A Week Of Transformation

My sister (who was born on my grandmother's birthday and is currently pregnant with my second nephew!) turned 39 on Friday, May 15th. A lot has happened since my (one and only) sister's birthday: I've transitioned out of grief, marked the healthy loss of 19 pounds, been zapped by the lightning strike of finding my next, right career, joined a women's running group that benefits local trails and a village in Tanzania, put one writing project to its final rest, and launched a brand new writing project into the stratosphere. In the midst of all of that I have celebrated my daughter - the Ninja Princessa's 14th birthday, celebrated my mother's birthday, and had numerous, numerous validations that I'm on the right path for my life.

The grief has (obviously) been a long time in passing and I am not pretending like there are not going to be after pangs. However, I've been working persistently and kindly through it and feel confident about leaning forward once again. Though processing grief is not the ONLY thing I've been doing lo, these many months of not blogging. For all of 2009 (thus far), I have been doing things like training for my triathlon, staying connected with my kiddos both near and far, focusing on nutrition (and becoming a vegetarian - eeek!), writing in lots of other venues, and discerning what my next steps are going to be. All that slow, steady plodding came together in a conflagration of energy, resources, and forward progress last week. It all clicked. I am miles into my next ventures and my spirit is joyful again.

I feel myself impatient to get to my projects this morning - which is very different from not blogging because I am worried I'll just dump stress, anger, frustration, and ick onto the page. I will say before I dash off to my studio that I met Meinrad Craighead last night at the premiere of the documentary about her. It was a phenomenal, affirming and challenging experience. My fiber art and my prayer life will never be the same again. She is an artist who has been exploring and expressing the Divine Feminine for half a century. She was a cloistered Benedictine nun for 14 years and even 30 years after leaving the abbey, lives a contemplative, solitary life. She is fearless and gritty - many of her images disturbing, entrancingly dark, and rending. She is also peaceful and present and genuinely humble. She offers you the feral wisdom of her connection to the Great Mother - in a way that gives you an access of your very own. In closing the presentation Meinrad told a story of the Pueblo people. (Sidenote - she lives in Albuquerque, NM and to travel to NC for this was a BIG deal for her.) She told the story of the Salt Mother - who nourished and protected her people (maybe with the Corn Father??) As peoples are wont to do with their dieties, the Salt Mother's children began to fall away from her, forgetting to honor her, turning away from her. As a result, She fell away from them and turned away too. And the people sickened and no longer thrived as a people. The people realized their error and began pleading, asking the Salt Mother what they had to do to return to her. She told them to start every morning by placing a small amount of salt in their mouths, taking it in to honor her and to align themselves with her restorative, healing, preservative power. She told them to absorb some of her very godstuff intentionally, each and every day in order to live as they should - in harmony and peace with the Mother. Meinrad ... I want to say charged, instructed, or commanded us to do the same - but she used no coercive or authoritative language. She merely offered the story with such powerfully resonant invitation that it strikes me as beyond foolish not to accept. Accepting, however, was not without its internal backtalk. My new nutrition plan is very, very low salt as it's all fruits and vegetables (mostly raw) and almost no processed food. My first thought was "Salt? On purpose?! I can't do that!" I shushed the sass in my head by reminding myself I do make small exceptions for training food (e.g. Gu on long runs and electrolyte replacement drinks). I decided to make another "exception" and incorporate the Salt Mother into my daily, intentional living practice.

One final Meinrad note. I was standing in the group surrounding Meinrad as the evening was winding to a close. (The friend I went with wanted a chance to speak with her as they've known each other in the past.) We were in a cluster and the woman in front of me was telling Meinrad how much she needed Meinrad's example and inspiration. The woman said several somethings about how she wanted to be as brave and courageous as Meinrad in her own artwork. Meinrad tried to deflect some of this saying she'd only done what she was called to, she affirmed the fearful artist's own ability to do the same, and finally when the woman wasn't hearing her, Meinrad said forcefully, "No. It is for you. Take this! I give you permission to [and here she bared her teeth and growled] be FIERCE in your pursuit. Go." Her energy and her growl encompassed us all. She took the woman's hands in hers and while pulling them together, pushed her gently away. Then Meinrad looked directly at me. It's possible she swept the whole circle with that gaze but I wouldn't know because I was RINGING with the force of those words and her attention. Words said to another, but meant for me too, all the same. She and the Divine Mother gave me permission - a directive - to be FIERCE in my pursuit. Fierce has always meant scary to me - but fear can't get a hold of this inside me. It's too big, too right, too deep for fear. Meinrad Craighead's example gives me an incredible reassurance that my fierceness in this world will be entirely reflective of my own, personal and unique connection with godstuff. I am so grateful to have had the chance to meet Wisdom in this way.

And now, my studio beckons! Peace.

Unpiercing

I wonder. What would the opposite action of piercing be? Piercing is so decisive and immediate. It can be reclamation or destruction. Rite of passage or passing whim. Piercing is an act of invasion but also of willing acceptance. Vulnerability and toughness both come into play. It is intense. Whether it's disfiguring or decorative - it is intense.

Tattooing is completely different. It's more permanent for one thing. For another it takes longer in the moment but heals much more quickly afterwards. The intensity of acquiring a tattoo is drawn out, flattened. The experience of having a tattoo (once it's healed) is mostly visual.

Not that I mean to attach comparative value or to impose any hierarchy on body modification attempts. Whether you're into putting on or taking off weight, cinching your waist or wearing pointy shoes, painting your toenails or getting your eyeballs lasered, collecting ink or showing off metal spikes - to each his own, right? They are all valid attempts to change our bodies in certain ways for reasons that make sense to us (at the time).

I just wonder why I can't unpierce with the same satisfaction as I pierced. To change a tattoo - you have to get a cover-up tattoo or go have the ink painfully burned/sucked out of your skin. To take off weight you've put on or to put on weight you've taken off - you pretty much just reverse direction. But it's hard to unpierce. (In fact, my stupid spell check program keeps underlining it in red to inform me there is no such word, even.) Sure, you can take out the jewelry. You can wait for the hole to heal, but besides that not being what I mean by unpiercing is the fact that you can't count on that. Depending on how long you've been pierced (and where), it may or may not heal over. You might simply end up with an empty piercing. That is hardly the reversal of either process or result that I'm looking for. Maybe the issue is that I'm not seeking an about face. I knew going into the piercer's room that it was a permanent-ish line to cross.

No, I realize now as I write all this, what I'm looking for is a step as bold going out as I took going in. Piercing (for me) has an element of symbolic grief, a dash of decoration, a bit of intuitive fun and a liberal dose of "don't you fucking judge me" to it. Those are the ingredients that my piercings have in common - but they each have their own place on the spectrum too. I have a couple of piercings I'll never, ever even think about taking out. My earlobes - because I love earrings but also because not having pierced ears is really more of a statement than having them is in this day and age. My lip - because it signals my commitment to intentionality about what I say, what I eat (and about it staying down once it passes my lips), whom I kiss and also because unlike other piercings, it remains an intense experience after it's completely healed. The other piercings, though, cover the range from "Already took it out because what the HELL was I thinking when I got that pierced?!" to "Meh. Why bother taking it out? It's done, it's fine. It's no big deal." Somewhere in the middle of that range is "Hmmm. That was exactly what I needed to do at the time but not so much what works for me now. In fact, I need something completely different." It's that one in the middle (or rather two, since they're a matched set, if you get my drift) that I'm wondering about today. Where is the bold step? The next action that affirms the experience of the piercing but also affirms the validity of being done - done with the decoration and the sensitivity.

It is much the same way I didn't have a good ritual for the divorce. Yay - I wasn't married any more. This little (expensive) piece of paper said so. It even said that I'd been done being married ten days ago. The precise act of a judge saying (or stamping really) "I now pronounce your marriage sundered" had passed with no way for me to mark it in the moment. Discovering the embossed and official petition in the mail was anticlimactic. I could have thrown a party, but I didn't. (The rotting corpse of my marriage had sat around stinking up the place until I'd buried it long before the judge got around to engraving the tombstone. A memorial service after the fact might be just the thing for some folks but for me, it was too little too late.) Yet... tiny step by tiny step I began to feel whole in a new way. My ringless left hand stopped looking stripped and in need of covering up. Celebrating the daily achievements (like continuing to breathe in and out) helped. I may have even toasted my "single mother" status a time or two with a fabulous red wine - but on the whole, I had no definitive liturgy for "that was then and this is now". I leapt into that marriage much more decisively than I emerged from of it.

This is a much (much!) smaller curve in my life path - this impulse to unpierce. But it's got the same angle to the curve no matter the scale. I have no step, no act of demarcation to propel me utterly from "pierced to unpierced". The jewelry is out and sterilized. (Useless, but still pretty.) The sites are clean and healing even after four years of being pierced. (Bare, but still pretty - if I do say so myself.) Does this mean I am officially unpierced? This I wonder.

Maybe the answer is, I am if I want to be. The forest being easier to see when you're out of the trees and all that. Maybe the other answer is - who the hell cares, woman? No one* would know one way or the other if you didn't blab and blather all angsty to the internet about it. We all go around piercing and unpiercing ourselves (metaphorically) every day. You get to decide if you want it to be marked by the equivalent of the society pages or a few quiet words in front of the JOP** or somewhere in between. So, y'all (and especially St. Ann who was my confidante for the step in) - Guess what I got unpierced today?
Peace. And happy holidays!

*"No one" in this case meaning technically "only two people" who wouldn't have said a thing to anyone so the point is the same but I had to make a note of it because (on the off chance either of the two read this entry) I didn't want them to think I thought they were "no one's". Phew - cya'ing is torturous. And probably unnecessary. The word probably being the tricky part.

**Justice of the Peace. Isn't that the coolest job title ever? Sounds right up my alley - peace and justice all in one. Too bad, it's a mis-named side job usually performed by old, white men who spend their other days presiding over juvenile court and the like. Still, someday I'd like to meet a really cool JOP. If you know one, tell me!

Scatch N'Sniff Wasabi

I have had two cats in my life - one for 19 years and one for 13. I don't remember anything about their scent, except for the second kitty who smelled terrible on the day before he died from renal failure. Other than that, all of my sensory memory of them is about their sharp little kitten teeth; their silky, soft fur; their dry, raspy tongues; or their freaky, yodely meows.


My dog, however, is a whole different experience. Yes, he's soft and fluffy. Yes, he barks (and growls and sometimes whines, if there's a squirrel to be seen.) But mostly, he smells weird. Even when he's DRY, he smells weird. I suppose it's my fault for naming him after a spice that makes my nose run and eyes water. Scent karma or something. One reason Wasabi smells strange is that he frolics in the yard and regularly crashes through the herb garden in pursuit of cheeky chipmunks. Last week the yard rodents must have lured him out to the furthest edges of the garden because Wasabi smelled of jasmine and sage. You could smell him the minute he walked into a room. Havoc said, "He smells like one of your candles." His odor is not always so savory. Once he chased a squirrel under my 12 year old car and came out smelling like grease and gasoline. Squirrels are his downfall. Not only does he follow them to places he shouldn't go, but now he's begun to act like them.

This morning I've been cleaning house and doing laundry with a little help from my furry pal. I sat down on the couch to take a break (and check the final score of last night's game). Wasabi jumped up beside me and gave me a slurpy dog kiss. I scratched his ears and snuggled with him. Wasabi's breath smelled like Bounce-scented acorns, his fur like rosemary and his paws like corn chips. Ah, the heady perfume of my bizarro dog. I ask you, is this normal?? Do you think he's the canine equivalent of the "too much cologne wearing man"? Will other dogs turn their noses up at (or away from) him? I wonder about this* because he has a playdate on Thursday with our friend Jeff's dog, Grace. Should I try to de-stinkify him? Or let him be himself in all of his olfactory glory?
Peace.

*In lieu of stressing about money and holidays and crap with my ex and the evil teacher and what to cook for dinner tonight and whether my kids are as well adjusted as they seem and...

What Was She Thinking?

What on earth was his mama thinking when she named him Craphonso? It doesn't sound nearly as bad as it looks spelled, but still! How could you not notice that the first part of your baby's name is C-R-A-P?? He has such a nice smile, don't you think? I wish him the very best of NFL careers. Do you think he became a football player to keep people from messing with him? I wonder if he likes his name. Sometimes I wish I were a journalist with a license to ask famous people offbeat questions. Wouldn't that be fun?
Peace.

I Wonder About Weird Stuff

Does everyone get caught up in wondering? Often my wondering is sparked by what's right in front of me but not always. Sometimes it's sparked by something I saw or heard days ago that is finally surfacing in my brain. Sometimes I start trying to figure one thing out but get sidetracked by the idea of how that thing came about in the first place that it needs figuring out. Sometimes I find myself wondering about one thing and then another and then another. Sometimes I can't even begin to retrace my mental steps so it ends up seeming or sounding random.
Today while taking a shower, I wondered how people discovered pumice stones could be used to make your heels softer. (Can you just see someone thinking, "I know! I'll rub a rock on my foot. I could try granite. No, no. I could try sandstone. No, no. I could try pumice. Pumice! That's the ticket. I'll try that.") But then I wondered why it was called pumice. What's the root word there? Pum? Ice? Mice? I thought I should google it and find out - but then began to wonder what people did before google. I had an image of my life B.G. (before google) and then wondered if that was some form of heresy to connect B.C. and B.G. as if google and god were of the same caliber in terms of changing people's lives. What kind of heresy would that be called, do you think? (See how this works for me?) Later (but during the same shower) I wondered if Porter Wagoner said his name with three syllables the way the announcers today said it. (I grew up in Nashville and have only ever before heard it said "Wag-ner" but then I began to wonder if I had in fact heard it differently but didn't think about it at the time which made me wonder about the chemistry of memory.) Still later (when I was drying my hair) I found myself wondering how anyone could like Ann Coulter. And then (when I was supposed to be filling out forms for Mayhem to be on the Ultimate Frisbee team) I mentally wandered off and began to wonder why we eat chickens and not chipmunks. How did that evolve? Not that I'm agitating for people to eat chipmunks. In fact, I'm not much in favor of eating chickens really. But why chicken over chipmunk? There seem to be way more chipmunks around - even if they are smaller. Is it that they're harder to catch? That tiny Buffalo Forelegs would be too hard a marketing angle? THIS is the kind of (go on say it, USELESS) thing I wonder about when I don't mean to be wondering at all. I know it's called "absent minded" but absent implies your mind is away when really it's RIGHT THERE, packed to the gills, going full tilt. Shouldn't it be called "crammed too full to be allowed on the plane minded" (if we wanted to continue with the conventional vacation theme) or more apropos to the pace of thought "rabid weasel minded"?
I wonder.
Peace.