sacred ground

I told my grandsons that this was a fairy castle, and we built the wall of stones, one by one, to keep the monsters out. Every time they came near this circle of trees the story of the fairy castle became just a little bigger... the large lizard climbing the tree was the dragon of the castle, the cricket who lived in the bowl of the tree was the guard, the sentry, at the door to the castle... the fairy queen was the butterfly that dove and pirouetted through the circle of trees.

But as I built the story it seemed more and more real to me. It was an enchanted place. A ring of sycamores with a juniper tree in the center. It became a perfect place for little boys to play in the late afternoon and it was a good place for me to sit and be still and silent when the opportunity arose.

Sacred ground. I tend to forget to really see it in the hubbub of daily life. It takes me getting out of town, out of my everyday environment to see how beautiful and really holy place can be. In the winter, I look out my kitchen window and sometimes I am struck with the beauty of it all... but as the summer wears on in Phoenix, I live in a house with the curtains drawn against the heat, so I stop looking outward.

We had to leave the fairy castle today and come back to this sun baked city... but as I write, tonight, a rain has begun to fall. A small respite in the relentless heat of summer. This day I am thankful that I was able to go camp with my daughter and her family, to enjoy the land and the night sky, the cool spring fed creeks and the enchantment of a ring of trees that you can find in the high country.

art day

This summer, dyane and I have tried to do an art day once a week. Yesterday was our day and we headed out in search of treasure.

Our goal was Greek food, and estate sale shop, an art museum, and beads. I told dyane I was going to buy lunch and copper beads. Period!

Greek food - I had been hearing about this little Greek place that had great gyros. Dyane and I dined and talked about art and color and designs, and the thrift store we could see out the window of the restaurant. While the gyros were really good, the real treat was the pistachio baklava we had after... on to the shops...

The thrift store was pretty typical, but it did have some really nice glassware and one silver compote that dyane and I talked about for a long time... beautiful lines... dyane had them set aside a stack of glass trays for her and we headed on to the Estate Sale place that was down the sidewalk...

This place is a treasure trove of antique jewelry, glass and collectibles, plus some really nice furniture. Dyane took a long time at the jewelry counter while I figured out the pricing system.

I found a pin I liked and handed it to the lady at the counter, then wandered back into the glassware section (I thought it was a safer place for me) while d. continued to browse. This is where I found the tea towels. They were in a locked case. The colors! The textures! I loved them right away, but worked at keeping my distance. When d. finally trailed in, I pointed them out to her and she told me to get someone to unlock the case so we could tale a closer look... they are days-of-the-week towels. Embroidered with little kitties doing housework. I did the "oo-ooo-oo!" thing... which is a clear indication that I am going to purchase whatever is in my hand.

When we left the shop, d. had three bracelets, a necklace and earring set that was fabulous for her, and some little silver coaster... I, the person with all the good intentions had a pin, tea towels and a ring. I told d it was possible that I would never be able to quit my day job.

When we got to the museum, the exhibit we wanted to see was not up... and just as well, we were running out of time and still needed to get to the bead shop we like. There I did stay a little bit more true to my mission. I walked out with lots of coppery things, some great ideas I can't wait to try and some square iridescent seed beads that will make for wonderful texture in some of the designs I am working on.

We got back to my place just in time to throw on our bathing suits and hit my community water aerobics class...

oh, and notice my table? That is coming along too...

empty canvas

There is nothing more exciting or intimidating than an empty canvas... and I have one right now.

I like to paint furniture. I like how I feel as I do it, like I am reading a story, or taking part in adventure. I don't know entirely where I am going but trust that the paint and the ideas will come as the story unfolds.

I have had this table for years. It was roughly made by hand and has pits and scratches, drilled holes and deep carvings in it. It once sat in a classroom and kids names are written underneath it. But for years now it has been mine and I have loved it... but I knew someday it would be painted. Two days ago I began with the base coats. Deep terracotta on the top, a cool cocoa brown underneath and the legs are the color of the sand on a Mexico beach.

I had planned on painting the top to resemble a Navajo blanket, but in the last day the table has been leading me in a different direction. I can see a moon set in the very center, glowing gray-white in a dark sky. I can see a landscape working it's way around the table reaching for the cool light of the moon. I can see birds in the trees and on the ground and tropical flowers blooming in the cool night air.

A few minutes ago I went to my file of pictures... magazine clippings with colors, textures, designs that delight me... and I found a crazy looking chicken with a red pop-out eye, a picture of a tree with a stick bird in it, and some petroglyphs. I feel armed. I am seeing turquoises and clean pale greens. I am seeing rusty reds and oranges. I am beginning to feel the excitement that comes with beginning.

But I will put off starting... in fact I am putting off starting, since I stopped to take a picture and write. I have to come to it whole. I have to be ready. I have to feel where the first brush stroke will be before I take the plunge. I need to let it all jumble around in my brain a bit longer. But it will be today. Today.

sweet corn

Going swimming, eating sweet corn (for the first time on the cob)... what a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon with family.

I had bought chicken brats and white corn on the cob the day before at the market. The brats had been boiled in beer and lots of garlic and then the brats and corn were both grilled until they were a bit charred.

We had been to the pool and had played really hard in the water. Pete learning to kick and blow bubbles and William learning to become braver and braver about putting his head under and swimming on his own. When we got back to my place everybody was hungry. The boys milled around the kitchen looking for any handouts as they waited impatiently for dinner to be ready.

Finally all was ready, dinner was served and we had moved to the table. For a few minutes it was silent as we all started to eat... gosh, we really were hungry! Then I took my first bite of sweet corn...

Now, I have never been a big fan of sweet corn, or at least the golden kind I ate as a kid. It is messy, it gets in your teeth, and frankly the taste seldom made the work of eating it worth it. I remember Mr. Reeser bringing my mom grocery bags full of the stuff and knowing I would have to eat it for days until it was gone. But in the last five-ten years I have discovered white sweet corn. Where was it all those years I was growing up? Is this one of those new sweeter varieties developed by the corn industry to keep us hooked - and fattened - on corn? And I have learned how to prepare it. On the grill, shucks still on.

So as I took my first bite of corn, I sighed, "mmmmm" and took another bite. Then I looked up. Peter was watching me from across the table. I said "mmmm" again and then he reached for his corn, which had been cut off the cob, and popped a kernel into his mouth and said. "mmm". Conversation began to pop up around the table, but Pete and I kept "mmming" and eating. But he wanted a cob. Finally I told my daughter, his mom, to give him a half cob to try (she had told me he did not get corn-on-the-cob yet). After some coaching... "hold it in two hands"... he got the idea.

Needless to say, when dinner was over, Pete needed a bath and my table cloth needed to be washed.

It is in these small, but precious moments, that the joy of God and life overtake me. Sweet corn. Sweet Pete.

As Anne Lamott has taught me, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

is what you get

lynn nelson, the leader/guru of GPWP, the writing project at ASU told our class, maybe fifteen years ago, that when he entered a classroom he told the kids his one requirement was that they care... and if they did not care that they pretend to care until they did, because it was by pretending that they learned to not care.

Wayne Dyer said in an audio recording I listened to over and over again until I had it down to rote memory, that the world and the people in it were perfect just the way they were. That children starving in Africa was perfect, and the fact that we couldn't stand it was perfect, too.

I recall sitting in the steam room at the gym years ago with my eyes closed. I was trying, pretending really, to see my daughters as perfect just as they were. They were teenagers. They were doing some very distressing things. I was beginning to realize I could not control all the outcomes, and that the only person I could really influence was myself. One of the things I needed to do was to become more peaceful inside. That required letting go. Seeing them as okay, perfect as they were, was a key component of the process.

And a funny thing happened... as I pretended... as I slowly turned my way of thinking about them around... they changed. Now maybe they just grew up, but I do not think that was the whole thing. I think that when I changed how I thought about them, that gave them the opportunity and encouragement to grow into the good and lovely young women they have become.

What you see is what you get. Studies have been done in classrooms where a teacher is told at the beginning of the year that hers is a gifted class, and by the end of the year that class's test scores show dramatic improvement. Conversely, teachers who are told they have a slow group, have shown much less improvement.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how we see people. I wrote about looking for one positive thing to say, about how change could happen and does happen one person at a time. This is not about saying nice things, although kind words do make a difference. This is about changing your perception... about knowing that Jesus dwells just as surely within George Bush and Dick Cheney (I know, hard to swallow) as it does within Desmond Tutu.

A sixteen year old girl, whose name I do not remember, wrote a poem called We Are The Thunderstorm. In it she said that alone we are like drops of rain hitting the dry earth, making no discernible impact, but together we are like a thunderstorm, quenching thirst, washing away grime. And yet it takes each raindrop.

So I pretend until I learn. I pretend I am having a great day and then realize that my day has improved. I pretend that I see Jesus, an essential and unquestionable good, within a surly eighth grade student and find that they have become people I like. I cling to the idea that the world is unfolding just as it should and work at convincing myself that my being here does make a difference. I read about chaos theory which says a butterfly in Canada fluttering its wings can effect the weather patterns on the Indian Ocean and I pray I am that butterfly.

Wayne Dyer says believing is seeing... but I think it sometimes is a long road to belief... so in the meantime, just pretend. Because, in my experience, what you even just pretend to see, is what you often get.

ouch!

I spent the day with friend, dyane, who is a marvelous creative soul. We talked art all day, made bracelets, looked at art books, lesson plans, a paper-folding video. She ignored the ringing of her phone... and I got none that I was aware of. We started with coffee in the morning and ended the day with a nice brew around 6 pm. Great day, great day....

However, earlier in the morning while I hiked, I saw a scorpion. The first scorpion I have ever seen on a trail while hiking. It had eggs or babies on its back. I stopped and looked at it and it looked at me. I wondered whether to smash it, but really, I was in its space... I told it to get off the trail and went my own way.

When I got to dayne's I told her about my scorpion sighting... she lives near the in-town foothills and has experienced scorpions in her house. Because she has been stung before, she warned me to keep my shoes on, that the scorpions had been very active lately.

When I got home my message machine was flashing, my daughter had been stung by a scorpion. It had been in the boy's toy box, and she was on the floor playing with them, when she reached into the box for another toy car she was stung. She is in pain and will be for a couple of days, but mostly she is glad the scorpion got her and not one of the boys.

The Buddhist teacher I had years ago talked about carefully removing a spider from a residence to free it into the wild. She talked about the sanctity of all life. I remember wondering if I could so serenely remove am eight legged intruder from my house.

We have moved into the scorpion's territory. We like to live pushed into the folds of the desert hills. We like to be within walking distance of the trails. We don't like them in our houses, but there is little we can do to keep them out. The truth is, there really are not all that many scorpions, rattle snakes, gila monsters around.

But when they strike we all shudder just a moment in fear.

what you see...

I think we spend a lot of our time with the blinders on. You know, just going through the motions... or I do anyway. I think we almost never really see the people around us. And when we do happen to notice them our judging mechanism quickly dehumanizes them, calling them "Hot!" or "Fat!" or whatever else trips our trigger.

I am not talking about making eye-contact, though I have noticed for me, even that seldom happens. I am talking about really seeing people. Looking at them. The entire package. Looking at people without judgement, but rather with love.

Years ago, it was suggested to me that I look at the purple-dyed mohawk wearer with black leathers and body piercings standing next to me in the grocery line and find one nice thing to say... like "Whoa! That color (of hair) really goes with your eyes!" It was pointed out that this person probably doesn't get a lot of positive feedback and the smallest congenial comment might make their day.

I have read that women, when they enter conversation say things like, "I like that dress" or "great earrings!" , that we have been trained by our environment to do this as a way to fit into the society. I have noticed that I do comment on these small things as daily practice, but that this kind of talk is not the same as being aware of that person who might put me off. This kind of talk is part of some type of pre-programmed polite-speak, and that I can do it without really being aware of the person I am complimenting at all.

But seeing people is so important. A couple years ago I told myself one morning that I would practice seeing Jesus in the eighth graders who came up to my desk. And I did, though I needed to continually remind myself that this was my intent. The funny thing was that by the end of the day I liked them, really liked them... and I think they liked me. Something moved.

Once I asked a women's group where they saw Jesus, and I got answers like, "in the choir, in a old person's face, in a baby..." and then I asked how often did they see Jesus in that person with the sign at the freeway entrance looking for a handout. Ah, yes, that one is harder.

Charlie, the assistant principal walked into my office one day and complained about the rash of discipline related issues he had to deal with. I remember I said, "Pray for Peace." and he answered me that it was a waste of time. He said all the nuns and the priests prayed for peace and there was no peace.. what good would it be for him to pray.

And I answered, "Imagine if every teacher in this school prayed for peace, and if every parent of every child prayed for peace, and if every person in this community, state, country, world prayed for peace and lived for peace. Don't you think we would have peace then?"

It begins here, with me. It begins with how I see things, with what I long for. It only blossoms when I open myself to the love being offered. It only grows if I feed it with my faith, my intention, and my presence. This movement happens one person at a time, one interaction at a time. It is happening right now.