A Christmas Fable

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you’ve never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of.
If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”
~ Eric Roth (from “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”)
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After three years of regular weekly posts, it’s nearly a month since my last blog. I never know what I’ll write before I start. I’ve learned to trust the process, go with whatever’s up. And this past month, a thousand words simply weren’t enough to contain what mattered – the realizations, decisions, and changes inside me.

This week what matters came wrapped in one day – Christmas Day.

Two friends and I went to the traditional dances at Santo Domingo and Cochiti pueblos. Not celebration dances or tourist events as some think. Moving prayers that go non-stop for 24 +/- hrs. Prayers for abundance in what sustains the health and welfare of the entire pueblo: crops, the hunt, Earth itself.

The day started cold. I bundled in two layers of shirts and scarves, long underwear under my corduroys, a high collar on my coat against the wind. The sky was three shades of blue. The clouds seemed to stretch out in three shapes. We were lucky as there was no breeze to slice cold thru our clothes.

Shifts of pueblo residents, men-women-children, ‘performed.’ The drums, songs, movements steady, rhythmic, and constant, even as they transitioned group to fresh group. Those not dancing quietly sat or stood encircling the plaza as witnesses. Many of the women wrapped up to their chins in blankets with colorful native designs. It’s a community prayer. Even positioned a distance away at the far end of the plaza, I felt the beat of the drum inside me and my legs felt to dance with them.

‘I wish we’d been closer,’ I said as we left. And at the next pueblo, as if my wish was a prayer to be answered, we unknowingly stood on the path where they exited the plaza to turn it over to the next group. Little children (deer and ram) darted toward me in streams of 3 & 4. They would’ve stepped on my toes if I hadn’t backed up. They stopped inches from me, bent forward, leaning on stick legs, waiting. Their bodies pulsed with the drum. I could easily touch their greenery festooned heads. I was in their cloud of prayer. As the ‘hunters,’ drummers, & singers who followed came close, they darted away. One little body behind the other, like lights of a firefly trail. Song & sound filled me. My body dissolved. I knew then how they could dance for hours. Community and the earth matter.

It’s the day after Christmas as I write this. Here’s the thing, I went to the dances knowing I wasn’t 100% well in my body. And today I’m under the weather. I felt the exact moment it happened, too. Feeding birds outside, not bundled against the 22° morning. My ears unprotected against the wind. I fooled myself with thinking ‘I’m only out for a few minutes.’ Right before ‘oh-oh.’ It was weird. Like I felt my cells wobble off a too-close edge. This pushing my body with my will is an old pattern. I’ve done it for goals, for others, and this time mere lazy convenience. As the day wears on, a Thank You settled inside for the reminder that presence to what’s important is conscious action, not random thoughts. My health is important.

Nature plays tricks on the eyes in New Mexico. The mountains can move forward, appear huge & very close. Other times they’re distant horizons, and appear as crooked lines against the sky. After the dances, we picnicked at Cochiti Lake. Our backs warmed by the sun. The sound of lapping water like a background song. No one else was there.

Built in the 70s, the lake is a very deep & large reservoir. For perspective, 28’ sail boats are drydocked nearby. Even so, it didn’t appear far to cross. Not until I spotted people on the opposite side of what I thought was a narrow inlet. They were tiny. So tiny they were hard to see! So many illusions. It matters what perspectives we hold. They affect how we see things.

I got seven holiday cards this year. A rarity. Three are handmade. The other four contain touching handwritten messages. My grandson (the official card sender for the little family in Taiwan) included a drawing of Santa in his. They’re connections and precious gifts to me. I have the one from my 98 yr. old friend on my desk. The others are on display, along with a gift from the dances.

To say I was surprised when Santa showed up while they danced is an understatement. I watched as he casually walked in front of the spectators, his back to the ceremony, tossed candy in wide arcs. Every now and then, he paused to reach into his bag and pull out an unwrapped something he handed to someone. Small things, like a cardboard can of Playdoh. To my mind, a reminder not to take things too seriously and appreciate small gifts.

The three of us anglos sat on a bench, me in the middle. He paused in front of us, looked for a moment, then reached in and handed the gift to me: a large gold-foiled holiday popper I’m told contains a tissue-paper hat, a toy, & a fortune or blessing. Makings for a celebration. My God, I know the angels are behind this. So much this past year deserved celebration, and I’ve haven’t.

Celebrations matter. They’re like Thanks You’s & attagirls. I teach this. The popper is my reminder. I’ll know when it’s time to pull the ends, and celebrate.

Another gift of the day sits on my kitchen counter. 4-1/2″ high & so large it fills a dinner plate. Baked in a traditional wood-fired adobe horno oven shaped like a large old-fashioned beehive. The man at the Santo Domingo church who greeted us gave it to me.

The church is also an optical illusion. Outside it looks quaint, even small. It’s made of wood, which is unusual here. Painted white. Simple painted images on the front. When you walk inside, it’s a long, large, dimly lit rectangular hall with very tall, plastered walls. Doors off the sides open to rooms with low ceilings. Perhaps they set up chairs on regular church days, but there was no seating. Perhaps that added to the expansive feeling. That, and the prayers of the dancers that still hung in the air.

We walked the length, oversized modern Christmas decorations above our heads, to an alcove where a small Mary, maybe 15” long, lay on a bed with baby Jesus, a little blanket covering them so only their heads showed. Tiny faded silk flowers at their crowns. An honoring of the human Mary (of course she’d be in bed) that felt sweet. As we were leaving, the man brought us bags of bread. My bag held the giant loaf in the picture, and what appeared to be four huge rolls. My eyes went wide at the abundance. The four rolls were actually another loaf, which I gave to my friends. The bread is a reminder to me of the abundance in my life. How well I am fed.

There’s no Christmas tree at my house. No planned exchange of gifts. And yet, I received a succession of gifts in this one day. Like in a fable. The lessons within the story. Like angels following me, whispering See. See what matters. And here’s the greatest wonder. . .not until I sat down to share with you did I see it all. It took the community of Us for me to fully understand. Isn’t that the blessing of this season?

Heart. Light. A Seed.
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Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Wonder Woman painting & image by Kendall Sarah Scott.

Thanks Giving

Posted on November 24, 2017 by Heloise Jones

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
~ John O’Donohue (from ‘Beannacht’)

Today is Thanksgiving. I had a blog written, was posting it yesterday. And last night I watched a Frontline show on PBS about children and hunger in the US. I decided I’d post this morning. Instead, I lingered on Facebook for more than a dash, a rarity these days, and looked at my fellow beings across the globe. And was brought back to the moments of my life. Not the big moments or questions, the little ones that are part of the web that makes a life. And I decided I can only share stories. That the words of two poets and people of great spirit say what’s in my heart better than I can today.

“GRATITUDE is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a-priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life. . . Thankfulness finds its full measure in generosity of presence, both through participation and witness. ~ David Whyte (from “Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.”

“When we experience the Beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming. Some of our most wonderful memories are of beautiful places where we felt immediately at home. We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.” ~ John O’Donohue (from ‘Beauty)

Little things and stories in which I’ve been both participant & witness:

Each morning I walk I’m pinned to this scene as I come down a hill. The wires disappear. I only see the trees bordering the road, their many textures & colors. And the mountains that stretch across the horizon, the wondrous forever sky, that special blue & salmony pink only here in Santa Fe. Each morning, struck with awe.

Part of my walk is across a very green lawn with giant, old trees. At the end, a rose garden. I walk thru the roses when they bloom. In fall, I walk thru fallen leaves that lie like broad yellow skirts around the tree trunks. Even knowing they’re leaves, I think every time I walk on flower petals. I wish you could see how yellow and magical they are.

Throughout the day I stop & gaze out my kitchen window. My view’s to the west and two mountain ranges, the same ones I see coming down the hill. I watched this tree blaze miraculous gold all fall. It held on when others let go. No matter the time of day or light in the sky, it stood out. Was a gift. It’s gone now, but I have this picture that says it all.

Then there’s people .

Sparkly little boy of my heart in Taiwan. Oh, gosh am I thankful for every second I have with him. Even if it’s Skype. Sometimes not for weeks. Even if hugs in person are 2-3 yrs. apart. I’m just lucky. I get him, + pictures he paints and postcards. And I get to send him cards and tiny gifts he keeps in his ‘treasure box.’ He’ll like the lizard & big rhinestone on this one.

And people I touch, who then touch me. Like the woman beside me listening to the symphony, chorus, and soloists from New Voices of Santa Fe Opera perform the ‘Messiah.’ When my heart rose to the heavens with the Hallelujah Chorus, it was all I could do not to sing at the top of my lungs. I mouthed the words, swayed my body. She asked if I was a musician, I felt the music so. Said she was lucky to sit beside me, be part of that energy. Her words, my gift.

And this. . .

I expected a card or perhaps a small painting from Wendy Davis when she said she was sending me something (she’s a wonderful painter). But I pulled this from the box. With a handwritten note, “I saw this mug and thought of you instantly.” The story stretches back 6 years.

That photo’s from a retreat I co-hosted that Wendy attended. Transformative is the word everyone used at the end. I remember thinking what a fine writer & storyteller she is. Now she’s coming in March to the retreat I’m hosting with artist Kendall Sarah Scott. As she packed the box, her Daily Om email popped up. . . with *exactly* what this retreat is about! Angels at work, I say.

Indeed, I’ve learned to notice angels and say Thank You. As when on impulse I look up from writing an important insight. And there across the room is a ball of light in the hands of my statue. A ball of light like a diamond I’ve never seen before or since. That stayed as I retrieved my phone from another room and took pictures, before it stretched out to a line like every other morning.

So, on this Thanksgiving day, I notice the small moments of my days and the big hearts of people. . .the gifted nature of life.
A heart. A seed. A diamond light.
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Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life

Tell me, what small moments do you notice that you’re present to?

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Where You Put Your Camera

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Heloise Jones

When curiosity outweighs our expectations, we find more delight than disappointment in the day.
~ Oriah ‘Mountain Dreamer’ House
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I’m venturing out at night, again. It’s part of my intention to live life beyond work and rebuilding a home. To return to what engages my wonder and awe, feeds my heart, mind, and curiosity.

Tho I feel so very lucky to be here with the privileges I have, my permissions to myself it’s okay to let go betray me. They’ve come with lying on the sofa at the end of a day for too long. I sometimes briefly nod off in the darkened rooms at events. My bobbing head waking me to what I’m missing. Travel, my other companion to such permissions, has been absent for three years.

Self forgiveness can be hard. Because I know what I missed is extraordinary. A moment that can’t be recovered. It’s sometimes a tug to turn my attention back to the present. This is a key message in my book and workshops. Proof it happens to all of us.

The latest episode was a few weeks ago when I saw an extraordinary humanitarian and photo-journalist. Iranian-French Reza Deghati who works under the name Reza. His vitae includes covers on National Geographic, Time, and Newsweek, + decades of travels around the world, often living in far flung or war torn (read, dangerous) locales for months at a time. Places that are words in the News for most of us in the US, or ghosts in the living rooms of vets come back from their experience.

Reza’s images are intimate, and bear witness to the stories of individual lives. Stories etched on the subject’s face or belongings – a girl’s favorite dolls for sale on a street corner to buy food for her grandmother who hasn’t eaten in three days; a child’s stiff, frost-covered sneakers that needed to thaw before she could go to class; dirt, expression, focus. The faces and postures revealing the details of their stories without words. We don’t need to see the buildings reduced to ash to imagine what being human is for them. Or for all the others with them, trapped in history.

Reza says his goal is to help people tell their own stories. To give them the tools to do it. He spoke of poetry. How he reads poetry every day. I wrote as he spoke, capturing nearly all his words:

Poets have reached the extreme beauty of humanity. They use the same words we all know – and then, put them together into something that touches the heart and mind. Same with the image where you can see the words of poetry. Both take you out of your daily life and put you deep inside yourself.

Wow, I thought. Exactly.

He ended with a thought I think applies to writers, as well. Or any of us, for that matter: “Where do you put your camera? Your brain, your heart, your stomach, or under you belt.”

I asked this question in a workshop. The answers from the participants surprised me. Most began somewhere else (their brain, under their belt, their gut), then traveled to their hearts. And it seemed those, like me, who feels it with my entire body, did not feel disconnected with the heart. It was as if when we’re given the invitation to notice, we all know the heart is our true compass.

I often say writers and artists are powerful. For Reza, a young man documenting the political struggles in Iran in the 70s, he realized photographs were perceived as actual weapons by the Iranian government. He was arrested, spent three years in prison for his photos. He was tortured there, then forced into exile when released. Forced from his native ground.

In a section of Reza War and Peace titled “Thoughts of an Exile,” he writes:

“Within you remains the memory of your lost country, and you may feel disappointment in the land where you are now living, the country you thought would be your promised land and beyond it your way of being free. There remains, too, a feeling of mourning for your native land.

This grief is always with you below the surface, but the longing for your homeland is called up even more acutely by a tangible reminder of your country — a familiar smell, a food that tastes like a dish back home, a countryside that evokes scenes from your childhood. You feel it as well when you hear someone speak your language and you hear once again the melody of your native tongue. For the exile, the joys of the present are full of memories of the past.

I can’t help thinking about Reza as we head into Thanksgiving and the holiday season, a time where connection with family is emphasized. Or thinking about how intimate his images are. How they so often reflect longing for Home. How this season brings Home up for so many of us. How so many feel like exiles in one way or another.

I also can’t help thinking how longing for Home is at the heart of my novels. And how over the past nearly 3 years of my blog, I’ve written Home is up for me 4-5 times. Just this year, during the extreme physical hardship I went thru to get back my soul home, Santa Fe.

The stories we see outside us are nearly always reflections of something that resides inside us. Not word for word, thought for thought, detail for detail, but connection. I believe this reflection always happens when you chronicle the human heart. I work with writers. See it again and again.

In this moment, I see my work with writers as connection in a way I hadn’t thought about before, too. As I hold space for them, ask the questions leading to discovery of what matters for them, offer help so they find the way to say it. . .it’s like Reza who gives cameras to people so they can tell their own stories. It’s my genius, delivering metaphorical cameras. My charge from the Universe. No wonder I love what I do and feel it all magical. Big Heart moments. We’re made of stories, and connection.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Tell me. . .Where do you put your camera?

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Making a Writer’s Life

Posted on October 24, 2017 by Heloise Jones

My morning walk these days is short. 15-17 minutes. The heart of it three long blocks uphill, and three blocks coming down looking out to the western sky and mountains. If I’m in the third block at the top of the hill early enough before sunlight breaks, my treat is one to six bunnies. All sitting perfectly still, face forward, front feet together, ears erect like those chocolate bunnies wrapped in colored cellophane we used to get at Easter. Their big round brown eyes don’t even blink when I tell them how beautiful they are.

Recently, just after our nights started hovering 32- 40°, I noticed the colors on the western horizon we only see at sunrise – a blue between robin’s egg & sky blue and the salmony peach known as Santa Fe colors – rose to nearly fill a third of the tall sky. I wondered perhaps the temperature’s sudden change. This is the first time I live where I fully see it each morning. I felt I was witnessing something special, this tall rise of western dawn color. I felt I was gliding downhill, as if flying right to it. And suddenly I was transported to sailing across country. Two of us, bringing me home to Santa Fe, my thought. And just at that thought, two ravens sailed silently side by side over my head from behind, straight into that horizon. Their wings outstretched, like gliders.

Booker Prize winning author George Saunders says, “Story is kind of a black box. And you’re going to put the reader in there. She’s going to spend some time with this thing you have made. And when she comes out, what’s gonna have happened to her in there is something astonishing. It feels like the curtain’s been pulled back and she’s gotten a glimpse into a deeper truth. As a story writer, that’s not as easy as it sounds.” I think that applies to life stories, too.

This story of me being here, and my life now, began almost exactly one year ago when I pulled out my pile of notes, sat down and wrote the first words of The Writer’s Block Myth while on my yearly fall visit to Santa Fe. I’d already decided to move back, so I searched for a home while I wrote the book. It wasn’t a typical visit. It was a writing retreat and the beginning of my new life.

Then, in the six weeks December 1 to mid-January, I rewrote the entire book, edited it twice, created a pre-launch, made my first 2-1/2 min. video (which took 12 hours to do), packed my entire household, contracted movers, and set out across country. Like those two ravens, my husband and I in the car sailed to this horizon thru diverse American landscapes. I could’ve told a different story each night from what I observed. But it was my story I was in the midst of. And it was full enough.

Nine months ago this past Sunday we pulled in. I remember ascending the hill from Clines Corners, the thrill I felt seeing the Sangre de Cristos. How the clouds were so dramaticly surreal. We stopped at one of my favorite places for a New Mexican Sunday brunch before we headed into town.

I can’t remember when I finally stopped telling people I’d moved back after 19 trips in 18 years, after leaving to go east for family and job. That the last 6 trips were for two months. . .when I shed that story of part-time local who wasn’t really a visitor.

The months since I returned I’ve focused on the alchemy in the work I do with writers. I’ve put myself out into the world. I’ve spent hours at the computer, little of it writing stories. And I’ve been recovering from what it took to get here.

Winter passed into spring. Then spring passed. Summer passed. Fall has nearly passed. And two weeks ago I walked outside and realized I’d done little of living in this place.

I didn’t see the summer wildflowers on the mountain like I promised myself I’d do. Or walk amongst the aspens, hug one & put my ear to the trunk to hear that creaking like an old wooden ship. I’ve soaked at Ojo Caliente mineral springs only three times. And been to few festivals, galleries, poetry readings, or the many other things you only find here. I haven’t even visited the Georgia O’Keeffe museum.

The views of sky and cottonwoods out my windows I’ve lived on are no longer enough. I desire space inside and to write, as well as expand this work that I truly love doing with writers. As well as speaking before groups, and seeing people’s faces soften and smile as their eyes light up. I desire space i.n.s.i.d.e, and to write. Connection with myself and this place.

Thomas Wolfe said you can never go home, again. It’s true places change, people change, even cultures change. If we are alive, we change. And I believe what poet Derek Walcott says in his lovely poem, ‘Love after Love:’

The time will come
 when, with elation
 you will greet yourself arriving
 at your own door, in your own mirror
 and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
 You will love again the stranger who was your self.

I believe you can come home to yourself. I realize as I write this, that’s what I’m in the process of doing, even in the work I do with other writers. Because I am a writer.

That picture above is dawn from my kitchen window the first week I was in my little house. George Saunders is right. This story has not been as easy to write as it sounds. It’s been worth it, though.

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Write as the World Turns

Posted on September 10, 2017 by Heloise Jones

“From most points of the universe you can’t see stars. You may vaguely see a few smudges of a few galaxies. Thus our Earth vantage point is rare and very friendly and
sparkly compared to the loneliness of most of the universe.”
~ Catalogue of the Universe

I’ve always had a dream to go into space. To see Earth from where stars dwell. I once read every astronaut felt changed inside once s/he saw Earth from space. Something deeply spiritual blossomed inside them, a reverence, whether they stated it in religious terms or not. None felt smaller. All felt more one with the Universe.

I feel that way when I look up at the stars. And when I look at nature. Knowing I can never comprehend the vast worlds that exist in either sky or this planet.

Many years ago my husband and I visited Oregon. Landed in Portland, drove thru the Columbia River Gorge, then down the coast, returning to Portland up thru the Willamette Valley. Every moment of every.single.day looked like a picture postcard. I stood at tidepools with rainbows stretched over me. Gazed out onto the most beautiful valley patchworked with flowering herbs. Rode across Crater Lake, the bluest of blue water. And the crown jewel was the Columbia River Gorge. It left a lifetime impression on both of us. Pictures are pretty, and there’s no way to convey the slightest inkling of the majesty. Now the gorge burns. Nearly 40,000 acres scorched to tinders with 7% contained after a week.

We smell smoke here in Santa Fe. One morning the mountains on the western horizon were indistinguishable, covered by a brown haze. Montana’s burning, too, so could be from anywhere, I thought.

I planned a trip to Oregon in October for an speaking workshop. I looked up smoke reports. NASA has pictures. Smoke obscures the entire Pacific NW, goes east to St. Louis, streams across the US on the jet stream. I imagine it sailing across oceans, like dust from the Sahara in Africa does to South America.

I’ve been thru this before. Arizona and too much of New Mexico burned all around me one summer. The sky turning yellow, the sun blood red. My body’s reaction to chemicals and smoke extreme. I won’t go to Portland.

Here’s the thing. . .the fire at the gorge was started by teens flipping firecrackers into a ravine. Their response when someone called them on it was smart-mouthed and flippant. They live where undeveloped nature is their backyard. What got lost on them?

As I drove out the other day, I thought how we humans may be the only species who willingly, consciously despoil our beds, this planet we call Home. And perhaps the only species who will self-extinct. Harsh, unpopular thought? Perhaps. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s time for major shifts.

Nature’s all around us, even in cities without parks. A flower can’t help but grow in the crack of a sidewalk if let alone. A bug will find a plant in a pot. The wind and birds care nothing of buildings in the way.

We start now, teach the kids everyday to look and see the world as a place of fascination. Because when they’re taught natural sciences, are taken out to observe the natural world with a guide, they appreciate it and become protective. They turn into monitors and stewards of creatures and the land. Creeks restored, prairie lands nurtured, habitats protected. And they’re not afraid to speak up to grown-ups in defense.

We re-teach ourselves. Writers observe with awareness. I say let’s sit ten minutes somewhere close to the ground. Write what we see and feel and hear. Make it part of our writing practice.

How does the air feel on our skin.
What does the light look like thru a leaf or blade of grass, or off rough bark.
What do we notice about a bee on the sweat of cheese in the sun, or the path of a small ant.
What happens when a cloud passes over.
What’s the sound of the rhythm of wings overhead.
What’s our heart doing.

The Columbia River Gorge will not recover in my lifetime, or even my grandson’s. I say, let’s come Home. Tonight, turn off the porch lights. Look up to the friendly, sparkly Universe above. In the aftermath of the hurricane’s rage, when no city lights pollute the sky, look up. After all, we are stardust.

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One last thought for those where the natural world’s crazy, turned you sideways. . .

Please be aware forest animals are fleeing the flooding, hurricanes, & fires, and may show up in our yards. The forestry dept. urges us to bring our animals in at night. Let the wild ones pass thru. Put out buckets of water for them. They are scared, exhausted, have lost their homes, and need to refuel to find new ones. Just like us.