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You know beauty.
Remember the morning,
the morning,
the morning.
The pause of the ticker tape
of thoughts,
The rise of your attention to
one you love:
a sleeping baby, a purring cat, a snoozing dog, a sunrise, a great tree amid an ecosystem of green.
Now, turn, to remember, you…
the lover’s gaze of your eyes, the stillness of your attention, the delight in your heart, the gratitude in your smile.
You know beauty.
This is a process. We are writing Poems of Peace.
“At least it’s Friday,” a teacher once said to me, “Anyone can get through a Friday.”
What this meant to me? Soon we will have no responsibility for anyone but ourselves, soon we will not have to answer to student, parent, administration or peer. And…bonus!…we don’t have to rise on Saturday morning to return to this environment.
I, a parent of many, responded with a polite smile. You don’t know my world.
In my world back then, Friday meant the beginning of a weekend of compromises– child and teenager needs vs. family and parent needs. These negotiations had a huge impact on the quality of my life in the moment and on the quality of my relationships over time. Many adults advised: Let them do what they want or Just say NO! I did not listen to the adults. I listened to the young adults and children. I offered compromises.
I asked myself:
What do we lose when we decide we will not listen? We will not compromise?
What is the quality of our relationships when we decide we are giving up?
or decide we’re going to say NO, over and over, until the requests stop coming?
“My indigestion is caused by the process, not the outcome, by the limited perspective, not the outcome. ”
I woke to news today of a teacher’s strike ended by government order, not negotiation. My stomach has been a-jumble with the first sip of coffee.
I’m not surprised at the impasse, at the breakdown of negotiations. I’m not surprised at the decision by the government to avoid arbitration by invoking the notwithstanding clause– essentially a veto power given to provinces in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to be used in extreme cases. Renegotiating contracts with government employees (teachers) is not an extreme anything; it is a responsibility and a duty. Employees of the government are employees of the people. The government is employed by the people. The people have been patient with the government and the teachers, letting the process happen.
Will the people remain patient? How will the people respond? How will we get through this day??
The majority of our elected government officials and the premier of our province, Danielle Smith, has decided they can’t get through a Monday or any other day of the week or weekend without turning towards measures of authoritarianism.
In our province’s family, it appears Danielle Smith is either a Queen of Hearts from Alice’s nightmare– Off With Their Heads!– or a woman with her heart governed the powerful around her– Let’s see what will happen if we go beyond our power…if you take a hit, we have your back…
What havoc do we invite into our lives with the unwillingness to listen, to compromise?
“Whatever you hold, hold it lightly. Allow what is held to breathe, to communicate, to change and evolve.”
Blue whale…songs/communication can be heard thousands of miles away…
Today I meditated with the sounds of a blue whale’s communication- a deep resonant hum, sometimes a fluttering sound (highly recommended strategy in a stressful situation).
As I listened and truly attended to the physical vibration in my ears and in my whole body, calm rose, concern lessened:
The stomach indigestion: a holding on and a letting go feeling (literally!) evened out.
The story of good vs. evil, of right vs. wrong, of fight vs. faint or flee began to fade.
This is the reality sunk in: we are in a cycle of push and pull, of force opposing force.
A sense of deep care emerged in the chest area.
Clarity arrived.
How to get through a day: A process.
Await what wants to be revealed.
Allow the information: bad news, good news, stomach ache, conflicting opinions/beliefs: don’t turn away.
Accept reality: listen and hear and understand both sides of anything.
Attend to the desire for balance. Take action from the place of deep care.
My attending action: I felt the conflict. I felt through the conflict. I talked to two teachers, one retired and one in the middle of everything. I heard their despair, their anger, their frustration, and their belief in the role of public education in a compassionate and wise society. I watched the process from the government’s late night session (a process which limited debate to only one hour). I sent letters from my heart. Letters of understanding the difficulty of negotiations at a time when it appears the easiest and best course of action is to act from a position of authority. Letters of understanding the importance of considering not just one year or four years into the future but decades, generations. I sent letters I believed communicated a deep level of care, for all concerned. I wrote this blog post. I am open to hearing any other action I might take to assist in bringing balance, equanimity, sanity to the reality I am living with…
Already I hear the voices of doubt and derision from both sides of the argument. This response is not strong enough. They will run right over you/us. We are doomed. We have no better options.
How do we calm the escalation of aggression? One human. Another human. Another human. Another human. All of us humans listening to blue whale communication, remembering our humanity. Re-membering our humanity.
The process for getting through a day may need to be shared far and wide. Thank you for reading.
“Balance. Balance. Balance. Balance.”
Wake with attention
to the connection of
you to earth:
the spiral of energy
from underneath you
calling.
Relax. Respond. Relax.
Our bodies yearn for
the earth.
Our nest is soil, and plant,
rock and water’s edge.
Breathe in slow and release
tension.
Soften the eyes, the jaw,
the root of the tongue.
Let the list forming in
the mind
fade, remain unfinished.
Attend. Attune.
The morning is here.
Gently sway and rock yourself awake:
legs as windshield wipers,
or pressing one hip into the bed
and now the other,
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Awaken the spine.
Trust.
Balance your energy
side to side.
back to front.
up and down.
inside and outside the body.
Imagine the outline of you is not
the mark of the dead, not a chalked
impression–
but a sphere.
Imagine we walk as spheres,
da Vinci-style;
fill your sphere with curiousity.
What will I meet today?
Breathe a balance
inhale and exhale
like the two loops
of an infinity symbol.
You face what is in front of you.
You honour what is behind you.
Bowing to the spirit within you.
Look in, look out.
The murmuration of swallows, of starlings,
show you the way.
After the night of the new moon…
stars aglow. inner and outer reflect- the night of the new moon, a time of new beginnings.
I've been working with Zuza Engler each Wednesday to move and attend to the body in the presence of a small group over zoom. Here is my documentation of the body between sessions with Zuza.
The I notice process: move around for awhile in the morning and then, pause, reflect. Start a fresh page in the journal with I notice.
Notice body, external environment, allow sensation, notice sensation.
Let the rough draft be the only draft. No need to repair or decorate. Stick with what arises. Trust what arises.
Here is today's documentation:
I notice an ache in each of my hips.
A slight tension in the low back. In the jaw.
Now, a pressure in the forehead
I notice the ash and spruce hear
a quiet music this morning- they do not
flutter or sway, groove or groan
in the wind.
I notice a sadness wants to emerge and
I reach for a familiar narrative
but it swims
away...
...this sadness is like water,
not wind.
I've been drinking it
for lifetimes...
...as if my cells hold
my mother's despair and
my father's too...
and theirs held their parents...
...passed down...
...passed through...
here, now...
...sadness of separation from
the mother.
I notice in my low belly
a sleeping dragon stirs.
She holds a pearl.
Dance, she says.
Dance, and this pearl will become
your disco ball.
I shift my attention.
The early light of sunrise
shades the mountains pink,
pink light frosts
the underside of
clouds...
...forming messages
I may read as
love.
I know a bearded dragon named Lola, she often speaks in my writing.
disco ball of light reflected, inner and outer merge?
so much beauty. so much.
Dispatch from the field. Waxing Gibbous moon at 95%
Recorded last night:
A memoir can be written in a moment, in a moment so full of the record, the events you’ve lived that it requires verbs and nouns arranged in poems, sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters, prologues, epigraphs, epilogues, keening songs, happiness songs, epilogues and blessings.
It. The moment. The precipice.
A memoir can wake you in the middle of the night- say at 1:55 a.m. and say to you, “Now. It is time to write.”
A memoir can save a reader’s life, remind her what it means to nurture by centering her heart on the page, in the kitchen, the garden, the forest, the ecology of her life. Perhaps she will consider, carefully, what she sets aflame and to remember, again, that each flame is a beginning. A gathering of kindling and a composition inside a ring of stones and a stacking of materials to add to the flame. And, when she is ready, she can strike flint to steel, light the tinder and breathe in love and breathe out gratitude.
A memoir can be a way of pacifying the ego or of telling the go- this is when we let go.
A memoir is a moment. A memoir of the moment.
No need for flashbacks. Indirect discourse encouraged.
__________
Venus is visible on the night of this dreaming. Venus is about love.
From Grief to Grace
__________
Dream last night- a life review- a photo album and experience of flow, all the times flow has been with me, blockages released, like black flies in the spring, hatching and moving on…
___________
What does it mean to listen to the field? To sense the field? To hear the cosmos seeking? To connect with the benevolent beings?
_________
Also visible in this night sky: Jupiter. Optimism, growth, abundance.
Dispatch from audio recording, Part 2
Dispatch on a memoir. How is writing a memoir an appropriate response to the way the world is today? What are key things that are pointers? Pointers from a radical trust in life? Question mark.
Hannah, the movie, A recognition of a couple of things. They are gone in a stream of thinking. And I know I will remember them when I need to. I am part of a field, and in the field is all the thinking. And I could just access it.
____________
Mars. Energy, drive, passion, determination,
I will try voice to text. I really love to be able to call out the punctuation and find it complete.
On fear, perhaps this whole book is about fear. It is about a moment when fear seems to have abated, and inside the gap between “what if I am punished for this" and “thank you for releasing me from my fear.” This is a space of uncertainty. Perhaps I will be punished in some way. Right now it seems, speech and freedom are not as secure as I believed they would be for the rest of my life. And yet, was that just a comfortable notion? Have I been carrying the fear of my ancestors, all my life, the fear, speaking out of telling the truth?
I remember a piece from the movie Hannah that seems important the Rinpoche hands her a note and just says with the right motivation, everything will be clear. You will have all you need. And she and her partner Ollie set out to do what must’ve seemed impossible many, many times. Why this movie? Why on the anniversary of an experience that helped me see the invisible?
Breathe in love, breathe out gratitude.
__________
These are all the notes from last night and in the middle of the night, awake and alert I thought, wow, all I need to do is open the channel and the words will be there. Now, I have a bit of doubt. They were pointers, a dream I became aware of… Possible, perhaps because I am making space in my life. Space for what wants to come in, what might be created.
D. Nicol yesterday talked about the sacred trees in Montgomery…the redwoods and how her let the prayers come into him and through him. He didn’t set out to pray. The praying happened. He wasn’t directed by a religious figure, he was called by the trees. How, over time, he understood the trees were not a metaphor but a literal guide. A literal understanding.
Notes:
Light editing used to add to coherence.
Hannah, the movie refers to a movie on YouTube about a woman named Hannah who followed a buddhist path and helped to widen the reach of buddhist practices to Europe.
D. Nicols is a subtle activist. I meditate with a group of people most Tuesday afternoons, participating and engaging with a field of energy with an embodiment of peace, beauty, and love.
Reviewing these dispatches have alerted to me patterns in my dreaming, my thinking and my energetic engagement with life. The anniversary I note refers to an awakening experience which occurred on April 8, 2021.
Dispatch from the Arbornaut. February 14, 2023
Note: This is part of a continuing series of randomly-chosen dispatches I’ve written. There are dozens and dozens of them. I am engaged in a process to release the petals to the wind. To start each moment fresh. I am asking “What am I clinging to for fear of nothing to take its place?” It is okay that you, the reader, do not know any of the names mentioned in this post. Please read for the energy. Notice how you experience the text…
Took a photo just now of my office space. Just directly, but slightly askew because of the angle of my chair to face the widest part of the room, reach the furthest corners with my gaze from atop my podium. And today I am sitting on top of my meditation cushion in the chair. With a heating pad across my back. I find heat on my back to be so comforting.
When I am at a retreat, sometimes dinner conversations or lunch conversations skew me in an unanticipated direction. Once, one of the participants says, “you know what a hand held against the shoulder means? What it represents? What we experience it as?” I wait for him to answer. “Support. It’s so obvious. Support!” We laugh and we slip into a bit of a collective sigh, each of us noticing how thinking of the action evokes the feeling, the memory, of how powerful memory is.
How I show up matters. I’ve been writing this on the scroll for several days now. And I’m having a panoramic experience of what showing up looks like and about how it matters. I think when I’m calm and accepting, I create waves of it around me. I think my ability to power my body’s physical calm. My mind’s calm. I balance many moods. Not just my own. I’m committed to noticing how my experience of calm floats among the ones I love. How my experience of anxiety is related to the experiences I’m creating in response to the external stimuli. My body tells me what it is experiencing.
Today it has experienced a period of unease, of relaxing, of meeting, of appreciating, of joy, of engagement, of joy, of love, of awe, of sadness and strength surrounding a death…details below:
Dear T and P,
I dreamed of you both today. At about 1 p.m. I was working quietly and I felt a huge tug. A pull to meditate. Almost immediately, T, you were there. You were trying to get me ready. You needed me to get into meditation. Now. K and L and B needed us and you’ve been calling and I haven’t been answering but what matters is I’m here. What matters is I’m here. I try to understand where here is. And then I hear…How you show up matters. And I say, I’ve been writing that on my scroll for days. How you show up matters.
T: “That’s been me! I’ve been calling you!!
Me: Really? You?
T: No. A whole group of us. Not just me. You’re in a group. Oh, you’ll see.
The narrative ends for awhile and I feel. My body becomes acutely focused. I feel like I’m speeding by life, zooming. Like I can see it all passing so quickly. And I love this feeling. I play with it. Finally I slow it down. I can feel the feeling of slowing down the breath, breathing from a closer locus.
The narrative begins to rev up as the body calms down.
And in my dream I’m in a circle, we’re all there, a big group and we’re holding hands, all of us. And we meditate together and we move into particle phase and then light. We’re pure light. Pinpricks in the air. And B is there and we have a 360 degree view from wherever we are, we can always see them (K/l and B) and T is able to pinpoint where our attention needs to go.
“Mar’ce! Mar’ce! Over here.” T is directing traffic from her spot. I can see the shape of T, the swing of her hair, the force of her body, the slightest of haze of T.
“I need you to listen.” (You are my mother now, trying to help me get through some trouble we’ve fallen into, only in this case we’re here in gratitude. Thankfulness. Full of heart.)
“You’re here for a reason. Focus. L. K. B. Flow between them.”
We are a dome of pinpricks of light. We shine all around the three of them and our energy surges in response to theirs. K and L get glimpses of us. B sees us. More of us. And then she sees us all. She begins to relax. Her breathing relaxes. She experiences the in-between, the reciprocal space between…
“Mom. I’m really, really, really sorry. I love you.”
“B, we are glad you are healthy in your heart. You know love. That is the most important thing.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
The flow of energy moves in waves, long and gentle and short and choppy. It’s a record. A symphony. A movement of love.
Much more happens but I can’t remember now. I think it’s meant to be shared in a different format or a different context.
I had that experience. Today.
And, I wrote this too: as if the context were slightly different when I met T and P in a lucid dream.
“Wow. It’s so amazing you’re here. We’ve been totally waiting on you. We knew you’d find us.
What a cool way to live.
Totally. That’s P speaking. It’s great. I like the drinks by the pool. Just kidding.
Is this real?
Yes. T says.
So today has been an interesting sort of day. Full of adventure I didn’t expect. Buying glasses today was expensive and an investment in my sight and my fashion. I’ve decided I need to replace my warped lenses (too much heat) and lean into something funny and different. I’m talking with colleague B in 15 minutes about writing circles. Need to get them set up. Will sign off for now. Off to do a task. : )
M
(And I’m experiencing events as big feelings and the bridge between the events is the narrative. And the big experiences are like bursts and waves of energy. So the narrative can really get interesting around the bursts and waves of energy, it can try to flow against the push against them. Or it can flow.)
Thank you to all the writers I’ve learned from and worked with, all the shared inspiration over this life and any other lives who are invisible to or unremembered by me.
I offer this experiment freely with the intention of inspiring you to connect with the inner you, the inner one who carries stories, who receives stories, who tells stories. Our energy follows our stories.
What story is at the center of the spiral? What stories form the form? The shell? The staircase? The plant? The DNA of our body? How is this writing experiment going to spiral out from here?
Here is a writing experiment I’ve undertaken with a several writing nests. I understand the thinking behind paywalls and protecting our work from being used, again and again, and not being compensated or paid. I appreciate the importance of reminding ourselves of the value of the gifts we share with others.
As you write, you may notice a longing for connection with other writers. Connection = being witnessed and witnessing.
I notice we contain multitudes. My identities include: writer, friend, forest walker, listener, work culture participant, ritual maker, plant communicator, canine nurturer, woman, intellectual, canoeist, creator with my hands, nutrition student, be-ing, grandmother, mother, partner, ex-many things.
Each of these identities is in relationship. Each of these relationships expands or contracts based on my participation. The ability to be present, to be both the observed and the observer, to be in a loop of reciprocity, a giving and a receiving, this is the place of practice. Sweetness might be here. Waves of emotion.
In our relationship with writing, we might feel pressure to achieve an expected outcome. In relationship with other writers, the expectations we have for an audience, for our own success, might recede into the background. We might notice the relationship of writer to words, of writer to writers, of words to words, is the presence we’ve been seeking. It’s the reality in action of being seeing and seeing another.
To write/create alone may feel safe. To write/create in a group may feel unsafe.
What do you want for your life?
Who do you want to be?
What kinds of experiences do you want to have?
What are you willing to invest in your becoming?
Sometimes the head feels heavy.
the spirit animal of the exhausted…
The eyelids want to close against any more doing. The body wants to rest, to attend to the quiet, the still, the inside centre point.
Sometimes the throat feels full. Forceful. Buzzy. Sometimes it seems to ignite the jaw and illicit the biting of the tongue or the relaxing of the jaw. Relax the throat.
Hear the birds sing.
Listen.
To the speed, the force of the sound. Imagine where it comes from, the belly and through the esophagus and into the beak positioned just so and with the force needed, the intent behind the sound, the meant-expression. The emotion.
Sometimes the throat feels like a birds’. And the shoulders like folded wings.
what emerges from the spine…
Sometimes the feet root into the ground. You might learn it in yoga– how to spread the toes, bend the knees slightly, let the weight descend through the legs, through the feet, into the floor and beyond, an energetic cord of connection between the body, the hips and legs and feet, into the centre of the earth, the lava core. The feet are rooted, being met with resistance, meeting resistance.
Sometimes the feet root into the ground and the head is connected to the sky. You might learn it in Qi Gong; this method of connecting earth and sky in the body and extending the energetic signature of the body and finding the flow of energy moving from earth to sky and then balancing.
You might think you’re just trying a bit of everything and mastering nothing. Or you might be developing dozens of perspectives on a subject you’re just not aware of, a question you haven’t been aware you’re asking. A question like…what is energy? What is a body?
In totality. From all perspectives. You might get into all of this investigation and curiousness and notice you’re being berated by self-criticism and a desire to be different from who you are. You might notice you learn to like yourself more because you know more about how skilled you are, how marvelous a body really is, what a miracle it is you’re alive.
You might think thinking about death is ______________ . It’s okay. Death is weird.
You might like spring the most because that’s when there is proof again, life continues.
You might like winter the most because it reminds you of death and, somehow, the idea that all this work might be over one day feels good.
You might wonder if plastic surgery is a better option than learning to love yourself just as you are. You might wish you were the kind of mom who would have no problem getting botox by the orthodontist when she’s finished fitting your 10 year old with Invisiline retainers. You might experiment with interventions of one kind or another, addictions, ways of avoiding, ways of getting what you want. You might become a heavy consumer of solutions. Solutions to problems you don’t have to take on. You might see your life as one of many, not so special, glad to have gotten this far, and you might wonder, why spend time sharing this story? Who needs to know what you survived? How will it help them? Billions of people are speaking. Don’t we need more silence? Aren’t you tired of someone trying to sell you their version of the truth?
Sometimes the head is heavy when you sit down to write. Sometimes you remember life as if it were a movie and you think the dreaming part is always so good, why not get to it right now. But…you remember a voice from earlier suggesting, your story matters. You remember the session in the therapist’s office about your shame. You experienced your shame. Let it have its say. Through the body. All that feeling. The clenching of the jaw, the gripping of the arms of the chair, how you thought you might rip them off, the overwhelming desire to run, the tears, the drama of it all. Moaning. Clutching your stomach. A movie of the past, replaying. The desire to vomit a boa constrictor of grief squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, from your gut to your throat. Coming back to the room, you remember a moment of strength.
You said, no.
Remember?
You said, no.
Finally, the boa lets go. You wondered if it would be helpful for the woman-trainee therapist to witness an unguarded truth. If sharing a story matters.
We are here for a reason. You and I together.
Yes, we are.
We do not have to be good. To be aware is enough.
I’m publishing a series of dispatches I’ve written/or spoken into a voice memo app and, then, transcribed. They are from a past version of Mar’ce who is also part of this-moment-Mar’ce. : ) I choose them randomly and edit them lightly. Some of them have been shared in small group settings. Most have not been read once they’ve been written.
I notice I stopped sharing widely a couple of years ago. I notice my break had to do with imagining an invisible audience who is potentially critical/judgemental/unkind. I noticed, too, I don’t want to participate In sharing on instagram or Facebook or linked in. I’ve been sporadically experimenting with sub stack. What a wonderful period of time it has been to not share or not share much! What a gift it’s been to germinate, to rest, to experience the events of life slowly and with curiousness! Thank you for reading. I so appreciate your attention. Your curiosity matters. Your attention matters. What are you germinating??
I notice the wind today. Steady, strong exhales. Gratitude for all of us who are breathing in the earth’s love.
I wonder how many readers have decided this blog post is not for them after the first three sentences. I wonder how many readers have noticed a curiosity rising, a flow of inner energy that is like a tickle in their mind, a trickle of wonder.
I notice the chickadee tree. Also known as pine tree. Also known as welcoming tree as it grows near the front door of the house. Shading the pine tree’s roots is the prairie-dog-lookout-rock also known as the chickadee perch and the dog-marking-place. I notice the tree moves with the wind, not in one big sway, but many small shudders, adjusting and flowing with the wind; the only resistance, an adapting trunk. I notice chickadee tree grows stronger with each gust. I notice it enjoys the chickadees' call to me, keep going…I believe in you.
I tattooed the word believe on my wrist in my 40th year, after my birthday, when I made a vow to write a novel to carry me through the grief of all that I’d lost when I lost my mother to an early death, 54 years old. I despaired when the publishing of the novel did not bring her back to me, did not help me to settle into my forever-changed life.
Believe. The word is not as easy to read now, as it was then. My wrists have grown, impossibly, thinner and unless I soothe the skin with lotion, the inky text seems like a grouping of symbols. If it were a Boggle board, I would say it says many things: Live. Be. Veil. Evil. Bee. Vibe. Vile.
The novel, Wicked Sweet, is a tale of a young woman unable to live up to her mother’s expectations and abandoned by her best friend. She adopts Nigella Lawson as her fairy godmother, a sensuous woman who loves food. The young woman sets out a plan to steal back her best friend. The obstacle to their friendship, she decides, is a young man who overpowers our protagonist with his meanness. She bakes cakes, leaves them anonymously on doorsteps and, through actions playing out more and more confusion, attempts to exact revenge on the young man. She believes this revenge will result in everyone seeing, clearly, his malevolent ways and casting him aside. She will be the heroine of all of the story. She will win the affection of her friend and, indeed, of everyone. She will be safe, loved, and in control of a certain future of everything-is-nigella-lawson-great.
I notice my mother used to say, I don’t get angry, I get even.
I, too, have watched this play out in my own life.
Belief is limiting. Stating the kind of person you are, from only one perspective, is limiting.
Creating something new can be confusing, can set you apart, can free you and can also trap you.
I notice if I call the tree in front of the house by one name, perhaps its science-given-name, then I may stop noticing. That’s all it is. That’s what I’ve been told. A tree is a genus. It has parts, logically arranged. It is only a function of evolution. A tree.
Not the pine in front of the house, but a pine I visit often. I call them Lone Pine. Pictured here with one of dozens of small pines in the boulder field at the bottom of Ghost Lake Dam, along the Bow River.
But…what if, like each of us, we saw the tree from many perspectives. What would we come to understand? What might our relationship become?
I notice my mother was much more than a woman who said, I don’t get angry, I get even. Which, by the way, was not an honest statement because she did get angry. And she did get even. She tried to warn others around her that they might see her as powerless, but she was not. I’m not sure how many opportunities she exercised her power and her voice with compassion, but I remember her kindnesses towards me as drops of the sweetest nectar.
I dedicated the novel Wicked Sweet to my daughter. She said to me when I was depressed and sad and I couldn’t seem to write anything, “write about something you love, Mom. I know you can do it. You are a good writer.”
I notice how much I love trees. How much I’ve learned from them. How I’ve begun to feel their presence in my day-dreams and night-dreams and how I seek out their wise counsel. Sometimes the ones you love can speak in ways to remind you of your goodness, your skill, your meaning in life.
I write today of something I love. The pine.
I wrote this today for myself. These last two lines were added to complete an assignment for a Memoir Writing Course.
What does the protagonist want: To prove her worth, the validity of her belief in the trees.
What does the protagonist need: To trust that she is overflowing with enoughness. No matter her beliefs, she is worthy of love.
We, in relationship to all, can thrive.
We, in relationship to beliefs we don’t adopt, can thrive.
We, in relationship to pain, suffering and the dying, can thrive.
We, in relationship to all, must thrive.
Our strength, our vision, our compassion, our balance, our willingness to face all that is upon us: we are the thriving ones.
An ecosystem = strengths in action, communication, direct assistance, regulation for homeostasis.
Who are we? What is our true nature? Where are we from?
Why ask these questions?
To see beyond winners and losers.
To see beyond good guys and bad guys.
To see beyond our fears for the future.
To see deeply.
To experience safety which doesn’t depend on who is elected, how much money is in our bank account, our workplace culture, and the changing climate.
Safety does not equal hibernation. Safety does not equal rest. Safety does not equal shelter. Safety does not equal a full cupboard of food.
Safety equals a confidence in knowing, whatever comes my way, I will respond with clarity, without fear– I will welcome challenge. I will meet my moments with curiousity, with a desire to be here. And, here. And, here.
We move from one state to another, over and over. Through direct experience we learn who we are, where we are from, and our true nature…our strengths, our basic goodness, and our connection to all in the ecosystem.
Change happens. Movement happens. We live in a verb world. We are verbs.
caterpillar, cocoon, imaginal goo, emerge, flight.
Ice to water. Water to earth. Water to plant, human, animal.
Water to gas. Gas to cloud. Cloud to rain. Rain to river, to land, to plant, human, animal.
We are verbs. We have the capacity to think new thoughts about safety, about love, about money, about loneliness, about care, about wholeness.
Energy follows thought.
Move towards? Run from?
Together?
Stand in beauty. Stand in wildness.
In darkness, light finds light.
We can use our minds to remain trapped or we can use our minds to find freedom.
Our minds can help us create islands of sanity all around us.
Our minds can help us innovate and thrive.
Our minds can help us to become vessels of peace.
Energy is possibility. We are energy.
We are beings of possibility.
Our thoughts and our actions create our world.
We are we.
We are all.
All is all.
Let there be peace.
Currency of light.
Here is a newsletter/email I sent out today…
Yesterday was Lughansa, August 1st, a day of celebration for some of my ancestors, a day of joy and gratitude– the harvest is here. If you've opened up this e-mail, Thank You. If you decide to read it all the way through, Thank you. If you end up at the bottom and click, yes, to any of the invitations I'm offering, Thank You.
I walked a path today through wild roses and trembling aspens with a big blue sky overhead. Barefoot, I stopped on a hill and laid down. I felt the cells of my whole being in vibration with the earth. A deep sense of calm and steadiness filled me. I continue to hold the calm as I write to you now.
I have three purposes today:
We are the world worth saving, a definition.
An unfolding pathway.
Three invitations based on We are the world worth saving.
bonus…Gifts for writers and peace lovers.
We are the world worth saving, a definition.
I've been hearing this phrase in my thoughts and my dreams: We are the world worth saving. Seriously. Today it appears I am going to take responsibility for these words. Even though I notice a younger version of me is afraid someone will disagree, today's version of myself is interested in a conversation, many conversations.
We are the world worth saving.
We as in: all.
We as in: you and me and all.
We as in: you, me, them, river, ocean, rose, tree, mouse, elephant, mountain, and all.
I notice when I'm in despair about the world, I forget we are a we.
"What can I do to help?" I think or "How can I not think about this anymore?"
I also forget all of life is founded on basic goodness. I notice my caught-up-ness with the details of the unfolding events. Scrolling increases. Wandering around with my mind buzzing. I begin to internalize feelings of division and hopelessness.
"I can't do anything to change this situation."
Loneliness shows up.
Oh, my. The stories I can imagine about how bad it can all get, how bad it has been.
Bad. Bad. Bad.
Then, the ember of worthiness glows deep within me and, eventually, I feel warmth. I notice my heart and mind opening. I let in pain and suffering. I breathe out calm and good wishes. I learned this practice as Tonglen. (meaning: giving and receiving)
I notice an emotion takes about 90 seconds to run all through the body.
Dislodging a stuck emotion, the remainder of a division of some sort, can take years and years. Little bits of relief, letting pain in from a traumatic memory and breathing out calm, matters. Breathing in others' pain and breathing out calm can become almost like a muscle memory.
Sometimes we go a lifetime with an obstacle inside us we never identify, we grow crankier and crankier, we avoid certain topics of conversation or people or situations we don't like. We don't want to be triggered by anything, anywhere. I spent a lot of time avoiding triggers.
My experience is: building capacity in the inner experience needs space. Spaciousness is a physical situation- an open heart is more spacious than a clenched heart, the gut can feel tight or relaxed and spacious, the mind can be obsessively thinking or we might notice the gap/the space between thoughts. Often, we need time and tools to develop space. Letting go of stories (which take up a ton of space) can be a challenge.
So...why engage in all of this work? Why go canoeing when we can sit on a beach and have the drinks brought to us? Why work through stuck emotions? Why willingly experience pain? Watching the Olympics, I wonder if the athletes push themselves physically because the arena of physically-meeting-an-edge is where they want to play.
The arena I want to play in? Peace.
Peace is the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual arena of our times.
I just wrote that. Is it true? I don't know.
I was born in 1966 (my birthday is 18 days from now!) and I've read: babies born in this year share an experience of wanting peace. The Vietnam War was on. Star Trek debuted on television in September. The pull of peace was in the air, the cosmos. My direct experience tells me peace means being open to the uncertainty of life, of things falling apart. It's responding with clarity and compassion, sitting with fear and anger and joy and love simultaneously, holding space for whatever arises, and not fearing or grasping the outcome. Peace.
Peace is my experience of the We. It's my sandbox. It's how I'm playing with life. My three invitations are to ask you to join me in this big peace experiment where Deep Listening, Deep Play and Deep Trust work through us.
Peace is possible.
Peace begins in one expression of being.
We are the expression.
We are the world worth saving.
My pathway.
If you know me, you probably know I'm a writer with a love of all words (especially yours!) and a woman who has restarted her life more than once.
You likely know me as a curious and playful person. Perhaps, too, as serious about what it means to care about another, open-hearted and open-minded, willing to learn, persistent, a lover of cake and cookie, and in the last ten years especially, a human with a beautiful relationship with our natural world.
As I near my 58th birthday, I can point to a few choices I made over the last 10 years which have brought me to this moment. I share them with you for context, perhaps for my own clarity to see how I got here today, to write this newsletter and send it out:
I didn't know how to live the life I was living anymore. I applied and accepted the invitation for a canoe trip with Outward Bound Canada, specially designed for women who'd experienced violence in their lives. On a solo-night on a tiny island in Desolation Sound, I wrote myself a letter. My wilderness coaches mailed it to me six months later. I wrote to myself, You will be in healthy relationships and canoeing will be part of your life from now on.
I learned to hike and camp alone and to love it.
I met extraordinary humans at pivotal points who helped me cultivate positivity and clarity.
I quit a job I loved in arts management. Despair lived inside me for many months.
One of my children told me they didn't want to talk to me anymore because I didn't listen. I trained myself to listen, fully. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Two granddaughters came into my life. I wanted to show up for them even when I didn't think I could.
I started and completed an MFA in Creative Writing.
I spent two weeks with the Indigenous Leadership group at the Banff Centre for the Arts- one program on Right Relationship, the other on the ways of Indigenous Leadership.
I took over 58 courses/workshops on-line and in-person on topics from baking to writing to becoming a Bodhisattva (a warrior for the human spirit) with Margaret Wheatley
I dreamed of buying a house near nature with my daughter and son-in-law so the grandchildren could play outside. We bought one.
I canoed lakes and rivers in long journeys with my steady and skilled canoe partner, Tom, who was forced to change his life after a physical disability at age 28. He holds a phd in Peace Studies. The word peace really excites me. haha.
I experienced so much fear I put us in danger on a canoe trip. Joy Harjo's poem, Fear, I Give you Back, has helped me let go of my grip on fear.
I've written hundreds of pages of a novel I do not want to end. I love the characters. I love the horror story they're navigating. I love the place where they live- Ghost River Wilderness. The genre: Mountain Gothic.
I've published short stories and essay pieces and worked on a wonderful novel.
I nurture nests of writers who are brilliant and compassionate.
Writing nests have led to the development of deep noticing as a key part of nurturing a peaceful life.
I'm in collaboration with some wonder-humans. I look forward to all of you meeting one day.
I'm letting go of story after story, even the ones who have been the catalyst for my biggest insecurities and my biggest successes. The stories all seem to have a pleasantness about them as they drift away, even the worst of them, a bundle of memories about what I learned then.
I notice I'm carrying the peace I've been seeking.
My Invitations.
I've been in retreat for the past several weeks. My retreat space: one-on-one relationships with family and friends, strangers who become friends, with dog Athena, with water, with plant after plant after plant. I've been asking big questions about the narrative I weave in my head of the world I've Iived in and the world I'm living in now, at this moment.
Now, I'm metaphorically paddling the canoe in the middle of the river and I don't know what's up ahead. I know what I have in the canoe. I know what I sense around me. I am keen.
If you've read this far, thank you- again!- my inbox is full of wonderful newsletters I read or don't depending on the day. As I mentioned, I love learning experiences. I love experimenting. I am keen to experiment and play with anyone who is curious about what I'm putting together...
Here are my invitations:
Cabin Falls 2024: Retreat and Write
Six days and five nights in one-of-kind luxury and people
Increase Spaciousness in your life.
Experience doing one thing at a time.
Engage in deep noticing; build your muscle memory for accessing presence in each moment.
Will my wellness last? Is this enough of a beginning? Is it possible? Of course it is.
Research shows 72 hours in nature leads to wellness. Sweden is trying this, too!
It is possible to experience life in many different ways. It is possible to spend six days and five nights in one of the most incredible places on earth. Imagine the energy of water falling. Imagine the moon gathering us in her fullness. (full moon alert!)
Writing and sharing is always by invitation to express whatever arises. Writers are often surprised with the goodness they find showing up.
So much can be seen when you're guided by the stewards of the land, when you're playing with deep noticing practices.
Yes, it's worth the cost. Yes, it's worth the time and the travel to arrive.
The official invitation is attached to this email. You can also find more information on my website. Here.
Writing Nests, Fall 2024
Early Registration for Writing Nests begins on August 4.
Some details:
Limited to six writers per nest.
We begin in October.
Weekday mornings, afternoons and evenings will be available.
Scheduled for 1.5 hours with a five minute break partway through.
You can curate your own writing nest with friends/family.
Sliding fee scale always available
Format: meet the screen with ease, engage with a playful invitation to notice, take action: move, listen to the inner body, write, share the present moment and presence.
Deep Listening. Deep Play. Deep Trust.
If the world is falling apart, what can you do? Clear your perspective. Become an island of sanity for all you love. We need you.
Peace Practices, Fall 2024
Early Registration for Peace Practices begins on August 4.
Some details:
Free.
Sent to your inbox on Sunday and Wednesday.
Playful invitations for expression.
A monthly zoom call.
Peace Is. Deepen Your Experience.
You can also schedule 20 minute meetings with me.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
So much gratitude in my life today.
My apologies if you run into any issues with navigating my website. I'm doing the best I can with the energy I've been allotted in this life!
I am a meadow.
“I notice is a practice of embodiment. To be present in the body, the space, the is-ness. ”
I notice the late afternoon sun coming in through the window. I notice the shadow of the fence on the screen. I notice the fence lattice leaves diamond shadows.
I notice the rug under my feet is green and beige like lichen on stone, lichen of the fall- a fading lichen, not a springing forth lichen.
I notice I’m feeling older these days: why do I have so many medical tests to see if I’m too one thing or not enough of another? My ecosystem is expected to fail at this point or at least to need some kind of mediation.
I wonder if there is a place on earth which is my sister ecosystem- what place feels vibrantly alive with some wear and tear? A gravel pit seems too barren; an oasis in a desert doesn’t fit either. A mountainscape might work. Mountain and erosion: stillness and perseverance.
But, maybe, it’s a meadow- a mountain meadow- and it’s been suffering from cycles of drought and clouds not carrying all I’ve needed and now I’m suffering a bit from having survived with less.
I’ll need deeper roots, a tap root, perhaps, to find my way into ground water and perhaps bigger leaves to capture more sun energy- more photosynthesis. And, perhaps, I already have all that I need and the tests are there to affirm: I have all I need.
I notice the sound of small-kid voices. The negotiation of sharing space and time. My ecosystem is full of so much.
I notice a pulse in the bottom of my left foot. A call from underneath.
I am here. I am here.
I notice the call rises up through my foot and to my belly and my chest begins to expand.
What a beautiful meadow life is.
No wonder we want to analyze it, notice it, protect it.
Life is precious and wild, resilient and unraveling, all at the same time.
I wonder at it all.
Wonder and Wander
What would it look like to radically trust yourself in writing and beyond?
What would it feel like to know you are empowered to meet the edge of what you know and don’t know?
Are you curious about these questions?
Mar’ce Merrell, writer, and Christine Bizzell, strength guide, are co-creating an experience in uniting the power of presence with our natural gifts in writing.
To REGISTER: https://sutra.co/space/u8vtmm
In this Leap Day Writing Circle (and writing nest for the entire month of March), you will have the opportunity to see your power more clearly and wholly at the edge of creation and transformation.
Christine will guide four students in recognizing their natural strengths– the strengths which emerge from natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We will all:
- complete a rigorous 177-question survey to reveal our natural patterns. (CliftonStrengths34)
- work with her one-on-one in strength coaching
- access an on-line learning course connecting our strengths with our experience.
- have the opportunity for more one-to-one coaching
ON Leap Day, we'll all be gathered in The Writing Nest (hosted on Sutra). We will all:
- engage in contemplation and creation through writing through daily invitations and feedback.
- play with words
- meet and share on live zoom calls each week.
- notice deeply, share our presence, and witness one another.
It's a pilot project! We think the people who would benefit most are
- in transition
- feeling anxiety/worry/confusion/excitement about where they fit or how to move forward
- interested in their inner exploration
- interested in building nest buddies for life- relationships they can always come back to.
- interested in writing as a creative act
Grounded in the theme/thread/root of our own stories, we can emerge with greater freedom – with wonder and curiosity of what could come next on our journeys.
We, your nest buddies and newest symbiotic community, will be witnesses to your strength and emergence.
Hoarfrost and Volta Moments
Dearest reader, I am sharing some of my responses to the 42 days of writing calls we are all engaging with during the Being A Writer | Becoming Who You Want to Become writing circle.
Instructions: The writer is situated in a specific context. Write towards the Volta, the change.
We are in an urban forest, among long grasses and bushes, small trees. We stand in the center of a copse of aspen, branches covered in hoarfrost from a wet and cold evening. The sun shines nearly overhead in this mid-morning.
hoarfrost
My cellphone is in the breast pocket of my long coat. It plays a podcast with the episode title, Life Without Unnecessary Suffering.
I wonder if I can be here, in this moment, among these trees while also listening to the recording of someone else speaking from Paris, one evening weeks ago?
I wrap each arm around an aspen trunk, clasp my hands in front of me, at about level with my heart and I squeeze. I hug the trees as if they were twins. As if they are related. I am the middle space bringing them together. I hug them as if they are living beings who can feel my presence, not just as pressure on their trunks, but as affection. Appreciation.
Their roots intertwine far below my feet in swirls and arches, in patterns of branching and connecting. I breathe in the oxygen they make. I breathe out the carbon dioxide I make. We take our breaths from each other, we give our breaths to each other. How deep is our love, I wonder?
I float my gloved hands, one on each tree trunk, palm flat, about ¼ or ½ inch away from the tree trunk. I’ve been trying to feel the energy of trees. I feel a faint buzzing feeling, the invisible wings of a bumblebee between me and the trees. I wonder if it is coming from me or from the trees. It seems so important to know what I am achieving. What I am capable of. If I am growing. If I am doing good in the world. Could I harm the trees with my games of perception?
I back away from the two trees, from the 30 or so trees who make a copse, who connect wide and deep with the root system they share which may be a hundred or two hundred years old, even if the trees above only live to an average of 50 to 75 years. I want to know so much. I observe this about myself.
I step back, walk a path from the trees towards the primary path. At about 10 feet away, I feel an impulse to turn back. I turn around and see the group as if for the first time. Hoarfrost covers the top branches of their trunks and with the play of light, they almost appear like sparkly-haloed ones. Dancers on the dance floor, striking a pose- en vogue.
Thank you, I say aloud, though I’ve been told it’s not necessary to say thank you in order to express gratitude. Gratitude, I’ve been told, can arise in the moment of appreciation. It is a felt expression in this way, not a reflective gesture, not a rote experience. A full experience of expression arising. A body being.
Hoarfrost body
The noticing of a body being:
I notice my hands tingle slightly. I notice when I breathe out, I relax my shoulders. I notice my vision softens at the edges. I notice an urge to take a photograph, to hold this moment even though I can never hold it. I have such appreciation, I realize. For these trees. For all trees. For this day. For all the days. For the hoarfrost. For the light of the sun.
I walk a narrow path between two paths, the diagonal line connecting the two parallel lines which make up a parallelogram. How funny I remember parallelograms and geometry right now! I wonder why geometry is here?
I notice the bush branches, the long grass and arching stems of wintered plants I can’t identify: whitened and heavy with frozen dew. Hoarfrost. Hoar, from har an old english word meaning elderly, old, venerable, gray. Frost from forst or frustaz meaning to freeze.
The day will bring enough sun to melt the definition away. The grass will be only grass soon. The winter plant will be undressed, again.
Life without unnecessary suffering, I hear from the recording, is possible when we accept what is, without resistance.
Soon enough, my mind is restful, my body being a body walking, a body listening, a body…
Hoarfrost Wow.
Facilitated Writing Circles: Craft Invitations and Live Connections with writers
When:
MORNING: Wednesday, January 3 @ 10 a.m. PST, 11 a.m. MST, 12 p.m. CST, 1 p.m. EST, 6 a.m. UK
EVENING: Wednesday, January 3 @ 5 p.m. PST, 6 p.m. MST, 7 p.m. CST, 8 p.m. EST
January 3
January 10
January 17
January 24
January 31
February 7
Length of meeting: 1 hour and 20 minutes
Group size limited to five students
Where: VIA Zoom, link will be shared after sign-up
Expectations: Please click HERE to read the invitation.
- come as you are
- past-participants have experienced a deepening of their moment-to-moment awareness, of their connections to themselves, other human beings, other non-human beings.
- intentions include: deep listening, deep play and deep trust
- all interactions are held by all in confidence, with kind regard, and generous respect
- sharing is always optional
- open your arms
My commitment:
- to attend and attune
- to hold our group with awe and wonder and curiosity
- to adapt to our learning needs; to provide us with support materials, inspiration and deep love for the process of being a writer and becoming who we want to become
- Being a Writer- Craft specific lessons will be delivered to your email on Tuesdays. Topics include: Context/Setting/Description from the earth and the sky, Point of View and all beings-ness, Writing Emotion and the body, Form/Structure and mountain climbing/flow/branching, Indirect vs. Direct discourse and scenes with dialogue/movement.
- If a one-on-one session is something you'd find helpful, let's schedule one during our time together.
To sign-up: Direct message me to my email: marcemerrell@gmail.com,
1. Tell me your preference: Morning or Evening
2. Ask any questions you may have.
3. You will hear from me in 24 hours or less
Cost:
- $155 via e-transfer, $160 via paypal or visa (I will provide links for you in a follow-up email)
- Payment required by January 10th unless other arrangements are made directly with me.
- If you'd like to attend our January 3 session as an experiment to see if this is the right fit for you, please let me know. I understand. You are welcome to come as you are. : )
If you'd like to know more about me or about my work, my website, www.marcemerrell.com is a pretty good starting place. I will be updating it starting this afternoon.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Will a recording of the sessions be available to me? No. This is an emergent process from the human beings in attendance.
Will I learn what I want to learn in this work with you? You don't need me to learn anything. This is an opportunity to open your arms and engage in a process with many possibilities. When you attend and attune to the group, you create with me, with us.
Will I receive the craft handouts/lessons if I cannot attend the session? Absolutely!!
Will you be offering more classes/sessions at another time? I don't know. This is what I have the capacity for right now.
Can I make up a session if I miss it? I'm happy to schedule a one-on-one session with you for the first missed session. I'll engage in an extensive e-mail discussion of your process/your work/whatever is emerging for you for a second missed session. If you miss a third session, I'll send you a package of care-taking strategies for Being a Writer. Most importantly, I'll ask you to be gentle and kind with yourself no matter the context in your life situation. Being a Writer and Becoming Who We Want to Become looks different for each of us.
With much love,
Mar'ce
Notes from December 20, 2023
In an effort for transparency, for being a voice listening to a voice, I am typing out my notes from ten days ago. If you, reader, are interested in reading where a novel might come from…I offer you this:
This novel is an expression of grief. I didn’t realize it, and it is true. This novel is about grief.
I began writing it as my last novel was being finished for publication. As often happens in a life, particularly in a writer’s life, what reveals itself on the page can frighten the writer, send the writer running from the page, into a space of being distanced, or blocked, or dissociated from the story which wants to be told.
The writer may immerse themselves in the task of becoming for a long period of time; resting in the being helps them to remember they are a writer. Being is the moment of surrender. The moment where the gap in becoming is noticed and a column of light connects the earth and the sky. And the writer is the gap– is the being. Light-filled and aware. Surely, this is the cause of the pursuit of the writer. Parts of the writer, it appears, experience this moment of being and are able to stay with it, even when they are not able to recognize fully, yet, what they are experiencing.
The writer’s experiences add up to an understanding: the being experiences, the listening experiences, the grief experiences, the joy experiences. The desire to “have become” already is familiar. The imagination of publication, of speaking to a room full of readers, of being heard, of being understood (finally, and, dare-fully, completely). Of course the writer, without understanding their own journey, is seeing visions of home. Home, where the welcome mat is a heart, where the kitchen is filled with music and delight, where the food is soothing and soul-filled by the ones who create.
The writer is a human being, often in deep wonderment about what this experience, experiment, is. The writer is an archetype of the whole– searching, searching for a story to express the experience. A story to serve as a pathway forward for themselves, for others. A writer is an explorer, a colonist, an earth being, a mother, a monster, a sage, a child, a betrayer, an innocent, a victim, an outcast, an oracle, an Arbornaut, a predator, a saviour.
The writer in me, the writer persona of this body, this expression of consciousness has been asking for help and feeling at times undeserving of this help, unworthy of this task to write a story to help the humans of this gathering of humans to recognize their being, to connect with love, to recognize the power they hold to create.
This writer is distracted by relationships in the field of connection. This writer is distracted by the ideas of becoming vs. the ideas of being. This writer fears the loss of connection. This writer worries too much time alone or away will sever her relationships with the ones they love.
This writer asks for help. Again. Still. Help from a spirit she has been away from, from a spirit she detached herself from years ago. A spirit who told her, one day we will meet again. She was a young girl then, 9 years old, harmed and betrayed by her protector, ignored and neglected by her protector, told it was time to grow up.
Her spirit has been trying to reach her across the veil for many years, now, when the nightmares escalated, when the darkness began to subsume her. She lost everything in those years. All the security she’d worked so hard to fix and control in her life. She lost it all. It’s hard for her now, even, to witness the waves of grief from those events and she lets them come. A buzzing sensation enters her, a concentration of vibration in her throat. Heal me. Heal me.
At night, her spirit left her. Didn’t leave. It went deep inside her. Deeper, into the deepest part of her, deep within her belly. Just recently, she felt it emerge again. She lived in her own Harry Potter world for nearly 40 years, in the unseen and not-understood battle between good and evil, between two experiences– being and becoming. Real. Unreal. Darkness. Light. She lived between wanting and rejecting. She, as was mentioned earlier, experienced glorious moments of true being. Most recently in nature, this writer began to feel a relationship between this spirit, this soul inside her and the spirit and soul outside her. We all harm. We have all been harmed. What a difficult experience of becoming she has seen, witnessed. The oppressed and the oppressor living inside her. The betrayed and the betrayer. The loved and the unloved. Being is here, now. The becoming will unfold.
Yes, the practical will continue to be a challenge, but less so, less so.
Ghost Lake. A few days before Solstice. A holy time. A few days retreat before the celebrations with family and friends. .
I breathe in cool air and breathe out, slowly; relax the forehead, soften the eyes, relax the jaw, the tongue, the throat. I swallow. The back of my throat aches. I’m fighting a cold. I breathe in cool air and breathe out, slowly; relax, relax the shoulders, the heart area front, the heart area back. Relax the area between the shoulder blades; ice melting to water, water evaporating to gas. This is helpful. This area is tight. Ice to water, water to gas. As the muscles let go, I remember my flying dreams as a black bird, a raven. Pleasant.
My gaze is in front of me. I hear traffic passing over the bridge. I let my attention open wide. I am here. This is my practice: experience the body, experience nature.
I look up. Mountains rise in front of me; mountains sculpted into triangle peaks and crowns, slabs of rock layers forced sideways and reaching up, and frozen-in-time flat-topped mountains standing guard. Thank you. Thank you.
My body yearns for a connection to the earth. I breathe in cool air and breathe out slowly, relax the torso, the belly, the hips and thighs, the calves. Feel the feet root into the ground.
Lovely. The center of each foot blooms, as if a prairie crocus opens its petals.
Oh, hello, mama.
Snow rests in bowl-shaped mountain hearts, fills veins and arteries of rock crag and canyon and though I can’t see them from here, the banks of the nearby glacial lakes, (Minnewanka) and rivers, The Bow and Ghost Rivers. Just below me, the Bow waters flow east towards Calgary through Ghost Dam, one of several dam projects east of the Rockies, changing the flow of water and, some might say, spirit, in this area of the world. The Ghost River, off to the north from where I stand, ends here at Ghost Lake
I am peace inside though the world is anything but peaceful. Children are harmed, some of them dying in armed conflict, suffering starvation, lack of care, lack of acceptance for the colour of their skin, the way they dress, the pronouns they prefer. Children. Violence. Aggression.
I breathe in the suffering, remembering my own child self– scared, terrified, curled in fetal position. The physical feeling of fear rises in my torso, my heart tightens, the shoulders freeze up. I picture them in my mind’s eye. I notice the urge to shift position, to look away. The grief spills through me. I breathe. I breathe. See. Notice. All lives have value. I breathe out and relax, relax, relax. Peace. Through pain. This is my practice.
“Your suffering matters. Your journey is not over. Travel safe.” I say this to my own small child self, the one who sought refuge in a circle of oak trees near a river, watching dust motes filter through the late afternoon light. Tears come. I repeat my words. “Your suffering matters. Your journey is not over. Travel safe.” This, for the ones in the field of all beings. If they hear me, they may stay awake, they may take the journey with eyes open.
My breath rises and falls, rises and falls. Wind whizzes dry snow over the surface of the lake. A skate sail surfer zigs and zags in the gusts of the wind. Catches an edge. Falls. Stands again.
I pick up my journal. I write.
James Hector, surgeon and hunting expedition leader on the Palliser Expedition in the late 1850s, first wrote about Ghost River, as populated by ghosts. Hector may or may not have been told or understood the nuance, the context, the fullest perspective of ten thousand years of Indigenous engagement with this land.
I don’t see ghosts. I feel them. I sense them. We communicate. I don’t really know how. I’ve been reading about time. Despite my devotion to comprehension of written text, I can’t explain exactly how, but time doesn’t exist. We have created it. Humans make containers, systems. I’m interested in what’s outside the container.
We, the uninvited guests/settlers/colonists/descendants of the ones who crossed the ocean and made their way west, primarily rely on the accounts of the earliest Europeans who traversed this land. Some of their stories are corroborated by Indigenous land historians. Many European stories leave out pertinent details.
The shared story of the Ghost River tells us of ghosts walking along the river, collecting the skulls of fallen warriors who died in battle. The walking ghosts place the defeated warriors’ skulls on the steep walls of Devil’s Head mountain, a flat-topped mountain. Cultures all over the world say spirits inhabit mountains.
What is real? What is not-supposed-to-be-real? Do spiritual beings inhabit these flat-topped mountains in front of me? How could anyone know the truth? Can any human being have direct experience of the land?
Actually, I have direct experience with land. I feel it. My whole being feels it. When my physical being is relaxed, when I am open to the present moment as it unfolds, I experience a deep, reverent and physically felt connection to the earth.
Why? How? I don’t know. In my research on this topic, it appears awareness arises and develops as a consequence of deep suffering. I have been harmed and I’ve harmed.
Why? How? For 20 years, I have devoted my life to healing wounds, overcoming the conditioning which has driven my behaviour, and living a life through, with, and for love. In my research on this topic, it appears I am not alone in my quest to serve life through love.
Why? How? Is it possible my very distant ancestors have pulled on a thread of connection and awakened me to learn how to listen? Did my ancestors open their senses to listen to mountains speak? Did my ancestors devote their lives to the earth? Did they experience the separation I am struggling to bridge with my presence, my willingness to write?
This is what is true for me; this is what is real;
My body is of the earth.
I am the earth.
The earth has a voice.
The earth speaks through me.
The earth is both inside me and external to me.
My voice is devoted to the earth.
My body rests in stillness near Ghost Lake, Alberta.
In breath: Thank you. Thank you.
Out breath: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The target of your anger: a list of most unwanted.
a non-listener
a betrayer
a coward
a bully
a former-friend
a misguided __________
a lonely ___________
a thief
an ignorant _____________
a harmful ____________
war-mongerer
peace killer.
The target of your anger: an awakening
a doorway to feeling
the depth of emotion
to meet yourself, also, as
non-listener
betrayer,
war-monger,
peace killer.
To accept the truth: we all have the capacity to harm
To start where you are.
To begin with what you have.
Walk to the store. Pick up any object.
Remember how you once stole something from a store or wanted to.
Let your body feel the pull of wanting.
Let it rise. Let it fall.
Put the object back on the shelf.
To want is human.
At the checkout, choose a line with a human behind the cash register.
Look at them with both of your eyes, with your full attention.
Say thank you.
Say have a nice day.
Mean it.
This could be another beginning.
Surprise yourself
Expect your days to flow
like water.
Your nights to deepen
with harmony.
Expect the sunrise to awaken
who you are.
The sunset, to remember
what you yearn for.
The surprise is the depth
of the process.
to reveal you to you.
The thread of you spins
from way back
to now.
Now is a tapestry:
shimmering, glinting, glittering,
swimming, flowing, nurturing,
holding, noticing, celebrating.
You are the cloth,
the space between the fibers,
the wool and cotton,
the flax, silk, and jute.
Natural fibers bend and break
under pressure, with climactic changes.
Heartbreak. Heartmend.
Wound. Scar. Mark of beauty.
You.
Surprise!
I am a mother and a grandmother, a listener, a wave rider, a force of nature, laughter emerging from the dark.
I have surprised myself over the past three months of being away from the security of home, of a place I recognize, a place which recognizes me.
To write of pilgrimage seems…well, big. Bigger than me. Today is the beginning.
listen.
Dearest of the Dearest Ones,
My apologies for the length of time between one conversation and the next. When we left Calgary on September 10, I couldn’t have known the significance of the landscapes and the people we’ve met, we’ve shared meals with, we’ve written alongside, we’ve listened to, we’ve shared ourselves with– the mystery of life being lived while moving.
dawn.
November 7, 2023
I’m writing today in the wee hours of the morning after falling asleep last night by 8 p.m.. We’re staying at our friends’ home in New Jersey (though they are away)– a beautiful and comforting refuge, an old and grand home with many doorways and windows: three floors of views. The sound of an aquarium trickles nearby, reminding me of the rivers and lakes we’ve paddled. My shoulders remember paddle-ache and my vow to build arm strength in the off-season. I’m wrapped in a blanket, resting in my friend Tess’ chair. I feel her presence.
To be awake when all else is asleep is a gift this morning. Today, my love of the sunrise extends to a love of the dark-before-dawn. My heart spills emotion. I start sentences and they fade.
Athena is restless, too. We are out of a routine. Yesterday, we drove more hours than usual without stopping. She stands up from her bed beside me and wanders to the back porch for water and back again. She returns. Our eyes meet. Deep brown pools of Athena-ness. She wills me to understand something. I encourage her to rest. Sing to her. Run my hand over her back. What is here? Athena rests, briefly, and then, wanders into the kitchen. Is she looking for food? I hear the beginnings of her vomiting. Oh…my heart breaks open. She’s suffering. I find her leash.
My attire? I wear the pyjamas my sister bought me in a generosity-of-many-kindnesses to replace pyjamas-I-loved-and-forgot in a motel room last spring on our ocean-to-ocean trip. My feet walk in croc shoes with faux furry lining, shoes my family members equate with a clown. My jacket is a gift from my son. I wear Love and Good Humour.
Outside our shelter, the night is misted and the plant life damp. The Rockaway River flows sound. I wonder if our canoe, beached on the back deck between two Muskoka chairs while the car is in for diagnosis and repair, feels the water vibrations resonate up the sloped backyard? Does a canoe long for water? Does a stuffed owl or stuffed bunny breathe with the sleeping granddaughter who holds it while they sleep? What are the limits of reciprocal flow?
Athena walks with me under street lamps past piles and piles of dried oak trees. She seems quiet but okay. I don’t know if her ears might be infected or if her body is integrating something else. So many ticks in this part of the world. We’ve met dozens of them.
Josh the mechanic will diagnose the car today and we’ll take an Uber Pet to the vet. I remind myself, like I did yesterday while enduring the car’s shudder– six hours of an erratic panic attack– This is the only moment I am in. And all is okay. Boonton is our refuge.
beauty.
Part Two- November 8, 2023
4:21 a.m.
I am awake with words, sentences, paragraphs.
Saltspring Island. Pandemic writing circles. Buzzing energy. Forgiveness. Intuition. Cabin Falls. Northern Paradise Lodge. Manitoulin Island. Warbler’s Roost. Pamet Hill Haven. Names rise, too many to list here. If you are reading this, your name is part of the fabric of this life. We are kin.
No one does this alone. No one. All your relationships = all your kin. Love flows between all your kin. We are on a pilgrimage to meet our kin. They are. We are. Everything is.
Peace-making requires many beginnings. Meeting face-to-face with the intention to love begins a new story, continues an old story, allows grief to flow, dissipate. The composting begins.
I am a Warrior of the Human Spirit.
Meg told me I would know what to do and when to do it. Yes. I am ready.
flow.
Mar’ce Merrell, Ghost Lake, Alberta