Tripping the light ekphrastic

Call me Ekphrastic.

Or (my husband's suggestion for the opening lines of today's blog)  Can you be arrested for Ekphrasis?

Ekphrasis (I am learning about this because of a presentation being given for a writers' group here on the island) is all about art in one medium being composed in response to art in another medium.  Which means that when I pull up an image and write in response to it, I am practicing Ekphrasis.  Especially if my writing serves to describe the image itself.

Plus it can get even more complicated -- for example, what if, inspired by a poem, I take a photograph of a sculpture, post it here, write about it, and then choose another photo for the poetry blog -- inspired by what I wrote here -- and then write a poem about it? That's all ekphrasis.

Or, what if ECVA, the arts organization whose exhibitions I direct, were to feature a call to artists to create images in response to chant? Oh, wait, we're DOING that (note: submissions are due October 24th...)

There's actually a quarterly online journal, The Light Ekphrastic, dedicated to the creation of new written and visual artworks through collaboration between artists. "For each issue, writers and artists will be paired, each creating a new poem, story, photograph, painting or other piece of artwork inspired by work previously created by their partner artist."

Who knew what I do here had a name?  And now the challenge is, what on earth should I say about THIS image, which demanded to be placed here this morning?

I think I'll just say this is what my brain feels like after all the craziness of yesterday.  The day began with that curious poetic coincidence I wrote about in yesterday's blog, and then, when I was walking the dog before catching the ferry, I found ELEVEN dead Murres on the beach. (Murres are large birds, sort of a cross between Loons and penguins, with tuxedo coloring.) It was very sad, and a little scary...

So I delayed my ferry ride by an hour to deal with the Wildlife Rescue people (who were very helpful and concerned, and collected all the carcasses so as to assess why they died and to avoid possibly poisoning other local predators) and then I headed into the city (without my GPS, unfortunately) to meet my daughter to celebrate her last day of work at her heinous job -- and promptly got lost.

Eventually I found her, but our celebration was short-lived because I was meeting my husband and a friend of his for dinner -- a friend who turned out to have some delightful and fascinating observations and philosophies about meditation and how we choose to be in the world -- but then we had to rush to catch a ferry in order to get home in time to feed and inoculate our diabetic dog, and then we ran into friends on the ferry who'd been drinking and needed a ride home...  My head was positively swimming by the time we pulled into the driveway.

And so, thinking ekphrastically, I see in that lead image the complexity of the day and the confusion in my brain, the possibility of enlightenment and the bubbling up of ideas -- or is that from that little glass of prosecco we shared with dinner? -- and the gray and confusing streets of Seattle and the delighted sparkle in my daughter's eyes now that she is free of work and the exact shade of blue in the new jacket I wore to celebrate the occasion (corduroy, with velvet cuffs)... 

Clearly ekphrasis isn't all it's cut out to be...

Coincidences... again

I've probably mentioned this before, but the one thing I remember about reading The Celestine Prophecy all those years ago, in one of the reading groups we started to build community in our start-up Episcopal Church, was that there's no such thing as coincidence.

So when I began going on retreats with Cynthia Bourgeault and Lynn Bauman, and met a man named Max, and he turned out to have gone to school with my daughter's godfather -- who was the priest of that little start-up Episcopal Church -- I never thought it was just a coincidence.  I thought it was simply wonderful; a way to connect my past faith with my present.

And so, years later, when I go to our contemplative worship services (which only happen every three months) I look forward to seeing Max, who comes up from Olympia for the occasions.  We always have extraordinary discussions; it's as if we are -- and were -- friends on some other plane, apart from time and space.

The retreat that really cemented our friendship happened back in 2007; it was a week long Wisdom retreat with Lynn Bauman, in which we studied Daniel Ladinsky's amazing compilation, Love Poems from God.  At the time of that retreat, I hadn't written a poem in years, and by the end of the retreat poems were just pouring out of me -- that's at least partly what triggered my determination to begin the poetry blog.

So now here I am, several years later, and my poems have hit the sort of plateau Atul Gawande describes in his recent New Yorker article, "Personal Best:"  "For the past couple of years, my performance in the operating room has reached a plateau.  I'd like to think it's a good thing -- I've arrived at my professional peak.  But mainly it seems as if I've just stopped getting better...it started to seem that the only direction things could go from here was the wrong one." 

In his article, Gawande concludes that it could be an opportunity for coaching , and I had come to the same conclusion (another coincidence?), so I was thinking of applying to a program.  But of course, to get a chance to improve my poetry I would have to submit my poetry.  And I've been so discouraged about my work lately that the thought of culling through it for any gems among the muck was daunting, to say the least.

So yesterday I began seriously considering just bagging the idea.

And wouldn't you know it, there's an email from Max in my inbox this morning.

"Dear Diane, Do you remember way, way back, when we went to the Wisdom School based on Daniel Ladinski's book, Love Poems to God, there was a point, toward the end of the session, when we were all encouraged to try our hand.

Do you remember  --  can you pull up  -- the poem you wrote and read to us on that occasion?  If you can find it, and if you have time, could you send it (email or regular mail) to me? Reason I'm asking is a couple of us are re-looking at the "Love Poems ..." book, and are getting re-inspired, and I wanted to show your poem (with full credit to you, of course) as an example."

Okay.  I get it.  However painful it may be, I should still apply to this program.  Who knows, I might get in, and it might give my poetry just the boost it needs.  I won't know unless I try.

So thanks, Max.  Good timing -- again!

(PS: I sent him 8 poems I'd written that week, not quite knowing which one he was thinking of.  But it might be the one I've posted on today's blog -- you'll see it here, off to the right.)

What's not mine

We had a high tide and a bit of a storm a few weeks back, and this pretty little red metal canoe floated up onto our neighbor's bank. 

They're weekenders and live elsewhere, so their neighbor on the other side and I pulled the canoe up onto their grass and tied it down.  We're pretty certain it's a renegade from across the water somewhere, but maybe leaving it out in the open will invite someone to come and reclaim it.

Sometimes you have to do that with thoughts, too -- one of the things I learned in therapy.  Sometimes the stuff that drifts into my brain isn't really mine.  Most often it's stuff I picked up from my mother, but there are other sources out there -- husband, father, kids, community, books I'm reading (Henri Nouwen is definitely triggering some of this in me).  The important thing is to notice it's not mine and resist the temptation to claim it.  Tie it up somewhere off my mental property, admire it if necessary, but let it be. 

Speaking of which, I need to go clean out my physical closets as well as my mental one!  Anyone want a stack of size 10 shoes?

Looking for Balance: finding Mary

For the last four years, every time I've gone to visit my daughter in Vermont, I've also visited a remote little antique store in the tiny town of Medburyville.  There's been one piece there -- too expensive to purchase -- that kept calling me back, and each time I went I'd find it, wherever it was in the store, and let it speak to me again.  In fact, when I heard about the floods, that was one of the concerns that leapt to mind: would the store be okay?  Would this piece be okay?

And so, when I went back last month, it was on my agenda to pay another visit.  Happily the store was untouched and so was the object of my affections.  Even more happily (probably for reasons I only discovered later) the piece had been marked way down.   And so, however goofy it may be, I bought it.  And here, $45 and a trip in a suitcase later, she is. 

I know.  It's a little crazy -- and very out of character for someone who was raised Presbyterian.  But the sense that she needed to come home with me was just too strong to ignore, so now she hangs on the wall of my office above my computer.  Or at least she will for a while.  I may need to move her to the wall behind me; we'll see.  But for whatever reason, Mary and her son and the candles (ancient) and candleholders (one broken) and the little (empty) bottle of holy water that lives behind the picture of the Last Supper are here with me now.  I showed her to a Catholic friend yesterday and I think she was a little appalled; apparently this little icon exists as preparation for Extreme Unction; for the blessing given at the time of death...

So why Mary?  And why now?  My reading in Henri Nouwen's Genesee Diary this morning may have given me a clue.  I think it has something to do with a need for balance.

We who sit at the liberal end of the Christian spectrum understand God to be both masculine and feminine, but as Westerners we are easily caught in the more masculine aspects of emotional life, the competition and rivalry, the urge to impress and dominate. 

While in the monastery, Nouwen found himself increasingly drawn to Mary, and finally came to realize that Mary "helps me to come in touch again with my receptive, contemplative side and to counterbalance my one-sided aggressive, hostile, domineering competitive side."  In fact, his spiritual director said to him, "It is not so surprising that you are easily depressed and tired... Much of your energy is invested in keeping your hostilities and aggressions under control and in working on your appearance of gentleness and kindness."

Having noticed an undercurrent of anger, depression and exhaustion in my own soul of late, I found this made me sit up and take notice.

Nouwen's response is this: "I hope and pray that through a renewed devotion to Our Lady, the Blessed Mother of God, I can allow my other side to grow to maturity and to become less self-conscious, less suspicious, less angry, and more able to receive God's gift, more able to become a contemplative, more able to let the Glory of God dwell in me as it dwelled so intimately in Mary."

And so I look at this curious little icon which has been so determined to enter my life, and I smile and say, "Amen to that."

Amen, indeed.

The Glory of God

I came downstairs this morning to find the full moon looking particularly glorious, beaming across the water through a haze of clouds into my living room.  What is it that makes the heart leap at such a sight?

And then, in his Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen told of an interaction with his spiritual director who explained that he didn't need to get all tangled up trying to work for the glory of God; in fact -- each of us IS the glory of God.  Our job is only to open to that, to allow it to reveal itself in and through us.

It's a very freeing concept, isn't it?  Now if I could only loosen up enough and relax enough to allow that to happen, instead of always worrying about how to MAKE it happen...

Chafing and flailing

"We live not just in an age of anxiety, but also in an age of shame. I find very few people who do not feel inadequate, stupid, dirty, or unworthy. Guilt is about things we have done or not done, but our shame is about the primal emptiness of our very being, an ontological question. It is not resolved by changing behavior as much as by changing our very self-image, our alignment in the universe."
-- Richard Rohr, from Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety

I've been reading Henri Nouwen's Genesee Diary this morning, and identifying all too closely with the ego struggles he's uncovering as he learns to live in a more stripped-down environment.  Thinking about it later, as I attempted to meditate with a very knead-y cat on my lap, I realize that he was considerably younger than I am when he wrote the book, and had yet to learn some of the things that inevitably emerge with age.  

But then this quote from Richard Rohr showed up in this morning's email, and I see I must confront again the awareness that the root of the struggle seems always to be that sense of emptiness at the heart of being.  My own struggles of late -- like Nouwen's at the monastery -- seem to be a mix of wanting more (attention, recognition, approval) and anger/irritability with the demands and restrictions placed on me by others -- which chafing tends to result in bitchiness with my loved ones and an intense longing for solitude and isolation.

But when I finally get that solitude I chafe and flail there as well, and can't seem to calm enough to allow the balm of love to fill my soul.  And so I grow increasingly self-critical as the emptiness looms, rather like the dark hole at the center of all those lovely leaves in this picture.


What age teaches me is that this is all part of what has become a familiar cycle, and "this, too, shall pass."  Which doesn't mean it isn't real, or that I shouldn't stay with it, sink into it, explore it, and learn from it.  I just have to remember that this isn't a permanent state; that this sort of childish snarkiness isn't all there is to me. I am capable of generosity of spirit, just not right now.

And that's okay.  I will, I think, be kind to myself today.  I'll listen to what my sad parts have to say, do what I can to honor their concerns, allow the mood to teach me whatever it is I can take in, and try not to get mired in it all.  In the past I've found that tidying up my outer environment can help clear out the moss and cobwebs that litter that inner environment, so I think I'll try that as well.

It's all good...

When life is unfair

I've been corresponding these last few days with a dear friend I haven't seen in years.  We are both struggling with the fact that a mutual friend, a very dear and good soul, a hospice nurse, has been diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of cancer.

My friend, who is herself a doctor, writes, "Sigh. Life (and death) always seems a bit unfair. Does religion take the edge off this? I don't know."

These are really hard questions, and lie, I suspect, at the root of what brings people to religion and faith as well as at the root of what drives them away. And I don't have any answers. But I thought I'd share a bit of what I wrote back, because ... well... that's where my head is today.

* * *

As I used to say to my kids ALL the time — who ever said life was fair? ... which doesn’t stop ANY of us from railing at the unfairness of it all. And who ever said life (at least, life as we know it) didn’t inevitably end in death? We all know it does, but we rage against it anyway — no matter WHEN it happens, although we tend to be more accepting if people get 80 or 90 years before it happens.

Of course, there’s always the chance of a miracle, but miracles rarely take the form we expect. Sigh. And I’m not sure religion offers any answers — at least, not the religion I have now, at this point in my life. When I was younger, maybe, and believed in a God who controlled according to my specifications. Now I see it more as solace, hope, a hand to hold, a light to follow when things get really dark, a sense that we are never totally alone and abandoned... But not a “fixer.”

Some things just get to be broken — in the long run we all get to be broken — and somehow those of us who still have some sort of hardscrabble faith learn to trust that someday somewhere something good comes out of what we do or how we live or how we handle the brokenness.

I keep thinking of the mothers I know who have lost their children. The one who lost her 12-year-old to cancer facilitates fundraising for Children’s Hospital and runs a quilt and hat-making enterprise for young cancer patients on the side. The one who lost her son to suicide at 16 is active in a national teen-suicide-prevention enterprise. The one who lost her son to Lyme Disease at 20 completely renovated her home and turned it into a relatively toxin-free hospice space for people to live in while they are receiving treatment for Lyme Disease, cancer and other treatments that weaken the immune system. Does any of this activity make up for those losses? No, of course not. But the gift they bring to others who are struggling is a way of honoring what has been lost... and hopefully makes life easier for those who come along later.

It’s probably not our job to say what’s just or fair; we never know the whole story as God knows it. We may, like this dog, have illusions that we're sitting in the driver's seat.  But we're really not in control; we can only watch where life takes us, long for the driver who seems at times to have abandoned us, and continue in the meantime to do our part to bring our own gifts into the world; doing our best to leave it a little better than we found it.

But just as no one said it would be fair, no one said it would be easy, either.  It just is what it is. And as my brassy new york sister-in-law used to say, “so live with it, already!”

Sorry to be so preachy. It must be Sunday morning!

PS: (A note to readers who have attempted to comment here without success) I've changed the comment interface, hoping to get around the blocks for you.  Could you try again and see if it works for you?  Try commenting as anonymous if all else fails...)