![]() Isn’t he magnificent? Where I live, you don’t see many long-horn cattle. This herd lives along the road we take to get “to town” and I’ve played hell avoiding them for about ten months now. There’s a story here, and it has more to do with elusion than livestock. My dad loved cattle. No matter how many we had on the farm, they were more pets than hamburger, and Dad fell ill about the same time this magnificent herd moved in up the hill. We passed them on the way to the hospital on his last trip there, and I slowed so he could see them. Mind you, my father had farmed all his life; he’d seen cattle. That, and he was weak and sick. But he pretended delight because his child so needed him to, and I felt, that day, such a bruise spreading on my soul, I didn’t believe I could ever recover. There’s that. Here’s another one. A girl I didn’t know at all once held my hand as she died. We’d rolled up on that car accident - as we do, in our shiny rig – to save the day, and we didn’t get it done. That’s all. These things happen in our line of work. But that girl had a tangle of glorious dark hair just like my daughter’s and she wanted to live, and I lied to her when I said, “We’ll get you out of here. You’ll be okay.” Ah, another bruise; a fearsome, horrible one. I will tell you - sometimes that girl still appears from nowhere to whack me over the head with the certain knowledge of my own stifling limitations. So much is said about PTSD these days! And without belittling that status, might I suggest that almost everyone you meet is carting around a load of soul trauma? And the tricky thing about that condition is, it’s quiet. The soul walks its path with God but no one else. And if you don’t have God, you walk it alone. But you don’t talk about it much. No one can see the size of the bruise or gauge the level of pain. The causes are so many and so varied that you can’t begin to guess the method of injury. But this isn’t a nice neat fracture to be iced and elevated; often it’s a gaping wound. Invisible to the naked eye, but so painful the victim is in danger of . . Of what? Despair. Darkness. The utter inability to see . . . a blue sky. To hear a favorite song, to smell a dandelion. To feel love. Ah, is there a point to all this? Only this –it would be so good if we could be gentle with each other always. If we could try to help each other back from that dark ledge. You don’t know what trauma the soul sitting next to you has suffered or is suffering now. That, and this – remember, if you’re bleeding, how your soul gets to go on. Whether you want it to or not. Your heart can break for good; I do believe that. But this thing we call soul remembers where it came from. And sometimes it can even bring little pieces of that other place here. Compassion, laughter. Love. People, if we have each other we can all be all right. Have a beautiful August! Walk in the sunshine a lot!
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![]() In Celtic mythology, the ash tree – Uinsinn, pronounced ooshin - is The Tree of Life. It’s said to have roots equal in length and spread to its branches. Imagine, then, all that’s happening beneath the surface – the pull of opposites, each side reaching, stretching just as far as it can. From their struggle? A magnificent creation of beauty and light. Ancient folklore noted the balance of three in this scenario - branches representing the gods, the trunk linked to humanity, roots entrenched in the underworld. Thus, “Everything is connected, and no action taken without widespread consequences.” It’s good to think about that in a world gone crazy. How the even the smallest acts born of ignorance or fear can begin to poison the whole. Yet, ipso facto, the opposite holds true. A loving act at the roots will strengthen the entire tree. What if human beings were to think as trees? Witch lore credited the ash with magical properties and witches made tea from the bark to attract their true love. They burned ash wood for prosperity, slept with the leaves under their pillows to woo prophetic dreams, and carved broomsticks from the branches. Saint Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland with an ash branch and Irish emigrants to America brought pieces of ash with them as a charm against drowning Ah, to remember our magic? What we could do! In British folklore, the ash was credited with a range of healing properties, mostly to do with pediatric health. Newborn babies were given a teaspoon of ash sap, and ailing children were passed naked through a cleft carved in the tree. Afterwards, the cleft was bound together to heal over as the child also healed. Imagine, in a world bereft of healers, having that gift at your fingertips, in your heart. Imagine the faith it takes to open yourself and bind other’s wounds. And yet, here, in the midst of the lunacy we call life, is the tree. It’s no mistake that green is color of the heart chakra, which represents love, forgiveness, compassion, hope – and neither is it hard to believe that God created the tree a few days ahead of mankind. Maybe someday we’ll catch up. ![]() “I heard the sound of thunder. It roared out a warning. Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.” Watch the rain from the shelter of your porch with your back yard gone to glittering emerald and, with nothing else to do, think about the blue-eyed son in Bob Dylan’s song and how, if you could access your earliest memory, it would be one of blissful floating. And even now, even if this deluge should end, you might seek water. Maybe a dappled green pond where the minnows kiss the surface and the frogs swim their version of Potter’s ballet. Where if you stare into the murky depths long enough you, might scry tomorrow in the clouds above-below-in-the-water. Or a laughing creek, chill mud between the toes, cottonmouths, like flood debris, bouncing with the current, their eyes unblinking and their fangs terrifying. You’re a gypsy or a pirate or any other sort of free spirit who doesn’t wear shoes or pay a cable bill. A lost child in the mermaid lagoon, a freebooter on the Black Pearl’s deck, except for that, of course, you need . . . An ocean. Endless beckoning of blue, a thousand shades blending and shimmering and dancing all the way to the horizon. Tidewaters like a heartbeat, whoosh and pull never-ever ending, and how could you ever see it and doubt that water is, must be, our very life blood? Bathe in it, baptize with it, quench your thirst and cool your brow. Die without it. Watch the rain, the ceaseless, slanting, glittering fall, and try not to think about drowning. ‘What did you see, my blue-eyed son? Oh what did you see, my darling young one?’ Think about the way Noah sailed for forty days and nights and hasn’t it been raining that long now? Think about tarot and how the cups are the most uplifting cards in the deck; and cups, after all, have everything to do with water. Cups filled to overflowing, cups raised in celebration, cups pressed to waiting lips. Half-empty is only a trick of the light, a misperception, and these showers are only a temporary hitch; maybe, months from now, rain will seem a blessing again. Watch and think, think and watch. Let the rain tattoo a song into your heart. Tie a ribbon around it and stash it in your ‘dry tomorrow’ folder, where today seems a lifetime ago. ![]() Happiness, I think, must have been hard-won during the Great Depression. My grandmother planted flowers. Not just a daisy here or there, but a glut of them. Row upon row of iris, tulips, gladioli. Peony bushes so heavy with blossoms they toppled over. Roses climbing trellises, poppies wagging bonneted heads, lilies stooping, sleepy on their long stems. Of course, of course, a garden! Times were hard, so – tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, carrots, onions. Yes, all that and more, but the flowers . . . the flowers were her happiness, and I love to picture my mom working with her, small girl with straight bangs and a cotton dress, crouched beneath a sun hat, between the pink-lavender-scarlet rows. My mother left the shelter of the valley when she married – moved up the hill where the weather was in constant, vivid motion, a clean wind endlessly scouring the prairie. She planted flowers. It was harder there, the soil not as amiable to the fickle seeds, but she worked at it. And when the wind caught in the lilacs to push their sweetness through the old farmhouse, it smelled like home in every room. Of course, it became home. I was a farmer’s daughter, and more interested in my father’s pursuits than my mother’s. Haying or running a combine made flower-work into child’s play, a triviality. Not until I’d moved away - had my own children, an old station wagon and a plethora of unpaid bills – did I begin to appreciate the tender resilience of women and flowers. I planted cannas - the largest, brightest variety I could get my hands on. From seeds. My little girl followed with a toy watering can while the baby watched from his playpen beneath the awning, and then we checked on them every day. By the time the new shoots poked through the mud, the homesickness and heartache had subsided a bit. We’d begun to call that alien patch of hard-scrabble yard home. And the blossoms were glorious, big as a man’s palm and red as clown paint. They nurtured me – dazzled my eyes and fed my soul - until I was strong enough to stand well on my own. *From left to right: my grandmother, my mother, and my daughter.
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Dear Reader,
Importing my blog onto the new website has been quite the feat. My team and I are still in the process of categorizing and fine-tuning the years of posts you'll find here. We hope you enjoy our work-in-progress library. Check back soon for updates! -Lucy Categories
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