Permanently moved to http://www.walkingthewall.com, come see me over there!

I was sitting at my daughter's last soccer game of the season today covered with a stripped zig zag afghan. It has stripes of all different colors of yarns, perhaps leftovers from many other projects and its normally on my bed every night. My dear friend Liz gave me this afghan and I love it dearly. Before I took up crocheting (taught to me by this same Liz), I loved afghans and thought they were quite wonderful--but now the blanket takes on a whole other dimension. I've been sitting here tonight crocheting myself, putting in a few rows on an afghan I'm making for my brother's baby boy. He's not born yet, and my brother and sister-in-law live a world away in Mongolia. Every time I take it out, I am thinking about my brother, thinking about the baby and how much I can't wait to see what he looks like, and so forth. Nearly all of the things we wear, the things we sleep on and under, are shot out a million miles an hour by machines in a big factory and I think we loose a little something in the process--take for granted those things that should be special. I'm not finished with my little blanket yet and it already has 6000 individual stitches in it, I don't know how many hours, but 6000 stitches full of my thoughts and fears, my joys or my laughter while watching something on TV, even conversations with my brother on the phone while stitching it. And its only a little blanket, so when I think of how many stitches are in the afghan given to me by Liz, how many hours of her life are soaked into the yarn, how many hopes and fears and joys and laughter passed through her mind as the yarn passed through her fingers--it truly makes the afghan more than just a blanket, its a physical piece of meditation and I'll always cherish it.

I was at the store the other day and I saw this little fairy sleeping in a walnut shell. Cheesy some might say, and truth be told it is not something I would probably normally purchase. BUT (isn't there always a but?), this had a sense of nostalgia attached to it and I'm always a sucker for nostalgia. When I was a little girl I firmly believed in fairies. There was no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I believed that if you made them welcome, they would come. So while I didn't build a baseball field, I would build fairy houses. This was less complicated than you might assume, I would simply sit on a patch of well grown in grass and start to trim it down to the ground by hand. In this way I would weed out rooms and hallways. I collected flower petals (violets were always preferred) to leave for them to make new dresses with. But most important was the nutshell. I likely pulled the idea from images of Thumbalina sleeping in a nut shell, but whatever the influences, this was very important. My mom always kept a bowl of mixed nuts and a nutcracker around the house, and there was nothing better for a fairy house than walnut halves for beds. I'd work on my house and lay out the flower petals, arrange the walnut beds, and leave a bit of cake or cookie crumbs and sometimes a shell of milk--everyone knows fairies love this. Invariably, the next day the flower petals would be gone, the crumbs disappeared, and the milk consumed and I would smile through the rest of the day knowing I had made the fairies welcome. Oh, some might scoff, the petals blew away in the wind, and a stray cat or dog gobbled up the food and milk. As a girl I would have sighed and shook my head and felt sorry for those poor people who didn't really know, didn't really believe. As an adult, of course, I know better, and I still sigh and shake my head and feel sorry for those poor people who really don't know.

I think it is a fine and wonderful thing to walk through life and see trees, for example, and enjoy the beauty that they hold just in being trees. I think it is also--interesting--(although possibly also a sign of mental illness) to walk through life and see trees always with faces of dryads and sprites peeking out. For me, the balance comes in walking the wall and enjoying both the reality and the possibility--and that, for those who have asked, is why my domain name is www.walkingthewall.com.

Just Above

I look to a sky
once hedged by clouds;
yesterday a ceiling,
today a threshold.
I have been above them--
not wrapped in steel,
but only in sky.
There I saw a field
whose crop yielded
unending whiteness.
I know a drop of eternity
everytime I, land bound,
look to a sky of blue and white.
We share a knowing smile,
the sun and I, then go
about our business
with light in our steps,
confident that forever
isn't so far away--
it's only just above the clouds.

Kelly Bowron
9/7/04

At school today, my instructor said something that was profound to me. After explaining the gist of what the whole class would be based on: that ethos/ethics is essentially the meaning of life (what is good/bad or right/wrong)....that mythos/myth is the expression of ethos and that subsequently rites/rituals are the physical union of mythos and ethos. He noted that God is an expression of the meaning of life--that which brings meaning to life and that in some form or another, everyone believes in God. He went on to say that people ask each other, "Do you believe in God?" and then unfairly make judgments on that person based on their response. What we are really asking is, "Do you believe in God the way I believe in God" and are responding, "Yes, I believe in God the way I believe in God" or “No I don’t believe in God the way you believe in God”; but the real message is lost in the inept communication. It is symbols that give meaning to the physical, and we use symbols to express our deepest truths--but everyone's symbols are not the same. In this way, the tattoo on my sister's back of a female angel stretching her hand to the sky is no less sacred to her then a statue of Mary at the side of the church, arms stretched to the sky is to a Catholic. Each are symbols of humanity reaching to the heavens--one personal, one societal.


What this made in my brain was an "aha" moment. When I grew older and changed for a variety of reasons, I walked away from the religion that I was raised. This hurt my family as they feel that I have a) rejected them in some way, and/or b) that I have no faith/belief. But the truth I realized today is that in rejecting my religious upbringing--I am not rejecting faith or belief or truth--I have simply changed in such a way that the symbols of my youth no longer work for me. I need to find the symbols that work for me and not attempt to fit my truth to those symbols because that does a disservice to all--the proverbial fitting a round peg into a square hole (there is nothing wrong with the peg, and there is nothing wrong with a hole, they just don’t go together). I wish that my family could understand that distinction; still, there is a comfort for me in the understanding.

"Come to the edge, Life said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, Life said. They came. It pushed them...and they FLEW."
-Guillaume Apollinaire 1870-1918

"I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go."
-Peter Pan

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all."
-Helen Keller

"In a world in which we are all slaves to the laws of gravity, I'm proud to be counted as one of them freedom fighters. Skydive!"
-Unknown

"If riding in an airplane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming. If you want to experience the element, then get out of the vehicle."
-Unknown

"And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return." --unknown

At different places in our lives we take a step that moves us outside the boundaries of our ordinary life--and we stretch. Like a snake, we grow, and with the growth we lose something as well--illusions, misconceptions, sometimes even small bits of freedom. I have had, as has everyone, moments of stretching as well.

The first was when I went to Africa at 18. I was young, sheltered, and naive. I went thinking I would look at the people I encountered with pity and perhaps give them some small measure of hope. Instead I discarded those misconceptions rather quickly as I found a world categorically different, yet full of people I respected and learned from. I learned that the world was much bigger than I could ever imagine; even more importantly, I learned that "different" is not a synonym for lesser.

When my son was born and sick for so long, I learned a lot about life and death and I stretched again. I perhaps paid a dearer price for that growth--I paid out in belief and securities but was repaid with an acceptance of death as a process of life. I learned that someone walking and breathing wasn't necessarily living and that death isn't necessarily a thief.

Much of my seperation from my husband was negative: negative acts and negative words that couldn't be taken back. Despite the high cost, this was also a time when I stepped off the wide, worn path my life had gone on and discovered a powerful word--choice. I learned that everything in life is a choice (not always in what happens, but always in how I react)--whether concious or otherwise, life is a choice; and whatever paths my life would go on from then on, would be by my own choice. Big stretch!

What does any of this have to do with flight--or skydiving? Looking at the sky while walking to class tonight, I thought of this quote and I had the same sense of having stretched once more. I needed this reminder. Life is bigger than my immediate surroundings I had learned from Africa--certainly the sky is bigger than the ground around me! Living fully is more important than fearing death, I had learned from Michael--embrace life...or the open sky, LOL! And I had learned that life is a choice...LIFE is a choice...so is going to the edge of a plane door and diving out of it (although with a very large Australian jump master strapped to your back, the choice is perhaps questionable at that last moment ;)) "I will never see the sky, the same way..."sings Vanessa Carlton, and I never will because it will be a unending reminder to live fully.



PS-And yes, Ralph, I know I am the worlds largest corndog, LOL!

I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane today. The sky was the most amazing blue with a field of perfectly white clouds going out across to the horizon...so at 13,000 feet...I jumped. The whole experience was surreal, but, for me, that intial exit from the plane was....incredible. Trying to describe it all leaves me somehow stuck on two words...amazing and incredible. Do you remember as a kid doing the "Nestea plunge" into the pool? To my cousins and I, that meant being up on the diving board, back to the water, eyes closed...and just falling. Well, falling out of an airplane at 13,000 feet felt much the same way...just bigger. Not to mention my eyes weren't closed and the ground look very very far away. I plan to write more about it tomorrow, but for tonight, all I can think about are the words to the song they superimposed on my video recording my jump:

I took a walk around the world
to ease my troubled mind
I left my body laying
somewhere in the sands of time
I watched the world float
to the dark side of the moon
I feel there is nothing I can do, yeah

I watched the world float
to the dark side of the moon
After all I knew it had to be
something to do with you
I really don't mind what happens now and then
As long as you'll be my friend at the end

If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman
If I'm alive and well, will you be there holding my hand
I'll keep you by my side with my superhuman might
Kryptonite


Thank you, Denise, for sharing this incredibly amazing experience with me.

Children are the most amazing little people. Time and time again I have seen the strength of children--they have so much to teach us. David Tippin was lost and on his own at four years old for more than 48 hours, interviewed leaving the hospital, he simply grinned and ate up the attention of the press who were inanely trying to have a formal interview with a four year old. We don't see too many happily ever afters on television, and even in life it seems sometimes, this was a happily ever after--we need to hoard these moments like the gold they are.

If one wishes for good, Heaven will help. --Chinese proverb.

Connections. Sometimes it seems that the connections between people today are such thin and fragile things...and then something happens and you see that the connection are not as tenuous as you thought--that they can, in fact, but strong indeed.

Sunday a woman from my stitching board's 4.5 year old son got out of the house while his parents were sleeping--every parent's nightmare, one I have had so many times given my daughter's sleep walking tendency. I have been nauseous for this family since I first read of it Monday morning. I cannot even begin to imagine the whole torrent of emotions that must be exhausting this family. You can read Stacey's plea for prayers here:

http://perlemoon.blogspot.com/

Anyone who has read my blog at all knows that my relationship with religion is strained, however I have no doubt whatsoever in the power of prayer and concerted well-wishing and postive thoughts/vibes/energy. There is great strength to be found in a large number of people all focused on the same goal. All across the globe, literally, people are focusing their prayers, thoughts, and energy on this one little boy. I wish him a good sleep, wherever he may be, I wish him no fear, I wish a cloud of peace and protection surrounding him, I wish him the sense of grand adventure that brought him to where he is to continue so that when his family finds him, he thinks its just the end of his hero's journey home, I wish him safe, I wish him home soon, I wish his parents and family and friends strength and small spaces to breathe, I wish his parents and family and friends small moments of rest to keep their strength, I wish for them hope, I wish for them joy in the finding of him quickly.