vulnerable
learn to show
your softness
I once thought
Strength
was asking nothing
I didn't realize
What it would take
to ask for help
It took me years
to gut myself
Turn my insides out
trembling
Standing before you
learning how to cry
I still catch myself
holding back tears
Sometimes
Old habits are hard to break
I try
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Monday, October 29, 2018
They Return
The monarchs are returning. Last week, there was one. This week- three. The ground is graced with their playful, drifting shadows. They bask in the sunlight, flutter in the breeze, drift like glorious, living leaves.
They come back every autumn, traveling hundreds of miles, born in the mountains and returning mysteriously, year after year, to the land of their grandparents.
Three generations have passed since they left last spring. What if we measured our days in a butterfly's lifespan?
How do they know where to go? What guides them? They must go, they will go. The butterflies know, we merely wonder.
It is our gift. We can stand in awe, watching them gather, dripping from branches, orange and black wings radiant in the sunlight. They bring us peace, tranquility. What do we have to offer? This incredible journey, this struggle and sacrifice. This survival. This victory.
We stand witness to an incredible world.
The monarchs are returning. Let us celebrate.
Here they will rest. Here they will wait out the storms and the cold. Where do butterflies go in the rain?
Here they will create new life. Here they will die. And in the spring, when the snow begins to melt, their children will leave, called back to the mountains.
And we will wait for their return.
They come back every autumn, traveling hundreds of miles, born in the mountains and returning mysteriously, year after year, to the land of their grandparents.
Three generations have passed since they left last spring. What if we measured our days in a butterfly's lifespan?
How do they know where to go? What guides them? They must go, they will go. The butterflies know, we merely wonder.
It is our gift. We can stand in awe, watching them gather, dripping from branches, orange and black wings radiant in the sunlight. They bring us peace, tranquility. What do we have to offer? This incredible journey, this struggle and sacrifice. This survival. This victory.
We stand witness to an incredible world.
The monarchs are returning. Let us celebrate.
Here they will rest. Here they will wait out the storms and the cold. Where do butterflies go in the rain?
Here they will create new life. Here they will die. And in the spring, when the snow begins to melt, their children will leave, called back to the mountains.
And we will wait for their return.
Thursday, October 11, 2018
This is How I Die
"This is how I die."
My friend, Jen, has this mantra. In the middle of a perilous task, this runs on repeat through her head. This is how I die, this is how I die.
I'd never thought of it that way. Then I did.
I had a project. We were sailing near the coast of Africa, headed to Senegal. Warm winds filled our sails, orange cliffs graced the shore. We needed- we wanted- more canvas. My job was to measure the distances, cut and splice the lines, hoist the sails into place, hank them onto the stays, and attach the lines I'd prepared. For two weeks, I was a rigger on a 210 foot full-rigged ship. I was honored. I was excited. I was, maybe... just a bit... in over my head.
Ship culture is hard. Humility is a sparse commodity in the sailing world. Bravado and swagger hold sway; asking for help can be a sign of weakness. It's not a emotionally open space. Feelings are a sign of weakness. Confidence is king.
Sometimes, sailors are fools.
But no one can accuse us of not being brave. Cowards, we are not.
It's not a healthy ideology. If you don't know, figure it out. We become ingenious, perhaps, but we waste a lot of time on pride.
So there I was, wasting time on the African coast. How do you measure the height of the mast? Well, surely somewhere on board there must be a schematic of the ship? I asked a few of my crew mates, but was loathe to waste anyone's time. What mattered, a day of effort for me, if I could avoid asking fifteen minutes of the captain?
And so, I built a kite string. Line wrapped around a dowel with me as the kite. I claimed a student for the project, left her on deck with the spool in her hand, and set out for the top of the mast.
The first step around the shrouds is always the moment I remember how tenuous this all is. We sway on a vast sea, and, as I climb onto the rail, I depart the protection of the ship. Now, it is merely my hands clinging tight to the cables and my feet precariously balanced on shifting footing that keep me alive. I take a moment to thank my body for its strength, recognize the danger. To fall into the sea is nearly certain death. We practice man overboard on every boat, but we also know how hard it is to find someone. A tiny head amidst the swell vanishes in seconds.
I sense this danger, and I embrace it. Every human life is always in danger. Our hold is always precarious. In sailing, we simply live the metaphor. I love remembering that my body is powerful.
Then up I climb, as my student assistant lets out the string. I weave it through the entangling lines, along the ladder-like shrouds, up through platforms set along the mast, bobbing and swaying as we rock to and fro on our journey south. From up here, the ship looks small on a vast, sparkling ocean. The cliffs are dwarfed by shadowy mountains that stand sentinel beyond. I am just a speck of madness, clambering around on a waving stick.
The motion is greater near the top. I'm now on a side-to-side seesaw, still clinging on for dear life, and still climbing ever upward, bringing my string behind me.
The saying on ships is, one hand for the ship, one hand for yourself. We have harnesses too, and we clip and unclip to move around. But in the end, your safety is in your own hands... or at least, hand, while the other is busy with the ship's business.
Finally at the top, I cling, monkey-like, to the tip of the mast with my thighs. With one hand, I weave the string past a final entangling line, with the other hand I cling by fingertips to whatever I can find that seems sturdy. The ship heaves from port to starboard and I feel like an ant on a fussy baby's rattle, like a ball on the end of an antenna.
In my mind, Jen's words. This is how I die.
No.
This is how I live.
My friend, Jen, has this mantra. In the middle of a perilous task, this runs on repeat through her head. This is how I die, this is how I die.
I'd never thought of it that way. Then I did.
I had a project. We were sailing near the coast of Africa, headed to Senegal. Warm winds filled our sails, orange cliffs graced the shore. We needed- we wanted- more canvas. My job was to measure the distances, cut and splice the lines, hoist the sails into place, hank them onto the stays, and attach the lines I'd prepared. For two weeks, I was a rigger on a 210 foot full-rigged ship. I was honored. I was excited. I was, maybe... just a bit... in over my head.
 |
| Photo Credit: Angela Deluce |
Ship culture is hard. Humility is a sparse commodity in the sailing world. Bravado and swagger hold sway; asking for help can be a sign of weakness. It's not a emotionally open space. Feelings are a sign of weakness. Confidence is king.
Sometimes, sailors are fools.
But no one can accuse us of not being brave. Cowards, we are not.
It's not a healthy ideology. If you don't know, figure it out. We become ingenious, perhaps, but we waste a lot of time on pride.
So there I was, wasting time on the African coast. How do you measure the height of the mast? Well, surely somewhere on board there must be a schematic of the ship? I asked a few of my crew mates, but was loathe to waste anyone's time. What mattered, a day of effort for me, if I could avoid asking fifteen minutes of the captain?
And so, I built a kite string. Line wrapped around a dowel with me as the kite. I claimed a student for the project, left her on deck with the spool in her hand, and set out for the top of the mast.
The first step around the shrouds is always the moment I remember how tenuous this all is. We sway on a vast sea, and, as I climb onto the rail, I depart the protection of the ship. Now, it is merely my hands clinging tight to the cables and my feet precariously balanced on shifting footing that keep me alive. I take a moment to thank my body for its strength, recognize the danger. To fall into the sea is nearly certain death. We practice man overboard on every boat, but we also know how hard it is to find someone. A tiny head amidst the swell vanishes in seconds.
I sense this danger, and I embrace it. Every human life is always in danger. Our hold is always precarious. In sailing, we simply live the metaphor. I love remembering that my body is powerful.
Then up I climb, as my student assistant lets out the string. I weave it through the entangling lines, along the ladder-like shrouds, up through platforms set along the mast, bobbing and swaying as we rock to and fro on our journey south. From up here, the ship looks small on a vast, sparkling ocean. The cliffs are dwarfed by shadowy mountains that stand sentinel beyond. I am just a speck of madness, clambering around on a waving stick.
The motion is greater near the top. I'm now on a side-to-side seesaw, still clinging on for dear life, and still climbing ever upward, bringing my string behind me.
The saying on ships is, one hand for the ship, one hand for yourself. We have harnesses too, and we clip and unclip to move around. But in the end, your safety is in your own hands... or at least, hand, while the other is busy with the ship's business.
Finally at the top, I cling, monkey-like, to the tip of the mast with my thighs. With one hand, I weave the string past a final entangling line, with the other hand I cling by fingertips to whatever I can find that seems sturdy. The ship heaves from port to starboard and I feel like an ant on a fussy baby's rattle, like a ball on the end of an antenna.
In my mind, Jen's words. This is how I die.
No.
This is how I live.
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
What the Blackberry Said...
Plants.
They've always drawn me in, entranced me.
The first plants I learned were fennel and lemonade berry. Walking along the road at seven-years-old, I recognized fennel's wispy leaves, and was all too happy to take a bite, heedless of exhaust and dog pee. Lemonade berry, a big, bushy Southern California plant, was resplendent with mouth puckering fruit at the right time of year. Lemonade berry and fennel were my childhood friends, one tart, one like licorice, treats in plain sight if you knew how to look.
My next love was blackberry, thick in the canyons, twining about itself, seductive berries plump and shining next to vicious thorns. I could pick for hours, and head home with blood prickling along my arms, victorious and wild. The joys of the harvest.
When I moved North, I met the trees. No easy food to share, they instead offered peace, beauty, and safety. I drank in their presence, danced among the red-gold rain of their autumn leaves, learned the scent of bay and pine, craned my neck to greet redwood, lost myself in oak branches. These were the guardians I'd lacked in the land of eternal summer. The landscape naked without these sentinels, forest nearly as mythical as unicorn.
Last summer, I spoke with a blackberry. A car barreled by, loud and unheeding. I flinched and apologized.
It happens all the time.
Darkness gathered around us, two beings locked into a moment. Thorns held me in place.
It was fine before you got here. Now, we can't breathe, the water is poisoned.
but
WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.
The blackberry released me and, shaken, I stepped back. The plants had never spoken before. I had not expected anger.
Maybe it was just my own.
They've always drawn me in, entranced me.
The first plants I learned were fennel and lemonade berry. Walking along the road at seven-years-old, I recognized fennel's wispy leaves, and was all too happy to take a bite, heedless of exhaust and dog pee. Lemonade berry, a big, bushy Southern California plant, was resplendent with mouth puckering fruit at the right time of year. Lemonade berry and fennel were my childhood friends, one tart, one like licorice, treats in plain sight if you knew how to look.
My next love was blackberry, thick in the canyons, twining about itself, seductive berries plump and shining next to vicious thorns. I could pick for hours, and head home with blood prickling along my arms, victorious and wild. The joys of the harvest.
When I moved North, I met the trees. No easy food to share, they instead offered peace, beauty, and safety. I drank in their presence, danced among the red-gold rain of their autumn leaves, learned the scent of bay and pine, craned my neck to greet redwood, lost myself in oak branches. These were the guardians I'd lacked in the land of eternal summer. The landscape naked without these sentinels, forest nearly as mythical as unicorn.
Last summer, I spoke with a blackberry. A car barreled by, loud and unheeding. I flinched and apologized.
It happens all the time.
Darkness gathered around us, two beings locked into a moment. Thorns held me in place.
It was fine before you got here. Now, we can't breathe, the water is poisoned.
but
WE'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.
The blackberry released me and, shaken, I stepped back. The plants had never spoken before. I had not expected anger.
Maybe it was just my own.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Why We Burn
Some 60,000 people, give or take. Humans abuzz with excitement, curiosity, anticipation.
If we'd focused our energy all together, perhaps that alone would have lit the fire.
This mysterious effigy, lined in blue neon, towering above our heads, arms raised. In surrender? In triumph? In joy or fear? Buoyed by the rising tide of pure human energy?
A structure rooted in what we imagine, materialized and actuated, a week of pure manifestation with 70,000 people out on a blank slate, smooth and pale, ringed by mountains as if held in gigantic palms.
Ephemeral, present, and eternal.
I went to return to fire. Hot and fierce, warm and glowing, life bringing, life destroying, energy released in its most basic, visible, and palpable form. You can feel heat. No one denies that. You can watch matter transform. You can smell it.
Only gas can burn. What is fire?
The fire dances begin. A circle gathers around the blue neon man, first protectors, then the dancers, then the perimeter. Then the spectators, seated ten feet deep, standing beyond, and the transformed vehicles in a ring around it all, pulsing light and noise in a discordant cacophony as the rest of us sparkle and twinkle in multicolored, unchoreographed exuberance. All faces turned inward, to the center, to what brings us here from all over the world. All energy focused on one mysterious, constant, ephemeral structure, built in our image.
The dancers play with fire. It circles them above and below, intricate designs, beautiful and dangerous, trailing an image like a banner of light. The Fire Conclave. Do they feel safe, ringed in flames, fire on a spinning tether, barely controlled? Or is it the danger they love, their edge and that of their audience? Tension, tight as a bowstring, played like a fiddle, dancing with the devil.
Fireworks suddenly fountain out of the sides of the man, unexpected brilliant white sparks outline his form, a corona, radiant. The man begins to burn. A roar from the crowd, our focused energy now verbalized and echoed and the flames begin to rise, almost timid at first, then sensual, twining around every timber, ebbing back and returning stronger, brighter, hotter than before.
The man is aflame, a torch in which the darkness within is matter, and that darkness is the shape of our effigy. The framing like a skeleton, we need not look too far to see ourselves in that form, creatures of light framed by matter, pulsing heat and energy into the world.
Some of us burn too hot. Last year, a man ran into these flames and thus, the perimeter is tighter, the excitement restrained. We stay seated. This energy, this power, still important, tempered by respect. No one will run around the flames three times this year. One man's death, the trauma of thousands, and the grief and suffering of those who loved him. All humans understand pain.
We are united by our brokenness. That is what the priest said, offering us blessings of love, smudging ash on our foreheads and kissing our feet. Ash from the temple, and for others, grieving the year before, ash from the man. We come with open hearts, begging for love, begging for comfort.
So what unites us here? Why, thirty years ago, when Larry Harvey and Jerry James lit their first man on a beach in San Francisco, why did people gather? Drawn to the flames, year after year, swelling in size so rapidly that it became a city, not an event, not a festival. Like humans of our ancient past, gathering around the fire, the source of food and light, safety and comfort. Fire that defined us, and allowed us to shape our destiny.
The flames rise higher, the man begins to fall apart. Flames drip to the surface below, slowly catching on the open walkway, the steps we climbed just yesterday and descended with grandeur. That place we stood and saw the desert through a lens of heat; humans and mountains brilliant red in the darkness of the night.
A burst of flame, a ball of exploding gas. Another, and another. The fireballs engulf the structure and it begins to burn in earnest. The man falls and we cheer: 60,000 voices howling in the desert. We can feel the heat now. The flames grow, the structure glows from within and smoke pours into the night sky. Everyone knows there is an inferno inside. Everyone is waiting.
The flames emerge, stretch upward and outward, fill our vision until we have to look away, half-blinded, to see each face around us turned inward, lit with brilliant orange light, transfixed. The fire turns white-hot and we are lit as if it is day, this fire our star, the center of our system. We have orbited around it all week, we were drawn in by it, and now we watch it burn. Our core, our center, our communal power and soul.
Eventually, the light dims to yellow, the structure begins to collapse. We watch as every beam falls, still cheering, until all that remains are low flames dancing among the rubble.
And then, we disperse.
If we'd focused our energy all together, perhaps that alone would have lit the fire.
This mysterious effigy, lined in blue neon, towering above our heads, arms raised. In surrender? In triumph? In joy or fear? Buoyed by the rising tide of pure human energy?
A structure rooted in what we imagine, materialized and actuated, a week of pure manifestation with 70,000 people out on a blank slate, smooth and pale, ringed by mountains as if held in gigantic palms.
Ephemeral, present, and eternal.
I went to return to fire. Hot and fierce, warm and glowing, life bringing, life destroying, energy released in its most basic, visible, and palpable form. You can feel heat. No one denies that. You can watch matter transform. You can smell it.
Only gas can burn. What is fire?
The fire dances begin. A circle gathers around the blue neon man, first protectors, then the dancers, then the perimeter. Then the spectators, seated ten feet deep, standing beyond, and the transformed vehicles in a ring around it all, pulsing light and noise in a discordant cacophony as the rest of us sparkle and twinkle in multicolored, unchoreographed exuberance. All faces turned inward, to the center, to what brings us here from all over the world. All energy focused on one mysterious, constant, ephemeral structure, built in our image.
The dancers play with fire. It circles them above and below, intricate designs, beautiful and dangerous, trailing an image like a banner of light. The Fire Conclave. Do they feel safe, ringed in flames, fire on a spinning tether, barely controlled? Or is it the danger they love, their edge and that of their audience? Tension, tight as a bowstring, played like a fiddle, dancing with the devil.
Fireworks suddenly fountain out of the sides of the man, unexpected brilliant white sparks outline his form, a corona, radiant. The man begins to burn. A roar from the crowd, our focused energy now verbalized and echoed and the flames begin to rise, almost timid at first, then sensual, twining around every timber, ebbing back and returning stronger, brighter, hotter than before.
The man is aflame, a torch in which the darkness within is matter, and that darkness is the shape of our effigy. The framing like a skeleton, we need not look too far to see ourselves in that form, creatures of light framed by matter, pulsing heat and energy into the world.
Some of us burn too hot. Last year, a man ran into these flames and thus, the perimeter is tighter, the excitement restrained. We stay seated. This energy, this power, still important, tempered by respect. No one will run around the flames three times this year. One man's death, the trauma of thousands, and the grief and suffering of those who loved him. All humans understand pain.
We are united by our brokenness. That is what the priest said, offering us blessings of love, smudging ash on our foreheads and kissing our feet. Ash from the temple, and for others, grieving the year before, ash from the man. We come with open hearts, begging for love, begging for comfort.
So what unites us here? Why, thirty years ago, when Larry Harvey and Jerry James lit their first man on a beach in San Francisco, why did people gather? Drawn to the flames, year after year, swelling in size so rapidly that it became a city, not an event, not a festival. Like humans of our ancient past, gathering around the fire, the source of food and light, safety and comfort. Fire that defined us, and allowed us to shape our destiny.
The flames rise higher, the man begins to fall apart. Flames drip to the surface below, slowly catching on the open walkway, the steps we climbed just yesterday and descended with grandeur. That place we stood and saw the desert through a lens of heat; humans and mountains brilliant red in the darkness of the night.
A burst of flame, a ball of exploding gas. Another, and another. The fireballs engulf the structure and it begins to burn in earnest. The man falls and we cheer: 60,000 voices howling in the desert. We can feel the heat now. The flames grow, the structure glows from within and smoke pours into the night sky. Everyone knows there is an inferno inside. Everyone is waiting.
The flames emerge, stretch upward and outward, fill our vision until we have to look away, half-blinded, to see each face around us turned inward, lit with brilliant orange light, transfixed. The fire turns white-hot and we are lit as if it is day, this fire our star, the center of our system. We have orbited around it all week, we were drawn in by it, and now we watch it burn. Our core, our center, our communal power and soul.
Eventually, the light dims to yellow, the structure begins to collapse. We watch as every beam falls, still cheering, until all that remains are low flames dancing among the rubble.
And then, we disperse.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Learning How to Fly
My brother believes I have a superpower- manifestation. What I imagine, I can create.
I have a pretty impressive imagination- I can't actually manifest everything. I tried to. When I was a kid, I tried every time I had an opportunity to make a wish. I concentrated all my energy on it. I would grow wings. I would fly. I WOULD. I flexed my back, my shoulders, my scapula shifting, rippling under my skin. I felt a twinge between my shoulder blades. Any day now, any day...
Wings are what you make of them. Flying can be many things.
I told this story to a dreamy deckhand, sailing South to Mexico.
"I guess you can't always have what you wish for."
She smiled at me and looked around; at the billowing sails, the shining sea, our boat, skimming across the water. "It came true."
Be careful what you wish for. Especially if you happen to be a manifestor.
Everyone is a manifestor.
I have a pretty impressive imagination- I can't actually manifest everything. I tried to. When I was a kid, I tried every time I had an opportunity to make a wish. I concentrated all my energy on it. I would grow wings. I would fly. I WOULD. I flexed my back, my shoulders, my scapula shifting, rippling under my skin. I felt a twinge between my shoulder blades. Any day now, any day...
Wings are what you make of them. Flying can be many things.
I told this story to a dreamy deckhand, sailing South to Mexico.
"I guess you can't always have what you wish for."
She smiled at me and looked around; at the billowing sails, the shining sea, our boat, skimming across the water. "It came true."
Be careful what you wish for. Especially if you happen to be a manifestor.
Everyone is a manifestor.
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