It is important to hold the understanding that you are going through something. What feels like the end, what feels like forever, is not. It is a stone on the path.

There is a stone circle on Tohono O’odham land, in front of the Catholic mission, with all directions marked, but the paths from each are non-linear, almost meandering, dropping off into spaciousness – one cannot see a tangible meeting of the paths. There are no neat quadrants, no straight lines.

It feels like the open sky or the deep ocean.
If feels like everything exists there. As if in the dust of that implied center is vaguely visible the story of the universe.
And when the wind comes up, the story plays there, in the cyclone.

I last wrote, “becoming nobody.” (If words are spells, I am a wizard.) What comes after becoming nobody? What arises from what feels like nothing? How do the forces of the universe conspire to create connection? If there is a destiny, a reason, for each life, what choices belong to each of us? And what of time and timing? Perhaps what feels like waiting or stillness is allowing for movement elsewhere.

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!
 

​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.

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.
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Excerpt:

​Synthesis
Each of us who is not seen in this world, who is not invited to be present in our full eccentricity, in ownership of our truest gifts, is abandoned.
In an economically driven world, we are orphans, forever in need of love and nurturing, holding and listening.

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

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.​

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?

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 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?

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?”           

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.