tyke fell asleep for the ceremony, so his cousin pushed him up and then down the aisle in a hastily borrowed stroller.

The wedding and reception were both held at the Newport Aquarium, across the river from Cincinnati. This was a brilliant choice, as we had the whole building to ourselves through the evening, for a wonderfully catered meal, dancing, and wandering around looking at fish.

Earlier in the day, we stopped at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, where my spouse P. spent a good chunk of time learning about the history of slavery in this country. Subsequently, we have both started reading more about this - I thought I was pretty aware, but the story is 250 years long and has many twists and turns, as the nation and its economy changed and grew. To say the history is shameful is just a beginning. To try to comprehend the ongoing cost is mind-boggling. It's heavy lifting even to read about it, but now that I know more, I feel compelled to do so.

We headed back on Sunday, again making the long drive in one day, but this time skirting the center of Chicago. The road construction was quiet, too, which allowed us to make steady progress through what would have taken hours more during the week. I kept alert by doing yoga stretches at rest stops - highly recommended! Must remember to do the same through the work day, when I get fairly oblivious to the results of hunching in a tense way over my computer screen.

I started teaching my fall evening (adjunct, moonlighting job) class last Wednesday: "The Spiritual Journey." For our first book, I'm once again introducing future accountants and nursing administrators and many other returning-to-school adults to the complex and baffling book I and Thou, by Martin Buber. I've created a study guide, but it's often tough going - but gives us a framework to talk about religious ideas outside any particular faith perspective. From there, we'll read The Sacred Pipe by Black Elk, Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hahn, and a choice of a more traditional spiritual classic (which includes work by Teresa of Avila, Juliana of Norwich, St. John of the Cross, etc.) We end up with SuperNatural Christians by Sallie McFague - another somewhat tough text for these mostly working adult students. It's fun to teach, but a lot of work on top of my day job in student services. It's a good thing I've corrected the vitamin D deficiency that my new doctor diagnosed last spring - I seem to have more energy these days than I did last year.

So - that's the busy August, which is rapidly plunging me into a busy September. Getting away for a couple of brief breaks made me feel that I had at least HAD a summer. I'll be posting when I can, and reading at least some of what you are all posting as I can. Here I go - VROOOM - into the early autumn!

It was inevitable, but hard . . .

2009-08-27T21:22:00.004-05:00

Last Thursday, we took Rufus to the vet for the last time. It was inevitable, but hard, because he was not clearly dying, not suffering intolerably. He had gone three days without eating (which was a kind of benchmark I'd set earlier for deciding he was declining beyond pulling him back to a reasonable plateau) - but then had finally eaten the night before the scheduled appointment and was seeming somewhat more energetic. Still, he was wobbly enough to fall over if I tugged a bit on the leash.

He just plain wore out (he was over 15 years old) - kidneys shot, something growing in his sinus cavity that blocked his breathing, hearing and eyesight nearly shot, trembling and wobbly legs - it was getting harder and harder for him to brace himself to pee.

Then we were going to be gone for three days for my niece's wedding and had lined up a young man to care for Rufus, but the previous Monday when Nick came over to visit, Rufus seemed particularly ill, clearly not willing to eat, and quite weak. I thought leaving Rufus in Nick's care would be hard on both of them, and would likely just postpone the inevitable for a few more days.

And then the new school year was starting, and I couldn't imagine how we could continue to pour the time and energy into trying to get Rufus to eat that had consumed many hours of these late summer weeks. I couldn't come home in the middle of the day to let him out, and Peter would be traveling to Mankato to teach twice a week so unavailable those days.

Also, I had also vowed earlier to myself not to drag the inevitable out past the time that there was any reasonable quality of life left for Rufus.

But it was hard, because as weak and limited as he was, Rufus was still the same character he had always been, still interested in some of his favorite things (the sound and vibration of the vacuum cleaner - going into the car for a ride). Who were we to make this decision for him? (But how could we duck the responsibility for giving him a gentle end?)

And it was a gentle end, thankfully. I'm still torn with some regret and uncertainty around having had to decide, for playing the role of God in his life. Mostly I'm sad when we come home to an empty house.

A few weeks ago I wrote a longer story of Rufus's life with us which you will find here.

A quiet day on vacation

2009-08-04T18:46:00.013-05:00

(The view from my bedroom overlooking the driveway - as always, click to enlarge.)

I'm sitting in the cool lower-level family room of my parents' lovely home built on a hillside at the edge of Pocatello. Below the hill is the Portneuf River valley, a wide expanse build over millenia by the meandering small river that runs through town, faced on either side by land rising up into mountains, a branch of the Rockies. Through our childhood, my brothers roamed and got familiar with all this terrain while I lived in a world of books, mostly, though I also wandered a bit through the dry, sage-brush hills right beyond our block of houses (we lived close to Idaho State University in those days). Just after I left for college, my family (parents and younger brothers and sister) moved to Inkom, a small town just through "the gap" - a place where the mountains come closer together around the river and the interstate that goes through the valley - on the other side of the gap is a different micro-climate. While Pocatello sometimes sweltered in a smoggy haze, Inkom was always clear and fresh, though only 15 miles away.

This visit is going fast. Friday was spent traveling. Saturday visiting (and riding behind my biker brother* on the back of his Harley for a short trip). Sunday I attended the very small Quaker worship group in Pocatello, after checking with Judy Brutz that it was still going with (she's a midwestern Quaker who relocated to Pocatello to be close to her daughter and granddaughters). Then I accepted the invitation of Judy and David to have some tea and snacks in their home nearby, and ended up having a two-hour-long conversation about their worship group, Judy's writing projects, and my own circumstances. Late Sunday was another all-family dinner of hamburgers, eaten out on the patio, followed by root-beer floats (my dad's favorite). Monday - hmm - that was a lazier day, with the high point being lunch at a Mexican restaurant and a shopping trip to Costco. I also finished a re-reading of Harry Potter #5 rather later at night than was truly good for me.

(*"biker" when he isn't running his business)

Today, yoga in the living room, and then I finished up a complete back-up of my laptop, as my sister had a recent hard drive meltdown and hadn't backed things up. I also spent too much time yesterday and today trying to get through to my workplace files via the "VPN" software - virtual private network, I think it stands for. But the ISP settings of my parent's internet service aren't letting me get through. Darn!

So instead of doing job-related work (other than a stray e-mail or two), I went back and finished two long posts I had drafted earlier:

One is the history of Rufus written last June;

and one is a July 19 piece of reflections on feminist spirituality written in the wildflower garden (the blog piece is reflections on writing my dissertation - a discussion of William James and feminist spirituality - for anyone with hard-core interest, here's a corrected link for a downloadable copy of the dissertation bibliography).

I'm posting these in my new adjacent blog, More About Me (Than You Wanted to Know) - a place I can "park" pieces that are stand-alone or background stories, then link them for anyone interested.

Later today? I could finish reading The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, which I bought in a little used bookstore down in Pocatello on Sunday. Or - we might drive up to Lava Hot Springs, a lovely little town built around pools of non-sulphered natural hot springs. But the temperature is in the mid-90s, so the hot pools themselves aren't a real draw. We could take a walk along the volcanic rock hanging gardens, though, in the cool of the evening. A chance to take some more photos!

I've been taking many, many pictures with my little Nikon, getting better at using it, especially when I use the little flexible tripod that Peter bought me. Here's a sample of some of my favorites so far:

Sunday night - moon over the river valley nature preserve nearby

Monday morning(?) - looking north along the valley toward Pocatello

Monday morning - looking south toward the mountains

This morning - uphill from the house - another view of the mountain

Return to Pocatello - changes coming

2009-07-31T16:48:00.003-05:00

I'm writing this while riding in a jouncy, elderly bus along Interstate 15 heading north from Salt Lake City to Pocatello, ID, where I grew up. A slight taint in the air wafts from the onboard bathroom in the back. The wide valley is bordered by gray mountains and gray-brown hills, though there is more green than is usual for this time of year.

Back at home in Minnesota, the dog – who had been holding almost steady in a frail, elderly way – seems to be hitting a definite slide down: no appetite to speak of, seems very uncomfortable, shaky hind legs. He has had a growth or something in his nasal cavities that was untreatable, and this has worsened in the past weeks, pretty much destroying his sense of smell. I’ll be surprised if he holds on long enough for me to see him again at the end of this ten-day visit to my folks. Mostly, I'm weary from trying over and over to coax him to eat and from waking in the very early morning to listen to his uncomfortable panting.

Still, it’s sad that the spouse is left alone faced with making the inevitable decision (that is, unless Rufus surprises us again, as he has a couple of times in recent months, by rebounding). It would feel awkward, vacant, unhomelike, to have him missing when I get back.

Soon, however, I’ll be immersed in all things family: two brothers and my sister are there, my older brother leaving in a couple of days on a Harley trip with his long-time Harley cronies. My youngest brother is down from Alaska, just retired with a generous state pension at 54. I wish.

At work, there are rumblings of more disruption and change around the corner. A colleague is leaving for a new position in another collegiate unit of the university, a real advancement opportunity for her, and potentially leaving a hole that presents some creative possibilities for me. Another colleague in a different office has just left unexpectedly, taking a severance package, as her contract was not renewed. In our job class, that can happen to anyone at any time, and the University is facing another big set of cuts next year, post stimulus semi-reprieve.

On the trip today (airports, airplanes, bus) – I’m reading Krista Tippett Speaking of Faith and gearing up to teach again this fall (in my moonlighting adjunct instructor job), “The Spiritual Journey.” What I present in this class is wonderfully convergent with the insights Tippett shares in her book (part personal journey, part passionate defense of the importance of deep and informed thought to the vitality of religious life). For me, that’s very much what it’s all about. Lots of sparks of recognition, names to file away for further investigation, good ideas to share in class, from this book. Highly recommended.

Late afternoon in the office cube

2009-07-14T18:20:00.005-05:00

Picture me, sitting here, long after the rest of the work-day folks have slipped away (except the young phone-bank student-workers who are calling prospective students in a separate area - when they aren't having snacks and loud conversations in the nearby kitchen nook).

I took a break from some work I'm trying to get done this afternoon, and an hour melted away with the reading of recent blog posts from you all out there. I haven't quite got the rhythm of how much time feels right to spend reading and commenting, but I'm getting better at knowing when it feels right to comment, and when I can slide on by. But I haven't been writing my own blog for a while.

I've had a couple of possible blog posts come into my head and not quite materialize. One was a rather somber post about a trial starting yesterday in Syracuse, NY, for the accused killer of a young trans woman, Teish Green. The described murder was chilling, but it was also chilling to note how little publicity this event (last November) got - likely both because the victim was trans, and because the victim and the accused were both Black. (I came across this situation through this post by Peter Toscano - who educates me in my efforts to be a GLBTQ+ ally with his witty and clear-eyed posts).

Another blog I didn't write circled around quakerblogs, and why mine isn't one, exactly. Of course, many blogs by Quakers are like any other blogs: some serious, some witty, some warm and personable. But behind the scenes, I think, is the centuries-long tradition of spiritual journals written by Quakers to do inner scrutiny and also to give guidance and support to others.

A religious tradition that's somewhat short on theology and long on individual experience lends itself to the use of spiritual journals as guidebooks. It's not the "belief" that is important, but the life and actions that are shaped by convictions and by the Light that comes from - inside? above? - somewhere both intimate and objective.

OK - that was the gist of the unwritten post. I guess it will take a while to get myself clear on a definition or description of my spiritual orientation, and it's sometimes a bit heavy going to both write or read. And it's more fun to just chat about what's happening in my world.

There's room for some of both, perhaps?

Fireworks on the Stone Arch Bridge

2009-07-04T23:53:00.008-05:00

Hope you all had a good one!

(The video is a slide show of about a minute and a half of my photos of fireworks - I couldn't figure out how to do a photo slide show, but found out how to do this with a Microsoft media manager on my computer.)

Many Blogs - Many Roads Not Taken

2009-07-03T11:43:00.008-05:00

(Click picture to enlarge.)

I stayed up too late last night roaming through Blogistan, especially checking out quakerblogs (and more quakerblogs listed on quakerblogs). This morning, after dreams that touched on a couple of times / people long past, I made a connection: I seem to be looking for examples of lives lived along the roads not taken (by me), or only partially taken. What would my life look like if . . .

. . . I had gone into ministry-related work (hospice chaplain? spiritual direction? retreat organizing?) after theological study?

. . . I had been more single-minded and finished my academic work in a timely way, allowing for a full-time college-teaching job?

. . . I had stuck with the writing thing, made all the sacrifices necessary to turn it into my career (as one character in my last-night's dream did - going every day to write in a small rented room, living on next to nothing for those early years)?

. . . I had moved from personal dreamwork to train as a Jungian therapist, maybe doing sand-tray and dream therapy?

Throughout all the choices, and indeed through the choices I have lived, there has been the choice offered to turn toward The-Divine-However-It-Manifests (and it/Thou/they manifest[s] differently through time) in a more disciplined way, or to continue my pattern of off-and-on attention to that dimension.

The quakerblogs are a reminder of this constant option of a more disciplined spiritual path, as these blogs represent many various public statements of putting the religious / spiritual life at the center of attention. My first attempt at a blog was along these lines, but it didn't end up seeming - well - completely honest. This blog, with its quip of a title (grabbed out of the air when I sat down one day to start writing without over-thinking things), suits me better, I think. I can't sustain the tone needed for a true quakerblog, though I reserve the option of doing serious reflection whenever I want to.

Now, I need to say, that most of the possible paths I mentioned have had at least some realization in my adult life.

I managed to do some serious writing and even published a bit of it - and there's still an opportunity to reconnect with old writer friends with the ongoing Women Poets and Writers of the Twin Cities (described here);

I was a part of a planning group for several years organizing retreats for the (now dormant) Spiritual Nurture program of Northern Yearly Meeting (the picture at the head of this blog came from one of our retreats) -and I'm part of two ongoing small spiritual nurture groups which meet at least monthly for mutual support and shared worship;

I have been teaching as an adjunct instructor in Religious Studies (in a different system from my "day job"), one or two classes per year, eclectic classes that keep me reading and thinking about emerging forms of spiritual expression and the varieties of spiritual development in real lives (my students astonish and humble me with their accounts of challenge and growth and miracles). These courses allow me to create temporary nurturing communities where students, most in mid-life, can explore ways of thinking about religion and spirituality, and areas to explore for their own practice. I am incredibly fortunate to have this opportunity, and as a very part-time instructor, I'm free from most of the academic politics of the institution.

It's not that I hate the "day job" working in student services at the University, but it takes most of my availabable energy, leaving me pretty tired a lot of the time, and unable to do justice to the other dimensions of my life. That's also partly my own fault for not being a good enough steward of my own time and physical condition, but I have gotten much better at that, too, over the years. It's also, frankly, because much of the work I do every day - which I believe I do well - is not work that draws on my core strengths. But then, much of it is.

Part of the fatigue comes from being an introvert surrounded by people every day; part of it comes from many hours facing a computer moniter; part of it is (oh heck) the fruits of not being in my 30s or 40s any more. Part of it is related to some health conditions which don't bother me unless I overdo it (which I've been doing recently).

Fortunately, reading many blogs also reveals to me this secret about life: even those lives lived along the paths I've not fully walked look pretty much like mine, in the main: daily decisions, challenges related to family and friends, the tug between the outward demands of the world and the inward motion of the spirit. It's always a rebalancing act. AND - I can do somewhat better, perhaps by dedicating at least a bit of each day to meditation and exercise.

Enjoy your holiday, folks! I'm going to experiment with my "fireworks" setting on my little camera.

Evening of Flowering Trees

2009-06-27T11:24:00.010-05:00

Friday evening, it is still plenty warm when we set off after 9:00, down to 81 degrees after being in the 90s during the day. The light in the sky is still a bright slate blue behind us, reflecting off the glass towers of downtown as we approach River Road. At the Stone Arch Bridge, many people - families, couples, friends - are also drawn by the evening's relative coolness to stroll over the water in the darkening evening, a slender newish moon hovering over the condominiums and improbable-looking, asymmetrical new Guthrie Theater, its slender vertical marquees spelling out bright neon names of the three Tony Kushner plays being offered (none of which I have managed to take in).

Two women walk past, with their mismatched dogs, a tiny terrier and a happy young bulldog; the women lean toward each other, their perfume wafting past.

A large, sagging, shapeless man surges by on his motorized wheelchair, headlights beaming.

Three young adults sit on the stone ledge facing the walkway, drinking from a large jar of something orange - laughing and silly. (They are still there when we walk back.)

The evening deepens as we cross the bridge and turn around to walk back. I'm out of shape. We don't talk much. I have forgotten my camera, so take some pictures with my cell phone (fuzzy but capturing a bit of the late evening scene, still not full night though close to 10 o'clock).

When we get home, the air around our house is full of a light perfume. I spend a while outdoors just breathing it in. The smell triggers memories of the summers a few years ago when I was on a 10-month contract, from late June to late August off. Those summers were spent diving back into work on my Endless Dissertation, which allowed me to go to my tiny rented office and spend long afternoons and evenings, reading, journaling, pacing the hallways of the converted high school now home to small enterprises (alternative medicine, ecological study centers, lawyer and therapist offices for people doing it as an extra job). The Bookhouse was a half-block away, home to a large collection of used books, including women's studies, religion, and philosophy. Because I was researching popular feminist spirituality, it was a good source of material - and a great place to lose any sense of time.

Somehow, the academic work I needed to do could proceed only when I kept up to date with sleep, dreamwork, and meditation. It took me a while to figure that out. At the end of each summer through those years, I would reluctantly go back to my job, and despite my best efforts, the whole creative gestalt of the summer would grind to a halt, and I would be stalled out until the next summer.

The evening smell of the trees brings back memories of my dissertation summers, because I was sleeping during that time by an open window, with the fan upstairs pulling the hot air out and the night air in across my face. I smelled the perfume in the night and couldn't for the longest time figure out where it came from. Finally it dawned on me it came from the boulevard trees, those slender trees put in by the city after all the elms died.

Now, they are spreading wide, shading both the street and much of the yard, joining branches across the street, and stretching out over the roof. I hadn't noticed until recently that they had grown so big. They are loaded with the little white blossoms now that fill the air all around the neighborhood with a smell something like lily of the valley, only not so cloying. They started blooming just after the solstice, and are now at full bloom.

Something about the light perfume filling all the air around us, something about the memories, perhaps because it's Friday evening and the weekend still stretches out as an unbroken lake of possibility, puts me into the edge of a state of kairos - the kind of time very different from chronos, where it's business as usual, work-a-day, clock time. Kairos edges out chronos, too, when life is broken open, by birth or death, or by some unexpected gift. When I'm writing from a place of truth, I'm in kairos. Meeting for Worship, when it's truly "gathered" or "covered," shares this quality, a still, waiting, listening - time-out-of-time. It's walking through the cupboard into Narnia (or the place between the worlds). It's akin to Buber's I and Thou encounters, face to face with ultimacy in truly meeting a loved one, a piece of art, or, for Buber, even a cat or tree (Buber had to stretch quite a bit to allow for cats and trees, but I don't).

Here's a picture of one of the boulevard trees taken this morning - click to expand. I'm sure there are other people who would be able to identify what it is, but I really don't know.

(Later: I looked it up here.)

Some awards - and happy solstice to all!

2009-06-21T11:42:00.005-05:00

A while ago, I was pleased and surprised to find I had been awarded my first-ever blog award by Mel of "From Clutter to Shine" (the award described here). Thanks, Mel! I've really enjoyed your blog, finding out about "unschooling" (I'll do a post sometime on why I kept my kids in school, and about experiences with the first years of Friends School of Minnesota). I especially loved Mel's story about how her little dog Oscar came into the family.

I still feel much like a newbie, and I'm not completely familiar with the folklore and protocol of blog awards, but they are good fun. Here's the award:

Now I have to say something about watermelons, before proceeding with my (drum rolls) awards forward. That is - there's a certain easy rhyme between the fruit and my name which my younger brothers exploited early in life (e.g. "Mary Ellen, watermelon! Mary Ellen, watermelon!). I can't catch any more of the memory than a certain taunting exuberance in their voices. So, yes, I have an affinity for this award, and beyond the "#10 for excellence" I am also attaching to it the meaning of "rich, ripe, juicy, and fun." With that in mind (further drum rolls), I pass this award along - in the spirit of "no obligation blogging" - to a few peeps (and reserve the right to pass it on to more if the fancy should strike):

Leone and Kim, for diving back into the juicy work of painting, committing to doing it for the long haul, and bringing up treasures from your creative souls. (I also wanted to introduce you to each other.)

For Pop and Ice, for being - well - so danged funny and sharp and full of juice.

And for my first-day, first blogger-sister Minka - far away but close at hand. Thanks for introducing yourself that first day of my blog. I enjoy peeks at your days, your travels, and your dedicated teaching of lively ninth-graders (here's the photos from their school trip to Venice ).

Yes, I know I'm supposed to tag six, but I'm not one for the rules. And - again - rules are made for breaking, guys, so take this award and do what you will with it, split open a couple and spit the seeds out far onto the lawn. That's the right thing to do on a hot, muggy, longest day of the year.

Happy solstice - and may our planet be healed and healthy for our children's children and far beyond.

(No obligation blogging, remember!)

More to come . . .

2009-06-14T21:40:00.005-05:00

I've come to the end of a busy week, focused on providing support for my #2 young adult son (Ben) to finish an intensive 3-week (May Session) course. He never quite hit his stride, and by the third week, when things were already winding to a close (an oral final exam, short papers due, labs due), he was a fair ways behind. So we launched into Mom-Homework-Helper mode - in some ways, my primary identity back when he was in high school, but little needed through the three years he has been in college. Mostly, I made sure he was fed, got him to (finally!) make a dental appointment, and printed out the articles he needed to read (his printer is out of ink). And I hosted him while he studied into the night, driving him home to his off-campus rooming house in the early hours. (He was able to study without as many distractions at our place.)

A complicating factor in the week was that Ben's dental exam resulted in two long stints at the dentist over the following two days getting a number of fillings. Also, we needed to drive out to a far suburb to get a camp physical that we could afford (because my health insurance wouldn't pay for a physical if it was a "physical with form," according to his clinic - thus costing us over $200 - she suggested a MinuteClinic instead where these were $30).

One early evening this week, when I brought Ben home to have dinner and study, I noticed something strange out of the dining room window - too big for a cat - loping along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. I called Ben to watch with me as the animal (half cat, half monkey) strolled unhurriedly to the telephone pole at the corner and started hitching himself up, arms reaching up, then pulling up his body, the way people shimmy up a pole. At the top, though, he got stuck for a while, and also wary as we came out to watch him and take some pictures. Note - we live within the city limits of Minneapolis, but close to some parkland that hosts deer, fox, and other wildlife.

(Click on the picture to see him in more detail.)

This marathon study week was all to get Ben through in time to drive him to Wisconsin where he will be a camp counselor at Camp Woodbrooke, a small, very simple, woodsy Quaker residential summer camp for kids. Did I mention that Ben is studying to be a kindergarten teacher?

I took Friday off to shop and pack for his two months at camp, and washed a large number of his clothes. The night before we drove to Wisconsin, Ben stayed up all night (fortunately at his place) doing the on-line labs, and then finished one of the his summary papers on the drive down. Somehow, he does manage to come through. I'm proud of him -and exasperated - and extremely tired (and sore from driving the little borrowed gas-sipping Saturn with the stiff steering wheel and clutch).

What's more to come will be some reflections I did on the drive back through "unglaciated" (that is, hilly and woodsy) Wisconsin. I love road trips, especially through beautiful country.

The meaning of my blog name revealed

2009-06-07T14:00:00.004-05:00

I looked on Google for my blog name and found this skit (for boy scouts):

This Skit is meant for Boy Scouts, Webelos scouts. Decide for yourself if it is appropriate for your younger scouts or not.
Required:	3 scouts
Preparation:	Largest scout stands center stage with arms raised like a tree.
Script:	Scout enters stage, pretending to drive a car real fast. He swerves around, drives over a cliff, falling, falling, ... and then jumps onto the tree and hangs on tight. Scout : Oh no, my car is totalled 500 feet down there in that canyon. I was sure lucky this tree was growing out of the side of the cliff. The road isn't too far up there. But, there's no way I can climb that cliff. Scout : Man, my arms are getting tired. (squirm on the tree) Scout : Help! Heeeelp! Is anyone up there? Scout : Help! Heeeelp! Is anyone up there? My arms are killing me. (squirm around on the tree) Deep Offstage Voice: I am here. I am God and I will help you. Scout : Cool! What are you going to do? I can't hold on much longer. God: Let go of the tree. Scout : What?!? I'll fall 500 feet and splatter all over the rocks. God: Do you believe in me? Scout : Well, sure. God: Then you have nothing to fear. Let go of the tree and I will save you. (pause) Scout : Is anyone ELSE up there?

In June the Moon is Growing Soon

2009-06-04T23:47:00.005-05:00

This week has been busy, busy, busy. But there have been occasional evening moments when I could take in the wonderful depth of the dark blue sky-sea with the moon hoisting its billowing sail and sliding across. I tried to capture that depth of evening light the other day - still lingering twlight when the clock said it should be deep night. But I'd need a tripod and delayed timer to avoid the smear and blur that come with late evening pictures even when I steady the camera against a tree. This one came out the best, but it's not exactly crisp:

Tonight, though, I caught the moon near full without too much blur:

That's it for me tonight! Except - isn't this an intriguing flower (if it IS a flower?) . . .

Blog Blog Revolution - Women's Voices

2009-05-30T00:30:00.009-05:00

(Click the picture to see the new moon.)

It's the weekend - and (with Peter away for a while) I can just browse and ponder this expanding world, the blogosphere, that I've plunged into. And it does feel rather like a plunge. In reading these blogs and comments, I've felt there was something familiar about the give and take, the self-expression and response, that I finally identified as very much like the experience I had for many years as a member of the Women Poets of the Twin Cities (later Women Poets and Writers of the Twin Cities).

We started when I was a college kid, and the first meeting (if I remember correctly) was held in my scruffy apartment on Grand Avenue, a block from my school. This was (it dates me) the beginning of the Women's Movement, as we called it then, and women writers in my burg were just beginning to recognize that they had been second-class members of the writing community, or felt themselves to be. The journal editors - the creative writing professor/gurus - the international poets coming in for readings and booze-drenched parties - all were men, and we writing women came along for the ride. So some of us, who had met each other at those booze drenched parties (and sometimes shared the same booze-drenched writers as romantic interests), decided we were interested in - each other, each others' voices, each others' ideas, experiences, wisdom.

This group continued to meet, once each month, and did occasional readings and published at least one or two collections over the years. A couple of women who started with us moved away into lives of being full-time professional writers, feeling perhaps that the group wasn't up to their level, or not appreciating that the primary purpose of the group was not so much to hone the craft as to share lives at a deep level through the writing that people were doing. There was one woman in the group who was a particularly influential mentor to me in the art of being a mother and continuing to have a creative spirit. I needed that model when I started my own family.

Alas, I couldn't continue to meet with the group (though some of the members are, I believe, continuing to meet even today, more than 30 years later). Raising children - working full time - teaching occasional college courses on top of that - and trying to finish my degree on top of THAT - consumed more than a decade of the prime turf of my green and growing years. I also found that what discretionary time I had was spent with my Quaker meeting (serving on committees, being involved on the planning group of our regional Spiritual Nurture program for some years).

But - now my young 20-something men are (more or less) launched - at least out of the house for the present. After wanting to find some way back into writing that offered more than the insularity of my journal, I finally started blogging.

I had read blogs - usually blogs of some of my favorite authors, which I found when I researched them on Google. These bloggers seemed to have so much fun doing their blogs, and they had such lively, affectionate blogging correspondents. I thought it was something that could only happen to published writers, or - I don't know. People living in London.

But plunging into it myself, I find that it is a very open community, much like the Women Poets used to be, where each voice is given attention, whether or not it is polished. We used to give feedback of the sort and level appropriate to the sophistication of the writer, and always with kindness and empathy. It never was a "professional writer" sort of place, but a community of soul-builders, supporting the development of self-understanding and the strengthening of our women's voices, through calling out what was strong and good in what was shared. That's what I'm finding now in the blogosphere - hundreds of women (and men, too, but I gravitate to the women's blogs), all communicating facets of their lives, from the hilarious to the trivial to the heart-breaking, and receiving, for the most part, thoughtful and warm-hearted responses.

My Women Poets group started out as part of a revolution - thinking we needed to give voice to the previously unvoiced women's perspective to bring the world into better balance (remember this was at the end of the Vietnam War). I love that women now have places to share their lives - old and young, home-schoolers and professionals, mothers and artists living on the bohemian edge. And creating community with others, full of laughter and sometimes tears.

Work blurring with home

2009-05-27T00:12:00.005-05:00

A short opinion piece in the paper struck a nerve today: (Jim Shea/Hartford Courant - "What a way to make a living") - with a description of something like "work-creep." He described that because technologically we can work at home, pretty soon there's an expectation that we are doing so pretty much all the time (checking e-mail, doing reports, doing work-related research . . . ). I had a list of work-related things I thought I would tackle over the long weekend, but didn't - instead, I experimented with my new camera, discovered and read new blogs, helped Peter get off to Philosophy Camp, then rushed my grown-up-kid Ben off to the urgent care after he got a deer-tick bite that was getting infected (bulls-eye rash, etc.). He should be fine, but I flipped instantly back into Full-Scale-Mom.

And this coming week, there won't be much unbroken project time at work, as we are doing three days of training. Also, I'm now working in a cubicle for the summer, with the buzz and rustle of others in motion around me (chatting, strolling past to visit the bathroom), which makes it hard to do concentrated work.

The columnist said we used to use the word "workaholic" - but now, he said, the behavior is admired. Is it? What changed? Why am I faintly guilty all of the time that I'm not doing "something productive" e.g. work-related?

In spite of the guilt, after doing the mom thing, I made it to my nearby public wild place, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary. New camera: not so good at scenery (I revisited the reviews and found this was clearly stated), but nice quick, close-up pics of flowers. Also very nice to have something in my pocket. (Click to enlarge - REALLY large - I'll size them down in the future.)

Here are the links to new / old blog posts

2009-05-25T08:44:00.004-05:00

I started with a recollection from a conversation years ago that led me to connect Rumi and country western music.

Then I went on a fruitless Google hunt for the perfect image of Divine Love.

I reflected on gender and the Spirit - which led to another search on Google images (and a Russian icon of St. Sophia and her daughters, Faith, Hope, and Love).

And the last posting of the "secret" (e.g. unvisited) blog was a long-poem reflection on loss, grief, and the search for connection, accompanied by photos from my favorite local nature sanctuary. (Note - pictures enlarge if you click on them.)

Then - I started over with this blog, and now it's all in one place.

No more blogging today - I need to get outside!

Putting it all together . . .

2009-05-24T19:44:00.005-05:00

I started blogging very privately earlier this year, picking a pseudoname and an obscure blog title, and for some reason, nobody noticed or at least nobody commented. That blog was about, more or less, the spiritual side of my life. This blog ("Is there anyone else up there?") has been about pretty much anything going on in my life - except for the spiritual side of things. The tone has been more tongue-in-cheek, lighthearted, than my first blog, which had perhaps somewhat too much of a weighty or sometimes academic tinge.

For some reason, religion/spirituality is harder to talk about than most other things about us, except in contexts or communities where there is already tacit permission for God-talk/Spirit-talk. (I am really fortunate that one of these places is the college classroom setting where I teach one course a semester as an adjunct in Religious Studies. This is an overload to my "day job" doing college student services administration.) But I will say that, even though I am a member of the Society of Friends - where a spiritual practice and religious experience are supposed to be common ground - even in that community, many people struggle to find ways of talking about what is really going on with themselves spiritually. And there are many, many differences among us in my Friends Meeting - often around this difficult notion we call "God".

So, I'm plunging in today and uploading into this current blog the postings from that other, hidden blog, with the thought that this writing reflects important parts of the puzzle that is me. Maybe there are other long-dormant puzzle pieces that will stand up and want a voice (the poet part of me? the memoirist part of me?). You'll find them in January and February.

Let me know what you think!

New Camera - Old Dog - Spring Days

2009-05-23T12:17:00.009-05:00

Somehow, I blinked and May is almost gone. It started with an unusually hot and bright May Day parade and ceremony in Powderhorn Park, put on for the last three decades by the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater, and involving scores of neighborhood people.

The theme of this year was the importance of the soil and of green, growing things as the real source of our wealth, contrasted to greedy profiteering / credit card companies / banks, etc.

During the pageant, I sat under my umbrella for more than an hour, feeling smug and grateful that I had some protection from the unusually bright sun.

I was using my old camera, which has served me well for several years - very advanced for its day, with 3+ mgpx photos. But I've been hankering for something that would be small enough to carry in a pocket, which I could always have around, so I would take more pictures (and have things to illustrate this blog with, incidentally).

So I picked up the latest version of my old camera - still very much automated, which wouldn't please a real camera buff, but works for me. Playing around, I found that it can do very acceptable short videos (I'll try not to subject folks to too much self-indulgent sharing). Now 10 mgpx.

Last Easter, Bridget brought a bowlful of little packets of candy and flower seeds for folks at Meeting. I took home some extras and found that I liked the Spongebob Squarepants gummy crabby patties, so picked some up on sale yesterday at Walgreens. Don't eat them before breakfast.

Speaking of SpongeBob, you might get a kick from this movie review from the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200906/spongebob.

The big question this holiday weekend is whether I'll get out and plant any of these seeds. I bought a big shaker-can full of flower seeds - last year? - some time ago, and never planted them. But I did plant five baby flowering trees that Joelyn got when she donated some money to the Arbor Day Foundation. A couple of them - skinny twigs, really, poking out of their little bowls of earth - are looking like they might sprout.

But mostly I've been taking pictures of my ancient and creaky dog Rufus. He has good days when he eats well and seems happy to stumble about in the yard or take a short walk, and less-good days when he seems to have no energy and turns away from his food. Kidneys shot - cataracts - arthritis - hearing shot - yet he still seems to enjoy being on the planet.

Off to do some lunch, then help Peter finish packing for his month at Philosophy Camp, then - who knows? - a nap could be in the picture. Or tackling the grown-over garden and planting those bright flower seeds?

My Extraverted Evening

2009-03-29T10:03:00.000-05:00

We spent the evening in contact with others, first by going to the 50th birthday celebration of our long-time friend Julie, then stopping by a cozy Irish bar (Merlin's Rest) to visit with Gigi, one of Peter's fellow Philosopher Campers who was just back briefly from Thailand.

Julie, the birthday girl, was looking wonderful in a simple top with a cascade of beads looping over it, and a long flowered skirt. She had asked people to bring "colorful food" for the potluck meal, and they had complied: we brought a red bowl of strawberries (more strawberries arrived later); there was a tall cylindrical bowl of brightly layered Jello; many salads; many platters with sliced veggies, especially sliced peppers; a cake with a crazy-quilt frosting of many colors; and some rice crispy bars with colorful M&Ms. As Peter's North Dakota relatives have been reputed to say, "the feed was good."

But the din when we arrived was like getting hit with a wall of sound. Family and friends filled the modest living room, where a dried branch arrangement glowed with pastel lights in the corner. The kitchen was full, too, of talking, eating people. There were two little girls, one in tiny pigtails remaining in her mother's arms all evening, and one toddling after the cat. A somewhat older (6-year-old?) girl with a foot in a splint played a game with her mother of bouncing balloons back and forth, in the only clear space left, up by the front door.

I parked on a small chair in the background to watch, and waited for opportunities for a couple of conversations, one with Julie about our kids - they had been babies together - and our jobs - she now teaches at a community college, and I blend administrative work in student services with some adjunct teaching. We both agreed that we prefer teaching adult students to the 18-year-olds, because adult students have life experience to draw on, even if their academic preparation is limited.

After the food, the champagne toast, the cake, we left. In the line-up hugging Julie on the way out the door, I explained to a woman admiring my red bowl that it was part of a multicolored set I had gotten at Cosco.

Then the drive to Minneapolis, stopping off at Lunds for some breakfast eggs and some Tums for the dog's anti-kidney-failure diet (a diet I found on the internet, which has given him a new grip on life - my Ancient of Dogs, Rufus).

Gigi was holding court at a long table close to the door in this noisy, friendly, kitsch-filled Irish bar. She was animated and vivacious - but Gigi always is, flashing her wide grin, talking about her experiences and plans. Gigi is entering into the University to do an MFA in film this next fall, and told us excitedly about her experience visiting the program. We chatted about her time in Thailand - she had loved the place, though the job she was there for turned into a disaster. People in Thailand don't cook, she explained, because it's too hot. They all head out to nearby stands to get food. She learned by experience what was safe to eat, though, because sometimes food would be standing out too long. I recounted my lessons in Ghana where I learned to eat food from the market only if I could see it cooking away. The best tactic is to carry your own bowl around. Fruit that can be peeled was safe, too. (Actually, the most danger at that time was the high-cost restaurants serving Western food, because things like lettuce salad could be tainted).

Another of the Philosophy Campers was there, a quiet, self-assured girl whose name escapes me. She is doing an AmeriCorps project housed at the College of St. Catherine, and told us happily about the great program, the great nuns involved, the skills in intentional communal living and leadership she was learning. Next year: off to work with border/immigration issues, largely on her own. We talked about ways she is planning to brush up on her Spanish. Peter urged her to come to church at St. Frances Cabrini sometime (as most of the folks from St. Stevens have sojourned out of there after a conservative priest was appointed).

We headed home up River Road, coming under the 35W bridge, flooded with green light, and through downtown, along the river, past the new Guthrie Theater. I like this route, as it's scenic and has very little traffic. Then, I spent a long swatch of time on my computer scanning through different blogs to see what was out there, looking for those I might want to follow. I recognized (as I stumbled to bed a bit later than I should have) that I was looking for potential on-line friends - but maybe in the wrong way.

My impulse was to look for people a lot like me (or my perception of who I am, which may not be the person that others experience at all). But what can I learn from that?

At the end of my search, I realized I really have enjoyed more finding connections from the serendipity of the blogger world - peeking into the concerns and joys of people from all kinds of corners of the world, by following the threads of one blog to another. So last night I found a blog largely made up of photos (including a trip to Madrid) and short reflections by a nurse in Germany; recently, I found a blog by a young college student "outside London" who reads poetry and graphic novels (he had commented on a word he liked in my last blog, "protoplasmic.") And I especially enjoy the couple of people who found my blog and started following it, right after I began. How did they find it? I can't even imagine. One of them, particularly, has been writing steadily to "improve her English" - sharing her busy life teaching young people in some northern European country.

In my recent random link-to-link walk through Blogville, I've found blogs with pictures of spring flowers, with fashion designs, with poetry that the blogger finds inspiring. And last night I did find some blogs of people who share some of my interests, but with a twist - one, a young Quaker whose main concern in his blog is to reach out to others who, like himself, are ex-gay survivors (have come back out after attempting to be "cured" of their sexual orientation).

Many voices, many lives. I do need to keep this reined in to an extent, in my busy life.

I am a new blogger, and I see others who have long-established friendships in their blogging world. How do I proceed? Can I sustain the effort? What are my intentions in writing? Well - I enjoy it! Welcome to my world, anyone who stumbles on this. Write to me, and I'll write back.

Blink - - and it's late March!

2009-03-19T23:58:00.000-05:00

I've been doing my good-old-workaholic thing this last few weeks. Usually, this makes me feel virtuous (useful, worth keeping employed, etc.). But something I was listening to while on the bus - oh yes, it was Marion Woodman's _Crown of Aging_ - gave me a reminder of something I've known for decades, which is that work-sickness is an addiction like any other -- just one that's seen more positively in our Puritan-shadowed culture than drug addictions (that put people out on the streets - so wasteful) or love-addictions (after all, love makes the world go 'round, and all that).

Actually, Woodman was talking about these other sorts of addictions, and I was sitting there feeling pretty virtuous for my clean-'n-sober condition when she mentioned work as an addiction, and it hit home. Yep. That's me - the job junkie. I wake up organizing my quickest possible get-away, mentally jotting down the day's to-do list. Then, when I get there (sometimes carrying in my breakfast to eat while doing e-mail), big chunks of time can melt away as I handle tiny but (seemingly) urgent tasks that pile in - bing! - on my screen, so that at the end of the morning, I haven't gotten much farther down the pile than I was when I started.

Then, I might sneak a peek at Facebook, which I've just joined. I don't much like the pile-up of everybody's business that the new format pops me into, but I look at the tab of my friends (and acquaintances) list and reassure myself that people are still having human stuff happening (eating cheese sandwiches, walking dogs, having a laugh). Then - more of the same, sometimes three or four meetings, sometimes a bit of human contact in the hallway.

When I was doing student academic advising, I had more face-to-face human contact, and I do miss that in my more bureaucratic role. However, I find myself surprised at how much fun some meetings can be, even on dull subjects (like reforming academic policies) - when the people are smart, funny, good-willed - sharing an interest in thoughtful and creative institution-building to improve students' experience at our university. I don't even really mind e-mail requests to solve problems, provide information, clarify puzzles. I enjoy explaining how things work, or clarifying the purpose of some policy or process.

I just need to keep in mind that I'm a protoplasmic being, a mammal in need of some movement, some fresh air, a break for lunch. And time to dream.

Unchanging change - losing and finding

2009-02-25T19:52:00.001-06:00

Written in the autumn a couple of years ago (I have written a fair number of reflections on this lovely place - the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary - a sanctuary indeed).
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Coming today to the garden

I am seeing change in motion

the seeming solidity
of massed trees and leaves

becomes translucent, now veil upon veil
of golden and green.

My gaze slips through
to the steep hill banks
on the hillside, still
massed and brilliant.

Gold flecks fall and fall
leisurely, separately,
tens at a time

to patter down through
pellucid air -

like manna, like divine
energy
coming into matter.

And here, farther in,
more trees bared

reveal the ordinary
earth and oncoming winter.

Yesterday's bold and brilliant blue

is softened by skeins of cloud.

Change in motion -

beyond our grasp.

Two days ago,
down the brilliant color
of the river valley

the family came canoeing

just when I was here -
snapping pictures of beauty -

their lives were overturned
bythe freak canoe accident

pinning little Rosa in the water.

That evening, as their inconsolable
grief took hold, unknown
yet to us,

in the darkened Quaker meetinghouse
our atheist, god-seeking poet
read out his poem

about children on the water -

like leaves -

"They could be yours."

What he meant to say,
is hearts are breaking
everywhere,

hearts embracing
intolerable pain
of each other.

Soon, the golden mass before me
will be empty,

the veils of beauty on beauty
that lifted me
from sorrow, that seemed to
know it,

and answer with steadfastness,

soon will be no more
than a memory
a handful of photos, flattened

and falsely still.

(Squirrel comes gazing and
gazing at me;
fly lights
upon the page.)

I came to interrogate the garden -

the presumed power of order
and renewal behind it -

and my own unvoiced question:

How do I live?

Stripped to its bark
and bare earth

(as I know it will be)

how can I endure my life?

Today, I said I would come here
to open myself to whatever

might be softly spoken
in the wind.

And now, in this hollow tucked away
at the back of the garden,

I sit - the light can fill it
now most of the leaves are gone.

In front of me a gold-green maple
still holds its leaves -

soon, they'll all drop down
a ball dress shrugged off
at the weary end
of the festival.

Squirrels rustle around me -

unalarmed by my stillness.

A chant comes to mind
(perhaps willed for comfort
perhaps in answer):

"All I ask of you
Is forever to remember me
As loving you.

All I ask of you
Is forever to remember me
As loving you.

"Ishq Allah
Mahabud Lillah
Ishq Allah
Mahabud Lillah."

As the infant looks trustingly
at the parents
who adore their child,

I will gaze at this world
and dare to receive
the laughing affection
of the world smiling back,

they eyes of my heart gazing back.

There is no separation.

Though the sun sinks, the leaves fall,
the squirrels take long naps,

though my energy ebbs,
the brightness of my mind
dims and stutters,

You gaze at me still
and hold me in unchanging affection.

Now, always and everywhere,
as fears of loss and failure
fill my mind with whispers:

may I lay them down
let them go -
wafting in the unchanging change -
leaving me simply here

in the spaciousness of light

companionship of squirrels

digging through fallen leaves.

Not At My Shining Best (and Response to LaMott)

2009-02-24T20:09:00.000-06:00

This is a typical end-of-workday mood, when it seems the day has flipped by like pages blown by the wind (in an open book, out on the lawn . . .).

I've just finished listening to Annie LaMott's Grace Eventually: Thoughts on Faith. How is it that Bush-hating no longer seems, oh, so very engaging any more? The administration-we-loved-to-hate is gone, flown away in a helicopter shrinking, shrinking, becoming a speck on its way to Texas. And - it's feeling just as grim, just as perilous, now with another 200+ points falling in the stock market yesterday, now with impending lay-offs in my University (place of employment), now with my dear but not world-wise older son off in New York soon to fall out of my health insurance plan by turning 25. It isn't right that health care is doled out only to the productively employed, or those employed by big enough enterprises (which he, working for a Philly Cheese Steak dive in Manhattan, is not).

(That's my kid.)

But reading LaMott does reassure me that self-loathing can co-exist with being a worthwhile person. I was fumbling at trying to describe this (regrettable) feature of my own psychology back in the depths of late November, when I thought of tying it in with a discussion of SAD and the Dark Night of the Soul. It was so dark, so cold, and I felt so wan, so inadequate. But, really, that was a touch grandiose: who am I to have a full-blown Dark Night? I have a dear friend who is suffering a full-blown depression after the death of her father and the shredding of a recent hopeful relationship. My own anhedonia, distress, discomfort, slippage - not at the same level. Except that I don't believe I've been weighted down by quite this level of self-dislike since, oh, seventh grade. And I'm not really sure where it's coming from.

LaMott has a narrative arc in these quick, comic sketches where there is the build-up of distress and dismay, the overreaction or blunder, and then the interruption of the arc by a realization/recollection/intervention that is what she means by grace. There's a restoration of hope and tenderness. I'm familiar with this experience of self-recovery, or recovery of clarity and reconnection with the sources of joy, but it's not happening as easily these days. And I feel shamed by my stuckness, embarrassed by it (which adds fuel to the inner burn of fear-of-inadequacy, etc. etc.)

Whew! Well, I've said it out loud. I'm having a hard time being me, and not confident that there's some wind, some wings, some easy rise out of this particular muck. But at least I'm comforted that it's not some hideous singularity, some repulsive secret flaw nobody but me has ever experienced. Annie LaMott feels shitty from time to time too, even after becoming a successful writer with many people who are fond of her and let her know it. If only I didn't have inner parental voices that sneer, "So, just get over it and think about someone else for a change!"

(And in the other room, from the television, comes Barack Obama's voice exhorting Congress. . . .)

Weekend stillness

2009-02-22T15:08:00.001-06:00

This is a still moment in a rather lazy weekend. I've been sleepy and slow, though I should be doing many things (grading papers, following up on some work projects, cleaning my house, vigorously pursuing insight through journaling), but instead I've been napping.

But perhaps I need to accept the limits of time, and gently release myself from my driven expectations. I need a new way to make decisions about how to spend time: not driven by inner compulsions, or (as often happens) resisting the inner compulsions by wasting time in ingenious ways. How about finding out what would really give me joy? How about connecting to someone I care about? How about doing something to renew my body, like some yoga stretches? What would it be like if I could act out of something positive, instead of this old compulsion-resistance dance?

Just start writing, don't stop to think

2009-02-21T16:44:00.000-06:00

I've been wanting to create a structure for myself to do some writing for quite a while. So I'd go out and look at different author blogs, and find myself envious about the give and take that they represented. I'm a former "unpopular kid," and there are layers way down there (hello!) that are unhappy or determined to see slights in every happenstance. This isn't the majority opinion of my inner committee, but the negative pull on things can create such wind resistance that I don't leap out and try something new.

This particular blog was a moment's impulse. I have another one, too, which is feeling too - oh, tender - to make public. In the title of this blog, I mean no irreverence - it's really about my own ducking and dodging from letting my own insights and best mind guide me. And also, I suppose, a recognition that my life is at least in part a comedy channel and I might as well get a laugh or two out of it.

As I was thinking about the experience of writing, I recognized that at its best, it's an expression of mindfulness. When I'm working at being as clear and honest as possible, just staying connected to the thought, to the impulse behind the thought, I'm not in my usual fog of endless rehearsal and instant replay. So it's a good thing to be doing, wherever it takes me.

2009-02-20T19:14:00.000-06:00

You know the joke: someone in extremis fasts and prays and finally gets an answer to an urgent prayer, but then . . . is there anyone else up there?

I'm restless, and I don't seem to get Any Answers At All. But then - perhaps I'm not doing the right degree of asking. Or perhaps I'm just too worn out to persist.

Gender & Search for Spirit

2009-01-31T12:34:00.002-06:00

I spent years - oh, at least a decade - focused intellectually and personally on a search for understanding spirituality as profoundly shaped by gender. I'm currently teaching a course initially developed in the late 1980s on Women and Religion, and the class just viewed two videos made at that time and distributed widely (through being the PBS pledge drive give-away for a couple of years, as one means), the first outlining a story of the lost peaceful and egalitarian goddess-revering cultures preceding Western patriarchal dominance, and the other tracing the history of 300 years of witch burnings. I know that these histories haven't held up to scholarly scrutiny, but as modern myths of how life could be lived differently, they still have power. One class member, shaken by the account of witch-burning, said, "Oh, now I get why women hate our bodies."

Last semester, a young woman who described herself as an intuitive, felt impelled to relay a strong perception she had about me, that I had some issues related to being a woman, which would cause abdominal illness. Today, my stomach is acting up - the reflux I've had off and on for some time. Hmmm - putting it together - might I be back in the work-sickness place, driven and self-hating?

I had planned out a blog entry on self-hatred, S.A.D. and the dark night, but now late in January, the light is growing stronger. Glancing through _Conscious Femininity_, a collection of interviews and short writing by Marion Woodman, I was reminded again of what I have known for years to be the link in my life between my workaholic driven-ness and this self-hatred - but I've recently been seduced by fears for my job with the University downsizing to think that the only solution to my distress is to work even harder. Of course, I'll sabotage myself if I do.

The answer? I need to find a middle way - meditation? Writing love letters to Mother Sophia?

2009-01-09T00:26:00.001-06:00

I went out onto Google-images to find an image I could use in place of the blank face in the profile of this blog, and on an impulse, typed in "Divine Love." There were an amazing number of things that came up. Some commonalities: many of them were images of glowing-ness (if there is a word like that): fractals pulsing with rainbow light, glowy angels, Hindu dieties (often entwined in ecstatic union); hearts pulsing with rays of light. There were a couple of nature scenes, but one of them seemed doctored to have some of this same kind of supernatural glow coming from off the side.

So, what are MY images of divine love? Much more homely, in the archaic sense of the word, I would guess. Something that would capture the nitty-grittyness of it all. The memory of poopy diapers. The similar experience of our creaky old family dog with his undependable digestive-eliminative system. A handmade Christmas card from my niece, with a photo of herself, her dog Daisy, and her wonderful boyfriend all standing in the winter snow - but rather far away in this scene, so I have to take off my glasses and hold it close to my eyes to see their faces. But an image of the source of all that is tender and true? In some ways, trying to visualize the Source feels like a distraction from noticing the light deep within this world and the beings living and dying within it.

Turn that dial to love's station

2009-01-06T23:56:00.002-06:00

Some years back, in search of tips for truly sensing or trusting in the reality of a divine Presence, I asked Eldon Kelly what sustained his faith. I could tell that the question embarrassed this madcap rapscallion Quaker gypsy of a sometimes mystic, but he was employed at the time at a local retreat center, so I figured answering questions like this went along with the job description.

What he said surprised me, though later reading of Rumi mirrors his experience: especially on his frequent cross-country drives, Eldon tuned his radio to pop channels listening for songs of heart-sick lovers, which he heard as the voice of the Spirit yearning for him.

The challenge for me remains: how to hold this premise of Divine intentionality firmly enough in mind to be able to experience the delights of creation, the clues in daily life, even my often witty and wise dreams as love letters sent my way?