Refuge / Shelter

Have been feeling edgy.  The weather outside has not been good for walking.  My inner weather has not been good for much that usually is a positive part of my daily experience.  The weather of the world is troubling.  

When I woke up this morning, I felt lost.  I felt that I needed help to meet the day.  I asked for help.  Something got me out of bed and into my living room where I looked at my drawing table and knew what to do.  I finished Tiny Mandala #38, started working on Tiny Mandala #39 and then looked around my place of refuge, my shelter from the storm.  Not alone.  Never alone.  In good company.  From time out of mind.

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it is in the shelter of each other that the people live

ar scáth a chéile a mhaireas na daoine

Theme for March 19, 2023: "The Listeners" read by Pádraig Ó Tuama / Am's artwork retrospective 1966-2008 revisited: March 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 2023 / MealTrain for Janis

Calendar Series: 49th Month / Rain, Night Garden and River (1989)

This painting was chosen by the owners of the Blue Horse Gallery for the flyer for my March 1990 show.

"The Listeners" read by Pádraig Ó Tuama 

Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
  Knocking on the moonlit door;

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Calendar Series: 50th Month / Woman with Sense of Time (1989)

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Calendar Series: 51st Month / Beloved Ocean with Fearless Room in True Colors (1989)

Dream from March 14, 2007:

Last night I dreamed that a small plane fell from the sky and crashed, nose down, into the bed of daisies my father had planted on the north side of the house where my family lived. A calm and unhurt letter carrier from the U.S. Post Office, holding his mail bag, stepped out of the plane and handed us our mail as we stood at the sliding glass door which opened onto our covered porch. We then helped him drag the undamaged airplane onto our porch and invited him into our house. I went outside on the porch to look at the plane. I realized that it was a handmade plane, built from plywood and painted a flat grey. I thought to myself, "Hey, I could build a plane like that."

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Calendar Series: 52nd Month / Speaking Without Words About Holy Contradictions (1989)

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Calendar Series: 53rd Month / Always Will (1989)

The beauty of things was born before eyes and sufficient to itself; the
heart-breaking beauty
Will remain when there is no heart to break for it.

(from "Credo," by Robinson Jeffers, Stones of the Sur, p. 144, with photographs by Morley Baer)

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Calendar Series: 54th Month / Night of the Little Doves (Learning to Trust) (1989)

EVOLUTION OF FORGIVENESS

In this silence
I am looking for relief
Trusting grief
Loving the child never conceived
Loving all the shattered children
Who dared not trust, love or grieve
Loving the silent holy night
The wild blue sky of day
The courage of redwood trees
The beloved ocean
Still mirroring our wild hearts
Always calling to us:
Trust grief.

(poem begun in 6/17/2000, completed 8/26/2003)

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Calendar Series: 55th Month / Speaking without Breathing and Breathing without Speaking (1989)

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Calendar Series: 56th Month / Across the Water (1989)

My post from March 19, 2007:

I've been feeling depressed lately in the way that I did when I was at a loss as to what to do with my life, during the years I was living in a marriage that was never meant to be. Taking an antidepressant was not the solution. The solution was to make a decision to leave the marriage and then to leave. Facing my fears was the solution. Changing my life was the solution. I have never regretted my decision. The depression lifted. I was no longer living a lie. The joy I had once felt in living returned. I entered the most creative period of life up to that point.

Now it's not so clear what it is that is behind this recent feeling of depression. I believe that the solution is the same. I need to make a decision to face my fears and change the course of my life again. Am I again married to something that was never meant to be? What is it? I hope these are the right questions. I know what it is to feel joy, and I hope to feel that again.

Mid-February to mid-April is not the best time for me because of pollen and mold allergies. I no longer suffer from severe upper respiratory symptoms, but I do experience a feeling of malaise in late winter and early spring that is at odds with the beauty of this time of year. As the days grow lighter, I don't feel better. If anything, I have reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder and don't feel well again until after the summer solstice. I have chosen not to take antidepressant medication because my depression is situational. My experience is that it always lifts.

A book that I have found helpful with depression is The Zen Path Through Depression, by Philip Martin. I need to get that book out again.

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Revisiting the beginning of my blog has been a revelation.  Although this isn't my favorite time of year, I am feeling stronger than I have ever felt, able to help others, despite a series of small but relentless challenges since last September.  The latest challenge is not small and involves helping the first friend I had in Bellingham.  Janis is having serious acute and chronic health issues.  Like many of us, she is in her 70's, low-income, and has no husband or children or nearby relatives to help.  What she does have is friends who are stepping forward to visit, bring food and offer to stay with her until she is stronger and her primary care provider's referrals come through and she can get home health care and possible acute rehab care placement through her Medicare and Medicaid insurance.

MealTrain for Janis

Janis is a dancer with the kindest heart imaginable.

Padraic O Tuama / "It is in the shelter of each other that people live" (an Irish saying) / "... for the rest of my life ..."

When this came up on my YouTube suggestions early this morning, I was reminded of Pádraig Ó Tuama's book that I learned about at Alive On All Channels.  It is a heartening book I hope to read again.

And then this arrived in my email:

I lived in divided Berlin in my 20s. And after the Wall in that city fell in 1989, I never imagined that there would be another event in my lifetime which would so clearly signify a Before and an After for the whole world. But the murder of George Floyd, in the context of the last year, was such a turning point and Minneapolis a new kind of ground zero. 

What happened here rippled out across this city and then across the world. What happened here was about our world. And what was world-changing is, in large part, what started to happen inside many of us. 

Ever after, when I use the word “we” or “us,” I understand in a whole new way that I do so in a White body. I will be walking and living and working with that understanding for the rest of my life. And — both/and — I hold that knowledge together with my clarity that when time becomes history, the generations for whom we are the ancestors will see an “us.” 

-- Krista Tippett