The leaves drift and drop from the trees each fall. It is often thought the leaves falling is due to the cooler weather. Simplistically, it is more about the decreasing amount of light as the days become shorter, the chlorophyll which give the leaves their green color breaks down, and the leaves change their color to the many magnificent oranges, yellows, golds, scarlets, amber, rust, and crimson.
It’s about the light.
When I was afraid to go upstairs to my bedroom as a 5 and 6 year old because it was dark and I could not be sure there was no creepy thing lurking. There was not light in the stairway or upper room until I got to my bedroom.
How many times have I been stopped by my own fear and uncertainty? When I didn’t think I could see enough? So it didn’t stop at age 6!
Hydrangea. Photo by MDessein
Ah, when did I not see when I was the light? As my children have become autonomous, amazing adults, I sometimes look back and wish I had known better for times they were in distress and uncertainty. I tended to react to the event, their behavior, and circumstances rather than look at the bigger picture, possible actions, and then respond. Yet, they are both still speaking to me! and I look forward to each time. For the most part, they remember when I stood up for them, taught them, played with them~
Mukilteo sunset. Photo by MDessein
Michael Strassfeld is an author, a rabbi, and thinker. One of his thoughts captured my attention, “Light gives of itself freely, filling all available space. It does not seek anything in return; it asks not whether you are friend or foe. It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.”
“Hi! Hi! Hi!” She waved her small hand between each greeting. Her eyes captured my attention. Bright, alive, mischievous – insistent that I see her.
I smiled and waved back at her, “Hi.”
About three years old, with short dark brown curly hair and vivacious brown eyes, the little girl wore a flowered dress with a red background. Sitting kitty-corner across the subway aisle from me, she perched on her seat, while her mother sat on the seat behind her. The subway rattled and rocked us as it rushed to McGill Station, the next stop on Montreal’s green line.
She pushed off the plastic seat and hopped the three steps over to me. As she reached up toward my oval-shaped earring dangling from my left ear, I was instantly wary – I leaned slightly back. In my moment’s hesitation, she gently rubbed her thumb and forefinger on the length of the earring, smiling slightly as her bright eyes watched me, and then fingered the right earring without the slightest tug on my ear.
Her mother called her back to sit down. We waved at each other the rest of the four minute ride. The panel doors split open, she turned and waved, “Bye.”
I waved back, “Bye.” “Bye!”
I smiled, perhaps as big as her smile, “Bye!”
“Bye!”
“Bye!” Holding her small hand, her mother and she merged into the melee of people going up the tall flight of stone stairs, leading to the underground plaza to either change trains or head up the two-story escalator to the street.
Streetlight in front of Notre-Dame Basilica Montreal. Photo by MDessein
I turned the corner, found the correct direction to Boulevard Maisonneuve, and who is in right in front of me as I step onto the escalator? The bright-eyed little girl. She could have covered the rest of her face, and I would have known from the sparkle in her eyes of her joie de vivre. She recognized me immediately, “Hi! Hi! Hi!” and put her hand up.
My heart warmed instantly. I put my hand up to give her a ‘high five.’
She opened her fingers, put them between my fingers, and closed her hand around mine, looking me in the eye, as if she knew a happy secret.
She held my hand the entire way up the escalator, we looked at each other; she seemed to know clearly what was going on, while I held her hand in wonder.
This child’s intuition, spontaneous action, seemed so clear and sincere. No hesitation, simply clarity in action. Her small hand warm in mine, my eyes moist and my heart entranced with her being.
Countless times in decades past, I missed these opportunities of genuine engagement. I smiled and kept going. I would have said “Hi,” in return and gone back to reading or whatever important, adult thing I was doing at the time.
I now realize those wondrous moments of true connection, spontaneous positive interaction are more important, more life-giving than anything I might have been reading, planning for, or worrying about.
In submitting a grant application recently, the grant requirements helped me articulate a vital nugget my intuition has known for years: I write to help people see their humanity in others, to see their own stories in the stories of others. Our human connection.
Oh! I write to find my own humanity and connection to others. I tell folktales and ancient legends to connect with humanity, decades and centuries past. We are all stories.
“The Black Prince,” a millenia-old Egyptian folktale has followed me for years trying to teach me that. On some level, I knew it as I told the tale when teaching life skills, including telling it to my son when he was searching for himself. Then the Black Prince showed up again in my dreams and my writing a couple years ago until I completed the CD telling his story. The story of his search, my own unaware search, and the search of countless other people.
Then this little girl, filled with joy and trust, held my hand the entire way up the escalator. And I held hers.
You think we have it rough now, yes, we do have a challenge. None of us has dealt with a pandemic before, perhaps ever heard the word before. The uncertainty and so many unknowns can freak people out.
Hold on to yourself. Fear and panic are bad places to make decisions from. Right?
Imagine being Peer Gynt, captured by trolls and taken before their king, Dovregubben. Right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTXNqfUWT5E (Some of Edvard Grieg’s most famous music.)
Near Snohomish
Remember who you are, who we are. In our regular lives, very few of us live in isolation. Keep contact how you can, it’s important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhSKk-cvblc Ah, Leonard Bernstein, what would he be composing now and Jerome Robbins be choreographing?
Feel your strength, know it. Yeah, it’s there, sometimes we get distracted and forget our spine is flexible and strong. It needs protection yes, yet it protects us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb_9svkhOEE (Listen at least into the second minute. Carter Burwell, born in a great year, has scored many Hollywood movies. This is from Rob Roy; he’s done The Big Lebowksi, No Country for Old Men, Being John Malkovich.)
Remember. So many things, one of which is that whatever each of us does ripples out to others. Be kind, compassionate, respectful. I have to smile at this one, as when I am called to those things, I usually don’t want to! Okay, self-disclosure: I can be a bit righteous and judgmental. I keep working on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1N46dRPVg (Aaron Copland is in the audience for this performance!)
Andrew Davis, born in a good month, is conducting here. He is an internationally respected conductor and musician. Turn up the volume, raise your arms, welcome it into you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ryHDsQIYJs I will never forget the first time I heard this. (More about that another time…)
When he gave Emerson, Lake and Palmer permission to arrange and play his magnificent piece, Aaron Copland said he was attracted to what they had done, not sure how what they did in the middle was connected to his music, and then famously chuckled. Keith Emerson regarded Copland as ‘the soul of American music.”
photo by Mary Dessein, allowed by BowieAnd Inspector Goatling will be checking. Is he adorable, or what? And Bowie’s twin brother, Gene, poking his inquisitive self right in there, too.
The wonder of animals, as they are so present in the moment. Who knew goats are affectionate and like to be cuddled? The dearest behavior, which I expect from my kitties and just melted me when hugging the goats, was that each goat put his head on my shoulder. Granted, it was for a few seconds, yet they did.
Present in the moment as well as letting go. I am famous for saying I raised my children with wings not strings. Okay fine, famous in my own mind, yet walking that talk is entirely another experience – an ongoing one to boot. My blog nearly three years ago about when my son stepped through the SeaTac airport door at 6 a.m. to go back to Tennessee, was when it felt like my heart was splintering off in shards. Especially when he acknowledged he didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to leave home.
Home. We each have to find our homes. Most of us many times in life. I am again at that point: where is my home now? How do I find it? What opportunities will arise for me?
I watch my daughter and son-in-law, both remarkable, flexible, creative people, search for and find their home. Visiting them (and my grand-goats and grand-puppies!) is such a delight as I witness the struggles, joys, and rewards in the myriad of things they are doing as they work toward the vision they have of their future. And their home.
Looking back, my style at their age was much more of a ‘fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants’ operating system. If it seemed like a good idea at the time, then, “Okay! I’m ready to go.” There is certainly a history to support that, yet lest I go into it now, suffice it to say it was my m.o. for decades. It took me even longer to recognize it as an m.o. I was not an Ennio Morricone or Meryl Streep who knew what they wanted to do at a young age and pursued it single-mindedly.
The term shoplifting is thought to be first documented as such in 1591 by British playwright, Robert Green. Originally called ‘lifting,’ it is obviously not a new phenomenon. Lifting is also raising to a higher position, or perhaps moving to a different position; I get that connection.
When I was with my kiddoes in a fabric store on Friday, the red and white warning sign to shoplifters was reversed in my mind at my first quick glance at it. Hhmm, I knew some prosecutors that could use some lifting back in the day when I worked in the legal system. I digress.
How do I find my home now? It involves the concept of trust. Dang, that is a hard one. To trust, don’t I need some control, some input, some history? This dance of trust and faith fascinates me, as I don’t have it figured out; it is a beautiful concept, yet how to live it. I’ll spend some time on this terpsichorean connection soon.
As to this moment with trust and faith, there is a saying we heard in the Program often, and in the counseling world, attributed to various sources, a prominent one is O.R. Melling, “When you come to the edge of all you know, you must believe one of two things: either ground will appear to stand on or you will learn to fly.”
Really? Trust in what? My intuition. Some message from the Universe. An ad in the personals. Well, two out of three’s pretty good.
So then will I lift or prosecute? Maybe both as prosecute also means continue on a course of action with a view to completion. I am definitely invested in finding where I belong at this chapter of my life… I plan on it containing occasional hugs from goatlings and grand-puppies.
“Life is a journey through a foreign land.” Another from O.R. Melling. That’s an understatement, right?
Harp Camp photo by Mary DesseinHarp Camp. Can you imagine such a divine experience – to be with twenty other harpists over a weekend to play together, to learn, to be supported in your music wherever your expertise is, without competition?
The event’s official name is the Puget Sound Folk Harp Society Annual Summer Harp Retreat. It was Harp Camp to me. Not only were my companions of kindred spirit, we were at Camp Casey on the west side of Whidbey Island, right on the beach, where I could wander and see the Port Townsend ferry going back and forth as I skipped rocks. Smooth, flat rocks like my dad showed me were the best to propel across the water.
Of the total twenty-four people there, I knew one person. And she knew one person there: me. So, compatriots.
This Harp Retreat has been going on for over twenty years, I was encouraged to attend it by my harp teacher a few times. I always had a reason I couldn’t go: timing, work, finances, kids – I was not very creative. The real reason being, of course, that I was afraid I wasn’t good enough and in such a situation, everyone would know!
The event was planned so well: we had two-hour breaks for meals which allowed us time for wandering, socializing, walking to the Admiral Head lighthouse, and/or jamming together. As I walked the beach, I kept a vigilant eye out for the flat, round, palm-of-my-hand sized skipping stones. I also saw tangles of cola-colored kelp, empty tan and orange crab shells with green algae growing on them, long strands of green quarter-inch wide seaweed all carried up onto the rocky beach in the calming soosh of the waves.
I was skipping along in my life, doing things I enjoyed, with a rather whimsical approach, not really knowing or planning where the skip would take me, yet enjoying the hopping along.
Certainly I had heard the various guides to success: make a five and ten year plan; focus on your goal; Action Changes Things. I read and enjoyed Steven Pressfield’s books on artistic endeavors, including ‘The War of Art’ and ‘Do the Work.’ I am a walking, talking example of the power of Resistance, Steven’s embodiment of the things that combine to sway us from our creativity.
Harp Camp got over late morning on Sunday. I visited with others, helped clean up, made a last walk to the nearby beach. Then launched toward home. My intuition guided me to the longest route; going straight home was not an option. I returned to the Admiralty Head Lighthouse, then walked on the beach at Ebey’s Landing a couple hours, at Deception Pass Park another hour, and stopped on the Deception Pass Bridge for a while. The beauty, wonder, energy, insight, and honesty were swirling around inside me, forming words so I could understand the swirl.
I knew what I felt: wonder, excitement, connection to new friends, hope, humility and … a clearer knowing.
Smack-a-roo right in my face: I could be a better harpist and better musician. Why wasn’t I doing it? I knew clearly what I wanted: to make music, write books, teach along the way, and perform.
My friend Greg D., richly experienced and skilled guitar player and performer, has gotten on my case about using more harmony and options with my left hand. I processed this a few ways, including telling him once that I am a harpist not a guitarist. Yet, what I now see, one of the things he was pressing me to do was be better. And that he believed I could be.
Marianne Williamson’s words come back to me, words I have used often in teaching, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? …Your playing small does not serve the world.”
I can coast along and do fine. There are many things I am good at, thank you very much. Is fine good enough?
As my earthly clock is ticking much faster now, my mortality has become more real. Health concerns? Not significant ones, but I’ll never see 50 again. So…I must now dispel my denial that I will actually really die one day as well as my tendency to procrastinate doing creative things in order to do a myriad of other ‘important’ things. Yes, for other people or entities, hence the shadow.
Steven Pressfield identifies the ‘shadow career’ or ‘shadow life,’ as something I am good at, may even excel at, yet is not my passion or my talent, nor does it fulfill me the same way engaging in my creativity does. It is a shadow in that because I am successful doing the shadow activity, it fools me away from my passion; my ego may join forces with the shadow, “You’re good at this, don’t rock the boat.”
As I look back on Arthur Storch’s comment to Aaron Sorkin, “You have the capacity to be so much better than you are,” I admit I wanted to shine but have been afraid to shine too much. Some is okay but too many people noticing me? Nope, uh-uh, no way.
I am now seeing the limitations I have put on myself. The allowing myself to chase nearly every shiny thing I see has certainly brought me some interesting experiences (walking on the Great Wall of China, putting my hand on the pyramids at Chichen Itza, paddling a gondola in Venice, climbing the 284 stairs to the top of L’Arc de Triomphe to view the vista of Paris) and there is value there. Yet, I need to find the balance.
Yup, it is time to be honor my talents and step out. I will up my game. “… playing small does not serve the world” or me. As a child on the beach with my dad, there were times when I had just the right stooped-over-to-the-side posture, my stone hit the water at just the right angle, and I sailed a stone so that it skipped seven times in its dance across the water.
