Light Dawns

Light Dawns...I am uncom- fortable with the title. This week has felt anything but light--it has been both dark and heavy; and yet those words, and the evidence of light, continue to leap out at me, if not from me. And besides, it isn't Lent yet, and the light isn't supposed to come until Easter. What will I write at Easter, if light is dawning now? Everything is out of sync. I try in vain to come up with something to write about that makes more sense to me. When I wake this morning I realize that this is what it is going to have to be. So here I go to see if I can discover what I am supposed to learn about light in the dark.

I have nearly reached the light at the end of the tunnel that is work in January. The month from hell lasts well into February. I still have six weeks of filing to do...making new folders and doing the filing are at the end of the tunnel; not to be tackled until I reach the center and head back out into the light. The folders are made and the filing might get done this week, along with other odds and ends. There is an end to both dark and heavy. Two things that redeem my January work are the moments on West Street that begin and end the hours that are sandwiched between my drive to and fro. I watch the sun rise over the city at an hour when most people are not heading to work; sometimes I pull to the curb and watch. And on the way home, after most people are already at home, I drive past the West Street power station. By day it is an ugly tangle of poles and wires and transformers; but after dark it is bathed in periwinkle light that transforms it into a work of art.

The long days are over, so I will miss the sunrise until daylight saving time begins and the morning ride is again at dawn briefly; and the purple light show is done until next winter when the daylight ends early. But something else happens on West Street this week as I drive to work on Wednesday. A slumbering revelation erupts from a place deep enough within me that I have been able to ignore it until now. Tears well up as I realize that I am on my way to a place that has defined my life for nearly ten years, and been an anchor when everything else changed--several times--and I don't want to be there anymore. It disturbs me. It feels dark and scary and very heavy. I don't know what is happening to me. One of those times that a therapy conversation would probably be helpful! And I consider it. (Therapist friend, be on alert. I am aware that people read this blog who will be concerned about my revealing of that thought; but I have vowed to myself to use this space with integrity. And that is where I am this week.)

As has become my custom, I look to the garden to see what I can learn. At the beginning of the week I find four buds on the Lenten rose. Lent is late this year, but apparently the rose is not aware or does not care. Last year it bloomed for the first time, two blooms. I also find a daffodil with swollen buds. When I get home on the day that I broke open, I take my usual tour of the garden. Both the rose and daffodil buds have also burst into bloom. The winter jasmine that struggled through the snowiest winter on record--one bloom-stalk, then three, then six, then four--is in full bloom this week and bathed in light.

The weather this week is spectacular. The "o-Phil-shul" groundhog predicts winter is nearly over, but this is flip-flop-tempting ridiculous! It is February! I have slept with open windows, even turning on the fan the past two nights. It is a good thing I can't see the light from my office; it would have been hard not to be in the garden. But yesterday I was out all day. I have been noticing that my pansies are unusually pretty unusually early this year in spite of an unusually cold winter. I know why that is: for once I pulled out the summer annuals before they were spent, and got the pansies into warm ground. They have bloomed through the winter and they are already increasing in girth. I am pretty sure the garden is telling me something. Sometimes what we have loved needs to end before it becomes unbearable. Too often I have waited for change until it is forced upon me. It seems easier that way. No decisions, no ripping. Or if there is ripping, at least there is the comfort that it wasn't by choice. Not my choice, at any rate.

This weekend, speaking of ripping, I take out the last two bushes in front of my house to prepare for the roses I want to plant. Roses scare me. Some things I read say they are high maintenance. Some rose growers I know say the same. Other say rose-growing scare stories are over-rated; just enjoy them. And my neighbors, whose roses were planted by the woman who renovated the house, do absolutely nothing in their yard (which drives me and my loppers insane) and the roses look great. I thought of roses when I read this yesterday, "We must jump into the unknown to gain insight." (Nicoletta Baumeister) I know nothing about roses, but I am reading and listening to the words of people who do. Roses, life changing decisions, we have to just jump. Not off tall buildings, necessarily. Not without a parachute, necessarily. But jumping with a ball and chain attached to our ankles would not be a good idea. And the anchors that center us can become that when we resist change. Fear of change creates darkness; letting the fear come to light brings tears; and tears, one-by-one break the links of the chain that holds the anchor that tethers us to the known and comfortable before it becomes a deadweight.
 

I get up early one beautiful, warm morning late this week, and sit on the deck with my coffee while the sun comes up accompanied by a chorus of birds and the fresh, lung-clearing air that is unique to this time of day. I can't see the sunrise from my house, but I watch the pre-dawn hazy sky clear to bright blue as the sun casts its light on the tops of the trees. It is so beautiful, my eyes fill. A friend posted this on her Facebook page this week, “Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see life with a clearer view again.” (Alex Tan) What is clear in this moment is that I am so lucky to be alive and sitting on this deck in this garden on this morning of this day. Does anything else really matter? Really? What we have for sure is this one moment.

As I push a chunk of sadness aside, to make room for the beauty of the morning, I am surprised at how heavy it is. Other things are heavy: carrying a nine plus pound baby in utero (twice); and then heavier ones in my arms. Hiking mountain trails toting a backpack with supplies for a week. A wheelbarrow loaded with bricks. When we can’t carry them anymore, we set them down. And, in fact, we can’t fully enjoy the baby until we put down the weight and give birth; we can't get what we need out of the backpack until we put it down; we can't use the bricks to create beauty until we move them to the spot of the creation. I can't plant pansies until I pull impatiens and I can't plant roses until I dig out the shrubs and ready the soil. Preparation requires heavy lifting.

The tears I have shed this week over past, current, and anticipated sadness drop away that early morning on my deck; and tears are for the beauty that is in my world. How confusing that beauty (and clarity) can permeate the dark, even though it doesn't always remove it. It was a full moon week. Light and dark co-existing. There is nothing confusing about that. Why am I befuddled when I feel simultaneous joy and sadness within myself? That same friend who posted the quote about tears sent me a text some weeks ago that I wrote down: "Sometimes the sun just wants to make sure we're paying attention, so she sneaks into the day." (Vickie Leigh) The light sneaks into the dark. And without the dark, can there be light? I anticipate a life change in the not imminent, but not-too-far off future; I am preparing. This time it will not be a forced change and I don't know what that looks like. I think it looks like this. Fully enjoying all that makes me happy right here and now; and living in it. Planting roses for someone else to enjoy. At the same time link by link removing the chain that holds the once-comfortable anchor, shedding tears for sadness and for beauty--yes, at the same time--and beginning a letting go bit by bit. As the plants gain strength under ground, so do I. And Easter or not, they bloom when they are ready.

In the Fullness Thereof

It is an oddly wonderful time of year, September. Some of the garden inhabitants are at their fullest glory, and others have begun their descent back into the earth. Puffs of breeze release yellow leaves to swirl through the air to the ground, a promise of the coming change of season. And my heart is feeling the fullness of this growing season, while my soul is ready to return to the inwardness of the season of reflection.

When I awoke this morning, wrapped in my covers––at one with the blessedly cool air drifting in through open windows––I was filled with the joy and potential of the new day. Five half sun salutations thanked the day for being and the one who is More for the opportunity to be alive in it today.

My soul work all year has been letting go of what has ended or not worked and making room for what might come next. I am learning to do the same in the garden. Why am I so reluctant? Three weeks ago I finally pulled out the cosmos that has not bloomed well this summer, but whose healthy vegetation was taking up space––above ground, certainly, and probably beneath the surface as well. Overnight the denuded antique rose sprouted leaves and now has two small blooms. The Gerbera daisy that hasn't bloomed since June has an opening flower and two more tight buds. The passion flower vine has doubled––perhaps it will yet bloom.

There are butterflies in my garden. Have they always been there, and I didn't notice? Or have they just discovered my habitat? The large ones float from tree to tree, and the small ones from blossom to blossom; all dressed in royal garb. I began noticing the small ones after I harvested the sunflowers and pulled out the cosmos. Could it be we don't notice the small bits of beauty around us when we are focused on the star-power of that which is large in the garden and in our lives?

For the past two decades I have wondered when I was going to start my career; and, as the train rattles down the track at breakneck speed toward 60 years of life, what I have missed by not having done some kind of amazing work. When I was young I thought I would save the world, and now I feel that I have done nothing toward that modest goal. As several of my friends, though, have begun struggling with an inward calling to slow down, but wonder who they will be if not a rock star, I have become grateful for my not-so-big life. I have grown slowly and steadily with no stage to have to jump off of. There has been no one to promote or push me along, but myself. A few years ago, my sister asked me if I had ever thought about having a career. The question both puzzled and angered me. I have made a career of piecing together a life of what is important to me. Was I to feel my life is less than because there is no title (or paycheck) to easily define what I do for those who don't want to listen to the long litany of that and this, which define my life? In Voltaire's Candide, after a long struggle to save the world, the lead character concludes that one must cultivate one’s own garden. (I read that somewhere, I have not read Voltaire--another shortcoming, I suppose.) I have cultivated my own garden--that is my career. I have finally realized that I don't have to do something gigantic to better the world. I can carve out one small thing, and in the one thing, find the universe.

My grape tomatoes have been experiencing blossom end rot. I have learned that it is caused from not enough moisture to release the calcium in the soil. After the rains a couple of weeks ago the tomatoes are healthy again. My tears, too, have brought back health to the blossom of my soul. "There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love." (Washington Irving) Why, when we can see how important water is in the garden, do we see our own tears as weakness? Why do we hide from them and hide them from others? Why are we so uncomfortable in the presence of others' tears? Holding one another's tears is, for me, the deepest expression of love. And the beauty is that the deep-felt connection of tears doesn't have to be confined to the kind of love-making shared only with a lover. If we can open our blossom end to experience the fullness of all that love can be, we can have many lovers.

Under the tangle of grape tomato vines, I have three volunteer cantaloupes. I don't think they will mature, but I continue to watch them, and to persist in believing that I might be surprised. As I watered this week, I became fascinated by the fact that the fruit is so far down the vine from the root. I have been accustomed to believing that relationship can only be found at my backdoor. At least for those of us who are not frequent travelers, we find friends at our workplace, our church (which are one and the same for me), perhaps in the cafe we frequent every weekend; but that is the extent of opportunity. This summer I have given in to technology as a way to connect and to stay connected. It was not an easy shift. There seems still to be something regressive about it. I long ago gave in to email as a substitute for putting pen to paper or phone to ear to stay in touch. The truth is, I have never been a good letter-writer, and I don't like to talk on the phone. Email really has increased connectedness with those I cannot see face-to-face regularly. And those between-time connections have made me work harder to look for opportunities to spend time in person.

But this summer I succumbed to facebook, texting, and computer dating. (I had a Glorious day yesterday, by-the-way, with a new friend met on Match.com.) On facebook, I have shared in the lives of friends and relatives who live far away--or at least not in the radius of my living. And I have let people know via texting that they are on my mind in that moment. No response needed; just a quick connection across cyberspace. We really can meet new people and stay in touch with those far down the vine from our root. And, best of all, I have discovered connection through this blog. In the past, this writing has been confined to the journal that lives very close to my root--my heart center. I don't know who reads it, but it has brought new meaning to my writing to send it far from the safety of the bag where my journal lives, to where it just might touch a soul with something that could change a life, save a life, even shift a world.

As this growing season comes to a close, I broke with my habit of leaving the garden to its own devices in my eagerness for fall. I watered in September. And the flowers I thought I didn't care about anymore have rebounded from drought droop. Between the water I provided and the cooler evenings, it appears that there is a second bloom in them. We are so quick to give up on ourselves and our relationships; we don't often give the second bloom a chance. Several large violet plants that I refuse to label as weeds quickly succumbed to the heat back in June and dried up. Rather than pull them out, I cut them off close to the ground. Within days they were back up and have been large and beautiful all summer. Summer is not their bloom time, but the green beauty of their heart-shaped leaves has provided fullness to the garden. Our relationships do not always bloom, but sometimes if we cut our expectation back to the essence, they can maintain solid beauty to fill our lives.

In the fullness thereof.

     And God will continually guide you,
     and satisfy your desire in scorched places,
     and give strength to your bones;
     and you will be like a watered garden,
     and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.
                                              -Isaiah 58:11