Primeval Home

More often than seems reasonable, life becomes terribly unsorted. Time is at once compressed and drawn out. Difficulties take on a sense of permanence as if turned to stone monuments in homage of chaos and suffering. At these times I am thin and taught as overstretched twine on verge of breaking and I must retreat. There is no great dramatic tantrum, just a quite slipping away unnoticed, a getaway. I take to the woods.

On my Zen adventures to the forest I favor the longer, less traveled path. It is there I most often find solace and healing. This day I travel slow and quite in a walking meditation down the gentle slope to the forest floor, which is now covered with the varied colors of the dieing and fallen foliage. The crisp air is filled with the fragrance of their decay mixed with the sent of pine and the damp sweet smell of sugar maples. The walkway is littered with the discarded remains of acorns and walnuts, and crimson colored berry seed droppings. The thick fallen cover is a flurry of playful activity.

When I have reached a place where I no longer hear the sound of 50 mile and hour tires on pavement, where all I can hear is bird song and the chirp and whistle of chipmunks and squirrels, I stop. Standing very still in perfect patience while all of nature becomes used to my presence and eventually decides I belong, this world opens up to me. As I become lost in observation the forest takes me in. The chipmunks rustle through the leaves and chase one another, tumbling and rolling together and darting away. Birds hop through bottoms of bushes whose branches still shelter fruit, devouring a dwindling harvest.

Something just at the corner of my eye, grabs my attention and I become aware that the observer is being observed. A stag with an impressive head, boasting a rack of about eight points, stands in the path and takes a full assessment of me as we look straight on at one another. Deciding I’m neither friend nor foe and of no consequence, he turns and makes his way down the ravine, and in a single graceful stride jumps the stream and disappears into the forest on the other side.

The chipmunks have begun to play what I call dodge the human; chasing each other across the path closer and closer. Certain brave little ones stop and look at me, then scurry off and dive into the leaves with a triumphant whistle. I feel I have become part of their happy little game.

Already the day, the walk, has proved to be a worthwhile venture. Lost in contemplation of the chipmunk games and the higher meaning of the encounter with the buck, I'm pulled from thought by a red tail hawk that soars past so close the displaced air hits my face and ruffles wisps of hair. I am startled for an instant, then awestruck and honored as I watch it land less than 10 yards away. The pull of the forest deepens and I sit down on the hard leaf covered ground so that I might be taken further in. I track the hawk as it moves on to it’s next lofty seat. The new vantage allows it to face me and it watches me as intently as I watch it. Am I so fascinating to the wild master of the air? No. It is more likely eying the chipmunk that has planted himself barely two feet in front of me. While I watch the hawk another creature watches me. He is chirping a low sweet musical tone that is answered rhythmically from all over the forest floor. This music circles and moves through me. I feel I know it and could sing along as I try to find the sound in my throat. The connection seems almost within reach and then is lost. The little one scurries off and down inside a hollowed tree branch; the hawk is on the move.

Spontaneous waves of joy and laughter take me. I know I have found myself a treasure, a perfect moment. I have touched, rejoined for an instant, some primal origin. The sense of comfort is warm and inviting as a soft favorite blanket. The desire to curl up and lay down overtakes me and I do lay down as if in someone’s arms, on a lap, ear against a beating heart. The cold earth warms me, takes me in to protect and nurture me. I am in the bosom of the forest where I wish to stay and sleep in peace without dreams.

Someone is coming. I hear them through the earth before I hear them through the air. The rustling and thudding steal the moment; break the spell. The forest falls quiet except for the sound of human foot fall coming up the path. I pull myself out of my deep meditative state and up off the ground to stand on the path. I have barely regained myself when the hiker comes trampling through. He looks alien and out of place to me. I yield the way and he sports a startled expression when he looks at me while passing. I am not sure what about me is so startling. Looking up through the trees, I decide to head back now that the reverie is broken. I think on the experiences while continuing a sense of meditation as I find my return path.

When I reach the trailhead, the welcome sight of the lovely convenience of a restroom distracts me entirely. The further convenience of a mirror gives me the answer to a previous question. I am struck by shock and wonder as I see in the mirror what the hiker saw. My hair has come partially loose from its ponytail in unruly tendrils, my cheek smudged, earthy needles and leaves are attached to my clothing and hair. I am an unholy mess. I think of the look on the hikers face and erupt with laughter.

I look like the wild forest herself. I am she and she is I. The forest, the earth, is my origin, my true being, and my primeval home. One day she will take me to her perfectly and completely. She will pull me into the beautiful darkness, the soundless, dreamless sleep, into the place from which I came and gladly must return, into the bosom of all life.

Until then, I am the forest on feet.
I am playful and daring as the chipmunk.
I am strong and stoic as the stag.
I am watchful and quick as the hawk, the master of the air.
I am as wild, as hard, as yielding, as giving, as nurturing, and as sacred as the earth.

Blessed Be

Undertow

A leaf floats calmly by on the surface of a lazy river. The carefree drifter moves without seeming purpose, directed only by the river’s tranquil flow. Little bugs dance undisturbed by it’s passing. The dark brown water gives the red green leaf more importance than it may deserve and so one cannot help but be captivated by the elegant movement. Anticipation and curiosity build. What will become of it? Where does the river go? Who will watch the elegant dance next?

Without a hint of impending danger, the little arbor discard is yanked from sight into the brown void. The vanishing act being a product of the fickle current, shallow to deep, the water swirls far below and what it snatches from the top side world is now descending and rolling without end, held in captivity, in furious limbo. The underworld has taken hold and there is no reasonable reckoning of when the prisoner, the plaything, will be liberated. With no certainty that it shall ever be seen again, thoughts of it are cast aside. The viewer is resigned. It is gone, taken by the undertow.

A Coming Out Story - Bipolar

Not as bad as many others, but bad enough that I need medication and I’m very manageable on my medication. That’s how I have learned to describe myself when speaking of my chemical infirmity or imbalance to those I choose to reveal it to. I don’t mess around with it. Whatever is prescribed, I follow and I don’t pretend I know better than those who have spent years leaning about my disease. That’s the trap of this sickness. I have learned from those I have seen go before me and thought they knew better and died by their own hand in the end. I know what’s at stake and I don’t play around with it, because in manic swings, thinking I know better than those I have put my trust in can bring on a devastating result. I have learned to be very discriminating in that trust. My psychiatric professional and I have an understanding. We are a ship. She is my elected captain. I share my thoughts and opinions about what is happening with my body and mind. She shares her expertise. I listen and follow her suggestion and prescriptions to the letter.
Nature can play a crewel trick. I think I am sensitive, maybe a little nuts, but aren’t all creative people? I simultaneously praise my affliction as a gift and curse it as a terrible condition of the mind. Creative madness is what they called it in the golden age of amazing artists such as Van Gough. His madness is synonymous with ist’ brilliant works. Had the treatment of today been available to him, would bipolar have the same stigma it does today?
That I would speak of it publicly here is both terrifying and a relief.
I always knew I didn’t fit with the world. Sometimes I would have brilliant insights I would try to manifest in concrete form. However, before I would finish I would be overtaken by a malaise that would undermined all I sought to achieve.
After a number of years of stable, uncomplicated medicated balance and maintenance, all hangs in balance of my other affliction; hormones and age. It is a new challenge that I will meet head on.
With the love and full support of family and friends, it is a challenge I know I can triumph in.

Sad Farewell

The light was murky and the air heavy as I carried him out one last time. There was a strong smell of lilac that seemed inappropriate for the occasion. The strange light made the world look foreign and so it felt unreal as I placed my friend in the front passenger side of the car and shut the door. The geese on the lake made accusatory sounds. My feet on the pavement as I walked to the driver’s side did not feel like my feet and the hand that grabbed the driver's door handle was not my own. I got in, started the car, and put it in gear with the slowness of moving through water. In a soft voice I told him it would be okay, knowing it was a lie, and my spit was like sand that caught in my throat as we pulled out. This was never his favorite part, but his lids were heavy and he was unnaturally quiet as we moved closer and closer to the end of our friendship.

After he was gone and I had returned to the car, the tears finally flowed. The drive home with the empty seat beside me was sad and yet somehow less burdened. The time of decision done, only the finality of the deed was left to weight on the heart. Windows down and radio loud, tears dried and crusted on checks and nose. I let the wind pass over and sooth the guilt and sadness. The car sat outside the house. I became more present within it as the smell of lilacs, sounds of the lake, roughness of the upholstery against my arms, brought me back. As I walked back into the house empty handed, I felt hollow and spent. I knew that a hug and a glass of wine awaited my return. As I opened the door, I wondered what awaited my friend.