CHASED

Blowing Rock, NC

 Chased by the sunset, chased by the moon  

Chased by the morning coming too soon 

Chased by my thoughts as I open my eyes

Pushing back covers confronting the whys

Feeling my blessings as arms hold me tight

Loving the warmth that has sheltered the night

Sometimes the memories confound morning's peace

Leave my mind hoping their circling will cease

Why, I now ask, have they have lasted this long 

But the touch and the breathing can right an old wrong

If I let it, I help it, I sing our true song

    by Nina Naomi

THE TONIC OF WILDNESS--THOREAU

Henry David Thoreau said that we can never have enough nature.  "We need the tonic of wildness," he wrote.  At the same time that we want to explore and master, we also want mystery and infinity.  Start a thought like this:  "I go into the woods . . . " then finish the sentence.  For me, I go into the woods not to find myself but to enjoy myself.  Maybe you are the same.  Or if not the woods, somewhere else that you love--by a pond or river or the ocean of course, or a sidewalk in a leafy neighborhood. Or your balcony or patio when the moon is out. 

If I find someone, it would be God.  God in the lively birdsong, in the pulsating frogs on my walkway at night, in the gracefully skittish deer, even in the annoyingly rambunctious squirrels.  I go into the woods to find peace, but also excitement, the excitement of discovery:  young ferns by the moss, curly fungus or red-capped mushrooms, the rain-swollen creek, a turtle or even just its empty shell. Sometimes--but hardly ever--I find an antler a deer has shed. We can all find treasures in nature. Do you like rocks?  Quartz or crystal or stones smoothed by water or lava rocks like we found on our trip to Iceland?   We have a friend who collects rocks and we brought her one.    

I'm thinking that I don't go anywhere to "find myself" (so very 60s), but to "be myself."  I can sing in the woods, talk to the trees, revel in the leaves dripping after a storm, collect brush, sit on stones ... in the woods we can be grungy, outside of time.  Being alone in the woods with fallen leaves, thorns and fragrant pines can feel sacred.  God is not only in church or in other people or in our hearts or in the scripture we read.  

What discoveries do you make in nature?  It depends on where we happen to be, I suppose.  Do you sometimes take a picture of a tiny something that enchants you?  A flower or perhaps a spider?  Or just notice it and not take a picture.  At a garden shop I found a begonia with variegated leaves that I had never seen before.  Now it's a pot plant in my kitchen.  I hope it grows huge.  Begonias do that

Now is such a good time of year for finding God outdoors, for being with God as we do the things that we enjoy.  The earth is softer underfoot and the foliage richer in scent as we gravitate toward earlier nights.  This may also be a good time to count our blessings.  No one's life is all blessings, of course.  Our trials can seem more than we can bear, but yet we bear them, we all do, one day at a time, one prayer at a time, one walk in the woods at a time. For this let us give thanks.  

In peace, Nina Naomi

THE BLESSING OF THE EVERYDAY

I hate to admit that when my husband wakes first, I ask him to bring me hot tea and my phone.  Why don't I meditate or stretch or begin the day in prayer?  But more often than not I look at the headlines.  Those first moments of the day would be so much more enjoyable without the frustration of last night's news.  

When I'm up first I make the tea.   I let Mr. Wiggles out, give him his favorite food, and then look at my phone.  Have you noticed that sometimes being informed costs us?  What can I do about guns, abortions rights or Ukraine?   

We don't like to give in, and we haven't.  On November 8 we can vote.  But our mental well-being is important.  Nothing will be changed by my witnessing the news.  Why not enjoy the simplicity of the moment?  Why not focus wholly on the life before us?  

Isle of Mull, Scotland

There is a deep satisfaction that is the undercurrent of the everyday.  It was so easy to find that satisfaction when we were traveling.  Iceland with its geothermal pools; we submerged ourselves into their other worldliness.  The islands of the Inner Hebrides with their grazing sheep.  But satisfaction is here too:  an autumn that's cool, leaves that fall, mums of all colors and vintage pumpkins in earthy shades. 

It's glorious to stay in the moment and appreciate the good that comes our way.  It turns out there is more than I can count.  Many of these good things are small, but not all.  All three grandchildren were here for my birthday this weekend.  This is not small.  They are old enough to give me hope for the future.   My brother is coming.  Not small either.  

God gives us a heart and not just the muscle.  Otherwise, it could not be broken--and mended.  God gives us feelings, hopes, emotions, desires . . . we are complicated.    There are safe places to leave our heart--in our Journals, in a poem, with a child, with someone who loves us, with God.  One thing I have learned is that sadness has an expiration date.  When sadness is most new this is hard to believe, but no feeling lasts forever.  Each day is a new opportunity.  We are never reduced to who we were yesterday.     

We can always be surprised by the joy of simple things.  I get great pleasure out of finding antlers shed by the deer who graze our meadow.   Have you brought home a pumpkin yet?  Or made apple cider?  Or sat by a fire?  I love All Saints Day, which is soon, and the singing of "For All the Saints Who from Their Labors Rest."  The first year after our son died, I skipped church on that day for the raw grief of my emotions, but now I see our son walking with God.  As I write, I anticipate the exhilaration I will feel singing this hymn.  All of us have someone whom we remember in glory.    

I'm going to try to give the rest of October to the God of our Fathers and Mothers and skip the recap of the evening news.  Habits are hard to break, but it's worth trying.  In peace, Nina Naomi 

MEMORY AND INTUITION

Memory and Intuition

 This is how memory works.  

If you want to forget you remember. 

If you want to remember you forget.  

One day your memory comforts. 

The next day it torments. 

A memory never finishes.   

 An angle out of view, it travels side-to-side.   

A broken mind with broken thoughts

Does not a memory find.  

Where there's a memory shadowless, 

Its shelter fills our heart.

My childhood home, my children small, 

So much that's real and true. 

Or, memory takes a hurt and rags it like a bone.

"Leave me alone," we say, yet it does not. 

What's over not our choice. 

But intuition quite apart,  

Itself a memory shadowless, 

On it we can depend. 

Our intuition holds our hand as we approach the wall. 

   Unready for the news we fear 

Forever heart on hold.

It doesn't let us fail. 

With intuition there's no doubt, 

It's always on our side.  

With memory we can fall right through 

And land upright or not. 

But intuition could be God, 

Its saving grace a balm. 

Its wisdom greater than our own,

Its insight only bliss.   

  

 

PUB FINERY

British pubs have a thing about flowers.  Nearly every pub is adorned with foliage and hanging baskets.  The ones that aren't are sure to be gloomy inside in my opinion.  We will pass them right by.  The ones that are seem welcoming and cheerful. And pub food is always a treat for someone who goes to Britain as seldom as I.  I don't know whether the riot of color is a sign of a tastier ale or half-pint.  But the tonic and lime, diet Coke and bitter lemon are uniformly good. This trip, our Fall Excellent Adventure as I decided to call it, I took bunches of photos of glorious pubs.  After all, there's no room to bring home souvenirs.

Some say the naming of pubs began with the Romans, others not until the Middle Ages.  Since most people couldn't read, signs were the best means of communication:  a shoe for a cobbler, a Coat-of-Arms or Rose and Crown, perhaps for an Inn.  And because the water could make anyone sick, it was good to know where to find a fermented replacement. Since every neighborhood has a pub--the local--and we lived in Bloomsbury on Mecklenburg Square many years ago, we too "have a pub."  Called The Lamb, the original meaning allegedly referred to Christ as the Lamb of God, back when all things, even a watering hole for a pint, had Christian associations.  Then again, it could have meant that sheep were once herded down the way since the street is called Lamb's Conduit.  But the most likely name source is William Lambe, who donated money for a water cistern and pipe. So much for romance. 

We remember when pubs smelled of cigarettes; you could barely see the blossoms for the haze.  But now in the spots where ordinary working folk (and we visitors) go, the fragrance and charm are not obscured.  People can sit outdoors or in and have an affordable meal and drink on virtually every corner where the rainy days and nights of Britain give a lushness to every blooming plant. 

I'm sure there's a downside.  Promoting alcohol is not a good thing.  But the greenery is a bright addition to some otherwise admittedly uninteresting urban sidewalks where the trash pickup may be spotty or late.  

What I'll do with these beguiling photos I'm not sure, but I've already an array of creative ideas.  I'm hoping that one or two of them won't be too hard.                    Nina Naomi 

ANOTHER DAY WITH A FULL HEART

 

Today I sit facing the meadow newly mown.  The cedar trees that once were small are skyward tall.  If you lie on your back, the loblolly tops merge with heaven.  Shadows long, spreading east, mirror the cedars, joined at the trunk as shadows do.  To the left, within my reach, a grove of beech, smooth and white.

I look through branches hanging low while the sun is still high but moving west.  Soon there will be colors in the sky on such a cloudless day.  There's almost no sound, no geese (not yet) nor train.  A quiet time with only the distant breath of traffic.  Later the deer will step out of the woods.  They will not like the meadow shorn.  

It's the season of golden pine straw, leaves still green and dark, mornings too.  I wake to crescent moon and candles, damp air, tea, alone but for the dog.  Time to pray.

We all have places like this, mostly outdoors but sometimes by a window.  Where the view stretches and we see things that give us pleasure, hear sounds that wake our senses, find space for our thoughts. 

The days are long, just as I wanted.  As time grows short, long days are good.  Never again will I wish a day to quickly pass.  Hurt maybe, or disappointment, but not the whole day.  So many never-agains.  Today is never yesterday.  Today is always now. 

A FULL HEART

My heart is full because we traveled.  Travel is like the best times with family.  That's all I can compare it to.  Those times when there's laughter, joy and excitement.  This was a long-awaited trip to Iceland, London (where we lived), and the Scottish Highlands.  

Travel is like that for me because I feel a rush of joy in all creation, in people and places and things.  In people who together stand by waterfalls in Iceland to feel the icy spray mingle with the cold air on our faces while the rush of plunging water conquers all other sound.  Or by the geysers where we feel the heat from deep underground and watch the steam rise and fall loudly in peaks and waves. I find myself saying "Thank you God," for a countryside of moss-covered volcanic rock, for sturdy Icelandic horses, and for the geothermal lagoons where we submerse ourselves in wonder even as it rains.  Cliche or not, the Blue Lagoon does seem supernatural, with milky blue water, rich minerals and wisps of steam all set amongst the black lava remains of aeons.  

The Blue Lagoon, Reykjavik

There is awe in North Carolina and closer to home to be sure.  But some places are just plain magical.   

In London we confront memories at every juncture.  As newlyweds we lived there, madly in love with the city and each other.  We sell our cherry-red Mustang for rent money and my husband has a small stipend to attend graduate school.  I get pregnant there twice.  

All Hallows by-the-Tower

Our love of travel began in London when we landed at Heathrow as the first stop on our honeymoon.  The city grows with each visit.  Three highlights this time:  entering St. Paul's cathedral to the sounds of the 12 change-ringing bells that announce worship in a clanging symphony; attending a play at The Globe, the outdoor stage replicating Shakespeare's theatre; and seeing again the magnificent brasses we rubbed those many years ago in All Hallows by the Tower.  

Our rubbing of the small Resurrection brass of Christ climbing out of his tomb hangs framed in my husband's study to this day.  And having seen again the magnificent full memorial brass of Andrew Evyngar (d. 1522) with his wife and children set on a replica of Flemish brocade, I will find a new place to hang our rubbing.    

In cities with long histories, it is often the artistry that people are drawn to, isn't it?  Stone masonry from centuries past, churches and towers, domes and arches.  I am wondering about the unknown artists who engraved the monuments made of sheet brass let into the sanctuary pavements, which we rubbed with gold heel-ball wax on black paper to keep forever.  This is why we wander churches and museums and sidewalks and squares and even parks, isn't it?  Because humans are capable of wondrous things too.  All of us.   

 Cladich Castle

In Scotland we again immerse in nature, in the Western Highlands.  We get from place-to-place by train, ferry, bus, van and taxi.  We see castles, long-horned shaggy cattle and sheep galore.  We climb green hills, eat grilled langoustines (a kind of shrimp-lobster-crayfish delight), hike in the most astounding places and meet the Scots.  We love the deep lochs, the high hills, the air and the people. 

 

Isle of Mull 

I know, we all do, that there are tragedies everywhere.  Personal, political, environmental.  Travel doesn't erase that.  There is much to pray for in every church visited, with every candle lit.  But we needn't apologize, I think, for appreciating God's good creation, for letting it renew our spirit.  After the past two years, seeing other peoples of the world is a good thing.  Having the time and money to travel is a blessing.   

Now that we're home, tomorrow I will look for ways to fill my heart in Durham, North Carolina.  But this trip is a gift I will not forget.  Hoping for the best for us all.        Nina Naomi