006: Live From Studio S2

Welcome

Thank you for subscribing and reading. There are now 60 of you. I imagine all of us gathering together someday on a retreat. A special thank you to those who have reached out. I love hearing from you.

If you enjoy this newsletter you may enjoy my essays. A playful one is Hitchhiking in the Underground and there is the story of My One-Armed Friend.

The woods near my home are filled with pileated woodpeckers, which I learned are the largest woodpeckers in North America. The males have red mustache stripes extending back from their beaks, and the females’ mustache is black. 

Today I saw one, low on a tree, so close I could have reached out to touch her. And there was a second one a tree over. My pulse raced with excitement. These beings are my neighbors! 

This scene is mirrored by this beautiful song, Living From Studio S2. When I hear Hania Rani sing my pulse feels the same excitement as watching my avian neighbors.

Flowers, A Virgin, and A Painting

“Take a picture and put it in your newsletter,” my daughter said after coming home from a walk in the park with her dog. She told me the park was filled with yellow dandelions.

I remembered painting a field of flowers with my friend M lying in it. Years later the painting was destroyed in a fire. All that is left is memories.

My mind traveled back to 1987. I was 22 years old. I was a virgin. I was walking across town with a friend M on a warm spring day. She turned to me and asked, “You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” “Yes,” I instantly replied. There seemed to be no point in lying. “Let’s take care of that,” she said.

I grew up in a family where I did not see anyone express any physical affection. My parents never hugged or kissed each other. Ditto for my extended family. So worse than being a sexual virgin I was a physical affection virgin. I was awkward. I had no role models. 

Back at her apartment, I remember us drinking white wine and listening to the Love and Rockets album Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven. Lyrics from one of the songs echo.

So this is for when you feel happy

And this is for when you feel sad

And this is for when you

Feee-eeeel

Nothing.

After a lovely afternoon together we fell asleep.

The next day at work I saw everyone differently. My female coworkers asked me why I was different. I wondered if I was glowing somehow. All I would say was that yesterday was lovely. I noticed that making eye contact with anyone was effortless and did not feel awkward.

The following week in an art class I painted my friend M, lying alone in a field of wildflowers. I remember being inspired by the art of Cy Twombly. The assignment had been to paint onto a thick layer of wet gesso.

When she saw the painting she asked who it was and I named a mutual friend. I had a crush on her. And even though we had now slept together once, admitting my feelings to her felt impossible. I gave her the painting, the one now lost to a fire.

I am grateful for that afternoon so long ago. My friend saw me without judgment. At that point in our lives we were both a bit lost.

I am sure that we all have our own version of this story - something that is difficult for us, and in some way passed down from our ancestors. This life is our opportunity to face our woundedness, our sticky spots, our blockages, and perhaps heal.

Feather Practice

This breath practice is  inspired by Pema Chödrön. The practice allows us to be with impermanence, to embrace the unknown. After breathing in we will breathe out and imagine a feather riding a wave as far out as it can go before dissolving. With every inhale and exhale we learn to occupy a big open field. We can be rooted in open space, what we could call the groundless ground, impermanence.

An Infinite Summer

This story by Christopher Priest was first published in May of 1976 in the anthology Andromeda I and then included in a collection of the same name in 1979.

This story came into my mind after my associative neurons fired. There is a powerful scene involving a fire in a field of flowers. The scene is a frozen tableau like a painting.

Last issue I wrote about Palely Loitering. Some reviewers consider this story, Infinite Summer, to be the superior of the two. I like both stories, but Palely Loitering haunts me more. This story may haunt you. This story would be on the A-side of an LP. Radio stations would be playing it as the hit single of the album.

It is again a love story. Because of circumstances outside of his control the hero of the story ends up living in his past, there is no longer a present or a future for him. A deep sadness pervades the story. The time travel element is one of the strangest I have ever read.

The Daily Writing Schedule of Ursula K. Le Guin

A dear friend of mine in South Africa posted this and I laughed. I have been a life-long fan of her writing and even met her in person once.

earth mother inside / inside mother earth

This poem is by Rae Johnson. In her own words the poem “suggests some of the implications in viewing the human body as a microcosm of the larger universe.”

i am reclaiming my body land

cells like drops of rain on open fields

sinking in and drinking deep of the knowledge in my bones

i am putting my hands on the planet

i am lying full length face down into the earth

and we are revolving in space together

through me and throughout me

the mother connects us

this arm… that hill… this ankle

the wide curve of water and stone that is the belly of the sea

when i roll over to face the sky

the depth of it sends me reeling

i catch my breath

inhaling sky… exhaling me

the mother weaves the world and I together

in the light of day she illuminates me

the mother weaves the world and I together

in the light of day she illuminates me

in the dark of night she links constellations within my skin

we both have stars in your eyes

as she tell me with her body

and I tell her with mine

if this is the universe we must be home