We are like a drop of
water resting on a leaf; that dynamic tension holding its shape together while
its surface can reflect all around it and yet remain a tenuous structure. But
in our grief, in our moving in and out of relationships whether because they
end by choice, illness, or for other reasons, we remain but change. How do we share this with others because we
need to share this and share who we are after this relationship? the wild blue came into being out of
necessity borne from grief…the namesake for my blog the wild blues came from
the following series of poems. All through my writing life I have connected
everything that's important back to the Old One, Mother Nature, or as Caroline
Casey recently called her, Big Mama. We are never alone. But in our grief
we sometimes feel isolated. Following this series of poems I'm going to post
the entirety of my book Conversations
with Nic, a journey to hope. And preceding this series I published all
of riding
the waves, a tale about being home in the world.
the wild blue is not only about the loss
of friends and family members. It is
about our fundamental connection to earth, to all things that are called
‘nature’ on this planet. For me it is about our oceans, wetlands, saltmarshes,
bird populations, the waves and ripples, the rivers and bodies of water
throughout, the blue skies through the evergreens, the shadows dancing in
summer, heirloom tomatoes and even the cool dampness of cement stairways.
It is with a deep sense of gratitude for
my life and experiences on this planet, for all the beauty I have seen and the
delight in our world that I have had that I wish to acknowledge in the wild
blue. Wherever you might be in this world, one sure thing I know, we all share
the same home. May we take care of our world and all the ecosystems,
microsystems and gardens throughout. May we take care of each other and know
that all is sacred, and we are all connected, all in relationship to each other,
to our world, our home.
the wild blue is dedicated to this
beautiful, sacred world, to all those that love our earth and take care of her,
to those that love her waves and flowers, her birds and animals, her people and
songs. We know that something changes
when we die and after that, not so much. Many of us believe that our connection
to this earth, to the skies, and waters, the lands and landscapes, the turns in
the rivers, the bends in the roads, to the people in our families and our
ancestors, are eternal. I am one of
those people. I sense a great stream of love between all that is living and all
that has passed. The world we walk and work in has many levels and there are
many streams of knowing. The legacy of those we lost but loved moves in our
blood and we move on in a world that we are intricately involved with no matter
our recognition or knowledge of this weaving. It was late in life that I
realized that my mother brought me, and my whole family really, summer. How can one woman bring you a season? How can she not? In the summer heat, the comfort of summer
shade, in the smell of the beach and the ocean, the love and sense of
connection with summer is rich and alive.
It is a feeling that is love.
It is my wish that everyone find their
season and know the world through it; know their loved ones through it as well
and know that we are connected to a great blue planet with beauty all
around. Our sense of love and life, our
deep grief for those we have loved, all remain a part of this world. It is from
this earth we came and return. Our loved ones are never far. Listen to the
winds, to the birdsongs, smell the onions and garlic frying, put up the pot of
all day sauce, and remember, as the Native American chant reminds us, “We are
old people, we are new people, we are the same people, deeper than
before.” We are all one, one with this
beautiful place and one with all we love.
“We must lose our mothers.” That’s what they say. The words of my
mother’s friend Sarah are always returning to me, like a Greek chorus, like the
Miami Beach blues. “We must lose our mothers.”
If we must lose our mothers, do we also have to hear these words echo in our
memories reminding us that loss is inevitable?
The words come back like an inheritance from Sarah. I am not her daughter but she leaves these
words curled around my awareness like a shawl that she made to warm my
shoulders. Her words come back and I
know that another woman told her these words when she lost her mother. They say, “We must lose our mothers,” but
they don’t say who will tell us this.
A woman turns into so many people in her
lifetime. In myth she is mother,
daughter, and crone. She is young then
old. She is giving birth, creating. She is waiting for the return of
Odysseus. She is calling out to
sea. She is repeating the prayers,
weaving the long nights into the warm quilt that will bring color to her home
in winter when for all the world it seems as if color had been drained from the
world. It’s as if a blight has destroyed
the plants and flowers. The birds are
gone. The shadows are flat and the
ground is combed with steel teeth.
Nothing will grow except hardness and stone.
A woman is many beings. Just now, I thought that I heard the women
singing on the rocks. It’s not about
ships crashing or hunger for destruction.
It’s a song about shadows, the different faces of the stone. Its meter is kept by the slap of waves
against the smooth black and grey boulders.
Their songs coax the foam from the tips of the waves, and from this,
sometimes, Botticelli will imagine Venus emerging from the sea.
The sea returns to us in waves. We must go down to the sea again. Is it because we resonate to the call of the
waves? We see the uneven lines of foam
on the shore crackling down till they’re gone and then we see the dark stain of
the wave on the beach. It reminds me of
a story I heard: There is a silver
thread that leads us from the darkness of the shadows through our deep sea
journeys, through the labyrinth of our mother’s interior landscape to the
bright side of the rocks and shore where salt crystals glisten on the nets of
our skin, as if captured by our thirst for return.
