Dispatches From The August Heat Dome

 

[Two weeks on from the massive fire that swept away lives and heritage on Maui, I continue every day to be grateful that my dear friend, Marjorie, managed somehow to escape from Lahaina in her car and is safe with a friend on the north coast. Here is a link to her Go Fund Me page with more details. Although she is blessed with the many friends she has made and the many artists she's mentored over the years, to reconstruct your entire life at 81 takes determination, grit and yes, money. Thank you for helping and sharing this link to assist a beautiful soul rebuild her life from the ashes.]

6:10 AM.  I take a few minutes off from my work in the perennial bed that is desperately in need of deadheading to sit down on the screened porch and embrace the simple pleasures of my life. I have much to be grateful for, sitting with an iced coffee, made from the leftovers of yesterday's breakfast I saved in a glass jar in the fridge for just such an occasion.

I close my eyes as I hold the mug, and acknowledge all the minor miracles swirling in my hand. From the beans that were grown and gathered and roasted far from my home to all those who made it possible for a bag of Organic Guatemala Medium Roast to conveniently sit on a display at Aldi's that I plop into my shopping cart. Everything I can touch, taste or smell, see or feel, has one origin: Mother Earth. And I do not waste her blessings. 

I apologize to the trees and the grasses and flowers and Mother Gaia for the day old coffee, as I know they prefer the fresh perked variety I make for us almost every day with a splash of their preferred Italian Sweet Cream as they have let me know on those occasions when my pocketbook is low on cash and there is only regular milk or a little Half and Half to stir into a big mug for our morning ritual. 

Our daily ritual is a walk about to some point in my acreage, where I collect my thoughts, let go of my fear of lack, or aches and pains, or occasional bouts of loneliness and offer thanks for all that has been shared with me. I honor Mother Gaia with the first sips from the cup that I pour over this one precious Earth that embraces me and all that I love. 

It's late August in southern Illinois. The second heat dome of the summer encases us like hot, wet towels we can't shake off while volcanoes are erupting, the Earth shakes, and a rare tropical storm unloads masses of rain at the same time on southern California. Wild fires further north are creating new refugees while here I sit, comfortable if sweaty, my eyes following the flight of the swallowtails and sulphurs and frittilary threading among the wild and unruly patch of annuals blanketing the raised bed in front of my porch. I tossed out my odd assortment of saved seeds haphazardly in my beds and along the pollinator fence I started last year. It may take awhile for the native perennials to grow and expand but this year's zinnias are everywhere. Any and all food for the butterflies and bees is food for my soul---and of course, the planet. I'm eager for the monarchs to return, knowing they are about to head south. Only one has visited so far but I hope that when the heat moves out they will begin to show up in higher numbers. Their migration story always renews my hope for our own survival, if we can tap into our ancient instinctual need for moving and working together to create home.

7:35 PM

How often do you take time to sit and just thank the Mother Earth for all the splendor, color, abundance, variety that She gifts you? In the midst of all this madness, of vitriol, unwavering loyalty to beliefs founded on quicksand, of ignorance, greed, unholy alliances, loss of vision, loss of faith in goodness and humility, fractured community, there are still sunsets so radiantly glorious and golden, dazzling white ribbons shot through the forest, that I am blinded with yet another miracle I witness from my porch while talking to the tree sisters, "Look ladies! Another evening shared!" Another moment of peace, another turn on the wheel of life. And I am so grateful. It’s my quiet rebuke to the nonsense of the world waiting to choke me from inside cell phones or social media.

After a day inside away from the oppressive heat and humidity, I can sit on my porch and once again acknowledge how damn lucky I am to have air conditioning, an up and running power grid, my cell phone charged and plenty of food in my fridge, pantry, and in the raised beds I built from my own compost pile. I sit back as white clouds turn pink then orange, then blue-gray and sip the last of my iced sun tea as dusk descends, trancelike over the remnants of day. 

I’m the lucky one, the voice in my head reminds me, the same voice that so often begs for mercy, for the outside world oblivious to monarchs, or swallowtails, peach colored sunsets, water, to just notice. I take another sip before heading inside to wash up, grateful for chirping crickets, a trio of fruit bats zapping mosquitos near the light pole, a soft breeze offering to cool the garden. Life is good.   

Blessings, Mahalo,

           Yvonne

To help you identify the marvelous winged ones circling your flowers, check out Owlcation.com.  

Check out the many independent YouTube channels popping up with on-ground interviews and material and resources beyond FEMA, Red Cross, to get directly to those who need it most. Such as www.mauilfg.org.

A Decade On: Trudging to Santiago de Compostela

 

"Tell your story: Yes, tell your story.  Show your example. Tell everyone it's possible,
and others shall feel the courage, to climb their own mountains." ~ Paulo Coelho) 

I do not by any stretch of the imagination claim that I am in the same league, or at the same table with Paulo Coelho EXCEPT, that we have both set our feet on the same well-worn, blessed path trudging across Spain toward Santiago de Compostela. For that, we will always be bonded together as peregrinos, pilgrims on The Way.

While Coelho made his pilgrimage in 1986 which he later wrote about in The Pilgrimage (1987) I set out in June of 2013 near my birthday. I was 63, had not prepared beyond a few days of walking with my overloaded backpack in the hilly area were I was living at the time. I had a good pair of handed down hiking boots and researched good socks and what I might need. I nixed the strong suggestion of ear plugs (wrong!) and walking sticks although veteran pilgrims shook their heads at my ignorance and then bestowed one of theirs on me. 

What moved me to do this is one of those 'where did that idea come from?' moments in my life. I'm not sure but on January 1st, 2013, the idea drilled itself into me like the sound of a mosquito inside a dark, tent. The relentless nagging from Spirit, or Divine Guidance or my long-dead mother who also had happy feet, would not be silenced until I agreed to go. That summer. Six months away. As I have often been gifted these sudden urges to travel for no particulate reason, I knew better than to question the source. Or refuse the invitation.

I flew to Marseille in early June, to rest up a bit and board a train on my birthday for the border with Spain where I would officially set off. Now, I do love the French (and their food) but they can call a railroad strike at the drop of an unkind word so as the days passed, I sought out another way to Irun on the border with France. After many hours on a bus, I was very unceremoniously dropped at the train station in Irun around 5am. Station is closed, I'm shooed off the benches in front of the station by police where I attempted to sleep. I wandered just a few feet away to the bench in a churchyard next to the station, and, using my backpack as a pillow, waited for the 6am opening to grab something to eat and a cup of coffee to begin the search for an albuerque, one of the hostels or other establishments set up just for those walking the Camino.

In retrospect, I see this delay as preparation for the long road ahead: being ready to improvise and deal with what showed up, letting expectations drop-about time, distance, available comforts-letting trust not expectation be my constant companion. 

I treasure the photo above from my second day on the Norte, the north road of the Camino, taken by a stranger, another pilgrim who flashed the universal hand sign for 'let me take your picture' at just the right moment when I stopped to take in the view of the Atlantic. I intentionally left my cell phone behind in the States but kept my camera at the ready the entire trip. I rarely passed anyone who didn't speak with reverence if not joy as they shared some unexpected comfort or small kindness from their day--passing a corner burdened with wild flowers, cold water offered for blistered feet at a small village fountain, having the last bed space in an over-croweded albuerque, a cup of fresh, free hot coffee offered from the tiny restaurant on a rainy morning. Simple needs, simple pleasures. As pilgrims, we chose to give up everything we could not carry on our backs just to put one foot in front of the other for weeks and by doing this,  realized the richness of our lives was not what we had but what we did not need.

“I have come to believe that we do not walk alone in this life. There are others, fellow sojourners, whose journeys are interwoven with ours in seemingly random patterns, yet, in the end, have been carefully placed to reveal a remarkable tapestry." ~ Richard Paul Evans

How did I walk over 350 miles or more for six weeks? One footfall after the other. Learning to trudge. I now know exactly what that word means. Trudging is how I got across Spain.  A trudge is a pace that is not quite walking speed and not quite stopping speed. A trudge is almost metronomic, rhythmic, like breathing. Balancing a backpack makes it easier to trudge. Trudging is how we become closer to the earth. Like turtles. Slow, sure, steady. Timeless.

 Trudging is a meditation. It slows us but does not impede our life. We can make progress but without chaos or losing our ability to see, be present in the moment. In fact, trudging IS living in the moment. I don’t trudge anymore since I’ve left the Camino. I would, but I feel self-conscious. Unless I’m alone on a hike or walking down a very deserted road up to my house. I never felt self-conscious on the Camino but I had the perfect reason to be slowly lifting one foot and then the other: the backpack with the large shell hanging on the back that entitled me to walk any old way I wanted as long as my destination was always westward, toward a point on this globe already christened through the centuries by other humans as confused by the world and life as I was.  Trudging united me with millions of feet that had worn down paths through the woods, slept in monasteries and open fields, climbed high peaks and left soft prints on sandy beaches. Our trudging feet blessed the Earth with each step, each slow moment we created, acclimating to a collective sacred daily ritual. Santiago de Compostela could be Mt. Kilimanjaro or Lake Titicaca. Any destination that gives trudging a purpose is sacred. But in reality, the trudging IS the purpose. 

My Camino was constant change cocooned within constant motion, a world where generosity was the common currency, laughter the exchange rate, and everyone had the same amount to spend. As I linger over photos from that walk a decade ago, sitting here in my small house in southern Illinois that I love surrounded by woods and a few wild things from time to time, I start to wonder if I could do this again. My right knee certainly didn't like the mountainous Norte and my right ankle later suffered a stress fracture on the French Way in July as if to say "I told you it was too hot down here." But I would not give up any of the aches and soreness that I still carry. My body holds all these as memories, memories of ancient ruins I investigated, acres of sunflowers that appeared to nod as I passed, broad vistas shared with others trudging beside me, simple food shared communally, the daily blessings of 'buen camino!' poured over us from locals as we passed, of strangers who became instant family as we walked side by side for a few days or even just a few hours. 

Yeah, I'd do it again. There is still hopefully more trudging left in me. Only this time I'd definitely bring along ear plugs and a pair of my very own walking sticks.

I need solitude. I need space. I need air. I need the empty fields round me; and my legs pounding along roads; and sleep; and animal existence.—Virginia Woolf