Reflections on a Tree

I am not like a tree. They are so Other to me. A tree stays in one place its whole life (well, most trees—they certainly don’t like to move). I, on the other hand, have to move a lot, I have no roots and no plot of land to call home. No same sky where I watch the sun set and rise again. No same horizon to frame my view. I move about every three years my whole life. Home is wherever the military says it will be next. And there is always a next. In this way, I have seen many trees throughout my life. My life walks past them like a path and together they are like a forest to me. They are home and will always be home. I am always trying to find home. I want to be like a tree. I want to plant my roots into the earth; I want to find some sacred ground from which my life can spring. I want to touch the sky, to know what it feels like to be in heaven and earth at the same time. I want to be protected from the scary people who live in strange houses in the woods, where little children are locked up and eaten for following bread crumbs. The trees see everything. They are the silent witnesses to all of our journeys.

Childhood Tree

(from the memoir i'm working on...)

There is a tree in my backyard. Its branches bend so low I can reach my arms around them and walk my feet up the trunk. I climb high enough to feel the rush of fear, to feel the breeze on my face, my hair whipping and turning like the leaves dancing around me. Up in the tree I am silent. I am still, (unlike when I am in the supermarket with my mother where I run up and down the aisles knocking cereal boxes off of the shelves and get yelled at by the store manager). In the stillness I hear another part of me, the quiet one, and I hear the birds, the grasses, the branches bending and creaking. I smell the warm summer air, fresh cut lawns, and flowers on the wind. I breathe it all into my fingers and toes. Up in the tree I watch the clouds, the way they change, the way the whole sky becomes a movie if you only take the time to see it. If I knew anything about God, it had something to do with being in a tree.

Energy for a New Year

Painting by Lisa Hunt

I had a dream over Christmas break: I am in the woods and I stumble upon these beautiful deer that stand like an art exhibit in the woods. They are made of bent and gnarled twigs, like the ones I love and collect and use to decorate my home.

On my way to visit my analysts and tell her about the deer made of sticks, I spot two very alive and frightened deer, graceful and fidgety in the front lawn of a small suburban home.

All these deer feel sychronistic. (And maybe even more so since I've just watched several Christmas movies with reindeer too).

My analyst reads to me from Jean Bolen's book, "Goddesses in Everywoman," and we confirm that the deer is associated with the Goddess Artemis. The thing that strikes me most is this, "Artemis as Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of the Moon was a personification of an independent feminine spirit. The archetype she represents enables a woman to seek her own goals on terrain of her own choosing." (Harper Perennial(c) 1984, p. 49).

As I begin 2010, I plan to meet with a creative writing consultant, to put good time and energy into writing a memoir. I'm happy to be greeted by Artemis and ask her help as I pursue the goal of finding and expressing my voice.

My baby's turning 7!

Tomorrow will mark 7 years since I had my first baby. It seems like one of those sacred moments—7 marks so many holy things. “In the Hebrew, seven ([b'v, - Sheh'-bah) is from a root word meaning to be complete or full,” (says Andrew Harris in his writings on the symbolic meaning of numbers). There are 7 days in a week, and on the seventh day, God rested. Most days we’re up at 7 a.m. whether or not baby Ela has slept through the night, we’re up rushing Ian off to school. I want to rest too.

Ian was born on December 22 at 5:18 a.m. (He was due on December 16). He was 8 pounds 14 oz and 21 and a half inches long. I fought to have a natural labor. My doctor wanted to induce me, but I wanted to wait until Ian was ready. We labored for almost 20 hours. I pushed for over an hour. It was the most exhilarating experience I had ever had. To honor the natural rhythms of my body, to know my baby in my womb, to suddenly see the unseen before my eyes—it was like catching a glimpse of God.

I pulled out my journal to remember the day Ian was born. I wrote, “I think I am the happiest I’ve ever been in my life!” I wrote of letting go of old things, of old ways of being a woman. As a teenager, I spent so much energy on being clean, on hiding my creatureliness from my peers. Motherhood is the place where the messiness of life becomes liturgy. “This is my body given for you,” we feed our children, we satisfy our husbands. Our bodies are anointed with spit up, throw up, sneezes, kisses, sperm, germs, poopies, pee pees, old dirty dishwater, coffee grounds, sour milk, tears and hugs. We bear the scars of our beautiful creations in stretch marks and wrinkles, in 10-15 pounds that don’t get worked off running around the house all day long.

I am still letting go of old ways of being a woman, I'm letting go of those perfect images where reality is airbrushed away. I am embracing the elements, the earth, the matter, the mother, the mess, the incarnation: God is here.

Ian—this is my body given for you. I give you my hand to hold. I give you my ears to listen. I give you my eyes shining with a mother’s love.

Ian—I need to give you more time. More grace. More of me.

I love you Noodle. Happy 7th Birthday! May it be a year filled with joy.

A Poem

This anger

Fires within me

It wants to burn it all down

But I know the fire’s for refining

Sacred places, flaming tongues, holy ground

Burn up the fear, the lack of living

Burn it till I am

Filled with light

Re-made and giving

(Image by Miranda Hassett)

A Prayer

Our mother who art in earth

hallowed be thy creation

Shekinah come indwell wisdom

within each mortal person

you give us this day

our daily cup

attend our deepest wounds

for we're called to birth life anew

tempt us with your beauty

to pursue your desire

and deliver us from all slavery

present this hour

for thine is the drink of passion

that nursed a manger baby

great fount of mystery,

spring!

now and forever, Amen.

Dead Meat

The shark opened her mouth and pulled her head back ready to attack. I tried to swim away, but all I could do was look at all those sharp teeth. The heavy water held my body like a straightjacket. She was hungry and I was supper. I was dead meat and I knew it.

I woke up before the shark ate me. When I wrote down the dream I had a few nights ago, the image of dead meat lingered. It reminded me of a dream I had years ago. I can’t remember all the details, just that I was with a group of seminary students. We were waiting to see if we would be ordained to the priesthood. One candidate held a metal mixing bow out to me, inside of it was raw hamburger meat. In the next scene I am with a woman who was recently ordained to the deaconate. She presents to me the chalice. We all sit down at a table together to feast.

The meat also reminds me of Inanna’s descent into the underworld. Inanna must pass through seven gates to get there. At each gate she loses articles of clothing until she is stripped bare and completely vulnerable. When she finally reaches the heart of the underworld, she finds a grieving Queen, Ereshkigal who's pain is so severe it has become murderously wild. Inanna must face the eye of death. Ereshkigal strikes her dead and hangs Inanna's body--now a piece of rotting meat--on a hook, on a pole.

What pain needs to be seen? What death must I face?

The food and water of life is sprinkled on Inanna's corpse like seasonings. Inanna returns to life and escapes the underworld. She doesn't escape the pain--she is transformed after beholding it. I’m drawn to the image of her body becoming meat—meat that is seasoned with the food and water of life. I think of the bread of life, this is my body given for you—feed my sheep, the living water—if you drink of it you will never die.

I think of countless stories of women, how we have been treated like pieces of meat, seasoned to be objects, how we are told to forget about it, to leave our pain unseen like Ereshkigal's. I think of those forbidden places we are warned not to visit--for we might not return from the underworld--those dark places of pain, of madness.

What does it mean to be dead meat?

To be caught, to have no escape, to be forced to face the horror, to submit to something more powerful than ourselves. If I am caught, than it is God who is catching me. And that can be terrifying.