Sweet Home

I've been hibernating. That's the best excuse I can think of to explain nearly 3 months of blog-dormancy.
Actually, I've been performing all December, traveling nearly all of January, and easing back into so-called-"real life" in February. But indeed, the days are getting longer, and after about 6 weeks of regular one-two punches from Old Man Winter, there's been little snow and several days of thaw. It's still plenty cold, but even the bird song anticipates the thought that "if winter comes, can spring be far behind?"

Truly, for all the activity, I feel pretty much like hibernating during the long dark months of winter. Our trip South in January was a brief interlude that gave color to our eyes and a few days (out of the 25 of traveling) where short sleeves were comfortable. Other than that it was mostly chilly! But still, a wonderful adventure playing our music, visiting our friends, and experiencing, as Hunt says, "different dirt".


We drove in our Ford van, equipped with a plywood platform bed, all our instruments, our sound system which we never used not once, clothes, food, and Nellie the World's Greatest Traveling Dog. It was a bonding experience with Nellie, and we drove around in our little home-away-from-home.
But-
We couldn't wait to be back home! We have both learned, over and over again, that we are finally in the Place Just Right and it truly is the Valley of Love and Delight! Even though it was snowy

and continued to snow, even though it was cold and dark and we have had to haul wood every day, we are so happy in this home we have made in this house we have built.

Nellie was so happy to be home she nearly burst into flame.

And now the days are getting longer, bird song is in the air, and winter's back is broken. Who could ask for anything more?

To everything there is a season

...and a time for every purpose under heaven.
Thanksgiving Day has passed, a day which was full of gratitude for life's abundant blessings... and turkey with all the trimmings. My two grown kids and my dear husband and I (and the puppy*!) rode over the highway and through the woods to the grandmothers' house, and everyone was loving and cordial and friendly and fun, and we were home in time to relax before bedtime (and let the puppy run around*).

On the way home in the dark, we saw 3 houses with Christmas lights a-glow, and one lit tree standing in a window. 'Tis the season? The stores and the national economy want us to think so. But I find that once again I am approaching the month of December with my usual stubborn insistence on letting the beauty of the dark-into-light time unfold. The days are definitely getting darker and darker; we have candles at the dinner table most nights, and we're all looking at our watches after supper and wondering what is the earliest we can get into our beds! I'm not ready for Christmas muzak, decorations, lights and greenery to infiltrate my quiet, brooding Advent.

On this first Sunday in Advent, I have gotten out the Advent candle holder, but have not yet gathered the moss or installed the candles (photo to follow when mission accomplished). As my spirituality has evolved, my love for Advent has only increased, as it so beautifully expresses the hopeful anticipation of light following the darkest time. As we light the candles one by one, they remind me by their strengthening light that no matter how dark it gets, light will return. This is also reflected in a very November-y song by Gordon Bok that I often think of at this time of year:
Oh, my Joanie, don't you know that the stars are swinging slow,
And the seas are rolling easy as they did so long ago.
If I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning toward the morning.

So, let the candles slowly increase, and let the greens gradually appear. The carols on the player will ease in as well, and the tree won't arrive until the Solstice. There will be concerts, and parties, and places where "Christmas out there" will be unavoidable, and I'll participate whole-heartedly with gratitude for the joy in the faces around me. But at home, let it be Advent for the next 4 weeks!





*although this is not a blog post about the puppy, I promised to write about the puppy this time, so here you are!

Higher Learning

Yesterday Hunt and I spent a day in academia. We were invited to give a guest lecture for the Boston University ethnomusicology department, backed up by scholarship and references. What an enticing challenge! To do what we usually do, but with scholarship to back it up! So in preparation we poured over websites, looked through our own library (and discovered it was far more comprehensive than we had realized!), visited the NH Library of Traditional Music and Dance, emailed notables in the field, (Dudley and Jacqueline Laufman. Photo courtesy of Dudley Laufman)
took notes, made pdf files and posters, and off we went!

(a page from a Vermont dance prompter's book c. 1847, courtesy NH Library of Traditional Music and Dance)

...did I mention that I am an alumna of Boston University? It was eerie, walking into a classroom where I was tortured by 20th century music theory, to deliver "Dance Music, Sedition and Maple Syrup: the Musical Roots of Old New England". I was confronted by ghosts of my past- I swear I met my 20-year-old self in the hallway- yet it was all different, too. I mean, there was never even an Ethnomusicology department at BU 30 years ago! But here we were, and we gave all we could to a group of brilliant, musical, scholarly grad students who welcomed us with courtesy and warmth. I still felt challenged to live up to the impossibly high standards I always felt were just beyond my reach in my undergrad days, so I vibrated like a piano string all the way through the presentation.

We decided to drive home after dinner following the presentation, instead of staying the night in Boston. This gave us time to de-compress and evaluate the experience. We are still processing it, but one thing is certain: we are expanding our horizons, professionally and personally, and we're grateful for every opportunity to learn and grow and make connections.

Next time, I will write about the puppy. Really I will!

Nellie the Dog

Love, relief, and more gratitude

I have been meaning to write on the beauty and mystery of sailing in downeast Maine, the innocence, cute-factor, and overwhelming annoyance of puppies, the bittersweet loveliness of autumn, and more, but today I'm going to write about helmets. Bicycle helmets, to be specific. Beautiful, wonderful, gratitude-inspiring helmets. Especially the one my daughter was wearing yesterday (I wish I had a picture of her wearing it, but these will have to do!).


She doesn't remember what happened, but the first thing I knew I was getting a call from the hospital emergency room nurse in Northampton, Mass. We hopped in the car and drove down straightaway, to find a very bruised and shaken young lady, and a cracked and bloody bike helmet on the floor nearby. After many hours it was determined that she had a few fractured ribs, a broken toe, many bruises, lots of road rash, and a big bump in the middle of her forehead (on her Third Eye?). She was released, and we brought her home to Nelson, where she is getting all the tlc she could want.



I believe she is alive and well because she had the sense to wear the helmet. I'm grateful for her sense of responsibility. I am grateful to the Specialized company for making decent helmets. I'm grateful for the good care she got at the Cooley Dickinson Hospital. I am grateful to my husband Hunt for his stalwart presence through it all. I am grateful for the reminder of the preciousness of life, and how important it is to protect my outer self as well as my inner self, when forging bravely through the world. Too much padding would hinder my ability to fly, but just enough will give me the armor I need to face the challenges and dangers that lie in everyday life.

Compassion

Sometimes I am able to stay mindful, grateful, aware of the abundance of this life. At other times, maybe on a chilly, dark day when it seems that summer ended so quickly and even a wool sweater and a cat on the lap aren't enough to keep back the gloomy thoughts- well, during those times I need reminders, pointers along the way. Otherwise it's easy to slip into ego-centered-ness, irritability, and criticism.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. Dalai Lama

I was driving along the road the other day, going the speed limit on a two-lane highway which was about to narrow to a slower route through a local gorge, when I was passed not by one, not by two, but by three large SUVs with out-of-state license plates (clearly loaded with furniture, boxes, bedding), at great speed. My first impulse was to shout, swear, and perhaps gesture towards them. But I caught my thoughts just barely in time and thought, "Oh, well, they're probably headed to college- hope they get there all right"

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.” Thomas Merton

Someone I like and have often admired has recently been acting upset, affronted, disapproving- all behind my back. I've tried to communicate, praise, offer love- but it's been rejected completely. I found myself getting so worked up, I would avoid reading emails, dread meeting this person, and spent too much time in the middle of the watches of the night fretting about the situation. So this is my test: can I practice compassion when it hits home, in a way that directly affects me much more than the three speeding SUVs?

Compassionate action involves working with ourselves
as much as working with others. Pema Chodron

Yes, this is the test, and also the way to live truly- learn compassion for others, and in so doing learn compassion for myself. This creates a cycle of love and compassion that can only help me, those I encounter, and in some small way, the world I inhabit.

lazy, hazy, not-so-crazy...

Sorry for the long blank-out. Somehow, even after 2 years of not-teaching, summer means total veg-out, relax, unwind, get in touch with my inner lazy good-for-nothing self. The garden is growing, amazingly well, almost by itself, and about once a week I manage to yank just enough weeds to keep the things that are supposed to be growing happy. We've had lots of lettuce, about 6 sugar snap peas, one string bean (so far!), and we watch in awe as the tomato plants produce stunning globes of green (it's still early for them to turn red) and the squash plant secretly plots to take over the world- it has sent long, flower-laden vines across the watermelon plant, the annual bed (bye bye, nasturiums!), on to the lawn, across the barren waste that I hope to use for planting garlic this fall, and down the rows of black plastic that I cleverly laid between the raised beds to keep them weed free. I hadn't thought of trying to keep them squash free!


We've had visitors, from Oneonta, NY, and my dear god-daughter Hannah from Littleton, MA. We've had just enough hot days to feel like summer, and just enough rain to keep the wells and gardens happy. Animaterra had a wonderful workshop and concert with the French chorus Cantoria and the Vermont chorus House Blend. Hunt and Dan, our wonderful helper, have started work on what will soon be a screen porch with woodshed attached- right now it's a skeleton of wood, and the kitchen and living room have returned to construction site status. But do I care? No! It's summer! I'm relaxed and mellow.


I've been reading brain-candy mysteries (why did I never know until now about the Cat Who books???). But my bed-time reading is once again The Power of Now. At this stage of my life, where I feel I have emerged into a spirituality of my own, allowing my observations thoughts and insights of the All to guide me, it feels strange to say this, but this is one of the books that changed my life. It's only now, on the third reading in about 6 years, that I am realizing how much of this book is with me all the time.
"Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now"
"Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are cause by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence"
"To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment"
"You cannot find yourself by going into the past. You can find yourself by coming into the present"
and on, and on.
So simple, and yet in an extraordinary way these words "speak to my condition", as the Quakers say. So I guess in a way that's what my summer's been about so far. Being here in each Now that arrives. Yes, I still look ahead to the fall season of Animaterra, and I nearly have all the music ready. Yes, I'm looking forward to our annual week at Pinewoods coming up at the end of the month. But right now, sitting on the couch, with the muggy air being gently blown by the fan, I am savoring this moment with gratitude.

Spiritual acts

Q: What is a sacrament?
A: A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

I did have to learn the catechism before my confirmation in 1970 at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brockton, Mass. Besides the Q/A above, the only other thing I remember is making the rector uncomfortable because another part of the catechism told us to fear God- and I wanted to know why a loving Father God would want us to fear Him? Somehow, although the rector did his best, I wasn't really satisfied with the answer, whatever it was.

I loved the church as a child, into my teens, and as a young adult. I was raised in the Episcopal church, dabbled in college in evangelical Christianity, directed a Methodist choir, thought for awhile I was called to Episcopal holy orders. Was and am a member of the Episcopal Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. Have spent time with the Unitarians, Quakers, and the United Congregational Church. I loved and still have affection for the ritual, tradition, and especially the music.
But.
My earliest "spiritual memory" is as a child, probably 7 or 8, sitting on a rock by a mountain stream at a rest stop in the Rockies. The sun was shining, the air was crisp and clear, and I knew without a doubt that there was more than met the eye and other senses. Good church girl that I was, I called it "God" and have loved that presence ever since.
But.
The years in church gave me a beautiful container to put that wonder and glory into. That container felt like enough for many years. But more and more, as I have met so many people and have had so many adventures in this life, the box has seemed far too small and shabby to fit the vastness and infinitesimal tininess of It All. All those years, decades, with "God" as my Father and Creator, kept Him separate from me. He was Out There, great and almighty, and I was Down Here, grovelling and small. And even the word "god" put limits on It All.
But now...
I really don't know anything. Of that I'm absolutely certain, and my faith in my unknowing is unshakable. But what I suspect is that there is no "Out There"- It's all Right Here, and we're all a part of It. "God in Me" really means In Me, and in everyone. And in the cat on the couch, the trees in the woods, the rocks and hills and molecules and electrons, protons and muons and quarks- everything.
"God is Love" means that Love is God and we are love and...
Oh, boy, here I go putting finite words on the infinite. Can't be done. It just Is, ok?
Do I pray? Sure I do.
So, what is a sacrament? Everything is a sacrament. Everything is an outward and visible sign. Everything is an inward and spiritual grace.
Is everything good? Hell, no! Oil in the Gulf, cancer, child abuse, sure, there are horrible nasty things going on. But the power and the glory of creation- all of us- is a force that works in a cycle of Life/Death/rebirth, and the good will of those who love, who believe in the goodness of creation, who try to do the best they can for the greater good, that is God, and that is Love, and that is good.