“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Postcard Artist: Sage C.F., age 14
Greetings dear people,
Those of us in the northern hemisphere are crossing the threshold from fall into winter, a time to honor our ancestors and what has come before, as we shed what must go, in order to live a more fresh, true, brave, and expanded life. In the Celtic tradition, this is the new year - a time of new beginnings catalyzed by entering the dark, winter, the gestation of unformed possibilities. What with the pandemic, continued and intensified climate disasters, social unrest, racial injustices and reckoning, the imminent historical election in the USA marking this moment, we are in the long dark, as a mentor of mine would say of this time. There have always been dark times, and there will be again. There will also be light. We are the fruit of our ancestors toils and delights. They sang and weeped, made love and fought, got petty over who did or did not do what, and longed and prayed and visioned and dreamed and labored us into existence.
There is an old fable shared in the Zen Buddhist tradition, about a woman who is being chased by tigers. There are many renditions, but the gist is... she runs for her life, as fast as she can. As the tigers quickly approach, she finds herself at the edge of a cliff. A vine winds down over the edge, so she climbs down and hangs onto the vine high above the ground. She looks down and sees there are also tigers below (what?!?) waiting for her to fall, ready to devour her. She notices a tiny mouse nibbling at the vine to which she is clinging. She looks around and sees a beautiful bunch of wild red strawberries growing nearby. She looks up and down, at the mouse and at the last thin fiber of the vine, then reaches out and picks a perfect strawberry and puts it in her mouth. The strawberry tastes delicious.
Although this is always the predicament we are in as humans - the tenuousness of life, the inevitability of death, with only our experience of the present moment - the particular now we find ourselves in feels even more acute with so much at stake; tigers above and tigers below. As the other side of despair, grief and outrage, our capacity for joy, pleasure and wonder when we are present in an animated world, gives fuel to our work of reimagining, restoring and recreating the world we want to live in. And as Robin Wall Kimmerer says, is the 'return of the gift'.
How much more present can we be today when we have death and endings in our awareness? How much more courage can we muster? How much more willing can we be to let go of what other people think, what is too small for us, the stories that keep us away from love?
I loved playing soccer as a kid. I most often played forward and halfback, and sometimes coach had me on defense. At the end of a game, if we were behind, my coach would yell at me to go for it, no matter my position. One game I left my post as goal keeper, and scored the final goal for our team. It was a rush.... I long to play that full out and give my all for this world. We are in the endgame (Check out Derrick Jensen's book Endgame). Time to unleash our dynamic potential, welcome the wild cards and stay awake.
On the eve of the official election day, our vote, our prayer, we can also choose how we inhabit the present moment - sowing seeds of love and justice for the future in our now. The vulnerable territory of unknown mystery and the ground of creative and abundant possibility in the present moment is calling us home. It is where I want to meet and collaborate with you and others for the rest of my life.
We are made for these times. We all really want the same things. All of us, really. Or at least, the very most of us human beings. No matter who we want in office, and all that. It is so easy to wage war, harder and more enduring to live peace. I hope this brings a breath of peace on this threshold, if even for a breath.
I have a new essay up on my website, Listening to the Land, inspired by a recent trip to Southern Utah; the first in what I hope to be a series of writings. I would love to hear your thoughts if you care to share!
With wild blessings, big love, and mercy for ourselves and each other,
Alexis
Mundane Miracles, Holy Wonders & Other Tidbits
October 2020
"Caste away charm
Nobody is myself
Sweet, sweet afraid"
~ These words came through the silence while fasting in the desert sandstone of Southern Utah twenty five years ago. I returned to this place last month.
A Map to the Next World
By Joy Harjo
for Desiray Kierra Chee
In the last days of the fourth world I wished to make a map for
those who would climb through the hole in the sky.
My only tools were the desires of humans as they emerged
from the killing fields, from the bedrooms and the kitchens.
For the soul is a wanderer with many hands and feet.
The map must be of sand and can’t be read by ordinary light. It
must carry fire to the next tribal town, for renewal of spirit.
In the legend are instructions on the language of the land, how it
was we forgot to acknowledge the gift, as if we were not in it or of it.
Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the
altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.
Keep track of the errors of our forgetfulness; the fog steals our
children while we sleep.
Flowers of rage spring up in the depression. Monsters are born
there of nuclear anger.
Trees of ashes wave good-bye to good-bye and the map appears to
disappear.
We no longer know the names of the birds here, how to speak to
them by their personal names.
Once we knew everything in this lush promise.
What I am telling you is real and is printed in a warning on the
map. Our forgetfulness stalks us, walks the earth behind us, leav-
ing a trail of paper diapers, needles, and wasted blood.
An imperfect map will have to do, little one.
The place of entry is the sea of your mother’s blood, your father’s
small death as he longs to know himself in another.
There is no exit.
The map can be interpreted through the wall of the intestine—a
spiral on the road of knowledge.
You will travel through the membrane of death, smell cooking
from the encampment where our relatives make a feast of fresh
deer meat and corn soup, in the Milky Way.
They have never left us; we abandoned them for science.
And when you take your next breath as we enter the fifth world
there will be no X, no guidebook with words you can carry.
You will have to navigate by your mother’s voice, renew the song
she is singing.
Fresh courage glimmers from planets.
And lights the map printed with the blood of history, a map you
will have to know by your intention, by the language of suns.
When you emerge note the tracks of the monster slayers where they
entered the cities of artificial light and killed what was killing us.
You will see red cliffs. They are the heart, contain the ladder.
A white deer will greet you when the last human climbs from the
destruction.
Remember the hole of shame marking the act of abandoning our
tribal grounds.
We were never perfect.
Yet, the journey we make together is perfect on this earth who was
once a star and made the same mistakes as humans.
We might make them again, she said.
Crucial to finding the way is this: there is no beginning or end.
You must make your own map.
FILMS
Brilliant film directed by Peter Bratt in 1996, re-released this month: "Four Los Angeles street artists hatch a plan to cover the White House with vibrantly painted murals in Follow Me Home, a rebellious fable infused with the traditions of Native, African and Latino culture. Joined by a woman with a haunting secret, they set off on an impetuous joyride across a desert landscape steeped in magic, mystery and danger. A powerful celebration of art, history, music and community, Follow Me Home challenges long-held beliefs about race and identity in America, adding an important voice to today’s racial reckoning."
Powerful and disturbing film by friend and documentary filmmaker Mark Manning: "Secretly filmed over nine years, an oil industry insider exposes the devastating consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill and uncovers a public health disaster and the coordination between government and industry to silence the victims. The stakes could not be higher as the Trump administration races to open the entire US coastline to offshore drilling."
Chumash Territory: poster curtesy of Dawnland.