Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial

Today is Memorial Day in the United States.  My family, like many I suppose, is enjoying a long weekend trip.  This means that I am trying to write away from my normal space on a borrowed lap top which is adding complications to my musing today.  I usually muse from my desk, alone, in my little office off the hall.  Today I am at a long brown table surrounded by the noise and motion of my family.  

The World English Dictionary entry listed at dictionary.com defines memorial.
1.  serving to preserve the memory of the dead or a past event
2.  of or involving memory
3.  something serving as a remembrance

According to Peggy Heminitz writing for southwhitehall.patch.com Memorial Day began in May 1868.  A nationwide “Decoration Day” was declared to honor fallen soldiers of the Civil War.  May 30th was selected because it was not the anniversary of any battle and on that day flowers were placed on graves in Arlington Cemetery.  The day gradually became known as Memorial Day and was legally renamed as such in 1967.  The following year the Uniform Holiday Bill moved Memorial Day to the last Monday in May to allow for a three day weekend.  Many feel making the holiday a barbeque picnic party day has deteriorated the actual purpose of the day – to preserve the memory of the dead.

This year’s last Monday in May just happens to be May 30, the original day established to decorate graves of fallen soldiers.  My imagination sees wives, sisters and daughters in hoop skirts and sun hats, fathers, sons and brothers in pressed dark suits of the 1860’s era stepping from grave to grave offering flowers, serving as a remembrance of lives given in service of their country.  Hopefully no one was debating the right or wrong, who won or lost, but thinking only of love felt for people whose lives were lost and the steep cost of that sacrifice.

I’ve never been to Arlington Cemetery.  Their website shows they continue to use Memorial Day to honor soldiers and this year 10,000 roses have been donated to decorate graves.  So, what about me?  Even far away from Virginia I can decorate the graves of deceased soldiers with my own living of this day.  If I do grill out or have a picnic I hope to tell my children about the blessing of freedom.  In the noise of my family, the day to day celebration of our American freedoms I honor those dead fighters.  But I will today try to take it up a mental notch for the people who gave their lives in service, offering the motion of my day in memorial for those dead who made it possible for my family to have this day in peace.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Poetry

I love words.  They are the sweet smelling playdough I squish through the fingers of my mind to make shapes and soft noodles in peony pink and gem blue and grass green and sun yellow.  Words can be wrought into whatever thought or feeling or moment happens to be upon me, real or imagined or feigned.  And with these letter layered bits I build all kinds of things.  Faces and food, buildings and bodies, prayers and pots.   

I have always loved words.  Anyone who has ever met me knows I am rarely at a loss for them!  So long have I played with words that it has been almost without me noticing that I have become a person who writes poetry.  The path from strict, grammar rule following, school English teacher to rhyme tossing, sentence splicing, fragment loving fiend for free form and thought has been so much fun!   

Dictionary.com offers a definition of poetry I really enjoy. 

1.  the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts.
2.  literary work in metrical form; verse.
3.  prose with poetic qualities.
 

I just get high on the thought of rolling in rhythmical composition and elevated thoughts!  When I think of such things I am reminded of dancing.  When I was a child I longed to take dance lessons.  But being in a rural part of Georgia in the early 1970’s offered no opportunity for dance education.  I did however, have the presence of music offered by my father, a professional military musician.  I often copied what I saw and heard in Disney or Broadway musicals.  I made up movements to black vinyl circles spinning under a needle releasing sounds for my joy.  Little did I know that my dancing would someday be done with a pen.  That’s what poetry feels like for me.  A swirling dance not limited to the abilities of my limbs but opened to the expanse of whatever my mind can think and syllables can express. 

I am finally becoming fearless enough to let others see my creations.  After letting my collected poetry, clay-like thoughts sit out on the table for a bit to dry and solidify they feel permanent, real.  I look forward to continuing my love of words, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure for myself and hopefully a bit for readers, too, as I work toward putting my poetry in the public sphere.    



                        See Her Love
                        See what I love as I dance it dances around me draping
                        scarves of joy over my bare
                        arms swirling my love (me) in stripes
                        of color.
                        See what I love as I rest my head on silken pillows (me)
                        beside the breathing, silent
                        rest from parted lips returning heaven
                        to the sky.
                        See what I love (me) in the act of loving.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Dailiness

The school year is ending.  My family’s daily routine is going to change.  And we are glad for it.  I will dot our family calendar with the beach, swimming pool and birthday parties.  But even summer will become its own kind of ordinary.  
   
Merriam-Webster online defined dailiness as “daily or routine quality; ordinariness” and provided the example phrase the dailiness of family life.  I found their explanatory phrase amusing because that is precisely what I’m pondering today!  

The getting up, the eating, the dressing, the showering, the driving, the arriving, the wondering if we’re thriving amidst the routine.  I’m thinking, “Isn’t that the goal, thriving within ordinary?  Finding joy and meaning in the daily activities of life?”  We may be on holiday maybe twenty days of the year sprinkled between 345 days when we are not on a special trip or doing a once in a lifetime thing.  And those unusual experiences, trips to the Grand Canyon or Disney or a cruise, visits to far away Grandparents or New York City or a parade, are high point happenings for sure but they are not what we do most of the time.  

It’s the daily routine that can weigh us down with boredom, make us wonder what is the point of reading bedtime books night after night, putting games neatly where they belong, or reminding of the same things every day, “brush your teeth, don’t forget your lunchbox, tie your shoes.”  Can there be fulfillment in the ordinariness? 

I’m working toward “yes.”  Letting go of wanting it to be perfect is a start.  Analyzing the difference between the high spots of intensely happy moments and the gift of merely being a level type of content is another step.  I’m wondering what ways I can change to make the ordinary routines less like mommy duty and more like prayer.  The ordinary routines are not going anywhere!  Being totally present to laundry or making dinner takes effort for me as does encouraging my children to execute responsibilities.   

The fabulous birthday cake I recently made we will remember for a LONG time, but what really shapes who we are, who we become, who we help our families become is our day to day, ordinary self and actions.  Being kind every now and then, exercising sporadically, studying only now and then yields little result.  Working on a long project (a novel?) only once in a while provides nominal progress.  But being fully present to every word of Mother’s Goose thirty days straight may be a meditation.  Having an ordinary glass of wine at the end of the day with a spouse is blessing.  
      
 
Dandelion Day

Dailiness as dandelions who
sprout yellow petals to puff
fluffy white and float when
we do not know but to be
saffron today in God’s palm
without fear of what being
lifted into the air to plant
elsewhere might feel like
the present butter-hued being
one new day open golden
the exact life we have already




Monday, May 9, 2011

Truth

Truth is on my mind.  Being content feels connected with truth. 

In the practice of yoga there are eight limbs.  The first is Yama, universal morality.  William J.D. Doran at expressionsofspirit.com/yoga/eight-limbs.htm explains the yamas are not a list of do’s and don’ts but rather five “wise characteristics” that tell us our fundamental nature is compassionate, generous, honest and peaceful.
  
Satya is the second wise characteristic in the yamas.  Satya means “to speak the truth.”  It is a commitment to truthfulness.  One of my favorite yoga instructors expounds upon this practice by reminding us that when we speak the truth we must do it always to ourselves first and with kindness.  She teaches that practicing satya we contemplate “Is it true? Is it hurtful? Is it necessary?” and to speak only after forethought.
Truth is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  the true or actual state of a  matter
2.  conformity with fact or reality
3.  a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like
I’d like to start telling the truth about simple questions.  Am I eating because I am hungry?    But what of eating because we are sad or need emotional food we are not being offered?  When I am tired do I allow myself to rest?  If I am not resting is it because I feel society or my family will judge me as lazy if I am not running ragged every minute of the day?  How do we tell the truth about what we actually need?  Can I let people close to me read my poetry which exposes deep parts of me that have hitherto been only my own?  How do we tell the truth about marriage, love, or parenthood when we mingle youthful expectations, societal paradigms, and the experience reality offers?  Do the people I love know that I love them?  Do we (as individuals, corporations and nations) tell the truth with ethical financial dealings?   
Sometimes it feels like I have to dig around, excavate to find the truth where it is buried.  I’m thinking about how awesome it would be if I could only tell myself things in conformity with reality without judging the facts or myself.  To give myself permission to say (with forethought and kindness) I am angry, feeling love, feeling regret, wishing to apologize, not interested  . . . whatever it might be and to accept the honesty from others.  The indisputable facts of truth are not changeable.  I am the one who wants to hear truth from myself and others.  But, I must also consider that not everyone is actually interested in hearing the truth.
How can a commitment to truth serve us?  Not as a tool for malice or harm, but a conduit for authentic living which leads to contentment and mindfulness and life.  I’m addressing these questions to myself.  The truth is today (as most days) I am mostly questions and not answers.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Labyrinth

I attended a retreat yesterday offered by Cassie Premo Steele (www.cassiepremosteele.blogspot.com).  The beautiful day burgeoned with offerings for reflection.  One of the experiences included walking a labyrinth.  I was affected by the time I spent following the winding path.
Wikipedia expounded on labyrinth.  In Greek mythology the Labyrinth was designed to hold the Minotaur and keep him from escaping.  This lends itself to the colloquial English labyrinth being synonymous with maze.  But contemporary scholars (and my experience) make a distinction – maze refers to a complex branching (multicursal) puzzle with choices of path and direction while a single path (unicursal) labyrinth has only one, non-branching path which leads to the center.  A labyrinth in this sense has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate.  Wikipedia points out that labyrinths appeared as designs on pottery, basketry, and body art, etched on cave walls and tiled into church floors where people were invited to walk their winding course.  Its ancient pattern is found on Cretan coins, on the ground in South America and Scandinavia, in the Native American Hopi culture and in gothic Cathedrals.
I found a medieval style labyrinth illustration similar to the one I actually traveled. 
My labyrinth experience reminded me of the sureness of putting one foot in front of the other.  The twists and turns sometimes felt disorienting and the thought of being lost was frequent.  Because I knew the journey was headed to a guaranteed center I kept going.  Because of that knowledge I was confident in the destination even if I couldn’t make sense of the tangled trail bending back over space and through places I had already walked.  Sometimes I wondered how long the path could possibly be!  At one point a blooming honeysuckle branch hung over the edge of a fence and I was able to stretch my nose up, drink its delicious scent and stride on.  For variety I used old marching band skills to make the turns by stepping backward and pivoting; the twirls felt like dancing.  Eventually, after what seemed a long time for such a small circle, I reached the center.  There I was invited to stop, or not, and then set forth again back through the labyrinth and out the same way I had entered. 
How much more analogy for life could I ask for?  Beginnings and ends which turn out to be new beginnings seem life’s greatest constant.  A labyrinth is a special pattern.  You cannot get lost.  Is life like this?  When I think I am lost perhaps it is a time when I am bending back to travel again a space I’ve been through before to learn what I didn’t or what I have forgotten and need to relearn.  Honoring our pace, skipping, dancing, strolling, standing – projecting no right or wrong way to move is a challenge as is agreeing not to stop moving forward.