Who Dies?*

This last week was a remembrance of David Bowie and his impact on music and on our lives.  His death brought up great memories for so many of us.  His songs.  And, for me, memories of an adventure which culminated in seeing him in concert.  

I had just moved into one side of a duplex, when my friend and I decided one evening to follow a new neighbor who I had heard was in a rock band.  Patti and I waited on my front porch until this neighbor left for, we assumed (correctly), his Saturday night gig, then we hopped in my car, and I followed him for miles.  One of my smartest moves was when, in order to avoid being obvious, I continued on past the parking lot where he had stopped and parked.  I planned to turn around and come back after Neighbor was in the bar setting up.  Then Patti and I could go in and listen to the band.  But as we drove past the parking lot where Neighbor was getting his guitar out of the back seat, he waved at us - he had known all along that we had followed him.  I would not make a good detective.

After we arrived at the dark, smoky bar, Patti and I sat at a small table immediately in front of the stage, and I drank my usual, bourbon and coke (this was another lifetime ago).  At some point, it was announced that I had won the door prize.  With the $50 I won, I bought beers for the band, then I told Patti that I was going to buy us tickets to David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour.  And that, my friends, is how I got to see David Bowie.  (I have no idea whatever happened to Neighbor.)

Many beautiful tributes to David Bowie have been shared. It has been fun to re-live younger days when Bowie songs were a bigger part of my life. I wasn't really a Bowie-aholic, and I can't add a thing to what has already been said about him.

But today I found out that Stephen Levine died, and I was/am a Stephen Levine-aholic.  I loved that man.  I consider him my first spiritual teacher.  I didn't know him personally - I only read his books (over and over), and I took a couple of workshops with him - but his writings and his presence changed my life.  He taught me how to "be with" life and death.  Because of him, I healed a lot of the pain and mistaken beliefs surrounding the loss of my baby.  I also owe Stephen Levine a deep bow for helping me to have the courage to volunteer at hospice for years. My family's legacy of "death is a failure" stopped with me because of what I learned from that beautiful man.

Now the teacher is gone, and the Beloved which he pointed me to, over and over in so many loving ways, remains.  Really, the Beloved was all that was here all along. It has sometimes showed up as Stephen Levine - and as David Bowie, and as you and me and all of this amazing experience called life.  And, still, right now, my heart feels broken.

From Stephen Levine's Breaking the Drought:

The light has been left on for us, p. 61

[final verse]

I am the imaginary hero of my hopes

lost between verbs that require I know

who I am, but I am just a passing thought —

yet somehow, somehow — as close to a

miracle as we get — the nature

of the heart — the Beloved

has left the light on for us all night . . .

Lorca and Whitman deas as Basho, and just as alive p. 142

[final verse]

The sun follows the superstition of blue

across the arc of summer

and the world comes to an end

just the way it began yesterday.

There is a silence between breaths, p. 77

There is a silence between breaths

when the heart becomes a sacred flame

and the belly uncoils which reminds me

how remarkable it is to wake

beside you another day.

Between deaths we dreamed together

between breaths, in that stillness,

which has joined us ever since.

In that first breath

we step onto the dance floor,

and waltz unnoticed through the void.

The sacred everywhere we turn

and turn again, as form so generously dissolves

and only the Beloved remains.

In this moment which lasts a lifetime

there is nowhere to stand

where you are not beside me

where you do not accompany me within.

*Who Dies?: An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying is a wonderful book by Stephen Levine

Death of What We Don't Want to See

Not my most uplifting piece, for sure.  I am feeling sadness at the destructive things that are happening all over the world - many of them the results of the lives we've lived for decades and centuries - and I'm noticing that, at best, we put band-aids on the problems, just like we often put on make-up and dye our hair, while our bodies suffer from lack of care.


Death of What We Don't Want to See

i'm sorry.  i can't help but noticing
   the news is not all that good.
your towns are burning, flooding; their
governments corrupting,
and the weather all crazy.

but who am I to say 
   that this is wrong?  the trajectory
        was launched so long ago.
        as sex will at some point hit
              the jackpot - then diapers, 
              rebellion, and empty nesting,...

we've dug and cut and thrown away, and
   it's natural that this trajectory
        launched so long ago 
        will at some point hit
             the jackpot - then hunger, 
              rebellion, refugees, and ???

is it too late?  i wonder why i
sometimes forget grief.  it's like my soles
        and the arch of my back 
        are dying, all that's hidden breaking
              down, while i paint my eyebrows, 
              dye my hair and smile.

Carol Barrow, 2015

Boogeyman

This poem, a series of dekaaz (dekaazes?), brings in experience from my recent solo retreat, along with experience in this world of violence and "other".

Boogeyman

I

Two weeks,
so alone,
list'ning to my heart,

peace, joy,
mosquitoes
my only neighbors.

But still,
nightly fear -
a scraggly old man,

lost teeth,
crooked thoughts,
on dark nights watches

through lit
windows and
freezes me in fright.

I sit
in darkness
dreading to be seen.

Go look
for that man,
my teacher nudges.

Bug bites
too itchy -
I can't fathom more.

A gift -
mosquito net -
erases excuse.

The moon
shines bright, full
I dance beneath it.

I see
no scraggles,
no crooked thoughts. Yet

still I
turn off lights,
stuck in scared beliefs.



II

Each day
we humans
listen to the news,

the world,
universe,
our only neighbors.

Eating
nightly fear -
guns, bombs, terrorists.

Confused,
crooked thoughts.
Why do they hate us?

We keep
our blinds drawn,
our eyes straight ahead.

Don't care
for others
who don't look like us.

Go look
in their eyes,
the wise ones nudge us.

We feel
so much fear.
We can't fathom more.

A gift -
The One Heart -
erases excuse.

The moon
shines bright, full
on all beneath it -

even
the scraggles,
bad, crooked thoughts.  Yet

still, we
dim our lights,
stuck in scared beliefs.


III

So much
compassion
is asked for, always.








Carol Barrow, 2015

Reflections

I have not forgotten you, dear, sweet blog.  But I have neglected you.  You are the last to get attention.  I can't say whether or not this will ever change, but I can tell you that there will be times when I hear your call, and find that I can't resist.  Today is one of those days.

The poem below is done in a pantoum form.  From Wikipedia:

The pantoum is a form of poetry similar to a villanelle in that there are repeating lines throughout the poem. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next.

 

Reflections

A Pantoum

Yellow sun watches aspen leaves quake and autumn crunching under boot.

Crisp air is still, except for a whisper of breeze

that loosens the hold on what has been.

This body, too, is changing into autumn age.

Crisp air is still, except for a whisper of breeze .

A golden leaf lets go and tumbles head over heels

onto this body who, too, is changing into autumn age

while still remembering spring's lightness and grace.

A golden leaf lets go and tumbles head over heels,

effortlessly surrendering to the season.

I still remember spring's lightness and grace,

my first date and April's bud unfurling.

Effortlessly surrendering to the season,

we are changed from green to gold, supple to serene.

My first date and April's bud unfurling

are memories fading while days grow short.

Yellow sun watches aspen leaves quake and autumn crunching under boot.

Mountain pond silently catches fallen dreams,

loosening the hold on what has been.

Life reflects itself reflects itself reflects itself reflects

~ Carol Barrow, 2015

Messages Left Behind

Saturday my friend Diana and I went looking for prayer trees.  These trees - in this area, they are mostly ponderosa pine - were modified for specific purposes by Ute people about 450 years ago.

While walking through the forest, it is easy to pass prayer trees without even knowing it, but when one knows what to look for, the unique shapes readily show themselves.  The photos below are just a few of the prayer trees that Diana and I found.  Of course many of these sacred trees have died, burned, or been cut down over the years, and because the ponderosa pine lives to be between 300 and 600 years old, the remnants of the Ute culture we saw Saturday won't be around much longer.

John Wesley Anderson has studied the prayer trees of the Pikes Peak area extensively, and he writes that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of them in this region of Colorado.  Anderson says that, 

"Utes believe every living thing has a spirit. The prayer tree spirit lifts their prayers high to the pine needles at the crown, which are blown by the wind - the breath of the creator - releasing their prayers for the next 800 years."

Just think, if the people who left their prayers in these trees were correct about this, we are still living within the prayers that were left in these trees long ago!

Here are a few photos of the trees we located:

Trail Marker Tree (bent at an angle pointing to Pikes Peak, a source of water, etc.).  This is also a Medicine Tree - you see the cut where bark was removed and medicine taken from the layer below the bark. 

Burial Tree 

The horizontal part may point to something of significance regarding the deceased person.

 Burial Tree up close

 Ligature markings - Here you can see the horizontal lines where a tie was made in the tree to make it bend as it grew.  I read on one website that the "rope" they used for this was made out of yucca.

Ceremonial or Storytelling Tree 

 A closer look at the Ceremonial or Storytelling Tree
 

Probably a Trail Marker Tree - with my friend, Diana, and her copy of the book that guided us on this Sacred Tree search.

 

 Ceremony or Storytelling Tree

Closer look at the top of the Ceremony or Storytelling Tree

This one is called Grandmother Tree.  It is a Story Tree, and is considered one of the most sacred of the trees in this particular park.  It is old, and large for a ponderosa, as you can tell by the contrast with the bench in the background.

Another view of Grandmother Tree

Two trees that were made to grow together to form a Prophesy Tree.  The tree on the left was made to grow into the one on the right, forming a portal.  Walking through it, a person is headed toward Pike's Peak - a sacred place for the Utes.  It may also have been a territorial boundary.  Here, Diana is walking through the portal.  

Where the two trees of the portal grew into each other. 

These are also two trees grown together as a Prophecy Tree - and this one is known as the Hugging Tree.  It's one of the more sacred trees in this area.  What might the prophecy be?  Has it come to fruition? Or will we be long gone before the prophecy is fulfilled? 

Hugging Tree - where the two trees join

 

 Hugging Tree - I love this angle.  They did such a beautiful job with this.  I feel honored to have seen it.

 

 Hugging Tree - this angle is also beautiful.

 

Hugging Tree close-up

 Trail Marker Tree pointing to the Hugging Tree in background- can you see the Hugging Tree back there?

If Diana hadn't shared the information from her book with me, I could have easily taken a nice, peaceful stroll through this forest without feeling the connection I now feel to the people who have been here before us.  What other messages wait for us to notice?

Thank you to Diana and to John Wesley Anderson's book, Ute Indian Prayer Trees, for help in identifying these beautiful trees!

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