Sunset

fiery evening sky,

our hearts open to let you in,

our knees weaken as we behold your

magnificence,

your light breaks us into a million pieces

of awe and wonder, love and

possibility.

fiery evening sky,

heal us in your warmth, and

hold us in your

mystery.

refract our ideas of self

through the prism of

truth

that we may join you

in a brilliant display

of Infinite Aliveness.

Carol Barrow

June, 2015

What I Would Write

Using the image of some things I found while an adolescent living in Kansas, I wanted to write about big, clear hearts and minds that are still.  But for the past few months, Creativity has forgotten where I live.  Everything I have tried to write, in the end, has looked like this:

Only not as pretty...

Finally, I decided to just not care, and I wrote about what I would like to write if I were able to figure out how to do it.  I am sure that many rich and famous writers have suggested this exercise for years, but I seem to need to get to the point of desperation before I give up and do whatever it takes to move pen, keyboard, camera shutter, or anything else.

I actually kinda sorta like what came from my non-essay.  And I love that I found the voice that comes before "the editor" starts its destruction!

I have now titled this piece:

 What I Would Like to Write If I Were Able to Figure out How to Do It

I want to write about the clear, Plexiglas heart I found when I was an adolescent.  I want to write about the headless, insides-less teddy bear I found later while walking around the lake with my cousin.  The teddy bear was small, maybe eight inches tall (but his head would have made him taller), and the heart could easily fit in the palm of my hand.

I kept both of those findings for a very long time.  I kept the heart inside the headless bear's body.  I don't know what ended up happening to the heart or the bear.  Was it like Puff the Magic Dragon?  I grew up and forgot about my bear like Jackie Paper did with Puff?

I want to write about not having a head, but having a clear heart so large that it fills the torso.  Maybe Douglas E. Harding can help me with the "having no head" part. 

No head - no opinions, no judgments, no anger, no inaccurate memory, no plans.  Only a big, clear heart with arms to hug, and legs to carry me from one place to another, from one hug to another.  One could swim like this, love, be loved, hike, stroke the head of a newborn baby.

Of course a bear or a person couldn't live without a head to house a brain to run the organs that keep one alive.  At least that's the way it seems from what I've read. I don't want to remove mine in order to find out if this is really true for me.  But I could pretend. 

Imagine a big, clear heart from collar bone to pelvis.  Imagine no worries, no judgments - just huge, big heart that loves all that comes. 

I want to figure out a colorful way to write about this.

For Jill

to my friend
who soothes my body and soul
with loving massage
who notices my strengths
and doesn't go away
when I don't seem
capable of just breathing
in kind words offered
stopping at
Thank You
I will do that someday
I promise,
here is my dance
come through this body
recorded on paper
I think of you when
I see green
a color you often wear
the color outside now
thank you rain,
thank you friend
for being springtime
nourishing
loving
alive
growing
here
now

Earth Full of Butterflies

Last week I was again giving massage to my ninety-seven-year-old client, and as I moved my thumb across muscle fibers, I realized that the piece I wrote about her and the butterflies which surround her was very much in alignment with my thoughts and feelings about our dear Earth.  So I took the Betty of the Butterflies piece and changed it to reflect my love for our planet.  Here is what came of that:

Earth Full of Butterflies

On every continent of the planet, butterflies.

Migrating to Mexico, flying flower to flower, embroidered on pillows, crocheted into blankets, captured in mason jars, bred in museums, and depicted in gold pins placed perfectly on lapels.  Butterflies.

At almost five billion years old, seas and air no longer vibrant, land nearly depleted, our sweet Earth appears to be heading into a cocoon where it will transform into... what?  Does the caterpillar have any idea what comes next after she crawls into the sleeping bag of chrysalisness?

The Earth recently suffered from radiation poisoning after a meltdown of nuclear reactors at Fukushima, the dumping of millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, not to mention the ongoing mountain top removal, deforestation, and the continued dumping of plastics into its seas.  It asks me to love it and care for it every day.  I reduce, reuse, and recycle.  I patiently listen to find out what more I can do to bring health and peace.

I don't know what needs to happen here.  The Earth keeps getting sicker, more polluted, and more reliant on us to change our ways.  Does it need all of this damage to help it transform in its metamorphosis?  Or can we turn things around so that it is healthy once again?  These questions may be useful - I don't know.  Most of all, I want to be here with the Earth and the life on it.  Right here, right now.  Just loving.

Today when I had finished watching a red-tailed hawk and pulling dandelions that neighbors don't appreciate, but bees do, I picked up The Earth Prayers book. Edited in 1991 by my teacher, Elias Amidon, and his wife before the above mentioned ecological catastrophes, but after many others, it is still relevant.  In silence, I read the prayers to the Earth.

Prayers with gratitude.  Prayers of petition. "In this moment, each moment, I give thanks."  "Help us to protect these waters, these wild lands you open on; instill in us the powers to contain the ooze of mines, the excrement of need."  I know this is my language and faith - and I want to live it more.

All over the Earth, butterflies drink nectar, fly freely, bring joy to our eyes.

A caterpillar knows how to become a butterfly; the Earth knows how to heal.

I have faith in these things.


 Carol
April, 2015

Bunny Meditation

bunny sits frozen on desert sand,       

then suddenly jumps and darts

zig-zaggy up the hill.

sun kisses evening sky

goodnight and

slowly shuts its eyes.

from evening stillness, coyotes sing,

the chorus serenades

orion, the hunter.

as dark sky turns gold,

and warmth returns,

coyote crests hilltop,

small, limp, furry legs

ooze out between his jaws.

four rabbits' feet; good luck.

at what point does bunny become coyote? 

when its blood runs warm in the

carnivore's pores?  or

at the moment jaws clamp

death?  maybe the fateful

moment when hunger meets irresistible,

wild grass shoot.  possibly

before the kit is even born.

rabbit, sand, sun, sky, coyote

coyote, rain, root, rat, feces

feces, bug, breath, bone, human

human, wind, worm, wound, planet

planet, gene, god, grace, heaven

i am

  you are

    it is

      beginningless

        endless

          nothingness

            allness

              never and forever

                 beyond the beyond

bunny sits frozen on desert sand

Carol Barrow

April 18, 2015

Taking Care

I recently completed an on-line memoir writing course.  I ended the course feeling pretty good about my writing - that I have the potential to write a fairly well-written and interesting memoir.  To further my work, I signed up for six sessions of coaching from the instructor.

Last month, I met with the instructor on Skype, and we spoke about dialog and description, then I said that I wanted to talk about a short essay that I had sent her a few days before.  The first words out of the instructor's mouth were, "Is Elizabeth going to have a big part in this?", to which I answered that no, she wasn't.  "Then why do you start off the piece mentioning her?"

BECAUSE TO SHOW AN EMAIL THAT I SENT TO HER AT THE TIME IS THE BEST, MOST INTERESTING AND SUCCINCT WAY TO GIVE SOME BACKGROUND TO BEGIN THIS PIECE!  CAN'T YOU SEE THAT???

That's what was in my mind, but not what I said.  If I learned anything growing up, it was to be a nice girl.

My piece was about a trip to a beautiful island that I was preparing to take (I would be staying with Elizabeth), but life changed and Michael's diagnosis socked us in the head less than a month before I was to leave.  I ended up canceling my flights.

The instructor asked me to tell her the reasons for my trip.

I could spend time with someone I considered a mentor.
I could do nothing but rest on warm beaches.
I could take a break from the intensity of the situation with my parents - my dad in a nursing home with advanced dementia, my mom so needy, all life was getting sucked out of me.
I could dive into a good book.

To summarize what I had said, my instructor gave me this sentence:  "So, it was about self-care."

That is when I lost it.  The first time I had ever met my instructor "in person", the first time I had been "face to face" with this woman (throughout the course I had taken with her, it was all done in an on-line forum), I bawled.

I fell apart because it had never entered my mind that my trip, two weeks on an island in the Caribbean, was about self-care.  Besides that, I never made up for that loss.  After Michael's diagnosis, I just wanted to die.  When I finally emerged out of the wanting to die mindset, I vowed that I would spend as little money as possible on Carol because Michael was spending so much on trying to heal the cancer, and I didn't want to be old with no money, no home.  An old woman, living on the streets.

For some reason, I have lived SIX DECADES like a plant poking up through a small crack in the concrete.  When the nurturing rains have fallen, they have run off the sidewalk leaving me thirsty.  At the time of my trip, I doubt beaches and naps would have supported life in this body and mind because the nurturing would not have been able to penetrate the cement whose basic ingredient was "You shouldn't be enjoying yourself while your mom and dad are _________ (in this case, while my dad was in a nursing home, and Mom was struggling to deal with the lot life had brought her).

The conversation with my writing coach was a gift.  I am now aware of the floor supporting me, the abundant air filling my lungs with life, and each time I go to the chiropractor or the dentist, I now know that I am doing self-care.  Before now, these things were just necessary acts.

I used to think that "We must love ourselves before we can love another" was a nice, yet untrue saying.  Now I get it.  This is where it all begins.  The first holy act is to love our own body, mind, and heart.  What generous gifts we are given.