I had a thought yesterday…. I’ve been saying to my hubby that I rarely do nothing. like when we sit on the deck in the heat of the day, and I grab a basket of apples to cut for apple sauce. It occurred to me last night that I am trying to persuade him to multitask. Impossible. It’s not going to happen. He works at something until he’s tired, and then he sits. Me, I work at something until I’m tired, and then I do something else. I hardly stop.
Yesterday we worked together to fix the mailbox. The horizontal piece had rotted, and the box was sagging. It’s become a joke between us, that when we do a task together like this, I become a table, standing in place, with hands full of screws or drill bits. He wants me to do nothing but stand there. I resent that. I am NOT good at standing still. I don’t make a good table. I wiggle. I fidget. I want to be moving.
I can’t imagine feeding birds out of my hand, the stillness that takes. When I’m still, I need my pen and notebook. Or knitting. Or …. there’s so many things I could/should be doing. Maybe I need to learn to be more table like, to sit quietly and see what lands.
Granted, I haven’t told him this, yet. Let’s keep it a secret, okay?
Last winter I visited the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton several times to see the same installation – Strange Birds, by Graeme Patterson. Every time, I experienced it differently, a whole room full of art, multi-media, unusual, fresh, surprising….
On one occasion, I was able to attend a lecture by the artist. Someone asked if he had a plan when he began. No, he said. The kind of work he does is slow work, he explained. He would start, and as he worked, the next pieces would shape in his mind.
That is the moment I knew I was an artist, a real artist. I’ve never been featured in a gallery, not yet, but I am an artist. I do slow work. I begin, and as I work, the piece takes shape in my mind. Here’s an example:
I told the story of this piece, Tree at Dawn, last November, 2023, in my post James Webb, Palestine, “Waste Canvas”, and What We Think We Know. (Have a look to see a photo of the piece in progress.) Done on waste canvas, because I really didn’t know what I was doing, the task was to have something to keep my hands busy, with a piece of waste canvas that I had inherited from some friend or relative, and bits and pieces of embroidery floss that I was too cheap to toss. I love making trees, and talking to trees, for that matter. So with no pattern, what else is there to do but make a tree. A blue and purple tree is quite lovely, don’t you think?
You can see some more of my Textile Art here. Each piece took about a year to complete, and no pattern to follow. I’ll be telling the story of the other pieces, too, so subscribe if you don’t want to miss it.
That’s a hard one. Letting go is hard enough. Letting go of control is even harder. Tomorrow night is a full moon night, Full Moon in Pisces, always a tender time for me. It has been such a difficult time for me historically, that I have a note in my Google Calendar to remind me each September to be ready for it. So maybe this year I’m ready.
This Pisces Moon is not just a Full Moon. It’s a lunar eclipse. Letting go on steroids. I listened to a podcast this morning by Dr. Michael Lennox. (I like him because he’s not just an astrologer. He’s also a psychologist, writer, and dreamer. We have a lot in common.) He said this Full Moon, THIS time of letting go, is like going into surgery, lying down, and letting the surgeon take what needs taken. In the end, it’s for the best, but we have to let someone else’s hands do the work.
Anyway, one of my own blog posts touched me last night. I have been spiffing things up on here, and realized I had not put my posts into categories. As of this afternoon, that job is complete, but in the process I re-read a post I wrote on April 30, 2021. It starts with a story I’ve told a number of times about my rage, at age 8, about not being able to find my Easter candy. But it ends with a reminder, from the ancient book of Sirach, that “what is hidden is not your concern.”
We all have our fears, the things we want certainty about, the future we want to pin down, the politics we want to go our way, the church closures we want to prevent (or speed up, sometimes it is a wanting to speed up closing), the life of a loved one we want to extend, and so on. But the hidden things are not our concern. Perhaps Hidden Things will touch the uneasy place in you too. Have a read.
In the spring of 2023, when I heard about the Eco-Spiritual Direction program offered through the Center for Wild Spirituality, I resonated with an immediate YES! It felt like this was what my life had been leading up to, all these years.
Quite some time ago, I had a dream in which people came to my house to die. I accepted this in the dream, without any sense of how this could be at all true, in my waking life. My house isn’t set up for the dying, after all, but the dream has not left me.
In the past couple of years or so, I have companioned and supported three women friends on their final journey. I have sat with others and their families through my work. But recently, the Wild showed me something deeper. In between errands and appointments, I stopped for lunch in Fredericton’s Odell Park. As I walked toward a picnic table, I noticed a tiny red squirrel on the ground, not moving. Was it dead? I poked it with a twig. No, it wasn’t dead, but something was wrong. It just lay there, barely breathing.
I held my hand above its tiny body, my fingers tingling as I sent it energy and flower essences. To my total surprise, it hopped up and scampered away! It wasn’t long, though, as I sat eating, before the little squirrel raced around my table, coming to a stop on the concrete pad behind me. There it collapsed, head on the ground, with its hind legs still on the run. Perhaps it was a seizure. Soon its little body lay still.
As I watched its labored breathing, I offered more energy and flower essences, but this time it did not recover. In minutes, it was gone, and the flies began to gather. I carried it to a crook in a tree root, and covered it with leaves, needles and bark – a wee funeral for a wee creature.
I was left wondering – why did this little red squirrel come back to the cement pad to die? Once it was on its feet, it could have found a place of quiet shade for its death. Why did it circle my table and stop, right there, behind me? Could it be asking for my care and companionship?
A few days ago, we started classes again, and I took my intentions out to the Wild as we had been invited to do. I sat on a rock where I often sit, in the companionship of the More-than-Human Others in that place. I heard a crow, a plane, a tractor, a blue jay, a sparrow, and…. a mosquito. She sat on my finger, on my nose, my cheek. Neither of us hurt the other. And she said:
“I am small, but everyone notices me. I am small, but I bravely approach those who hold me in contempt. I am small, but I change lives. I am small, but I can change the world.”
I am not brave like Mosquito. I would rather be quiet and unobtrusive, to keep my ideas and gifts protected and safe. But Mosquito assured me that what I have, what I can offer, is precious. We are building something new together, and the pieces I bring are part of the construction. I may not know what parts are gold, and which are iron or steel or plantlike, but it is all important, none of it too small, she told me.
And so, with the encouragement of Mosquito, after one classmate told of companioning her dog in his last days, and another woman spoke of how often spiritual directors work with the dying, I told the story of the little red squirrel.
Perhaps I am being called to companion dying humans, as they approach the Numinous. Perhaps the call to work with the dying was the message from the little red squirrel, just to be sure I got the point. But maybe it is more than that.
We are living in a time of mass extinction, they tell us. As species die, and eco-systems change, are we being called to companion More-than-Human Others? We humans need the companionship of the Wild, but maybe, just maybe, the Wild needs our companionship too.
This morning I went for a walk, early, due to the heat wave that has me now in the hammock, enjoying the breeze under the trees. But this morning, I walked from home to the beach, just to be able to say that I did, just for the exercise, just for the time to myself. On the way back, I accepted a call from a friend halfway across the continent. We talked all the way home, about 3 km. For a while, it was our usual chat. But interspersed with dialogue, I showed her some of the landscape.
I showed her the hill I had dreamed of climbing, to borrow a little red sports car. I showed her the graveyard where relatives and neighbours are laid to rest. And then I came up the last half mile, into our family neighbourhood. This is my brother‘s house, I said. This is another brother‘s house. And today is my other brother’s first wedding anniversary. I had the privilege of officiating that wedding. Today the family message group is full of congratulations back and forth, and teasing about the time passing quickly, whether it’s one year or 46.
And here is the shop, my brother’s shop, with maple syrup and other maple products, and vegetables. What do I need today? Oh, and here’s a neighbour — second time I’ve seen her this morning. I’m happy to show my friend what my neighbourhood looks like. When I leave the shop, who appears but a great nephew. “Hello great nephew! This is my friend!” I walk a few steps further and, “Oh, here comes my nephew! Nephew, this is my friend!” Here’s the house where I was born. And here’s where my nephew lives, and here’s the orchard. Oh, and now we’re home.
I tend not to recognize the joy of being able to walk along the road and see my neighbours, and my nephews and great nephews. I forget how privileged I am to purchase green beans and romaine, grown right here on the farm. I live a magical mystical life, so fortunate I am.
So fortunate to be in this kind of life, where siblings text one another congratulations, where nephews and great nephews come out to the road to say hello, and to ask questions like what did you buy today? Or do you still need to know if you can use the church to marry us? Yes, another family wedding is coming this fall. It’s a joy and privilege that I forget I enjoy. But right now, I remember. Right now, I am filled with gratitude, as I swing under the trees, in my hammock on this heat wave day, bare feet to the sky.
Dream Bringer’s Studio 