Tag Archives: Community

Sleeping Under Four Stories, Four Quilts: Everyday Magic, Day 198

Posted on February 2, 2011 | 3 Comments

As the temperatures plummeted, I huddled close to cat and man under flannel sheets and four stories of quilt, each one holding its own narrative. The top quilt with its mix of leafy greens, golden stars against the blue batik sky and all manner of other freckled images is the one I made us to celebrate 25 years of marriage, the earth and sky.

The next quilt — squares connected to squares, and some squares divided into Brady Bunch type squares — was made by our cousin Janet with great help from Woody, when he was obviously still alive, and their church in San Diego, then mailed to Diane and Sheldon in Lawrence (now San Francisco) so that they could arrange for various friends from the Jewish center to tie knots in it and make wishes for my total recovery from cancer. Finally, members of my family tied knots and made wishes as they gave me the quilt.

The quilt beneath that was one I hand-sewed, my first quilt, in 1996, in between nursing Forest and settling into this house we designed and help build. Triangles and diamonds in purple, rose and green, this quilt helped bring me home. It also holds the memory of listening to many Native American performers and writers — Sherman Alexie, R. Carlos Nakai and others — as I sat in audiences, sewing. I was a faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University, where I was honored to be a witness to the lives of my students, who came from over 100 tribes.

The bottom quilt, with its red gingham and snappy little sailboats, was created by Ken’s great-grandmother when he was a boy out of scraps, simplicity and imagination. She made quilts for all her grandchildren, each inch of inch hand-sewn with great care and precision.

We sleep under these four stories forged by friends, family, community and ourselves, and in that sleep, we dream deep in gratitude and amazement.

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Not By Might and Not By Power: The Passing of Debbie Friedman and the Tucson Tragedy: Everyday Magic, Day 175

Posted on January 9, 2011 | 3 Comments

In the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy that took six lives and shattered dozens more, and as we wait to see if Rep. Gabby Giffords recovers, Jewish singer-songwriter Debbie Friedman died. She was in a medicine-induced coma as a result of a long illness. Meanwhile, Giffords recovers — I hope — while being held in a medicine-induced coma. Jewish identity was important to both women, but neither was divided away from the rest of world because of her beliefs and culture.

All day, Friedman’s song “Not by Might and Not by Power” runs through my mind because of its simply chorus, carrying an old testament phrase in new language: “Not by might and not by power. By spirit alone, shall all live in peace.” I remember singing that song 35 years ago with my local synagogue youth group in central New Jersey, and how at the very end, we yelled out, “Ruah!”, the Hebrew word for “spirit.” Now I scan the web for photos of people holding candles in the darkness, and read updates on Giffords and others connected with this tragedy, which was incited by the language of hatred, which is always the language of division. Debbie Friedman’s music consistently did the opposite with songs like “MiSheberech,” which unified people in calling for healing, and “L’chi Lach,” which calls us together to journey to a new land of greater peace. But it wasn’t just the words: she devoted her life to gathering people together in song, which is a kind of language always about unity, and therefore, about love.

It’s long past time to find our way back to the language of love, even and especially when speaking with people who believe totally different views on issues than we do. We make out way into such conversations not by might or power, but truly, by spirit along. It takes great awareness and courage to stop polarizing, whether you’re a Palin-Tea Party supporter or someone like me, who believes still in the promise of Obama and the greatly-damaged and corrupted democratic process. Even writing this, I realize how it’s hard to speak of people with vividly different views without putting them in one box, myself in another.

I don’t mean to suggest it’s easy or even possible to reach across these divides, but in memory of Debbie Friedman and so many others who showed us ways to cross over, it’s clear to me how much we need to keep trying anyway. I’m thinking of how best I can do this more expansively in my heart and life. Meanwhile, I have this example from Debbie of “Turning Mourning into Dancing.”

Second helpings: Sing the MisSheberich for Debbie Friedman

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Why I Would Move to Marysville, Kansas If I Needed a New Home: Everyday Magic, Days 85-86

Posted on October 12, 2010 | 1 Comment

Maybe it’s the sleek, handsome black squirrels with their boa-feather tails. Or the uber friendliness of a pair of orange cats who circles Laura and I as we strolled through Marysville on Sunday morning. Maybe it’s the ancient spirit and shining beauty of the ceiling, windows and flowery trim around the stage at the Waterville Opera House, or the view of long lanky hills dropping and lifting as the trees yellow and big bluestem reddens. Or perhaps it’s the curved expanse of the Big Blue river as seen from the Central Branch Railroad or the rails-to-trails walkway that took us through a covered bridge to walk through tunnels of trees. Of course, the homemade cookies and delicate chicken casserole at Our Daily Bread in Barnes, the bourbon steak at the Marysville Country Club and the walk through another era in Waterville’s streets late at night also have their allure.

I suspect, though, that my infatuation with the wonders of Marshall County have everything to do with people’s attitudes, words and deeds in creating a confluence of wonder through preserving, making and expressing history, a sense of place, and artful living. I saw this in the historic tracks, trails and buildings as well as tiled images of a pony express rider who gallops when you pass him, murals on the side of a bank building, the silhouette of a wagon train on the horizon, and all manner of flyers promoting plays, shows and community soup dinners. This kind of focus makes for a seemingly effortless integration of venues and events, bringing together many generations.

Yet the hard work happens because of the vision and insight of people like Wayne Kruse, who directs the Marshall County Arts Cooperative and brings ten artists (or groups of artists) to the county each year (and this on top of leading historic preservation and theater efforts too, plus his rather intense day job managing a restaurant). There’s also Ann Walters, who — when she saw the Central Branch Railroad was threatened with extinction — managed to raise $45,000 in a week to help buy up the tracks and create a living history experience for people to ride the old route. And saving the railroad, plus leading tours, is a drop in the bucket of what else she does when it comes to art and history.

In any case, if I were looking for another place to live in Kansas, I think I would head west a while, then north, stopping just short of Nebraska on the northern reaches of the Flint Hills where black squirrels aren’t the only little wonder that abides.

For incredible images of the area, see Tom Parker’s exquisite photographs and writing. Photos of mine in this story (from top): a black squirrel, Diana the Huntress in front of the Koester House Museum, Laura Ramberg posing with sun faces made by Jennie Thayer-Wood,  Wayne Kruse along with John, who volunteers at the Koester House, giving tours most days, Kelley Hunt and Ann Walters talking trains on the tracks, and the view from the train, somewhere east of Blue Rapids.

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Power of Words Brings Me Home: Everyday Magic, Days 69-71

Posted on September 27, 2010 | 1 Comment

For the last six days, I’ve been immersed in the Power of Words, both lower case (as in how powerful our words can be when it comes to changing the world and our lives) and upper case, as in the 8th annual conference of the same name. For me, this event was a homecoming of many dimensions: the conference was held at Goddard College, my second home (who every knew that this phrase would apply to a dorm room where I live approximately one month divided over three visits each year for the last 15). It was also a conference I founded in 2003. But mostly, I found my way home to that newborn glow of what can happen between us all when we create together stories, poems, songs, performances and exchanges about what matters most.

Maybe that newborn glow also had something to do with the newborn — Nahar Nadi Keefe-Perry — daughter of the TLA Network co-coordinators, Callid and Kristina, who were responsible for organizing the conference. Born less than a month ago, this inquisitive and beautiful new being was a constant reminder to me about how precious, alive, tender and beautiful the life force is.

The things we do at this conference include the usual suspects for most conference (workshops, big group sessions, performances and panels) along with the less-than-usual (talking circles each morning where each of us could speak deeply in a small group, hearing ourselves through having good witnesses and learning how to listen fully to others). Performances were dazzling:

  • S. Pearl Sharp’s performance poetry brought to the surface an artful and soulful combination of ceremony, humor, deep wisdom and the astonishing dance of Nailah.
  • Kim Rosen recited the poetry of Rumi, Mary Oliver, Derek Walcott and others with great passion and joy.
  • Gregory Orr’s reading and talk on poetry as a way to praise the body of the beloved (which could be interpreted as the life force, Book of Poetry, or whatever we love most) illuminated everything I know and want to know about language.
  • Nancy Mellon’s combination of superlative storytelling, mythological weaving and anatomy showed us how our bodies are our stories.
  • Greg Greenway’s singing, songwriting, guitar- and piano-playing journeyed us through the heart of music in praise of homecoming, liberation and the hard work involved in being fully human.
  • Katherine Towler’s reading from the third book in her Snow Island anthology took us to a small Rhode Island island, just on the edge of time and history, and shaped by a kind of yoga of the imagination so visible in her writing.
  • The Coffeehouse of Wonder was so gorgeous, full of the most expansive humor and wildest edges of grief, love, joy and courage that those of us in the crowd went wild every few minutes.

But what brought me home most of us was simply being in such a diverse community, covering age (from newborn to elders), race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and identity, life experience in so many varieties that we made a community that had each other’s backs and hearts. Sitting in the back of the haybarn last night were a pact of African American storyteller-shamans. Walking across the campus was a teenage girl who would still share her full imagination with her mother, both of them attending workshops together. Sleeping in the dorms were people ready to stand up and follow their callings as well as those leaning forward to open the door.

I’m back in Kansas through the magical surrealism of plane travel, but I’m still carrying that dazzle and depth, lightness and weight, freedom and connection of being part of the Power of Words.

Pictures (from top): Jen, Callid, Kristina & Kim; Nahar in the arms of Suzanne with beautiful mom Kristina looking on; Katie Towler; Scott and friends performing; a gorgeous pact of shamans; leaving Vermont.

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Gratitude for Healing & Community: Everday Magic, Day 68

Posted on September 23, 2010 | 2 Comments

Tonight, my daughter texted me, needing details about the terrible car accident that almost took the life of Forest, my youngest son, nine years ago. She had a memoir writing assignment for an English class and wanted to write about this experience half her life earlier, when she was only nine. I quickly went to a long essay I wrote about this accident. Rereading it brought me full circle to my gratitude for Forest’s survival and the deepest healing community and prayer can bring. Here is an excerpt from that essay, written about returning to the site of the accident to clean up the mess we left there:

Sometime in the middle of March, I drove our new old Mercury Villager van to the accident site and parked. Laurie was already there, with a big hunk of (what else?) brownies in her backpack. Jerry soon drove up and parked, as did Vicky, and then Ken with the kids. We were here to clean the site, to help heal the part of the earth that we damaged in our crashing into it. The whole south side of the slope was covered in broken glass and small toys, crayons crushed everywhere.

We took plastic and paper bags and carefully crawled around and bent here and there to pick up what we could, trying to separate handfuls of grass from glass. Forest went down to the water, which was low and brown, and he walked through it and over it and generally explored the dimensions of the site. Natalie kept saying that it was a different place, that it couldn’t have been where the accident happened. Daniel, who had to be lulled into driving down this street again and was reluctant to see the site, quickly got into picking up glass and looking around at it.

It was the place where we almost died. It was the place that took the impact, took the hit, and let us live. It was mud and grass and slope and stretch of land. It was water and dirt, the eastern edge of the wetlands, all of which were so threatened by another highway that local native people and environmentalists had fended off thus far successfully for two years.

It was a beautiful place with great blue herons occasionally flying solo overhead.

We picked up all we could, gathered the trash in the back of our van, and then went to a somewhat flat part just west of the slope where we had the accident. You could still see the dents in the earth from the van. We gathered hands, the eight of us, and I thanked the earth for saving us, and so did Ken. We all thanked the earth and each other.

Then we hugged goodbye, and Laurie walked up the wetlands, around to her home while Jerry and Vicky returned with us to our house to eat the brownies, and other food too, and sit around the kitchen table, putting labels on the annual issue of our bioregional newsletter. Jerry told us the story of when he left the army, simply walked away, and how his life changed in that moment. Vicky spoke about the work she loved and the boss there who made staying with that work intolerable. Both of them told different stories, yet both stories were about leaving what wounds and seeking out what heals.

When I hugged them goodbye, and later, stepped outside on the deck alone to look at the cold stars, I thought about the place of the accident, and how what wounds it gave us were actually ways to heal much older, larger wounds, wounds that came from not being part of community, from not having access to the healing tools and energies needed. Wounds that came from being separate from love, not in the middle of it.

Then I went back inside to Forest’s room and lifted, from the edge of his bed, the prayer quilt, beautiful in its gold and orange and brown and green, made for him by the church of his great-cousin and name-sake, Ken’s cousin Forrest. I put the quilt on his sleeping body and placed Mariah dog beside him. All of him had come back, and in the process, more of me, lost in ways I can’t remember long ago, returned too.

“You two have suffered so much,” a lawyer friend said to me earlier that week. But that wasn’t so true. We had been given this gift of love, this shining spirit of community. The gift of the accident that didn’t take what we loved most but showed us, in stunning clarity, what love looks like as a verb.

Picture: From The Lawrence Journal-World of Forest being life-flighted from the site of the accident. Note: Some of you reading this will remember the accident. Thank you for all you did to help us then!

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Yoga Graduation Day!: Everyday Magic, Day 66

Posted on September 20, 2010 | 1 Comment

Today I graduated with 15 other women from a year-long yoga teacher training certification. Under the warm guidance of Gopi Sandal, our yoga teacher, and immersed in the deep wells of love and humor we created together in our group, we have sun salutationed and pranayama-ed and anatomy-studied our way through the seasons. The umbrella of yoga we did, were and learned was Bhaktivana Yoga, the yoga of devotion and the yoga of being fully engaged in the world, and along the way we learned about everything from soup (along with how to make all kinds of other things) to nuts (if you consider some of the more esoteric yogic practices). Mostly, we studied the practice of yoga as life practice: a way to continually bend and reach yourself toward the divine in concert with your body, community, thoughts and deeds.

Unlike a typical graduation, there were no caps or gowns, just yoga clothes, and instead of processing, we stuck our butts in the air in downward dog, and then crawled on the ground and arched ourselves into cobra. In fact, we did a whole yoga class, complete with highly-entertaining partner yoga. After climbing, sitting and leaning on one another all year, it was all homecoming.

After class, we gathered in Gopi’s living room with friends and family present for her to present a certificate to and say something about each of us (turns out I’m a warrior of truth and a spunky rebel girl) as we lit a candle and wrapped ourselves in the energy of the moment. Everyone was shining.

Then it was time to eat, and in keeping with our intentional confusion of the words chakra and chocolate throughout this training, we had a chakrolate cake (and yes, I did break my no-chocolate vow because it just would have been so wrong not to) along with much else. As has been the case each month during our meals at Gopi’s together, there were kittens to delight in and bump away from our plates, peacocks staring at us with that wry peacock stare, and the oxen, including one I love so much that I whispered to Becky, “My boyfriend’s back.”

Leaving didn’t feel like leaving for many reasons, not the least of which was that I’ll be heading out to Gopi’s tomorrow for yoga class and seeing these gals around. Yet it also was leaving an intensive study and making of community and stretching our bodies while expanding our hearts together in just this way. Over the year, I found our monthly 16-hours-of-class weekends thrilling and exhausting (although thank heavens we usually had naptime), waking me up in new ways while wiping me out in others. But I know this time we made and had together was precious and is now over in just this configuration of people and intent.

Whatever happens next, I’ve learned so much more about how to bend myself toward it, center my breath, and lean into the beauty of life however it unfolds — like a lily in the center in the my heart or thunderstorm in the center of the sky. Thank you, Gopi, and thank you yoginis — I love you all and to paraphrase e.e. cummings, I carry your hearts in my heart.

(Note: Photo of a collaged box? This is what we as a group made for Gopi and gave her, filling it with gifts. The collage holds images we love and also a bunch of pictures of our group over the year.)

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Synchronized Swimming in the Swimming Hole: Everyday Magic, Day 22

Posted on August 5, 2010 | 2 Comments

After a long day of faculty meetings at Goddard College where I teach, Lise, Karen and I set out for the swimming hole, an old quarry with deep, cold water surrounded by trees, mountain and sky. We were hot, tired, loosened by and sweaty from the yoga we just did, and ready for the water. Stepping in, I was surprised (even if I knew this ahead of time) by the chill of the water after weeks of swimming in bathtub temperatures back in Kansas.

Half-way across the pond, the birds diving — kingfishers and cardinals according to Lise but only swooping blurs to me without my glasses — Lise noticed Karen was doing cartwheels in the water. Although I’ve known Karen for 15 years, it had escaped me that at age 12, she was part of a sychronized swimming team Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire in England in the brief stretches when she wasn’t living in Holland, Singapore, India and at a British boarding school.

I watched her legs rise upside down up through the water as I pulsed myself slowly to the blur of one shore back to the shore of where I entered. The water held depths of cold freedom, waking me up after weeks of huddling around air-conditioners in Kansas. Just entering into this pond and moving along its surface sychronized me although not as elegantly as Karen could wheel herself around, a surprise rising in the middle of the pond.

(Yes, that’s Karen Campbell – read about her, not quite as good as meeting her though.)

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Bar Mitzvahed!

Posted on May 4, 2009 | Comments Off

The weekend was a wheel of people and joy turning through our time. We began with a pie-making party Thursday night — the Weedle Caviness Memorial Pie-Making Party — to try to replace what can’t be replaced: Weedle’s amazing pies she made for Daniel’s and Natalie’s Bar Mitzvahs. The joy, however, and humor were there in full-force as about a dozen friends and family came over to mix and roll dough, cut fruit, and gingerly lift the pie crusts into the pans.

On Friday night, we had regular Friday night services at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center with a twist. Instead of just doing the normal candle-lighting prayer, Ken called up six other men important in Forest’s life — his uncles, Mark and Brian; family friends, Jerry, Jack, Herb; and his brother Daniel — to join Ken in honoring Forest’s crossing over into adulthood. Each man lit a dark green candle in a blue glass candle holder and said his wish for Forest as a man. It was moving, gentle, strong and beautiful.

Saturday was Bar Mitzvah central — the actual event began at 10 a.m. at the LJCC, filled with over 130 of our friends and family. So much was moving about the ceremony, but what stands out for me and what others told me they loved include the blessings of both his Grandmothers, Alice and Barbara; our family carrying around the torah while all of us singing; Forest’s wonderful speech about the importance of kindness and listening when it comes to living a holy life; Ken and my talks (mine is below); the gorgeous duet sung by Susan Elkins and Natalie, our daughter; the throwing of the candy and how, just beforehand, Daniel and the torah scooted off to one side of the Bema and the rabbi to the other side to miss the onslaught of Tootsie Rolls.

In the evening, about 80 friends and family came out here for a pie party — 15 pizza pies and 16 fruit pies, plus all the other dishes people brought. People spilled out onto the newly-finished front porch, and the back deck, in the drive and throughout the house, visiting, laughing, eating, telling stories. About 9ish I got suddenly tired and actually took a 10 minute nap, then found myself rejuvenated until 11 when the last people, dear friends we had a blast visiting with, left.

Now it’s quiet and peaceful as I type this on the front porch, all the cats and the dog out here with me, focused on the singing of a bird nearby.
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Dear Forest,

Here it is the night before your Bar Mitzvah, and I can’t help thinking of the night before your birth. It was a windy, rainy May night as I sat in your grandfather’s heated car at 2 a.m. while your dad ran back and forth from house to car to load up everything, including the other kids. Throughout contractions and the all-too-short-space between, I was held in the most beautiful choral music playing on the radio, women’s voices entwined in multiple harmonies that poured through me like the wind poured through the trees I watched in the dark.

The next afternoon, you were born, and the first look on your face – just like the first look of total intensity on Daniel’s face and total joy on Natalie’s – conveyed your temperament. You simply looked around casually and seemed to shrug. If you could have talked, I think you would have said, “So this is life? Oh, well.” You were present, accepting and interested in all your encountered.

Since that time, you’ve brought the most amazing enthusiasm and whimsical curiosity to whatever you find – whether it’s basketball follies, the economic crisis’ latest flurry of bankruptcies, or the cat sleeping in a basket. When I pick you up from school or downtown, you always both ask me about the news – “Mom, what happened with the Dow today?” and your trademark question, “What’s the plan?” You follow music, film, news, sports, and all manner of quirky information widely and deeply, telling me something you found on The Washington Post site or Rotten Tomatoes. You listen to radio, television, read papers and magazines, updating your acute sense of where we are as a country. This world is interesting to you, and you bring to it a wonderful ability to take it all in, apply critical thinking to evaluate and integrate what you really believe, and then tell us about it.

You’ve also brought your big heart, always present and always accepting, to all you encounter, which over your life, has been full of fierce challenges – the car accident you survived, in part due to the love and support of this community; my cancer; and some difficult-to-shake illnesses you’re enduring – and heartbreaking losses, mostly in the last year, of both your grandfathers, your namesake, and a good friend. In all of this, you’ve shown up – in all senses of that term – to learn, mourn, find, and carry on as well as to share your wide pool of kindness with whoever else is hurting. You know well what it is to just be with someone going through a hard time, how to listen, and how to listen for what would really help. It’s no suprise that the words you wrote in your speech about how to live a holy life came so easy to you – they are words you live everyday.

What’s the plan? The plan – I hope and believe – is for you to simply keep being who you are. For all of us who know you, you’re a shining light of all these qualities: kindness, presence, curiousity, enthusiam, patience, earnestness, and many times, joy. For a long time, I’ve believed we become more of who we always were as we grow older, but you were born that way, and already, you live guided by your desire – besides to play the wii and watch countless episodes of “The Simpsons” – to help others and celebrate the amazing gift of life.

That night, nearly 14 years ago, before your birth, I was about to receive one of the greatest gifts of my life. Of course I’m proud of you for all you’ve done at this Bar Mitzvah, but I’m even more proud of you everyday for how you live. I love you with all my heart forever.
Love, Mom

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