Fending off the dark

I think -- and of course I am projecting here -- that many of us go through life a bit like this rower.  We understand that we are in a very small boat at the mercy of a very large sea, but we also postulate a number of hostile possibilities, and are constantly wary, on alert.

So rather than relax and enjoy it when the seas are calm, we are always on the lookout for impending danger, clutching the oars and ready to row away or hit out if necessary.

Of course, you say, he has to turn from time to time, to look where he is rowing.  But if we stay in that position, and do not turn our backs and trust, we can get painfully twisted.

The problem, I think, is that we understand at some deep level that life has its light and dark cycles, but we are so busy fending off the dark that we cannot relax and enjoy the light.  The more self-aware I become -- especially through the schoolwork I'm doing right now -- the more I realize how much time I spend braced against reality, against the possibility of failure, of weakness, of imperfection... and how, if I could but embrace the inevitability and relax into the dark instead of demonizing it, declaring it the enemy (can you hear echoes of yesterday's post here?) I could bring so much more to life.

David Whyte, in The Heart Aroused, puts it this way:

"We think we exist only when our life looks like the first half of the cycle, when our "moon" is waxing, when our sense of ourselves is growing and getting larger, when we are succeeding...If things are dying or falling away, we dismiss it, we refused to see it as the second half of the very same cycle and think there is something "wrong" with us.  We think something terrible has happened and we need to do a whole list of things to put it right.


Much of our stress and subsequent exhaustion...comes from our wish to keep ourselves at full luminescence all month, even when our interior "moon" may be just a sliver in the sky, or about to fade from sight altogether.  It takes tremendous energy to keep up a luminescent front when the interior surface is fading into darkness.  In some ways we are constantly preventing our own rebirth into new cycles and greater lives...

What would my life be like if I had as much faith in the parts of me that were fading away as I had in the parts of me that were growing?  Embracing loss, we begin to understand the necessity of failure, and in the possibility of failure begin to understand the magnificence of even the humblest human path...We come to accept that every one of us can fail, fail to live the life we desire for ourselves, or even fail to uncover the desire itself...


Releasing ourselves from the need to keep half of ourselves hidden, we can begin to bring these other neglected sides to light, to entertain the possibility that there is an integral wholeness to all the seemingly antagonistic and opposing sides of ourselves, a possibility that we may not have to be "fixed" or amended before we can serve."


I find these days that I am getting occasional glimpses of what that space might be like -- the space where everything that is is okay -- and I find it to be a source of energy and wonder, a place where I can breathe deeply, let my guard down, and be open and present to all that is.

You know -- I've lived in this spot, at the end of the Sandspit, for nine years now.  And it's only in the last 24 hours that I've noticed that one of those noises I hear every morning is the kingfisher chattering to his mate?  I know about the gulls, eagles, herons, ducks, geese and songbirds.  I know the kingfisher exists, and know the sound of his voice.  But I never realized what an important part he plays in my morning symphony.  You have to wonder -- what else am I missing?

What stretches us

This little piece of driftwood caught my eye on the beach at LaPush.  She looks like she's been caught in an impossible stretch; like she reached back as far as she could go -- perhaps in trying to grab and hurl this rock? -- and then got stuck there in this painful position.

The ache and the tension of it reminds me of a court case I heard about yesterday.  My daughter's boyfriend has a summer job in a lawyer's office, and spent the day yesterday reading through the medical and military records of a young man who's on trial for rape.

Apparently he returned to Washington after a seven year tour of duty in Iraq, having been, by all accounts, a bright and exemplary soldier, awarded for his performance.  But the strain of the return was clearly significant; eventually his wife left him, taking their children with her, and somehow he ended up with this rape charge and a dishonorable discharge.

I get the sense, just from this small taste of the story, that we have here yet another story of a man who has seen more than he can bear and been stretched beyond his own personal limits to a snapping point that would have been unimaginable to his pre-war self.  And it seems to me that war wounds all its soldiers in this way, though their responses may be different.  Certainly in my generation the phrase "He's a Nam Vet" carries with it a host of implications about psychological damage -- though I think we all assumed that the difficulties those veterans carried had a lot to do with the lack of respect they were getting here at home for their sacrifices back in the killing fields.

But now we are all so careful to celebrate the labors of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and still they return severely damaged -- and we don't seem to really have adequate systems in place to help them overcome their woundedness.  When will we realize that war is simply not worth it?  That in demonizing other we destroy ourselves?  I know -- I sound like a hopeless idealist, a deluded liberal.  But I think that same dynamic plays out on a smaller scale at home, in neighborhoods, in the workplace... any time we decide another person is a lost cause and begin to exclude, or attack, or ignore we are in fact creating more walking wounded.  When will we realize we are all connected, all valuable, all deserving of hope and care?

And yet this is not exactly a new thought: Twice in the Gospel of Thomas  (Logion 48, Logion 106) Jesus tells us that if we could manage to achieve peace -- to understand that we are all one -- we could move mountains.  And if you're looking for a more worldly statement to this effect, you can look to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights put forth by Eleanor Roosevelt's Human Rights Commission and unanimously approved by the United Nations in 1948: Article 25 states, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."  We're talking EVERYONE, not just people like us, or people in our country, or people whose countries are friends of our country.  We're talking EVERYONE.

I am probably naive; God knows I have no experience of war in the traditional sense of guns and battlefields.  But my suspicion is that what torments our returning soldiers is not just the horrible sights they have seen or the loss of their comrades in arms.  I'm thinking the piece of war that must be inescapably haunting is the part where you destroy another human being and realize they are not some faceless enemy but just another person like yourself, with parents, or children, or siblings; a person who hungers and thirsts, who loves and protects and defends just as you do.

That said, I must also confess that I know how it feels to be furious with another person, so furious that some part of you dreams heinous thoughts of revenge.  I am not innocent here, and know I have work to do.  But looking at this image, and thinking of this one particular soldier, I cannot but be reminded that in picking up the rock we long to hurl, we risk stretching ourselves into the same hideous contortions I mentioned two blogs back when speaking of avoidance -- and we also risk getting stuck there, trapped in our own venom and vindictiveness.

Which brings me again to one of the key reasons I am a Christian: it has always seemed to me that the key characteristic of Christ's message was forgiveness.  As human beings, we desperately need to learn and practice the art of forgiveness.  What Jesus is telling us is that if we could do that, stop throwing stones, we could begin to move mountains.  Our determination to punish and our reluctance to forgive are crippling us, making us weak and ineffectual.  Imagine the wonders we could accomplish if we could forgive, cooperate, and stop wasting so much money on pointless wars.

And the best time to start?  I think that would be, well... now.

A dark invisible workmanship

This morning I am thinking about the lumps and bumps of life; the times when things don't quite go as we planned, or when even planned disruptions seem to have minds of their own, and affect us in ways we hadn't foreseen or struggle to cope with.

We are so quick to label these things "bad," or to label these people "difficult" and set ourselves at odds with the challenge in the situation.  We continue to assume that life will be better once things "settle down a bit."

But "Living systems," says David Whyte in The Heart Aroused, "never really settle down... the plants and animals that do settle down do not survive for very long.  It is as if life is forever trying to keep itself exquisitely balanced on the edge between chaos and order, always about to fall into the imprisoning forces of an overly ordered world on one side and the seductive calls of complete chaos on the other.  Living systems that survive in the wild...must learn to adapt with the shifting ecosystems around them."


"When our perceptions have been dulled by the constant wish for order," he adds, "it may be difficult to imagine a world where we can live at an edge that also includes the patterned chaos of a wild system."  What we need to remember or understand to help us continue balancing on that edge, Whyte asserts, is the wisdom that fuels these marvelous lines from Wordsworth's Prelude:

"There is a dark invisible workmanship
that reconciles discordant elements
and makes them move in one society."

The older I get, the more I've come to believe that everything -- the good, the bad, the ugly, the bumps and bruises, the light and the cave -- all works together, not necessarily in the pre-ordained way I understood in my Presbyterian childhood, but in some way, usually beyond my understanding, for good.  Not that I can step back and see that when I'm in the thick of things!  But when I CAN step back, I most often see that all the stuff I'd like to avoid or toss (see? this does relate to yesterday's post!) has just as important a role to play in my growth and development as the good stuff.

Is this an odd bump, sitting at the edge of the marine landscape at LaPush?  Or is it an invitation to explore?  What is it that you see?  How is it that such a mass survives the pounding of the waves?  And what message does it have for your own sore and battered heart?

Approach/Avoidance

I haven't a lot of time to write: I spent 12 hours in the car today with some very dear old friends from the east coast whose daughter wanted to see Forks (home of TWILIGHT) and whose son wanted to climb Hurricane Ridge, and I'm bushed.

So I'm hoping that in this case the pictures speak for themselves: I call them Approach and Avoidance; I shot them while not doing that last hike on Hurricane Ridge.

And I just have to say -- look how graceful approach looks!

And notice the incredible contortions we get ourselves into when we're practicing avoidance.

So which do you think I'm recommending here?

I mean, all of us photograph badly from certain angles.  But I'm thinking there's nothing very beautiful about avoidance.

So if you've been avoiding someone -- well, maybe it's time to rethink that...

Imaging a new dream

Here's another of my images from that foggy morning on the Bainbridge waterfront. This is one of a series of sculptures overlooking our marina system, and I suspect it calls to me today because I've been reading David Whyte's thoughts on the power of imagery.

One of the exercises I was to do last week for my coursework was to sit with a partner who has a life question and just see what rises up.  Her job was to come up with a question, and then we were to be quiet for 5 to 10 minutes and see what images and thoughts intuition might bring our way.

Her images were fairly literal: she saw herself with a group of people, collaborating; there was laughter, and a whiteboard, and she was facilitating a discussion.  My images were much more fanciful: I saw her doing lots of different fun resorty kinds of things: dancing, wearing pink, sailing, walking in grass on the edge of a beach...  Not completely surprising, since she has spent her life in the hotel business, but still a stretch...

And what we learned, talking about the intersection between her thoughts and mine, was that she really lit up at the idea of working at a resort hotel in Fiji, of all places!  Not that she was deciding to shoot for that, but I got the sense that together our two sets of images gave her something she could dream about.  And the exercise is not so far from one that David Whyte recommends in The Heart Aroused:

As managers faced with an overwhelming situation of complexity, we could take a step back from the situation by asking our deep psyche for an internal image to guide us through the labyrinth we face.  This can be done with a minimum of fuss, simply by sitting back in our chair and closing our eyes for a moment.  Having asked for an image, it can, with a little practice, appear spontaneously.  The task as a poet is to make the internal image appear whole in common speech.  The task in the workplace is to create the circumstances or product held in the image.

I find that incredibly exciting, and wonder if there's a way I could be using my photographs and/or poetry to invite people into these sorts of spaces; spaces where they can relax and play long enough to listen to the longings of their deepest hearts.  It reminds me of a time when my spiritual director gave me a pad of paper and crayons and told me words were getting in the way: I needed to go on a long ferry ride and DRAW what I was feeling.  I did it, and the results were not only healing and amazingly useful, but some of those images live with me still.

So why this image today?  I suspect it's really simple, just a reminder, that I am at my happiest when photographing boats in fog -- and yet, perhaps the sounds, and scents, and stillness could be recreated in other areas of my life, and I could carry what a friend once called "my deep-water joy" into the workplace.  That may be a dream, of course -- but at the very least, I can share it here, in this place, with you!

Peaceful reflections

One of the many gifts I'm finding in my classwork is that both classmates and teachers are encouraging me to question my assumptions.  Assumptions seem to me to be a bit like blind spots: we operate out of them, make decisions based upon them, and yet often have no clue that they exist.

I suspect that's one of the distinct values -- and challenges, of course -- of living in a community, and living in a family.  Yes, it can be challenging to cope when someone points out some aspect of your behavior or personality that you hadn't already recognized for yourself.  But the wisdom of friends and family-- if they're willing to speak up, and you're willing to listen -- can be extraordinarily helpful.

... which means we, too, can offer that gift to others; can challenge them on their assumptions and behaviors in a way that invites them to new growth.  That can take courage, and a willingness to listen to your own intuition. And our insights can only be effectively shared in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect -- which is one of the reasons I'm in this program in the first place: I want to know what it takes to build that kind of openness, trust and respect into workplaces and communities.

So what does this image (completely unaltered), which rose up for me today out of all those great fog shots I took yesterday, have to say about this?  The first and most obvious thing I notice is how brightly that white boat glows against the darkness of the surrounding scenery.  It feels to me like an invitation to adventure; to step out into truth and light, to release the ties to that darkness and embark on a new and hopeful journey.  Perhaps our assumptions are those ties?

The next thing I notice is the reflections, and how clear they are -- or can be, when the water is completely still.  I think we need to create those moments of stillness in our lives in order to reflect upon our surroundings, our choices, and our potential opportunities.  It's also true that there are some things on the outer edges of our experience -- like the tops of those trees -- which our limited perspective only allows us to see when we DO take time to reflect.  In this image the whole upper portion feels dark and looming; it is only the reflection (and the voice of experience) that tells us there is sky and light beyond where we can currently see.

But what I see also is that the boat is not the only option; that I could walk back up the dock, and I would still have several choices -- to go left, right or straight -- and each choice has its own opportunities for discovery.  Just because the boat is there, doesn't mean I'm supposed to untie it and paddle off into the unknown.  And of course, the fact is that this boat isn't mine, and if I WERE to take it I'd be stealing!  So, in a way, though I'd been assuming I was supposed to leap into the boat, I am exactly where I need to be in the moment I'm taking this picture, seeing what I need to see, doing what I was born to do, and that's just as it should be.  It's okay to stay in the moment and not rush into choosing a path or assume I'm supposed to be doing something other than exactly what I'm doing now.

Perhaps the image is simply that: an invitation to be at peace with who and where you are right now.  Don't assume you need to be anyone other than who you are, or anyplace other than where you are, or doing anything other than what you're doing right now: it's all good.

I break for fog

I ADORE shooting in fog, and fog is actually pretty rare on our little island.  So when I woke up this morning and looked out the bathroom window at a solid wall of pale grey, I abandoned my normal routines, grabbed my camera, and headed for Waterfront Park to shoot what turned out to be almost 250 pictures...  it was amazing.

This isn't necessarily a representative sample; it's a photo of our neighbor's dock, taken on the way back from my morning's activities.  But I love the way the crow stepped in at the last minute...

And of course -- since I just threw on my clothes and jumped in the car -- I forgot my cellphone (again).  So even though I returned with a 20 ounce cup of his favorite coffee, my husband still needed to point out that I'd forgotten to take the phone: turns out we have house guests arriving around noon, so he thought he'd better cancel his lunch date and oh-by-the-way we might need to do a little cleaning up?

Though the fog is lifting now at the park, it's still pretty thick at our end of the island, and part of me is itching to spend more time out there with my camera.  But guests come first -- especially the really special ones; the ones who were in our wedding, and came all the way from Vermont to visit a brother-in-law who just HAPPENS to live across the water from us.

So the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom are tidier now, but I really really need to shower and change, so I'll just leave you with this thought: some days it's okay to skip meditation practice!  Walking the docks, breathing the faintly salty damp air, feasting on the rich colors of the flowers and boats at the water's edge -- it all feeds my soul, and serves as a wonderful restorative in preparation for what looks like it might be an eventful day.

If you're feeling a bit fogged in yourself this morning, I hope it lifts by afternoon (as hopefully it will here) and you have a chance to enjoy the beautiful day.

It's all good!