2003- still

so death of someone you love...

when I can clear my mind enough, 6 years later, I feel slightly sick with missing her and am scared to think about her. even through those years of crying and trying to accept. funny.

I think it's nice though, it's love.

I don't think you ever "get over it". but it transforms, all the energy, as energy does... thought and soul energy too. becomes you in different ways.

the love is so strong in there, in my invisibility.

silent and vibrant at once.

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ancestry- this sudden recurrence of need to find out ancestry, landscapes of past lives, figure out why I feel so strongly about certain things. and then finding patterns. interesting.

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home inside one's body and spirit.

contentment despite what others tell you is spiritual... maybe there are some constants and some changeabilities, some collective onenesses, of course, and then the individual motives towards other parts of the spirit, or other spirits within...? what is a spirit?

because yoga, ki gong, taoist mindset and exercise all work for me... I have felt exaltation, light, essence, ether, love, connectedness, flows, blockages bursting or slowly eroding... physically and mentally and spiritually... maybe all one

there is also something on top of that... or within it... like Music, like earth, like nature and simplicity/complexity of survival, connections with other people and animals and plants, food, love, making babies... every part of ourselves can be used in this life. it's so great to acknowledge how well-rounded we are, if we choose it.

and sometimes clouds block the sun so you can appreciate it. I am not always afraid of clouds or night time. and whenever I am, maybe that's also good, in moderation...

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but with ancestry... when I was pregnant, Chris and I were living in the awful part of a crazy city, in an old apartment in an old house, listening to Pink Floyd, and I got all into a daze, thinking about my mama and suddenly I was her, I rose through her, up up up, I felt her, all her mistakes, all the crises which led to new crises within myself. and then afte rI rose through her skull and out, I entered my Oma, and felt her crises, etc... it made me cry a lot, then I began to rise up into my great Oma, and then I stopped, it was too much. but very helpful.

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i feel with my dad's side now, since 2005, i have been drawn magnetically to the mystery of them, because they were silent people, my grandfather and his kin, and you have to guess a lot. but things are makng sense and I feel really, really happy in these discoveries through Norge, Telemark, Vinje, Kragerø, Skafså, Denmark, Germany, Wisconsin... Stoughton, especially. I understand needs for pilgrimages.

ps the picture is Louis Moe Tusch/Indian Ink - from Carl Ewald-1906

"The girl who could keep quiet"

north

there was this one time, after Mama died, where I felt I flew off orbit and, after having tried and tried looking within, I finally looked for "guidance" externally, in various places and books and people.

one of these was a Jungian dream psychoanalyst. there are at least 3 kinds of jungian psychoanalysts. 30000? archetypal intuitives with a sense beyond humanity yet obviously including it, Human ones who believe western society is perfect, and so-so ones. plus a billion others.

my lady was very much a product of something very modernly human, understandably, I guess, but irritatingly too.

here's the thing: once I told her I had this Feeling, a strong urge, to go Really North, and lie beside a river covered in broken ice, just looking at a white sky, lying in the white snow.

I hadn't yet thought about meaning, but felt it very peacefully.

She told me it meant Death. In a bad way.

Like some dead Shakespearean maiden image, a girl who's given up. Ophelia, she said. (Who said I was giving up? ?? giving up What??)

But No.

On 10th thought, it occurs to me now, that there is a Purpose for North. (well, it occurred to me before, but this purpose is different).. like the 4 directions, north has a spirit. The spirit of the north is contemplative, doesn't lie, is stark, pure, etc.

just because it's cold doesn't make it dead. things hibernate. life will return, and anyway, it's already present. life is just quieter than usual and hidden. it's beautiful in its minuteness and seeming invisibility. you have to be really really quiet... and are spirits dead? (...no...?)

When a close family member dies at a crucial time in your life, it will change you- I think you have the right to find your own peace and take the time to find it.

Dream lady said basically, "Get on with your life and go get a well-paying job to support yourself. now. join the group."

I even tried. but I would bawl when I saw a person. violin lessons with tons of mamas with their kids. MAYBE I am hypersensitive...

?

No..

and I am glad I took some time to wait.

oh ps I read this beautiful essay called "The spirit of the north" (not the glenn gould one) and it inspired me.
North is beautiful.
I still need it. I love winter.
the rush of the first snow.

Updated 14 hours ago · Comment ·

"understanding the great mystery"

so, this spring, I double dug my first beds and planted seeds that actually sprouted and turned into beautiful plants and edible life. during that time, I developed a silent but colorful, rich, deep, earthy, loving relationship with these beings. this all might sound obvious, but it was beyond thought, it just Was... like the way it should be... that's what my core said, anyway.

I was just reading this essay by a guy named Joseph Bruchac who is Abenaki and of European descent. He just worded it so well, so I felt like sharing:

"Like the animals, the plants have spirits. Throughout North America, whenever plants are harvested, it is done with an awareness of the life and spirit of the plant. To gather medicine plants, for example, one must be in the right frame of mind.... it may be said, quite literally, that there is no difference in Native North America, between planting and prayer."

Prayer! And you kind of become the plants, or see into their spirits, but not in a defined way. Or at least, that's how I felt.

My brother is a gardener/farmer, and at one point he picked the remaining lettuce of mine saying it would be bitter at this time... but I hadn't had time to understand that its end was nigh and I got really upset, seeing it uprooted so quickly. I thought I might have been hormonal or something, but I slammed the door and stuff. I guess, since he's around plants all the time, and was in the mode of uprooting, and was in that mindset himself, it was just part of the way it was done, but for me, my heart was uprooted.

He understands this now, we talked about it not long ago. that feeling rested with me for these past months.

Oh but ONE more, the best one:

"The stewardship of human beings is not as owners but as partners with many other beings, such as the animals. The animals are recognized not only as spiritual beings, but in some ways, as being wiser than humans. Unlike humans, they do not forget the right way to behave. A bear never forgets that it is a bear, yet human beings often forget what a human must do. Humans forget to take care of their families and forget to show respect to other things. They become confused because of material possessions and power."

yay.

ties

Blood and its potency throughout generations. Often invisible to those not looking for connections.

Cycles and Seasons. Babies, remembering the smell of leaves on the ground from child's perspective. Crazy the memories that come back to you when you have a babe.

That's where a lot of tears come from- the sap that is in you and your ancestors.

I am not against the Virgin Mary's sacred heart, even though I myself am not a Christian, nor a Catholic. But I dig her sacred coeur.

the leaves are almost completely fallen now. My thought are almost completely clear. The words my heart is always spewing at me are being realized as more than overemotive woman-ness. I think i can do this. The days of protecting myself from family hurt are over, the days of cutting ties unnecessarily are over too. I realize a new bottom line. ...love...

The only thing I need now is space and a place to think without eyes everywhere, without motors and engines and frequencies invisible but to the smallest of our nerves. somewhere the tiniest birds are the biggest noise.

...love...