I See Fire

 

 

The other day I was interviewed on a radio show, The Wicked Edge, and one subject that came up was the upcoming thirteenth anniversary of 9/11 and my blog, The Surrender, which I wrote some time after the Boston bombing. It made me want to write something now, for this day that brought such agony to the USA, for 9/11 and for all those terrible days that humanity has witnessed and lived through history, the terrible days when we inflict such pain and suffering on one another.

 

But words failed me. What can I possibly say that has not been said already? A picture is worth a thousands words and the photos of 9/11 are burned into my brain. But does anyone really need to be reminded of what it looked like? Does anyone need to be reminded what the tragedy that defined a moment in their time looked like? How can we possibly forget, we who woke from ignorant bliss and sweet slumber to such madness? So no, not a picture today. Instead I turned to music, for so often when words and pictures fail, music and well sung lyrics carry the day - and us - to that place of remembrance in a way words alone never can. 

 

I thought of this song, for when I hear it, I see not only the dwarves and dragon, the hobbit and elves for whom it was written. I see the burning towers of 9/11, I see the ovens of Auschwitz and the bodies on Normandy Beach. I see the trenches of No Man's Land smoking with chlorine gas, the burning ships of Pearl Harbor and the smoldering remains of Hiroshima. I see the genocide of Rwanda and countless other countries, the devastation of wildlife and plant life, forests and rivers, all over the world. I see the suffering of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, innocents suffering for dogma turned fanaticism fed by the greed and hunger for power that starts wars and commits mass murder to the sound of insane promises.

 

I see determination burning in the hearts of those who would seek to turn the tide, and I see the desperate courage it takes to face such evil as it flies over the land seeking only to destroy that which it covets.

 

I hear the soaring voice of Ed Sheeran and the words he wrote and I, well........

I see fire. Fire that destroys but also, the fire that transforms, and ultimately, heals and builds again.

As we always do.

 

 

 

A Skilled Sailor Make

I don't know about you, but I can just about get seasick standing in a puddle. Ironic since I grew up in a seafaring nation and my father is an avid sailor, so most summer holidays were spent sailing for weeks on end. I won't get into the details of how I handled that......!

Still, I love the ocean and I love sailing on a fine day. A fine day means no waves but enough wind for the sails to fill and the boat to move briskly, cleaving the gentle water with barely a jiggle. Much more than that, and I acquire a not so gentle shade of green. It's pathetic really - I also don't last long on a swing, a merry go round or any kind of amusement park ride other than roller coasters. Planes smaller than jumbo jets also present a problem, as did the gentle rocking of the high speed Eurostar train as it all but flew from Paris to London. So, just not much of a traveler for someone who loves to travel.

A few years ago I went for a ride on someone else's horse, a few hours from home. The horse and I had a misunderstanding about the best manner in which to tackle a certain jump and I fell and fell hard, bruising my lower back considerably. I soldiered on, climbed back in the saddle and finished the ride, even had some fun, but to my shock I could barely walk when I got off the horse, never mind getting into my truck. Finally I managed to fold myself up enough to clamber in and I drove home, tears of pain rolling down my face.

Not far from home a great big sign blinked by the freeway and caught my attention. It was a new sign I had never seen before, one of those digital screens that changes constantly. Just as I looked up it changed from advertising cars to saying this :

"Smooth seas do not a skilled sailor make."

 

I won't tell you the stream of curse words that flew from my lips, but I will tell you I also managed to laugh, if painfully. It stayed with me, all through a recovery that took several months and beyond, on into life going forward. I still think of it whenever I hit rough water and feel my stomach start to roil, when I get stressed out, when life does not go my way and I go a little green with anxiety.

 

 

It reminds me to hang tough, to cleave to my peaceful center, that while I am a sensitive, thin skinned individual with an easily upset stomach that should not hold me back from engaging in life and all it entails. That learning is why I am here, and maybe one thing I have had to learn is how to strike that balance when things get tough so I may soldier on, live and let live, learn and move on. Roll with the punches, not just fall apart and hang over the railing. That the unsettling times are not here to torture but to teach, and it's up to me to keep my eye on the horizon and my mind in the game.

 

 

So while I may never make much of a sailor, or a flyer, or a rider of amusement park rides,  I do intend to make one heck of a life, regardless of what waves come my way.



The Fruit and Flower Blog

And yes, it is exactly what is sounds like. A blog about fruits and flowers. No worries, I am not much of a horticulturalist, so not a lot of words to this one, just photos from my recent travels through beautiful Ireland upon which I hope you will enjoy feasting your eyes. I enjoyed taking them. So without further ado, here we go, lassie. Or laddie, as the case may be.

Let's take the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin, shall we? It's a gorgeous, sunshiny day, and there is no getting seasick, thank the heavens, just a brisk breeze to ripple the water gently. Fortunately, nobody noticed my unaccompanied inner child on the loose (see sign) and they left me in peace for three heavenly hours, just sitting, soaking it all in. Then from Dublin we'll head out into the countryside and visit some lovely gardens....(and just click on a photo see them bigger).

 

 

 

Land, ahoy!!

 

The orchard at Ballyfin House....

 

Gotta eat your vegetables....

 

Without our bees, oh where would we beeee?!

 

Cannot for  the life of me remember what these are, other than pretty....

 

Agapanthas...? I think?

 

Daisies! Some kind of daisy...

 

Pretty in pink......

 

Nothing better than a freshpicked raspberry at the end of the day...

 

It's a.....seedpod.

 

It's a....?? But kind of cool, yes?

 

Nature doing her thing at the end of a beautiful day....

 

That's it for today, check back for more travel photos in the coming weeks! Mountains and lakes and beaches and landscapes and...well, beautiful stuff. It's happening, right here on....the blog.

When We Drop What We Love

We've all done it. Dropped something we love. Maybe it's a fine china cup. Maybe a Ming Vase. A plate, inherited from a long line of revered family members. A crystal glass, a ceramic bird, an enameled pin. A tender heart.

Maybe we're lucky. It's a short drop onto a soft carpet and all that happens is a little shard chips off, a shard that can be glued back in place like it was never gone, even for a second. No one would ever know it had been dropped. Maybe we vow to be more careful in the future, that never again will we be so careless in handling this precious object, the barely averted disaster reminding us all too clearly of just how treasured this item is. How worthy of our love and careful handling.

But time goes by. We forget, we do get careless. This time, it drops and lands hard, breaking into large jagged pieces that tear at our heart, lying at our feet and crying out in pain at our carelessness. We gather the pieces gently, carefully, glue them all together and it works, kind of, and while we don't quite understand how it even happened, we swear never again, and that it is as precious now as it ever was, and the scars that can barely be seen will remind us of our carelessness which will never come again. Must not come again.

But it does come again. And this time, it breaks in all the old places along with a few new ones, and the old places just won't be glued again and the new places don't glue tight, for they remember the pain of the scars that came before, scars of places healed only to be ripped once more. We try but are left with an odd mess we don't understand, can't fix and don't want to deal with.  If it's just a vase, a cup, a plate, we finally sweep it in the trash and wash our hands of it, though now we can never think of it without a little wistful sigh. Still, the guilt of dropping it persists.

And if it's a heart, well.......

We get angry, defensive. Why did that fall even break you? Are you so sensitive, so delicate, so pathetic? So bent upon being a victim? If that doesn't work, we wait. Time heals all things. Except, even time does not heal everything and if it matters enough, we must change again. Perhaps we begin to ponder our own reflection in that blank wall of quiet rejection. So we apologize, beg for forgiveness, mercy and feel that, surely, now all is well. Must be well. Just as before only different. After all, we've apologized. Doesn't that count for something? Forgive and forget.

Surely the dropped, broken thing understands it was never intentional.

That we have priorities. Demands on our time. Places to be and things to do. That sometimes, in the stress of it all, the cherished little things slip through our fingers and hit the floor, whether we intend it or not.

Surely the broken little thing will not hold that against us. Be that cruel and unforgiving. Hold our carelessness against us. Why can't things just be like they were before? We've apologized, for Pete's sake!!

And we just don't understand that it has nothing to do with forgiveness and everything to do with trust.

We are so busy feeling put upon that we can barely hear the broken thing as it says:

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. There won't be a third time, for nothing can be as it was before. It is broken, gone, irrepairable. The part of my heart that grew from us, from you and me, will not be again as it was for it has withered and died, though in it's place may grow a new and lovely thing, given time. But it does not grow without trust, and trust takes a long time to rebuild when once it has crumbled to the ground. Longer than love to return, longer than forgiveness to release us both.

Because long after forgiveness is given, long after memory fades, trust still remembers, still questions. So it is not my love that I will not give, or my forgiveness, and I have no wish of punishing a suffering soul. It is my trust I cannot give as easily as once I did. Because you have taught me that only I can be responsible for me, that unlike a cup or a vase only I can prevent a painful fall, that I am no victim or little broken thing but the phoenix rising from the ashes and saying no more will I place myself into your hands and trust you to keep me safe in your company. Trust you not to drop me so carelessly onto a cold, hard floor.

You yourself have taught me to trust in myself and not in you, and that is all. How then, can things ever be the same as they were when I placed myself blindly in your care?

No, it has nothing to do with my love and forgiveness, for you have those. Understand only this, that I will no longer allow myself to suffer for the love that I bear you. That is all."

One day perhaps, we hear, we understand. When we drop what we love enough times, there are consequences. No matter how close, no matter how long, no matter if it's family or friend, blood or water.

When we drop what we love, sometimes, we're the ones left on that cold, hard floor.

Thirty years too early....

Usually, I think I was born a century or two too late. I wish myself back to the world before the industrial revolution, to a world more pristine if no gentler. A world before freeways and concrete blocks and monster trucks. Yes, I could live with some of the lack of modern day comforts if the trade off was a less paved planet.

 

I certainly never think I was born too early. A future of shiny steel and glass and machines and less and less land, forests, animals and birds holds no appeal for me. I hope I do not live to see it. My life is devoted to slowing down this so-called progress.

 

And yet, and yet. This boy gives me pause. If I went to his school of thought, how different might my life have been? My brain? My outlook? If children of the future go to his school of thought - Hacker School - might there not be hope for the future?

 

What do you think?

 

 

In The Fog

It's one of those fabulous, foggy mornings. Mornings that make me think of magic, of Merlin, of Celtic warriors bursting through the fog on horses dripping in dew and breathing dual plumes of steam. In slow motion, of course, with stirring music thundering in the background.

Truth is, of course, all that is really hidden in this fog outside my window is my dogs and my donkeys. The only sound I can expect is the blaring braying of a donkey lamenting the size of his hay portion. The horses are in the barn for their breakfast after a long night of dripping dew in the dark field. The dogs are busy exploring what came and went in the night while they slept in the mudroom. All is quiet, all is well, all is just as usual, only hidden in mist. But within the mist, the trees are just as solid, the grass just as yellow, the rock is still a rock. The truth of their being is still the truth, however shrouded it may be. That is the ongoing gift of Nature. The closest thing we come to real reality in our solid world.

 

Photo by Cindy Strate

Yes, the truth is still the truth, however shrouded in myth and mist it might be. That could be a slogan for the state of the world today. All the debating,  posturing,  justifying,  theorizing,  intellectualizing, politicizing and  rationalizing gather in one great whirlpool of gray at the very core of which lies one still, little grain of truth, all covered up in the swirling mess, all covered up and unspoken for. Call it what you will, wrap it in bubble wrap, wrap it in pretty paper and a big red bow, cover it in syrup and jam it down our collective throat, the truth is what it is, it never changes despite all that mental fog we keep dishing out in all directions. Everybody is right, and everybody is wrong, but how many of our talking heads are actually addressing the underlying truth of anything?

Photo by Cindy Strate

 

They are not. We are forgetting the most fundamental truths. We are being taken in by the pretty mist and the fabulous fog, drowning in the gray whirlpool of debate. We don't even look for that grain of truth anymore, the quiet center of clarity. Political correctness does not allow for that, nobody must be wrong, nobody can get their feelings hurt, everyone's claims must be met. Unless, of course, they don't fit your bill. Then you can call them every name in the book, ridicule, denigrate and bury them in your assessment of their own inferiority. And the crowd goes wild.

It's all smoke and mirrors. We are back in the Coliseum of Rome. It's us against them, them against the others, the others for themselves. And justice, ah, well. That is in the eye of the beholder. Why look for the driver of the machine when we can rage against the machine itself?

Because the truth is just too damn simple. The truth does not allow for everyone's little drama to be important, to matter, to be heard. The truth doesn't care about anyone, it doesn't take sides - the truth simply is. The truth is a bare bones debacle, where voices are raised only to fall silent, for all arguments fall away in the face of it's simplicity.

So what's true anymore? The same as it's always been. Hidden in the fog, mosying in the mist. Only this mist won't clear out by noon. If you want the truth, you're going to have to dig for it, and dig deep. Not out there, either. In there. In you.

Sucks, doesn't it?

Picture of The Week

 

This is my favorite picture of the week. Every time I look at it, I start laughing, and count the ways in which I relate. Is it just that this is a less polite way of saying "When life hands you lemons, make lemonade"? Or is it that perfect blend of defiant resignation, that sulking acceptance of something that just won't change? The empty flower pot begging for attention but noooo, let's sit on the one with the poor plant? Maybe it's the great mind that put this photo together with the perfect caption (forgive the language, but it hits the mark) that tells a whole story in just a few words. I just don't know, but it gets me every time.

Hope it gives you a laugh today too, and perhaps inspires you to accept what you can't change, and not just make the most of a challenging situation, but make the most of it - with an attitude!

 

 

PS I'd love to give credit to whoever this came from, so please step forward should you happen to come along.

For Spite!

 

Spite. What a word. Very evocative, don't you think, of exactly what it means? It kind of spits itself out of your mouth, just like the person directing their anger at you would probably like to. Spit at you, I mean. Interesting how the word spite is so close to spit when you think about how spiteful people often spit spittle. At least, they always seem to in the movies. But I digress.

Spite, according to Webster is: a desire to harm, anger, or defeat another person especially because you feel that you have been treated wrongly in some way ...

I have been on the receiving end of spite a few times, and it is always a strange and disconcerting experience. Because there is no talking to spiteful people, no matter how well intentioned you may be. I have acted out of spite a few times in my early foolish youth, (as opposed to my later, foolish age) and it was always a self correcting experience. In other words, I soon learned the truth of that old saying "...to cut off your nose to spite your face." I also found I did not like myself much before, during or after, so by the time I was a teenager, I pretty much gave up on spite. Besides, I lucked into a fairly decent nose. Apparently it was my great grandmother's but since she was done with it, she passed it on to me. Might as well keep it for posterity.

I like to think everyone is always doing their best. Their best to be fair, their best to be kind, their best to be considerate, their best to be earnest and truthful. I like to think that of myself, too. Of course, the hard truth is, we all fail on such noble quests from time to time. Sometimes due to negligence, other times due to simple self delusion. But every so often, I just don't know why and I have to accept that as well as the experience. And it sucks. Especially when whatever you did to anger someone to such a degree they descend into the seven hells of spite, was your very best to handle what was perhaps a far from perfect situation. Then spite sucks double because no matter what you do, youse agonna be wrong.

What I have learned from my own forays into spite, however, is that while being on the receiving end of spite sucks, being on the spewing end of spite sucks worse. Because you are deaf and blind to reason, you know only the pain of what you perceive to be your victimhood, and all the while you twist and turn in the screeching gales of your rage, the emotional damage done by the stomping rampage of spite through your heart and soul and mind leave behind footprints burned in acid into the sensitive pathways they travel. And in the end, you are the one who are defeated, on every level, for you were bathing in the poison of ill will and waiting for your opponent to die. And you know what? That sucks triple.

So this is what I know of spite. It is not worth indulging. It is not worth reacting. It is not worth your pain. Respond as you must, and cease. Do what you must, and move on. Give the benefit of doubt, but draw your line in the sand. Protect yourself, but know the true source of spite is pain and self hatred, and offer compassion when you want to drop a bomb. Never mind if it is received or not. Be your best. Then get on with your life, and live it well - in spite of it all. Because anything else? Would suck......well, worse than anything else I've mentioned so far.