you whistled my name four notes chilled prickly skin needling truth we are forever bound you bird woman owl tree wounding wounding wounding we weep grief grief grief too deep half a million dead gunned down by Explosive Will I make no apology Return atrocity to those whose behaviors will one day destroy them too. What we do to nature we do to ourselves.
Context for Poem:
Yesterday I wrote an essay about the barred owl killings beginning with a personal story about my relationship with barred owls. I have known about this Federal Fish and Wildlife Organization’s proposal since 2023.
Hope is the thing with feathers . . . Emily Dickinson
Chickadee
I awoke this morning to bird song, and for a moment I was lifted beyond the despair that has caught me in its grip — despair for the country, for the earth, for loved ones whose lives are increasingly tossed into the chaos, for the future The disappearance of persons into labyrinths of prisons in this country, Guantanamo, and the tortuous CECOT prison complex in El Salvador has broken what was left of my spirit. Then this morning I heard a report that the State Department has changed what it considers to be human rights abuses in order to align with recent Executive Orders, deleting critiques of such practices as retaining political prisoners without due process of law, restrictions on free and fair elections, violence against LGBTQ persons, threats against people with disabilities, restrictions on political participation, coercive medical or psychological practices, and extensive gender-based violence. Ostensibly these changes are to lift restrictions on sanctions toward other countries, but I fear they portend clearing the way for such abuses in the US as well.
My heart is heavy in ways I have not previously known, so I am grateful for that brief moment of delight in the early morning. Later in the day, I found myself wondering whether those who suffered and died in concentration camps, whose despair certainly was beyond comparison with my own, found any solace in the sight and sound of birds who flew freely over the walls of the camps in ways they could not. The daughter of survivors of Auschwitz, Toby Saltzman, recalled that her mother, who often suffered bouts of despair over the Holocaust, found her spirits lifted by the songs of birds. When Toby later visited Auschwitz, she was greeted by flocks of birds. Upon her return, she reflected, “I left Auschwitz feeling a surge of triumph that my parents survived, and gratitude to the birds that gave my mother spiritual sustenance and hope.” We are sorely in need of such sustenance in these times.
He never let me eat communion because I wasn’t a catholic, but it was okay for me to eat his dick. My tiny palms forced to stroke him, the same dextrous hands that coloured in the lines.
I knew his God wasn’t my God. I knew she saw everything there was to see and that he wouldn’t reach salvation; no matter how many Hail Marys he said at mass in Ireland.
The Virgin Mary knew what he stole from me, what they steal from all of us.
I couldn’t fall apart on Sundays at noon when he took me to church—before he took me home after he did what he did—to the little Jewish girl who didn’t know she was Jewish.
I couldn’t remember it because I buried it in Survive, until, it was resurrected by nightmares and demons who professed caring and brought me to altars of despair to vomit up all the darkness, and when there was no more left to cleanse or tear out; light ripped in.
No one talks about the embarrassment that goes along with the telling, sharing and surfacing of sexual violence. How it comes up, how it comes back. How we’re always haunted by the deadbeat dead and grabby grandfathers who try to reach from there into here, pretending they are made of heaven.
I fled a friend’s choir concert because perpetrators keep stealing time, moments, sleep, joy, and friendship, in churches and baths. On my flight, I hunted for nature, soil and anything else that felt most alive in the hilly town of Nelson. Pretending I was like everyone else, I hid the panic that strikes broken hearts.
My relationship with and time spent with Indigenous peoples reinforced my intuitive sense that seasonal turnings like the Spring Equinox need to be honored and experienced when the ‘time’ is right. Time, in the Indigenous sense is fluid. Because of this learning I have come to understand that although it is important to write a little ceremony that includes guardians, elements, prayer, gratitude, framing intentions/release that I also need to allow the powers of nature to determine when the actual passage occurs. Indigenous people dance their ceremonies which helped me understand that any experience that transpires around these turnings may become the body of the ceremony if it feels right though the words were written earlier. This year around the equinox darkness reigned in every sense of the word. Having set my intentions, I waited, wondering when the door would open… yesterday it did, and this is the story of what happened. Only afterwards did I realize that in every sense we had honored and experienced the beginning of spring and the rising of clear waters.
My Vet and dearest friend made one of his unscheduled visits. The moment after I got the text my little dogs began to bark. This is normal behavior for both animals who adore their Uncle Gary and are tuned into him on levels that defy explanation (he lives more than a half an hour away). They bark until he arrives, regardless of whether this is a regular visit, or one that’s a surprise. We keep track of the exact timing of his leave – taking, their behavior and his arrival for fun.
Women and trees belong together; our relationships with them stretches back to antiquity. They have been our protectors, guiding us through grief and difficult times. They offer us gifts of beauty, fruits, and nuts, are receivers of prayers, sometimes speaking through prophecy. Sometimes healing springs appear at their feet. And always they are wisdom keepers, these Trees of Life. It is not surprising that women’s ceremonies were and are often enacted in the forest under a canopy of trees.
Weeping white tears
Emergence magazine recently posed three questions that I want to share because I think they might help raise awareness for women who love trees and the relatively small minority of other people who are attempting to deal with what is happening to the rest of nature during this political crisis and time of earth destruction.
Some folks who are not Indigenous still love and care for the land as a beloved friend, relative and teacher and it is to these people, both women and men, that I offer up these questions because I think they may help to keep us grounded in a painful but potentially creative way. Queries like these attach us to a larger long-term perspective that allows for a ‘both and’ approach to the future. The last question invites the reader to take personal action. Feeling that reciprocal connection between an individual and some aspect of the land s/he is attached to is a key that opens a door to deeper engagement with the rest of nature.
This time one year ago, our world here in Appalachia seemed like it hadn’t changed in a thousand years. The giant, churning, awesome power of Hurricane Helene had not yet whipped our waters into a frenzy, and caused the mountains to slide downhill, carrying our lives away. And yet, from just below the earth’s surface, Spring reappears with all Her perseverance, Her steadfastness, Her fertile abundance. The slow, steady regeneration of our Mother inspires me to keep going, day by day, hour by hour.
Primavera
Toadshade Trillium
The newness of Spring, Primavera, ”first green,” soft petals that banish Winter’s icy grip, the return of the Galax, the trillium, the return! Full-blown rebirth, bright, brilliant green shining in the sun, Spring! Rebirth decked out like a debutante with a roomful of courtiers, flipping the world from darkness to light. Ferns unfurl, fiddleheads play on the forest floor, insects awaken and buzz in a hundred keys of life. Humans awaken too, reminded once more of the richness of the return. A breeze blows over the galax, the Mayapples spread their elegant leaves The promise of the Great Mother: we will begin again.
photo credit: Friend and mentor, bear biologist Lynn Rogers one of the finest naturalists I know
The day after the presidential election in 2016 I picked up what I initially thought was a saw whet owl wing while wandering down a red dirt road in Abiquiu NM. Just one wing and one talon. The hair on my arms rose up pricking my skin like needles. I started to shiver. One wing, one Owl. Women and owls have history. It was obvious that the message was an ominous one. A woman without two wings can’t fly. The day went dead as I dragged myself home. When I did some research to confirm identification, I learned that I had found the remains of a boreal owl.
I have only glimpsed a boreal owl a few times until this winter, but apparently, I have a resident because one hunts before dawn sitting on the same crabapple branch situated next to the side door. Although I eagerly look for him each dawning, I’ve also been concerned for the weasel that lives under the porch, although this owl is not supposed to eat mustelids but is said to feast on smaller prey like mice or voles and even little birds. Three nights ago, I heard one of his calls, a short series of staccato ‘whoos’. According to the literature this is not a mating call which would last much longer
Last week Sara told the story of Changing Woman. You can read it here.
What I love the most about this story is that Changing Woman evolves from a woman who is passively acted upon into a self – directed deity who stands up for what she wants and needs. A second reason I feel so strongly about this tale is that Changing Woman demonstrates the importance of having a relationship with more than human beings – animals and plants. A third reason I am so attracted to this myth is the gender balance that eventually evolves between the two – Changing Woman and the Sun. But I think the most important part of the story for all of us is that Changing Woman never dies. She grows old and then young again reflecting the powers of the Great Round to renew All Life.
Imagine if we were all brought up with this kind of myth to guide us…
When I returned from NM five years ago, I brought home fragments of worked and unworked chert not realizing at the time that Changing Woman accompanied her stones and that they would continue to exert an influence on me. My relationship with that mountain is not distance dependent. I also continue to re – experience the wonder and awe I experienced as becoming part of that mountain, although these periods wax and wane like the moon. The Navajo call Changing Woman’s Mountain Tsip which means tree mountain and the Tewa use a similar word Tsip’in, to name this Being obsidian or flint mountain. A shining mountain crafted of stones and trees, yes!
I listened to my heart murmuring softly her voice a viscous fluid slow moving river changing course from right to left pumping molten minerals over bones tunneling around limbs amazement overcomes me Whole Earth holds heart songs my dogs and me whistling turkeys scolding nuthatch twittering titmouse cheeping chickadee browsing deer astonishment lingers I am treasuring the sweet sounds of this heart thrumming through heartbreak submerged in a flow of wonder… the kind of awe that moves mountains of stone a raging body waterlogged by grief – how can it be this heart continues to pulse drumming to Nature’s rhythm while a crimson soul breaks open over and over keens drowning in losses too deep? Twin chambers pulse in my breast expanding contracting as they continue thrumming Life’s Drum. Trees, birds dear friend (you know who you are) My Beloved Healer Thank You All With every heartbeat my gift to you is the promise of Embodied Love.
Walk lightly pay keen attention… practice gratitude but not at the expense of truth take sparingly share
an Underground Web writes the Story but my roots belong to earth at the crossroad – I choose ‘both and’
Listen to feathered voices keep breathing deep into the forest floor feel that luminous Light hidden beneath my feet Balance fear and pain with turkey flight.
Feminism and Religion 