Noel? No … Hell!

Dec9

The holiday season is well underway now – concerts, gatherings, staff parties at many establishments. Excited children, dancing lights, Santa at the local mall. Stores with groaning shelves, carolers in red velvet, cheerful music wafting through all available airspace. Trees glowing in corners; menorahs gleaming on tables or in windows.

Indeed, a festive and celebratory month.

Except when it’s not. Some folks view this time of year with dread and even despair. They may be battling illness, whether or not it is obvious to the casual observer. They may be reeling from the impact of a recent loss within their circle of loved ones. They may be financially pushed to that cold stone wall which offers no doorway out. They might be struggling to sustain a relationship, or mourning a breakup they may not have wanted. Every balm for their wounds will turn to salt, and the salt to tears.

They could be estranged from family members, unemployed and unable to find work, recently-moved into an unfamiliar place. There might not even be a home they can claim, other than a doorstep, a bench, a temporary shelter. This is the season when the homeless feel the cold. This is the season when fires – meant for heating houses – end up destroying those houses instead. And this is the season when children go without the gifts their classmates enjoy, because these gifts cannot be provided.

And so the people who stand outside endless, glittering windows must confront the joyous displays, the songs, the endless “Ho Ho Ho” messages, with a certain bitterness at the brutality of fate. These are people within whom no candles are lighted. Broken people, burdened people – voiceless, isolated. People with little hope of relief and little expectation of the simple kindnesses many of us take for granted. Afraid to ask anyone for support; reluctant to seek help for themselves, although they may do it for their children. Too proud to come forward and search for a loving face in the crowd. Terrified of being judged, and knowing full well that, indeed, judgment is being passed upon them.

No shared Facebook meme will make a difference to those who most need comfort. No “post on your wall for an hour” will help them. No “I say Merry Christmas” preaching will breach their sadness. Many won’t even have computer access. Others will be craving a personal communication that never comes. Some might even retreat from the internet – or at least from social media – until this whole glitzy, glorious, glaring time is over and the bells have rung its death. Then they’ll return, quietly and without explanation. For them, the Christmas weeks are their signal to disappear.

Joy to the World … but the world can shrink to a bubble for some. It can blow away, carrying with it all the rainbow swirls that shine so brightly. Then the night becomes silent, indeed.

An Absence of Sun

Nov23

People speak of the “dark night of the soul”. It is real. It is overwhelming. You wake up to it and wonder where the door is. Every step is barefoot on glass that has no shine. The cup sits at your left hand, glimmering with its burden, and you beg for it to be taken away. But of course, it isn’t. You have filled it yourself. Every sin you have ever committed – even those you’ve forgotten – swirls in its dregs. Every regret, every sorrow, every wrong done to others – they’re all part of that elixir. You stare at it, terrified to drink. But you will. Inevitably, you will.

This is the time for family – if you have one – to gather and shut the drapes against a darkfall that many will never endure. This is the time for friends to toot their horns as they pass, their headlights leading your pathway out. They have, after all, thought to acknowledge you, and thoughts are another kind of beam through the dusk. But on this night, you’re lost to family, though they may be unaware of it. Friends pass and follow their own destinies. They don’t see that overturned sky over your head. And they couldn’t raise it, should they want to try. You must protect them from that knowledge, and from that attempt.

So you draw the blankness around yourself like a robe. You turn off your porch lantern and cancel the warmth falling on your yard, where the grass is frozen. No sleepy birds murmur in this winter of your discontent. In the old days, wagons ringed a comforting fire. Wolves and night terrors dared not intrude. But there are no wagons now. No fire but a candle clumsily lighted. And the wolves tiptoe closer, baring the teeth of those who hate you. Sadly, they far outnumber those who love, because after all, this is your darkness. You have shaped it through your own pain.

Because no one is entirely without fault, and you understand this, you’ve muddled along as best you can manage. No one believes you won’t keep on doing it. You err because that’s the human thing. You get back to the road and survive a few more years. Your twist your ankle or shatter your heart as you fall off the margin of that road and of those years. Then you either limp forever after, or work out the injury and build yourself stronger for awhile.

And in the irony of ironies, chances are you will be noted most for the brilliance of your smile. You’ve learned to hide everything behind it. You’ve cultivated it like a flower that blooms best after sunset. And when people say, “You have the most beautiful smile,” you feel reassured. You have hidden well the shadow that would turn your face to a mask of grief.

But the dark night still comes. It closes down around you, the way cooling stones trap water. Perhaps this is how crystals feel, locked in their geodes, unable to shine for anyone until the rock is broken. The risk involves smashing the best and most beautiful of those gems. Escape entails a cost. Something inevitably cracks.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, indeed. You need not raise that particular question. The ringing drowns out all other music now. It goes on and on; it shakes the windows. You block your ears and it swells inside without the slightest softening.

But like the winecup, poured at your behest, you can identify where this tolling started. There’s no need to ask. You’ve hung that damned bell in your own soul, after all. Now you’ve hauled on the ropes, it won’t stop. It peals into that not-so-good night where no one goes gentle, and most don’t go at all. Only you, and only now.

You walk into the darkness on a carillon trail, unspooling silence behind you.

Do Unto Others (or not …)

Sep8

It is puzzling to watch how, in various social media (and in a wider sense as well), some Christians reach out to other Christians and interact with them as a closed circle, yet fail to extend their friendship quite so generously with those who might either be struggling with their faith, or simply not Christian at all. I suppose it’s natural to do this. Like seeks like. But when it becomes self-focused, then it also becomes less than inclusive. At least, that has been my personal observation just lately.

I wonder if this is what Jesus would have intended. The Christian Church is shrinking in membership. Is this sense of exclusivity a part of the reason? A retreat behind the barricades of faith, so to speak? A feeling that “our church” is better than “your church” because WE do it right and YOU don’t? I have heard this sentiment explicitly expressed from the pulpit. It disturbed me so much (coupled with the anti-scientific mindset I encountered) that I stopped attending services anywhere. My gardens are my sacred places these days. God – genderless and remote but still present – glimmers above my head and dances in the leaf shadows. I suspect I have become something of an animist. I detect that holy but unfathomable presence in almost everything, from the stones and water to the air and light. It doesn’t wear the skin of either a man or a woman. My fundamental Christian acquaintances will no doubt be concerned for my soul and consider me damned for eternity. I have done many things worthy of damnation, after all. But is this one of them?

I’ve belonged to a “traditional” church but now live at some distance from it and am no longer a participant – although I hasten to note that these are fine people with beautiful hearts. So it’s not their fault; I’m just standing outside the circle. My home congregation from childhood is in another region entirely. I have been exploring the Jewish roots of my father’s Levy lineage, with considerable and increased attention. That is the surname I’ve carried from infancy and its history is undeniable.

And then there’s Yeshua, Jesus, the Jew at the foundations of Christianity. He never once claimed to be anything else but Jewish. I think too many Christians have forgotten that over the years. Western society harbours a groundswell of anti-Semitism that I find frightening. The situation in the Middle East has some bearing on this, but it’s not the whole story. There’s this knee-jerk reactionism that gets directed at a much broader spectrum. So I quietly research my name and its ancient antecedents and wonder if we will ever truly be comfortable with our own identities, any of us, regardless of beliefs or cultures or places of residence. I doubt it. Contention is inherent in humanity. We do not play well with others. If we believe otherwise, we are lying to ourselves. No one ought to get too smug about our capacity for committing acts of goodness.

Meanwhile, my family’s home in Yarmouth will become increasingly our “prison” owing to my husband’s physical deterioration, thanks to ALS. Its address is not far from several mainstream churches. People from these congregations know us and many also know what we are dealing with. Yet David has received nary a visitor from any church, except Mormon – and they were total strangers to him until then. He appreciated their attention. Otherwise – nada. Nary a card. Nary a knock on the door. Nothing. He is confronted with mortality and it will be a terrible conclusion to a life bravely lived. His atheism is, I suspect, more along the lines of agnosticism. He has a keen intellect and his mind closes no doors entirely. It doesn’t need to. The religious community closes them for him. We have been the recipients of generosity from many sources but all of them were secular. I do find this curious.

Still … he can hardly hike out to the nearest place of worship these days. And he’s probably not alone. Well, yes, he IS alone in that terrible sense. On his hospital admission forms, he always writes “Anglican”. He was born in England although he deems himself 100% Canadian but that one tie remains. I believe the last time he saw any clergy member one-on-one was in a hospital setting. And for a religion that originally emphasized outreach and conversion, this strikes me as rather sad.

The former Catholic Church in Corberrie, NS – now unused and no longer consecrated.

I took this photo on a recent drive around the area. I have never attended this church, however.

“Emotional Predators” of the Elderly

Aug18

Advancing years – coupled with illness – often make us vulnerable to many challenges. If we have loved ones to help us cope and to offer protection against personal harm, this can be immensely reassuring. Sadly, some seniors – especially if they’re confronting major disabilities and gradually losing their sense of self-control or independence – often fall victim to others who insinuate themselves between the concerned family and the struggling father, mother or grandparent.

Because women tend to outlive men in Westernized nations, this particular situation can entail a gender imbalance. However, both males and females do become targets for the unscrupulous. Sadly, these unethical individuals usually gain the confidence of the victim through an appearance of friendship and good intentions. By the time family members become aware that something is awry, the relationship between predator and prey might be firmly established. It’s then very difficult to convince the elderly person that he or she is being conned.

This is frequently not a matter of mental incompetence but of misplaced trust. As we age, or face various hardships at any stage in our lives, we do need to feel that we’re the focus of someone else’s attention. We need to believe we’re highly valued and that we’ll receive assistance from those who know us best. Usually, in fact, we are important to our loved ones and we do get help as needed. Unfortunately, our adult children might well have jobs and families that take up much of their time. Spouses, too, might be feeling overwhelmed by the demands of caregiving and coping with their own ageing processes. They might not be aware that others are showing excessive and inappropriate interest in their partners.

Granted, elder abuse – and the kinds of scams that often accompany it – can also happen within families. This is a whole different topic. And there are many wonderful souls who visit seniors in nursing homes or at their own residences, assist them with everyday needs and genuinely want to make a positive difference. Heaven knows, we need these merciful angels! But my own concern is with total-to-near-strangers who materialize almost out of nowhere and gain the trust of their victims. Whether their intent is to acquire property, exploit financially or merely to interfere with the individual’s social and personal interactions, the results can be disastrous.

Con artists have no shame and will practise their deception without any qualms. But then there are those other folks who don’t understand the circumstances and honestly think they’re being kind and compassionate. They never stop to consider the impact their attention might be having on others who have been part of that senior’s life for many, many years. These people are, perhaps, more naive than malicious, but in the end they can do dreadful damage. If the person is undergoing medical treatment, usually the next-of-kin are the ones who understand each procedure and help to manage appointments, medications and so on. Most medical authorities want to deal with next-of-kin, such as spouses and/or grown children, or professionals such as nurses and Homecare providers. They’re not going to accept someone with no legal connections as an appropriate source of patient support.

When called to account for their actions, these so-called “friends” will typically protest. “But I was only trying to help.” “He loves going for drives.” “I’m just being a good neighbour.” Or – worst of all – “I don’t see any of YOU looking after her!”

At times, either party may misrepresent his/her marital status or familial ties. He or she might even play the “pity card” rather effectively. “Poor me – my wife is more like my sister now.” “Don’t worry; we’re separated.” “Our marriage has been dead for years.” “It’s OK, she (he) won’t mind as long as we’re just friends.” “He totally ignores me most of the time.” “My children never do anything for me.” And so on. Without actually having known this individual beforehand, the sympathetic listener might well be inclined to believe everything at face value. This can also occur in online relationships where the “details” can be slanted to fit the intention. Indeed, the devil is in those details when that’s the case.

It’s usually not hard to determine the truth. Separated or divorced? Ask to see proof – the papers themselves, or a document scan sent as an email attachment. Neglectful family? Check the Facebook page, if there is one, and see whether or not family members show up on it. Or make discreet inquiries around the community. She (or he) won’t mind? Then why not talk to him or her, make email contact or call and ask? If you’re reluctant to do that, perhaps you ought to question your own motives and then back away. And if there is no documentation of a marriage breakdown, it’s best to run. Fast!

Otherwise, such a “friendship” can quickly alienate a family from a loved one if that person is still living independently and has, in fact, not been estranged from those who care most. This is simply not fair.

Some opportunists will even claim to be affiliated with a particular religion that sincerely cares for the senior’s soul, even when it doesn’t. They’ll pray with him, visit him regularly, invite him to their church. Flattered, and unaware he’s being used for profit, he will respond with eagerness. Needless to say, there will be some tradeoff: salvation for donations. The relatives often have no idea this is going on. Countless elderly folks have been bilked out of their life savings by charlatans operating in the name of God. A valid and caring church will offer support to its adherents. A fake one will siphon away their money.

For partners and others responsible for the welfare of a vulnerable individual, here are a few warning signs that might indicate a problem:

– the appearance of a new “friend” or “companion” whom the family members don’t know very well, if at all
– the exclusion of family, by the above individual, from activities involving their loved one
– unusual generosity on the part of the senior when it comes to either money or time given to a stranger
– secretiveness and refusal to respond to questions about new or recent relationships
– unavailability for family events, or unexpected refusal to attend them
– increasing suspicion directed at loved ones over their concern for the situation
– hostility and resentment that appear to have little or no cause
– lack of communication through the usual channels (phone, email, texting, Facebook messages or whatever)
– loss of empathy with others who might also be facing hard times; self-absorption
– indifference to consequences, or inability to think ahead
– sudden and inexplicable interest in activities that have never before been important

I am the wife of a seriously ill senior. His disease has no cure and it will ultimately take him from us. Yes, my daughter and I occasionally find ourselves dealing with disruptions by those who don’t have his (or our family’s) best interests at heart. Sometimes there have been innocent approaches and other times, not so much. The trick is to know the difference! I’ve also had connections with other families that were torn apart by the machinations of a predator.

I hope that anyone in similar circumstances will find my reflections relevant. Some readers might even recognize their own stories here. They key is to remain vigilant. We have to speak up! If we don’t, who will?

Stand firm. We’re our loved one’s last and most reliable line of defence. He or she might not realize this, but we do.

Sonnet for a Not-So-Well-Meaning Stranger

You call yourself his “friend”; he names you thus
as well – and yet, my dear, you have not been
with him these thirty years or more; not seen
his weeping wounds, nor braved the night, to rush
down rainy back roads while he cries in pain.
Have never heard his doctor say “Cancer”;
his specialist sigh “ALS” – his answer:
“Thank you. I’ve lived my span. I can’t complain.”

You, madam, think a casual embrace
is somehow your entitlement to share
one more adventure with this man? His wife,
his daughter, and her little son must face
your interference? You were never there!
Just go away – wreck someone else’s life.

Brenda Levy Tate

On the Road Again

May13

How ’bout them Habs? That final game should be somethin’ else! I have a happy husband this morning. We are Canadian, so we tend to root for the only Canadian team in the Stanley Cup race. However, Boston has Canadian players too. Brad Marchand is from our part of the country. And of course, there’s also Sidney Crosby; the Penguins face their own seventh game, do or die. We are hoping for “do”.

For those unfamiliar with Nova Scotia, this is a small province. The odds of producing NHL players are probably against us, owing to population. Yet produce them we do, and not just your average puck-chasers, either. According to one list, there have been 68 NHLers from NS. However, Yarmouth’s own Jody Shelley was omitted from that roster because he wasn’t born here, but his formative years were all spent in NS. He was a local favourite during the many seasons of his on-ice career.

So most Nova Scotians know and love their hockey, even when we don’t always watch every game on TV or at the local arena. My late father, Bert Levy, coached and/or managed teams in the Annapolis Valley back in the day. As a child, I often went to the old Acadia University rink to watch Valley Hockey League contests with him. I vividly remember the excitement, the smell of the place, the hot dogs slathered in mustard! I’ll write about my father in another blog entry at some point.

We have a visit to the ALS clinic tomorrow at the NS rehab centre. We’ll soon know every curve in the road to and from Halifax. I need a good cushion for my butt … which in itself IS a cushion, but not nearly enough! I take along my camera(s) and manage to make the most of the drive whenever I can – but I will never again leave a camera in a hospital! I made that mistake when we were at the Infirmary for the second neurological consult. I had thought of walking through the Public Gardens during David’s tests, to shoot a few images of whatever was in bloom, but misplaced my Canon T4i in the examining room instead. A month later, it came back to me after someone found it and the neurologist’s office tracked down the owner. Meanwhile, thinking it lost, I’d already replaced the missing camera with a Canon 7D, so now the T4i has become a nice backup for the newer and fancier model. Both cameras will last me twice as long. And the lesson has been completely absorbed. They stay locked in my car!

Still, these drives are daunting after awhile. They take seven hours, round-trip, not counting any stops. Our daughter works at an elementary school in Yarmouth; she’s a guidance counselor at Meadowfields. The staff raised money to buy us gift certificates that are certainly making these trips easier to bear. This will be our fifth one and we continue to be grateful for their support. The ALS clinic is held twice a month but I don’t think we need to attend all of them, although there will undoubtedly be a referral or two to other specialists in the future. This week’s consult will involve an anesthesiologist, whose field is pain management, and a GI surgeon. The topic of placing a PEG tube is very much in everyone’s mind right now. ALS patients (PALS) risk choking and aspiration of food as their swallowing function diminishes. Yet they require nutrition, of course, so a feeding tube permits them to receive it with greater safety and comfort. Bulbar-onset ALS, which David has, first affects the throat, voice and associated areas. In fact, he first knew something was drastically wrong when he began choking on his food and swallowing with great difficulty, accompanied by slurred and indistinct speech. Fine-motor control in his hands has greatly diminished. Yet he can still use his legs and get around, albeit more slowly. Limb-onset ALS – which is the more common type – attacks the legs and the other issues develop later. It is, however, normally slower to progress. David’s bulbar symptoms began only in October, 2013.

So he can take walks if he doesn’t overdo it and wears proper shoes. Still, one should never assume. To the casual observer, such a patient appears to be able-bodied. But with a bulbar patient’s loss of strength to eat well also comes weakness in other locations – fingers, hands, arms – and inevitably it spreads to the legs, often striking one side harder than the other for a short time. We are there now. The falls at unexpected moments have started to occur. For a man who not so long ago climbed Gros Morne mountain in Newfoundland, this is a frightening and devastating consequence of his condition.

So the paperwork increases. A form for a handicapped parking permit is waiting to be completed. The definition of a disability includes more than confinement to a wheelchair. Those who suffer from conditions such as ALS, and are still able to walk, fit the definition if they are physically limited to short walking distances. In a small community, mall parking lots tend not to be too daunting but in larger centres, they can be vast. I’ve gained insight into those who park in a handicapped spot and then walk away from their vehicles. Some folks assume they’re abusing the system – and this is not so. They are simply trying to remain mobile, within the limitations of their strength, but can’t push things too far (literally). For cardiac patients, these limitations can arise from severe shortness of breath. With neuro-muscular conditions, such as ALS, there can be other difficulties. When those motor neurons quit, they quit forever. This can happen faster with over-exertion. And in the end, inevitably, the wheelchair and other obvious support devices will come. The series will, in essence, be tied at that point. Nobody should wish this to happen to a stranger in a marked parking space. So if you spot someone parking in a handicapped space, then walking to the mall, please keep an open mind. Please be compassionate. The reality is often not what the appearance might suggest.

We learn as we go. Looking back to May of last year, who could have imagined how life would take such a radical shift? But it does, for many people, all the time. We’re not unusual. Each of us confronts his or her own destiny, for good or ill. There are no fixed strategies to reach that destiny, no set rules of play. We just find the best approach and trust it will get us there. And that the team will bring its A game, every minute of regulation play, right through to a hard-fought overtime. That’s the goal, after all. This disease will win in the end but it’s not much of a victory when the winner plays dirty. And ALS plays very dirty indeed.

At Life’s Summit

Apr24

From this point, a person can look down and back. All the braided paths – so far below – are worn like ribbons in the stone and clay. The man or woman stands at a peak, buffeted by colder winds than either has ever known. Eyelashes blink themselves free of ice, then blink again. No matter that it is spring – or summer – or whenever else they find themselves up here. This chill is no respecter of time or season.

ALS – At Life’s Summit.

If anybody were to think ahead and idly imagine the worst among physical afflictions that burden humanity, surely this one would top the mountain. It is pitiless; its grip is implacable. It holds its chosen men and women firm on the pinnacle, with nowhere left to go but down.

Yet the view remains remarkable. The air is clean and the noises of earth diminish, with their currents of anger, despair, grief and hatred. Up here, it’s between the individual and his or her own will. The body fails but the mind endures. Hands that no longer possess the strength to write a single syllable are replaced by a power of another kind – the power that moves even this mountain; even this weight. Muscles have nothing to do with such a force. If it comes from any identifiable source, that source is the soul itself.

And it doesn’t make any difference whether he once threw the fastest pitch in the league or told a thousand pilots they were cleared for takeoff; whether she sketched a whirling sky or played a Bach partita that wakened God Himself. Whether they stood in front of elementary-school classes or stitched the seams in baseballs. It’s all irrelevant to the man or woman poised on the apex, confronting a destiny that will avalanche every former thing down the slopes and into the past.

The first to go might be the legs with their capacity to walk upright, toe-tap to a fiddler, wander along a beach as the foam fills in each footprint. Or it could be the formation of words, the easy flow of language like a waterfall, clear and coherent. The brain knows what it wants to speak; the throat or tongue or lips refuse to acknowledge its wishes. A man’s roar of laughter is muted; a woman’s cheerful giggle falls silent. A glass of wine turns to an instrument of strangulation. A satisfying meal becomes merely the memory of that meal, distilled into something the body will accept. A steak morsel, a lobster fragment, a strawberry slice, are held in the mouth like promises that can no longer be kept – tasted, then taken away. They are but ghosts from a feast remembered.

Yes, the world shrinks and constricts. It allows small room for resistance. This disease shows few mercies to those whom it seeks to partner. There are no bargains. The odds tilt sideways until every card is in the hands of the enemy, and its opponent’s hands can hold nothing at all. Not even empty air.

Yet the man remains; the woman holds on. They discover new ways to communicate, plan, and dream. They don’t abandon themselves, nor do they expect the rest of us to give up on them. We can’t always control what changes us, or deflect its momentum, not even a little. They already know this. We stand before them in awe, wondering whether we could face their fate and remain unbroken by it – brilliant and brave and somehow ageless. Printed immortal on the firmament, like the tracery of a comet that has passed but not entirely vanished.

For they are resolute, even when there are no voices left. As we watch, they quietly rise and shake the stars.

My husband, David, diagnosed with ALS in 2014 …

A New Year’s Day Reflection – 2014

Jan1

The year has ended and so we move into another one. Linear time is the only way we can organize our lives, the only structure our minds can grasp. And by that measure, it is 2014 – January 1st. The dual face of Janus gazes ahead, and turns away from what has gone before. Whether we are leaving a good year or one we aren’t sorry to abandon, may we all find hope and joy in the new version.

Yet there is also, perhaps, a form of concurrent time … a nagging sense that somewhere, all things are happening at once. Our child-selves race and climb, bruise and laugh. Our parents are whole and young; our first loves hold out their hands toward us. Summers stretch ahead, innocent and bright. The sea rolls cleaner and the leaves bear no scars. There are gleaming trout and salmon in those other rivers. Snow falls unmarked by grit and wood smoke hangs in the winter air. We stir the cream through our milk and eat fat molasses cookies without a second’s pause. Ours is the kingdom of anticipation.

In that strange framework where time runs parallel to itself, we are winding through an endless conga dance and every sorrow, every triumph, every delight or pain is woven into that line. They are all ours to know again. We dream ourselves into each well-remembered scene and suspended moment. Hours no longer stride across the world like booted enemies. The only borders are those we build in our sleep.

I know, I know! This is but the ramble of an aging mind. The longing of a heart no longer certain it is entitled to long for much of anything. Health, perhaps. Comfort enough, peace enough, coins for spending and a scatter of stars for feeling insignificant. Things that my brain is able to set out – here, and here, and over there too. A table where all the cutlery is neatly arranged, and nothing takes me unaware. I suppose there are worse prospects than organization but I’d rather have disorder and surprise. The feather dropped in my hair from something unseen. The cat that holds half my memories in her eyes.

Happy New Year to my family and friends, and a glass raised in salute to you all! May you move forward with optimism and courage, but bundle the older years around you like a worn and familiar coat.

Ring the change and listen. The sky is chiming tonight, like a great bell.

Musings from Eden

Jun14

The Book of Genesis provides many opportunities for literary creation. As a poet, I keep returning to it for ideas and themes. I tend to view its events as part of a complex mythos that predates Christianity by millennia, yet also represents an interpretation of creation as viewed by the Old Testament/Torah authors – more intuitive than analytical, but still compelling. The Word figures prominently in this narrative, not to mention in the New Testament, and in Greek The Word is Λόγος or logos – Logic, Reason. I approach Genesis from a metaphorical and symbolical perspective rather than as a literal text, yet the process of creation itself appears to be vaguely parallel to what actually must have happened, albeit with certain artistic liberties. It does have its inherent logic. The primary issue is in the exact details and, of course, the time frame. There’s a certain progression from formless void to a coalescing planet, the appearance of water and an atmosphere, the rise of marine creatures, vascular plants, land animals with birds, then homo sapiens – appearing quite late in the sequence. The creatures of Eden that existed in this period were already there when Adam showed up. He was asked to name them, in fact. Needless to say, he did not have to identify the extinct ones since they were already gone. But I digress (as usual).

Being a woman, I have long resented the burdens placed upon my gender by those who see Eve as some sort of original sinner – regardless of Adam’s own role in this particular transgression. I, personally, understand why she reached for that pomegranate*. She was consumed by curiosity and a hunger to know things. As the verb sciare means “to know”, it is not a stretch to consider Eve as the first scientist on the planet. She was willing to overlook the serpent’s rather sinister appearance, although she may have instinctively distrusted it, in order to learn. The pursuit of learning often comes at a considerable price, after all. Many have since died for it. Discovery is often tied to great personal risk.

These intellectual qualities were part of Eve’s composition from the outset. Therefore, I have to assume that God fully expected her to go after enlightenment and orchestrated her “fall” to make it look like deliberate defiance on her part. He didn’t give Adam that kind of drive toward understanding. It seems rather clever of Him to force Eve’s hand by forbidding her to even think about that Tree of Knowledge. As He had made this pair as childlike beings in adult bodies, He probably anticipated the next step. A child will inevitably push the limits and grab whatever he or she has been told not to touch. Any parent is well aware of this fact. If this sounds like determinism as opposed to free will … yes, it probably is. Free will might not have been as important in the beginning as it has become in later ages. First, humanity had to evolve somehow and survive the process.

In the end, Eve’s actions quite conveniently resulted in the punishment of childbearing. The world needed to be populated, after all. God could simply have erased her and used another rib. But He chose not to do so. Eden was undoubtedly a glorious place but, as Robert Frost has noted in a poem by the same title, “Nothing gold can stay.” Maybe it was never designed to last forever. But coupled with Eve’s newly-assigned physical pain was an intense emotional bonding to her baby. Most mothers would probably view this as a fair exchange.

At any rate, I write a fair bit of “Eden Poetry”. I’m including two samples below, with accompanying photos. If you tend to hold the fundamentalist and literal view of Genesis or Biblical history in general, my blog will possibly not be to your liking. I tend to wrestle with metaphysical issues that make people uncomfortable – not always, but occasionally. No apologies, however. God and/or Goddess (I can’t associate either sex with such a remote and incomprehensible being) gave me an imagination and meant for me to use it.

On to the poems …

*Note – Since apples were unknown in the region where Eden is said to have existed, but pomegranates were native to that area, most historians now believe that “apple” is a faulty translation for a fruit that looks quite similar, in that both are red, round, juicy and seed-bearing.

Bait

He tightens himself into his branches,
rustles their leaves only a little –
yellow hearts, he notices. Jigging
lightly in a late-harvest shower.
But he cannot name the tree, although
he knows it has one. Everything
is named, but fading like himself.
Memories wrap around and around,
tendrils without the strength
to cling harder or vine wilder.

He has chosen carefully his lure,
red ripeness and high sweet notes
like a descant above the darker alto
of this abandoned garden.
Blemished, certainly, but some
imperfections grow their own hooks.

He has set himself above her,
runs his tongue over the last
of his teeth as she steps without
questioning this path made for her.
She scents the grass with musk –
resonant as these autumn apples –
and scans the hedges for spies
among their thorns. He looks down,
deeper than the already shadows.

She has been here forever.
Only the coyotes are evil, but
they hold music in their voices
so she accepts them as necessary.
Shrinking light limns her
with a brief aureole. Her gaze
lifts toward him, mandorla-eyes
centered with sun points.

The odour of their temptation
wreathes them – his locked arms,
her eagerness. She stretches
her neck; he remembers a swan
dropping from the blank sky
with arrows in its breast.
He slides out his instrument:
that weapon hidden in his head –
less merciful now, primed
with all the failed chases strung
from his neck. Beads shaped
like every sorrow in the world.
He understands he is not beautiful,
so cruelty must be sufficient.
He owns this forked seat
of both cunning and disaster.

When she finally eats, he blinks
with sudden regret. As if his vision
shows only part truth. As if her
innocence trumps everything
he believes about himself.
I am your God, he whispers then.
For once, I get to decide.
But no tremor shakes the quiet.
Because nobody cares what he says.

She is listening to the wind. He strains
toward her, so elastic now. So cocksure.
He will give her one chance. Yet she
stands unafraid, the juice of his sin
leaking from her mouth. No hand
out of the holy air will drag her
away from this place of atonement.
This lost orchard, where ruined fruit
offers her all its power. Where
nothing else wonders what its name is.
And everything depends on the fall.

He is quick as any striking asp, but
still winces at the recoil that rattles
trunk, earth, even the dusk itself.
A birdwing flurry rises above him.
He wishes he could take it all back.

But she is lost to him now,
vanished into her new awareness.
He stoops to stroke her, draws
away from the up-and-down saw
of her ribs dying under his touch.
She has put on mortality – lies
here in mud and damnation.

Night pools around her like blood
under an old and broken bough.

from Tipping the Sacred Cow, Fortunate Childe Publications, 2011; reprinted in Wingflash, Pink Petticoat Press, 2011

In the Beginning

Our mothers taught us too well
to fear the snake, bringer of a cry
under the knife, a cutting, the mangled
cord that loops us to a single loss,
one night when we forgot
to be wary. The rind stretches,
inevitably bursts.

In this blackberry meadow
we gather – we women who hold
that same pomegranate
the serpent offers, month after month,
year upon bloody year, until its lure
gleams flat as a mirror, raised
for us to bear witness.

Here, then, are its red-jellied ova
in their five hundred cradles: this,
a sea-maid with war under her fists;
this, a dust orphan who believes
only that each road leads
to some new sorrow.

There, tumbling downriver,
a firstborn son grasps his own
ankles, jellyfishes on the current.
And there, a buttercup lass
without voice refuses to curse
her creator. She does not recognize
a bribe when it dangles in front
of her hand. The swollen skin is fruit –
nothing more. She wrinkles it
into the dirt.

We limp toward our dry age,
when every kernel is blown and gone.
I throw off my heavy scarf
dividing skull from spine. Thought
has become acceptable. I am
no longer forbidden to jackknife
questions for my enemy
in a round-bark trunk. Nothing
grows inside me any more.

The Garden temptress hums sweet
as a harp – she, who has tricked
us from the beginning. Her secret
teeth fill a gourd with droplets
of juice. Its neck juts firm,
the last man-thing in paradise.
The false adder hangs her trap
on a thorn. Insects jostle each other.
Come, you are not too late.
Flies’ wings click-zip together
like angel bones.

She could have bitten Eve
instead of feeding her. She has never
shared a bond with Adam, the lust
that urges every poor girl to damn
herself. Now she relives that choice,
over and over, having no legs
to walk away from it. We are all too late,
but she understands.

We watch her tend the tree, cultivate
its next crop – wisdom and illusion.
Apples for fools. Pomegranates for the rest,
who should know better. She lacks
interest in us now.

Then we leave her there and follow
the flowless rivers out of Eden,
where beheaded grasses shake and mourn.
She has taken our wombs before
letting us go. No rapture can ever enter us
by that path again. The gate rings
as it closes.

First published on IBPC, Web del Sol (October 2011)

Fleeing Facebook …

May31

OK, so I’m not WordPress-Adept. I’ve owned this domain for a year now and done nothing at all with it. A cascade of nightfalls, an exhilaration of sunrises … and no words from me. I’ve been posting them on Facebook. Today, I deleted those posts and unfortunately, did not save them. Such are the vagaries of my thought on the cusp of senility. Or age 65, if you will. Perhaps they are still to be found on a few friends’ walls and, if not, I’ve returned to the era of the spoken word, when commission to memory was aural at best. Despite their shortened lifespans, sometimes I almost envy the inhabitants of those lost centuries. Their comments were filed in something called the listener’s brain. They became indelible, even if mistranslated. No one can argue with “my kingdom for a horse,” despite the discovery of Richard III’s twisted bones under a parking lot. No one can deny that “Et tu, Brute!” is the essence of betrayal. Caesar had no Facebook on which to post his growing disillusionment with his friends and allies, nor could they share their own anxieties regarding the Noblest Roman of Them All. We can only guess at how everyone felt; we can’t live those emotions in all their excessive immediacy. Just as well, perhaps. The things we are forced to remember, we will continuously trace in lineaments of fire across the dark vault of our own skulls.

I’ve realized something else: Facebook expects us to preach to the converted. If one tries a brief row (no pun) against the prevailing current, there will always be some friend, or friend of a friend, armed with a heavy stone. I am too old for boulders. My path has been a succession of rapids, missteps and tree roots. A broken toe or two. Several rather unhappy detours. Facebook, however, is no longer one of those. I shall post photos there on occasion. I have lovely friends whose activities I shall continue to follow. I’ve met strangers whose presence immeasurably enriches my own. But still … but still …

Tone of voice is absent. One cannot post on such an entity as a social medium and communicate that essential element. For those who don’t know me in the flesh (sadly, more flesh now than in my younger days), the nuances of voice can’t be imagined. For those who do have personal acquaintance, it’s easier for them to “hear” the way I probably sound as I write/speak/post my ramblings and therefore, they better understand my intent. But between the dropped pebble and the pool’s ripple is a very wide stillness. At times, that stillness frightens me because others will try to fill it through pretense. They will assume they are privy to my own mind. This is the danger of sharing what one believes to be, if not true, at least fairly reasonable. Someone else is always poised with editorial pen ready, and eager to slash.

So I’ve withdrawn from that particular fray. As a photographer, I will continue to upload the odd image. Pictures are innocent of malice, and not capable of argument – we either like what we see, or we don’t, but we can’t very well debate the photographer’s right to his or her vision. As a member of a small but vibrant and much-cherished family, I shall keep viewing their videos, photos and news items – because we’re united in the mutual bonds of blood and/or kinship (not always the same thing). Remind me to write on the theme of adoption at some point.

At any rate: if you are reading this, you’ve followed me here or stumbled through my door and I’m immensely grateful. I hope you’ll come back. Ironically, I intend to share this link … with Facebook! This is my home now. I own it; I control what is here. Anyone is welcome to comment but ultimately, these walls are of my personal construction. Please be respectful of them, and of yourselves, and of each other. That is all I ask.

Whew, first post done?! That wasn’t so awful. I might come to like it here after all.

Brenda

Brenda's Babble & Brew

a personal collection of photography, poetry, and random thoughts

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