Elemental -
the opposite of searching.
Possible -
the opposite of now
of then
of maybe
maybe so,
or not.
The opposite of searching.
ELEMENTS 05.10.2013
It started by the river. The Salmon Falls river. We'd play in the cool water, lay in the itchy tall grass, feel the whispers of the wind and try to seek shade from the scorching sun.
No matter how hard I tried it was that river that called me back. I would force my self into my Sunday clothes and try to wash away the memories of rubbing the wet clay all over my body before I jumped into the welcoming slow current. The current pulled me down. I came up and returned to life but the river kept my soul. The clay kept my spirit. The sun kept my ambition and when I breached the surface the breeze breathed abstract thinking into my veins, thus claiming me as the other elements did.
Here that follows is the story of how the elements claimed me as a child and called me back as an adult.
In my upbringing, in a Baptist Christian home, we had the bible. The bible was the book that contained the information we all needed to know how to walk the way that God wanted us to walk in. We had pastors and elders and youth ministers to go to with questions. These people were “initiates” in the way of Christianity. This structure and formatting was something I understood and felt comfortable with. Like a child’s blanket.
As I grew as an individual, spiritually and in maturity, I found that I no longer took comfort in the way I was living my life. It started in 1999, when I was 14. I attended a sports and music camp for christian youth. SPAM camp. Each year they had a different speaker come do to the daily sermons. This particular year it was my youth pastor’s older brother. The focus was “Is it yours?”, meaning do you own your parent’s faith or is it your own? This hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a week long camp. He spoke every night. Every night I lost “my” faith more and more. I had been carrying my parents thoughts, morals, ideals, faith, and all of it from a young age. It never was mine. I was “saved” at the age of seven. How can a seven year old make this decision for herself? And every night that man spoke I felt more and more lost. It was conflicting and horrifying. I refused to let anyone down and to be different from my family. At 14, I wasn’t ready to make that out-on-a-limb commitment. Not yet.
Over the next 5 years I struggled to find my place in my parents faith. I was given evidence over and over again from the Gods and the Goddesses that I was only fooling myself in trying to ignore the events placed so conveniently in my life. Over the years I saw Christians bring down other Christians for sins that that I couldn't understand. I saw my youth minister fired for downloading porn at his office in church. I saw Elders cheat on their wives with younger female church goers. I watched my parents “till death do us part” marriage fall apart in a matter of one night followed by a year of a messy divorce. I heard pastors tell my friends that depression is a sin and they were a sinner for being sad with no reason. I couldn’t understand or accept these events happening. During all this I attempted perseverance. At 18 I started going to church on my own, I became a member on my own, I taught Sunday school to two year olds of my own volition.
In an attempt to strengthen the community of our church and to prompt the fellowship to treat each other better (I assume, anyway) the pastor started the sermon with a quote by Brennan Manning:
"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
I left that congregation that day not remembering anything from the actual sermon but the quote. I continued to attend church, my attendance starting to dwindle week after week. I stopped teaching Sunday school. I met a boy. We fell in foolish love and I married him and we moved away. We stopped going to church. Our marriage failed and by the time I moved out on my own I was suddenly 20.
I continued to struggle to find a path that compared to my formative years of structure. I wanted that back but could no longer say that I believed in the way that Christians lived their lives, what they believed in, or how they treated one another. (Not to mention the bible which is a whole different essay, or book for that matter). I felt nature. I had always felt it. From a young age I felt spirit and magic in wiggling my toes in cold clay take over my body more than a powerful sermon ever did. I never experienced the kind of emotion that a river or a tree gave me in a church. I revisited that. And without the thick barrier of fear and discrimination that felt at home, I ventured out to find what I could find.
I met a strange woman named Naomi who introduced me to the full moon and tarot cards. She was an artist. There were pictures she had painted on her walls of Goddessed I had never heard of or seen. She invited me to a Winter Solstice feast she hosted. I was inspired by the mutual love in the room the first night I found out what Yule was. I had to know more.
I was pregnant in 2007, very pregnant. A new spirituality store had opened in town. Kindred Spirits. I was there every day in case something new came in for me to look at or read. I begged the owner to hook me up with an experienced witch who could teach, guide, or direct me. That is how I met Stacy. She was going to start teaching a Tarot class starting on my due date. I wanted to sign up then to start the class. Stacy and I talked about it over the phone and she thought that I might find that I was going to have a hard time getting to the first couple of classes just having a new baby. In my eagerness I couldn't understand but ultimately decided to take the next class that was available. I finally met Stacy 8 weeks after I had my son. I met her and we got along great and within a couple of visits I transferred my begging the store owner over to Stacy. I loved that she had a large book shelf full of knowledge and a house full of witchy things for me to absorb. I asked her to apprentice me. She gave me book after book and I read every one. Never quenching my thirst for more.
Suddenly, I found what I was looking for all along. Perhaps it was always in me. Taken by and given life to by the elements. Way back when. Back at the river.
ELEMENTS 05.09.13
A decade ago, a friend taught me how to read Tarot cards, and my perspective hasn’t been the same since.
I don’t give readings to others as often as I should, as often as he would've liked me to. But I sit with the cards he gave me in times of deep reflection, in quiet rooms, still and peaceful. I cradle them, shift them about in my hands, and they speak to me in meanings as they spill out seemingly at random.
Their edges are soft and worn. The cloth they're kept in is saturated with memory, heavy with the weight of decisions and surprises and longings and struggles and love.
There is an unexplainable, irrational aspect to Tarot that I admire. Although I consider myself to be a rather objective person—preferring to hold and feel things, to take notes and observe—I choose not to ignore what I hold and feel inside, those imperceptible wisps of intuition and awe.
I believe in the romanticism of coincidences, often taking them at face value, especially when their chances for existence are slim.
___
Put simply, the language of Tarot is spoken through archetypes. There are the major archetypes, otherwise known as the Major Arcana (e.g., "The Sun," "The Moon," "Justice"), and there are the minor archetypes, otherwise known as the Minor Arcana. These are divided into four suits, similar to those of modern playing cards: the wands (clubs), the cups (hearts), the pentacles (diamonds), and the swords (spades). Each suit contains cards numbered ace through ten, followed by the royal cards: page, knight, king, queen. Within each suit lies degrees of meaning unique to that suit.
Together, these cards work together to describe the myriad elements of life and experience. Put into simple patterns and drawn in a particular way, they tell you a story. They hold a mirror before you; not to your face but to your soul. They do not show you the future, but instead your direction and momentum.
However, Tarot is not just a story-telling device. To me, it is much more. It informs my perspective. Its various elemental structures multiply in complexity when combined. And, since life is complex as well, Tarot's simplicity helps me to understand, to slowly disassemble the incomprehensibles.
___
Imagine the entirety of your life as a tree growing in a forest or field.
To live you must have soil to sink your roots into, from which you gain stability and nourishment. There must be water present for you to grow, to provide further nourishment as well as comfort. There must be gentle breezes to circulate about your leaves, bringing you fresh air, taking away the old. With these simple needs met, your roots plunge ever deeper, and your branches thrust themselves up and out, yearning for the sun.
As you grow, some of your branches flourish. Some lose their life and strength, growing hollow and brittle.
One summer, a strong wind comes along and shakes your leaves. The strongest of your limbs remain intact, your weakest do not. But there's no need to fear! You're still growing, and now have more energy to give to what hardship has left you.
One summer, the water doesn't come. There is no balance in the cycle above and below. You are starved and shaken by its inconsistency. The sun beats down; the air is hot and stale.
One summer, the water comes so quickly that it nearly knocks you down, robs your roots of its dear soil. You survive, but barely. You live to grow on and up and out.
You endure and survive, until one day you don't.
___
It seems fitting that in Tarot there are four elements, just as there are four in nature. This is a matter of design, I believe, rather than coincidence.
When I think of the cups, I think of water and, therefore, emotion—that ebb and flow within us. There must always be balance for us to be healthy and thrive. We must let whatever we feel pass through us, unjudged but respected and appreciated for what it is.
The pentacles I associate with earthly existence, representative of a solid foundation, a tangibility, a cornucopia of nourishments which make life possible. Our desires, both needed and wanted, come from pentacles.
The swords I pair with wind and also with the unmistakable force of truthful communication, with ourselves and with others. The truth can take us apart, especially where we are weakest. The power of spoken and written truth often highlights the truths in us, and breaks down the lies we've let grow inside.
The wands bring to mind growth itself—spirit, some might say. This is our will to live, our yearning towards the sun. This is our accumulation of experiences, our wisdom. It is a beautiful thing to grow wild and free, and though all our efforts may not be successful, to simply engage in them is enough.
ELEMENTS: 5.8.13
It is morning, and we escape.
Out of our neighborhood that is only slightly less sketchy than the next street over, where the gas station attendant was shot to death last week.
Away from the loquat trees and the boy next door, who shuffled heavily and carelessly through my little garden to spray ant poison all over his house and the herbs I was growing for tea.
Out of the city, out of the walls and doors and artificial light of every day.
Away from the ceaseless grating whirr of Carlos' blender. What does he blend all day?
It doesn't matter. Today, we are free.
This is the precious day of the week when your "weekend" day overlaps with mine, the day we set out early and expect to come home late. It's just us these days, and we take our ritual cleansing very seriously as we set out into the wild.
At first, we thought we would go to a different place each time, finding strange paths to get lost on...breathing in the forest one week, salty sea air the next. But, it didn't work that way. You see, we found a home. It was the place where we really lived together after a week of going through the motions of our city life routine, of punching time clocks and making the bed, paying bills and folding laundry.
I don't remember the exact moment it became ours. It happened so organically we didn't even notice we had forsaken every other wild place on the planet for this one glorious creek.
And so this morning, we escape. We go home.
You know, there was this boy I used to come here with. Before you. We would climb together and he didn't know about the creek or at least never thought it was worth taking the time away from Little Yosemite to explore. It was different, the climbing thing. I was always trying to get somewhere. I had a goal and I would accomplish it and then I would go home. The elements were all there to be conquered or tolerated.
And then you brought me to the creek and we had no goal except to have no goal. We didn't try to get anywhere. And the elements were all there to bask and bathe in, to give ourselves up to entirely.
We roll up our pants and step right in, shoes and all. It's what we do every time, so we can be ready for anything. The chill of the water can be shocking, but we know that within an hour, the sun will be searing any exposed flesh and we will be glad of having some part of ourselves in the water. This is not a place to swim. It's shallow, just up to our knees at the highest, and full of creatures tiny and not so tiny. We always step in at the same place and just follow the green snake of the creek up, up, up, and although it is the same path each time, it always feels new.
There are boulders to scramble on and places where the trail meets the creek and follows alongside for a while. If we're going to encounter any other humans, this is where it happens, but most of the time it is our own kingdom.
Perhaps this is why we always come back. Here, we feel like the only two people left on earth. It is you and I, the hot, dry air, sometimes heady with sulfur, the fiery intensity of California sun in high Summer, the solid rock beneath our feet and our backs when we sprawl out for a post-meal rest, and the water that cools our baked skin and provides a glassy surface for skipping stones.
Just that.
Senses buzzing, this kingdom of ours glittering in such crystal clear focus...
The everyday drifts apart and the gunshots, sticky loquat and Carlos' blender are many thousands of miles away.
Eventually, we come back to the place we call home but isn't home, a little dazed and drunk with thirst and hunger and happiness, ready to fast forward to the next day when your weekend overlaps with my weekend, when we can once again wash away all the stuff in between that gets in the way of living.
Out of our neighborhood that is only slightly less sketchy than the next street over, where the gas station attendant was shot to death last week.
Away from the loquat trees and the boy next door, who shuffled heavily and carelessly through my little garden to spray ant poison all over his house and the herbs I was growing for tea.
Out of the city, out of the walls and doors and artificial light of every day.
Away from the ceaseless grating whirr of Carlos' blender. What does he blend all day?
It doesn't matter. Today, we are free.
This is the precious day of the week when your "weekend" day overlaps with mine, the day we set out early and expect to come home late. It's just us these days, and we take our ritual cleansing very seriously as we set out into the wild.
At first, we thought we would go to a different place each time, finding strange paths to get lost on...breathing in the forest one week, salty sea air the next. But, it didn't work that way. You see, we found a home. It was the place where we really lived together after a week of going through the motions of our city life routine, of punching time clocks and making the bed, paying bills and folding laundry.
I don't remember the exact moment it became ours. It happened so organically we didn't even notice we had forsaken every other wild place on the planet for this one glorious creek.
And so this morning, we escape. We go home.
You know, there was this boy I used to come here with. Before you. We would climb together and he didn't know about the creek or at least never thought it was worth taking the time away from Little Yosemite to explore. It was different, the climbing thing. I was always trying to get somewhere. I had a goal and I would accomplish it and then I would go home. The elements were all there to be conquered or tolerated.
And then you brought me to the creek and we had no goal except to have no goal. We didn't try to get anywhere. And the elements were all there to bask and bathe in, to give ourselves up to entirely.
We roll up our pants and step right in, shoes and all. It's what we do every time, so we can be ready for anything. The chill of the water can be shocking, but we know that within an hour, the sun will be searing any exposed flesh and we will be glad of having some part of ourselves in the water. This is not a place to swim. It's shallow, just up to our knees at the highest, and full of creatures tiny and not so tiny. We always step in at the same place and just follow the green snake of the creek up, up, up, and although it is the same path each time, it always feels new.
There are boulders to scramble on and places where the trail meets the creek and follows alongside for a while. If we're going to encounter any other humans, this is where it happens, but most of the time it is our own kingdom.
Perhaps this is why we always come back. Here, we feel like the only two people left on earth. It is you and I, the hot, dry air, sometimes heady with sulfur, the fiery intensity of California sun in high Summer, the solid rock beneath our feet and our backs when we sprawl out for a post-meal rest, and the water that cools our baked skin and provides a glassy surface for skipping stones.
Just that.
Senses buzzing, this kingdom of ours glittering in such crystal clear focus...
The everyday drifts apart and the gunshots, sticky loquat and Carlos' blender are many thousands of miles away.
Eventually, we come back to the place we call home but isn't home, a little dazed and drunk with thirst and hunger and happiness, ready to fast forward to the next day when your weekend overlaps with my weekend, when we can once again wash away all the stuff in between that gets in the way of living.
Elements: 05.07.2013
“Just
promise me you will find another Sagittarian to love you, ok? Only
another fire sign will appreciate you completely.” My friend said it
half jokingly but mostly serious. We had tried to date. It didn’t work.
We wanted nothing but happiness for each other but were not the ones to
give it. Those words stayed in my head long after we said our final
goodbyes.
Then,
I met him. The person who would eventually become my husband, my best
friend, my world. He walked up to the car I was in, singing my favorite
song under his breath. He had no idea. I was smitten. It only took that
one moment in time.
We
spent the following days and nights getting to know one another. The
cool spring night air slowly turned into the sweetly scented, thick,
warm, air of summer evenings. It enveloped us in our own world. No one
else mattered.
We
sat by the river and shared stories set to a soundtrack of rushing
water. The words flowed just as easily. The nights that the sky would
open up and rain would pour down, we spent in my truck, listening to the
drops bounce off the metal roof. Thunder claps would fill the silence
that we would happily share.
Our
relationship grew as organically as the grass from the cool earth we
sat on. Not a moment was forced. It was as if we were meant to meet, to
be together. The broken pieces of my heart began to mend. I allowed
myself to fall completely and utterly in love. It felt amazing. I had
found my missing piece.
I
allowed myself to believe. In love, hope, and soul mates. I believed in
him. I believed in us. We could, and would, conquer the world.
Together. He understood me. I understood him. He allowed me to be
exactly who I was and I loved him for everything he was.
Summer
faded into fall but my feelings grew. I had found him. Finally. I had
found my forever. And, as fall started to wane we celebrated our first
birthdays together. I had found a Sagittarian to love me. I had found my
fire.
Elements 05.06.2013
I wish I could preserve the kind of stillness I experience in the desert. Every once in a while some black fly will circle around my head; an audible halo, tormenting me for just a moment. Mostly, I savor the stillness, and wonder how I’ll get back to this same place when I leave here.
My own internal wilderness is wide awake in this vast hot desert. Sweat is dripping down my face, and my lips are chapped and salty. Freckles are beginning to populate my cheeks, nose, arms, and eyelids. I’m pissing on a single tuft of dry grass and watching the stream slink through the sand like a skinless desert snake. We are glugging water on a huge slab of smooth rock. I intermittently miss my mouth, and I'm drooling cold water down my chin. I am raising my eyebrows to test if my forehead is getting burnt. I am smiling because it is not. When we are back on the trail, I’m following behind my man who has the endurance of a cheetah and an irrational amount of discipline. Every step we take, we lose perspective on where we started, and it really doesn’t matter. The desert is getting slurped up behind us and we are making turns that are only vaguely marked by piles of wood, single rows of rocks, and the occasional faded white arrow on a brown pole.
Yes, I am a native New Englander, who craves saunas, wood stoves, pine trees and the mountains, but now I am surely of the desert. For a moment, or two or three, I think I could be one of those ladies with leathery skin and crystals, bringing her square eyed sheepdog down her favorite secret trail, where she goes every week and meditates. I feel strangely from here; birthed from all of this heat and endless sky.
When we are on our way back from the part of the trail where we had to squeeze through tall narrow nooks between rocks, and lift our bodies over wild brambly plants, I ask us to stop. I want to take a picture with our shirts off, sweaty and in our element, in this 106 degree desert. I make us close our eyes, and we position ourselves so that the strange, space age trees are poking up in the background. I want to take this picture for our children one day, so they can learn something about who we were when we were young, and on fire. I also want to take this picture for us, so we will always be reminded of that same thing.
Elements 05.05.2013
A component or constituent of a whole
or one of the parts into which a whole
may be resolved by analysis.
- My apartment caught on fire when I was 26. Flames licked the windows, rooms filled with smoke, and sooty water poured through the light fixtures to destroy anything that wasn’t burnt to a crisp. To this day, I have a fear of fire alarms. Whether in my home, the apartment across the hall, or the restaurant across the street, a fire alarm can spiral me quickly into a panic attack.
- When I was 15, my cat had an ear infection that quickly spread to her brain. In her last days she took to sleeping behind the wood stove where it was warm and quiet. I gathered my pillow and quilt, squeezed in, and slept there with her for a week until she passed away.
- There are a few years of my life where I ate food from the trash almost exclusively.
- There is a part of my brain and heart that makes me hyper-able to see the goodness in people. It makes me fall in love hard, with every molecule of myself. Often to my near-demise.
- By the time I graduated, I had lived in eleven homes (spanning 2 countries and 3 states), and attended eight different schools. That’s a new school approximately every year and a half.
- Since graduating high school, I have lived in fourteen homes in three different states. Habits die hard.
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