8.3.12 Necessary Devotion

The impeccable range lies, immutable       

No sun spilling over mountaintops,

noisily breaking it's                                        

wild light across

recalcitrant meadows

lying far below

There will be no quick drying of the

slick August dew,  lacing those 

soaked, sparkling pole beans, impelling vines

stretching hungrily toward the skies

  

Below the damp cloud cover

whispering Spilanthes extend rootlets

into any deep thick earth, its

obdurate soft stemlets

grab grab  grabbing with

long white fingers that

dig and then thirstily feed  

Here before the melodic weighted roses

the fog lathers each thrumming  petal

coating the raucous Japanese Beetles , while

all the bees, wisened, hitch beneath

fragrant Hyssop leaf

succulent Phlox blossoms

waiting, dry, for the sun

                             

     

The Lilies are all sleeping in, their

lucid dreams pulled by the

rhythmic refrain of some                                             

primordial song

listen; can you hear it? They are

all tucked into the gallant river’s bed

Striking fragrant Tansy stands tall, overseeing

quiet fogged waters, the  myriad of elfin spider webs  carefully, patiently

threaded through grasses

intricate structures, 

the spiders hide stock-still, awaiting the   vibration that signals a meal

The vibrant blue swallows sweep the land while   enormous old fish leap, splash, and disappear,

 a fat dragon fly between their lips?

Concentric circles veering cross the Connecticut telling this tale a

gain and again and again

Soft grasses parted where a

deer or coyote

in their secret lives

did venture down to the river early morn

The Mugwort grown taller every day, and yes

Queen Anne’s Lace, their own universe of insects

busily cleaning and feeding and laying

thriving in the early damp dawn

One Catbird admonishes, hopping about their nest

Two humans silently make their way past on

Mountain Bikes, strange headed-creatures,

quiet as falling seed puffs

off into the fog beyond

    

As the ancient river continues its coursing nonetheless, its

design and current something inimitable, mighty

trailing behind  its fidelitous heart  

Pressing past plentiful dams and basins

muttering among  cantankerous tributaries

sundering Oxbows, with a sigh, as it’s

pulled by the wrists

down to the mouth

the greeting Estuary rushing back and forth in

foamed delight of waters, the

rippling heart  of certainty

the low-lying  cloud cover

is left behind, voiceless,  a

quiet morning refrain  

a song of the land, the

one of necessary

devotion

8.1.13 Stormy Weather

The only other person in the bed woke up to go to the bathroom.

So the pup woke up. And had to go outside to pee.

So I woke up.

The other person went back to sleep.

The pup went back to sleep.

The old old dog went back to sleep.

The four cats somehow, despite their irritation at being so unjustly disturbed, went back to sleep.

I lay there...waiting....to go back to sleep.

And did finally  realize that was not in the cards this early morning. And thus,  in the cool summer darkness, I quietly got up, grabbed some clothes, and slipped out of the bedroom. To be followed closely by a squinty eyed, stumbling 4 month old canine, who is a Shepherd, so does innately follow you anywhere you go, and then, as his Mama and Papa probably taught him, sits carefully upon  your feet to await further events.

Giving his hungry belly a perfunctory meal, we left the house, sidled the car up the driveway to leave in slumber the bedroom's crowd, and the slumbering neighbor who rents the cottage, imagining her cat, her kid,and herself, fast fast asleep as the sun slowly made itself known.

Off we went, down the road by the range, down the hills, and entered the flatter lands by the first set of fields, where the sky did glow with morning light, in the midst of such thick fog.

All was quiet at the river, save the cacophony of the skies, brilliant, changing every second, so you kept your eye on the river and all overhead, so unbelievable, while so much of the neighborhood slept, not a car sound, not a door opening, not a person wandering, all the neighborhood chicken coops closed still.

Down the dew soaked path we wandered, as the earth did slowly turn, and the light came through the fog a bit more each moment, the birds gradually heard to be singing good-morning to the day and each other, the insects all wet and dewy, awaiting the sun's heat to dry their limbs and wings, and go about their lives.

In my neighborhood, like  yours, wherever you do live, the plants have an order in which they come out and flourish and blossom, come to seed, or proliferate small plantlets, and then become more dormant, or die back until another season.

 As you walk down the places in your neighborhood, day after day, year after year, you learn who  your neighbors are. The plants. The trees. the two and four footeds living there. You begin to realize that humans are actually NOT the only ones. To live. To have neighborhoods. To matter.

In fact, if you listen and observe around you, or read,  you realize that what you always felt inside was true- you as a small one could understand speech long before you could speak it. What you experienced was important, even if those around you forgot this. Somehow you knew that you were not alone. That the tree by your side responded to you as you responded to it. The insects smelled you and the wild creatures heard your breath inside your home as you slept as a small child, as they quietly slipped by.

One of my neighbors is an  enormous toad in the garden, who snuggled into a small seedling container in the midst of all my seedling containers, pushed the dirt aside, and laid her eggs... She is an elder, in fact, toooo big for the neighborhood snakes to gobble up. And now, in the same place, are so many tiny baby toads, all with beautiful brand new bumpy bodies, scampering around, the 50 seedling six packs their nursery, as they grow older and come into the world.

The pup and I slowly wander down the Adele Dawson Conservation path by the Connecticut, not a person in sight, as the hawk parents begin to nestle and feed their young. 

As the beaver down in the water swimmingly wanders along choosing a breakfast. 

As a pair of ducks go tail up, munching down quietly on their on meal of a few of the thousand small fishes that are splittering the tops of the river's waters with their small hungry morning mouths. 

As some of them make it down down to the farther reaches of the river, possbily even the sea.

Imagine traveling to the sea, in a river, carried by the current, as you grew up. 

I think that's kind of what being a human adolescent is like, everything around you and inside of you and you changing and changing so fast, as you try to get acclimated to where your body is TODAY and how on earth to manage.

My feet are slick with dew, his black fuzzy enormous paws soaked happily, as we wander along. As the light of day approaches.

Taking note of smells 

of the emergence of the rioting wild Phlox, and the accompanying 

celebration of all kinds of winged and non winged insects, 

the wind picking up a bit, the light coming finally. 

We turn at the end, and begin to make our way back to the car, the hundreds of slumbering wild Tiger Lilies slowly taking note of the sun's light, feeling the small heat upon their blossoms, and opening their blossoms slowly, slowly waking up.

On the way home, still early, there are ever changing skies, that shift and shift and shift. Best view in the house. The wind is picking up.

We decide to stop by the Summit House at the tip top of The Mount Holyoke Range, to check out these strange clouds, this increasingly wild wind that has come upon the land.

The birds are all talking about it in an unusual fashion.....

Up the road, the young summer Rangers  come running out to the car, saying there is a Tornado warning, and they are shutting the road down. Sounds right to me, those weird formations whirling around just a bit too fast to be usual.

On the way down, we pass car after car, scooting up the road...I wave, they slow down, and they are all filled with excited young adults of every flavor you could imagine. Wonderful! I tell them the bad news. 

No standing at the very top of the range, getting the birds eye view of the valley, as some weird strange fast moving fast talking clouds race on in. Their disappointment is palpable.

I don't know if they'll make a run for it, or if those adept young rangers will stop each and every one. Oh shucks. And then, slowly, the wind comes sweeping in, carrying away the foment of directions and altitudes and formations and swirlygigs far up into the skies...and it all dissipates like magic! 

By the time we get home and stroll into the back yard, there is only a spectacular weather front remaining, stark against the mid day skies. 

One lovely Lupine, gone to seed, having had its rash bounty of Cerulean blossoms, a chorus sent across the lands, watching the wildness recede. 

Its hard, furred pods holding the promise of tomorrows, of weathers and small new plantlets and lives, 

when we are long gone, and all that swirls round the earth remains in this place, 

world without end, Amen

7.22.13 100 Kisses Within A Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time in a land far away, ( maybe 20 years ago and 20 miles away) , we did live in a home given us by his father, to us and his sister, and we, with three young ones, did sell it to her, and move our small family to a nearby town, with better schools and close to the university for his doctoral work, and into a stately Victorian rental , off the middle of  town, on a small forested street inhabited by many old New England homes.

The first night there, my oldest and I left in the darkness, after the two and three year olds were fast asleep, to walk the German Shepherd and the Australian Shepherd round the block.

Round we went to the main street, where we came upon hoardes of Umass students in long long lines covering the sidewalks, police keeping order as they awaited their turn to enter various drinking establishments, screaming and laughing, pushing and shoving each other in their youthful urgency.

Not a little surprised, I ushered my 12-year-old down past the crowds, as we approached a small compact car backing into a parking space. It aimed irregularly, and as we stood by, it backed up upon the hood of a red Corvette parked behind it. Up up its little compact back wheels went onto the hood, not quite to the windshield, then, possibly detecting a problem, the driver drove back down , turned off their offending car,  taking a quick look at the car behind them, and leaving quite quickly on foot.

I jotted down the license number of the compact, stuck it on the Corvette with my number, and off we went, not a small bit stunned, to finish out dog walk.

Turns out the lovely Victorian we all enjoyed so much was over sprayed with Diazinon, an anti-cholinesterase inhibitor, initially designed as a pesticide for use in chemical warfare, and , due to an excess left over from WW2, reassigned a job for commercial use. Carpenter Ant prevention. Cockroach prevention. Seems it’s role is to  ensure that yours, mine, and insect’s nerve synapses stay stuck together, instead of coming together for a neural impulse or message, letting the message pass by, then separating. To be stuck together causes neural damange, kind of a toasting of whatever circuit is involved- leg, heart, brain, you name it. Thus it is a neurotoxin, with, wait for it, a 500 year half life. Yup. So in 500 years, it will be half fallen apart. In the meantime, it offgasses for quite awhile, then falls asleep, then when you pull off a board to do work on your house, boom, it wakes up anew, and in your body it goes to stay and fester and foster all kinds of possible vulnerabilities.

Not only that; it was designed to be chemically unstable. So up til a few years ago, and still in ‘developing’ countries, it nomadically wanders up to 40 feet in every direction, and even better, chemically combines with everything, I mean everything, in its path. Now let’s just stop and imagine a hardware store. Right? Can you see it? Wandering about and chemically combining, kind of like Ghostbusters or something? Right. That’s it.

Charming.

So we began to get swollen red, chapped lips and pale faces and stomach aches and twitches and I began looking around for a cause, as the upstairs rooms smelled perennially like RAID no matter how much I sponged and washed them down, and the kids all began to get sick and I was like an empty vessel, myself.

Finally I found out that the house had not only been sprayed, but over sprayed, and we were…environmentally ill. Back when everyone was like, “Oh, how silly. How stupid. No such thing.”. You know, and all that. When Fibromyalgia was a stupid human invention that was not real, and ALS and Asthma were psychosomatic. It’s important we not have amnesia. It’s important we don’t expect medicine to be perfect and know EVERYTHING right NOW. At the same time, the only thing doctors need to somehow, somehow learn to do, is to say that as far as they KNOW RIGHT NOW, they can detect nothing. So simple. Just leave the door open for what we, at this time, cannot detect. Seems so simple, to me.

I insisted we move once again 2 months later, a disaster for his dissertation, but I found a new house, brandy new, not knowing that…we would become allergic to the new, off gassing chemicals of the carpets and the walls made of  particle board and the new paint and all. Which we slowly and painfully and sick-ily discovered.

Eventually I found an older home, no work done on it in awhile. I learned to call the pesticide companies, as they kept records by house, and ask sweetly if the house in question had a ‘maintenance agreement’, as if it was something I wanted and liked and all, and they would smile over the phone and let me know about each and every rental I checked out til I picked this one, in the north part of town, within walking distance to the tiny town library, the town park, the woods, the fields and stream the martial arts classes, the grocery store my oldest would cut his teeth on while homeschooling, on his way to becoming a business maven. Nice house, kids in the neighborhood.

So, like “Make Way For Ducklings”, we happily once again leaned on our tired and sore friends to help us once again move to the older house.

By then, the kids were allergic to stores and new buildings and ….school. the dogs were sick too, the older one with Lymphatic Cancer.  Mostly the two younger ones, and myself,  had been in the house the most, so were most impacted.

This was pre-internet, but I located a naturopathic practitioner, brilliant really, who utilized an electron microscope to do Live Cell Analysis among other things, and we effectively used up all our money from selling the house to address this horrible chemical, which had a nicely high danger of a number of conditions, including childhood leukemia. I thought it was worth the loss of house money, and to this day, it is and was.

I learned that years ago, the earth grew trees but had not developed the enzymes necessary to break down the trees once they fell and died. And so, human made things like pesticides and chemicals and medications, even when helpful, are complex compounds that are very hard, if not impossible, for humans to break down and get OUT of the body.

The world knows much more about this now than it did then.

The kids and I had chronic bronchitis, which was renewed by any exposure to new shoes or carpet or being in a restaurant when they sprayed Ammonia, when we would go racing out, while trying not to alarm the young ones.

We actually at one point washed the carpets of an entire elementary school three times, then applied a sealant twice so it would be ok for the kids.
But they ended up having to homeschool for three years or so, which I somehow did while driving my disbelieving, suffering husband nuts, and being environmentally ill. Never made it a big issue with the kids as to why exactly we were homeschooling, and got really into it, because, what are you to do???

Here we are , finally getting to the 100 kisses. Be patient.

During that time, I bought these little plastic bears to use for mathematics, and eventually my two youngest began coming over, hand it to me, and ask for a kiss. As if they wouldn’t get a kiss anytime anyway, but they thought it was fun, trading a  plastic bear for a kiss.

Eventually one of them had a serious  injury and a very very difficult time for many years, and he would come to me with  a bear in his small hand, and ask for 100 kisses. 100. I would look at him, see the empty bucket in need of kisses deep inside there, pull him up on  my lap, and  he would sit expectantly, while I would kiss his cheek once, twice, 47, 78, 100 times.

Then he would get down, all filled up, say “Thanks Mum”, and run off to make huge block buildings or lego creations or hamster tunnels and all.

Eventually we all got better, I learned how to treat Environmental Illness with herbs, supplements and bodywork, palpating organs and systems and describing and showing clients how to detect what was challenged, and show them how to tell by palpating or looking at their faces or other measure how they were improving.

Today, driving my husband home from work, the old dog wanting his front seat but BAD, the enormous pup intermittently lunging forward to deliver toothy kisses, we both remembered the 100 kisses, and the plastic bears.

Back home, I went into the bathroom and peered into one of the cloth containers, and there it was, the last one, red, small, a tiny bear, worthy of 100 kisses.