the beginning of old birds

from the sea  (5) - Baubo’s bird ludes by freda karpf

When you move toward a full heart, remembering those you lost, you do not lose your memories; you move into the tide of coming and going and become a part of the stream of things.   The telltale here is how you feel, empty or full, or somewhere between. Old birds have woven their maps into the soul world. As they fly over their lands and bodies of waters they move into the soar and glide, the thermals and those times when the real is really real, the time some call eternal.

old birds

     As she moved around Mrs. Scattergood’s world Baubo thought about all the old birds she knew. That is not just a tableau in her mind. It is a tribute to the old birds that have brought us the colors, the knowledge, the beauty and the ability to know how to appreciate and preserve our home. Our home has skies and lands, seas, beaches, big oceans and mountains both above and below the water. Today, right here and now, Baubo would say that this beautiful world, in this difficult time, should recognize so many.  If it only knew to do that. Mrs. Scattergood would know Rachel Carson, Jacques Cousteau, her friend from her youth, her friend because her mother’s Mah Jong players called Mr. Cousteau her friend since she told them about him long before he came into the collective consciousness.  If Baubo had known what a net this collective was she would have whispered the names of many other women, and men who would never be known in libraries but would always have a place in hearts and tributaries however they streamed into our being.

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      We pay tribute to those streams of beings. People who have shown us the connections so that we can hold onto the beauty. Aldo Leopold is grandfather to our ecology because he made a leap of imagination riding on his knowledge of nature.  He did what one’s tribal family might, as the Crow Women have for Mrs. Scattergood, made the sacred round and brought her round with their dance.

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      Kim McDodge was a woman Mrs. Scattergood knew through an online homeopathic group.  She was that rare kind of person who brought passion to the everyday.  She recognized that “Our geniuses will not tolerate this shrinking of our fates into systems – normal, harmonious or transcendent…”

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     We must not shrink our fates.  That is, if there is sky to cover and clouds to pass through; if there are ways through the treetops and through the hearts of those we love and must leave so that we can return on our own unseen roads. We must not shrink our fates.

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf

follow the old birds, don't eat them

from the sea  (5) - Baubo’s bird ludes by freda karpf

Mrs. Scattergood’s family had very few traditions.  Celebrating birthdays wasn’t in their vocabulary. She did not feel deprived.  But once the idea of celebration caught hold she found reasons for many recognitions and celebrations. She was aware of those communally identified holidays. But those that she adopted were far more numerous and more often than not never to be found on any cultural calendar. She savored the full moons, the seasonal changes. The first days of new seasons were the closest she could get to loving the world as a mother would. These became her doorway toward celebrating the land and water.  Celebrating holidays became her bridge to nature.

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     We may all be a part of someone’s soup and not know it. What stirs you?  The world turning is like the spoon involving the herbs into the soup, moving them down into the whirlpool, the dissipative structure that was one thing but is now evolving, incorporating this spice, that incident, this moment, that phrase, that caring act, this timeframe, into the soup. We are all in the story.  We are always adding ingredients. 

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     What old birds can tell you about maps is everything. They look at life through the journeys they have been on. They have absorbed the memories of all they have seen into their beings.  The trails they know are a layer of being.  Many times they have followed those same improbable trails, in the sun, in the rain, when the clouds were thick or drifting like feathers. If we were to follow their maps they would bring us the goods, a solid world where the green borders of the back ends of rivers are combed by great blues, white egrets and in the evenings, the night crowns. That is, if you come from where Mrs. Scattergood does, your borders will be where you will meet some old birds that will include you in their world by virtue of your presence there. Your woods and rivers may have different old birds. If you follow them, just as Frost has said about the good guide being one that has at heart your getting lost, you will find your place in this world.

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf

Would any other mother have been possible?

from the sea  (5) - Baubo’s bird ludes by freda karpf

Why did the ancients all flee the island of Eleusis? Understanding origins begins with a riddle.  Puzzling out and matching pieces that can snap into place is the journey. Step back and see for yourself.  There is a line.  If you had a surveyor’s marker tied to your heels, the line with your delta childhood waves would come this way, right here where you are now, in the wake-up brainwaves of the present moment.  Looking back, nobody would have guessed the journey could have been so unpredictable. Even the journey in a suburban landscape has its wiggles and waggles.  Mrs. Scattergood’s roadmap was all over the place.  Most of it not conscious whatsoever. But the surveyor’s marker has created a complex map. Late autumn’s evening veil of tree limbs and branches would be more distinct. 

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     Heading home she didn’t know it as such but couldn’t resist the habit of old patterns and once again began talking to herself.  “Listen,” Mrs. Scattergood said out loud as if she were being distracted by other voices. She was back on the streets of Newark.  She saw Mrs. Baranhoff on the left like a tableau.  She was on the corner where she stopped her and told her she was Lena’s daughter.  She didn’t ask her, she told her she was Lena’s daughter. If someone as stately as Mrs. Baranhoff tells you something, even if it is something you know as fact, you take that information in, you nod as you listen. Because it was what Mrs. Baranhoff knew when she saw her face. That is a different kind of knowing. She remembered the gentle touch on her arm that opened this moment of recognition. She knew she was Lena’s daughter. Would any other mother have been possible? 

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     These days, Mrs. Scattergood made it a point to treat herself on her birthday.  One kid birthday equals at least ten adult birthdays.  A desire to celebrate has no equal measure in any activity. So Mrs. Scattergood had little mystery celebrations that happen like light through the clouds, sudden and illuminating.  Some things go like that. You’re always going to be Lena’s daughter, she told herself, no matter how many years old or how many years Lena is gone.  But it’s a good thing, still that Mrs. Baranhoff stopped her on the street.  Soup was a bridge to her own stories and felt tradition.  Who knows? Maybe kneydlas once represented sacred rocks.  Rather than the Song of the Earth, the movement of emotion should be about the soup of the earth. But her mother’s kneydlas were sometimes sacred rocks.

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     She knew how she came to be her mother’s daughter but not how she came to have Baubo in her life.  Baubo loved being there and Mrs. Scattergood did ask for help and healing and guidance. She knew this was a time in her life where she wished for these three. This was her trinity. Some days she held it like a trident on a core of deep gratitude.

Except from riding the waves:  a tale about being home in the world by freda karpf