loving in the war years: day nine

You were born together, and together you shall be forever more.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your
days.
Yes, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of heaven dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be
alone—even as the strings of a lute are alone though the quiver
with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not in each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the Cyprus grow not in each other’s shadows

– Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet

loving in the war years: day eight

I heard about this group through an segment on NPR. The segment brought me to tears:

The Threshold Choir honors the ancient tradition of women singing at the bedsides of people who are struggling, some with living, some with dying. The voice, as the original human instrument, is a true and gracious vehicle for compassion and comfort. When invited – and without charge – we visit in small groups, welcoming families and caregivers to join us in song or simply to be quietly present.

To not die alone, to die surrounded by singing love, seems to be one of the greatest gifts the universe can bestow upon an individual. But in today’s world, where we’ve seen such incredible violence, that clearly doesn’t happen for all of us. I wonder what peace it can bring families and even the spirit of the one who died, to have singing at funerals/wakes/memorials–singing that lifts the spirit into a new world.

loving in the war years: day five

A day of mothering…

~rose~

I’ve never been much of a fan of roses. Mostly it’s the smell. Growing up the late 70s meant babysitters and aunts dragged me along to one Avon party or another, and rose candles, perfume, lipstick or nail polish were plastered on me to the delighted coos of the women in the room. Isn’t she adorable? Isn’t she sweet? Meanwhile, I’d see the fingernails that I couldn’t bite or feel the oppressive sweet smell that reminded me of funerals, even at that age.

Rose is a heavy scent. One that stays in the room long after the person wearing it has left. I don’t find the flowers very pretty and the expense of a dozen roses never seemed reasonable or a romantic show of affection.

But when you are a good herbalist, you learn about the plants that are around you. The ones that are plentiful and won’t harm the ecosystem if you remove a handful. Why would you pay the expense, hurt the environment, and possibly take healing resources away from one community, if you have an herb in your own community that will do the same job?

So I decided to work with wild roses, as they are fairly common in my area. To my amazement, it was like they were waiting for me to finally pay them attention. Everywhere I turned, I found myself surrounded by roses, for weeks and weeks. Wild roses in the back of the car after clipping some on a walk. Wild roses in the mail after a friend heard I was interested in them. Wild roses in salves, wild roses in lotion, wild roses in the brandy I had left over from a party. I even noticed for the first time that the massive bush in my neighbors yard was a wild rose bush. I’d always paid attention to the birds rather the branches they sat on.

I don’t know what brought these flowers into my life after I had worked so hard to avoid them. But once they got in, I finally realized why herbalists especially love them.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a hard time taking a deep breath. I’ve been tested for heart attacks, asthma, pneumonia, allergic reactions, I even had a frustrated doctor give me an inhaler and told me if it worked he’d give me a refill. Unstated: now get out and leave me alone.

Needless to say, the tight breathless feeling never went away. It got easier to deal with, it got to the point I hardly noticed it sometimes. But then for some reason it’d be back, and I couldn’t take a deep breath and my chest felt like a vice.

As wild roses spent more time in my life, that weird heavy tight chest seemed to ease a little. I barely noticed at first. But then for unrelated reasons, I started taking a tincture of rose. And almost immediately, within about 30 minutes, the chest thing was gone. And for the first time in as long as I could remember, I could take a long lovely deep quiet breath.

I talked with an elder herbalist about how weird this experience was and what it could possibly mean and they shared with me that rose is a wonderful herb for anxiety and stress, which I knew. What I didn’t know, was that rose is great for moving ‘stuck’ anxiety/stress/emotions. So, for example, that stressor that you were too young to have words for? Like, say, a scary or abusive parent or bullying that you couldn’t tell anybody about? The stress from that very often stays stuck in your body if you don’t have other ways to deal with it. Those of us who have grown up in high-stress environments can carry that ‘stuck’ energy around with us not really knowing that there’s any different way to feel or be. It’s just normal.

The only reason I had any idea that not being able to take a deep breath might not be a good thing was because I had seen heart attacks on TV and worried I might be having one. When the doctors gave the all clear and I didn’t drop dead, I assumed it must be asthma or any of the other explanations doctors gave me. But what was more likely going on was that I was having panic attacks that had no place to go except inward. A typical ‘good girl’ response to stress. Keep swallowing it all down until it’s too big to hold anymore.

Taking the rose has not only cleared up this ‘panic attack’ feeling, but has also helped to release just regular old tension from work days or sitting on the computer too long. It helps me to live more in the moment–when I’m stressed and need to cry or yell or ‘speak’ what I’m feeling into existence, instead of stuffing those feelings, I feel them, and then let them go. It’s ok.

And oddly enough, as I’ve worked more with rose, I’ve grown to enjoy the smell much more. When I smell rose now, I anticipate the wave of relaxation that always comes within minutes, sometimes seconds. Life, where oppressive death used to be.

As I continue my time of Mourning, I take just a few drops of rose tincture daily, as a reminder that to mourn, you need to care for and replenish yourself. And also to gently move whatever hurt, whatever loss, whatever tension I’ve been gripping too tightly along. It’s ok to let go. It’s ok.

It’s ok.

Here is a lovely essay to learn more about rose, if your interested. And this is a great herbalist that I get my rose tincture from.

 

loving in the war years: day three

and it happens again and again and again.

how do you mourn when it just won’t stop?

when our ancestors created mourning rituals, did they account for genocide? or endless war? or mass murderers? or did they assume our world would always account for human dignity? and that just one person would die at a time? from natural causes? or at the worst, some accident?

some days, the only thing that feels right is nihilism. complete lack of meaning. what is the point of being born if you’re just going to be mowed down like ants at a picnic? hopelessness.

but then you see this. amid the threatening clouds and the sprinkles of rain promising a true storm. a rainbow.

deep breath.

it’s not that the hopelessness of nihilism goes away. or that suddenly everything is ok.

it’s that for a second you’re not alone. the universe shares the burden.

compassion.

and now i share it with you.
may you be free from suffering. you be safe.

may you be free.

loving in the war years: day two

but did it?
did it really start with september 11?

it feels right to say it started then, it feels like what we all agree with. everything was moving along, and then september 11 happened. and then the world stopped and nothing was the same again.

but when i dig around under the grief, under the twisted memories and through the barricaded chest, i see other things. and i wonder, did it start there? or did it start some place else? some place less obvious?

like the time i lost my job? and went a year without work and couldn’t afford to clothe my children? or maybe it was the time my father told me i might have to quit school to work, the family was having a hard time staying afloat. my education would be the price paid for survival. or maybe it was the time i was sexually assaulted, and i found out that people were calling me a liar at work. i had no idea at that time that anybody even knew.

or maybe it was my first christmas after being kicked out by my parents, when i realized really and truly for the first time what it meant to be alone. or the first time i was called a slut while taking a walk, or the first time i couldn’t afford food or the first time i was assaulted at job that i couldn’t afford to quit. or maybe it’s the bigger picture. and it’s the first time a border was constructed or the first time a bullet penetrated that border or maybe it was when hitler was born or that time that some man whose name nobody knows shot some important person that nobody heard of and started the war to end all wars that hasnt ended yet.

or maybe it started with capitalism or mercantilism or the first time a priest called an indigenous person a savage. or maybe it started with the catholic church. or jesus. or the person who figured out how to mold steel into shackles that fit around even the slender arms of a small child not just her mother. or maybe it was the first time a man hit a woman.

does anybody know when this all started? when did that first domino get blasted away, starting the chain of explosions that have never stopped, like it was all meant to be? like there was just no other way for this story to be told?

does it really matter? if we figure out when all this started, will we be able to figure out how to end it? or is the desperate need to put a date on it all, to find a time when it wasn’t like this, more of a way to control the chaos? to make sense of the utterly incomprehensible?

how many religions, writers, artists, have tried to make sense of the incomprehensible? is there a reason we live through this? or are we all fodder for the war machine?

does it mean anything to be human?

i cling to the cold loneliness settled at the bottom of my stomach.
to feel, even something awful,
is to be alive.

i am alive
i am alive
i am alive…

loving in the war years: day one

it starts with september 11.

up early that day, gritty eyes torn open by rambunctious toddler jumping and laughing on my bed. the child that never sleeps, joyful with life.

flipping on howard stern, i groan and creak my way out of bed. pregnant again, my body, heavy with life, is not so joyful as the toddler, who is already prattling in the cupboards of the kitchen, her job with me, finished.

as i brush my teeth, the rumbly voice of howard mentions that a plane crashed into the world trade center. but planes have crashed into the trade center before. nobody is worried. i spit the toothpaste into the sink.

i am in the kitchen cooking breakfast when the phone rings. i almost dont hear it because the toddler is banging pans against the floor and screaming with laughter. her lips are red and her curls bob. i make it to the phone on the third ring.

and that’s when it starts.

turn on the TV, says the frantic voice on the other line.
why? I ask.
just do it! screams the voice.
i remember to turn off the stove before i cross the small kitchen into the living room and turn on the TV.

the screen burns with fire, deep billowing smoke furls into the perfect blue day.

howard stern’s voice is suddenly crystal clear from the back room. they are debating if they should shut the show down. there more planes and we’re under attack and nobody knows what’s going on and my baby’s screaming and i can’t hear anything else.

and then the first building collapses and then the next and i feel my feet fall out from underneath me and my hands go to my belly and life and death and life and death and life and death swirl and mix and then there is nothing and everything and black dust blankets the earth that somehow keeps right on spinning even tho the world has stopped.

remember that you are dust…

it all starts here.

loving in the war years: tuesday

blood

i find myself
in a field.

i pray
for all of us that are scared
for all of us that are lonely
for all of us that don’t know what to do
that can’t get up, not even one more time

for all of us
that are hurting right now.
for all of those poor mothers
and those poor children, motherless.
for all of the fathers
for all those who are struggling

compassion.
i am with you. to help you bear this burden.

i open my eyes
i find myself

in a field of corn. sacred maiz
our mother.
all of us that are lonely. blood drips into corn,
into life.

pray for us now, holy mother, in the hour of our death…

this ache has not gone away.

a family of deer peeks out
through dusk.
they feast on corn, our mother’s
gift.

it is the full buck moon tonight. announcing
the season of the deer’s growth.

i dont know what to do about any of this. the ache tears at my throat, my heart, and most days i feel like i can’t get up, not even one more time. 40 years of this is enough.
and i am a lucky one.
so far. one kid texts me she loves me. the other asks me what’s for dinner.

i am terrified for them. the only thing that calms me
are the whispers of the corn, our sacred mother-
to suffer is to be alive.
share this burden.
compassion.

the family of deer turn as one
fly into the woods that wrap around the field.
i watch them until they disappear, then turn back to the field

to find the moon, full
glowing
on the green stalks
dancing with with fireflies, like twinkly lights.

blood has given birth
to life. our ancestors
whisper,
we are here.

we will bear this burden
with you.

holy mother, pray for us now and in the hour of our deaths-

amen