Starflower Rises

 

Oh, for the second time

I hear Her call my name.

 

I am longing

for the sight

of soft curves –

rolling hills,

a Beloved Woman

Sleeping,

sheltered under

Emerald Green –

Pine scents the air;

Soft rains keep falling.

 

I’m coming.

 

I feel Her Sounding

from a great distance,

a huge Whale rising from

a churning chaotic sea

half way across the country.

This Mountain Mother

calls us. She

whose Body once

rose out of

wild grasses in

our bountiful

berried field.

 

We’re coming.

 

She held us then

in a golden circle,

wrapped us in green wonder

blessed us with Summer’s Light.

We felt Love bleeding

through disbelief –

I succumbed to what

I did not know;

Surrendered to a

Birthing under our feet.

I heard Her singing…

Love as pure Being.

 

We’re coming.

 

I pray the tough

and tender thread

that Binds us

will hold –

our love for Her,

Her Love for us,

Braided as One.

Once I feared Winter Snows…

Instead an avalanche

buried us alive in desert heat.

The Earth caught Fire.

We mourned.

I couldn’t breathe.

Oh, for the second time

I hear Her call my name…

 

We’re coming.

 

My cry echoes…

bouncing off

reptilian stone,

nightmare glare,

hard blue sky.

West winds unhinge me

with unforgiving fury.

Still, She hears me.

 

We’re coming…

 

Strengthen the thread,

keep us bound to you

until we touch

sacred ground

lush with greening,

walk reverently

over a bountiful breast

feel your Heart

beat as our own.

 

We’re coming.

 

Imagine peepers singing,

croaking wood frogs

at twilight,

purple crocus

seeping through

melting snow!

Our Dreaming creates

a Lizard path to follow.

Stay close to Ground.

We long for Black bears;

their fur- skin warms us.

We see them peering

round Mother Pine

anticipating

friendship and,

joyful offerings.

An overflowing brook

is a symphony

made of water.

She hears our cry.

 

We’re coming.

 

Oh Mountain Mother

For the second time

I am that child again…

spun out of blue and green

luminous Star shining

We beg you –

keep us safe,

supported,

on this long

winding soul/body

Journey

Home.

 

We’re coming…

The Sound of Silence: a mother’s day reflection

 

Here in the high desert it has been raining off and on for the last few days. A giant puddle sits in the driveway and all the trees range in color from subtle shades of sage to emerald. Fringed Chamisa, spun gold and salmon wildflowers are bent low but stems are luminescent. Seedlings are sprouting in unlikely places.

 

I can’t think of a better mother’s day present for the desert than these ongoing cloud-bursts that are nourishing the earth with water and minerals from the sky. I am profoundly grateful for this year’s spring greening.

 

The earth is experiencing a sense of renewal. I wish I could say the same for me with respect to mothering and mother’s day. I approach this cyclic threshold with the same feelings of dread and grief that overpower me each year. Neither of my children acknowledge me as the mother who once loved them so fiercely, but oh so imperfectly in her own confusion and despair.

 

I was such a young wife, barely twenty when I became pregnant with my first child. By the time I was twenty – two, I was a mother of two sons. Two years later I was divorced and on my own.

 

Although I tried to repair the damage as soon as I was able, neither child was willing to join me. I desperately suggested counseling – many times. As adolescents and young adults both Chris and later David, responded with chilling silence and apparent indifference to every frantic attempt I made to bridge the gap.

 

It was decades before I began to understand that after my brother’s death I surrendered my children to grieving parents whenever they wanted. I had no idea my behavior was rooted in survivors guilt (My 50 percent). Later, after my father’s sudden death, my mother co opted my children for her own reasons, making certain that both would shut the door on me, just as she had. She demonstrated the power of silence/absence as a means of soul destruction, and cheerfully passed the torch onto both my children.

 

It was too late.

 

Yet, I kept trying for another 25 years. Two years ago, after yet one more aggressively abusive phone call from my youngest son I snapped, and gave up the ghost.

 

I struggled then – mightily – to find a way to accept incomprehensible truth. That I had two 50 plus year old children who couldn’t see me for who I am, children that don’t care about, or respect me. Love is not part of their equation. This reality seemed so extreme that I couldn’t digest what was.

 

I still can’t.

 

I suspect the stomach issues I am dealing with today with have everything to do with the fact that a person can only live with so much emotional suffering before physical collapse becomes a reality.

 

As my body continues to weaken, most of the time I retreat further and further from that which I am powerless to change.

 

But around mother’s day I can’t help but think about my relationship with my children and my mother because I am both mother and daughter and because my life is permeated by the suffering that comes from being silenced, rendered invisible and unloved. An intergenerational pattern of harsh judgment/rejection lives on and I wonder who will be damaged by it next.

 

My mother is dead and my children are well past mid –life and responsible for their own choice -making. I no longer make excuses for either of them. I hold each son accountable for mother betrayal, just as I learned to hold my mother accountable (after her death) for her betrayal of me. I don’t know my grandchildren well enough to make any judgment. Like my mother, my oldest son, their father, made sure they were never able to see me until they were already 18 years old. They were taught how to use silence as a weapon of destruction too.

 

If I am willing to be accountable for the mistakes I made as a parent knowingly and unknowingly, and I am, then so are the other members of my family. It’s that simple.

 

I am aware that my story is not unique. Families twist realities and create their own cruel and distorted stories. We are all are living through dark times; cultural and earth destruction are ongoing realities. Some days I can barely imagine a future that embodies hope on either a personal or a collective level.

 

And yet, when I walk out the door I see the seeds that I did not plant sprouting new green. When I lovingly water them I am catapulted into the Field of the Living Earth… S/he too has lost children, millions of non – human species, and will lose so many more before the story ends… Yet, she continues to align herself with Life. I choose to join her. I hope that before I die I will find a few more seeds to plant and nurture even if they did not emerge from my own body.

 

The prophet Gibran once said that our children do not belong to us but are life’s longing for itself. The Earth demonstrates the truth of this statement; I want to believe it too.

 

 

Wild-crafting the Hedgehog and a brief reflection on Motherhood

 

Early last spring while walking in the desert in a rocky area with mineral rich soil I discovered a clump of two very small cacti amongst many other similar clumps. Delighted by the diminutive size of the cacti I dug two along with native soil to pot at home. I noticed two tiny bumps on the sides of each inch tall cactus that were cylindrical in shape and both had short spines that were ridged in burgundy.

About a month later I was on a rock hunt with my friend Iren, when we discovered another bigger clump of what looked like the same kind of cactus, although the ridges on these were not quite the color of red wine. This clump had more rose red buds. I couldn’t resist bringing this cluster home too along with plenty of chert/flint rich soil. Before I dug up either clump I made certain that others grew in the same area. Whenever anyone digs plants in their native habitat (wild -crafting) it is important to make certain that others of the same kind grow nearby.

After re-potting each in its native soil and placing stones around the periphery of each pot (that I found in the rocky soil around the plants), I placed the two cactus clumps next to each other on a bench right next to my door. The second clump also had buds. Each time I went outside the little cacti greeted me. There was something about finding these cacti growing so naturally and happily in the wild that really appealed to me. I wonder now why I couldn’t leave them there.

I soon learned that Echinocerus viridiflora was a hedgehog cactus that was different from most other hedgehog species. For one thing the cactus is very frost tolerant, and it grows much further north (I found both clumps at about 7000 – 8000 feet in the mountains of Northern New Mexico). The species is native to the central and south central United States and in Northern Mexico where it can be found in varied habitats including mountains, desert scrub, woodlands, and dry grasslands.It also has small flowers along the stem rather than near the tip of the cactus. Plants are globular and can grow 12 inches tall and 1 to 3 inches in diameter but most are much smaller. Stems either remain single or form clumps like some of the ones I had seen. Some clumps could become quite large with a dozen or more individuals. The spines might be variable in color, ranging from red, white, yellow or purple and were short and quite numerous. The flowers could be greenish yellow, pink, orange, brown, or even red. I wondered if elevation or mineral content of the soil helped determine the color of the spines and the flowers.

With so much variation within one species I now suspected that the little cactus I had dug up down the road from my house might also be another Echinocereus v. hedgehog cactus; this one is covered in white spines. The problem for me is that visually they look so different although this one is very small and round too…

Further research on the species as a whole answered one of my questions. One variety of this plant sometimes called Echinocereus davisii is listed as an endangered species and is limited to Brewster County in Texas where it grows in a specific mineral substrate. I couldn’t find any information about the variation in flower color but I suspect that colors also vary with the type of rocky soil and/or the elevation the cacti grow in.

To my great surprise I also discovered that many of these cacti are scented.

I did not know until it was too late that (according to one source) that Echinocereus v. was considered to be “at risk.” Please learn from my mistake. I believed that I was being responsible. I would never knowingly dig up a cactus (or any other plant) that was threatened, unless I knew it was going to be destroyed. All around me as I dug the plants in different locations there were groups of the same cacti. What I failed to take into account is that I found these cacti in diverse, but consistently rocky areas, each having it’s own microclimate and mineral content. I learned the hard way that I should have let them be.

I know one thing for sure. I will treasure these little cacti always, because it would be almost impossible to return them to their original surroundings.

Today is Mother’s Day. My little hedgehog cacti are covered with buds and lemony yellow blooms with a greenish tint. They are stunning and the bees love them!

Nature has gifted me with these exquisite flowers on the one day of the year that celebrates motherhood albeit in a sentimental way. Cactus blooms remind me that the goddess is present in Everywoman as a mother and that she also has thorns! The sharp spines of the cactus that sting like bees also remind me of how difficult motherhood really is, or has been for any woman, not just for me.

Bufo americanus

 

I recognized him at once

as he limped, one mangled leg,

one eye bleeding,

dragging himself across a dirt road

in search of a place to die.

 

The day went black

with sorrow.

 

Oh no, I keened,

stopping in front of him.

His mouth was open and closing,

– gasping –

with each labored breath.

Did he know how much

it mattered to me that he was hurt

so badly that there was no way

I could save him?

 

Bearing witness never seems to be enough.

 

It was hot – too hot.

Fierce sun dehydrates even

the toughest skin of toad or frog.

I couldn’t bear that he would die

of injuries compounded by thirst.

 

I ran back to get the car.

My intention was to

run him over, to

end his suffering.

But when I drove the car

down the dirt road

he was gone.

 

If only I could glimpse a toad

basking in the desert sand,

I thought until today.

Never imagining this…

 

I was going to a local seed exchange.

Seeds are about beginnings

but I was mourning a dying toad.

What salt – bush sheltered him?

Even purple seed corn kernels

left me joyless.

My soul was with that toad.

 

I was tired – too tired.

I left early, driving down

the winding red dirt road.

My only hope

was that by now

death had claimed the toad.

 

He would never know

that for the last month

I spent each night listening

for amphibious musical trills.

 

Later in the afternoon

I walked to the place

where I had last seen the toad.

And there he was,

quite still, squashed flat

by the only car

that could have hit him –

my own.

 

I buried him in the sand

that once warmed his flesh.

I closed his golden eye.

Sprinkled cornmeal…

How does one ever say goodbye?

 

Although we’d barely met,

I loved him.

Even in death

his life mattered –

to one who would

have mothered him,

healing his wounds,

if only she had the chance.

 

Postscript:

Ever since coming to the high desert last August I have been hoping to catch sight of a toad or frog. I missed the early monsoon season when in one night the frogs emerged from hiding, sang love songs, and laid their eggs. I never met a toad. Last summer I lived back in the hills so perhaps toads don’t like it much up there. However, now that I am staying in this riparian sanctuary, situated near a flooded acequia and raging river, I believed toads and frogs must be around somewhere, and yet until today I never met either.

Bufo americanus, or the western toad looks exactly like his northern cousin in the east. In the spring toads are diurnal hunting during the day; in summer they become nocturnal. This was a large toad, probably 3 inches long. And he was actually a she because females are larger than males.

There is a small lily pond on this property that may eventually harbor black toad eggs laid in a double string of jelly below the surface of the water. However, this toad may not have had a chance to become a mother…I say this because the musical trills of this particular toad are very familiar to me, and I have not heard them during the day or at night. (Trilling occurs primarily at mating time and before and during egg laying).

To meet my first toad in the desert under these circumstances was very difficult for me because I have loved these amphibians since I was a small child, and in Maine, where my home is, I created a vernal pool for the toads that is situated next to the brook. Above on the hill in my flower garden, there is also a small lily pond for frogs and toads.

The synchronicity involved in this incident was also startling. The toad was initially run over by a friend of mine, who would be deeply upset if he knew. When I went back to get the car to kill the toad quickly to put him out of his misery, he simply wasn’t there. Unable to think about anything but the dying toad at the seed exchange, I returned home early and I must have been the one that finally ended the toad’s suffering without knowing it by running him over because this is a private road. Discovering the flattened toad helped me deal with my sorrow because the animal was no longer suffering.

It is also strange that I called the toad a male in the poem since I know large toads are all females and potential “mothers.”

To have this incident occur the day before “Mother’s Day” seems particularly poignant because I have spent a lot of time rehabilitating wounded animals etc., and there was nothing I could do to save this toad’s life.

With that much said, I am honoring Nature as the primal “Mother of All” on the eve of Mother’s Day.

I also honor myself.

I am also grieving with all mothers, who have lost “children,” human, or otherwise.