IT'S TIME TO TAKE A BREATH

Lady Banks in Bloom

Spring is a time when trust unfurls

From heights and depths we cannot touch.

Trees wave, they bend and bow 

As starlit eyes and ancient dreams

Push from the earth as we knew they would, 

Hungry for light.

Snapdragons waken, pansies plump in the just-so-warmth,

Their winter sallow turning bright.

Bearded Iris rise and tremble, steady then salute. 

Earth sheds her worries and so should we. 

We've done it again, each sprout declares (and so should we)

Flinging pink then purple then green.

Do more, love more, be more should we.

"I trust you, earth." the poet says.  "I trust you, God," say I."

It's time to take a breath. 

 

MAKING A LIFE FROM SCRAPS, PART 2

Prize Winning Quilt by Nina Naomi

Last September, lying under a quilt stitched by my mother, I got thinking about making a life from scraps (posted Sept. 6, 2021), more figuratively than literally since I can't sew.  Rather, about how we all have bits and bobs--family here and there, friends, treasures saved (a piece of baby blanket, a cracked vase), old photos, letters (if you're old enough), playbills . . . .  A kind of emotional quilt I called it.

At that time the pattern of my quilt was a furnished apartment in New Jersey where we spent the Fall.  A bit darkish, was the apartment--needed twinkle lights and candles--but a hugely rewarding change of scene with special family nearby. Aren't the best places to visit where there's family? Plus we could walk everywhere. 

Now the pattern is home in North Carolina and Springtime.  This morning I felt like the buds had waited until I went to bed to burst into glorious green.  The difference between yesterday and today was the difference between oh-it's-coming and a brilliance almost blinding.  Last night's rain had settled on each new leaf like a sparkling jewel.  

When I awoke today the birds were vying with eachother for the most melodic trills.  And now, near dusk, the sky is blue with tufts of white.  It is said that nature inspires our creativity and focus.  Surely that's so.  When I look at my mother's quilt I see appliqued tulips. I know she was living at the beach at the time she made it--retired after years of teaching in Missouri. Enjoying the splendor of the ocean and dreaming of tulips.  

There's so much healing power in nature.  If we're bleary-eyed from our screens, going outside makes all the difference.  We can feel the change in our breathing, in our step.  There's no brain-fog outdoors.  It's an anti-depressant with no bad side-effects, as simple as that.  We can become addicted to nature and be the better for it.  What else calms, soothes, inspires and invigorates and is free?  

Today is Maundy Thursday.  I went to a noon service where the altar was stripped waiting for Good Friday and the Crucifixion.  So, we have our faiths.  We have our fears for the world, foremost this Spring our fears for the brave people of Ukraine.  We have the gifts of God all around us.  My Easter Sunday will be with grandchildren.  Praise be for that. 

When I wrote about a life from scraps last Fall, I said that all of us are lucky.  We're surviving the pandemic and making our way, I wrote.  We're appreciating each day and finding moments of joy and contentment.  The older we get, the more scraps to gather and stitch.  But the quilt of us is coming along nicely. It's true. I love being where I am--no matter where that is.  I bet you do too.   

                       In peace, Nina Naomi

LIFE RESURRECTED

 

Isn't it wonderful that it's spring? I have been outside all week, enjoying the tiniest of wildflowers and the brilliant green of my woods.  Doug, the chipmunk named by our granddaughter, has been boldly darting from deck to spilled bird seed.  He is by far the cutest rodent we have ever seen. He was a regular last year and we were so glad when he emerged from hibernation.  Did you know that chipmunks make refuse tunnels so that their sleeping quarters are clean? We've been rooting for him against the hawks that circle. 

Plus Easter and Passover.  What could be better?  Two Holy Days  commemorating great events in each religion:  the Resurrection of our Lord for those who are Christian and the deliverance from slavery in Egypt for those who are Jewish--two days with ancient origins.  

Passover always falls on a Full Moon because of its place in the Hebrew calendar. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox.  If the first full moon falls on a Sunday then that day is Palm Sunday and the next is Easter. This year Good Friday falls on the same day as Passover.  Sometimes  I have been privileged to celebrate both. There can't be a better beginning to the Easter Passion.

Obviously these are not historical dates, but that's just fine. I suspect that those who believe, of whatever faith, are not looking for literal confirmation of acts of religious significance.  Did deliverance actually occur when the moon was full?  Maybe.  It makes sense.  But does it matter?  We have been given faith as a gift, and as our heritage. There are pagan antecedents of Christmas too.  Religion finds its place in the community.  It has for centuries.  

So the two combine--spring and Easter.  New life and resurrected life.  Every year, in greens and yellows and purples, we see the manifestation of John Donne's statement:  "Death thou shalt die."  It's in my yard and in yours.  Amen.                    Nina Naomi

 

 

SURPRISE--A SILVER LINING

 

           “You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming.” Pablo Neruda.

Oh my, hard to believe--a silver lining.  I've been looking for one and today, voilà. 

Remember the quote from Margaret Renkl in the Post of Mar 11, 2022?  

In this troubled world, it would be a crime to snuff out any flicker of happiness that somehow leaps into life.

Well, here's another flicker of, aptly, happiness about happiness.  

The annual World Happiness Report (WHR) has just been released. You know, the report that finds Finland "the happiest place in the world" each year? (Or at least the last 5 years.)   If you've forgotten how it works, the WHR is authored by independent experts who compile the results of a global survey of people from more than 150 countries.  It's published by the United Nations.  

Our ranking has never been high, with low institutional trust and steep income inequality affecting what we see as our best possible lives. But we did modestly rise from 19th to 16th this year which, given the darkness of the times, may be more meaningful than it looks. 

After all, like memory, happiness is elusive.  And two years of pandemic readjustments have disrupted people's feelings.  Yet worldwide, people's overall positive emotions have continued to be more than twice as frequent as their negative emotions. Measurements of laughter, enjoyment, and learning or doing something new, lead measurements of sadness, anger or worry 2 to 1.  

And where sadness or worry did increase, in 2020 during the first year of the pandemic, anger did not.  We stood together.  We worried together.  We were sad together.  We were not angry with one another, and this is worldwide. We the people ignored political finger-pointing.  If laughter decreased, it was more than made up for by learning or doing something new.  All those hobbies, recipes, and new or recovered skills raised our happiness quotient.  We weren't simply staying afloat, much as it seemed some days. Working from home made us happy.  Even having the children home did. Even (or maybe especially) not working did.

Historically Canada, Australia and New Zealand, countries with social safety nets, measure high in life evaluation and remained so.  But the real surge, for the whole world, was in simple kindness.  Sewing masks, volunteering for clinical trials (not a small thing), checking on neighbors, gathering family and friends outdoors or through Zoom, providing free services . . . .  The ways of stepping up have been as varied as we are.  In every region of the globe during 2020 and 2021 strangers helped strangers more--a whopping 25% more.  Everywhere donations, volunteering, and selflessness increased. 

Why is this good news, other than the obvious?  Well, because positive emotions promote optimism, resilience, and increase our ability to adapt to future challenges.  In other words, they're not just an end in themselves.  They carry over into tomorrow.  

The pandemic has cut many flowers.  Lives, education, jobs are like a meadow mown.  But spring came anyway.  It's here and in bloom. 

 

SPRING IGNORES OUR TROUBLES, HALLELULAH!

What to Do With Spring's Wild Joy in a Burning World by writer Margaret Renkl (NYT, Mar 7), was the luckiest find today.  For weeks, ever since that fateful Thursday when Vladimir Putin anointed himself God, I have pondered the disconnect between my life and the scenes I see playing out on the news: caravans of Ukrainian families on foot, children in strollers, pets abandoned; explosions, rubble, death.  I suspect most of us feel helpless this spring.  Just where do the boundaries of ethics lie?  What risk/benefit analysis can we apply without guilt or shame?  Every day I am grateful these decisions aren't mine.  It is Lent and evil has been loosed. Europe has been there before.  

Then today a respite, Margaret Renkl's beautiful words.  First she describes March.    "Cue the waking insects," she says.  "Cue the flashing bluebirds, swooping." "Cue the fox," "Cue the hard brown buds, waiting all through winter . . . ."   Since I too live in the South, I am right with her. Out my door are early woodland violets, arcing branches of wild yellow forsythia, dozens and dozens of Lenten roses.  Renkl says we don't deserve a March like this because we humans are destroying our home.  She doesn't mean Vladimir Putin but all of us.  I understand.  She's right.  Planet news, when we really listen, when we believe--as we must--is as scary as any war. Armageddon can be anywhere.  

"I am in love with the mild light of springtime even so," she says.  "With all you are, listen for the hum and quiver of the waking world."  Yes, I answer, I am doing this.  I am inspecting everything.  Leaf mold, tender greening moss, crocuses and daffodils of course, lavender hyacinth, bright unfurling hydrangea, whatever perennial makes itself known.  

But then she says what really draws me to this article:

In this troubled world, it would be a crime to snuff out any flicker of happiness that somehow leaps into life.

Isn't that absolutely true?  It's not whether we deserve the joy of spring.  It's already here. It's here to comfort.  It's here as a cradle for our cares.   

We know the difference between curing and healing.  Fresh growth in the forests on the Polish border where the Ukrainian refugees come--or out my door--won't banish the need for freedom or the hunger for peace.  But it can help repair and strengthen our minds and spirits.  New life, whether rising from the ground or held snuggled in our arms, helps lift depression and gladdens our hearts.  It reminds us what it means to be human.  Let us respect that and rejoice.      Nina Naomi          

YOUR HEART'S WISDOM AND MINE

 

I wake to music now because here in North Carolina the window can be cracked.  The Winter Wren is passing through.  The Gold Finch and the Purple Finch--a deep raspberry hue--will stay around for the duration. Warblers too are doing what they do.  It makes the day a symphony.  As I sit here at my computer there's an antiphonal chorus. It's warm enough for an open door.  

It's the rich beginning of a new season.  Glorious abundance lies before us. Whether we are going to make this day a wonderful part of our story is open to us now.  Because each season has a story and every day we are creating it.  It won't be perfect; but it can be good. 

So while I listen to the outdoor choir I like also to tell myself:  be still and listen to your heart.  It has so much to say.  My heart reminds me that prayer is the path to peace.  It reminds me that those I love deserve forgiveness for past hurts, and that forgiveness includes myself.  My heart keeps me fresh, so that I, like the moss, green with the rain. It beats with gratitude for surviving this year so terrible for so many. 

If you listen to your heart what will it tell you? It might whisper that you are deserving, kind, and true; of that your heart is sure.  What else might it say?

Our hearts might promise that, if we want, this is our season to shine. From deep within out across all boundaries. For me, not a glare, but a soft mellow light, full, I hope, of tenderness and purpose.  For someone else a beam, honed in on fairness and justice.  Or a laser, focused on championing a cause.  Or bettering the world for our children.  Or reaching a deserved goal.  

I do believe that wisdom enriches age.  For the creative or the thoughtful, for those not constrained by ego or vanity, for those who give what they can, wisdom follows.  I have learned that my heart and my intuition do not fail me.  They don't make life easy but they do make it true. 

So let's do it.  Let's be still and listen to our hearts, with as much eager anticipation as the morning birds outside our open window.  Why ever would we not?  

Every Day Counts

                 

 

 
 

IT'S SPRING FOR US, TOO.

Hellebores grow wild in our woods so we brought some closer to the house. When they bloom in Lent, like now, they're the Lenten Rose.  Blooming mid-December, they're the Christmas rose.  Baby violets are starting to dot our composted beds too.  They vie with the grape hyacinths for the bluest hue. The deer leave all of these and the cheerful daffodils alone.  Funny how happy the change of seasons makes us. Buzzing summer bees, golden-leaved fall trees, newly fallen snow or damp spring mornings--all equally welcome.  

The wonders of another spring go perfectly with the other wonders of this month.  Now that we're vaccinated we have grandchildren-sleep-overs; the first on-the-porch restaurant visit tonight; a timed, spaced family museum outing earlier this week.  We've planned a fall trip to D.C. to visit friends and my husband promises he'll join me in a road trip.  "Not now but soon" is becoming a reality. 

This is happening to you too, isn't it?  A happiness I've heard called the endorphins of possibility.  A spot of scientific jargon for our rising emotional health; I like it.  It's so wonderful not to fear every encounter.  We are hugging new people daily. 

I know many people have been more open to activities than I have. I just got my first professional haircut in a year.  And a pedicure so long overdue that my feet have been feeling like donkey hooves.  

All in all, no matter everything we've been through, it's an auspicious spring.  Full of lightness and optimism. Are you feeling this too?  I want to paraphrase:  This is the season the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  

                                      With thanksgiving, Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

SIMPLE, SWEET AND SLOW: CONTENTMENT

I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit sad that we've moved our clocks forward.  Even though it's still cold out our long nights are over.  Now for awhile it's dark in the morning with more light in the evening.  I've been content with our early nights.  Mid-winter always seems like going back to a simpler life which, as we know, is not a step backwards.  A step inwards perhaps but not backwards.  Winter is the quiet season; more solitude, that thread that unites us with our inner world.  The season of short days is the time to work on our projects.  I took up a long-dormant knitting project and am just hours away from finishing.  I enrolled in a knitting class to get it just right. 

Longer nights have also given us more time to keep company with ourselves and those we live with.  Kids love an early bath, books and jammies.   The meditation class I finished encouraged us to be more compassionate companions, as if we ourselves are someone we are fond of and wish to inspire. Practicing that gentleness has been the best of winter projects.  

The contentment of long nights is such a soft, generous idea.  It's a word that conjures up a mix of joy and peace, the kind we might get from an early night to bed with the one we love most. What's great about contentment is that it is possible every day.  We don't need to wait for one of those special dream-come-true days.  It's right here where we are, sitting and being fully in the grace of what surrounds us and lives inside us now.  Accepting the past, living for today, and hoping for tomorrow. 

Well now, that isn't confined to a season, is it?  By the time we get used to the dark mornings they'll be gone; the sun will be up before the alarm rings.  We'll have longer days to find something wonderful in the ordinary.  To let our curious, accepting, non-judging, kind selves do their thing.  If we could harmonize our mind, body and spirit with the cold beauty of winter, what can't we do in Spring?

Snow-covered Rosemary in Bloom

 

BEST BOOK FOR SPRING --"Anything good you've ever been given is yours forever."

Dr. Rachel Naomi Ramen ends her book with this sentence.  I wrote about her book My Grandfather's Blessings in the Post "Best Book for the Holidays about Blessings (12/8/18).  Now I have read her earlier book, Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal.  It is a perfect Spring read because Spring is a time to open our hearts and embrace life, to perennially renew ourselves with the trees and the grass and the flowers, to heal with the warm sun and a soft breeze. 

This book has so much to offer.  Some gems are just snippets.  In her Preface she says that writers are people born to write, while authors are people who do something else and then write about it.  Where do diarists fall, or those of us who journal or blog I wonder? Probably some in one category and some in the other.  Or a bit of cross-over.  But an interesting distinction.  Dr. Ramen says, "Because I am not a writer, when I sat down to write, all I had were my memories."  Isn't that encouraging?  

We all have memories that are stories to be savored and celebrated, especially if we pause in our minds to interpret them, to remember them fully.  And then perhaps tell them or write them down.  Even a painful memory may include something to celebrate:  our bravery, our perseverance, our survival, the way we behaved under pressure, those who helped us, those who love us through thick and thin, how we have grown to help others. . . .

Some issues stay with us our whole life.  Living with chronic illness is one.  Losing someone at a young age is another.  Our children's suffering.  An insecure childhood.  Our own limitations.  Each time we pass through these issues we understand more.  "Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate," Ramen says. 

Because she is a physician, much of the book is about healing.  Not being cured . . . being healed.  And about grieving and loss.  Protecting ourselves from loss by avoiding grief is not the route to healing, she thinks. Avoiding grief distances ourselves from life.  Professionally it leads to burnout.  Grieving, she believes, is a way of self-care even in a work setting.  I've found this in my law practice.  As a lawyer I've met people catastrophically injured by preventable medical errors.  I remember the baby born after prolonged oxygen deprivation; the nurse failed to notice the alarming signs on the fetal heart monitor strip.  The doctor said she wished the nurse had called her earlier.  I cannot forget being racked with sobs over that baby's future.  "We burn out not because we don't care but because we don't grieve," Dr. Ramen says. Grieving is healing.

She also explains that for our wholeness, approval is just as destructive as criticism.  I did not understand that before.  But it rings true.  

"To seek approval is to have no resting place. . .

Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving. 

This is as true of the approval we give ourselves as it is of the approval we offer others.

Approval can't be trusted.

It can be withdrawn at any time. . . .

Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it." 

Ramen also explains that our wholeness can be whittled down by family, cultural beliefs (boys don't cry; neither do professionals; girls don't speak their minds), or spiritual beliefs. It made me question whether I have to judge myself against a yardstick of Christian acceptability that always finds me short.  I expect God never intended that.  Such a blessing to outlive our self-judgments, to let go of a standard of excellence.  All love is unconditional Ramen states.  Anything else is just approval.  What a message for us parents, spouses, lovers, friends. . . . 

According to Talmudic teaching, we do not see things as they are, but as we are.  The author calls this a trap.  "Life usually offers us far more than our biases and preferences will allow," she says.  Isn't that wise?  This book is full of wisdom.  Inner peace as a spiritual quality rather than a mental quality.  This fits with the way I practice mindfulness and meditation.  It fits with our weekly liturgy that includes the prayer for the "peace that passes all understanding." 

I am only touching the surface of the life-affirming nature of this book.  This post needs a Part II.  Buy or borrow the book if you wish.  Or just ponder what is written here.  Like My Grandfather's Blessings this book is a slow read.  So much to absorb.  To enjoy this Spring.      Nina Naomi  

THREE BLESSINGS FOR SPRING

Whatever our faith we need times to repent and rejoice.  Repent for what we have done or left undone. And rejoice for the forgiveness we receive from those we have harmed, our friends or our family. . . .  Forgiveness also from God.  Forgiveness that is open to all humanity without condition.  What could be more freeing than repenting and forgiving? We all find that receiving a sincere apology for a hurt brings an almost immediate calm.  When someone recognizes that they have wounded us, our soul can breath again.  Repentance, forgiveness, rejoicing.  Three blessings that allow us to thrive. This is most certainly true. 

Today is the 4th Sunday in Lent, a day when Christians traditionally take respite from the penitence of early Lent as encouragement to the coming action of taking up the Cross and carrying it through the Crucifixion of Good Friday until the Resurrection and rejoicing of Easter Sunday.  

So today in church was a rejoicing Sunday. This morning's guest choir was the Duke Amandla Chorus, an African music group that performs traditional music from African countries in their native languages.   Like many, my husband and I love the traditional music of Africa.  We have visited when our daughter taught in Lebowa, at that time a nonindependent homeland for the northern Sotho people.  

The first offertory anthem today was an invitation in the Swati language from the landlocked Kingdom of Eswatini (also known as Swaziland). Here are the words of "Ngena Nawe" in English. 

Here is the door

The door to life

It has been opened for you

It's wide open for you

Enter, you are welcome

For your freedom and upliftment

Do not hesitate

It is also open for you

Here are the gates

The door to life

It's wide open for you

Wake up; listen to his Glory

Do not forget

The door to happiness

Is wide open for you

Do not be afraid

The living waters

Have come abundantly and with strength

Come in, you are welcome

This is the source of life

Drink, drink

This is all for you

You are invited to eat; eat, be merry, be filled

What welcoming words.  "Here is the door, It has been opened for you, It's wide open for you."  This could be a meditative refrain.  So affirming no matter what our beliefs are.  A place to enter for "freedom and upliftment."  "The door to happiness is wide open" for us. For me I think of the door to eternal life as well as the day-to-day happiness that is available to us all.  I hear compassion for self and others.  You may hear something else.  I wish everyone could have heard the drumming, the call and response. And felt the rhythms.  So Lent can be as energetic and joyous as Spring.  It was today.   

 

 

LET YOURSELF GO

Summer just opens the door and lets you out. 

This is a quote by Deb Caletti (b. 1963), young adult author.  I like it.  But actually, it can apply to any season.  Spring certainly, the season of rebirth.  Fall, which is also new beginnings, crisp air, the school year, the end of a hodge-podge summer schedule.  Even Winter with the cleanliness of new fallen snow and the brightness of Christmas decorations.  I figure just about any time is a good time to take off, to soar.  I am thinking partly about the times when we can be who nobody thinks we are.  

When we're alone of course.  We can dance around the house, sing as loud as we want, turn the music up, clean like a dervish or let things go, cry if we need to or practice scream therapy, sleep with the covers over our head or stay up all night. . . .   But also when we're on vacation, whatever time of year.  We won't run into our high school teacher at the super market, or an old friend (or enemy) grabbing coffee.  On vacation, especially if alone, we can wear hats, red lipstick, chat with strangers, do something outrageous, create a persona.  If a friend wants to do this with us, all the better.  

It's fun to be someone different.  I rented my husband and me a place in the mountains, just for a couple of nights.  At home we are straight-laced grandparents.   On a mini-break we added spa treatments, late-night oysters, mountain views, hair-pin curves.  Oh my goodness.  Just 3 hours from home but so good to be someone else. 

You parents and grandparents, family members, care-taking children, teachers, accountants, lawyers, bosses, have you done this?  Gotten away for a night?  Gotten to be whomever you want?  Students can do this when they go away to college.  A chance to change who they were in high school.  We can do it in a new job or new city.  A do-over.  It's downright liberating.  

I don't mean a break from our values.  Or what we believe in or who we trust or who we would lay down our life for.   Just a chance to lighten the load, to let ourselves go.  To be someone else for awhile or forever.  Do you have a weekend alone or away?  Can you plan something? Why not open the door and let yourself out?  I'm looking for a time right now.