Shadows and Light

I've been hearing from friends who are puzzled as to why I would encourage others to check out The Hunger Games (see my Facebook post Saturday Mar 17, Tuesday Mar 20).  In case you're not familiar with it - this soon to be released film (made by Canada's Lionsgate), is based on the first book of a trilogy written for young adults, by Suzanne Collins. The story follows a young intelligent, thoughtful, courageous teen as she faces  oppression in her post-apocalyptic world. And yes, there's violence.

So what would draw me to read a post-apocalyptic story about violence and oppression?  Years ago, I read The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Yeah, Gyllian, and why did you read that one? Well may you ask!

I had read previous books by McCarthy. I found his style, his characters, his themes satisfying and intriguing. This one gave me pause because it promised to be bleak but... on the cover one reviewer spoke of "the power of redemptive love".  I was hooked. 

And I read to the end because I wasn't willing to give up until I found that reviewer's light in the dark. It was powerful, haunting, and those images of a violent and cold-hearted future have lingered in my imagination ever since. So much so that I have regretted reading it!  I found no hope in The Road; for me the 'redemptive love' McCarthy wrote of was not enough to neutralize the horror of a future world, built on fear and violence, mainly bereft of compassion, tenderness, and generosity.

Thus in the last few years, I am magnetized to books that deal with a post-apocalyptic future AND give me hope. The Road did not.  I'm looking for that which will. I want hope.

I want visions of humanity managing to rise above our own frightened, grasping hearts, having the courage to love and care about others. I want to hear how we do have the courage to believe not only are we capable of being bright lights in the world... we are determined to choose to be the light in the face of fear, death, and destruction!


Today I'm off to the library to get a copy of the book - we shall see!

Flicker shows up again

Photo credit: Gyllian Davies             

Yesterday I was on my way to Portland from home up in the mountains of southeast BC. The sun shining, the sky electric blue, the air crisp enough to keep the snow from becoming instant slush. A great day, even if I was waaaayyyy later leaving than I meant to be. Driving along through the pine forests, I spotted a bird's little body by the road. Up where I live there's often those  dead animal bodies beside the road, vulnerable and final. Often I stop and bless them with tobacco, saying a prayer to help their spirits safely on their journey.

This time - snip-snap, instantaneous conversation inside my head: The noticer observed: "Little bird." The realist commented: "Not so little bird."  The timekeeper urged: "We're so behind; keep going!" The curious child wanted to know: "What was that!" 

It was the shaman who had the last word: "Go back now."  I (mostly) listen when the shaman speaks within me, so I turned around and drove back a half mile or so. 

Pulled over on the sandy verge under the Ponderosa pines. Not a soul to be heard or seen. Tall sentinels of trees, open forest floor, snow still covering the ground. Walked across the road - ah, sadness. A Red-Shafted Flicker. One of the most beautiful birds - such an amazing painting of feathers on its body. Graceful in flight, independent - not often seen in a crowd, always a welcome guest at my feeders. I can never get enough of admiring its beauty.

Photo credit www.wunderground.com  Amazing bird photos!

I bent down to look - not a wisp of breath or movement, and its little pink eyelids closed. Dang. "Baby, what happened to you?" I whispered as I picked it up. "So sorry, beautiful little one!" It was still warm. I felt like.... if I'd only arrived sooner maybe I could have protected it from the collision that likely caused its death. I tenderly wrapped it in a plastic bag and tucked it in my cooler in the back of my car. The dogs watched me with that odd mixture of patience and curiousity they display when I"m doing something they don't quite get! And off we went down the road.

And then something odd began to happen. I didn't notice it at first. But after a couple of hours driving - I could feel that flicker in the back of my car. And it felt like this... initially the sense of another energy presence in the car. Then... I knew it was the flicker. (please understand - I don't usually feel the energetic presence of other beings. Well, maybe my dogs...  well, maybe my friends...  but a bird?  hmmm)

For the next 8 hours as I drove... there was a constant gentle, enfolding of my body, an encircling experience of enough-ness, and a deep sense of being and feeling grounded and whole. Wow. Am I humbled? You bet! Do I wonder what this means? uh-huh. And what do I know? That I just have to wait, patiently, with open-hearted curiousity. Patience is not one of my stronger attributes! Perhaps the flicker will grab me by the nose with its beak and show me what may be already in plain sight! Nature is ever generous. I wait.

Loving the ones who try to protect me

A few weeks ago I listened to the forecast - rain. Rain! It's not supposed to rain in the mountains in February! "Yuck," says I. "Give me snow, beautiful snow." You know how they say - be careful what you ask for!

Got up the next morning and there it was - snow, about 4" or 10 cm. Yay!  I decided to get the shoveling done right away. Did it, all the steps (3 sets), the walks, the top of the driveway by the house, making enough room for my neighbour to bring in his tractor and plow me out. Cleared around the big gate too - wanted to make that easy for him to get it open. When he's got a pile of driveways to plow, he doesn't have time to waste messing with my iced-up gate...
An hour later, feeling virtuous, I headed back inside, knowing I was ready to drive out to the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper at the church that evening, where they'd be counting on my help.

Then it snowed some more. I wasn't really paying attention. Until I went outside with my gear, nightgown and toothbrush in my backpack - just in case I couldn't make it back up my hill later that night.  Oops! I really hadn't been paying attention. Now the snow was 8 inches deep in my access road. No way I was going anywhere! So I shoveled all over again, made my own pancake supper, and settled in for a cozy evening at home....  Secretly wondering - was I just being a wimp about taking on the deep snow in my access road?

The next day my neighbour laughed at me even thinking of trying to drive out. hmmm  -  another lesson in trusting my wise self. Yes, I really did know what made sense. I find it fascinating how many parts of me are ready to come up with "good reasons" for not listening to my own intuition, wisdom, gut-knowing. How old are these voices! Too old to align with who I am now. Still I know I need to honour them - in my childhood they were what kept me safe from adult censure, scary situations, and all kinds of unknown dangers. Honour them and let them know - that was then and this is now. In the "now" I am the one who makes the world safe for me. I've got it covered.

Tree Root poem....

 

Tree Root

I celebrate this perfect morning
lit like the inside of a pearl
with satin shell gleaming, container
of ocean-light here in the dripping mountain.
We've lost our centre, reliable weather,
predictable seasons, but the trees
anchor us deep, carrying our hearts,
their precious cargo, down with the roots
to the dark centre.
They show us the true ground of being,
the source of our living and prune away
the dross of our silly selves.
Re-formed and made new, glowing
with life we too can raise our faces
into the breeze, scenting out
the shifting path and welcoming
the winds of change, this sea-change
this earth becoming.

                                   © 02.15.2010     Gyllian Davies

After a day of feeling stuck in my own resistance, I remember this - I get to choose how I perceive what I'm up to. What a relief. Suddenly what had previously felt so difficult resolves, like murk settling in the water allowing it to become clear and lovely. The tasks that had loomed and glowered at me from the corner become effortless and even a pleasure to carry out. Magic!

Here is the gem I carry away from this day - in any one moment there is something to be grateful for. True kindness is me choosing to see the abundance. And when I do, I find the source of it is within me. It is my eyes and my heart that have chosen to see and recognize goodness, and to reflect that back to me. My own actions, gestures, thoughts - no matter how puny or insignificant they may seem - have the potential to be perceived as kindness and abundance. I get to bestow that kindness and abundance on me. And oh how my world lightens up when I do so!

We all have this capacity to gift to ourselves.  Perhaps the trick of it is to be willing to receive. To believe that joy and beauty belong in our lives.

In my "wiser" moments I understand that once again I have been gifted a chance to release more of my scarcity thinking and to step into believing this:

Always and always - there is enough! 

No-where in Creation is there a rule 

that says we must suffer,

so go ahead - choose Joy.

Here's a quote to fill you up! (from When God Was a Rabbit, by Sarah Winman)

'Do you believe in God, Arthur?' I said, eating the last piece of sponge.
       'Do I believe in an old man in the clouds with a white beard judging us mortals from one to ten? Good Lord no, my sweet Elly, I do not! I would have been cast out from this life years ago with my tatty history. Do I believe in a mystery; the unexplained phenomenon that is life itself? The greater something that illuminates inconsequence in our lives; that gives us something to strive for as well as the humility to brush ourselves down and start all over again? Then yes, I do. It is the source of art, of beauty, of love, and proffers the ultimate goodness to mankind. That to me is God. That to me is life. That is what I believe in.'
        I listened to the bell again, whispering across the waves, calling, calling. I licked my fingers and scrunched the tin foil up into a ball.
       'Do you think a rabbit could be God?' I ask casually.
       'There is absolutely no reason at all why a rabbit should not be God.'

Ellie is eleven, Arthur is a gay man, an older friend of the family, and of Ellie's - obviously! They are out in the boat; Ellie is teaching him to fish. When Ellie was six she outraged a clergy person at church by suggesting Jesus was an unplanned pregnancy. This fellow tells her that God cannot love anyone who questions His Divine Plan. (hah! - isn't that who God loves most?) Ellie carries this painful "truth"  - that God cannot love her - alone. Her brother gives her a rabbit....  the rest you'll have to find out by reading this amazing book!

How to begin the day

 Waking up I raise the blind, at first a little bit resigned  that  it's another day of low ceiling, no blue sky to be had.  But THEN I realize it's snowing, big fat fluffy flakes and I  am immediately cheered.

How beautiful the falling snow.  It fills me with gratitude for its beauty, with comfort for its quiet steadiness. with peace for the silence it brings.

Curious I step outside to check the thermometer. A few degrees above freezing, right where it's been stuck for these past several days. Down on the road I hear a city kind of sound - many tires moving through slush, only in slow motion. I can't see past the trees at the bottom of the meadow, but I suddenly understand what I'm hearing - a logging truck - all those tires are on one vehicle. And that vehicle is creeping down the road, a sign of how treacherous the driving must be.

We are at the mercy of the seasons. And why should it be any other way. Even when I first woke and saw simply grey sky, there was a part of me reaching for connection, reaching for a place of inhaling deep breaths of this grey day and feeling with a satisfied heart how good it is to be alive. The trick, of course,  is to let that part lead me into the day, cheerful and grateful.