11-11-05

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me. (Wendell Berry, Woods)

Sitting in the morning sun that pours through the almost-bare branches. A weakened sun, just warming my face, hands, knees. The lightest rustling of the few dry leaves left. Yesterday’s huge gusts brought down masses of them. My broom and I could not keep up, and I am sorry to say it was wounded in action and may have to be retired. Today mounds of gold brighten the drive and ground and me. A spider hangs from the tip of one fallen beauty as it lays atop the bright orange of pumpkin.

The cats are perfectly camouflaged, like polar bears in snow, and are looking very crafty and hunterly.

The warm glowing color flows into me, bringing life to my own weakened energy. My battery has been so low this week there were times I thought I could just sit staring into space and never move again. It’s a soul or psyche weariness though, more than body tiredness. On Tuesday, which was gorgeous and warm, I got home early and made myself work out. My limbs were leaden as I dressed, but by the second song I was dancing in the leaf-covered drive. And felt revived awhile. The setting sun, as it dipped beneath the tulip poplar branches turned the remaining leaves to rich butterscotch.
I don’t generally hug trees, but my gratitude for their beauty, for the infusion of life into my veins, made me rest my head on one big trunk saying thank you. I didn’t want the light to go –just wanted to keep drinking in that golden brew.

A friend of mine was saying maybe my low energy came from giving so much of it to my mother last week. But I wouldn’t put it that way. I don’t feel I gave her my energy–that would have been our old dynamic. When I held her hands and the energy glowed into her, warming her, that didn’t feel like my energy. And as always after the bodywork, I actually felt energized. I think it’s more all that I”m processing at a deep level that is using my energy. And also just the stress of making a journey like that–gearing up to face whatever you have to (and going through the tortures of flying, which I have sworn I will never do again. It is just such an awful experience, from the indignity of how you are treated, to the vast pressure and noise of the cabin as you hurtle through the sky.)

I”m remembering my dreams more this week than I have in awhile. And often I feel good in them, there is an erotic feel to many of them, a pleasurable mellow flow–if it were a color it would be that golden/butterscotch glow. When I awaken I am surrounded by it, the leaves, my satin quilt, the cats. And it touches my heart to once again hear the sad/sweet little song of the white-throated sparrow, as he has returned. Still not much bird activity though–the berries and seeds abundant elsewhere. But the crows do visit every morning for their raucous mosh pit peanut dance. If I do not get up and get their goodies out there before they arrive, they really escalate the racket.

I talked with John this week for the first time in years. It started out kind of abstract and spiritual, but warmed and juiced up along the way. It was so good to hear his wild laugh. I”d forgotten that I loved him so much, well not forgotten, I still knew it in my head, I’d just lost some of the feel of it. And hadn’t thought in quite awhile of our good times together. Of some of our long talks, when I”d feel so matched. How funny to realize we’ve both been judging each other–me judging him for his never ending travel, and him judging me for my never budging from my home. And both of us lately thinking of the importance of relating to others, having some new desires in that area. John has so much color and charisma–there are so many vivid pictures in my mind of him. So adorable and arrogant at once in one of his gorgeous sweaters, puffing on a cigarette as he got into his BMW to dash away. Or in high powered purposeful action rearranging my living room furniture when I got the huge red velvet sofa and didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Or happy as a seal, floating in the bay. I do miss him–would be nice to hang out sometimes, have dinner. Lesson learned again about accepting people as they are and enjoying what you can. Seems that one comes up again and again the last few months.

It has felt so good to be alone all weekend, just me and the cats. Being in my own rhythm. I was reading some David Whyte poetry and came across a poem I had forgotten, but which felt like putting on a soft old shirt as I read it.

“….This is the bright home
in which I live,
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come,
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.” (David Whyte, The House of Belonging)

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LATER
The hot tub so pleasurable tonight. When I first got in the moon was below the hill, and I could just see these masses of light hazing up above the dark line of the hilltop. Two billowing glowing towers created by moonlight and two huge clouds–moonfires, rather than bonfires. Then the round shape slowly rose above the horizon and then above the dark tree tops. Brilliant white. I wanted to be of some ancient race that worshiped it–so I could fee what they would feel in such a moment. Wanted to rise out of the hot bubbling water and walk into the lealf-carpeted woods, naked, steaming, to stand in its light. But I didn’t.