Growing Wings

It's rare that I find a contemporary poem that seems absolutely necessary to my existence. A poem that makes "the top of my head feel like it's going to explode" to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. I came upon this Robert Bly poem in a flyer for The Great Mother/New Father conference on the sale table at the BI Poetry Project. I knew immediately that I'd found exactly what I needed--what I'd been searching for for months. I felt like the poet was not only speaking to me, but that it was written for me. These are the best poems I think, for they enter our bloodstream and our breath. The become part of us; they link us to a continuum it is all too easy to forget.

Growing Wings

It's all right if Cezanne goes on painting the same picture.
It's all right if juice tastes bitter in our mouths.
It's all right if the old man drags one useless foot.

The apple on the Tree of Paradise hangs there for months.
We wait for years and years on the lip of the falls;
The blue-gray mountain keeps rising behind the black trees.

It's all right if I feel this same pain until I die.
A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment
Than the joy we won at the lottery last night.

It's all right if the partridge's nest fills with snow.
Why should the hunter complain if his bag is empty
At dusk? It only means the bird will live another night.

It's all right if we turn in all our keys tonight.
It's all right if we give up our longing for the spiral.
It's all ri ght if the boat I love never reaches shore.

If we're already so close to death, why should we complain?
Robert, you've climbed so many trees to reach the nests.
It's all right if you grow your wings on the way down.

----Robert Bly

Building Bridges

Believe it or not, I've been asked the question, "So where's the bridge?" by people who want to come to Block Island. I worked for years in a B &B and had to answer all the mundane questions of people who were so obsessed with the details of planning every minute of their holiday, it was obvious they were in need of a vacation. One of the best things about living on Block Island is that there is not a bridge! Islands like Jamestown, RI or Key West, islands you can drive to, are just not the same as one's you actually have to try to get to, islands that you can't get to on some days (today for example, the boats and planes are canceled due to high winds), or that you can't get off. This is a good test if you're an island person or not. If you get stuck on Block Island and are glad, you are an island person. If you fret and curse the weather, you're not, or are just not ready to be one yet. What are island people like? John Donne famously wrote "No man is an island," meaning we are not alone, that all of us are connected through our mortality. No matter where we go, we end up in the same place, a place we can't see with our physical eyesight (yet.) An island person knows one has to build bridges between people in order to survive. Many island people also have a deep propensity for solitude, a feeling that one is actually an island, separated from the rest of the world from the thousands of moods of the sea. How to live with this conundrum? I will admit this has been difficult for me. I have removed myself from mainland reality because I could not cope with the mass cultural brainwashing I saw taking place. This was not a conscious choice at first, just a natural resistance, a preservative instinct. I wanted to generate my own images, not be told what to see. After many years of connecting to myself, of exploring who I am and why I am here, of taking internal risks while playing it safe on the outside (many island people could care less about "careers." We know that what you do is often a cover up for what you're doing inside), it is time for me to build the bridge that will connect my vision to a larger reality, to be of service in whatever way I can.

In 2002, Suzi Brown, a girl who grew up on Block Island, killed herself by jumping from the Newport Bridge. Suzi jumped the day before the first anniversary of 9/11. I remember sitting on the beach that day wondering what the waves would bring, knowing that something was going to happen again. I never thought it would be something from within our community. Like most of America, I thought it was going come from outside.

In 2003, Rachel Tonner, another island girl, overdosed on heroin and died in the Port Authority in New York City. I view her death, which the whole year round community witnessed, as a slow form of suicide. Throughout the writing of Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary, I felt deeply connected to these two. I began writing the book the week Suzi died. I knew Suzi a little bit, and Rachel was a good friend of mine who I loved. You know the saying that deaths come in threes? Well I felt all along as I wrote the book that I was the third person in this trifecta. I was aware that what I wanted to achieve was a spiritual death that would help me bridge their deaths for other people--I never wanted to physically die. I wanted to examine why they chose to die--what their souls were saying to us by making this seemingly unexplainable choice.

However, when you ask for a vision, you sometimes receive more than you bargained for. As I went through this process, I lost my way. I was scared and my fear made me confused that I would physically die too. Yes, one could say that my biochemistry was screwed up and made me go over to the dark side (I just skimmed the totally reductive Against Depression, by Peter Kramer, and disagree with his assessment of depression as simply a physical disease that can be treated like any other. Why? Because I don't believe that any disease is simply physical).

All I can say is that the intensity of the experience was what was needed to complete the book--this is what was wanted from me. This is what my soul needed. I know what my soul needs from how powerfully something grips me. When I am drawn towards something so powerfully that to resist feels like I'm dying, I know I have encountered what my soul needs, which is so often contrary to the needs of my ego, sometimes of my body itself. It doesn't matter if anyone reads Bluebell, because I embody this journey now, but I do plan to publish the book at some point in the near future so I can share my journey directly--telling the truth is important and a necessary step in healing.

Healing is a word I have had some issues with recently, since to me it implies that there is something wrong in the first place. If you believe, as I do, that everything one experiences is something one attracts because it is necessary for the soul's growth, then there is no such thing as sickness. Just an imbalance that needs to be corrected in order for the experience to be fully integrated. So I have been trying not to use this word lately, since, if you believe, as I do, that our words create our reality, that using the word healing will stop me and others realizing that we always receive what we need.

There are many bridges to build--forgiveness is a key material in the construction of them, and acceptance is a key component in the construction of forgiveness. I do my best to accept where others are in their lives and ask the universe that they do the same with me. (I ask the universe because sometimes asking actually people doesn't go over well. One has to be "on the same page" as they say sometimes in order to not be misunderstood, thus creating more anger.)

ne of the bridges I am building now is a writing workshop based on my alchemical journey. I will be teaching this workshop next April at the Block Island Poetry Project founded by my friend Lisa Starr. I will also be offering it at some point at a wonderful new bridge being built on Block Island right now. My friend and spiritual teacher Maria DeMarco has brought her non-profit Concordia, Inc., to the island. She is transforming the Beach House B & B, the home of the amazing Ccopaccatty family, into a center for health and art. I am incredibly excited about what she will bring to the community through Concordia, and am looking forward to participating in the center. The first thing I will be doing at the Beach House is a permaculture site analysis. Maria and the Ccopaccatty's want to turn the property into a permaculture site! For someone with no hope of buying property on this island, this really proves that dreams do come true, that to imagine one's life richly, as the Lakota say, will bring your dreams into fruition.

The Internal Tsunami subsides

I apologize for upsetting people with my blog about my suicidal thoughts. For some reason I am being pushed to be as honest as possible. Some people might wish I would just not talk about the way I feel maybe, but I had really reached a point where I could not do that any longer. Transparency has always been a word that comes to mind when I think of how I want to be. No secrets. An open heart. As for feeling suicidal, it is not abnormal as some have said to me......it is something that many people I know feel, most of them artists or activists who are deeply engaged in the processes the earth is going through. I agree, the death of this cycle we are going through is exciting and intellectually I am curious to see what is going to happen, but emotionallly, this is not so. The thing that separates artists from other types of people is their emotional engagement with the world. It is hard to separate the feelings one has from one's self. I became my feelings to such an extent that I lost objectivity. I am not sick. I do not have an illness. I may have a disease--as in "dis-ease," or a lack of ease....but I am only a symptom of the dis-ease the earth is suffering right now. Artists are teachers. Have you ever had a teacher tell you write what you know? I took that to heart.....I had no other choice if I did not want to be insane--which I define as being off-balance. Being insane is just as valid a reality as any other, it just makes those who are more balanced, or off-balance in another direction uncomfortable. All diseases are diseases of the mind. They may manifest on the physical level, and we can treat them on the physical level by rebalancing our bodies--which I recommend doing wholistically rather than through the medical model, which does not even believe in the world I live in. So yes, when asked to admit I had a mental problem, I had to say yes, even though I knew that my definition of a mental problem was not the same as the person who asking. My mental problem was that I, in full knowledge of the power of the mind, could not find the strenght in my mind to bend my thoughts toward balance. I think what I'm goign through may be akin to the alchemical process--in order to make gold the alchemist burns the dross off lead---the dross was my negative thoughts. I think I took this on to such a large extent that I did actually internalize the tsunami that was predicted. If so, then I saved thousands of lives possibly. (I'm sure there were others involved. I'm not that egotistical.) I have also been thinking,based on a vision of a green serpent that appeared to me in meditation, and on some other factors, that I am in the beginning stages of the awakening of kundalini. This awakening also requires the burning off of negative thoughts and energies, a process which I've read is far from pleasant. As a Capricorn, I am a person who has incarnated to bridge the material and spiritual realms. Also, a person who is tested often. Capricorn is ruled by the Devil. Not to say the Devil is evil, it's more like the Devil is the voice of doubt that stops one from being one's fully self, from living authentically. Again, I apologize for upsetting people. It is especially hard to know that even these words of explanation may not be understood by some who love me, that they will make people think I am even more delusional and insane, but I offer them in the hopes that they may create a bridge of understanding between my side of the see-saw and theirs, in the hopes that we can find balance.

Creative Recovery

The following words are from The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, a book that teaches the art of creative recovery, loosely based on the principles of 12 step programs. I came upon them in an old journal and wanted to share them as something that helps me--the key to contentment is all about remembering--who we are and why we came here. All of us are creators of the dreams that we lead. All of us are Gods.

I am a channel for God's creativity, and my work comes to good.

My dreams come from God and God has the power to accomplish them.

As I create and listen, I will be led.

My creativity heals myself and others.

I am allowed to nurture my artist.

Through the use of my creativity, I serve the goddess.

My creativity always leads me to truth and love.

My creativity leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

There is a divine plan of goodness for me.

There is a divinge plan of goodness for my work.

As I listen to the creator within, I am led.

As I listen to my creativity, I am led to create.

I am willing to create.

I am willing to learn to let myself create.

I am willing to let God create through me.

I am willing to be of service through my creativity.

I am willing to experience my creative energy.

I am willing to use my creative talents.

The wave didn't come yesterday. Well, there were lots of waves touching the island, more than anyone could ever count, but The Wave is of another sort. It was supposed to wash us all clean, to sweep us all away, to leave behind those who were meant to be here now on earth to embody the new consciousness that has been birthed here in the energetic realms. I'm still not sure what would have happened to me if the wave had come. I still don't feel like the earth is my home. I still dont' know if this makes me a failure or if I am just supposed to accept that I have no work left to do here and move on to somewhere else. All my life I have felt an exile. A lone wolf. A former lover, also an artist, says that's just how all artists feel. We represent that feeling of exile and go through it for all of humanity, who feels it to some extent, just not as strongly. All I know is that I have reached a point where feeling like an exile is unbearable. Nothink makes me feel at home. Not even my art. My words just take me further out into to the open sea, but the sea is not the right metaphor, because the sea, while alien, is of the earth. My words take me into the complete unknown. Into black holes. Dark matter runs through my veins, not the hot red blood I know would gush out if I took a knife and slashed my self open, and I have been angry enough to do this in the past couple of days, barely holding the anger in--why--because I judge even my own anger. I don't want to make a mess or disappoint anyone. I see myself as absolutely pathetic. As a person undeserving of love who has failed whatever my mission on earth was. I can't even just enjoy the simple pleasures that come with every day. I am a complete fraud, walking around making small talk to forget how lonely I am and saying yes to things I dont' want to do and don't believe in. I don't care about anything.

The wave didn't come yesterday. Or did it? Has it been coming for months now as I slowly let go of all doubts and fears, so slowly I don't know they're being swept away? It would be easier if they were washed away by something as obvious as a tsunami. To die is easier than to live in some ways. Does anyone else feel these things? Are you being swept away and are you struggling against the current that wants to erase you becuase you are the only thing you have to hold onto when you go to sleep at night?

How To Commit To Life

How To Commit To Life

You head toward the mud. It’s a habit.
You’re not a great blue-heron, you just
like the way it feels between your toes
and the challenge of staying upright.
The mud is full of dead things,
most of them unrecognizable.
Under the bridge, no one can see you.
For once, the water doesn’t reflect anything.
You’re safe. You push your thoughts away
before shame sends you running back to the
yellow house looking for some errand that has to
get done right away or the world will fall apart, right?
You pray for instinct to lay its hands upon you.
Your hands reach down and pluck three bits of broken
china from the mosaic of oyster and clam shells
decorating the mudflats.
The air is thick as water, if you didn’t know better
you’d think you had gills and could flash by this scene
like the schools of minnows who flee under this
bridge when the sun is bright in summer.
The blue willow painted on the surface makes you weep.
Champ plunges a clam rake off the dock to your right.
No distractions, you say to yourself.
You close your mind to the gentle humor in his face.
You don’t let yourself think of how you love to watch the seals
get knocked off the rocks by the waves.
On the left, two great black-backed gulls squabble over
a flounder, plucked live out of the shallow water.
They tear its guts out as it flaps on the flat
with their livid yellow beaks.
You’ve been careful to hide what you’re feeling
as you went about your daily business, maybe
with a little less purpose than everyone else,
but with enough verve that no one suspects you
when you hoist yourself up on to the bridge and
look down at the current, your eyes seeking
the center of a whirlpool for a clear sign.
You don’t see the surface, only what’s beneath.
All of you calls to the rocks, to the ripples,
to the currents crashing at the tip of the island,
to every wave that has broken on every beach.
You raise your face.
The wind from the north blows through you.
A dissonant chord rings.
You move closer to the edge as it dissolves,
clashing against the solid walls of guts and liver and kidneys.
But then they break down--your organs--and your
rebellious cells pull you back from the edge with a will
you hadn’t known they had. You have.
Silence arcs toward you in the form of a gull as sure of its way
as a boomerang that flies out into space and turns back without resisting.
The gull returns to the flounder, still flopping on the mudflat.
It won’t be long now.
How will you ever be able to say what made you
step off the bridge and walk back to the yellow house on the hill,
past the rock painted with the American flag,
where for the first time, the word freedom isn’t ironic?
All you can say is the mallard with the emerald green head
swam side by side with his drab mate.
All you can say is my heart is not these three bits
of broken china plucked from the mud by instinct.

Thoughts on home

Is the earth my home? This is the question I have been asking myself over and over again for the past couple of months. It seems funny to ask, since I have been weeding for a living and the earth is right in my face. I inhale it. I dig my fingers into it everyday. My fingers are so dirty I can't scrub the dirt off. Sometimes the earth smells so good I think of course I belong here, and when I open my heart to the robins and gulls who chirp and swirl around me I know the earth is my home. It is only when I look up and reenter the world of people where things go awry. Maybe because it is people who I blame for making the earth into a place that I don't want to live. I know though, that I must let my mind soar like a hawk. That I have to see everything that is happening on earth now as part of a natural cycle of decay, as natural as the decay and death of my own body, or of a beetle I unearth with my spade. And I must fully accept that I was born at this time for a reason to witness and be a part of what is going to happen to the earth. I must accept reincarnation in my heart, not just as intellectual idea, and that above all, I must remember that I choose and create every experience that comes my way. I have been living with the psychic pressure of tsunami building in me ever since I read that one was predicted to hit the east coast on May 15. ACtually, I 've been living with this pressure my whole life. May 15th is in two days. Everything has fallen away. I have reached a point where I don't care what happens really. This isn't because of despair, but because I feel like I at least accomplished two things that I was sent here to do. Wrote and published Siren, awakening people who read it to the possibility of apocalypse, and finishing Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary. No one's read it yet, but I am the living embodiment of its ideas. We are waves of sound and light. My wave touches all of you. Will it crash and break on the beach? Probably. But it will also sneak up on the shore like a lover's kiss as you sleep.

Thoughts on home

Is the earth my home? This is the question I have been asking myself over and over again for the past couple of months. It seems funny to ask, since I have been weeding for a living and the earth is right in my face. I inhale it. I dig my fingers into it everyday. My fingers are so dirty I can't scrub the dirt off. Sometimes the earth smells so good I think of course I belong here, and when I open my heart to the robins and gulls who chirp and swirl around me I know the earth is my home. It is only when I look up and reenter the world of people where things go awry. Maybe because it is people who I blame for making the earth into a place that I don't want to live. I know though, that I must let my mind soar like a hawk. That I have to see everything that is happening on earth now as part of a natural cycle of decay, as natural as the decay and death of my own body, or of a beetle I unearth with my spade. And I must fully accept that I was born at this time for a reason to witness and be a part of what is going to happen to the earth. I must accept reincarnation in my heart, not just as intellectual idea, and that above all, I must remember that I choose and create every experience that comes my way. I have been living with the psychic pressure of tsunami building in me ever since I read that one was predicted to hit the east coast on May 15. ACtually, I 've been living with this pressure my whole life. May 15th is in two days. Everything has fallen away. I have reached a point where I don't care what happens really. This isn't because of despair, but because I feel like I at least accomplished two things that I was sent here to do. Wrote and published Siren, awakening people who read it to the possibility of apocalypse, and finishing Bluebell: The Apocalypse Diary. No one's read it yet, but I am the living embodiment of its ideas. We are waves of sound and light. My wave touches all of you. Will it crash and break on the beach? Probably. But it will also sneak up on the shore like a lover's kiss as you sleep.