Pamela Stead Jones

“The one red leaf, the last of its clan,

That dances as often as dance it can,

Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.”

—  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Something shifted in the Autumn woods yesterday.  The previous night’s rain had stopped, but the winds that had accompanied it continued to howl through the trees.  Although the air was warm again, two fronts battled in the sky until the cold air finally won.  Between the damp and the chill, I could feel the next stage of Autumn abruptly begin.  The earth, that only last week was dotted here and there with fallen leaves, now lay covered with their magnificent carpet.  Here and there, some poplar leaves collected rainwater that weighed them down as if to say, “You belong to the earth now; no more dancing for you.”  Even those that continued to fall were held by the still-wet ground and kept from skittering across the land.

The sudden stillness at ground level wrapped my ears in cotton, and I found myself holding my breath in an effort not to break the silence.  A tiny chipmunk scurried through the brush, as if to remind me that I was only a visitor to this silent land.  I turned my eyes upward and watched the treetops shiver in the cold breeze.  Their leaves danced furiously, as if they knew that this dance might be their last.  I watched them, silhouetted against the fast-moving clouds that now and then allowed the sun to peek through, sending out rays of heavenly light.  I watched as here and there the music would stop for one leaf or another.  The branches would toss them high into the sky, the sun would wash them in light and show the brilliance of their color, and at last they would drift to the silent world below.

I sat in reverence there in the woods.  I thought of those I have loved whose final, colorful dance has ended.  I thought of the way they ended, bathed in the light and forever etched in my memory.  The dancing and then the silence like the color and the stillness, the clouds and the light, transport me in Autumn to memories of living and dancing and finally returning home to a peaceful and silent place.  Blow, Autumn wind.  Dance, Autumn leaves.  Amen.

“Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.”

— John Dewey

Call me crazy, but I really love airports.  Let me qualify that:  I really love airports when my travel allows me time to explore all the shops and restaurants and faces of other travelers.  If traveling from point A to point B requires a touchdown in point A2, I always feel as though I’ve been offered a mini-adventure in the middle of my trip.

When I arrive at point A2, the first thing I always do is check the monitors that show flight status.  They sit side by side, and one shows the arrivals while the other lists the departures.  I sit right in the middle of the two; and when I find the number of the flight I’ve just taken, its status is ARRIVED.

Arrived.  There is a sort of completeness implied by that word.  It means that I’ve made it to the original airport in time, gone through the security checkpoints, boarded, flown, and landed safely.  I have arrived; but still my eyes are drawn to the second monitor — the one that shows departures.  When I turn to that one, I am hoping to find my flight number next to the words, ON TIME.  This is not always the case.  Sometimes DELAYED appears, and I need to check several times before I learn the newly-scheduled departure time.  On rare occasions, the message is CANCELLED.  Then I really need to regroup.  DELAYED means I have more time to explore the airport at point A2, but CANCELLED means I will spend most of my layover making new plans.  On a day when my plans are cancelled, point B can seem very far away.

I suppose you’ve guessed by now that I’m not only talking about airports.  Life is a lot like a flight from point A to point B with layovers between the legs of the trip.  It’s important to remember that one arrival simply sets us up for the next departure; and we hope there will be a bit of adventure along the way.  When the message is CANCELLED, we should never feel as though we have arrived.  CANCELLED is a wonderful opportunity to regroup and choose a new direction, without losing sight of our destination.

I wish you smooth and safe travels today with plenty of adventure and time for people-watching.  May your planes touch down safely and may you stay the course; but may you never feel as though you have arrived.  Each arrival is just a layover before the next departure.

“Today, the degradation of the inner life is symbolized by the fact that the only place sacred from interruption is the private toilet.”

— Lewis Mumford

Does this sound familiar?  It does to me; although, as the mother of seven children, I would add that even the bathroom door can be beaten on or whispered through by intruders.  Everywhere we turn there are intrusions, and they are not all human.  Electronic devices have enhanced our lives in many ways, but they have become so omnipresent that it is truly difficult to find a quiet space to simply be.  We take in an overwhelming amount of information from the internet, the television, the radio, the cellphone — ads, news, text messages; yet we have no time to sit alone and process all that has bombarded us.

When we were very noisy as children, my mother would say, “I can’t hear myself think!”  In those days, the solution was simple — send the children outside to play and reclaim your silence.  The challenge in the 21st century is greater than in was in the 1950’s.  It takes a great deal of self-discipline to turn off the noise, especially if we share our living space with others who love all the input and feel uncomfortable when it all shuts down.

We become so enmeshed in the outside world that bombards us non-stop that it is easy to forget that we have a mind and a soul that need to be heard, that need to be attended to and exercised and listened to.  It takes self-discipline to find that space in a world where the bathroom has become our only refuge; but it can be done.  Be creative — turn off the noise, get up a half-hour before the family, find a quiet corner.  Take time to listen to the voice from within.  You will discover you have a lot to say.

“I never failed once.  It just happened to be a 2000-step process.”

— Thomas Alva Edison

Yesterday I was thinking about the way we bring our dreams to life.  I suggested that we should stop making back-up plans and be “all in” where the work of our hear and soul are concerned.  I am inspired when I listen to my own thoughts on this subject, but what follows is another question.  What do we do when we are “all in” and the results just don’t happen?  Do we then distrust our own creativity?  Do we decide that our dreams should be relegated to sleep time and considered too lofty and far away to ever become real?  I know that my own experience has been a series of false starts.  My dream will awaken me — not from sleep, but from living in someone else’s dream.  I don’t mean to say that the daily events of my life have no meaning; but unless my dream is woven into them, I feel like a sleepwalker.  Only when our personal dream calls us to live rather than simply exist can we pretend to be fully alive.  Sleeping and dreaming, waking and then drifting off again to the land where dreams sleep, being pulled again by the dream to waking and walking — it seems that bringing dreams to life sometimes requires more than one attempt.

Edison had a dream.  He dreamed of seeing a world that was illuminated by his idea of an incandescent bulb powered by electricity.  He dreamed of a day when electricity would cost less than candles and only the wealthy would continue to use paraffin wax for light.  Today, candles are a novelty.  Edison’s dream became real; but it was not a simple process.  We can learn a lot from Thomas Edison and the way he viewed the process that gave life to his dream.

What do we think when a dream calls us to awaken and then does not materialize?  How much do we trust our dreams?  Do we allow one failure to mean that the dream has no merit?  When do we know that it is time to move on and leave a dream behind?  Edison also says, “Just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do doesn’t mean it’s useless.”  Suppose our unsuccessful attempts at living our dreams are not failures at all.  Suppose they are part of a refining process that helps us to clarify what our dream will look like when it finally is part of our world?  Suppose it takes 2000 steps before we discover that our dream is beautiful in ways we could not have imagined with only 1999 attempts?

Listen to the dream of your soul.  If it keeps calling you to awaken from your sleepwalking life, if it refuses to be put to rest even though it seems to have failed in the past, consider that you are still in the refining process.  Consider that your dream may burst into existence after one more round of  hard work.  Your deepest dream never dies.  Listen to its call, and remember that sometimes it takes 2000 steps to birth a dream.

“If one asks for success and prepares for failure, he will get the situation he has prepared for.”

— Florence Scovel Shinn

What are the dreams of your soul?  What is the work that you long to do that will leave your mark on the world?  What holds you back from fulfilling those dreams?  It is not every person who is fortunate enough to find a way to fulfill her soul dreams and be paid for that work.  Often we are paid to do jobs that are the means to fund our dreams, not to carry them out.  This is not a bad thing.  It is rare to find work that expresses what we long to bring to our world — what our soul desires to express as uniquely our own; but if we are to fulfill our dreams and not only our obligations, we must remember to use the resources we earn to pursue our dreams.

Too often, because we are not compensated for the work of our soul, we devalue it.  We tell ourselves that we cannot afford the time or the money to bring our dreams to life.  We place them far down the list of ways to use our resources, and we lose who we truly are in a jumble of distractions that soon command our attention.  What is it that frightens us about focusing our intention on bringing our dreams to life?  What is it that causes us to make three backup plans for every dream, just in case we fail?  What would our lives be like if we truly committed to our personal power and let it burst to life without worrying about a backup plan?

What are the dreams of your soul?  What can you do to commit to them — to be “all in” for whatever it is that expresses your own unique contribution to the world?  How would you be transformed if you decided today to bring your dreams to life?

What are we waiting for.  All in?

“The Zulu greeting, ‘Sawubona’ means ‘I see you’ and the response ‘Ngikhona’ means ‘I am here’.”

— Sheila Ochugboju (Feb. 8, 2010)

Yesterday I did one of my favorite things. Jim Donovan was in town for a day-long Rhythm Revival — a chance to connect with other people who love to drum, a time to learn some traditional rhythms and chants, a time for experiencing how this shared experience can alter our energies, and a time for finding our own voice in the midst of community.  We drummed, we meditated, we sang, and we shared our experiences.  Thirty separate beings walked in the door at 10:00 AM; and by the time we broke for lunch, we were a community of thirty who had bonded through our shared experiences.

After lunch, Jim told us with excitement that we were now going to be offered an opportunity.  Uh, oh…those of us who have attended his previous events know that “offered an opportunity” is code language for “play a solo.”  Okay.  Deep breath.  I said we are a group who love to drum.  I never said we are a group of great drummers.  For all the good things that each of us brings to these events, we also bring our past hurts, fears, and criticisms.  The opportunity that lies in being offered a solo is to visit those feelings of being less than enough and transform the energy we devote to them into a voice that speaks through our drum.  Okay.  Another deep breath.  I am thankful that this is not my first rodeo.  I put on my invisible t-shirt — the one I earned a year ago, the one that says, “I Survived J.D.’s Opportunity.”

Okay.  He says we’re going to play a base rhythm — a groove — and that each person in the circle will get to play something that adds our own spice to the mix.  ”We’ll go clockwise,” he says.  Oh, crap.  Clockwise.  I count three people between Jim and me as I watch the folks at the tail end of the circle sigh with relief.  ’Fine,’ I think.  Go ahead and enjoy your stay of execution.  The truth is that yours will be the last solos played.  They will be the ones we remember.  Mine will be long-gone from your memory by the time the circle is done.

The groove begins, and soon each of us in turn stretches our comfort zone and steps up to the challenge of letting our own rhythm be heard.  It is a bit awkward.  Nobody likes feeling conspicuous, and we avoid looking up as we play.  Nobody wants to make another person squirm, so we avoid staring at the person who sits in the hot seat.  By the time the opportunity is passed all the way around the circle, there is a feeling of shared relief.  We have endured.  We have survived.  Time to move on to the next thing.

We talk about our experiences.  People share about the negative energy they brought to their experience — an elementary school teacher who told one woman, “just move your lips — don’t sing;” a band director who told another, “you have no sense of rhythm at all.”  Each of us brought our own inner critics to our solo experiences, and every one of us had overcome their messages and done our best.

“Great!” Jim tells us.  Now we’re going to do it again.  But this time we are going to make eye contact while we play.  This time, every person in the circle will look at the one who is playing the solo and offer compassion and support.  And this time, we will go counterclockwise.  Now I feel sorry that I turned it around before, and made going first the better choice.  This time, I will have to wait and dread longer before my turn comes.   The groove begins, and the solo makes its way around the circle.  Something is different.  As I watch each person play their solo, I have no chance to dread my own moment of truth.  I am invested in them and hearing their unique voices as the message in each solo is added to the community rhythm.

I remember something I heard a while back — long before the Avatar movie made it trendy. I remember hearing of cultures who greet each other, not with “hello,” but with “I see you.”  It is a powerful greeting that acknowledges the existence of the other person and recognizes the relationship we have with them.  The response, “I am here,” is more than a GPS location.  It is meant to say, because you see me, I now exist.  This is what we were doing for one another as we played our second solos.  We looked with compassion on each soloist — “I see you” — and each of us used our drums to reply, “I am here.”

Our second solos were far more powerful than the first ones — or maybe we simply did not see each other the first time as we hid in our own anxiety and they hid in theirs.  What is important is to remember that when we open our eyes and our hearts to another person and say from the depths of our love, “I see you,” remarkable things can happen.  Nobody likes to feel conspicuous, but we all want to be recognized.  It is the critic who makes us uneasy; it is the voice of love that calls us into being who we truly are.  As the opportunity landed at my drum, I looked up to the other members of my community.  Their eyes all called out in love, “I see you.”  I took a deep breath, moved my hands toward my djembe, and replied, “I am here.”

“There is no such thing as death.  In nature nothing dies.  From each sad remnant of decay, some forms of life arise, so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.”

– Charles Mackay

As I walked home from the woods last week, scanning the forest floor beneath my feet, I spied a small speck of green in the midst of all the brown of Fall.

There, right in the middle of the decaying plants and leaves of last year, a seed had fallen.  Nourished by the ones who had gone before him, he now sent two green leaves up through the soil and toward the sky above.  Nestled in and surrounded by a rotting log and a piece of stone, he stood as a tribute to his ancestors whose death had given him life.

The next day I drove out through a small town on my way to the country store.  As I passed the tiny funeral home, my thoughts returned to a winter day thirty-two years ago.  Eight inches of snow had fallen the night before.  Ordinarily, I would have stayed at home and avoided the treacherous roads, but this was no ordinary day.  Three days earlier, on my 29th birthday, my dear great-aunt Essie had died; and I had a promise to keep.  Essie and I had been quite close during my childhood.  She was a member of our household, disabled by a heart condition; but that never kept her from living out loud.  I always think of her in the Fall, because her wisdom dropped so many colorful leaves at my feet through the years, encouraging my tiny seeds of awareness to take root.  She talked to me often about death, telling the stories of the endings of her parents and then her brother — stories written in a time when death was an intimate event and people were often laid out at home.  She assured me that she was looking forward to a beautiful transition.  After all, her own brother’s last words were, “Oh!  How beautiful!”

“So, don’t cry at my funeral,” she told me when I was eleven.  ”Promise me that you’ll sing instead.”  I promised as I fought back the forbidden tears and convinced my child’s mind that she would live forever.  Now the day had come to keep my promise.  Only my parents and I were able to make the trip to the funeral home that day.  The rest of the family lived at a distance, and traveling in the winter storm would have been dangerous.  I imagine my parents were a bit surprised when I showed up with my guitar in hand; but I knew what I had promised, and now I would deliver.  Prayers were said, words of remembrance were spoken, and then the time had come.  I tuned up my strings and began to sing “In The Garden.” I’m no Mahalia Jackson, but I’m sure the sound of love in my voice reached Essie’s ear and made her smile.

The last of her leaves fell that year; and among them, a seed planted eighteen years earlier took root.  Something new grew in me that day — something strong and fearless and proud.  It told me to stand tall, just as Essie had — ironic since she was under five feet tall.  Nobody could have known that a year later it would be this strength that would allow me to guide my own children through the loss of their brother.  Nothing really dies.  The pieces of us that fall to the earth enrich it, and the seeds we offer to others take root when the time is right.  I think that is why I love Autumn.

“Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.”

— Sean O’Casey

As I sat in the woods yesterday, waiting for the last group of children to leave the pumpkin patch, the peaceful energy of nature consumed me so that waiting required no patience and time seemed irrelevant.  It is rare in our busy lives to have such opportunities to leave it all behind and simply be, with no need to achieve or do anything in particular.  Yesterday was one of those wonderful days in the woods.  It had rained overnight and into the early morning.  The leaves of Autumn glistened like jewels, with even more color called to life by their shiny new coating.  The animals were silent, most of them hiding away and awaiting the return of the sun.  Only a turtle, rescued by the tractor driver from the center of the path, seemed to consider the weather to his liking.

There, amid the whispering trees, with only the breeze in the treetops and the second rain released by the leaves as they were stirred, I felt more than surrounded — engulfed — in the peaceful vibration of the autumn woods.  Emptying my mind of any thoughts or worries, I let it in; and the harmony of an unspoiled place became my own.  My heart soon matched the rhythm of nature’s pulse, and a great sense of peace surrounded me.

As I sat in that peaceful state, I suddenly became aware that I was not alone.  A tiny thrush had taken up a perch only three feet from where I sat.  He looked at me, cocking his little head from side to side; and deciding that I belonged in his world, he settled in and began to sing.

There we sat, both vibrating to the beautiful harmony of the woods on a wet morning.  No longer was I an alien presence.  Soon I began to speak to him softly, matching the sound of my voice to his singing, careful not to create any more disturbance than he could bear.

I’ve heard it said that everything vibrates, everything is energy; and my communion with the thrush makes me wonder again how many more worlds we might experience if we can learn to match our own frequency to the hidden places that lie all around.  What a joyful experience to enter the space of a tiny bird and feel that we were one.

“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”

— Matsuo Basho

Creation is a beautiful thing — both the act of coming into being and the beings themselves.  It is our purpose to discover the beauty that lies within each piece of the world around us.  Flowers are easy.  Their colors capture our eyes and their aroma captivates our sense of smell.  The way they sway in the breeze makes them look like graceful dancers, placed along the path just to entertain us.  The moon is easier still.  She shines like a pearl, iridescent and mysterious in the dark night sky.  How could our eyes not be drawn to the soft, comforting glow that stands alone amid the darkness?  Her beauty touches our hearts as well as our eyes as she watches over the sleeping world below.

There are some pieces of creation whose beauty is more subtle, buried beneath a surface that seems less attractive on first glance; but because they are Creation made manifest, we know that there is beauty in their existence.  It is our mission to discover this hidden beauty and bring it to the front of our awareness.  It takes practice, and we must look through the eyes of our hearts if we hope to discover what is not immediately visible.  Look closely.  Take the time to let your heart discover the beauty that lies in every bit of creation.  With practice you will discover that there is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise.  Seek what they sought.”

— Matsuo Basho

What is is that you seek as you journey through life?  Are you walking your own path, or are you stepping in the footprints left by someone else?  What is important?  Is it the exact route we follow, or is it the way we walk?  I think back to my childhood and days after fresh snowfall.  We would pull out the sled and wax the runners in preparation for trip after trip down the hill in our front yard.  My father would pull on his huge rubber boots; and in topcoat and fedora, he would sit behind one or the other of us on the sled and ride a time or two.  My feet were tiny and my legs were short, and it wasn’t long before my own boots were packed full of snow.  When Dad was there, I would stretch my strides to place my feet in the marks that his left in the snow.  It was easier that way to keep from becoming bogged down by the weight of the icy slush that would melt inside my boots.  I needed his footprints in order to extend the enjoyment of the trips up and down the hill.

That’s how it is when we are children.  When we are learning to walk, it is helpful to have someone experienced come along with us — a hand to hold or footprints to use as we learn to keep our balance.  As we grow and mature, our strides become stronger.  Our legs become long enough to walk through the snow or mud without being stuck.  As our confidence grows, we are able to move beyond the footprints that once marked the way for us.

It is tempting to stick to what is marked, to what we know, to the places we have traveled before.  We can feel disloyal when we veer off from the marked path and into unexplored territories, places with no footprints to guide us.  Fear would tell us that there is danger beyond the last footprint; and we might feel more secure retracing the path again and again, walking up and down the same familiar hill.  Love tells us that this was our learning, our training for a longer journey that would grow out of the confidence instilled by the ones who let us shadow their own walks and step on the ground that they first tested to assure that we would be safe.

No parent should hope to hold his child captive in his own footprints.  No teacher should hope to keep his student bound by his own limitations.  Remember the sense of adventure you felt when you followed those footprints.  Remember the excitement you experienced when you felt the passion that was shared with you by those who went before you.  Take up the adventure and let the passion be your own.  Veer off from the footprints in the snow and make your own trail.  Beyond the hill you love so well, there may be one that is even more magnificent.  Mark the path that nobody else has taken.  You never know who might want to step in the marks you leave.