THE DAY DESERVES A POEM

This day deserves a poem.

The goldfinch at the feeder, the purple finch nearby,

Flutter and song, some drink from the fountain

Gurgling, breeze and traffic as methodical as rain.

So clear and fresh a day, I look through the live oak out my window

Down to red tile, white stucco spread from west to east.

Later we drive up the mountain.

If you walk up this path, you can see the islands and the water, we are told 

And so we do, and come upon them, or just the outline on the horizon.

The shadowed islands across the Channel

And the sea, far away and down below.

This night deserves a poem.

From Arroyo Burro beach with tar sand and cavorting dogs

We line the cliff-backed rocks

To watch the setting sun, a sudden dip of gold into the sea.

The twilit sky gives way as lighted by the moon the watchers leave 

And beaches close (but do not sleep) till daylight comes.

But for the traffic, louder as the day unwarms, 

The sounds of mourning doves, of finches and their friends, quiet until daylight when their songs anew begin.

The live oak silhouetted out my window as I write,

While city lights fill the breadth of sight beneath the hills of Santa Ynez

And the sea not so far just out of view. 

  

THE BREATHINGS OF YOUR HEART

 "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Wordsworth was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during the reign of Queen Victoria.  So long ago.  There is not a single poem he wrote that is not worth our attention. 

We all keep our heart's treasures somewhere.  In tangible mementos of course: your grandfather's war diary, your mother's wedding ring, family baptismal gowns, most of what we keep has meaning.  Artists put the breathings of their heart on canvas.  Look at the faces Rembrandt left us. Or Andrea del Sarto.  I keep a print we bought many years ago in our bedroom.  It's called simply "Study of the Head of a Young Woman," done in red chalk. I feel like it holds the breathings of two hearts, the artist's and the woman's.  Because I look at it every day with appreciation and wonder, it holds some of the breathings of my heart too.

by Andrea del Sarto, 1486-1531

Too few can put life on paper like the Romantic poets or Renaissance painters. But even absent Wordsworth's admonition, many of us have put the breathings of our hearts on paper.  Queen Victoria filled over 122 handwritten diaries, now kept in the Royal Archives in London.  

Some writers (and psychologists) believe that the more we write the more we develop our humanity.  Surely this is true of reading as well, which brings us into worlds other than our own.  Reading is the wellspring of empathy. Writing is closer to home; through our writing we can confront difficult personal issues, traumas and emotions.  We write to understand.  In troublesome times, I have literally written volumes. 

Robert Frost (1874-1963) said that "Writing a poem is discovering."  But not just poems, we reply. Creative writing, prayer journaling, diary writing, writing to heal--it's all discovery. When we read the work of great writers, we know that.  They give us their discoveries.  Think of any book you have not been able to forget and what you discovered in it, most likely about yourself.  The breathings of the writer's heart, the breathings of yours. 

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) wrote," There is no greater agony that bearing an untold story inside you."  As we begin to know someone, we often share the worst that has happened to us.  "I have cancer" or "My husband died recently" has to be told before a friendship can even begin. We may tell our story to a pastor, friend or therapist but when we write it, we take even greater care.  How can I explain what I'm feeling?  How will I face tomorrow?  Writing--whether for ourselves or for a wider world--is more deliberate than talking.  As we move from one written word to another, we find connections we couldn't see before. 

We each need ways to give time and space to our thoughts, our feelings, and our emotions, even if I just repeat in my notebook what I did today.   Writing helps regulate our emotions.  Through writing we come to understand ourselves better, and when we do, we have more choices. 

The young woman who sat for Andrea del Sarto in 1523 was the model for the repentant Mary Magdalene lamenting the dead Christ, whose body she looks upon in the Pieta de Luco, an altarpiece commissioned by the abbess of the monastery where Andrea and his family fled during a plague.  The breathings of our hearts are treasures in themselves, whether we write them, draw them, find them in a sketch from long ago, share them or keep them private like gold.  Each breath is a beat, a movement from now to now. A way of consolation.  

Pieta del Luco by Andrea del Sarto

 

ON A MISSION

Salisbury Cathedral, England

This month we're in Santa Barbara, I've mentioned, house sitting for friends.  We've resumed a travel-hobby here--visiting churches.  In some European cities that might mean cathedrals, where I light candles for those I worry about and see who is buried there.  If we can, we attend Evensong or morning prayer and hear the Grand Organs and the Cathedral choirs.  No matter how crowded with visitors, cathedrals are worshipful experiences.  

Our granddaughter said on a recent trip that Salisbury Cathedral was her best experience. It's a Gothic engineering marvel with a spire over 400 feet tall, the highest in England.  In a place of worship for over 800 years, one cannot help but feel the continuity of believers.  I do not doubt my faith, but if one did, witnessing the faith of others over the centuries would help assuage that doubt. In these medieval places, made of crystalline limestone from European quarries, I always think of the words, "Christ Alone the Cornerstone."   We are not only never without God, we also are never without fellow believers.  This is good.

10th California Mission, Santa Barbara, 1786

Here in Santa Barbara, visiting ancient churches means following the Mission Trail, in the footsteps of many. It's a fascinating story and not without the flaws that missionary zeal everywhere may engender:  the history of spreading faith along 800 miles of California coast by Father Junipero Serra, a Spanish Franciscan missionary who brought Christianity to the native Chumash people of North America.  From 1769 to 1835, he started missions up and down the coast of Spanish-occupied Alta California.  

Old Mission, Santa Ines, 1804

The first to be founded was Mission San Diego in 1769, the next in Monterey in 1770, two near Los Angelos in 1771 and so on.  Set about 30 miles apart, or a day's ride on horseback, all twenty-one missions are still active Catholic parishes with regular Sunday services.  It really would be a pilgrimage to visit and perhaps worship in all twenty-one, but we won't be doing that during our house-sitting vacation.  Still, we have seen two of the missions already, during our first weeks here, the mission church of Santa Barbara and the Old Mission of Santa Ines.  Like churches everywhere, they speak to the heart.  We stand where others have stood in prayer, in heartbreak and in thanksgiving.  We stand where others have sought and received healing and forgiveness.  We receive communion where it has been given for hundreds of years. 

 

Visiting churches is as much about worship as it is about history and sight-seeing. It's a way to stop and remember that God is not just in the whales and dolphins off the California shore or the live oak and redwood trees, or in our hearts and souls, but in manmade spaces designed to do God homage where we can sing and pray in community, taking care of each other along the way.  

The Mission Trail reveals nothing like the majesty we see in European cathedrals. No Rose windows or stained glass.  The mission churches have the appeal of simplicity and the Franciscan vows of poverty.  They are of a piece with the land and the times. The only adornment is vibrant color in the few statues and wall art.  Standing in these simple naves one feels piety.  

How fortunate we are to be part of this tradition.  We too can pray here.  Our faith can settle for a moment in these simple spaces and feel the strength and breadth of what we believe.  With God's help, we can do this in any sanctuary we enter.  With God's help, we can do it anywhere.  

THANK YOU FOR SMALL THINGS

 How small can something be and still be worthy of thanks?  We are staying at our friends' home in Southern California, and my husband filled their bird feeders this morning.  They are visited by mostly Mourning Doves and House Finches, the male with a rosy face and breast, the female a less opulent brown.  The doves are grateful for the ground spill; the pairs of finches show their pleasure by jockeying for rungs of the feeder as soon as it is filled.  

I'm always glad when I find an auger, those tiny sand-dwelling carnivores that live in the warm waters of North Carolina.  My mother hunted them too--it takes a good eye as they hide in gravelly shell piles of broken bits that wash up and stay as the tide recedes.  I won't find any here on the Pacific.  Come to think of it, I haven't seen shells at all, just smooth stones, half-buried or lying on the sand.  Not surprising given the abundance of sandstone, limestone, and shale hugging the coastline.   

Any piece of sea glass brings my thanks. My immediate thought is a thank-you that I came out just when this treasure rolled in with the morning's tide.  With just a little creativity, I arranged the auger with dark green and aquamarine sea glass on paper of gold, blue and white swirls.  The worm shells in the second picture are smaller than a finger too.  Then I framed the photos to adorn our remodeled bathroom.  My own creative endeavors are modest, but I'm grateful for them. 

I'm also thankful when I've been waiting for a sign of new growth.  My pot of parsley looked to have turned to dust, so I pinched it all back and watered it.  After a week green sprouted.  Why that brings so much joy I'm not sure, but it does.  Same when the buds appear on the camellia.  Or on the Rose o' Sharon.  I watch and watch for the first bloom, in fact, wake up looking for them.  

Or maybe Mr. Wiggles hasn't been eating, and now he is.  That brings a small burst of gratitude.  I want that boy to live long.  We watch our pet's health with a close eye. 

And then there are the bits of good news about our wellness that answer our prayers and bring relief.  This happens often but maybe, as we age, not often enough.  Waking without pain.  A medicine working.  The scan showing that we're stable.  Small but perhaps not, perhaps large.  

What small (or not so small) things are bringing you happiness this week?  

                                                       Thoughtfully, Nina Naomi

                                                           
  

WHEN WE ARE ATTENTIVE, WE ARE SATISFIED

 

I've thought about this before:  Only when we are attentive are we satisfied.  I learned this first in a meditation class, that not paying attention keeps us in an endless cycle of wanting.  We move on to the next thing because we haven't really paid attention to what's right in front of us.  One teacher of meditation says, "Inattention creates an escalating need for stimulation."  I understand that.  

I thought about how we sometimes eat.  Say a piece of toast warm from the toaster, with melted butter or raspberry jam and that yeasty aroma that good bread has. We may eat it in seconds while doing something else (I might be driving off in the morning), without taking time for the flavors and taste to really register.  If we pay attention from the first bite, we're more likely to enjoy it.  Mindful eating it's sometimes called.  Noticing what we're eating makes for such a satisfying meal.  I'm more likely to do this at a restaurant; but I'd like to make every bite a mindful one, even if I'm just standing at the kitchen counter with a slice of cheese and olives. 

Or we buy something on impulse and after we get it home, we pay it no mind.  It brings no satisfaction.  So, we buy something else.  We keep yearning for the next thing because we aren't paying attention to what we already have.  Our houses and closets become crowded with too many items, too many to cherish or even just appreciate.  

Inattention at its worst can be serious. Experts say that when we live without full awareness, we may more easily fall into an addictive behavior, which itself creates the need for more.  An example:  a child's birthday party or playdate is not enough--it must be accompanied by 'mommy juice."  Watching the sun set over the hill or ocean is not enough--we want our glass of wine in hand.  An exciting concert or sporting event is not enough, and so on.

There's a poem by Robert Frost that reads: 

His life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever.
It is the future that creates his present.
All is an interminable chain of longing.
            from "Escapist--Never" 

That's just who we don't want to be, isn't it?  A person whose life is a "pursuit of a pursuit," whose days are "an interminable chain of longing."  What I've been learning is that concentration breaks the chain.   

When we're keenly aware of what's happening, we don't need

to grasp for the next great moment of sensation or taste or sound

(all the while missing what's actually here, right in front of us).

Salzberg in Real Happiness; The Power of Meditation

Even more, we don't have to postpone our happiness waiting for something more stimulating or more pleasing.  When we pay attention, what we're doing is enough, it fulfills.  

Then lies before us a different chain:  paying attention → leads to concentration → which gives us quiet eyes with which to see the world.  No need to continually seek something else.  We become calm and tranquil, → more satisfied with our mind and body, → and with our life in the moment. 

Well, perhaps you knew all this.  No doubt many do.  But I need reminders and practice.  And I've noticed that the practice makes every day better.  

                                                          With good wishes, Nina Naomi 

A FEW HAPPY THINGS

 

Greenery--plants that freshen the air, watered and trimmed.  In the bedroom they help us sleep, removing airborne toxins and increasing humidity.  Like a night under the stars, or a walk somewhere freshly mown, plants are calming, slowing our heartbeats and relaxing our muscles. 

Airplane plants or philodendron need little care beyond water and succulents thrive on neglect. Asparagus ferns (not a true fern) grow fast and add a look of wild abandonment that I like.  Mine sends stiff shoots that rise a foot or so, then fall, finally tangling on the carpet. 

We are housesitting this month for friends in Santa Barbara, California mostly to take care of their lush greenery.  Family back in North Carolina is doing the same for me, watering and feeding my crazy indoor begonias that grow in the most haphazard directions and root in a jar almost before the water needs changing; my poinsettias that turn red as nights darken and grow cold, then green then red, year after year; the Boston ferns and snake plant, and money tree plant that's quite tall now in its 6th year.  

What can be happier than caring for indoor and outdoor plants? 

Books--stacked here and there.  Favorite ones or ones waiting to be read, scattered or alphabetized or grouped by interest.  Your own journals among them, your travel journals, sketches, scrapbooks. . . .  I read a saying, "You will be judged by your books."  Sounds good to me. Reading is the food for our minds. Our books are varied but not random.  Many are classics, like my favorite, Edith Wharton. Plus, rows of Barbara Kingsolver and Mary Gordon and Joyce Carol Oats.  Lots of poetry from the last century or earlier (I was an English major).  Theology and philosophy that my husband reads.  Then all the mysteries, Louise Penny and her Three Pines series especially.  Doesn't having enough books to read bring you comfort?  What else takes you outside yourself more than a good book?  Well, travel does.  But unlike travel, it takes no effort to plop down somewhere and read.  

 

So now we have two easy rewarding things, plants and books.  

The third is Blankets--lap rugs, throws, wraps, hand-made quilts (by my mom); old or new, fuzzy or soft, colorful or plain.  In baskets, on couches, by the fire pit, on the deck.  Waiting to enfold and warm.  If you don't have enough, check out thrift stores.  Clean and shabby is fine.  We used so many during pandemic outdoor get-togethers.  My new favorite is from warm Icelandic wool. An old favorite black-watch plaid Pendleton, my mom kept around her shoulders during her last weeks in a nursing home.   We can sit somewhere cozy under a blanket with a plant nearby freshening the air and read a good book.  Three happy things together.  

Crafts--for me, word collages, painted furniture, knitting.  A scrapbook of quotes and thoughts to quiet the mind and lift the spirits.  For my mother her quilting supplies. For my brother his art, his Florida patio home a gallery. Pottery, journaling (which someone called the soul's way of coping with reality), hand-made anything . . . I can't list all the creative ways to make our lives rich.  I think we would all agree that when we are creating something we are in a flow state, totally immersed, time passing and no distractions.  We feel challenged and content both.  That's a happy combination. 

There are many other small things that make life rich.  But these are the ones on my mind this California day, sitting at my computer amongst the tropical blooms on my friends' patio after a morning out, making my own life richer--and I hope yours--by sharing these thoughts.  

Thank you for sending your attention this way.  Nina Naomi