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What We Want

We don’t remember the dream, but the dream remembers us.
Linda Paston

I took this photograph at low tide, I did not see what appears to be an eye until I downloaded the image. It seemed to embody the places I have been meandering in recently – liminal places, where the “dream remembers us”…. but we struggle to remember, to find solid footing on ever shifting sands.

I am looking for ‘old words’, not sure how old….. or if they are part of ‘the dream I have forgotten’ but they are there, just as “stars are there even in full sun.”

This poem by Linda Pastan so beautifully describes those ‘in between’ places that used to feel so uncomfortable and now feel like home. Similar to the difference between Chronos and Kairos time. The ‘Tik Tok’ of the man made clock slowly fading into the distance.

WHAT WE WANT

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names-
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

by Linda Pastan, from Carnival Evening

wcw 2024

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Pareidolia

Pareidolia noun The perception of a recognizable image or meaningful pattern where none exists or is intended, as the perception of a face in the surface features of the moon.

Discovering a new word, especially one that names a phenomenon I did not realize was a ‘thing’ is always interesting.

Pareidolia is quite common in humans according to online research and a small survey I conducted asking friends (or anyone I could interest) what they saw, if anything, in a series of photographs I took recently.

This Spring I attended a Geopoetics Symposium. I was unsure of what Geopoetics actually was at the time and probably couldn’t give a good definition even now, having attended and had time for reflection. One afternoon I attended a session that invited us to walk the shore at low tide in a “counter clockwise circulation” forming a circle in the sand “that we would later in the evening watch the sea edit.” Rain was pounding down and only five hardy participants showed up.

We faced the downpour and proceeded to walk in counter clockwise circulation on the exposed sand. The large circle we formed filled with rainwater causing the sides to collapse….any indentation we produced was quickly refilled with sand. I was about to abandon our efforts when my eye caught an image that had formed earlier by the pull of the outgoing tide.

Below is the first image I took of ‘Salish Sea Performance Art’ Mother Nature seemed more adept at producing and leaving impressions in the sand than we humans.

‘Performance art’ because the images are formed and stay only during low tide and then are “edited’ hours later by the incoming water. Twice a day everyday, I started returning every day at low tide and each day there was a new gallery of images.

Rotating the images once I downloaded them I stopped at the rotation that felt right. I cropped some of them but I have not altered them in any other way. The one below took my breath away when I rotated it into position. Everyone sees something different, please leave a comment below and let me know what you see.

The instructions we had read before starting our wet, circular walk read in part:

“Our shoreline interaction may spur participants to explore estrangement, intimacy, rural ritual, chronology, history, and/or relationship with human and more-than-human watery bodies. The interaction may be considered Geopoetics performance-as-research. There will be ears, and the shore will be a room.”

No circle was produced that day but upon rereading our instructions I realize that I was shown original artwork produced by a more-than-human watery body that reveals something new to each person I share it with.

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Now That Anything Could Happen……

*not a commercial operation. photo westcoastwoman*

Now That Anything Could Happen
by Joyce Sutphen

You now know that anything could happen;
things that never happened before, things that
only happened in movies and nightmares
are happening now, as if nothing could
stop them. You know now that you are not safe,
you know you live in fragile skin and bones,
that even steel and concrete can melt away,
and the earth itself can come unhinged,
shaken from its orbit around the sun.
You know, now that anything can happen,
it’s hard to know what will, and what will you
do now that you know? What words will you say
now that you could say anything? What hands
will you hold? Whose heart will beat inside you?

Joyce Sutphen, “Now That Anything Could Happen”
From Naming the Stars. 2004
_____________________________________________________

Not a Commercial Operation
“now that anything can happen, it’s hard to know what will“

The wind was picking up, whitecaps appeared as a small boat floated into sight. Trailing behind was a questionably seaworthy barge hauling a large propane truck, both were being buffeted by the growing swells. The boat was moving closer to shore appearing to zig zag in an attempt to jockey the barge into a less precarious position. I watched as the barge rocked back and forth, at times no longer visible, giving the illusion that the propane truck was making its own way across the water.

I called the Coast Guard, explained what I was witnessing and was put on hold. They came back and advised me that there were no commercial operations in the area. They did not need to convince me that this was not a professionally orchestrated commercial operation. Feeling their job was done they ended with “people do all kinds of things”.

I watched the boat and truck bob and weave it’s way out of sight, the thought that lingered was how familiar it felt each time a wave hit and the barge disappeared below the water line. I recognized it was the emotion we have been living with the past two years.

The truck is too big for the barge, the boat is too small to be pulling it and the wind and waves are never reliably consistent. We are living in a world now “that anything can happen” and as we are being reminded every day “people do all kinds of things”

So, I extend my hand to yours as we all jump forward into this New Year and ask the question ….

“What words will you say now that you could say anything?”

wcw 2021

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The Two Best Ways to Die

I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.
Henry David Thoreau

My wanders to the Island loft have resulted in a few stories none of which are extraordinary but I feel inclined to record the more insistent ones….. the visits have been ‘between storms’ or alternately ‘riding out storms’ which have cut off ferry service and electronic communication. The times I spent incommunicado felt strangely more like a comfort than an inconvenience.

Contains some “salty language “

THE TWO BEST WAYS TO DIE

He was a Street Photographer’s dream, but this was not the street and it would be next to impossible to get a candid shot from my position in the driver’s seat parked in the ferry lineup. My hand had involuntarily reached for the camera when I caught my first glimpse, but instinct told me to retreat, sit back, watch and listen.

Minutes earlier I had pulled up behind an older model car with a broken tail light and bumper sticker that instructed the reader to BE RE’MARC’ABLE. I was hoping to see some evidence of this re’marc’ability from the car’s occupant, I did not have long to wait.

The car door opened, out stepped a West Coast, post modern, biker-pirate-sailor hybrid. Every bit of clothing on his body was some shade of black. A mariners hat with a small brim was pulled down tightly over his dark hair. A long pea jacket ended just above the knee under which hung a shapeless wool cable knit sweater stretched almost the length of the jacket. Tight jeans and leather biker boots whose tops flopped side to side as he stepped. So many layers of darkness it took me time to detect the braid that fell over his right shoulder ending just above the waist. He was living up to his PR and hadn’t yet spoken a word.

In these days of distancing I was well aware of my “come from away” status on this small and intimate island, maintaining a safe physical distance from the locals. ‘Marc’ as I will call him, made his way past my partially open window coming to a stop nearby, within earshot. Two women stood outside their vehicles just behind me, they formed a Covid friendly triangle. It became clear they knew each other casually, also clear was that Marc had much to say and jumped right in and started saying it.

He lived on his boat and had spent time moored in various bays and marinas up and down the West Coast for years, twenty to be exact. Speaking to no one in particular he declared that if he ever had to live on land, someone would have to “just take me out and shoot me.”
What followed was a ten minute monologue of his life at sea. It was never clear if he had ventured far ‘out’ to sea but he was very familiar with the bays and harbours of the islands that border Vancouver Island and the Mainland.

Time had been spent ‘below deck’ with ‘mariners’ where much alcohol was imbibed and ‘salty’ stories of the sea exchanged. He spoke of sailors and boats that were part of West Coast lore, stories were told in a way that left no doubt he had indeed spent much time below deck.

I recognized the name of one couple, Alan and Sheri Farrell. They were legendary, as was the China Cloud, one of the many hand crafted boats Alan had built. I caught a glimpse of it one day…..

China Cloud under full sail near Lasqueti Island photo wcw

His tales of the sea were interrupted for a moment as Marc admired the necklace one of the women wore, she told him it had belonged to her mother who recently died. Marc’s mother was also dead and he spoke with scorn about being offered a Kitchen Aid mixer when her belongings were being distributed. Living on a sailboat there is no space for such luxuries, he had taken instead a piece of her jewelry.

The talk of dead mothers brought the conversation around to a place that many of us find ourselves when death overtakes a conversation. What was the ‘best way to die?” it was quickly decided that the best way to die was, without doubt, “in your sleep”. There was a silence as this peaceful end was pondered by all…. Marc broke the silence…..”or fucking”.

A rather jarring addition to the usual death options. I adjusted my rear view mirror to see the reaction of the two women but everyone was heading back to their respective vehicles. The ferry had arrived, it was time to board, and so we did, each in our own vehicle with our own thoughts on the matter of Life and Death and how we hoped to experience both.

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Forced Landing

“Life has a way of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen at once.” Paulo Coelho

FORCED LANDING

Departure uneventful
Arrival anything but,
long past the
Point of no Return
we spiral.

Flight diverted
holding pattern unsustainable
hoping only for
safe descent,
arrival intact,
grounding.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we have been cleared for landing”

Fuel low, patience short,
They are not coming to save us
We are They
we always were,
Courage found in
Fear with prayer.

We are not out of the woods yet.

“We hope you enjoyed your flight with us today, this leg of the journey ends here. All possessions should be left onboard. Those of you travelling onwards will find signs as you exit…..safe travels“

wcw 2021

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The Essential Conversation

” Elevator talk.
Let’s get this thing stuck,
see what we really have to say.

Give those occupants a new reply
when asked,
Up or down?
Just say,
Down
in a free fall
pressing DOOR OPEN.”

(excerpt from Elevator Talk by Melissa Sawatsky)

THE ESSENTIAL CONVERSATION

Stonewall(ed)
hand hewn verbal protection
carefully laid, piece by piece,
a lifetime in the making,
no escape clause.

Words withheld, unspoken,
undeliverable,
the contents of a goodbye
discarded at the roadside,
no recipient, no return address.

The Essential Conversation,
clear instruction, open
the dam of heartache,
attempts to top the wall, first
diving then begging for release.

Blow up the wall, the dam,
limitations choking our lives,
open the run of the river,
drown in your longing
for freedom denied.

Surrender illusion, control
you never had, shaken, stirred and
spewed onto the riverbank
searching for the eyes of an other

…to start the Essential Conversation.

westcoastwoman 2021
photos westcoastwoman. (2013) Marine Building Vancouver Canada

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The Way It Is

This poem by William Stafford speaks of a thread, I feel it also speaks to the times.

“You don’t ever let go of the thread.“

THE WAY IT IS by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you can do to stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

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Reflections on the Sound of Silence

Hello darkness my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
because a vision softly creeping
left its seeds while I was sleeping
and the vision that was planted
in my brain, still remains
within the sound
of silence.
Sound of Silence Simon and Garfunkel

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

In this year of a thousand months a silence has settled, palpable, like silk against bare skin.

One by one freedoms slip away in an unintentional game of musical chairs until we find ourselves alone, gazing into the Great Mystery.

Fooled into thinking this was unexpected we see plans for this journey seeded long ago with every “yes” carelessly spoken.

Each moment becomes a new invitation, moving deeper like a lover searching for that place on your lip meant only for others.

Eyes closed, surrender drifts like wafting smoke to linger over new terrain, unsure of where to settle.

Shadows that once held fear dissipate with every wind gust, free now to ride this undulating movement…

We are danced into the unknown.

photo westcoastwoman

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“Wintering” at the Crossroads

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.
Rainer Maria Rilke

We arrived at the crossroads while wandering in the woods, it was so perfectly aligned, so quietly asking for a decision…..right or left, no easy answer, no promise that one direction would lead towards a place less difficult to traverse.

The direction chosen did not matter and the timing of the arrival of no consequence. There was no invitation to linger, just a gentle request to lift one foot and hope the ground held as you lifted the other to propel yourself forward.

The ‘winter’ we are inhabiting promises to be ‘endlessly winter’ and those whose hearts survive will have shed something that cannot be named, leaving it behind like a snake’s skin. Whatever path we choose, most will lead to the base of the mountain.

The mountain is the true ‘wintering’, from it’s base all paths call you to that place “ahead of all parting” and ask that you arrive alone, trailing the substance of life in your wake “as though it already were behind you.”

wcw

photos westcoastwoman 2020

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“swimming in clues”

All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop. Kabir

“swimming in clues”

Our lives in pieces
reflect through
mirrors, shattered,
barely held
in fragile frames.

Lungs gasp, groan,
sighs release,
inhale once more
sweet ocean air
breath of the ancestors.

Hearts reassemble,
vital organs
beat in unison
feel the labour,
Life rebirthing.

Wooden carcass
our wreckage decomposed
greed, power, blindness,
floats the surface
walks the pavement.

only having learned the backstroke…
“we are swimming in clues.”

westcoastwoman 2020

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Shedding

“arriving at your own door” photo westcoastwoman

Love after Love by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give Bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

– Derek Walcott

Shedding

…..As I put the key into the lock and opened the door to ‘the loft’ on this distant island that feels so very far from home, this poem came to mind. It is a piece that has haunted me for a few years perhaps because I don’t want the message to be true.

There is no ‘magical other’ waiting to save us from ourselves or from the circling storm of uncertainty that surrounds us.

There is a welcome shedding of expectation that comes from the words, a sigh of relief that the only goal is to “give back your heart to itself” and “peel your own image from the mirror.”
Those things in themselves appear to be insurmountable right now but when compared with continuing this exhausting upstream swim, the image of simply floating with the current back to my “own door” is indeed a feeling of “elation.”

The latch is well worn, many have opened it and returned …..

Sit. Eat. Feast on your life.

westcoastwoman 2020

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The Empty Handed Offering

“You are being called, we are all being called. We stumbled upon the Hero’s Journey and now there is no turning back. We know too much, overcame too many trials and received initiation into the Great Mystery, the river will not release us without a struggle.
We asked to be conscious, we cannot become unconscious…it is too late for that.
We are reluctant heroes.
Linda Jonke

The Empty Handed Offering

What does an Empty Handed Offering consist of?

I am not sure, but my gut tells me it looks something like the walking forward of this photograph. No idea what it actually is, or if it even exists.
I hope to attempt an answer over the next eight months. A series of synchronicities has allowed me access to a small loft over the winter that is located on a remote island a few ferry rides away.

I have taken to calling it “A Room of One’s Own”. Full disclosure, I have not read in its entirety “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf but now have a copy in hand and will finish it before the first departure of my solo journey. Books, art supplies, camera and hopes for inspiration will travel with me as I move back and forth every few weeks from ‘home’ to ‘room’ with the question of the “Empty Handed Offering”.

I was born on the Winter Solstice, each year there is comfort in knowing that the days become longer, the light returns slowly from that day forward. This year I enter another decade of life, more decades are now behind than in front.

This opportunity is the perfect gift, a room of one’s own and a question that can only be answered walking forward with hands and heart open… into the ‘Great Mystery’

Strength grows with Grace (morning dew). photo westcoastwoman2020

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The Summer Day

**“who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-“** unknown photographer

The summer is slipping away, you feel it in the cool of the dawn before the dew evaporates.

It is in the darkness arriving minutes sooner as each day comes to a close.

These times have been at once, strange, tragic and transformative. We are lurching towards a Fall that is unpredictable and unknown at best.

The poem below has been appearing for me in partial and complete form many times in the last few days and I want to share it before “The Summer Day” has passed.

The last two lines are ones I will be repeating to myself daily as we edge slowly forward.

The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

westcoastwoman 2020

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One Last Look

It is a negligence of the mind not to notice how at dusk Heron comes to the pond and stands there in his death robes, perfect servant of the system, hungry, his eyes full of attention, his wings pure light.
Mary Oliver

A photographic series….

This beautiful creature allowed me to sit very close and still while it ‘fished’ I witnessed the catch, the positioning as it prepared to eat and most disturbing to me the final look of the fish as it peeked over it’s bill and prepared to enter the gullet of the Heron.

The cruelty and beauty of nature on a late summer evening.

photos westcoastwoman

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Brides of the Sea

Street statue Victoria B.C. photo westcoast woman 2020

“A life that is truly lived is constantly burning away the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of the individual.” Marion Woodman

Wandering almost always takes me to the edge of the ocean, especially if I wander alone. These days that seems to be my preference. The last wander brought me to a beach that was deserted except for two young girls who appeared to be about ten years old. Close to the shore they had fashioned a structure out of driftwood and returned to the water’s edge to find something to use as siding.

Seaweed, thick, wide and long proved to be the perfect material. I watch as one of the girls held two strands, one on each shoulder. It gave the impression of a veil from my vantage point. Her companion followed her lead and they both squealed in delight as they headed back to their ‘house’ trailing their gifts from the sea unaware of anyone watching in the distance…..I was the congregation, they were Brides of the Sea.

Brides of the Sea

Partially formed Mermaids
Oceanic without curves
trailing seaweed veils
skin of the sea, from
small bare shoulders
unable yet to carry
the weight of the world.

My heart calls out…
Be Brides of the Sea
ride the swells
surrender to the crest
the trough,
the holy trinity
Earth, Moon, Sea

No paper hearts
No man-made veils,
love, honor, obey
all that
isn’t spoken,
one deep dive
Body, Heart, Soul.

westcoastwoman 2020

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The Lion in the Moonlight

unknown photographer

The Lion in the Moonlight

We wait,
like the lion in the moonlight,
not in expectation but
Surrender, Grace,
longing for the gifts that hover
just beyond our grasp
hoping for an invitation,
the magic hour begins
the veil briefly lifted.

Darkness defines Light,
dew, the momentary threshold
releases our trembling fragility
“the shimmering of the web”
this alchemy of dawn,
dimensions where words wait
just beyond
the moment being witnessed.

remove the shoes of the past
the door was always open

Enter.

unknown photographer

westcoastwoman 2020

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“I want to unfold”

photo westcoastwoman 2020

“I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere
because where I am folded,
there I am a lie.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

“I want to unfold”

I have retreated to my garden. ‘Social distancing’ in a garden introduces a whole new social order, a separate society carrying on totally oblivious to the chaos and trauma being lived out by the human species.

This shy fellow and I have been playing hide and seek for the last few days. I would disturb his sunbathing and he would retreat into the log he calls home. Today I caught him sleeping and ‘folded.’

I feel my folded parts unfolding day by day. This moment in time has given us all much to consider. How we treat and care for our fellow human beings and the more-than-human-beings will determine how our shared future unfolds.

“because where I am folded, there I am a lie.”

©westcoastwoman 2020

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Settling

photos westcoastwoman 2020

“Know then that the body is merely a garment. Go seek the wearer not the cloak“. Rumi

Settling

Eyes that can navigate
the tears of others
back to their headwaters,
spoke to mine.

“Settle”

Her hands cupped, filter
words, pain, bewilderment,
spilling from mouths
unable to contain the flow.

“You need to settle“

Those hands deliver
to the waiting current,
grief, loss, prayers,
power, control.

“Settle. You need to settle”

Palms open, eyes open,
reach upwards, release,
lower with grace, reverence,
touch and comfort the earth.

“Settle”

westcoastwoman 2020

photo westcoastwoman 2020

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VARANASI

photo westcoastwoman 2020. the ghats at sunrise Varanasi

“Last night, on the banks of the Ganges, I finally learned how to pray.” Michael Allen

VARANASI by Mary Oliver

Early in the morning we crossed the ghat,

where fires were still smoldering,

and gazed, with our Western minds, into the Ganges.

A woman was standing in the river up to her waist;

she was lifting handfuls of water and spilling it

over her body, slowly and many times,

as if until there came some moment

of inner satisfaction between her own life and the river’s.

Then she dipped a vessel she had brought with her

and carried it filled with water back across the ghat,

no doubt to refresh some shrine near where she lives,

for this is the holy city of Shiva, maker

of the world, and this is his river.

I can’t say much more, except that it all happened

in silence and peaceful simplicity, and something that felt

like that bliss of a certainty and a life lived

in accordance with that certainty.

I must remember this, I thought, as we fly back

to America.

Pray God I remember this.

Mary Oliver
A Thousand Mornings
(Penguin, 2012)

Acknowledgment to Ken Chawkin of The Uncarved Blog for bringing this poem to my attention after reading my last piece “Hotel on the Edge of the World” I am a huge admirer of Mary Oliver but had never before come across this poem.

https://womenofacertainagedotca.com

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Hotel on the Edge of the World further travels in the Year of Corona

photo westcoastwoman 2020. street scene Varanasi

Hotel on the Edge of the World

A mother has set up a tightrope for her young daughter to walk and balance upon. There is no net…..not for the daughter or the mother. We are all walking a tightrope here, no net. I find it difficult to look or to look away at this point, some things I have seen I find it hard to find context for.

Illusion of safety no longer exists on any level, unsure of when I surrendered to that fact. One by one we all surrendered in our own time and in our own individual ways. The travelling road show we have been a part of for the last two weeks has arrived at our last place of shelter ‘The Ganges View’ in Varanasi. The Hotel on the Edge of the World is how it feels to me. In reality it is a converted palace full of treasures and art and secrets from the past.

We have heard stories along the way of Varanasi (our final destination) they ranged anywhere from descriptions that portrayed either ‘Pearly gates, Mordor or Oz’ others described it as an LSD trip. It is all of those things and none of them. Varanasi will change you forever but only from the place you are when you arrive. We were warned it could shatter you, I was suitably shattered by the time we arrived ……in some indescribable way this would bring it together.

photo westcoastwoman 2020 one side of the river ‘everything’ the other ‘nothing’

Those who know Varanasi need no explanation, those like myself who knew little of the city before this voyage will need some introduction. Kashi/Benares/Varanasi is India’s holiest city. The Mecca of the Hindu world , the city where every Hindu wants to come to die. Hindu scriptures state that dying here and being cremated along the banks of the Holy Ganges (Ganga) river allows you to break the cycle of rebirth and attain salvation. Up to 150 bodies are publicly cremated every day, 24 hours a day on the banks of the Ganges. The remains are offered into the river.

Every morning and throughout the day there is the life, people bathing, washing clothing and living their life on the banks of Mother Ganga. Everything playing out all at once.

On our last evening we headed out as a group for dinner. Our walking route took us past one of the cremation ghats on the river………four bodies were burning, in attendance were family members, passing public and various other onlookers. Bodies are burned in a wooden pyre and all four were at various stages of disintegration. I saw a foot hanging out of the fire, I looked at my walking companion and she had also seen it. We walked on in silence for a while, finally she said “only in India would you see such a sight on your way to dinner and it would just be part of a day in a life”. She was right.

My experience of death in North America has been hidden or more usually “celebrated” without the celebrant. Life and death in India is just business as usual no safety net or illusion of safety. Raw in your face life and death playing out second by second.

photo westcoastwoman 2020 train station Jaipur our luggage being portaged

I have been changed in ways I have not begun to process and as difficult as some of it has been there has been great strength and love I have felt and assimilated from the people I met. I have been taught about religion by Swamis and scholars and shown a way of life I did not know existed. Visited Tantric Temples, Buddhist Temples, Hindu Temples and the Temple of the ‘Street’.

Someone told me before I left that “When it is your time to go to India, you go to India”
It was my time and I went. It is with much gratitude that I put my hands together in prayer position bend forward and with more understanding and from a deeper place in my heart say to both the country and the people “Namaste”.

Afterword

A note about the Corona Virus, in order for the group of us to get through this journey we had all personally assessed the risk we were taking from the news reports at the time and decided to go forward. We had access to WiFi off and on during the journey and sometimes we would get the ‘Corona report’ as I came to call it. Carnivale in Venice cancelled, outbreak in Italy, bits and pieces of the outside world getting through. We criss crossed paths with others …Germans….Brits in planes, hotels and temples along the way. It seems we were all wanting minimal information, nothing we could do about it anyway. Turns out we were a week ahead of the Italian travel group that tested positive 16 out of 22 members that are now quarantined somewhere north of Delhi. ( a truly terrifying thought) Timing, decisions, being in the right or wrong place at any moment in time…….illusion of safety, no net.

I am not sure given the current situation I would be choosing to head out on a tour of India today but I am grateful I did when the time seemed right. The wild and sometimes eccentric group of merry travellers I shared the experience with will always be close to my heart.

photo westcoastwoman 2020 early morning at the Temple

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Same planet, Different world

This is written like a journal entry, it is the only way I can think to come close to expressing my impressions of India.

I had often heard the expression “assault on your senses” I realize now that I had never really experienced anything close to what India is capable of doing to the senses of a first time North American visitor.

Landing in Delhi is probably a rough way to start but the group of twenty coming from all over the world assembled there just over a week ago. We are a rather strange and eclectic group and after sharing a week together in Delhi, Udaipur, Jaipur and now Agra it is starting to feel a bit like a travelling Agatha Christie novel as interesting a cast of characters one could dream up.

In some ways just allowing yourself to look and take in what is presented you by the mass of humanity that passes by each day is almost too much to comprehend. There is a post apocalyptic feel to what you are seeing and experiencing. The air is unbreathable, the water undrinkable but there is a fullness of life that is unmistakeable as cows, dogs and people coexist in ancient streets and deplorable conditions.

As we slowly make our way from airport to train station to luxury hotels i see and feel my white privilege and need to understand what that really means. I feel more gratitude for what I have and the people in my life than I ever have.

India is not just a place on the map, it feels like an entity that is ripping open my heart and allowing me to see things that would have been impossible to see any other way.

This morning as the sun was rising I stood in front of the Taj Mahal with tears streaming down my face. I have never been so moved by seeing a structure in my life.

……

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Travel in the year of Corona

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This afternoon I am heading out on the adventure of a lifetime, the weeks leading up to it have been an adventure in themselves. The Corona virus and numerous other unexpected roadblocks led me to comment to the organizer of the trip:

“I knew India had things to teach me, I just thought she might let me arrive before the learning began”

I will be visiting North India on a tour of Sacred Places, a Pilgrimage of sorts. I’ve always wanted to expose myself to what India promised to open in anyone who followed the call to travel there. I have readied myself for the fact that in certain areas the air would be hard to breath, the water undrinkable and the food a little dicey for my stomach. The people, the culture and the mass of humanity that is India will test my limits.

Not expected for anyone travelling the world right now or just staying put, is the Corona Virus. I refuse to live my life in fear so I am setting out on what is starting to feel a bit like an Indiana Jones adventure complete with “Nago sadhus” (snake-worshipping ascetics) who live in mud huts dug out in the banks of a river.
The bizarre part comes on the next line of the itinerary :
“Overnight at the Double Tree Hilton”
Snake charmers……to the Hilton I expect I will learn much more than just the history of sacred sights on this journey.

There are 23 of us signed up, a tour leader named Andrew Harvey who is a Scholar, author and a Mystic born in India and spent large swaths of his life there.

So, for the next two weeks when time allows I will be sending little missives, reflections on what I am seeing, feeling and hopefully some words will start to follow me and show up in poetry.

Namaste my friends. Next stop Dehli.

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Mating in Captivity

photo westcoastwoman 2014

“Humans are liminal creatures. We exist on the margins of the wild. The idea that we might exist in perfect bliss entirely within the wild is rich, romantic fiction. The idea that we might ever exist entirely outside the wild is equally fatuous. It is a witch tale rather than a fairy tale: a dystopia disguised as an ideal.”

Robert Bringhurst

Mating in Captivity

Our containment born of
song, film, illusion
we mate in captivity.

Caged on the edge of a civilization
lost, on its way to where?.
a question or answer.

This destination with no map,
hovers above liminal space
feet dangling, legs pumping.

Swinging

a pendulum of humanity
drawing in, releasing
breath, body, spirit,

Eyes searching, meeting,
knowing, it’s All or Nothing
one final sweep and we are

“All In”

Hoping for the perfect River card.

©westcoastwoman 2020

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Old Maps

Clothing optional Hollyhock, Cortes Island, B.C.

“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here.
Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed.
We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”

John O’Donohue quote from Anam Cara

Old Maps

Just over a year ago I posted one of my favorite Joyce Rupp poems “Old Maps No Longer Work” on this site.

For reasons that are still a mystery to me, the link ended up at the top of the search list on Google for that poem. Every day since, at least one person somewhere in the world read it on the site. The constant attention given to the piece prompted me to reread it many times over the last year. Each reading took me deeper into understanding what it meant to be ‘off map’ or ‘mapless’.

As the decade comes to a close I feel compelled to let go of some of my “well travelled paths” with gratitude to where the twists and turns of life have led me but
now “It is time for the pilgrim in me to travel in the dark” and “wait for the stars.”

For the next year when I find myself at the inevitable crossroads we all have to face in life, I will repeat the following lines:

“The Map is not the Territory. When Map and Terrain differ, follow the Terrain.”

Wishes for a New Year of Peace and Understanding.

“We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free“

©westcoastwoman 2019

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THE GUEST HOUSE by Rumi

“sometimes you reread a teaching and hear it differently, this….today”

©westcoastwoman 2017

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house empty of it’s furniture.

Still, treat each guest honourably,
He may be cleaning you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

Rumi

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We are being Lived

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Banafsheh photographer unknown

“You are an ocean in a drop of dew, all the universes in a thin sack of blood.

What are these pleasures then, these joys, these worlds that you keep reaching for, hoping they will make you more alive?”

Rumi

WE ARE BEING LIVED

Eyes closed
Touch the quiet
Embrace
Drum beat, matching heartbeat
Turning…..
Music becoming flesh
We are being danced.

Eyes open
Hear the sounds
Listen
Earth beat, touching heartbeat
Turning…..
Sounds becoming words
We are being written.

Dance
Words
Longing and desire
Turning…..
Watch
Love becoming life
We are being lived.

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Treading Water

photo credit © westcoastwoman

If each day falls
inside each night,
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.

We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.

Pablo Neruda
***

Treading Water

The tide is coming in. A long, hot summer day is coming to an end when I hear my neighbours voice. “Come on girl, get out here”. She stands waist deep in the cool water of the incoming tide and I lose no time in joining her. We take the plunge together, the one I usually resist until the last moment– letting go and going completely under.

Swimming out over our heads we start treading water and talking, a talk that soon turns to a version of one that is reverberating all over the planet. We speak of the human condition, the planetary condition, the white privilege that has allowed us to live and tread water under a rising moon on a beautiful island off the West Coast of North America. We speak of this and more as we slowly drift from shore.

I am facing out to sea and by the time I look back, the shore appears to be distant and I am starting to lose strength. The conversation continues as I change the movement of my arms and we both slowly move back towards a place where we will ‘touch ground’ again. I reach intermittently with my toe, longing to feel the safety of the sea bed. There are two conversations going on, one with my companion the other within myself.

I am a strong swimmer and could have easily floated on my back if I felt too tired to swim or tread but each time my foot reaches for security and doesn’t find it there is a slight feeling of panic and then palpable relief when my toe finally does find bottom. I am surprised by the intensity of both feelings.

Sitting on the deck later that night I realized how long I’ve had the feeling I was treading water–we have been treading water as a world community. There is a collective need for our toes to touch the sea bed and feel the familiar security and comfort of solid ground.

As we head back towards shore perhaps we are being called to dive; dive deep within ourselves and return with our particular part of the puzzle. No one gets to sit this one out. There is no ‘us and them’. There is only us.

A Call to Arms. Arms to reach out, arms to hold, arms raised with clenched fists in resistance and arms spread in surrender.

We are over our heads.
We are treading water.
The call is out.

photo credit Marc Riboud

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The Threshold

Photo Linda McDaniel

“Time is an Ocean, present and eternal. We are adrift on that ocean of possibility, you and I , and the miracle is that we find each other at all. Maybe it’s age that keeps me scanning the horizon, looking for you, waving, bobbing in that sustaining current, because I want to hold eternal moments closer now. We move through time and space separately, and the mystery of our meeting is time’s gift to us. Swim with me now. We have no other chance.”

Richard Wagamese “Embers One Ojibway’s Meditations”

___________________________________________________________

THRESHOLDS

Gateways, doorways and thresholds all inviting an entrance or an exit, their silent message ‘the only way out (or in) is through.’

We arrive at our personal thresholds through a naturally arranged opening, the decision to step forward or not, totally in our hands.

Fingers on the latch speak of transition and escape but mostly possibilities that lie beyond fear.

Push the latch and set the barrier free, disengage, turn sideways into the light and it will both dissolve and expose you.

We stand on the shoreline, toes in the water not wanting to leave safe harbour despite knowing instinctively how to navigate rough seas, rising with the swells and resting in the trough.

The surrender that brings you again to the surface the vulnerability of the letting go and the trust needed for both, all released with a push of a latch .

©westcoastwoman

written in response to Denise’s “Six Sentence Stories” Prompt word: Escape

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“the Parade of our Mutual Life”

It was a year ago today that I set up this site (as I was reminded by a Congratulatory! email) a year since my finger hovered over the pink ‘publish’ button and I somehow got the courage to touch it.

A year that started by reading the words of Others ….. that being the great gift. Stumbling upon writer after writer whose words spoke so deeply and honestly I felt ‘broken open’ and that opening allowing more of my inner world to be exposed.

One site led to another, it felt like climbing on a large web of linked consciousness, each writer working in their own corners writing words that only they could release .
I started to hear this as the ‘collective human howl’.

Joy, pain, darkness and light all being expressed individually and in perfect unison. A virtual worldwide Salon of sorts where the doors are always open and swinging both ways, all ways. Everyone welcome….so grateful I stepped through the threshold.

” it is important that awake people be awake” William Stafford

©westcoast woman

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Release

©westcoastwoman

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin

Release

We tend gardens in Spring under the illusion that we somehow affect the outcome, that our careful placement of seed or plant has anything to do with the eventual opening of the buds of May.

No credit given to the artist and unknown creator of the fragile petals that unfold, we proudly display our garden, rarely acknowledging that we are just the temporary curators of an impermanent living gallery.

© westcoastwoman

Our heart and spirit are also part of this life gallery, we too are meant to unfold and flower in this fleeting moment we occupy space on the planet.

Not born to stay “tight in the bud” we struggle in darkness until most of us break open, this second opening no less courageous than our journey from the womb.

Conscious of our consciousness and knowing that venturing forward will involve both great pain along with pleasure, we willingly submit and release ourselves again and again to the unknown.

One undeniable truth “No one gets out of here alive” and we who have experienced all that this life has to offer will finally stand in complete and exquisite exhaustion and wonder at our solitary arrival and departure on this mysterious journey ………
© westcoastwoman

Sculpture EXPANSION, THIRD LIFE
Paige Bradley

This was written in response to Girlieonthedge Six Sentence Story Thursday
Prompt word: Release

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Afterglow

photo credit westcoastwoman ©

“Everyday a new picture is painted and framed, held up for half an hour, in such lights as the Great Artist chooses, and then withdrawn, and the curtain falls. And then the sun goes down, and long the afterglow gives light.”

Henry David Thoreau

Afterglow

Every night they come, the watchers of the sun-set, drawn down by the need to see the light extinguish behind the islands and the sea.

I want to share with them as they slowly rise and disperse that the setting of the sun is only a prelude to the experience they had been called to witness, but I stay silent.

It is this time between the setting sun and rising moon, this short extension of the day, this in-between-time when my heart and mind settle for just a moment.

I watch as the sky paints itself with each night’s original palette, wanting only to share with those who can look out from the same place and feel the colours as they appear, understand the need for silence.

In these moments when I am neither here nor there, anything is possible, magic is afoot and I am caught in the afterglow of another original creation as it slowly fades from sight.

The darkness takes the light, the starlings swoop once more in perfect unison over the water, I share with all who stand watching… being neither here nor there, a silent good night.

westcoastwoman 2019 ©

Written in response to GirlieontheEdge’s Six Sentence Story Word Prompt
Prompt word : Extension

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Wanderlust, Dance and Blogging

©photo credit westcoastwoman

” I had known almost every pleasure and discomfort, all the happiness and all the suffering that can befall man as a social animal. Useless to give you the details: the repertory of possible events in human destinies is rather limited, and they are nearly always the same stories. I will tell you that one day I found myself alone, all alone, fully convinced that I had completed one cycle of existence. I had travelled widely, studied the most esoteric sciences, learned more than ten trades. Life treated me a little the way an organism treats a foreign body: it was obviously trying either to enclose me or expel me, and I myself thirsted for ‘something else.’

Quote from Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal

Reading this rather quirky and inspiring allegory for the journey of life before setting off on my own journey/adventure in a few days.

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Stable

©photo credit westcoastwoman

Morning light streamed through the shutters, she awoke finding herself hovering somewhere between content and completely unhinged.

Thoughts flitted from place to place never sure where to settle these days, the cocoon of certainty and safety broken open long ago.

The garden provided refuge but even insects only stayed temporarily taking what was offered in the moment as blooms and nectars ebb and flow.

Relationship offered comfort as long as undeniable incremental changes were factored in, together and apart nothing ever as it seems.

Illusion of control was obvious, nothing to hang on to, thoughts, garden, relationships all morphing into their next incarnation with no action required but Witness.

The New Normal beckoned her with a smile, her thought finally settled:
“Precarious is the New Stable”

©westcoastwoman 2019

©photo credit westcoastwoman

Written in response to Girlie on the Edge Six Sentence Stories
Word prompt: STABLE

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YOUR CHANGES CAN STILL BE SAVED

credit Lordess Foudre

“All Compost Rots, but not all Rot is Compost”

Lower to the ground.
Kneel and assume, ‘the position’
Reverence: earth, seed, soil
Spring’s sacred cathedral.

Born of winter’s promise
composed, decomposed, Composted
last year fades, surrenders, spirals
More becomes Less

Less formed in darkness,
turned and (re)turned to soil,
Seeds break open to
gamble on new life.

Will I submit to this process
Circle back around
gather lost and shattered bits,
the organic matter of my life

Compost intimate details
brokenness, unshed tears,
turn towards the fragility
not beyond, take the gamble

roots of estrangement
embraced with compassion
Circle back around again
nothing left behind, unattended

no longer in pieces I assume
‘the position’ (re)forming
this new life, this light
born in darkness.

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You can’t get there from here……

unknown photographer

“Sometimes we plan a trip to one place, but something takes us to another”
Rumi

No one would have mistaken her for a leader, or perhaps she was a leader without any followers. Her hair hung to her waist, the last foot of which was a tangled mass of dread locks and beads. The beads appeared to have been threaded in so long ago that any hope of retrieval would have had to involve scissors. Every inch of what remained from head to bead was dyed various shades of neon red, green and purple.

Her body was covered in exquisitely drawn and coloured tattoos enhanced by piercings that appeared on various exposed body parts. The finished effect resembled a moveable human art piece. If she had been a bird, she would have been a Macaw.

Our paths intersected when we both chose to attend a two-hour Labyrinth workshop that was offered as part of a weekend yoga symposium. I smile every time I think about the unlikely bond we forged when it all went ‘terribly wrong’.

For the uninitiated there is a difference between a Labyrinth and a Maze. A Maze is designed as a problem to solve and a Labyrinth can be walked to solve a problem. Previous experiences walking a Labyrinth had revealed that there are points as you move forward where you have a sense you may have ‘taken a wrong turn’ or ‘lost your way’. Trust the path even though you may feel lost and eventually you will spiral your way to the center and out again with new insight.

Our group of ten was led to a large gym where a canvas Labyrinth had been assembled. Encouraged to start walking it when we felt ‘called’ there was initial awkward glances and shuffling. Sudden movement and a blur of color swept past; the Macaw had been ‘called’ she would be our leader.

I followed behind, gave her space and stepped forward…

unknown photographer

Having previously walked a Labyrinth alone or with one other person I was unprepared for the delicate dance of meeting and passing others on such narrow pathways. This interaction became not just a metaphor for life but an enjoyable physical exchange. Approaching another person on an adjacent pathway would compel you to turn completely to the side, arms out, sometimes face to face other times turned away. When three of us would intersect on parallel paths we all moved and turned in unison.

I was enjoying this immensely until I noticed a short distance ahead our ‘Leader’ had stopped unexpectedly and appeared confused. Coming up behind her I could see the dilemma, there did not appear to be ‘a clear path forward’.

With military precision she sized up the problem, the canvas Labyrinth was comprised of three pieces that were held together with velcro. The larger outer paths matched up but the center did not, it had been put together incorrectly.

She looked at me urgently “We have to tear it apart, turn it around and start from the beginning.” The Facilitator standing on the sidelines started to mumble things like “we don’t have time to fix it….. it takes a long time to assemble…..it is not my fault”….. the Macaw would have none of it. Taking orders from no one, she was now in charge and failure was not an option!

Without further instruction I followed her to the edge of the canvas where we found the points where the two seams met. The sound of ripping velcro filled the gym. The other participants moved in to help and within minutes we ripped it apart turned the center piece and reattached the seams.

The Macaw was now back in her rightful position at the entrance to the properly assembled Labyrinth. The dance this time as we turned and moved forward was that much more joyful now that we knew we would be taken both in and out and to the all important center.

She and I parted that afternoon with a nod of mutual respect. I caught a glimpse of her the following day as she flitted across the campus en route to another workshop. Silently I bid her ‘safe travels’ it will be difficult for her to fly under the radar with such bright plumage.

Human error and the inability at some points to see and take action appears to be a frailty that may well be our undoing. The planet we depend on for our survival is starting to wither with our demands that she give more and more with little given in return.
We appear to have lost our center.

There comes a point both personally and on a planetary scale that things appear ‘FUBAR’, to steal a military term my feathered friend would approve of…. when that point is reached the only solution to an obviously wrong course or path seems to be:

“Tear it apart, turn it around and start again from the beginning.”

And from there we will again find our Center.

unknown photographer

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3 a.m. sentence(s)

©photo credit westcoastwoman

“The only ones awake at 3:00 a.m. are the lonely and the loved.”

3 a.m. Sentence(s)

Dusk til Dawn
Shadow and Light
the veil is thin

The call goes out,
spiritual refugees
seeking a conscious oasis-
awaken
torrents of words
whisper past
we linger between
the threshold of
one world and another

in

out

Truth drifts on
shattered hearts
just beyond
the collective reach,
pluck what is close
mist envelops
pain, loss, love,
ephemeral words
3 a.m. sentence(s)
the puzzle solved
piece by piece
together, apart

We wait for dawn.

© westcoastwoman 2019

©photo credit westcoastwoman

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Who let the dogs out?

photo Charles MacKinnon

This is where I humbly confess that I have been ‘sheep dogging’ for longer than I care to admit. Not that I did it consciously mind you, I would have been surprised and likely offended if anyone suggested I attempted to “force or nudge someone off their intended path”.

I stand here, hand raised, yes I am guilty.

This revelation came to me at a retreat I attended recently where one of the facilitators Dan Hines described part of his upbringing. His childhood included time spent on his grandfather’s sheep ranch observing sheep dogs doing their job by forcing and nudging reluctant sheep to their intended destination. Dan then described the perfect metaphor of how as humans we also tend to want to ‘sheep dog’ others in the direction that we see as right for them.

We are all probably guilty of ‘sheep dogging’ on some level or another, especially if we have raised children. Young children are easy to ‘nudge’ without them being aware of what is being done. Teenagers will see you crouched to the ground in herding position, call you on it, bolt off and break away before you have a chance to rise to your feet.

I am very aware of my need to be ‘right’ and the great difficulty I have in changing even the smallest imperfections in myself. Why would I want to take on the impossible job of trying to convince someone else to change direction?

This Hindu proverb states it perfectly:

There are hundreds of paths up the mountain, all leading to the same place, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. The only person wasting time is the one who runs around the mountain, telling everybody that his or her path is wrong.

And so, it is with great relief I will attempt to give up ‘sheep dogging’ completely, both in written and spoken word.

border-collie-herd-sheep-260nw-610347542

There, done, everyone on their own………:)

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She let go……

unknown photographer

Searching for the right words to describe a ‘moment in time’ and you discover someone already found and assembled them for you…..

She Let Go
by Safire Rose

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of judgements.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around in her head.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the Prayer Line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good, and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…..

lady-hands-with-full-of-sand (1)

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Language of the Sea

Finally free
of the Walled City
layers shed, what’s unearthed
will not be contained
My heart full
My arms empty

Tumbled to the shore
of a year waiting to be born,
In surrender, longing
to commune
and so commun-icate
wordless but understood

language of the Sea
message of the waves.

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unknown photographer

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A HOME WHICH MAYBE NEVER WAS

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Hiraeth is a Welsh word that perfectly describes my yearning for the emotions I experienced around Christmases long past. I am not alone in my ‘hiraeth’, without prompting I hear the same yearning in the voices of people I meet on the street this time of year.

It is an ambiguous loss for a season that arrives each year without fail, earlier and earlier with less and less of what my heart is longing for.

I was decorating the tree last night when I came across ‘Eagle with Santa hat’ and as I placed him on the tree it brought to mind an incident last summer that involved two mismatched birds. Their uneasy coexistence had caught my attention days earlier and I photographed them as they perched side by side in the pond in front of the house.

The Eagle is one of a pair whose nest can be seen from the house. Over the last ten years, I watched them raise their young, watched when despite all their careful tending, guarding and feeding they occasionally ‘lost’ one of the young eaglets before it could fledge. One year both eaglets were killed in the nest by a Golden Eagle and one of the pair was badly injured in the attempt to fend off the attack.

Enter the Crow……. the Scavenger and the Predator, these two are not ‘birds of a feather’ but with wonder and curiosity I watched them ‘flock together’. The Crow mercilessly dive bombs the Eagle from above when he is perched in the nesting tree but other than the occasional glance upward the Eagle seems unaffected by this constant annoyance.

Other than that, Eagle and Crow coexist peacefully enough, although the Eagle could easily do away with him with one movement of his powerful beak, he does not. The Crow always ensures he is above the talons that could make short work of him. There is a form of mutual respect between the two.

Perhaps that is what I’m feeling as I experience this homesickness for ephemeral memories of Christmas past. It is the slow erosion of mutual respect that is starting to permeate many parts of our human society. As a species, we appear to be on the verge of entering uncharted waters on many levels.

I have experienced a few ‘Christmas moments’ this year and as I look at the photograph below I realize that is probably what I am longing for. It is the fleeting moments of moving side by side with other human beings. It is the bravery it takes to spread our wings without knowing what the future will bring, and the trust that it will hold us.

Mostly I feel it is sharing and respecting this exquisite little blue planet that we find ourselves on at this moment in time. Instead of feeling sadness for a “home that maybe never was” I will go forward this year with gratitude for ‘what is’ and for this beautiful home that we all share.

Peace on Earth

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Ripple in Still Waters

Walking and watching the River yesterday, the power of nature, constant movement, wearing away, giving in. Photographs and words hardly touch it, “there is the trying though”….

River
Shapes stone, cuts stone,
Banks and bottoms
Nothing escapes the reach,
the filing down, the silky caress
water seeking touch, truth,
the constant Reveal
what is hidden, Exposed.

Three a.m.
thoughts, inspirations,
no escaping the raw Reveal,
comfort knowing others
are Awake
giving in
to the flow, tumbling,
releasing, realizing,
You Can’t Push the River

There is the trying though,
interior ache
screams it’s message
mouth and arms stretch open
breast exposed
All exposed
shape, cut, touch , caress
reveal, Allow

The Run of the River.

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OLD MAPS NO LONGER WORK

Just this tonight, while I wait for the stars ………

a poem by Joyce Rupp

Old Maps No Longer Work

I keep pulling it out –
the old map of my inner path
I squint closely at it,
trying to see some hidden road
that maybe I’ve missed,
but there’s nothing there now
except some well travelled paths.
they have seen my footsteps often,
held my laughter, caught my tears.

I keep going over the old map
but now the roads lead nowhere,
a meaningless wilderness
where life is dull and futile.

“toss away the old map,” she says
“you must be kidding!” I reply.
she looks at me with Sarah eyes
and repeats “toss it away.
It’s of no use where you’re going.”

“I have to have a map!” I cry,
“even if it takes me nowhere.
I can’t be without direction,”
“but you are without direction,”
she says, “so why not let go, be free?”

so there I am – tossing away the old map,
sadly fearfully, putting it behind me.
“whatever will I do?” wails my security
“trust me” says my midlife soul.

no map, no specific directions,
no “this way ahead” or “take a left”.
how will l know where to go?
how will I find my way? no map!
but then my midlife soul whispers
“there was a time before maps
when pilgrims travelled by the stars.”

It is time for the pilgrim in me
to travel in the dark,
to learn to read the stars
that shine in my soul.
I will walk deeper

into the dark of my night.
I will wait for the stars.
trust their guidance.
and let their light be enough for me.

by Joyce Rupp

https://womenofacertainagedotca.com/

Just beyond the present moment

photo wcw 2021

JUST BEYOND THE MOMENT

“That other dimension where the words are waiting just beyond the moment you are witnessing”
WestCoastWoman 2020

I was sorting through bits and pieces of writing collected over the years and came upon a comment sent to another writer. I expressed how their writing took me to that “other dimension” the moment “just beyond” the witnessing. They suggested I try to form words around the dimension I was describing…..it felt ineffable.

In this same stack of papers I found a portion of an interview with Derek Walcott from the Paris Review, Winter 1986 I had copied from https://theuncarvedblog.com/2014/06/22/love-after-love-by-derek-walcott-resonates-deeply-when-you-first-acknowledge-yourself/ It comes as close to describing that ‘other dimension’ that I’ve ever read :

” But I do know that if one thinks a poem is coming on-in spite of the noise of the typewriter or the traffic outside the window, or whatever…..you do make a retreat, a withdrawal into some kind of silence that cuts out everything around you…I am not a monk, but if something does happen I say thanks because I feel that it is really a piece of luck, a kind of fleeting grace that has happened to one. Between the beginning and the ending and the actual composition that goes on, there is a kind of trance that you hope to enter where every aspect of your intellect is functioning simultaneously for the progress of the composition. But there is no way you can induce that trance.”
Derek Walcott

MONKS WITHOUT MONASTERIES

Monks without Monasteries
Withdraw to Silence
Sanctuary
Gestating
Words Born of
Fleeting Grace
Trance

Kneel
Hands cupped
Offer
Thanks.

wcw 2023

The Other Side

the force of the tide photo westcoastwoman 2021

“Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

THE OTHER SIDE

This morning
forcing myself
to rise from
the Other Side of
the bed
the world
a sky where
rain fell
no bombs
not rising to
cram essentials
into small bags
before entering a corridor
of human strength and
misery

This morning on
the Other Side of
the world
the bed
first foot
met the floor with
“Thank”
the second
“You”
humanity rising
no Other Side to
Courage
Truth
Freedom

We rise
unstoppable tide
forcing
everything
everyone
Forward.

wcw 2022

Alope

My project for February is picking ‘new words’ from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows and matching them with photographs that feel like a visual of what the word evokes in me…. then perhaps leaving my own comment.

Alope

n. a mysterious aura of loneliness you feel in certain places; the palpable weight of all the lonely people secretly holed up in their houses and apartments, with a flickering blue glow cast up on their walls-so many of whom might just want someone to talk to, or just want to feel needed, and could be that for each other if only they could somehow connect.

Short for “All the lonely people,” from the song “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles.
Pronounced “al-uh-pee.”

….from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

A Slice of Life

Alope brings to mind the Hitchcock thriller Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart. Stuck in his apartment with an injury he looks across the way and watches others play out their lives through the windows of their apartments.

A slice of life, making up back stories, feeling their loneliness or imagining it. Watching others come and go from their windows as they watch him do the same.

Like animals in an unlocked zoo.

wcw 2022

SONDER

A book with the title The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows recently made its way into my hands. It is a compendium of new words. “It’s mission is to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness of being a human being.” The author John Koenig spent several years forming new words that “capture the delicate subtleties of the human experience” then published this Dictionary that is described as a “poem about everything”.

I thought I would attempt to match a word and definition from the book with a photograph, a shot that I had taken in the past or use it as an inspiration to search out a visual that matched my interpretation of the new word.

SONDER the awareness that everyone has a story

“You are the main character. The protagonist. The star at the center of your own unfolding story. You’re surrounded by your supporting cast: friends and family hanging in your immediate orbit. Scattered a little further out, a network of acquaintances who drift in and out of contact over the years.
But there in the background, faint and out of focus, are the extras. The random passerby. Each living a life as vivid and complex as your own. They carry on invisibly around you bearing the accumulated weight of their own ambitions, friends, routines, mistakes, triumphs, and inherited craziness.
When your life moves on to the next scene, theirs flickers in place, wrapped in a cloud of backstory and inside jokes and characters strung together with countless other stories you’ll never be able to see. That you’ll never know exist. In which you might appear only once. As an extra sipping coffee in the background. As a blur of traffic passing on the highway. As a lighted window at dusk.”

French sonder, to plumb the depths. Pronounced “sahn-der.” Can be used as a noun or a verb, as you would use the word wonder.

from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

“It began when…”

It has been a while …. I recently joined a writing group that uses ‘jump off lines’ from poems to get us writing ‘wild writing’. I plan to post one of these ‘wild writings’ every week and see where it leads.

IT BEGAN WHEN……

It began when I spoke something, something that sounded like a promise,
that tasted both foreign and sincere on my tongue.

It began when there was no doubt your body was dying,
when that promise had to be unearthed, examined, acted upon.

It began when I held your hand and it came time to say goodbye,
the gifts and pain that flowed from that touch.

It began when I went to the shore sobbing,
as a scene played out between a man and his dog.

It was all ‘clothing optional’.

It began when there was no other option but to release, everything,
clothing being the least of it, that first layer easily removed.

It began when attempts to control anything moved forward like a tsunami,
spilling onto ground, exploding into air, inhaled by merciless waves.

It began when you asked me where I was going and I replied
“Wherever my feet take me.”

Yes, that was the moment it really began,
when feet carried me to the edge of a waterfall

Standing, waving to myself as I went over

It was all ‘clothing optional’ beyond that point

wcw october 2021

” I am Losing my Mother Words”

Hieroglyphic Stairway

It’s 3:23 in the morning

and I’m awake

because my great great grandchildren

won’t let me sleep

my great great grandchildren

ask me in dreams

what did you do while the planet was plundered?

what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something

when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest

when democracy was stolen?

what did you do

once

you

knew?…

poem by Drew Dellinger

___________________________

“I Am Losing my Mother Words“

This statement reached my ears and I was unable to process the meaning, my deep heart had no such trouble.

“I am Losing my Mother Words”

These words were in response to a call from an adult son. A call to his mother, an attempt to make sense of the myriad of events tearing humanity apart. He was looking perhaps for ‘mother words’ of long ago, the ones that somehow put pieces back in order, that securely strapped you in even if it turned into a bumpy ride.

His question was one of bewilderment, how so many failed to see beauty, failed to choose peace over war, acceptance over hate.

I too am losing my ‘mother words’, my initial reaction was deep sadness but I soon realized that the ‘mother words’ of the present were of no use to either myself or any intended recipients. They were slowly being unmade, new words were forming, sent from the Ancestors for Future Generations. Words of transition and transmutation.

The speaker then described the beauty of apple blossoms in her garden and then the horror of bombs falling in another part of the world. What ‘mother words’ were being spoken by mothers and fathers huddled together holding children close as bombs exploded around them? What words will comfort in that reality?

Her next thought haunted me…

“Perhaps it is not,

never has been,

Either/Or

it is

Both/And

Apple Blossoms and Bombs.”

The Descent

*rapture or rupture* statue Denman Island photo westcoastwoman

A discussion on how ‘breaking down‘ is often a portal to ‘breaking through‘ prompted a friend to forward the attached poem to me.

We had been using the metaphor of snorkeling to describe the approach many of us take towards the bigger questions of life. If not forced by circumstance to confront something, we snorkel, safe on the surface just looking into the depths.

We toyed with the image of putting on tanks, diving down to interact with and perhaps touch what we find, or a diving suit, a submersible that allows a walk on the bottom of our unconscious. A few days later I had the image of “free diving” unencumbered by any sort of attachment to the surface except the air you captured in your lungs…. doing a deep dive…

Surrender……. not the ‘giving in to‘ but the ‘living in to‘ the “promiscuous” present moment.

wcw

The descent by Gina Puorro

There are things you can only learn
on your knees
or in a storm
or when the cracks in the foundation
of this modern world
open a chasm of uncertainty
beneath your feet.
Your discontent
with what has been named normal
is both grief and longing
for what your mind has forgotten
but your body remembers.

You can feel it
in the way a child’s laughter
disrupts your commitment
to what is appropriate
and makes space
for foolishness and magic.
You can feel it
broken open
at the altar of all you’ve lost
and how much you’ve loved.
Can we fall apart together?
Make a commitment to search for the truth
but promise
to never find it.
Let myths and stories
be the cartograph
for what is both
primordial and brand new
because the present moment
is promiscuous like that.
Compost ourselves down
into the dirt beneath the dirt
and tend the chthonic embers
that light the ancient fires in our bellies.

When the fault lines open
and your mind is grasping
and you don’t know
in the way that water
has taught you
how to be a vessel
and how to spill.
Can you trace your lineage
all the way back to salt?
the same that now stains your face
with both sadness and laughter
excites your tongue
and protects your prayers.
You are diasporic. Ecological. Holon.
A vast territory
of many wild bodies
melting into each other
dressed up as human.
Simultaneously living and dying
shaping and dismantling
filling up and boiling over.

Ashes to ashes
stardust to bone.
What language do you grieve in?
What is the mother tongue for that
which twists and contorts your body
wringing oceans from your skin?
The gravity that pulls you
down to your knees
forehead to ground
where to go from here;
prostrate
trade rapture for rupture
let yourself spill
and descend.

-Gina Puorro

THE ONLY TWO DIRECTIONS

Wandering on the ‘misty isle‘ I happened upon reflections in a dark pond, the message of the photograph became the two directions, up and down, towards and away, only revealed when the image was turned sideways.

Yesterday a friend introduced me to this poem by Quinn Bailey.

When our internal or external worlds are turned sideways, that can sometimes be
“when the boulder in front of the cave begins to shift”

THE ONLY TWO DIRECTIONS BY QUINN BAILEY

This world has only two true directions:
Towards and away.

The big fear, in the end, is to awake and find that
You chose away.

That the hand
Which held you down
Was none other
Than your own.

Remember

The pursuit
Of that which is not truly us
Renders even the most
Powerful vision useless

Recognize

When the boulder in front of the cave begins to shift

When that first illuminating shaft
Pierces the dark

Do not hesitate long

Do not waste time
Anticipating the griefs
Yet to come

They cannot be helped and perhaps are necessary

On that long
And awkward walk
Towards yourself.

Quinn Bailey
The Currents of the World
2020 Homebound Publications

photos westcoastwoman

The Substance of Shadow (Hiraeth)

“Longing is the deepest and most ancient voice in the human soul”
John O’Donohue

THE SUBSTANCE OF SHADOW

HIRAETH: longing for a home that no longer exists or maybe never was

There are words that speak from another place. A word can have no english equivalent when it is speaking the language of soul, a language seldom spoken in the west.

The lure of Hiraeth comes from a place where “home” is ephemeral, not a house or a return address. It is an internal longing that can appear external when recognized in another. Its call is strongest in times of transition, when the veil is thin…dawn, twilight, full moon and those times when life calls us to ride out unpredicted storms.

This longing aches for a shared fantasy, one that will provide temporary relief from these times. The shelter provided reveals itself to be a portal into deep, often painful insights … a threshold that when crossed leads to an untapped vein of love and life waiting to be mined for its wisdom and nourishment before being brought once again to the surface.

We chase this shadow as if it is the substance of the shadow, irrationally bound to the belief that this ‘home that never was’ is just as real as the house our bodies currently occupy.

westcoastwoman 2021

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Brides of the Sea

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unknown photographer

The Lion in the Moonlight

unknown photographer

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photo westcoastwoman 2020

“I want to unfold. I don’t want to stay folded anywhere because where I am folded, there I am a lie.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

“I want to unfold”

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photos westcoastwoman 2020

Settling

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photo westcoastwoman 2020. the ghats at sunrise Varanasi

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photo westcoastwoman 2020. street scene Varanasi

Hotel on the Edge of the World

photo westcoastwoman 2020 one side of the river ‘everything’ the other ‘nothing’

photo westcoastwoman 2020 train station Jaipur our luggage being portaged

photo westcoastwoman 2020 early morning at the Temple

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photo westcoastwoman 2014

Mating in Captivity

Swinging

©westcoastwoman 2020

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Old Maps

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©westcoastwoman 2017

The Guest House

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. Banafsheh photographer unknown

“You are an ocean in a drop of dew, all the universes in a thin sack of blood.

What are these pleasures then, these joys, these worlds that you keep reaching for, hoping they will make you more alive?”

Rumi

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photo credit © westcoastwoman

photo credit Marc Riboud

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Photo Linda McDaniel

Richard Wagamese “Embers One Ojibway’s Meditations”

___________________________________________________________

©westcoastwoman

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©westcoastwoman

© westcoastwoman

Sculpture EXPANSION, THIRD LIFE Paige Bradley

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photo credit westcoastwoman ©

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©photo credit westcoastwoman

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credit Lordess Foudre

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unknown photographer

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“I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere
because where I am folded,
there I am a lie.”

.
Banafsheh photographer unknown

Sculpture EXPANSION, THIRD LIFE
Paige Bradley

Dusk til Dawn
Shadow and Light
the veil is thin

The call goes out,
spiritual refugees
seeking a conscious oasis-
awaken
torrents of words
whisper past
we linger between
the threshold of
one world and another

Truth drifts on
shattered hearts
just beyond
the collective reach,
pluck what is close
mist envelops
pain, loss, love,
ephemeral words
3 a.m. sentence(s)
the puzzle solved
piece by piece
together, apart