Sabbath # 90

This morning a storm coming up the coast and preparations began last night for high winds and heavy rain. Everyone is hoping for a degree of forced sequestering, safely, of course. It takes a storm to slow down, move inward, and  provide an excuse not to leave the house. We have everything we need. Weather aids in retreat. Gives us pause, perhaps time. My move to the contemplative, not just years but decades in the making arrives by invitation, living in a small town surrounded by marshes, fields and water. My infatuation with the monastic. And today the storm. Dark and dreary, appealing because the compulsion to be outside with the sun leaves me. I like dark and dreary. It suits me. I am reading the Psalms, so many dealing with affliction and lament. Last week, light.  This week, refuge. Coleridge writes Psalm 46: God is our strength and our refuge: therefore will we not tremble. And I’m reminded of the Buddhist’s way of asking for refuge. How often have I asked, no pleaded for refuge? Just last week? Last night? This morning? Take refuge, oh my soul. Resting, not easy. Practicing ease with myself. Practicing kindness. And beginning new. Rumi says, Come, Come, who ever you are./ Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving, It doesn’t matter. / Ours is not a caravan of despair. / come, even if you have broken your vow/ a hundred times./ Come, yet again, come , come. So here I am, always beginning. Faith in a seed. And the full moon with it’s higher than high tides tonight. The wharf at the end of the street no doubt under water by tomorrow. And lines for a new poem in my head. Ink in my pen. Books open. Candles, if we lose light. Wind turning windows into whistles, trees to chimes. The four corners of the house, define my cell. My state of heart more than architecture. In the distance singing bowls.

Sabbath #83

This morning I am at the kitchen table lingering over breakfast with my husband. Usually he has left the house by now and I’m alone in the study with the puppy hopefully sleeping beside me. Just this moment they are in the backyard playing catch or fetch with the new ball. A new partnership has formed, actually a love affair with the purest of affections. And I take a deep breath. The week was challenging, still recovering from a broken collarbone and lack of continuous sleep. By Wednesday,  almost on my knees, I asked, where is the light? The light I feel when I breathe easily knowing that I will not be bereaved about leaving home for two days or lines of poems come easily or I can hear the woodpeckers while walking down Market Street. But not in the last few weeks. I have cried each Tuesday, crossing over the bay, leaving the two days for work. On Wednesday, I sat holding me head asking, where is the light? In the dark I drove back across the bay, asking again and again. On Thursday morning I returned to The Psalms, this my season of midrash, turned to Psalm 104. It’s the Psalm listed in the lectionary this week. I read it through. I’m also reading Poets on the Psalms… turn to the essay ” Upon the Floods” by Diane Glancy.  While driving she is listening to the Psalms… she comes upon Psalm 104. You cover yourself with light: / you stretch out the heavens as a curtain: / you lay the beams of your rooms in the waters:/ you make the clouds your chariot:/ You walk on the wings of the wind. I cover myself with light. I walk to the creek. I breathe in marsh. The wind carries fallen leaves down the street. I am home. I cover myself with light. I cover myself with light. It is difficult to remember.

Sabbath #81

Solitude and silence, not possible at the moment because Dozer, the new puppy, doesn’t understand that this is my writing time. He moves about my study,searching for items he can chew: the mattress frame,the mattress, the leg of the chair I am sitting in, a book mark, the leg of the desk. I prepared for this time by feeding him, walking, playing catch with his favorite stick and now I’m asking him to sit quietly or nap. No quiet reading time, no obsession with a particular psalm. He has his toys: a bone, a soft doll he has ripped to shreds, a plastic chew toy, a hoof of sorts. I just read in Chittister’s Songs of the Heart: Reflections on The Psalms, Grant me to recognize in other men and women, my God, the radiance of your own face Teilhard De Chardin. How about dogs? And Dozer jumps to my knee, wanting me to scratch his tummy. He continues to search around the room, not satisfied with his own collection of toys. My body from broken collarbone, to bruises and teeth marks on wrists, thighs, and hands, to dog licks on my face and neck: all love expressions and expressions of my own limitations. And now, finally he is at rest. And I come to rest, settle down. Gather myself. My season of midrash: Psalms. Last weekend I worked with the words”the unwinding spiral of joy.” And I discover unwinding joy in the quiet moment of stillness where the face of God is sleeping across the room, exhausted from his morning devotions and affections to all of us. My daughter, really my son’s wife, is running a road race in San Francisco this morning with all women. A woman who grew up with two brothers, wrote about the energy of being with all women. While I’m at my desk she is running the race she trained for for months with her running buddies. I’m sure they are experiencing the face of the Feminine Divine as each of their faces reflect similar beauty and strength of movement, ease of not. Radiance. I imagine the weather cool and their peeled off layers as they move through the thirteen miles. How brave and bold. And next week another daughter will run the same distance in another town, mid-country. Another training, more reflection of the Divine in each face. Radiance in the smooth skin and beads of sweat. Oh, to gather my tribe in one place. On Thursday I read Stanley Kunitz’s Poem, “The Layers.” My scattered tribe of affections. I gather and gather with each call, each note card written, each drawing hung on the fridge. And now even the O’Keefe in my office reminds me of my granddaughter, Emma, with her imitation along side. And my son this morning no less than caring for the children so their mother run in the company of women. Radiant. And also my husband’s absent daughter, included. All the children, all the daughter’s, my other child’s partner included. All the children. My husband, his family, my brothers, their wives, their children and their children. The tribe of my affections, scattered. And our newest member, this puppy, not so small, deeply asleep across the room, his face turned toward me. In my study, The Divine. Radiance in each face.