Diving with you

I go down

so

deep

I reach a place

below

language.

 

I feel so much--

It is hard to tell you

Thoughts are like sun dapples

Indistinct patches of light in moted water

 

The wreck lies at the edge of chasm

In closed darkness

Looking over at it, my heart speeds;

Fear doesn't need words.

 

But here, on the sandy, open bottom

I am giddy and playful.

I delight

In my buoyant

fluid life

I delight

 

In discovery.

 

A heavy chest

Crusted with the ages

whispers "open,"

"know."

 

In my joy

I don't see the chains

snaking round my wrists,

wrapping tight.

The chest and its chains

drag me

away from the open space

toward the darkness of the wreck,

I see the rotting maw and struggle

not to be devoured.

 

the chains snag on a cannon

half buried in sand,

a small reminder

what I'm clutching is part of wreck.

I want no part of

the violence

any canon inflicts.

 

I let go

But the chains don't

I struggle and I bleed

But I swim free

 

I'm alone and

I'm aware of being alone.

Down here

I live or die,

Rise up or drift

down

into waiting, waving green.

 

Examine the question

that draws my eyes back to the grass.

It matters.

 

I see my air bubbles

float up,

experience a fleeting manic longing

to be a bubble. 

 

With only my bubbles,

I realize a truth-- 

I am

here completely,

And this place

Is completely within

And without.

 

I am a blood cell

In a body stream.

The sandy bottom

The wreck

The living floatsom

The fish

And ocean flora

This is my womb.

 

I am an invader

Not equipped to be here,

but I am home.

 

There is

a you

I want to share this with

a you I long for,

feel joy for,

smile a radiant smile for,

pick a spiny shell for.

 

 

I wish you could see this

But I can't take it back

to be cleaned, sanitized, and preserved

under high gloss.

There is life here.

I'd share the wonder with you,

not the death.

 

 

I feel

a you that is here

and a you

that is not.

Deciding,

I put the shell back on the reef,

And give my answer--

 

I name you,

welcome you,

love you,

me, us,

kicking legs and pushing through,

surfacing together.

 

 

 I just finished a paper that was, short of my master's thesis the hardest dang thing I've ever writ!  Yep, I'm rebelling against academe-speak and English.  I said writ! Bad English teacher!

 Okay. . . I'm a little loopy; I'll stop.  Several things made paper difficult.  I'm writing on a topic and in a discipline I don't have a grounding in (way smart), I'm writing over this topic to please my chair (difficult if not impossible task), one of the scholar's I am writing about is going to be here, as in coming to OK, coming to my house for dinner.  She's going to be reading what we wrote about her work and making comments (no pressure there).  I have to give this at a live conference (instant appetite suppressant to think about that), and I had to take a stack of about 30 books and articles and write an 8 page paper. Eight pages--that's all we get!!! I can't say what I need and want to say to make any sense in eight pages.  That's not enough for a scholarly argument; it's barely enough for a decent undergraduate research report.  The thing is, we have to read the papers aloud and we only get 20 minutes each to read.  Eight pages double spaced typed is stretching it.  Seven would have been better.  Well, it's a hack job from my origninal 14 page paper, which already felt like a hack job leaving a lot of the argument out, but I have 8 pages. I don't know if it succeeds in being a "conceptual analysis" or presenting a "philosophical mapping" of the topic. This doesn't relate to anything Wicca/Witch/Pagan, but if you've an interest in Audre Lorde and feminist education let me know :).

I'm going to try to get a couple hours of sleep.

Goddess watch over you,

J

Tip 1:  I figured it out.  There are two calories in a single semisweet chocolate chip. Two calories per taste-bud satisfying, chocolaty burst.  That means I can take a generous handful, about 40 chips, and only do 80 calories worth of damage.  If I eat these slowly, savoring them as I drink my pot of green tea, they are richly satisfying and the taste lingers.

Tip 2:  If I put 8-12 lb. hand weights near me as I work on the computer, I can do sets of arm strengthening exercises when I take short breaks without having to get up and walk to another room, which I won't do, which means I won't otherwise touch the weights that are part of my closet clutter. 

Today I'm going to grade my papers, eat chocolate, and fight flabby arms too.  So there!

 

 Okay, more of the usual; papers to grade--I'm finishing up the Enlightenment unit and I keep thinking about Pangloss and "the best of all possible worlds" and the last lines of this story:

"The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. Cunegund indeed was very ugly, but she became an excellent hand at pastrywork: Pacquette embroidered; the old woman had the care of the linen. There was none, down to Brother Giroflee, but did some service; he was a very good carpenter, and became an honest man. Pangloss used now and then to say to Candide:

'There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegund; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts.'

'Excellently observed,' answered Candide; 'but let us cultivate our garden.'"

Few of my students talk about these last lines of the story, and the ones who do don't tend to read this as having layers of meaning or as a metaphor.

What might it mean to cultivate one's garden? 

I have been wondering about this and thinking about The Rede again; it seems whether I consciously mean to re-commit to my beliefs or not, every year around this time I enter a cycle of self-reflection and questioning. I have never tried to fully articulate to myself what The Rede requires as a commitment to self; I've just never considered it before. The words "'An it harm none, do as ye will" and commitment to these words as a guiding ethic involves conscious forethought to the possible effects of an action (or non-action) I am considering upon others (others being widely construed), but I don't usually include myself in the "none."

Why do I seem to have an aversion to examining my behaviors to see how they affect me?  When I procrastinate on starting or finishing a project because doing so means facing fears and self-doubts, when I can't find the time to see to the health of my body, mind, and spirit, when I am too busy or tired to focus on my children, to say hello to a neighbor, or look up and smile at the grocery store clerk, is this avoidance ever benign?  

What does it mean to cultivate a garden? What am I growing when I cultivate with fear and neglect?  It takes a lot of energy to live, but if I don't expend it now, when will I?

It's time to reflect again.  "An it harm NONE, do as ye will."

Blessings upon you,

J

 

My narrative: 

I exist

to be hollow.

In each season

I seek

What can never fill nor complete.

In comfort,

I am restless.

In wealth,

I know poverty.

Feasting,

I wither.

Reasoning,

I long.

Loving,

I lie.

Laughing,

I am impatient.

In pain,

I remember.

In sleep,                                                                                         

I see.

 

My narrative is without point.

 

I am a vessel never filled.

I am a traveler not meant to arrive.

I am a mystic never beholding.

 

My contentment lies in a valley;

He waits for me in every season,

Beyond the pale.