Stories
Rites7/10/2023 It dawned on me that if I wanted to change my life, I would, or would have by now, if I were deeply dissatisfied with it. I must not be. I have nothing to run from. I AM the power of “staying with.” Even as the wind comes up. My family is here. Three generations. We are healthy in our own right, and with each other. I have work. I contribute to my community. I have a home of eighteen years. I walk every morning in the open spaces with my dogs. I witness my son’s life daily. Are there longings? Absolutely. But, also, this is beauty. This moment of being. Of stopping. Of no conflict. Of dog toes and human toes in their right places. Resting. Breathing. At peace. For those who ask what my path has been with rites of passage, this is it: A whole human being. It is not a job. It is not for profit. It is not even a calling. It is only and ever about becoming fully human. And once that is known, it is lived. Differently for each. Simple. Not simple. This isn’t to say that I have arrived. Or that anyone does, ever, permanently. (Ask me about partnership and intimacy. Ask me about self-love and forgiveness. Ask me about fear.) The wheel keeps on turning, season upon season, as one is ready or not. Love you!
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Locating19/9/2023 It’s like I can touch her and then she’s gone. There is interference. Static. Someone else’s needs arise, whether at work or at home, a student or child. Even the dogs have needs, the cat, too (don’t be fooled by the nonchalance).
But she is there, intermittently embodied. I want her for more than a moment, more than a fragmented thought. How am I to reach her given the demands of the external and the limits of her functionality? This is how. You must find her in language. If she asks to write to you, if she writes to you, take it as a gift. You are getting the most of her. More than a conversation, more than her body. Let her write to you. Becoming Nobody4/12/2022 Excerpt: If everything in the land body has a purpose, like the wolf or the juniper, then what is ours — our human purpose — collectively, as a species? Leopold dichotomizes between the land body and the human body, yet he also speaks of ecology and the relationships of all things in the context of a system. For instance, of what use is it that humans go into nature to excavate our own psyches? We do it. We are unique in our ability to do it. How does that contribute to the ecological whole? Published in the Silver City Anthology, summer 2023. Freedom Thoughts27/8/2021 The unfortunate truth, for me, is that humans need other humans to be fully human. And while the discovery of what is wild in the self is essential, often through time and experience in the physical wilderness, it seems antithetical to what is human to stay there, perpetually. And so, in most cases, one must return to other humans and a kind of interdependency required for living that is, by its very nature, not the equivalent of freedom and it never can be. The alternative - to need no one and nothing, and thus not be needed - is harder to bear. Which is to say, freedom might mean different things to different people. One person’s freedom might be another person’s jail. Freedom might move, might be a dynamic understanding, might be related to knowing what is enough. It is hard to know what is true for someone without asking them. It is hard to know what is true for oneself without inquiry. Circle17/2/2021 The last time I felt excited about a job interview was in 2003 when, after living as a volunteer in a tent at The Ojai Foundation for some months, I initiated an entry point onto the staff there. Questions in the interview included, but were not limited to, “How do you deal with your anger?” and “How do you get your need for alone time met?” I felt excited about the practice of hiring people based on who they were intrinsically (not necessarily by pedigree or credential) and on how well they seemed to know themselves.
The Ojai Foundation was a place, in 2003, where I felt at home and recognized. I felt stimulated intellectually by the minds there and also spiritually by the mysteries that lived alongside those minds. Nature was the container for it all. Lush, green, and everywhere. I suppose it was a school, of sorts. A boundless one. I spent a great deal of time in stone circles on that land. I learned from many teachers about what the circle could be, could mean, could teach, could hold. I learned the way of council, speaking and listening from the heart. I learned what it meant to live that way -- the way of the heart, the way of nothing wasted. I also learned what it looked like to teach it, yet not live it fully. Everything has a shadow, after all. I still keep watch for that one in particular. Here, in our small, communal courtyard in the desert, I continue to live the way of council. I continue to spend a great deal of time in stone circles, even on snowy mornings like this. Gentle12/9/2020 Excerpt: My body has been broken, also my heart. It is helpful to know that this is the way of it. This is how the apricot tree blooms: by breaking open the seed. This is how she remembers her own inherent self-worth; this is how she remembers to take the risk of blooming again. This doesn’t mean that life becomes easier; it means that life is lived with greater courage. Published in snapdragon: a journal of art and healing, spring 2020, issue 6.1: vibrant | vision. Personal Statement6/3/2020 Mary Poppins29/12/2019 Excerpt:
The intention of the writing has been to explore shame, femaleness, reproduction, sex, the body. A specific goal within the intention has been to explore, to excavate, to say out loud the choice to make the female self, the female body a priority, to decide when and under what circumstances to allow another life to inhabit it. Patriarchal ideology has decided for the female body that it is a “host” for life and not, in itself, a life. And, further, that it, the female body, can be a source for pleasure, but that its pleasure is derivative. Bath Water and Fresh Eggs4/8/2019 I look out at the man across the street taking care of his yard.
I look out from behind the paneled window pane. Inside a world is created between us. There are feelings out there, on the other side of the glass: Memories, a whole city, complexities, confusions about who we are and who we are supposed to be. There are feelings out there, where the agave is blooming. Inside you lay on a mat exercising your pelvis. I stand in my blue bathrobe, hair wet. It is so quiet, only: The movement of your belly up and down as you breathe, the tea kettle, a dog, birds, the shuffle of paper. I stand in my bathrobe writing a poem about the feelings out there and the world in here, between us that has stopped, full of bath water and fresh eggs. Guidance30/5/2019 The ceremony has to be within.
The mountains and the desert and the sun and moon and open spaces and canyons and rivers need to live inside you. You need to be able to be there in a heartbeat and here, too, wherever here is (especially with the children). Now clean your house. Make soup. We go into the woods, into the wilderness, to practice traveling, to practice our understanding of attack and protection, to practice seeing out and seeing in, to practice listening. And it’s all happening right here, in the kitchen, on the soccer field, as we move through traffic. Right here. All the time. Narnia28/12/2018 I took you for a walk and explained to you why attending a $7000/month summer arts camp was not in my vocabulary. We spoke about social class. We spoke about where I came from and where your dad came from and how different those two places were. I told you I was glad your dad had the degrees, the connections, the experiences and the resources to make it possible for you [both] to be at that camp. I told you I did not have those things. I told you that for some people, camps like these were the norm. I told you that for others, a low-cost summer day camp in the park was the best and only option. I asked you if you felt poor and when you said you did not, I felt good. I do not want you to feel ashamed like I did, though I understand my shame was deeper than the mattress on the living room floor or not enough food in the cabinets. I do want you to understand your place in the world. I told you we can talk about these things. This morning, from my bed, I heard a young couple and their guardian arguing across the street. I do not know if you noticed. A pregnant mama pushed her baby in a stroller up a snow packed hill. I heard, “I love you,” and “I’m sorry,” and, “Bring the baby back to where it’s warm,” and “Ya’ll are crazy,” and “Leave me the fuck alone.” From the inside, our home is enchanted like Narnia. It is a good life. But the picture is incomplete if I let you think these things do not happen or, worse, if I let you think I do not see them. give thanks26/1/2018 greet the desert after a long absence give thanks for rain find a place in the wide open slip off shoes dance barefoot in a slow circle sing touch the ground with bare hands ask the unanswerable questions love the journey say dreams out loud commit self in service, again whisper the names of beloveds pray, thank you watch the lightning feel the gentle rain listen to crickets open heart even wider greet the desert after a long absence give thanks for rain Collective Holding1/1/2018 I listened to one of Thich Nhat Hahn’s talks and chants today in the kitchen – Day of Mindfulness at Blue Cliff Monastery. I’ve used his talks at various difficult times in my life, like a virtual sangha. I wept. I felt so angry yesterday. I heard myself say aloud that I wanted others to feel as badly as I did. Then I felt worse for that wish. This morning I understand that I was saying I needed others to help me hold the pain, because it felt like too much for me alone. I feel better now, somehow.
This made me think of a certain toddler I love, and her anger and her needing someone else to help hold the pain. Oh, child. I know that we all suffer - every single one of us. Yet, when my pain is high, that awareness doesn’t help, it feels minimizing. The suggestion that someone else’s pain is worse also feels minimizing. We each have our own hardest thing. When my own pain has passed, I am able again to take my place in the collective sangha and help to hold the pain of others. Each of us needs moments of feeling held, I think. What that looks like varies. My pain has passed for now. And I take my place in the collective, holding, feeling gratitude. Happy new year, day, morning. Fabric of the World27/12/2017 Entering the Gila Forest, I feel as if the boulders, trees, pinyon jays, soil, icy puddles, coyote scat, everything, are part of an elaborate theater set. I hear a helicopter overhead and imagine the pilot seeing a smattering of humans and their canines below at various places on the road and off - stage left and stage right. The hollow sounds of fists knocking on tree trunks or dog paws treading over terrain reinforce this feeling of construction. It is quiet out here, like a vacuum. Who would create such a set, and why? What am I doing in it? If I change the set a little, could I alter the play? What an interesting thought. If I move a few moss covered rocks here or there and enact a small ceremony, will I change the fabric of the world, constructed or otherwise?
Story House17/12/2017 There is a scene in the film, “Off the Map,” in which the actor Jim True-Frost realizes that a story he was told about himself as a child, which he had believed since childhood, may not have been true. I thought about the significance of that scene today while out walking.
First, I thought about the blind trust we place in those around us to tell the truth and what happens when/if we learn that they have not. Second, I thought about stories of self and how significant they are. What I say and do, who I love, the possibilities I imagine for self and world, and so on, are based on stories I have either been told about myself, or stories that I tell myself. If it is a faulty story that I am carrying, imagine the outcome. I reflect on the myriad stories societies tell about groups of people, and the projections of stories made daily by loved ones. I make a commitment to clear out my own story house, with love and discernment, and to allow both self and other to be new in each moment. What If?16/12/2017 What if relentless self-help and self-scrutiny are addictions based on the lie that who we are right now, in this very moment, is not enough?
Time9/11/2017 There was a meeting about Jasper. You were there.
I jumped back in time, back to when I walked by your side. Now nothing here makes sense. Who made the blue and pink paper starfish on the table? Whose black dog is this? Who am I? The seeds of me were there when we were together. I am not different now than I was then. And the seeds of you were there and you are not different now than you were then. But we have lived these incredible lives between that time and this time. We have had other lovers, other friendships. We have lost our fathers. And a dog. Our child is nearly twelve. All of time must exist at once. Who made the painting of the chicken’s feet on the table? I don’t understand. And I do. We just went to a meeting, our own psyches on display in our son’s - your propensity for compartmentalization and my inability to fail well, to not know. Our First Born worker was there. What are the chances? Remember how she visited when Jasper was an infant? Now we watch as Jasper pulls a tractor tire by rope across the school parking lot. He has purple hair. You are both distracted and engaged. I am catapulted back in time. All of time overlapping. We do not age. And we do. A little girl made that blue and pink paper starfish. Her name is Alea. She is eight, the daughter of someone I love who is in the Grand Canyon, who painted the chicken’s feet. Remember? Remember that time you came by with Jasper when he was two and I wasn’t here and you wrote a note on the giant sketch pad filled with his artwork? "8:30 AM. We tried stopping by. You can come for Jasper when you return. Love, Us." What time is it now? I didn’t hear you knocking. --- The blue and pink paper starfish sits atop a paper. The title of the paper, written by our son is, “Why Are We Here?” Wild8/11/2017 I track the wilderness inside. I am leaves and seed pods littered across your cleanly swept tiles. I am muddy paw prints on your carpet, traces of fur on your favorite shirt. Outside, my temerity will make a run at you. Better run fast.
Gabe EyrichI use creative non-fiction, autobiographical fiction, and poetry to communicate, connect, and understand. Archives
October 2023
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