- Published on
Today, here in the North, we mark the Winter Solstice. In the Christian tradition it is Advent,
a time of waiting for the birth of Jesus.
a time of waiting for the birth of Jesus.
The Advent of Winter Solstice
I wait as darkness deepens, softens
thickens until it is a generous cloth, substantial
enough to pull around myself, snug under my chin
draw over my head
over my head, actual stars twinkle
stars twinkle like those little L-E-D string lights
except not in colour and not in strings really either
more scattered, like the tiny seeds I plant
in the summer to grow radishes
to grow radishes is an act of faith
an act of a faith I didn’t think I had until now that
I thought about putting tiny specs into the dark
moist soil and trusting that they would emerge
round and as red as roses
red as roses that perfume the air with mystery
an air of mystery exploding with all of the colours of the
twinkly lights pretending to be stars strung across the sky
and I am a seed buried in the darkness robed around me
inviting me to reach into the depth and emerge somehow new
somehow new moons appear every month
every month moons rebirth out of darkness waxing into fullness
full and round as Miriam, the Beloved Mother cradling
the precious life growing in her waiting to birth
as Mother Earth and the dark wait to birth me
And I am held here, wrapped as
I wait
~ kimiko
I wait as darkness deepens, softens
thickens until it is a generous cloth, substantial
enough to pull around myself, snug under my chin
draw over my head
over my head, actual stars twinkle
stars twinkle like those little L-E-D string lights
except not in colour and not in strings really either
more scattered, like the tiny seeds I plant
in the summer to grow radishes
to grow radishes is an act of faith
an act of a faith I didn’t think I had until now that
I thought about putting tiny specs into the dark
moist soil and trusting that they would emerge
round and as red as roses
red as roses that perfume the air with mystery
an air of mystery exploding with all of the colours of the
twinkly lights pretending to be stars strung across the sky
and I am a seed buried in the darkness robed around me
inviting me to reach into the depth and emerge somehow new
somehow new moons appear every month
every month moons rebirth out of darkness waxing into fullness
full and round as Miriam, the Beloved Mother cradling
the precious life growing in her waiting to birth
as Mother Earth and the dark wait to birth me
And I am held here, wrapped as
I wait
~ kimiko
Waiting with the Mother
In that moment, before giving birth
As wonder turns to discomfort
As hands cradle belly, full, back, aching
In that moment
Before the threshold moment
Mother with baby boy held
Deep in the darkness
They are One
She is everything in this moment
She is everything
She is the Earth’s nourishing root systems
Feeding new life deep within
She is the quenching Lake and the warming Sun
She is the Universe
She is the embodiment of Oneness, of All-in-All
She is full and round
Is the thin place readying to wash the Holy into the World
She is the quiet curve of evening preparing
for the ferocity of the day
All Stardust has filtered down
To create this new life
And we wait with Her on this longest night
We wait
~ kimiko
In that moment, before giving birth
As wonder turns to discomfort
As hands cradle belly, full, back, aching
In that moment
Before the threshold moment
Mother with baby boy held
Deep in the darkness
They are One
She is everything in this moment
She is everything
She is the Earth’s nourishing root systems
Feeding new life deep within
She is the quenching Lake and the warming Sun
She is the Universe
She is the embodiment of Oneness, of All-in-All
She is full and round
Is the thin place readying to wash the Holy into the World
She is the quiet curve of evening preparing
for the ferocity of the day
All Stardust has filtered down
To create this new life
And we wait with Her on this longest night
We wait
~ kimiko
- Published on
The alchemy of words and story.
Not a flaw in you
As the ancient words from the Song of Solomon were read, I heard the first chuckle. Titillation hadn't occurred to me, perhaps because I heard these words knowing already where they would take me. The chuckles grew. And then I stepped up to the pulpit and began, and the room fell into sacred silent.
It's not very often that I preach these days and even rarer that I would post it in this space. Yet this feels like more than a Sunday message, it is a healing spell. So I've decided to risk this space, to risk this broader sharing. Twenty seven minutes in is the reading from the Song of Solomon, then my message. Not a flaw in you.
Once you listen, take up my invitation. I'd love to hear from you.
For your reflection.
We Make Things Holy
Gaston Bachelard (The Poetics of Space) says, "The world seeks to be admired by you."
Martin Shaw notes that “We make things holy by the quality of attention we give them.”
12 Secret Names
Level 1
Go outside onto the land, it doesn’t have to be exotic or far, the front yard or a local park is fine, and find something small and specific – a single flower, blade of grass, a mushroom, an insect. Sit with it, admire it, and craft 12 secret names. Write them down. Speak the words out loud to that which you are admiring.
Is this easy or difficult for you?
How does this affect your experience of that small piece of creation?
Level 2
Bring to mind your spouse, sibling, friend, someone with whom you are close. Think about specific and discrete moments that spark your admiration. Again this does not need to be big things. A batch of cookies, a look, a conviction. Write 12 secret names for them. Or, like the poet of the scripture, name different attributes.
Find a time when you can offer these names to them verbally, out loud. If they are deceased, speak to them as if they were there with you.
How does this “quality of attention” affect your perception of them?
As with the person at the birthday gathering, it’s difficult for some of us to receive compliments and admiration. Why do you think that is? How might we do so graciously?
There Is Not a Flaw In You
During the service you were invited to take a moment and say this to yourself. “You are wholly beautiful, my beloved. There is not a flaw in you.” Do it again now, imagining those words spoken to you.
How do you react to hearing those words spoken to you?
Why do you think this is the scripture the Rabbi chose to speak over the bodies at the Tree of Life Synagogue?
What might happen if we held this notion for everyone we encountered?
Angelic Intercession
Sometimes inexplicable things happen in our lives that seem beyond the realm of reason, like the random phone call in the early morning drawing attention to the sound of rasping breath. We often don’t want to mention these events because they seem “woo woo” and we may even dismiss them.
Have you ever had something happen that felt like angelic intercession?
Did you tell anyone? Why or why not?
Die Well
The three months that Paul lived beyond this incident provided an opportunity to “die well.”
What does it mean to die well?
How might we support loved ones, and ourselves, to die well?
We Make Things Holy
Gaston Bachelard (The Poetics of Space) says, "The world seeks to be admired by you."
Martin Shaw notes that “We make things holy by the quality of attention we give them.”
12 Secret Names
Level 1
Go outside onto the land, it doesn’t have to be exotic or far, the front yard or a local park is fine, and find something small and specific – a single flower, blade of grass, a mushroom, an insect. Sit with it, admire it, and craft 12 secret names. Write them down. Speak the words out loud to that which you are admiring.
Is this easy or difficult for you?
How does this affect your experience of that small piece of creation?
Level 2
Bring to mind your spouse, sibling, friend, someone with whom you are close. Think about specific and discrete moments that spark your admiration. Again this does not need to be big things. A batch of cookies, a look, a conviction. Write 12 secret names for them. Or, like the poet of the scripture, name different attributes.
Find a time when you can offer these names to them verbally, out loud. If they are deceased, speak to them as if they were there with you.
How does this “quality of attention” affect your perception of them?
As with the person at the birthday gathering, it’s difficult for some of us to receive compliments and admiration. Why do you think that is? How might we do so graciously?
There Is Not a Flaw In You
During the service you were invited to take a moment and say this to yourself. “You are wholly beautiful, my beloved. There is not a flaw in you.” Do it again now, imagining those words spoken to you.
How do you react to hearing those words spoken to you?
Why do you think this is the scripture the Rabbi chose to speak over the bodies at the Tree of Life Synagogue?
What might happen if we held this notion for everyone we encountered?
Angelic Intercession
Sometimes inexplicable things happen in our lives that seem beyond the realm of reason, like the random phone call in the early morning drawing attention to the sound of rasping breath. We often don’t want to mention these events because they seem “woo woo” and we may even dismiss them.
Have you ever had something happen that felt like angelic intercession?
Did you tell anyone? Why or why not?
Die Well
The three months that Paul lived beyond this incident provided an opportunity to “die well.”
What does it mean to die well?
How might we support loved ones, and ourselves, to die well?
- Published on
Thirty years ago I photographed myself at 30. Yesterday I photographed myself at 60. Today begins a new moment. Grateful that life has brought me here.
- Published on
From the front window, I look beyond my lawn of leggy dandelions, past the expanse of park, to the ocean. Rarely do I think about the distant place that I'm looking at when I gaze out there, but I imagine that it's actually far. From my window, I can see all the way to the horizon of the Salish Sea.
Here on the edge of things on the border-land when I look that direction, I'm looking at what some one, at some long ago time, determined was a different country than the one that I live in.
I can't see that from here. From here, it simply looks like the expanse beyond the expanse. And I guess in some ways that is some kind of different place.
It is surely a different place. It feels like looking from this moment beyond to the myth, beyond to times so long past that my bones don't remember them, because my bones, the pieces, the essence that makes up my bones, landed here so relatively little ago.
Place is a funny thing. We can feel at home so many places. And for some of us, maybe particularly those of us who come from different diasporas, our roots, our bones, our ancestors, aren't here, come from other places. And some piece of us, some piece of me, still feels a connection to those places. And yet, this has been the land of my own birth and life, for my time immemorial. It is a both and. And I find, too, that places in context, sit differently.
I felt at home in new Westminster in the apartment. And I feel at home here. Differently. This place calls me to be different, to be in the soil of the garden. At the apartment there was urban-ness and urban life. Music at the Heritage Grill. There was long walks down and along the quay. But there was no garden.
It’s just interesting to think about, what would life be like if that ocean was a little bit closer. Some part of me feels drawn to the places at the margin of beach and water. It is as if at some time, some ancestor understood that place. The littoral zone.
But I find, too, when I go into the Interior, to those more arid places, that the smell of that tickle something in my nose to some deep memory. And I wonder if some ancestor lived in a place that was arid in that way. Or maybe it's just childhood memory. Smells really do trigger those memory feelings. And it's interesting, because sometimes it is, in fact, memory feelings, as opposed to memories.
There is a call in my body to root systems in the land and I wonder, I suppose, which land. Where those roots might be. All the places that they have been.
The things that grow in me depending on where I am rooted.
Here on the edge of things on the border-land when I look that direction, I'm looking at what some one, at some long ago time, determined was a different country than the one that I live in.
I can't see that from here. From here, it simply looks like the expanse beyond the expanse. And I guess in some ways that is some kind of different place.
It is surely a different place. It feels like looking from this moment beyond to the myth, beyond to times so long past that my bones don't remember them, because my bones, the pieces, the essence that makes up my bones, landed here so relatively little ago.
Place is a funny thing. We can feel at home so many places. And for some of us, maybe particularly those of us who come from different diasporas, our roots, our bones, our ancestors, aren't here, come from other places. And some piece of us, some piece of me, still feels a connection to those places. And yet, this has been the land of my own birth and life, for my time immemorial. It is a both and. And I find, too, that places in context, sit differently.
I felt at home in new Westminster in the apartment. And I feel at home here. Differently. This place calls me to be different, to be in the soil of the garden. At the apartment there was urban-ness and urban life. Music at the Heritage Grill. There was long walks down and along the quay. But there was no garden.
It’s just interesting to think about, what would life be like if that ocean was a little bit closer. Some part of me feels drawn to the places at the margin of beach and water. It is as if at some time, some ancestor understood that place. The littoral zone.
But I find, too, when I go into the Interior, to those more arid places, that the smell of that tickle something in my nose to some deep memory. And I wonder if some ancestor lived in a place that was arid in that way. Or maybe it's just childhood memory. Smells really do trigger those memory feelings. And it's interesting, because sometimes it is, in fact, memory feelings, as opposed to memories.
There is a call in my body to root systems in the land and I wonder, I suppose, which land. Where those roots might be. All the places that they have been.
The things that grow in me depending on where I am rooted.
- Published on
It poured the day I was invited to see the Shiro-fugen Cherry Blossoms. For a moment it seemed like the rain had abated, but when I headed out the door I had to duck under where it flowed off the roof. It’s the west coast. One expects wet.
The garden in the rain felt fresh and inviting. This is a two-acre oasis in the midst of the neighbourhood and I’m grateful to have been invited into the quiet beauty. Stepping through the gate from the road is like stepping over a threshold. Every time I do, and close the gate behind me, I just stand for a moment and breathe.
Of course the garden in Spring is in its glory. This is the second round of Cherry Blossoms. I love this time when the blossoms from the early trees have fallen and these ones are peak. Both fresh and fallen are so beautiful.
The garden in the rain felt fresh and inviting. This is a two-acre oasis in the midst of the neighbourhood and I’m grateful to have been invited into the quiet beauty. Stepping through the gate from the road is like stepping over a threshold. Every time I do, and close the gate behind me, I just stand for a moment and breathe.
Of course the garden in Spring is in its glory. This is the second round of Cherry Blossoms. I love this time when the blossoms from the early trees have fallen and these ones are peak. Both fresh and fallen are so beautiful.
Today I stood beneath the petalled branches listening to the rain fall. Then kicked off my sandals and walked the garden. Most of the green is moss rather than grass. Plush, thick, cushiony moss and I wonder why anyone bothers with lawns. This is so much nicer under the feet. I felt like a parched plant welcoming rain, as if I was absorbing the moisture straight through my feet. Beauty quenched my soul and water my arid body.
I don’t know exactly where I’m going with this, except to express gratitude. For welcoming neighbours, this small bit of lush west coast growth teaming with ducks, song-birds, eagles, squirrels, insects and blossoms, and a moment of refreshment.
- Published on
Illustration by Tallulah Fontaine
Originally published in Broadview magazine for my reflection What is Precious in Life.
Originally published in Broadview magazine for my reflection What is Precious in Life.
Today is seven years since Paul slipped away. The veil had been gossamer for a week. He wasn’t ready to let us go, his beloved Finn, the beauty that had emerged between us. I felt the veil flutter as his body could no longer hold him. An exhale brushing past and then . . .
I only looked up the meaning of Bean Sidhe after it broke me open today. How did my body know? 1
About six months after Paul died I wrote “joy and sorrow are not opposites. They are here together companionably having tea, inviting me to sit and drink in both the gladness and anguish because both speak to what is precious.” Today I am feeling grief and gratitude. So much has happened in seven years. I am not the person I was. Like Jesus’ disciples needing his death to integrate what he had been trying to teach them, it was after Paul fell ill that I began to understand what he had been teaching me. Since then I have looked deep into the depth of my own brokenness and the hurtful ways it rose out of me. Paul was the one who that most landed on as he held the container for me.
My grief today emerges out of loss. And so does my gratitude. The truth is that Paul’s shift also untethered me. I was suddenly freed to begin a journey. Not that he had ever held me back from anything. His support allowed me to shift careers, pursue interests, become a diaconal minister. But this journey was one I needed to do on my own. It has taken me many places both earthly and other-worldly. Some of my grief is that he did not experience the partner that I could be to him now. Some of my gratitude is that others will experience that as I am more able to offer grace and love to those around me.
I only looked up the meaning of Bean Sidhe after it broke me open today. How did my body know? 1
About six months after Paul died I wrote “joy and sorrow are not opposites. They are here together companionably having tea, inviting me to sit and drink in both the gladness and anguish because both speak to what is precious.” Today I am feeling grief and gratitude. So much has happened in seven years. I am not the person I was. Like Jesus’ disciples needing his death to integrate what he had been trying to teach them, it was after Paul fell ill that I began to understand what he had been teaching me. Since then I have looked deep into the depth of my own brokenness and the hurtful ways it rose out of me. Paul was the one who that most landed on as he held the container for me.
My grief today emerges out of loss. And so does my gratitude. The truth is that Paul’s shift also untethered me. I was suddenly freed to begin a journey. Not that he had ever held me back from anything. His support allowed me to shift careers, pursue interests, become a diaconal minister. But this journey was one I needed to do on my own. It has taken me many places both earthly and other-worldly. Some of my grief is that he did not experience the partner that I could be to him now. Some of my gratitude is that others will experience that as I am more able to offer grace and love to those around me.
Desert, hill and mountains later, I am preparing for another journey. This one into the depth where the roots of Yama (Mountain) mingle with the roots of Sakura (Cherry Blossom) deep in Earth and bones ~ the ancient and lasting with that which lives seasons upon seasons then ultimately gives it’s body and seed to something new. These two energies have accompanied me for the past 4 years of exile and isolation. Now we are all emerging out of isolation and this place of exile has become my home. Only as I write do I recognize both the Biblical and mythological in this. Now begins a necessary deepening as I draw down into these roots.
There is a convergence of energy happening. In me, in the world, in this moment. Thank you Paul. Because of you I am more ready for this. Because of you I am more ready to encounter me.
Thank you Bean Sidhe for cracking me open. I’m coming in. ~
1Bean Sidhe is a track on Alana Levandoski’s Folk Opera Cianalas/Tãsknota, released February 1, 2024.
Bean Sidhe is an Irish fairy woman who keens at the death of a family member.
There is a convergence of energy happening. In me, in the world, in this moment. Thank you Paul. Because of you I am more ready for this. Because of you I am more ready to encounter me.
Thank you Bean Sidhe for cracking me open. I’m coming in. ~
1Bean Sidhe is a track on Alana Levandoski’s Folk Opera Cianalas/Tãsknota, released February 1, 2024.
Bean Sidhe is an Irish fairy woman who keens at the death of a family member.
- Published on
The coming of Autumn feels the most dramatic of all the seasonal shifts. At least to me. I wonder if it’s because it is a time of loss. We feel loss so much more acutely than other things. It is the fading of Summer, the dimming of light, the shortening of days. Abundance is preserved for storage. Leaves change colour and begin to fall.
I wonder, too, if I particularly notice today because I am in the Autumn of my own life. The abandon of youth long past but the (hopefully) stillness and wiser time of being an elder yet ahead.
I’ve long appreciated Macrina Wiederkhr’s poem “The Sacrament of Letting Go.” In it she celebrates this season of shift.
Slowly
She celebrated the sacrament of
Letting Go…
First she surrendered her Green
Then the Orange, Yellow, and Red…
Finally she let go of her Brown…
Shedding her last leaf
This is less about the loss of light, which is what I’m currently feeling most acutely. But it is the shorter daylight that triggers the leaves to begin to change. It is the time of harvest for the tree as it is for us, putting away food, energy, to get us through the darker days of Winter when the Sun is far away. And then letting go of what is no longer needed.
I appreciate how Wiederkhr couches the Letting Go as sacrament. It’s a kairos moment, an outward sign of an inward grace. There’s a communion feel to it. A time of tender sharing that portends an even greater loss. But a loss that, ultimately, becomes the most beautiful thing.
Trust. Hope. Patience.
She stood empty and silent, stripped bare
Leaning against the sky she began her vigil of trust…
Shedding her last leaf
She watched its journey to the ground…
She stood in silence,
Wearing the color of emptiness
Her branches wondering:
How do you give shade, with so much gone?
And then, the sacrament of waiting began
This is the stuff of daily work, to be honest. I don’t know how it is for you. For me it requires constant drawing back to practices that ground and centre – times of stillness, breath, writing, gratitude, beauty.
The loss brought by Summer’s end is a rich time of contemplation. Seasons remind us that endings are beginnings. This is a time of multiple sacraments. There is the letting go. And then there is the waiting.
The sunrise and sunset watched with
Tenderness, clothing her with silhouettes
They kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her vulnerability
her dependence and need
her emptiness
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening she stood in silence and celebrated
the sacrament of waiting.
The waiting is the hard part. But Wiederkhr also reminds me that while the light may have shifted and continue to shift, the Sun still rises and sets, daily modelling the rhythm of seasons and lifetimes. Vulnerability and emptiness. How we abhor them. But there is beauty in the readiness to receive what will be. How many times in my life have I learned that beauty always emerges, re-emerges. Resurrections. Sometimes those moments don’t seem nearly big enough to fill holes left by loss. But one blossom becomes two, one new leaf becomes many. It doesn’t replace the thing lost, but provides new moments to draw to life.
There are only a few leaves on the ground at this moment and just a hint of red on the edges of trees in the park. Evening are cool and the sunset earlier. But it is still twilight as I eat my evening meal and the days are Spring-warm. I revel in this and squeeze in one more picnic into the fading Summer.
I wonder, too, if I particularly notice today because I am in the Autumn of my own life. The abandon of youth long past but the (hopefully) stillness and wiser time of being an elder yet ahead.
I’ve long appreciated Macrina Wiederkhr’s poem “The Sacrament of Letting Go.” In it she celebrates this season of shift.
Slowly
She celebrated the sacrament of
Letting Go…
First she surrendered her Green
Then the Orange, Yellow, and Red…
Finally she let go of her Brown…
Shedding her last leaf
This is less about the loss of light, which is what I’m currently feeling most acutely. But it is the shorter daylight that triggers the leaves to begin to change. It is the time of harvest for the tree as it is for us, putting away food, energy, to get us through the darker days of Winter when the Sun is far away. And then letting go of what is no longer needed.
I appreciate how Wiederkhr couches the Letting Go as sacrament. It’s a kairos moment, an outward sign of an inward grace. There’s a communion feel to it. A time of tender sharing that portends an even greater loss. But a loss that, ultimately, becomes the most beautiful thing.
Trust. Hope. Patience.
She stood empty and silent, stripped bare
Leaning against the sky she began her vigil of trust…
Shedding her last leaf
She watched its journey to the ground…
She stood in silence,
Wearing the color of emptiness
Her branches wondering:
How do you give shade, with so much gone?
And then, the sacrament of waiting began
This is the stuff of daily work, to be honest. I don’t know how it is for you. For me it requires constant drawing back to practices that ground and centre – times of stillness, breath, writing, gratitude, beauty.
The loss brought by Summer’s end is a rich time of contemplation. Seasons remind us that endings are beginnings. This is a time of multiple sacraments. There is the letting go. And then there is the waiting.
The sunrise and sunset watched with
Tenderness, clothing her with silhouettes
They kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her vulnerability
her dependence and need
her emptiness
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening she stood in silence and celebrated
the sacrament of waiting.
The waiting is the hard part. But Wiederkhr also reminds me that while the light may have shifted and continue to shift, the Sun still rises and sets, daily modelling the rhythm of seasons and lifetimes. Vulnerability and emptiness. How we abhor them. But there is beauty in the readiness to receive what will be. How many times in my life have I learned that beauty always emerges, re-emerges. Resurrections. Sometimes those moments don’t seem nearly big enough to fill holes left by loss. But one blossom becomes two, one new leaf becomes many. It doesn’t replace the thing lost, but provides new moments to draw to life.
There are only a few leaves on the ground at this moment and just a hint of red on the edges of trees in the park. Evening are cool and the sunset earlier. But it is still twilight as I eat my evening meal and the days are Spring-warm. I revel in this and squeeze in one more picnic into the fading Summer.
- Published on
Looking back on 2020, from the midst of it. Recently I found this reflection that I had written five months into the pandemic and never published. Prescient for me now.
If you want to get to know a place, you might as well go there in a time of global pandemic. And if you have one, take your camera as a companion as you walk the neighbourhood for exercise. Much like a dog draws you into conversation with dog owners, the camera encourages you into dialogue with the empty lot, with the Beach and particularly the fence that spans the length between the freeway and the golf course where you walk when they cut off access to the Beach.
If you're typically an urbanite like I am, your camera will help you see that the notion of four seasons is simplification. We think of the movement of the year as Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Yet this Spring I became aware of the micro-seasons in that rhythm. Ornamental Cherry blossoms in March and April make way for Azalea and Rhododendron in May which wither as the Wild Roses bloom in June. Blueberries, Blackberries, and the one random Cherry Tree that inexplicably grows on the Beach begin to drop their Spring blossoms in favour of fruit as we move toward the time called Summer.
If you want to get to know a place, you might as well go there in a time of global pandemic. And if you have one, take your camera as a companion as you walk the neighbourhood for exercise. Much like a dog draws you into conversation with dog owners, the camera encourages you into dialogue with the empty lot, with the Beach and particularly the fence that spans the length between the freeway and the golf course where you walk when they cut off access to the Beach.
If you're typically an urbanite like I am, your camera will help you see that the notion of four seasons is simplification. We think of the movement of the year as Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Yet this Spring I became aware of the micro-seasons in that rhythm. Ornamental Cherry blossoms in March and April make way for Azalea and Rhododendron in May which wither as the Wild Roses bloom in June. Blueberries, Blackberries, and the one random Cherry Tree that inexplicably grows on the Beach begin to drop their Spring blossoms in favour of fruit as we move toward the time called Summer.
I suspect that looking back on this time of pandemic will be the same. It will become known as the 2020 Pandemic and remembered in a singular way, but in fact we live it in micro moments of blessings and witherings. Much like with flora, what grows depends on where you are located and the soil you're rooted in. Unlike with flowers, the things that burst forth and the things that wither may not be as directly connected as blossoms and fruit. As one recent meme noted, our social feeds first bloomed with sour dough tips and successes and shifted to highlighting the need to dismantle white supremacy. Growing a new sense of sufficiency evolved to disintegrating those things in myself that have kept unjust structures in place.
Throughout this, seasons can also be marked by the colour of the lawn in the park across the street changing along with our level of fatigue and determination to use this time wisely. Simple green grass turns yellow with dandelions then fluffy white within weeks, only to become a different shade of yellow as buttercups take their turn. Small purple clover ornament the grass after that while larger varieties turn the empty lot into a wildflower garden along with thistles, tall grasses and seeding kale which you harvested before it seeded.
Throughout this, seasons can also be marked by the colour of the lawn in the park across the street changing along with our level of fatigue and determination to use this time wisely. Simple green grass turns yellow with dandelions then fluffy white within weeks, only to become a different shade of yellow as buttercups take their turn. Small purple clover ornament the grass after that while larger varieties turn the empty lot into a wildflower garden along with thistles, tall grasses and seeding kale which you harvested before it seeded.
The Beach brings its own rolling seasons, each moment new. Changing tides, weather, and wildlife add layers to seasonal shift tracked through things that grow above the tide line. Horsetails alone mark microseasons with its evolving look. One evening the Beach is a wide expanse of pebbles. The next time a layer of drying seaweed covers the breadth. Yet another time dead crab carcasses scatter across the shore. Tide in, tide out. And then the geese come to mark the summer.
In the past five months my camera and I have walked this neighbourhood a myriad of times capturing glimpses. I feel like we’re getting to know it in a more intimate way because we stop and listen. We hear perseverance here which we could retell as hope or understand as persistence. Humans may have felt stopped by the pandemic, but the seasons, the land, carry on.
If I were paying attention, I'd have noticed sooner the commonality of books that have reached out to me in my exile — Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Martin Shaw with Scatterlings. Each of these laid a finger on my wrist and whispered "here." This was a poetic here: Here, read me; Here, this place; Here, this moment. It was as if something had conspired to draw me toward the stories I had forgotten to attend to, the living ones that carried on despite the constraints of human attempts to subdue. These reflections all centre on being gently shaken awake by the land outside your door.
Story, myth, even parable live here. The principle moral, if you want to call it that, is that humans are not the centre, not even kinda. And we catch this by witnessing ourselves on the landscape. We are the barbed wire fence, the garbage on the Beach, the freeway and boarded houses. Not hero, not protagonist. Nature neither adores us nor abhors us. She will cover our barbed wire with petals, fill in our lots, and keep rising, setting, tide in, tide out, blooming and seeding. She will model what it means to admire the Sun setting on the Beach, without leaving beer cans. Come if you like. Or don’t.
Now while walking the neighbourhood I feel a shift. The Wild Land on the corner (notice not empty lot) no longer tracks me with suspicion but beckons me over to hear what's going on. Even after someone has clearly mowed down its peak summer glory the stories are here if I care to listen. And if not, they’re here anyway.
It transforms my understanding of God. While I continue to understand that Divine Love is unconditional I realize it’s also not personal. The Sun does not shine for my sake and yet my entire life is contingent on it. And my gratitude is even greater.
I pick apples and bags of garbage off the Beach. Then I sit in comfortable silence watching geese land for the night as the Sun moves over the horizon.
- Published on
I catch myself looking for you
under the tree
where you never promised to be
except in the story I’m writing
on this postcard
to send to you on the wind
pollen
for the seed I hope we planted
that one time we spoke
~ Kimiko 2023
under the tree
where you never promised to be
except in the story I’m writing
on this postcard
to send to you on the wind
pollen
for the seed I hope we planted
that one time we spoke
~ Kimiko 2023
- Published on
A story I heard today about saying grace before a meal, had me reflecting on how the single word grace has different meanings in English. Which had me thinking about grace and then this:
Grace
We must live into the discomfort
of knowing
that we have been touched
by grace
And
if you feel no discomfort
because somehow you feel
worthy, then you do not
really understand grace
And
what you have
if you’re willing
is a glorious invitation
to let go of yourself
to look at your nakedness in the mirror
to see every flaw and scar
to be devastated by what is actually true
And then to lean
your bared and shivering self
back into grace
and give thanks
Kimiko Karpoff
December 2022
Grace
We must live into the discomfort
of knowing
that we have been touched
by grace
And
if you feel no discomfort
because somehow you feel
worthy, then you do not
really understand grace
And
what you have
if you’re willing
is a glorious invitation
to let go of yourself
to look at your nakedness in the mirror
to see every flaw and scar
to be devastated by what is actually true
And then to lean
your bared and shivering self
back into grace
and give thanks
Kimiko Karpoff
December 2022
