The Story Midwife

Week in Review: Layers - Strange and Wonderful

I've been traveling this week. Richard and I were the music and worship duo for a United Methodist conference in Ohio. Good farming folks out there in that neck of the woods. I'm a wee bit (read: outrageously) wild and colorful for most of them, but they haven't fired me yet. This was gathering number four of five over a two year time period.

The BEST part of the whole trip was meeting Bette!  Wahoo! We first encountered each other on Christine's blog last week Saturday, then met up in Lima, Ohio on Monday! One of the strangest and most wonderful ways I've met a new friend! Bette came to our concert, then she and I shared stories as we strolled through the cemetery by the church. Simply lovely. Bette's a woodcut artist (really, you MUST check out her Flickr site); she makes luscious art and often weaves it together with luscious words. I know that we'll see each other again. This makes me very happy.

Our week's travels aren't over yet. Tomorrow morning we head to the Twin Cities to help a church in the Twin Cities celebrate their new Healing and Wholeness Center. It's a kick-ass Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian Church of the Apostles in Burnsville, MN) that prides itself in being the Twin Cities' most liberal mainline church South of the Mississippi. We get to lead worship, facilitate some workshops in spiritual practice and music, and perform a concert. It will be a grand trip. Especially since my best friend Heather and her wonder-partner Jess will be joining us at the hotel. Hello pizza! Hello hot tub! Hello silly and deep and compassionate conversations. Yes, this will be very, very good.

Speaking of Heather, I have her permission to share this story of her life. Last week Heather learned that her former partner, G, has cancer. G is an exuberant, spunky, 33-year old woman. And she is dying. She's receiving palliative care to ease her pain and assist her in having some good, final days. Palliative in this case means brain surgery yesterday to insert a port through which chemotherapy may travel to bathe her brain in medicine -- for comfort. In the nearly two years since they ended their relationship, Heather and G had not been in touch, so receiving The News via email was stunning for Heather - and for those of us who know, love, and walked with Heather and G. These incredible women are coming together now to be in conversation, catch up on each others' lives, and say goodbye. 

I cannot imagine the layers upon layers that are intermingled for G -- and for Heather: life, death, question, wonder, hope, saddness, beauty, ache, Spirit, goodbye. Today as we spoke on the phone, I read this poem by Stanley Kunitz to Heather:

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

It seems to me that this is the journey of Life. Every person on the planet gets to walk this journey.  And I think death, particularly the death of one close to us, or more, one's own death, crystallizes it in myriad ways. In ways the fullness of my heart can imagine, but cannot truly understand.

Dear Heather and Dear G,
Know that I am lighting candles and singing songs. Your songs. The songs of the universe. The songs of healing and release and deep rest.

You are ever in my heart.

Deep bows to you both,
Trishy

Equinox Pizza

Here's what our family did last night to mark the coming of Autumn:

"What is it?", you may ask.

Well, it's Autumn Equinox Pizza, of course!

The brilliant idea came to me yesterday afternoon as a way to illustrate  the equinox for Sammy. It's not exactly a circle, for I rarely do anything geometrically correct. But you get the idea. The white side represents the light and the season of summer. It's loaded up with Alfredo sauce, shredded chicken, and mozzarella cheese. The yellow side represents the darkness and the season of winter. It's home to red pizza sauce, pepperoni, and colby-jack cheese. Sammy totally got it. And thought it was the best pizza he'd ever eaten. It was of course, since he helped make it.

Then we went out to build a bonfire and roast marshmallows to say thank you to Summer and welcome Autumn.

All in all a very luscious day.

How'd you celebrate/honor the day?

Autumnal Equinox

It's autumn. Officially. Ahhhhh.

I love the autumnal equinox:
Its balance of light and dark, its one-day-of-the-year reminder that there is equilibrium and harmony. The earth feels so gently poised, and it feels like rest. 

I love autumn: Its stark reminder that nothing stays the same. Years ago I heard a quote that's become my autumn mantra: It is as if the trees in all their glorious, colorful splendor have flung their arms into the air exclaiming: "I'm changing! And I just can't hide it!"

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Autumn is an especially active work season for us. Richard and I have been out and about leading several workshops, retreats, concerts and worship services the last few weeks. At nearly all of these gatherings I've gotten to hear my husband speak aloud that we so often think that a time of transition or change is the exception to our mostly status-quo living. But in reality, we are ever, ever changing and shifting. Each breath is brand new!

What if we danced these changes proudly, vividly, with arms flung to the sky exclaiming, "I'm changing! And I just can't hide it!" What an image: people all over the planet dressed in wild colors to match their changes, dancing down the street with their arms outstretched to the clouds, chanting, singing, howling. To me, that feels like a snapshot of radical grace.

Thank you so much to those of you who have written, called, and sent loving prayers this way as we navigate the school journey with our son, Sammy. Last weekend was a good extended connecting time for our family. This week, I think, has been more gentle for Sammy. We got his weekly progress on the school's "Pillars of Success". His teacher noted that he's "shown improvement in all areas."  There were no check marks indicating "needs improvement." On one hand, I'm relieved. "He's getting settled into the routine," I think to myself. "He's finding his way through this new system." Then I get riled up inside and think, "Oh, I just want him to raise some holy hell! You tell them, Sammy! You be your wild colorful self! Exclaim to them all that you're changing and you just can't hide it!" 

I'll keep you updated...

Speaking of dancing our changes, I will be doing my first solo concert in years next month in Des Moines! While I sing by myself at retreats, workshops, and classes I have not done a full-out concert without Richard at my side in years. As he's the Guitar Man I've relied on his amazing strumming and picking abilities to carry that part of my music. He won't be there, which means I get to rely on my own strumming and picking abilities. Albeit, not as stellar as his own, but I think I'll manage. The concert is part of a larger day of celebration and exploration. In the morning I'll be co-leading an InterPlay workshop with Mary Ellen Lewis. We'll be drumming, dancing, singing, moving, resting, exploring through our bodies and voices the ways we're transforming. Here's information about the whole day: Download dance_sing_drum_bead_flier_2.pdf

If you're in the area and want to hang a poster or share the news of the concert, find the scoop here: Poster - Download trish_poster_urbandale.pdf
Bio sheet - Download trish_concert_bio.pdf

Of course, even if you live far away, you're welcome to come! I'll even pick you up at the airport.

Whatever season of transformation you're in, I bless you, dear one, in all your glory.  For you are changing!  And you just can't hide it!

Namaste!

Grace for the Small Ones

AKA: My Squishing Heart

This won't be a long post.
It won't even be very descriptive.
For I am tired and it's the end of a very long week in our home and in my heart.

I've just put my son to bed. After book time we got to spend a luscious half-hour talking and lying in silence while I rubbed his outdoorsy, child-sweat-scented skin.

I wonder: How do people do it?  Have kids, I mean, and send them off to school?  We've put Mr. Sammy on the bus 20 days in a row now. And it's changing him in ways that are utterly heart wrenching.  I'm not kidding.  It's squeezing my heart and squishing it in ways I didn't know could happen.

This is turning out to be one of the most painful aspects of parenting I've encountered so far.  It's not like the colic that we endured together when the Sambo was just a wee little one.  (The colic that started when he was about two minutes old, mind you, and lasted so long I was on the brink of begging to be medicated and locked up.) It's not like the absolutely horrible extreme unholy, god-forsaken lack of sleep that we endured together until the boy was two years old.  (Okay, I'm a mystic.  I think everything's holy and has it's place in the shaping of the soul's landscape.  But I didn't like it and it wasn't the most healthy period in my life.) It's not like the challenges that arose within and shifted every single relationship I was in (marriage, parents and parents-in-law, friendships).  It's not exactly worse than any or all of these.  It's not better.  It's just really, spinningly different. And I'm at a loss.

Starting this week we get a weekly progress report from the teacher. (Who, by the standards of the public school system and that whole institution, is an EXCELLENT teacher, by the way. She's a GREAT communicator and I think she wants very much for her students to learn and thrive and (gulp) excel.) The report comes home in his school-to-home and home-to-school folder. Sammy has been "having trouble" sharing at center time and sitting still at carpet time when they have their "morning meetings".  He has difficulty keeping his hands and feet to himself and doesn't use the proper hand signals to indicate when he has something to share with the teacher or class.  Apparently he's walking around saying "O crap" "over and over and over."  On the positive side, though, he's learning to read their daily schedule, so at least he's got that going for him. 

As parents Richard and I are to talk with Sammy about these issues and sign the paper and return it to school. I did talk with him.  We sat together on the hundred-year-old hardwood floor of our dining room.  He was surprised to hear that the teacher thought he had trouble sharing at centers.  He thought he "was being really nice, Mama!" When I asked him about sitting at the carpet he pleadingly said, "But Mama, it's because I forget that sitting like this (demonstrates a sitting position similar to hero pose) isn't good for my legs." He's shared before that the "proper" way to sit is "criss-cross-applesauce," like this. When we talked about keeping his hands and feet to himself he said, "Yeah" and looked downward like this was not a new conversation.  He also said he kept forgetting to fold his hands in his lap.

When I asked Sammy if he knew what "crap" means (since it's not a word we use in our home -- well, at least in front of him), he said no, he did not know. I told him it meant "poop" and he was a little embarrassed and agreed that it wasn't too kind. I imagine no one had told him -- he was just told not to say it.

In addition, Sammy brings home homework a few nights a week with an extra dose for those weekends when there are two days in a row when he doesn't have school.

Then there's the bus fiasco delayed the route for 25 minutes yesterday.

Tonight in bed we talked about the new alternative recess that is being offered. He knows that the next time his class will participate in alternative recess there will be peer role models that help lead it. He said quietly, "I hope I get to be one." I asked him what a role model was. He told me quite plainly, "They're the good people." 

I could go on and on into the depths of what this calls up for me. I might go of on a tirade about how the frickin' culture we live in makes it nearly impossible for creative, artistic souls to emerge. How even the best of the public schools in our country are grooming all their little people to be cookie-cutters of each other. How at AGE FIVE we're teaching our children to be the "good people".  (Tell me, then, about those who aren't the "good ones?" What, pray tell, are we doing about them???) I could share how I'm scared my son will go underground in attempt to be one of the "good ones" and what will arise instead is the conditioned little person that has been socialized to fit in. I could tell you how freaked out that possibility makes me. We could take a walk down memory lane and look at my own childhood challenges with school and learning in so-called non-traditional ways and how I still tire at being "too big" and "too much" for the general population to "get". And in later posts perhaps I will.

But for tonight I simply wanted to check in and share my heart. To give you a glimpse of where I am in my own process with this.

Tomorrow morning we will go hiking at Backbone State Park, our favorite.  Then we'll drive to a pizza-and-
a-movie place in Waukon to take in Ice Age 2.  I hope he has the best weekend ever.

Okay, so it was a little more descriptive than I thought.

Do you have stories?  Words of encouragement?  Thoughts, reflections, well-paying job offers near a Waldorf school? I am ever so hungry to hear them.

Deep sighs within,
and deep bows of purest compassion to all the children of the world,
The Story Midwife

Ah, Mayberry!

___________________________________________________________

To all my Big City Friends,

I simply must share some words from a recent open forum posting in our small-town newspaper, The Strawberry Point Press-Journal:

"I'm writing this to let the residents of Strawberry Point know that when you pay your electic/water bill, make sure your check is written for the exact amount. I mistakenly made out the cents amount on my check for fifty-nine cents instead of the sixty-nine cents, which it should have been. A couple of days later, I received a DELINQUENT NOTICE for the amount of TEN CENTS due. Now it cost the city thirty-nine cents to send me a bill for ten cents! Wouldn't it have been cheaper and make more sense to just add the ten cents to my next billing cycle?!! I realize that all of this is done by computer, but doesn't someone enter the information into the computer?

So I have learned to double check my checks and I plan to put my "delinquent notice" in a tatted frame and hang it on my wall. It will make an interesting conversation piece. (Oh, by the way, I did go to the City Hall and I paid my bill of ten cents and got a receipt that same day!!)

Yvonne E."

And there you have it, a little advice from Yvonne E.: "double check your checks" and have a sense of humor about the quirks in life. Oh, and I would add, proudly display these quirks in a "tatted frame" whenever possible.

Here's to you and hoping you can take the "quirkinesses" that come your way today in stride and with a good dose of humor!

Seven Year Kiss

Happy Anniversary to us!

On the Water
A song by Anna Huckabee Tull
A Tribute of Unity and Love and Richard and Trish on the occasion of their wedding day, September 5, 1999

__________________________________________

We first spoke of
this love
out on the water:
Faces frightened,
and light from above
on our boat
On the Water.

We gave this love
the gift of words
And we watched them fly
on the lake
with the birds;

With your eyes in my eyes -
Wide as wonder! -
and they said:

Chorus
Who will hide?
And who will walk on the water?
See this and feel it; believe this real.
This is here now -- it's real now.

And here we are with this love
And it jumps and it dances and burns
and it's one of the things that I am.
Gold-faced and magic with you I stand.

Bobbing and holding like the wood of our boat
It takes all that we are but it's easy to know
As we trust in this truth:
I am more of who I am in the presence of you.

Chorus

Joined in one-ness, here we are.
Unified, opened-wide at the heart
And the water is miles wide as we start
To step on
We Step On.

_____________________________________________________________

To my Beloved Richard,

My, what a wild and wonderful seven years it has been! 

If we're counting from the day we first spoke of this love out loud to one another, it's been nine years and three days.  That morning in the sunrise mist on the Flambeau River in Northern Wisconsin, the old mother loon dancing and swimming a holy net around our canoe. I think she knew of the trembling in our hearts as we gave Voice to our wonderings. Perhaps she alone sensed the courage rippling out from our little boat.

Thank you, Beloved. Thank you for stepping out to meet me on the water.

Just two years and three days later I met you barefoot in the crisp, autumn meadow, my yellow silk dress clinging gently to blades of grass as I began my long and winding walking meditation to the altar where you waited and watched.  On that walk I mused that there were few things I'd been surer of: I knew the ritual our joining in heart and name was absolutely what I wanted, had waited for, and was called to. I showed up with all that I had within me to say YES.

It was such a glorious and beautiful day!

It's 2559 or so days later (as you know math has never been my strong suit). While the absolute certainty of that YES has waxed and waned and bobbed and floated through the waters of our days, my YES is still here in my heart.  Our life together has held many, many stories.  I am less naive, for sure.  While seven years together has brought a loss of innocence, it has also gifted me with the capacity for a greater YES.  I have more YES in me. For you. For me. For us.

So thank you for this circle around the sun. I believe it has been one of our more enjoyable years. Thank you for our love, our home, our family of three with little Sammy Boy. Thank you for the ways we have worked together, played together, questioned, wrestled, danced, kissed, and joined in body, mind, and spirit.

I love you so! And I look forward to the next seven circles around the sun with you. One thing I know: it will be an ever-unfolding adventure.

My eyes in your eyes, wide as wonder,
Your Trish