At the Movies

Maybe it’s me, but reality seems to be spinning rather wildly these days.

I feel like I’m sitting in some multiplex theater with, oh, maybe a couple dozen movies playing at one time. Each one of them is a slice of my life, each as real as the other. I’m here in the middle watching the movie screens revolve.

Each of the movies plays just long enough for me to remember where I was in the storyline and to play my role in what’s-happening-now, and then the next movie drops before me. It’s like dancing between worlds, or like wandering through a maze of revolving doors. The old TV show “Quantum Leap” comes to mind, and I laugh. That’s it, exactly.

The main movie this past week was a horror show where poisons fell upon the land and the waters, including mine. It held some heart-wrenching scenes. But there were other movies, too. The smiles of friendship and romance and Valentine’s Day. Poignant stories of loss and grief. Scenes of ordinary life – cooking dinner, washing dishes – seen through a soft, golden lens. Peaceful strolls through pine woods and stands of oak.

Weaving through them all was the ribbon of reminders that I posted on my wall to help me keep my composure when the movies spin too quickly or get too intense. “Smile,” one says. I like that one. It works every time. “Don’t be trapped by the spell. You are free.” That’s a good one, too; it reminds me that I always have choices.

I told you in an earlier letter about the one that says, “Look around you. Appreciate what you have. Nothing will be the same in a year.” That one took on new depth as I watched an environmental catastrophe enfold me in its grasp. Yes. Appreciate what you have.

The four phrases of the Loving Kindness Meditation are on my wall, too:

May I Now . . .

Be filled with loving kindness;
Be safe and protected;
Be resilient in mind and body;
Live with ease and joy.

After I say them for myself, I look at my photos of friends and family and request the same for them, and then for all whose lives touch mine, which, of course, includes you.

I got to experience a vast range of emotions this past week. Somewhere in the middle of it, I saw a video of a man demonstrating how the strings in the lower range of a piano make powerfully penetrating sounds. The lowest would not only shake the whole piano, but the house in which it sat. I got a taste of the lower ends of the emotional scale as I took in what was happening around me.

And along with that, I got a refresher course in what happens when you’re there, caught up in the powerful frequencies of emotion at the lower end of the scale. If you don’t fight it, if you just kind of glide on its current and let it be there and let it be okay that it’s there even if its difficult to bear . . . if you can do that, you’ll find that you sink like some smooth stone in an unresisting stream and end up in a well of acceptance filled with understanding and love.

Not that “don’t fight it” is easy. Sometimes you gotta go through some shouting and tears to get there. But if you can get there, if you can just let go of the fight and let it be, it’s worth doing.

I hope that helps you in some way. I wish you the very best movies this week in the theater of your mind.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

The Gentle Days

Like an island in time, the gentle days
unfold. Snow melts. Waters flow.
Geese swim in the swollen, rushing
creek, honking their joy. In the midst
of harshness, this mildness descends.
And ‘though its stay is brief, it is enough
to remind us of the wonder of it all,
as we walk through the comforting air
bare armed and softly smiling.

Baby Daffodils

Last week, all this patch of ground held
was a blanket of last year’s leaves.
Nothing more. And I can’t tell you
what woke them. But here they are,
baby daffodils with fat yellow buds
ready to bloom, all full of laughter,
as if they know that they caught you
by surprise. How do they know
how to do that? How do any of us
know when and how to slide
from the darkness and show
the world our light?

The Bridge

When I stepped from the thick brush into the clearing,
the rustic wooden footbridge across the narrow ravine
almost escaped my notice, so leaf-strewn was it,
so at home among the pines. I paused half way
from one side to the other, thinking how the bridge
was like the moment between breaths, the one
that smooths this Now to the next, and how
there’s always sunlight up ahead, even when
you’ve been a long while in a dark and tangled woods.

Lessons from the Oak Grove

Subtlety asks that you tune your attention,
sharpen it to see the layers and the play
of them, the way one folds into another
and contrasts with the next, and how
the whole is made beautiful by their dance.

Valentine Song of the Birds

On this day, when the sky powders down love
in its most tender colors, let us sit on the tree’s
highest branches and bask in its song. Let us hear
its notes waft down, surrounding every twig,
every limb, every eye and beak and feather.
Let us watch as every being below feels
Its soft caress. And when our hearts are brimming
with its splendid, endless joy, let us fly forth,
singing its song.

Looking Up to the Tops of the Trees

Sometimes when I am among the pines
I think to tilt my head all the way back
to look up at the tops of them, laughing
as they drink the sky. I don’t do this often.
The textures of their bark, the heaps
of fallen needles and cones, the baby trees
springing from the soil beneath them
so entrance me that it is all I can do
to take in the wonders immediately
before me. But sometimes, the shrill call
of a crow falls all the way down
to where I am standing and I trace
the sound to a branch high above me.
Instantly, I am in awe, as if I had discovered
a forgotten world where ancient ones dwell,
conversing with each other, swaying in joy
as as they pass their stories around.
What the wind told them. What the jays
had to say, and the squirrels. Who came
to the woods that day, who found the gifts,
who noticed the hidden treasures, who
left treasures and gifts of their own,
how glad the lake is now that the geese
have arrived to scout out nesting places.
And all of this goes on so easily, as if
the troubles of the world were of no concern
at all. But then they have been here
a very long time and seen much, and choosing
to sing with the wind has allowed them
to rise above us all and to drink the sky.

Long Range Forecast

“I love the watching how the buds on the trees
are beginning to swell,” she said, taking me by surprise.
I hadn’t noticed. She’s farther south, I said to myself.
Surely I would have noticed, the softening of the tree line
being one of my favorite late-winter sights.

But the next morning, as I passed a favorite maple,
I saw that she spoke truly. It was indeed fuzzier
than it had been the week before. Say what you want,
Jack Frost. The ancient one in the pasture tells
the long-range tale: Spring is coming, regardless.

Smoke on the Horizon

With all the events filling the news in the past week—the shoot-down of the mysterious Chinese balloon and now of some unidentified object over Alaskan air space, the horrendous and heart-breaking earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, the political tensions both at home and internationally—you might have missed the story about the derailment of a train in Ohio carrying hazardous chemicals. But I sure didn’t! It happened four miles upwind from my home. I could see the black smoke from here.

Last Monday, in order to prevent an explosion of one endangered tank car, authorities decided to conduct a “controlled explosion,” releasing a huge cloud of dense black smoke into the overcast sky. I watched from my kitchen window as the cloud floated toward my property, eventually turning the sky so dark that it looked like midnight outside at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. Authorities said air samples said it had posed no danger, but some folks in the area are experiencing headaches and feeling sick. And although I’m generally robustly healthy, I confess I’m not quite 100% myself.

I’m not concerned. My symptoms are mild – a bit of a sore throat. I expect to bounce back quickly. I told myself it’s just a trough in the waves. And that reminded me of a piece I wrote a while back, called “Learning to Surf.” I dug it out and read it. And because the world is what it is these days, I thought I’d share it with you again. . .

Learning to Surf

I admit, it can be hard to get your bearings on this old planet the way everything keeps shifting and sliding and all. The best that any of us can do is to do the best we can, moment to moment to moment.

It’s like the famous poster from the 1960’s where you see a yogi-like figure in long robes on a surfboard riding an enormous wave, his arms outstreched, his wet hair flying in the wind. Across the photo in bold white letters is printed, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

The world is giving us surfing lessons big-time now. And sometimes it feels like high tide. It’s part of the adventure of being here. We get to live all the drama from inside it.

By the way, did you ever watch somebody learn to surf? It isn’t a pretty sight. Or graceful. Or smooth. They fall a lot. Sometimes they get injured. Sometimes they even get killed. That’s the kind of adventure we’re in. We risk death every moment. Threats surround us from our very first breath, from before that even.

But here’s the thing. Most who are learning to surf succeed. They get the hang of it, of the unpredictability of the ride. They get the rhythm and flow of unexpected curves. For some, it becomes a kind of dance or meditation. For some it’s a challenge of skills, a grand game. But you only rise to those levels to the degree that you let go of fear. Most of us are just paddling around as best we can, scared of dying, trying to get enough balance to stand. Our big glory is that when we fall, we climb back on, regardless of our fears and regrets. And these days, that can be one mean feat.

I love that about humans–the way we keep getting back on the board, working at making it work, even against all odds. Even when we have no idea why. God bless us all.

And God bless you, individually—you, who’s reading this letter right now. These are bewildering times. Balance doesn’t come easy for any of us. We’re riding on storm-tossed seas.

It’s okay to be afraid. Useless, but okay. It’s okay to be sad, or angry, or miserable. Just get back on the board and keep paddling. Eventually you’ll rock with the waves, rolling over their crests and into their valleys as if you were born to do it. Because, obviously, you were.

It doesn’t have to make sense. It might be a long while before we’re in calm seas. Life isn’t going to be what we had imagined it would be. But it’s still our life, our chance to ride the waves. Kinda wild, isn’t it? Kinda outrageous.

Just hold on, and rock and roll.

Warmly,
Susan

Wishes at the Lake’s Edge

I want to wrap packets of the peace of this place
in gossamer wishes and offer them to the fragrant air
to carry to the hearts of all who are in pain this day.
May you be filled with the strength of these trees, I say,
lifting cupped hands, and with their endurance.
May your spirit be filled with the calm of this lake
and with its gladness. May these shafts of sunlight
remind you that shadows are a part of the dance,
passing phantoms, anchored to nothing. This peace
floats above and beneath and between all you see.
And I send it to you, that you may be healed,
that you may be free.