I don’t really care to cover much more of myself with tattoos.
This does not work for the location I would want another tattoo (to balance the one I already have).
However, now that I’ve seen this, I want it as a tattoo.
Oak
Another oak-related thing I ran across on the Interwebs today:
Tim Murphy gave me a different vision. He wants to be buried toxin-free and naked, ass up, in the fetal position, with an acorn up his butt. “Plant me, and plant a tree. Years later you and others can come sit under my shade, harvest some acorns, and celebrate what is possible.” (source)
Sounds much better than traditional burial or cremation to me. And made me laugh, too.
It is like the scent of freshly mown grass, aged for a hundred of years until it is clean deep wise warm green.
After a storm the other day I found some large oak leaves on the ground at McCorkle Place. I tucked three into the notebook I carry in my purse, which lately serves more as a receptacle for found leaves and feathers than as a notebook.
I thought it might be interesting to play with some printing using the leaves. When I got home that evening and opened the notebook to retrieve them, the scent of the leaves burst out and overtook me.
Now, when I walk through McCorkle Place, I can pick out the oak smell.
I imagine I will become an inveterate leaf sniffer now.
I had a nice dinner at my friend’s new house tonight. I took my Vitamix over and made Krank Juice while he whipped up some vegetables we ate with soba.
This was the word that kept coming to my mind over the weekend: respite.
First, the heat broke. It will be back up to 93°F tomorrow, and I’ll close the windows and turn the A/C on before I go to work tomorrow. But since Friday afternoon, the windows have been open, letting in fresh air and cicada song.
Second, I took an unplanned rest retreat. The only souls I spoke to from Friday at 5pm until this morning at 9:45am were my cats. And they aren’t very good conversationalists. I didn’t play any music, except for a drumming recording last night as I was preparing for bed. After working for a little while on Saturday morning, I mostly avoided the computer, except to watch a documentary Saturday night. I read. I slept. I went feral and loved my silence, solitude, and the smell of the crooks of my elbows. By Sunday evening, I felt recharged enough to take on some neglected cleaning projects. I finally took care of a fairly large energy/emotion suck from my downstairs that I hadn’t been able to bring myself to dismantle in the aftermath of a recent relationship end/shift/change. I feel home in my home again.
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Walking across McCorkle Place this evening, I stopped at Dancer the oak and gathered some of the sawdust still in little piles beneath her. I crouched at her foot and leaned my back against her trunk, observing mushrooms poking up through the mulch.
Ah, the mushroom connection…. le-champignon… that’s another story for later (and/or years ago and possibly still buried somewhere around this site…). What struck me about them today was how the mushrooms themselves are fairly soft and squishy, usually velvety to the touch. Yet suddenly, here they are, appearing to have silently exploded from the earth when I wasn’t looking. Mulch and soil are pushed aside like so much rubble.
I was quickly beset by vicious mosquitoes, so I did not linger with Dancer and the mushrooms. I did notice, however, that her fallen limb was purposefully cut. I assume this would not have been done without good reason, but the fact that it was done in such a way that two lower limbs were damaged made me a bit angry. So it goes. Breathe it out and inhale perspective. How many of my lifetimes would fit in the lifetime of that tree right now? How many of me would fit inside her trunk? What are my concerns really worth? The answer is so faint it passes like one leaf scuttling across the brick path.
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After work I went grocery shopping and was once again astounded at how expensive it is to eat the healthy food I do these days—mainly fresh organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. And some cottage cheese, maple nut Clif bars, and cherry Larabars. Oh yes, and frozen Indian entrees. I’m not that virtuous. I am very grateful that I can afford my diet. I couldn’t afford to eat this way before January, and there are a billion ways things could unfold. I don’t assume I’ll always be able to afford it.
Part of the weekend’s unplanned retreat was avoiding the grocery story by raiding the freezer and pantry for some older staple foods like pasta and some frozen vegetables. I love pasta, but I can notice a big difference in how I feel after a big bowl of pasta versus a VitaMix full of grapes, celery, kale, and apple. I just note this and appreciate the fact that I can keep myself well-stocked with fresh bright things to eat if I deign to leave my house.
Speaking of being grateful for good food, I started The Fruitful Darkness this weekend. It is written in a somewhat revelatory tone, but most of what she is saying is not news to me. Animals and trees deserve respect? We are all connected at the root of things? Yes. Being reminded doesn’t hurt, but seeing animals and trees is a better reminder than reading it in a book. A number of things I’d like to read more about seem like mere sketches. All that said, I’m still reading it, so I’m getting something out of it. I mention it here because it includes this Zen gatha by Thich Nhat Hanh, to be recited before eating:
In this plate of food,
I see the entire universe
supporting my existence.
I have a fairly visceral negative reaction to being asked to stop and say something, or listen to someone else say something, before I eat. This comes from years of being forced to hold hands before sitting down to eat in order to listen to someone ramble on to/about the “heavenly father,” who had the power to “bless the hands that prepared this food and the hands that brought it to us,” and to bestow “traveling mercies” on anyone who would be leaving after the meal. There is nothing offensive in the literal experience of this, but it taps a much-deeper vein of memory of assimilation by the Southern Baptist Borg at a time when resistance was truly futile. The quoted phrases above are enough to make me want to kick something if I dwell on them for a moment or two.
These days my practice is to push right into harmless things to which I have a knee-jerk negative reaction. This is what led to me doing karaoke “I Wanna Be Sedated” in my friend’s yard a few months ago. I do not do karaoke, see. Oh yeah? I’ll show me.
The above gatha resonates just enough that it may be the thing to deflate my pre-meal blessings reaction. We’ll see. If I can remember to think about it. Speaking of mental lapses, I apparently forgot I ordered The Fruitful Darkness and ordered it again, because I now have two copies.
I came to my computer to post something else from the book, and talk of food got me off track. This is unattributed on p. 157, and I love it:
Soil for legs
Axe for hands
Flower for eyes
Bird for ears
Mushroom for nose
Smile for mouth
Songs for lungs
Sweat for skin
Wind for mind
As I slowly drove the winding narrow road home from the grocery this evening, a hawk flew low across the street. Right in front of my car he seemed to transition from head-first laser-targeting to talons-first landing in the woods. All I really caught a glimpse of were barred tail feathers spread out as he disappeared behind foliage.
Treasures, all around… magic things…
God made love to me,
Soothed away my gravity,
Gave me a pair of angel wings,
Clear vision and some magic things.
God is love to me.
Thank you for those things.
Understand the world we’re living in—
Love can mean anything.
