Nameless Day / December 22 / Love Itself / Holy Places

 From The Wisdom of Trees, by Jane Gifford:

One day remains completely unaccounted for in the Celtic Calendar, December 22nd, known as the "Nameless Day."  This is the extra day that features in so many folk tales where the story takes place over a year and a day.  On this day, when the King of the Waning Year was dead and the New King of the Waxing Year not yet born, it was the custom to fast to appease the goddess in her darkest aspect so that she would permit the sun to return to the world and the cycle of the year to recommence.  This darkest of days has neither tree nor name and is sacred to Morrigan, goddess of death and destruction.  Her name means Great Queen in Irish.  She appears in Arthurian legend as Morgan le Faye, sister of King Arthur: "le Faye" means "the Fate." This dark queen took the form of a raven and was feared and respected by everyone.

                                    "Love Itself"

The light came through the window,
Straight from the sun above,
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

Then I came back from where I’d been.
My room, it looked the same –
But there was nothing left between
The Nameless and the Name.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love itself,
Love Itself was gone.
Love Itself was gone.

From "Holy Places," the December 22nd chapter of A Winter Walk, by Tolbert McCarroll:

... A child's intuitive sense of the sacred often helps us understand spiritual fundamentals.  When my daughter, Holly, was almost seven, a fatally ill infant came into her life.  We all knew the child would die, but it was a shock when it happened.  Holly received the news one morning as she was setting out to school. She told me that we would need to do something before she could go to school. "We have to go to a place where people pray," she announced.  I walked her to a nearby Catholic church where a Mass was in process and asked if this would do.  "No," she said, "we have to wait 'til the priest leaves." In the after-service silence of that space, Holly somehow came to terms with the death.  I think she also said good-bye.  After a while, Holly told me, "We can light a candle and leave now." We did ...

Christmas Eve meditation / There is Something, and everything is possible

"You undoubtedly know that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a progressive Christian and champion of civil rights and the social gospel. You may also know that he spoke out against the Vietnam War, harshly criticized U.S. foreign policy, and questioned the capitalist system that produced poverty. But do you know his theology?

Right up until Dr. King's assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had traveled to support striking sanitation workers, the civil right leader worked--not as a secular activist but as a Baptist minister--to awaken the conscience of a nation. What was the meaning of Jesus for Dr. King? Did he see Jesus as divine? How did he interpret the Bible?"

(from the Tikkun article ,"King's God:  The Unknown Faith of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.," by Robert James "Be" Scofield)

Transcript for the speech above:  A Christmas Sermon on Peace (1967)

Then I got to thinking about Mavis Staples and the Staple Singers' connection with the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr.:

And Bob Dylan and Santa Claus:

And the Sufi dancers at the end of this video that was released the same year by Bob Dylan:

And Nelson Mandela.

And Chief Seattle:

"Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of  our people."

And Rosa Parks:

"God has always given me the strength to say what is right ... I had the strength of God and my ancestors with me." (from The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks)

And I remember the words of an elderly Jewish woman who was a friend of mine, "I don't have to be a Christian in order to be moved by the life of Jesus."

I have no religious affiliation, and I am not Buddhist, atheist, agnostic.  I am among those who can relate to what an elderly atheist friend of mine said in her last years -- that she didn't believe in a traditional God, but that she did experience, in her heart, Something that had brought peace to her in the last 14 years of her life.

"... And to see you're really only very small / And life flows on within you and without you..."

(George Harrison, from "Within You Without You")

"... the possibility that there might be something significant in the little things around them."

(from A Winter Walk, by Tolbert McCarroll)

"Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible."

(From Going Home:  Jesus and Buddha as Brothers, by Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk)

Time for a walk

Here you can see where the creek becomes a waterfall.

Just beyond this is the WPA bridge.

Just a few minutes walking distance from my home I can enter Whatcom Falls Park by way of the trail that goes alongside Scudder Pond, which is what my porch looks out on.  On a full day, I may just walk for about 10 minutes and then turn around.  Other days I can walk for several hours on the forest trails and beyond to the acres of cemetery to the south of Whatcom Falls Park.  On the day after Thanksgiving, I walked a loop that takes about hour, going down the west side of Whatcom Creek and circling back across the WPA bridge to the east side and heading north from there.

From pages 9 and 10 of A Winter Walk, by Tolbert McCarroll:

A nineteenth-century farmer referred to winter as "our season" because daily life was not dictated by when to plant or harvest.

It is in the cycles of the year that many of us find our spiritual paths -- not in the doctrines or dogmas of religious institutions.

HOLY GROUND / IMANI

Fleeting moments of pink light before dawn on a grey New Year's Day in the far northwest corner of Washington State:


















"Most of us primarily find the sacred within the circle of those we love and find holy ground in our own backyard. Remember the Buddhist monks who go on a three-month retreat during the rainy season? It must be dramatic for them when the retreat ends. For a long time, they have been confined to a temple, with strict instructions to destroy no new life. They carefully watch where they put their feet lest they trample a sprout of grass pushing through the cold earth. Then comes the day the retreat ends and they leave. They are given new robes. At the gate they take their final step out of the temple and their first step into a sunny meadow. It is the same step.

In our own back yards, the leaves may be gone and the tree limbs bare. But tiny new buds are beginning to swell. A time will come soon to step between two seasons. Just as with the monks, it is one step. From holy ground to holy ground.

(Copyright 2006, Tolbert McCarroll, A WINTER WALK, page 150)

Oboe resting on New Year's Day:



















Self-portrait on New Year's Day (semi-contour drawing):























Late yesterday I received news that someone dear to me for the last 42 years is recovering from a stroke in the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California. His sister said that he is unable to speak because of a tracheostomy but can write. I left a message for him with his nurse at the VA Hospital. Anyone who knows me well or has been reading my blog knows him. We were born during the same 24 hours in 1949 and have been in and out of each other's lives since we were 17 years old. Please send lovingkindness his way. Thanks so much.


















"In recent years Kwanzaa, a week-long cultural festival for African-Americans, has been gaining in popularity. This holiday came out of the frustrations, and the violence, of the black power movements in the 1960s, which was one, often controversial, facet of America's continuing struggle for racial equality and justice. At first, Kwanzaa was a black alternative to Christmas. But it has evolved to become a cultural, rather a religious or anti-religious event. This has allowed Christians, who are an important part of the African-American community, to adopt it. It is now estimated that about thirty million people worldwide celebrate this festival. One of Kwanzaa's main attractions for African-American parents is to move beyond the commercial, gift-oriented atmosphere of Christmas and talk about values. The festival goes on for seven nights, and the main event is the evening meal where African clothing is often worn and dances, songs, and symbols are used in an elaborate ritual. Each night one of seven principles is the theme. These are: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith."

(Copyright 2006, Tolbert McCarroll, A WINTER WALK, pages 151-152)

January 1 is the 7th night of Kwanzaa. The principle for tonight is Imani, which means "faith."

Love and Light to all in the New Year!

DRAWN FROM MEMORY / A WINTER WALK

("Three Low Chairs At Dawn," by Old Girl Of The North Country using Appleworks6 "Painting" program)

I emailed Brother Toby of Starcross Community who gave me permission to print this excerpt from his book, A WINTER WALK:












"Some days, when I get fed up with what I am missing, I preach to myself in the style of an exercise coach. "All right now. Today we are going to take a risk. any risk!" Well, it works. I can't relate many successfully completed missions, but I can list some risks I attempted in a recent year: suggesting to the school a "Family At-Home Friday" when the weekend was taken up with school holiday events; it violated state law. Calling up an old friend from whom I had been estranged; he was put off. Taking a stressed-out teenager up on a hill to watch the stars; it started to rain. Sneaking into the back pew of a large church for a shot of sacred nourishment; the priest was attacking people who cremated their relatives as being insensitive and godless cheapskates. You get the picture. But success doesn't matter. The point is that I dropped my emotional defenses and let myself be vulnerable. and sometimes there actually were special rewards. My teenage son thought the star trip was hilarious, and for months he asked what else I had planned for "quality time." One out of four attempts isn't bad, and someplace along the line I managed to lose Mr. Scrooge."

(c) Tolbert McCarroll 2006

"Practice and enlightenment are not two." (Dogen, from Zen Calender, December 14, 2007)

One more thing -- See "recycling art in South Africa" at Ikastikos

BODHI DAY / FIRST ANNIVERSARY

Thirty years ago, during the years my organized-religion-averse mother was volunteering at Starcross, a small lay community in the monastic tradition in Sonoma County in California, she sent me a book for Christmas. The book was titled NOTES FROM THE SONG OF LIFE: SPIRITUAL REFLECTIONS and was written by Tolbert McCarroll, a monk living at Starcross. The book contained a month's worth of writings, to be read as daily meditations. Although having a clear aversion to anything remotely related to "God," I read the book even though I felt somewhat annoyed with my mother for sending it to me. I found a few things about it I liked (grudgingly), and put it away on my bookshelf, somewhat embarrassed to have it in my possession. What stuck with me, though, were the words from the chapter called "God".

"If you are fortunate, you will run across some truly spiritual people. If you believe that they have no desire to determine your path or control your behavior you will feel free to listen to their experiences."

About twenty years ago, I did run across a diverse group of people who shared their experiences with me without any expectation that I would choose their way of life. At that point, I looked for and found the book my mother had given to me. It became a daily guide for me during what would be many difficult years. I didn't become a member of any religion but I did find a way of living where I gradually became more at peace with myself and with other people.

Last year, when Tolbert McCarroll published a book called A WINTER WALK, I ordered a copy. A WINTER WALK has 32 short chapters, one of which can be read each day of December and on New Year's Day. Tolbert McCarroll was the founder of the Humanist Institute in the 1960s, drawing from both Eastern and Western spiritual traditions and seeking links between contemporary psychology and religious experience. Among his influences are the ancient Taoist masters, the 14th Century Western Mystics, Chinese Zen masters and, in a A WINTER WALK, Chanukah stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I greatly appreciate his non-dogmatic approach to spiritual storytelling.

Today's chapter in A WINTER WALK is called "Bodhi Day." It seems that December 8th is the day that many Buddhists celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment and decorate dwarf fig trees --Bodhi trees. Siddhartha confronted his inner demons for eight days and at the end of the eighth day he found enlightenment and became the Buddha, the Enlightened One.

It was last year on this day that I decided to create a blog in which I could show, one day at a time, a 40-year retrospective of my art work. December 8th has been a difficult anniversary for me since 1970 when my beloved boyfriend returned from Vietnam -- the day that, sadly, marked the beginning of the end of the relationship in which we had placed so much hope.

Last year, on December 8, an understanding person suggested that I do something different to mark the anniversary so that in 2007 when the day came again, I would have a new way of seeing that day.

I did and I do.

My first blog post, a drawing I did in high school and which looks somewhat like my surfer and artist boyfriend who went to Vietnam in 1970, was titled "IMAGINARY BROTHER AS WITNESS 1966":






















Today I went on an early morning walk with a old friend. We walked on the trail next to Bellingham Bay where we saw the lovely flowering tree which heads this post.