In Honor of All Saint’s Day

All Saint’s and All Soul’s days were celebrated a couple of weeks ago.  (I forget the difference between the two and just know that it is a time to honor the dead.)  But how to engage with the memory of those who have passed and were painful or difficult in living relations?  And can this help with those who are still with us?  It seems to me—just conjecture and quite possibly not the truth—that the healing is in allowing the other, and also oneself, to break out of now-antique roles in order to help.  A eulogy written for my father:

 

 

How Does One Say Good-Bye?

For PLB

How does one say good-bye?
This leave-taking,
it doesn’t happen all at once.
Tangled emotions,
like Christmas tree lights stashed
hurriedly away,
are discovered in a hideaway
corner of the heart,
long ago forgot.
 
Bit by bit,
hesitating step
by hesitating step,
knot
by maddening knot,
the farewell
ripens into the greeting
of a kinship
unlike the one
once bound by eyebrows, skin, and teeth.
 
How does one say good-bye?
By being heartbroken enough to say hello.
 
 Sophia Brothers Peterman © 2011
 

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Fourth Week of Lent

Gratitude—essential to the spiritual life.  Easy enough for splendid things like the arrival of Spring.  Azaleas, those bushes of background evergreen, now grab the spotlight in blazing fuchsia and white.  Daylight stretches into evening, finding more bounce than trudge in one’s step through the front door after a full day of work.  Dancing fairy blossoms of pink alight on the graceful dogwood branch.  But what of the scratchy eyes and twitching nose brought on by pollen floating in the sunlight?   Must we give thanks for that, too?  If so, it is tempting to do it with head down, arms folded on chest, lower lip slightly out like a small child urged to say “Thank you” for the ill-fitting sweater knit by a great aunt.

Sunday’s lectionary was a story from the exodus of the Jews.  The Israelites in the desert were complaining of no water or food.  True, they had manna, but it was terrible stuff.  Then poisonous snakes arrived on the scene, until everyone saw that they might have grumbled too much.  Does this story teach that lack of gratitude, even for that which you don’t like, can be poisonous and end with a bite?  Or is this a tale of no trust in what is planned out?  Or is it both? Perhaps gratitude is based on the trust that whatever comes is a gift, although it may not be pleasant or even well-liked.  In fact, the gift may be in realizing that enough is enough, spurring action and change.  Or the gift may be in accepting what is, an attitudinal shift.  And certainly the gift may be in an unfolding, like a rose in response to the light.  Gratitude for all and trust that all is a gift, even that pollen annoying the nose.

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Third Week of Lent

“No plan” and “No word” and, it seems, “No one else”.  These past couple of years I have had more solitude than not.  Quite a bit different from having children at home: soccer games, open houses, and family dinners at night.  Quiet aloneness.  Well, except for the two cats and two dogs, who provoke giggles and curses and some cleaning up.  I had dreamed of having all this time to myself.

 

 

 

“Still though, think about this, / This great pull in us / To connect.”  This line from Hafiz’s poem, “With That Moon Language”, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, has often been with me in this past week.  We are drawn to each other.  The connection feels good.  Sometimes that other can push us to more than we ever dreamed, like the spin class instructor urging to dig in and keep
pedaling hard.  And sometimes the many can create much more than the one.  A look at a beehive shows how that works.  Then there is the touch of another that helps calm and relax—both the one reaching out and the other who gets.

“This great pull in us / To connect.”  A fine, Lenten crack slowly branches and spreads
in the shell of my hermit life. 

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Second Week of Lent

At the start of this year, I decided it was time for a plan.  After all, don’t gardeners ponder seed catalogs while fields are empty and cold?  Nothing too restrictive, just an arrow or two pointing the way, or at least the intent, for traveling the next ten-year stretch.   Perhaps I might need new training or skills.  Perhaps my budget might need a complete overhaul.  But these are excuses for making a blueprint.  Honestly, it is the incredible discomfort of living with a big question mark.  And what has begun to congeal from this chaotic, planning soup?  That my plan is “no plan.”  Man, isn’t that the worst?

 

Yesterday, I spent six and a half hours in quiet retreat.  The endless tasks and fun stuff, as well, were set aside for listening hard. What message to share in this blog?  How does a “no plan” ten-year plan look?   What is my next step?  Please, oh please, tell me there’s one!  Sitting in silence, I leaned forward so as not to miss the faintest of remarks.  I heard it first in that place between the heart and the gut.  What is the Word?  “No word,” the response.  “No plan” and “no word.”  How about that?

 

 

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First Week of Lent

Lent.  A Christian season about practice, not creed.  Belief in the virgin birth matters not.  No, Lent only asks for the belief that a change in routine—taking on or abstaining—will
crack open life.  And that it be done with intent and consent.   This year my Lenten practices are two: daily reading of Teresa of Ávila’s The Book of My Life (translated by Mirabai Starr) and posts to this blog every week.  This inaugural piece is a bit late, it is true.  Funny how small additions to life are so tough.

 

My inner life has been fallow, like that field plowed my first day in France and then left untouched.  It is a difficult state.  The sun rises, then sets.  In between is the commute, the  meetings, walking the dogs, praying without words, making soup.  Nothing seems to be happening, barely a weed of filler activity has even tried to take root.  Teresa of Ávila wrote that the planting of flowers is not up to us.  The Gardener, not the soil, sows the seeds.  Sigh.  I can only wait, inert and exposed, with the occasional dirt clods broken up or furrows plowed deep, wondering what and when those nearly invisible seeds might grow.

 

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Autumn

Re-entry has been more difficult than first supposed.   Like newly purchased bed sheets fresh out of the package, then shaken, washed, and used, my life cannot get folded tightly enough to return to its original envelope.    With those new sheets, I discard the old package and find them a new place on the shelf.  How might this metaphor manifest in my life?

 

It is clearly autumn now.  September’s warm weather had kept up a pretense of summer, but it is time to face facts.  The leaves are metamorphosing into red, yellow, and orange, then fluttering in the breeze to rest on the grass that has slowed in its growth.   Perhaps this brilliant show was designed to ease the transition to bare trunk and branch, preparing for the upcoming time of darkness and cold.   It is the season’s task to let go of what can no longer yield and to store up what is needed to get through.   My
cupboards and closets call me to do a similar purge and squirreling away, with the silent invitation to do the same with my life.

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Souvenirs

Jacques, an gold-orange kitten from the litter at le Mas de Salel, meows and meows at me, his round, blue-green eyes fixed on mine.  Ah, he is hungry again!  We are getting to know each other as this winsome Averyon spirit finds his place in the household routine.

 

This is my second day back.  It has been a flurry of unpacking and putting away, filling up the fridge, and getting the lawn mowed.  Being away allows a fresh eye, reorganization an added task.  Space is made for those things I brought back.

Souvenirs: reminders of a journey out into the world and also, perhaps, into oneself.   Which will have an impact and how might it show?  No big deal for sorting cabinets and drawers, but where might reorganization hit in daily life?  It feels a bit dizzy, more than jet-lag.  I scratch Jacques’ full tummy, and he responds with a purr.

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Erratum and Not

My last full day in France.  It was hard not to be anxious about making it count.  The day unfolded into a bicycle ride to say good-by to a few favorite spots.  A stop and wave to the Russian Church, perched on the hill, a manifest wish for unity.  A sit in the cloisters of the Abbey of Sylvanes where Cistercian monks walked 700 years in the past.  A ride along ridges and up and down hills, drinking in the fields, valleys, and plateaus.  Dinner featured aligot, a traditional dish of 1 part potatoes, 1 part Tomme cheese, and 1 part crème fraiche all mixed in and heated up.

And on this last day, but not my last post, I have a few things that I want to clear up.  I tried very hard to write only the truth, since I have that storyteller’s inclination
to stretch it a bit.  Here is what has come to light after the blog was released.  1) The red earth around the Chateau de Montaigut gets its color from iron in the soil, it was said.  However a prominent geologist, who was a guest at le Mas de Salel, said that aluminum was actually the reason for the red.  2) The recalcitrant animal carrying the five year old child was a stubborn pony and not a donkey at all.  Note: I actually did see a donkey today.  3) The fountain in the courtyard at le Mas de Salel never offered water to the sheep of the farm.  Françoise bought it from a village in
Provence.  4) I learned that it is not a form of respect to address a woman as “Madame” and her first name, as I had first thought.  Rather, it implies that she runs a house of ill-repute.

But this month has not been a mistake, not at all.  Four weeks of French which is now just a little less hesitant.  Four weeks of writing some poetry and this daily blog.
Four weeks of getting to know and love this landscape.  Four weeks to put into practice, the best that I could, of following my gut and just letting go.  The field beyond my door is not planted yet; no telling when it will be.  Tomorrow I set off on the long voyage back.  The day
after that, I will let you know how it went.  Then I hope to add a new post once a week, paying attention to life back at home.

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Getting to the Meaning

The Cathedral of Saint Cecilia in Albi is a massive, simple
structure of brick.  The multiple small towers and long, narrow windows add to the look, which is more like a fortress than a church.  Stepping inside, every surface
is painted with brilliant colors and design.  Fine limestone carving like lace separates the choir from where the
common folk stood.  Such emotion and devotion in each figure with a story told in each scene.

 

 

 

In the Bishop’s Palace next door is one of the largest
collections of works by the painter and printmaker, Toulouse-Lautrec, one of the town’s sons.  He is most well-known for his lithograph posters created at the turn of the 20th century.  His preparatory sketches are displayed next
to the final design, showing how he pared down the picture story to just a few lines and blocks of color for quite an impact.

 

 

 

At dinner, more tomato soup (made from fresh tomatoes and fromage blanc), more fish stew (made with cod, mushrooms, cream, and white wine), more cheese (Roquefort was included, of course), and more plum tart are offered to all.  With a non, merci, there is a moment of pause.  Non, as in “I shouldn’t but maybe I will,” or non, as in “I really mean no.”  Here at Le Mas de Salel, non, non, non signals “absolutely no more”.   Sometimes it can take a moment’s self-exam before knowing what kind of non is to
be said.

 

 

Meanings can be hidden, even from oneself.  A church that looks like a fortress may open,
like a geode, into an explosion of devotional art.  A non may mean “maybe” or “definitely not.”  And it might take several preliminary looks before the simple, unadorned meaning comes through.  This finding of meaning can take time and a willingness to question and explore.  But it seems to make life richer and help you get what you want.

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Discoveries

I set off on the main trail from Le Mas de Salel to walk 20 minutes and then turn around, returning by lunch.  It was on the way back that I saw it, just to the side of the trail: a cardabelle!  Beloved icon of this region, this large thistle grows on the ground in the midst of a ray of green leaves with barbed wire rims.  Dried cardabelles adorn many a door.  These decorations are barometers, their leaves curling in when foul weather approaches and opening with the sun.  The cardabelle is endangered and forbidden to pick, which makes me wonder how all those dried ones got on those doors.

After lunch, another hike sounded good.  I heard those cowbells that seemed so close
and so far.  This time I ignored their siren call, adopting an Odysseus-type stance.
But something caught my eye where I had not looked before.  There, beyond the bank of bushes and grass, were cows, some in a grove and some in the sun, wearing bells.  I had been told that only the boss cow has a
bell.  There were three in this group with a small, medium, and large clanking cowbell sound.

Funny how these discoveries come to pass.  You see something rare without searching it
out.  Or you stumble on what you once tried to find.  It could happen with flowers, cowbells, and that next step in life.  Maybe it does not have to be all that hard.  Maybe paying attention is all that is required.

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