New House

Today I am not as ill as I was yesterday. Is it the addition of new medicine or the second night in a room outside this house, or just that it took this long for some virus to work its way through.. in any case, I'll take it! I am very weak. But better.

We found a new casita for our final month of this trip in Santa Fe. It is in town, three blocks from the Plaza and very clean. It has a lovely little kiva fireplace and two sweet bedrooms and baths and a nice open kitchen-dining-living area. The owners are charming and friendly and work hard to make it a pleasant space. It is teeny. And there are no views. And I am saying goodbye to my mountain. And to the birds that have come to depend on the seeds I lay out for them. And to the beautiful fireplace and the goodness of this house, in all of its neglect, and it's possession of this particular piece of earth. The man who built the house 13 years ago has become a friend. He cared deeply about how to place the house and how to make the windows lovely and the way the clouds form behind the Ortiz mountains in the afternoon. It shows. You can feel it here. And I will miss this space.

And I will be so glad to feel better. And we will be close to restaurants (for which Santa Fe is famous) and walks around town and close to the galleries, the library, the video rental. If the casita is too closed in, I can carry my laptop to the library and work there.

We said to one another today that we would have had to leave this house in a month anyway so there you are. It is just the timing that has changed a bit. Bless it. Bless all that has happened. Release it. Welcome the next chapter.

Oh how we like to hold on to everything! So much so that there would eventually be room for nothing more. So even though it is feeling like something being wrenched away from our grasp, we ask for the grace to release it freely and welcome the next moment.

Like breath. Like the breathing in and breathing out that I have come to value and not take for granted so much.

New Day

We are learning so many things. The cute little mice that inhabit this part of the country (of which, we hear, there are 10 different types) have infested our beautiful little adobe rental house. We first quarantined the den when a mouse died in the ceiling, and the owners allowed the property manager to move the television to the living room. Then the master bedroom started smelling funny. Well, not funny, really, but bad. Very bad. So we moved to the guest room. The guest room smells sweet. And the window there has an exquisite view of the mountain.

We still had 4 rooms out of six. Not bad. We don't need more than that.

But I have continued to be more and more compromised and especially unable to get enough air at night. It is frightening to awaken feeling as though you have been holding your breath a long time and need to get some big gulps of air in a hurry. And it kept getting worse.

This house has ceilings made of latillas. The mouse droppings and bacteria fall through the cracks between the small pieces of wood. The pest man came yesterday and said we have a medium infestation here. He set traps outside the house for the mice to go into when they leave the house in the day time to get food and water. These traps are filled with poison and should kill all the mice they trap. Then, after a few days of this, he will return and fill all the holes in the outside walls through which the mice are entering the house.

It is all beginning to have a rather surreal quality about it.

So John asked a friend who has lived here a long time for a doctor recommendation. He got one and called only to be refused treatment. "We don't take Medicare." they said. "Most doctors in Santa Fe do not." So for people 65 or over, the option is a walk-in clinic or the ER. Many people in this country are unable to receive adequate medical care. People over 65 are just one group of them. But even for people who have been aware of the problems and adamantly in favor of healthcare reform, like us, it it shocking to suddenly become the ones who are marginalized.

Just now, we have returned from spending an entire day at a clinic where you sign in and wait. We waited the entire day there for the doctor, the lung xray and the blood test. We need to rule out Hantavirus which is spread by mice through airborne bacteria. You can't spread it human to human. It is a very serious illness and kills around half of its victims. We probably don't have that one. But there are a myriad of illnesses caused by this same problem.

I became very faint at the clinic after several hours of waiting. When I told the young doctor that I was feeling faint and my knees felt as thought they would buckle when I stood up, he asked if I thought I needed physical therapy. If I had felt any shred of confidence in his ability before that, I certainly had none of it remaining. He sees an old woman. I am describing a symptom that is very frightening and to me a sign that something is seriously amiss. He apparently assumes that it is just an age-related problem that I have chosen to bring up as long as I have an appointment with him.

There is no triage. People get in line. First come, first served. There also are appointments but they fill up. And that is a return to the walk-in line.


The story is longer. I am afraid. I think of myself as a vigorous woman who rarely sees a doctor. When I do need one, I think I should be treated with respect. Where is it I got that idea? I am learning that it is not the way of my new age group, the elderly.

Passive Diminishment

This is a good time to learn humility. The illness reigns dominant and expectations of accomplishments must be adjusted by these factors out of my control. Teilhard calls this "passive diminishment."

I now have added to my inventory here, an oxygen condenser. It's a big blue plastic box that chugs and thumps sending enriched oxygen down a long clear plastic tube, which I affix to my head and put the little breathing nodules into my nostrils. Then, I can breathe comfortably all night long. It's a litle complicated when I roll over, but not too big a deal.

The overnight oxygen test machine determined that my levels of oxygen, which should range in the high ninety per cents, was dipping as low as 61 per cent. Low levels of oxygen can have a deleterious effect on the organs so that in itself is a bad thing. But the really big deal is that when the airways are compromised past a certain level, there is a danger that the lungs will collapse.
Not good. You die.

So here I am all night, sniffing enriched oxygen. Then I take all that off and sit with my other machine, my nebulizer.

This morning I took my last Prednisone tablet and am feeling a bit nervous about it since it seemed to have the most effect of anything. It is perscribed to reduce the inflammation of the bronchial airways.

The pharmacist says that this is the worst virus he has seen and people are remaining ill for upwards of two months.

Humility is the rule of the day. We make plans. We are here in the land of beauty, every direction we turn. While my car trips and hikes are limited for now, I can look out the windows of this perfectly situated house, and take in the sights of that mountain, sitting steady and strong...of the sky which keeps moving in endlessly fascinating unfoldings..of the birds feeding at the courtyard wall, including finches, bluebirds, junkos, titmice, pine siskins, and two pinion jays who seem to have been left behind by the mob.

My hero has been, for some 30 years, Flannery O'Connor. I am now finding strength thinking of what she was able to do, even though her body was severely compromised. She found comfort in Teilhard de Chardin's lines in submitting to passive diminishment. So then, can I.

Confinment

Not much blogging, but tending to illness, has taken up these recent days. After thinking I escaped the virus that got John for a month, I began to feel incredibly achy and within a couple of days was coughing and had the roster of symptoms.

However then I began to labor with breathing at night which provoked John to get me to a doctor and that led to the realization that I had a low oxygen level and warnings from the doctor about how serious this is. Now I have a machine, a nebulizer, which makes steam and disperses a drug called albuterol into my lungs when I breath. I get to do this every 4 hours. It is called a bronchial dilator. And some prednisone for reducing lung inflamation. And a little gadget that measures my oxygen blood level overnight. And instructions to take my blood pressure every day.

It is a fairly traumatic transition from feeling that I am a very healthy strong woman to a sickly one who is dependent on a whole bunch of meds and equipment to stay safe.

It is also embarassing. I am ashamed of being sick. I am ashamed of being seen as a sick old woman. Just being an old woman is shameful enough.

Why is that? Age, as we know, is what you get when you don't die. So it seems it would be a positive thing.

And the words that come to my mind in association with illness are: dependent, boring, needy, no longer relevant, and so on.

Wow. This is severe.

And yet when I think of Flannery O'Connor, I think of a brilliant, relevant, interesting, strong and relatively independent woman. And she was very ill most all of her brief 11 years of adult life.
As I continue to work on my book, I think of her often and say to myself that this is how she felt in her best days and yet every day she kept writing and she has a whole catalogue of work to show for it.

So my task for today is to forgive myself for being ill and accept its limitations without making critical judgements. That sounds right to me. And write what I can.

Spaces

In the space between night and day, and in the space between day and night--twice in our 24 hour day, at dawn and dusk, are the openings of energy for us to slip our prayers through. That is what people like Rumi (who is like Rumi, you might ask?) have told us.

Another description of this moment is the space between breathing in and breathing out. Does our earth breathe in and out, once a day? Inhale the nighttime and exhale the day?

Some meditation schools say focus on nothingness. Some say the breath. Some have you do little scenes of the beach or the mountains or a tree, for example. The ancient Christian Jesus prayer is the repetition of a mantra, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, Have Mercy on Me." Other eastern schools use mantras as well, such as "Om namah shivaya."

I am currently focused on the way that uses feelings and a sense of the request being granted, if that makes sense. Picture the prayer being already answered and totally feeling the reality of that complete with emotions of happiness and peace and gratitude.

It is said that this is even more powerful when you do it just as the sun goes down or just before the sun comes up. For me it is more likely that I will do it just as the sun has gone down. I have witnessed a lot more sunsets than sunrises. It's just my nature.

And here in this high land of ridges and junipers and mountains and clear air, the sunsets are spectacular and draw you outside. So it's an invitation. Let's go!

The Blank Page

Here is this blank rectangle. What shall I fill it with today? Let's see. I think I will put in a mountain, a courtyard surrounded by an adobe wall, a flock of bluebirds sitting in the tree just outside the wall, the junipers again and again, the sky filling with clouds, the voice of Bruce Cockburn singing about Kit Carson, while sitting in a valley that Kit Carson used to ride through on his missions for the President.

This part of our country has arguably the oldest known history in America of outsiders messing with the indigenous people. The Spanish started arriving here 500 years ago. Some stayed. More of them arrived 300 years ago. More stayed. In the 18th century, Bishop Lamy arrived from France, via Ohio, and more more settlers of all backgrounds. There is a balance between the cultures here, often tenuous, but worked out over time. Water, being most precious of all, has been closely regulated with a system of water rights and acequias (ditches). Again the balance is in danger since the wealthy anglos have started arriving from California and Texas, with their desires to flaunt their money with super large houses and LAWNS and unlimited water expectations, disregarding the balance.

How much of the common resource pool is fair for each person? How much water? How much beef? How much oil? How many plastic bags?

It is time to change the paradigm. How about if we start to value how much we can give away, how little we can personally use, instead of how much we own, how big, how expensive?

It is so easy to say and so easy to point the finger. John and I are in a magnificent house, surrounded by exquisite views and land, plenty of heat when it is cold, plenty of privacy, food in the freezer, and two more houses in Tennessee which we own, one of which is enormous.

Not intentionally, really. Just rolling along in a country with a booming real estate market, making plans to change from one house to another Life happens while you are making other plans, is the old saying. So as we rethink our priorities and want to lighten up our footprint, we actually are committed to a very large one.

This is another blank page we have been filling for our entire lives. What we do, how we grow, where we live, what we buy, who we love. John and I started a new book about five years ago and we have filled it with love of one another, love of our children and grandchildren, the houses we have lived in and the cars we own. The new friends we have made and the old ones we have kept. But in the process we added a lot of baggage which we now wish we could unload. Keep the people, dump the stuff. We would like to dramatically change our footprint.

We don't use plastic bags (much) anymore. Does that count?

Waiting for the Pinon Jays

Just about this time of the day, there should be a clacking, squaking raucous crowd of about 50 large birds who come crashing in, and clean up all of the birdseed. A month ago, they were hard to recognize because they were solid gray. Yesterday they were a beautiful color of periwinkle blue. They stay blue all summer and then darken up for winter again.

The finches, bluebirds and juncos are there with dependability each day as long as I put out the seeds. The mountain is a purple shadow today. The snow is nearly melted on the north side of the ridge bewteen the junipers. The sun is shining. We are listening to Bruce Cockburn on the ipod. And there are very small occasional bits of cloud fluff floating by.

Why worry about whether Citibank just bought a 50 million dollar luxury jet with our bailout money? Why care whether Vilsack is now the Secretary of Agriculture? (He from Montsanto, heavy into genetically engineered seeds and mis-labeled roundup which is, in fact, not biodegradable.) Why care whether the Republicans are going to make a stand against the stimulus package because the 300 billion dollars of tax cuts is not enough?

After JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy were murdered, after the Viet Nam War, after Nixon, I was among the many of my generation who backed out of involvement. I grew an organic garden, got my consciousness raised, became a psychotherapist, created music and focused on family and friends. I started reading fiction rather than non.

But with this new guy, this Obama, I somehow got charged up again. There is a glimmer of hope which opens a little window of invitation to come and get going again. John and I canvassed for him in Indiana and worked in the polls there. Now we are determining which service area we want to be involved with.

I'm working on my novel here in the mountains. It needs a second draft. And watching the birds. And wondering if this will be another false start or whether our new President will match his actions to his words.

P.S. Here they are! It's 2:24 pm and blammo! incoming jays!

Characterization or Positive Spinning

I am reading a blog about happiness and the author is saying that the way in which one characterizes something can make the difference between liking it or not liking it...being happy or not happy. It is the old cup half empty or full saying. I could, for example, tell my granddaughter that this is indeed a very big scoop of ice cream and she will be happy. If I say she can only have a little bit, she will be dissatisfied. There is, I think some truth to this. At least not setting up an adversarial struggle by announcing what she cannot have.

But simply framing a small scoop of ice cream by calling it large would never work in our family because not one of our grandchildren is unable to tell a large scoop of ice cream from a small one.

Of course, there is this famous piece by Magritte called"This is Not A Pipe" and of course, it isn't. This is an image on a computer of a painting of a pipe. This is not a pipe whether I call it one or not.

If the government releases a new edict calling it the new environmental clean-up bill, and it removes regulations limiting emissions from factories, say, then is it an environmental clean-up bill?

While this may seem a stretch to go from ice cream scoops, to not-a-pipes to government double speak, it really is all part of the continuum of what is at one end and what we call it at the other. For a writer it is a constant labor. Because nothing written is "real". It is symbol.

The cow and the tree and the mountain and the sky just are what they are. But we have developed language, from early petroglyphs and heiroglyphs, to modern day languages in order to describe them to ourselves and to each other. We see a big brown and white cow, or a tall spreading cottonwood tree, rugged snow capped mountains or a dark grey threatening sky. For instance.

Then we have words for ideas and concepts and actions and feelings. And we have words to convey attitudes, such as please and thank you. We long to share our experiences and thoughts with others. We long to dissuade ourselves that we are really alone. We long to be understood.

Rather than try to use words to redefine our world so that we can be happier about it, I think we are better off to use other words to accept our world and choose to see its beauty and goodness. When double speak is employed to redefine and manipulate, we become distanced from reality, from our world and from an ability to be grounded in it.

Yes this is a small scoop of ice cream tonite! Eat it slowly. Savor each bite. Isn't it great that we have this ice cream in the freezer? How great is that! Actually our grandchildren might not go for that one either, but I think the chances are a bit more likely that over time it may shape their attitude towards a feeling of contentment with what they have.

As for me, I believe the practice of gratitude will get us all the farthest. Call it what you will.

Bringing Home a Basketfull of Treasures

The hotsprings are just 200 miles south of our Santa Fe house, but the trip is rich with treasures that are filling my thoughts this morning. This watcher was standing at the side of the small two lane highway that goes to the Interstate. He didn't object when we stopped the car to take a photo. He just stood observing us as we were observing him.

Very nearby, in the town of Golden, NM stands this adobe church. It is surrounded by a chain link fence and a number of graves, many of them quite festively decorated with plastic flowers and Christmas garlands.

Golden is called a ghost town although there are people living there and there is a general store. This church, another watcher, is the San Francisco Catholic Church. It was restored in 1960 having been neglected by a population who had become discouraged and moved away after the gold mines in this area had proved non-sustaining. It was built in 1830 about five years after gold was discovered in these hills. It stands above the highway on a knoll with a view of the surrounding valley and the mountains beyond. It has seen the people come and go, and watches over the ones who lie in its shadow.

And another sentry, a cottonwood covered in dust and winter, stands at the edge of the dirt road where we walked in the Bosque. It is silent except when its branches are occupied by the ravens who fly through. It has the air of watching, as well.

A cow, a church, a tree... the snow goose flying very high overhead, the round grey rocks that look like mushrooms, the mountains themselves...observing, recording. The Hopi people listened to the wind in the leaves of the Cottonwood tree to hear messages. The roots are used by the Hopi to carve the kachina figures that are sacred. We, the modern humans, chatter and carry on, listen to the news and our heads are rarely quiet. But the cow and the church and the tree are quiet. They just are.

Being present. Being tuned in. Being still. The surroundings here encourage stillness. The junipers listen, I am sure of it. At the Bosque, the sandhill cranes come coasting in to the different shallow ponds just at dusk. You can hear their calls. The snow geese keep up a constant clatter.

Twice as we were watching, something got the snow geese going and several thousand of them flew up into the air above us, circled around and then landed again. As the darkness grew, the birds became quiet, except for the straggler cranes, coming in in small groups, calling for their clans, then landing.

So as they were settling in, we continued on to our little oasis, The Blackstone Hotsprings Inn and had a wonderful two nights soaking in our own little mineral pond.

It's a new dawn and a new day and we are feeling the shift. As for our agenda, we are going to drive south of here a couple of hours down to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I'll take some photos but this is what I hope to see.. Sandhill Cranes. It's a celebration of sorts and we are staying at the Blackstone Hotsprings in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
The story goes that back in the Day, Ralph Edwards offered to broadcast his show from any town that would change its name to Truth or Consequences. This town, formerly known as Hot Springs, NM went for it and there you are. People in this state call it T or C. It has the best mineral water I have ever experienced and the rooms at this place all have tubs that you can fill with the natural stuff..
I am going to refrain from computer use and just take my book along and do some reading and be quiet. So no more blogging until Friday afternoon or maybe Saturday.
I was watching the confirmation hearings for awhile but can't stand to watch any more posturing. Period. Good questions are one thing. Soap box posturing is another.
So off we go to commune with the cranes. And snow geese. And who knows?

In a live interview tonite, Stevie Wonder says that he met Barack Obama five and a half years ago when he was running for senate. Stevie says that he was so impressed with Obamas vision and his heart, that he said that Obama should become President. Then, he says, they prayed together.

Something New

I am thinking about the event that took place today, the inauguration. But really, not like any inauguration in our history. It is the image of those millions of people gathered to be part of (and this is how people stated it...not to watch but to be part of) this world changing miracle.

Up close, people were smiling and laughing. They were packed in like birthday candles in a little box. They were hugging and waving flags--yes, waving flags--and swaying together, sometimes chanting "O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!" (I believe that we Americans are so accustomed to being cynical that we have limited expressions for joy and hope in the experience of something so moving. It sounded a little like a football game.) But the faces shown on camera were the give away to what was going on inside. Tears, hope, relief, and years of not believing that there was a chance of real change and then, the flood of release.Then the long camera shots of the people. You saw them. To what can we compare this?

And yet, although the people seem to get it, I'm not sure our legislature does. And this includes Democrats. I keep hearing that people have their own plans, and that they are not going to be a bunch of rubber stamps for Obama, etc.

I am beginning to conclude that we don't really know how to get behind a real leader. It seems clear that Obama is not asking anyone to be a rubber stamp. He has stated and acted upon his belief that he wants to hear from everyone. People who have been lucky enough to sit with him say that he actually listens. But then, and I believe this is the correct role for a leader, he makes a decision. At this point, I would love to see these people, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi included, go with him, support him. If it turns out that these directions taken are not working, then work with him to create new solutions.

I am one American that is sick and tired of the strutting and posturing and squabbling and divisiveness that has characterized our representatives in Washington. Come on, people. The sky is falling.

Prayer Technology

When I was a young girl, the Baptists made long prayers of words,

" Dear Father in Heaven, We just want to thank you for _____________, and now we want this stuff___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
We ask this all in Jesus Name. Amen."

Then I entered the Catholic Church and we say memorized prayers mostly, like
"Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins, my mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me.

Amen."

As I have learned many prayers and say them over and over through the years, there is a peacefulness that comes with them, that quiets my mind and heart.

But there is another prayer that is one without words that I really like. Let's say that we want to pray for the new president. This is what I do. I get into a quiet spot, wiggle around until I am in a comfortable position, and close my eyes.

Then I just visualize Obama, breathe deeply, imagining him wise and calm, healthy and happy and safe. Really. And I keep it up until I feel a feeling of love and happiness throughout. ( I got this from another website. I don't know whose it is, so please let me know if I am usurping someone's property.)

Then I say, "thank-you" and move on. Already done. Lots of times when I awaken at night, I just do this for every person who comes into my mind, my husband, children, friends, grandchildren and anyone else who pops in. It's better than counting sheep and when I do fall asleep again, it is in a very peaceful place.

I would like to have a prayer chain of people envisioning our new President so that he would be prayed for every minute of every day. Do you want to do it?

This is Our Inaguration

Paul Krugman's Letter to Obama in Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/25456948/what_obama_must_do/3?action=rate#rate

The train arrived in Washington today with our new president aboard. The daughter of a friend wants to drive from Albany NY to DC tomorrow just to be near the event. She is feeling the pull to be part of it. To be able to say, "I was there." Some estimates say that 4 million people are going to be coming there. Four million!!

Does anyone remember a time when the nation cared so much about a presidential inaguration? This is astounding. What must this be like for Barack Obama? Yeah, I know he did run for President, but yet, there must be a big difference between campaigning and actually winning. Actually moving into the White House. Actually being the Commander In Chief. In three days he will be the President, a real President.

He seems to be stepping more deeply into his new identity. At least when I have seen him speaking, he seems more authoritative than he did at times during the campaign.

A poll showed that 79% of us are optimistic that he can put our country back on track and are patient about it, realizing that it will take time. It will take years.

Monday is Martin Luther King Day and has been called a Day of Service. It seems like this will be the key to much of Obama's success, just as it was a key to the success of his campaign. People feel as though they are needed and want to serve. I am reading columns on the nobility of work and the responsibility of us all to serve one another. These are themes that haven't really been that visible in most of the mainstream media, but they are now.

Can we do it? Can he do it? Will this be the opportunity for our country to have another chance at becoming all we can be? Would it be right to look at this last period of time and the ensuing disasters as a sort of pruning that will ultimately give us a healthy and stable country that could find a new way to define prosperity rather than just greed and self interest?

I pray that it is so.

Miracles and Omens

The Miracle on 47th street ... the airbus that lands in the Hudson River and every person is out and safe. Just before Obama's inauguration, I would like to think that this is the defining omen of the period to come. (This is a photo from Newsday.)

There are many teachings among the Native Americans, as well as many other indigenous peoples around the world, about watching your surroundings because they are always talking to you. I think they generally meant things like if a hawk flies overhead or a coyote crosses your path. But this is 2009 and I suspect that it might translate into more than just wildlife.

Here we have a bunch of geese who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. (What was homeland security thinking? Don't they have rules about geese in the restricted air space?) Anyway, here is this U.S. Airways plane, says U.S. right on it. It is in really big trouble and the engines are shooting out flames and there is no power. We are going through a potential crash here in the U.S. and really the whole world. Our engines are on fire and there must be fast perfect decisions but this is the sign that they can land us all safely. There are buildings with people in them everywhere and any kind of a hit on a building, well, we have already seen what happens with that in New York.

But then a miracle occurs. Through the deft guidance of a pilot who is not asleep at the wheel, the plane banks to the left and flies perfectly into the Hudson River. It doesn't flip over and it doesn't go in nose first and sink. It just floats perfectly on the river and the people all get out and stand on the wing where the wonderful New Yorkers come by ferry and tour boat and Coast Guard and every last person is saved. Could Captain Sullenberger receive a medal, by the way?

A pilot named Sully and a pilot named Barack. That is the meaning I am taking from this and am greatly cheered. The willingness to take on the responsibility for so much damage in both men's situations, think clearly and use great skill and intelligence to turn the crisis into a miracle. May God help Barack Obama lead us in a good way out of this terrible mess.

We will be the ferrys and the boats and the coast guard. We will work for the Captain.

Every minute of the day the mountain changes. The sun comes up, the sun goes down, the light moves and illuminates different aspects of the mountain and the mountain is new. Valleys appear and disappear. Colors appear and disappear. The profile itself stays the same but within that, there is tremendous movement. My little CoolPix camera doesn't do justice to it at all. It shrinks the mountain to a little sliver when in fact, it is a very large presence that dominates the southwestern sky. I will see what I can do about this. But in the meantime, this is another view from the house. It is the private courtyard outside the bedroom.
The little birds were all aflutter, carrying on like mad and I heard a thump against the window so I went to check it out and it was a hawk ... it flew away so it was okay but that is why the little ones were carrying on. Now the jays are here and they are totally a mess--loud and boisterous and completely amusing.
Light and sky, Light and sky. Birds and light and sky.

Reading the news this morning. Says that the republican congressmen are going to oppose releasing the other half of the tarp money to Obama, who says he will use it if needed and will monitor where it goes but wants to help small businesses and homeowners. They had no problem essentially giving the dough to Bush and Paulson who simply passed 350 billion to his buddies with no strings and no oversight. But now they have a problem. Same old, same old.
The economy is worse. Joblessness is worse. Foreclosures are worse. Every legitimate economist that I have listened to, from "liberal" to conservative, has said that we are in a lot of trouble and we may be going down a lot farther than most people want to think about.
Who elected these people? Is it really impossible for them to scrap their petty partisan politics in times of emergency for our country? Will they just sit on the hill and play politics and squabble? It is hard to believe that they are not all complete idiots, and this includes some of the democrats as well. What are they thinking?
We have a leader. Let him lead. Give him the support and get our country moving. Good lord. We have a major flat tire. Lets not stand in the middle of the highway and argue about the right way to change it. Some big 18-wheeler is going to come bearing down on us and blow us into bits. Get it done, get moving, and make adjustments along the way.
I promise I won't do political rants every day from now on, but today, this is on my mind. We have been without a president for 8 years. We have had the seat filled by an immature, narcissistic, disassociated dunce. A ten year old boy scout could have done better.
Now that we have a President again, let's get behind this agenda and begin to heal.

...what humanity most desperately needs is not the creation of new worlds but the recreation in terms of human comprehension of the world we have, and it is for this reason that arts go on from generation to generation in spite of the fact that Phidias has already carved and Homer has already sung. The creation, we are informed, was accomplished in seven days with Sunday off, but the recreation will never be accomplished because it is always to be accomplished anew for each generation of living men [sic]. thus spoke Archibald MacLeish.

On the table here beside me is the camera, a pen, some binoculars and some papers and books, and a bowl of small oranges. The sun is lighting squares on the floor from the window panes in the french doors and windows that make up the wall of this dining room.

And this "is a day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it."

We are far from Gaza or Iraq or Afganistan or Darfur. (This list is not meant to be all inclusive of the places on our planet where people are being murdered by other people.) We awoke this morning and the question was, is the sun shining. We raised the shades and got the answer. It was. It is.

Then start the hot water for tea and take seeds to the birds who are digging through the snow that fell during the night, to find leftovers from yesterday. Our concerns are: how are we feeling today? Is John better? Am I holding steady in my resistance?

It is quiet outside. It was quiet all night. We heard no bombs dropping or lazars firing -- no great waves of fireworks that kill. Outside this window is sky, much sky. And the junipers, the adobe wall, the birds and the mountain. There are no fires threatening to consume our house and there are no dead and wounded lying about.

We are not homeless. We have too many homes. Two that we own and this one, that we rent. We did not sleep in our car last night, like the lucky homeless who still have a car to sleep in. This world has become a precarious walk across a deteriorating rope bridge over a bottomless gorge. People are screaming and falling off, left and right, and yet there is nothing else to do but keep walking.

The Bernie Madoffs and Dick Cheneys of the world are shaking down the walkers before they enter the bridge and somehow we all just keep handing them what they want. And I am not certain that refusing to read the news or watch it on television will help in the long run.

And not sure that this situation is within the realm of reversal. Even Obama and his good intentions seems already to becoming confused. Which way to turn. How much to expend. On what? Simple seems to be out of range completely and forever.

Is this God's plan? Does God plan these things? Are we all part of this pagent moving toward Armegeddon and the End of the World as the Fundamentalist Preachers and Authors are promising?

And yet the sun is shining here. The little birds are hopping around the snow, eating their breakfast. The sky has a few little raindeer-shaped clouds moving east, and we have food in the pantry. How do we make sense of the whole picture of our earth and what is happening? I am guessing that each of us has to seriously pick up the gauntlet... what what on earth does that mean? What do I do? I want the little packet that I unfold and inside is the next assignment, signed, God. How about it?

The dream: I am at a sort of retreat house with my friends, Sarah, Dolores, Dale and Susan and at the moment I am admiring the view from the deck and see Dolores walking into the woods. Then I am in a room with a lot of toddlers and it is nap time so I lie down. A small blond boy wearing striped oshkosh overalls, maybe 20 months old comes and snuggles with me. I am aware that it is not my son, Charlie, but am completely enjoying how precious this experience joined with memory is. I stroke his hair and feel that sweet feeling remembering how deeply intimate these moments are when your children are babies.

Then naptime is over and the child's mother comes to claim him. She is very young and sweet.
I was thinking about my children yesterday. How they grow into adults. How these babies become men in their own right. The closeness that you think could never go away, does.

Charlie just turned 30 on January 5. The twelveth day of Christmas. He is back in grad school and UPenn. He is married. And he lives far away. But last night, in my dream, I had the gift of actually feeling again how close that mother and baby bond was.

And now I am 65. I have grandchildren and medicare. This is the dusk period of my life...the sunset. I didn't used to be this old and I'm not sure quite how to do it well. There is an image I have of someone who awakens early every day, has good routines and habits, meditates and exercises daily, lives in small neat chunks of measured productive days. That was my grandmother, Dorothea. My other grandmother, Emily, laughed at naughty jokes and adored listening to Queen for A Day.
I am more like those birds yesterday, who swoop and then land, in random patterns, making big flaps and then disappearing. But I think that if I stayed in this spot and got to know that mountain it would be a way of grounding, a way of having a constant in my life. But the fact is that we are here for another two months or so, and then I will not be seeing this mountain.
There is another place in this state that I have loved and that is the Black Mesa on the land of the Santa Clara pueblo. Once I brought home a photo so that I could have it on my wall to look at every day and at first the inner vision of the mesa and the photo kind of meshed. But gradually it just became a photo and a story to myself. Yes that is the mesa I love. But the experience of it faded.
I am thinking that God must be like that. If I can find a way to stay near, God will be real to me. I wonder if this is true?

They come in large flocks, squaking and whistling, diving down to the wall and then all swooping back up to the tree, then back again to the seeds scattered along the wall and the courtyard. They are crow sized but not solid black. They are boistrous like crows, but not all black. I have been searching for their names but not yet certain. They stay a half hour or so, flying up, flying back, all a mess of wings and chirping, and they manage to clean out the bird feeder even so.

I looked to see if there was an Our Lady of the Birds but couldn't find one. There is an Our Lady of the Rock and Our Lady of the Sea and of Guadalupe and of Sorrows. I don't know which one this is but it is typical of the art of Northern New Mexico. The old churches are filled with the statues, called santos and the paintings on wood, called retabolos. Isn't she beautiful? She sits in a small niche in this adobe house and watches over us.

The art of New Mexico is very often Catholic and we frequently see the different depictions of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in churches, painted on buildings, in tiles installed by gates and over doors and in courtyards. She is the Mother of the poor and adored by peasants in Central America. She is always shown with roses because that was the miracle she used to convince the Bishop that she was really behind the message to build a church.

Every once in awhile, God actually makes it a point to speak to somebody in no uncertain terms. The children in Poland, the peasant man in Mexico, Noah, St. Paul falling off his donkey, Mary herself, and a few more. Others get silence. I have often wondered why that is. It doesn't always seem to be connected to the purity of one's life. Is it random? That seems too wierd. But I wonder what are the criteria.

I for one, have not heard the booming voice. But when we wanted to find a house in Santa Fe that was out on the land, this one perfect house showed up. And when we gulped and agreed to the cost, someone wonderful showed up to rent our house for three months, covering the biggest expenses of being here. Is that God? Is it the result of when you follow your heart?

We followed our hearts again this winter to New Mexico. We are perfectly pleased with this part of the world and this spot of land the house sits on and we love the windows and the sun pouring through them, warming the saltillo floors.

Thank you, hearts. Thank you, God.

Old saying: Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you. Some days you wake up and you don't feel so frisky and you head is pretty foggy and you feel wasted like when you partied all night, even when you didn't. Some days , clear sailing. I guess it is a good year when there are more of the former and fewer of the latter.
First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is. It could be a mountain. It could be a clear thought, a clear head. It could be a dream.

What do I need in order to be ready to write seriously again:

• At least 5 new gel pens, fine point, with the thick base so my fingers don't cramp
• At least six yellow pads, regular size, not legal (they don't fit in the lap so well)
• A clear head
• All my phone calls for the next four years completed
• Groceries stockpiled for at least three months
• Correspondence completely up to date
• Absolute silence
• Good dreams
• Restful sleep
• All health issues resolved
• All laundry, towels, sheets, blankets clean, folded and put away
• A shelf full of reference books
• One large roll of white butcher paper
• Blue tape (safe for walls)
• 50 pounds of bird seed
• The right mood
• More words

There are clouds gathering over the mountain in an otherwise clear blue sky here. Gathering clouds sounds like something Chinese. There is a 40 per cent chance of snow tomorrow. The green chili chicken soup is simmering on the stove. The birds are eating like crazy--need more seeds. But now we do have the 50 pounds.

I actually started working on the voice of the book day before yesterday. Yesterday we spent in town going to doctors, groceries, pharmacies, labs, and Wild Oats.

Maybe complete seclusion and someone to put trays of soup in front of my door a couple of times a day.

2009

January 1, 2009 is today. It is a brand new year. We are new. According to what I've read, we are constantly renewing at a cellular level anyway, but New Year's is one way of acknowledging and marking renewal. What if every New Year's was a sort of soul jubilee--a clean slate. Maybe we are given a brand new chance to be blemish free and innocent. We can choose what we want to carry forward and what we want to leave behind.

What would you do differently if you knew that you were completely and utterly new today with all of the old patterns and garbage and sins left behind? How would you feel today? What would happen if you behaved as if this were true, regardless of whether you could prove it or not. What would you do differently? Of course, it is a matter of choosing. If you choose to bring something forward that really weighs you down, that is up to you. But if you choose to leave it behind, that also is up to you. It could be true, you know. There are some who say that this is true of every second that we are alive. But perhaps it is easier in some way to comprehend if we say it is true on New Year's. Or a birthday.

The new year is often depicted as a new baby. The old year as a bent over, white-bearded old man--the weight of the world on his shoulders. These are all the weights that we pick up over time. The burdens of worries and obligations, of grief and guilt. Of dreams unfulfilled and hopes dashed. Of lives lived in the past or in the future, thinking what could have been or what might be coming just around the next corner.

What if?? What if?? What if we just shook it all off, all of the past year and the years before that as being contained in the past year, and began anew?

What would I carry forward for today?