Unexpected Gold

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Today, I’m in the exact place in between two lives & you may ask which I will choose, unless you’ve been in the in-between place before & then you know to
simply sit quietly until your life chooses you.
~ Brian Andreas (StoryPeople)
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Gingko on the walk Natural gold
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I’m in the exact place in between two lives. The mantra solutions.solutions rolling through my mind regularly as counter-balance to whatwegonnado. Life drew a line in the sand for me two weeks ago, which I shared in the last two posts. Stuff I’m thinking I shoulda seen coming, but believed I could call on my own terms. How I want to live, where I want to live, my intentions for work and relationship. And even with the news, I took it slow, listened. But I am not a passive journeyer. It came to me today how the world’s in between lives, too. Deciding who, what, how. What I know for sure is in my deep, deep heart I hope we lift each other up, bring ourselves and each other to our best self. Because we can see each other, even from afar, if we take the time to look. Can even reach out in trust.

And we can see hearts speak the same language. Like filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand did when he asked what makes us human. He spent three years collecting real-life stories from 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. We authors say there are no new stories, they’ve all been told. It’s how we tell them that’s different. Like Life.

Human, extended version Vol. 1 here.

Human, all three volumes here.

And we can choose Verbs to live by, like Patti Digh’s Facebook friends chose to counteract terror. Strong answers to fear. It all adds up, she said.
Verb World

I agree. It’s the world I want to live in. The verbs for my life.

I just learned ginkgo trees are considered living fossils, surviving major extinction events. That at least one ginkgo in China is 3,000 years old. Sounds so dramatic, but I feel as if a major extinction event’s occurring inside me right now. It’s not the first time. So I know I can do this. I only need look down, see the natural gold along the footpath.
Just one question….what verbs do you choose?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A favorite: A truly blue sky.
A secret: I’ve lived with humidity nearly my entire life. I really dislike humidity, a lot.

photo: Virginia Rosenberg

Buddha-Made Teapots

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Imagine your tea cup is three thousand years old,
it was made in Egypt by a High Priestess
during a magical ceremony
to bless and infuse every cup of tea with celestial healing.

Imagine you had to scale
fifty foot cliffs for your honey
and carry it down on your back.

Imagine you dug the earth
and prayed and weeded
and danced and harvested
and chaffed and ground and kneaded
and baked the wheat for your bread.

Imagine you fed your beautiful
brown eyed cow nice grass
and you milked her and you churned
the cream and sand the Come Butter Come Song
and you paddled the butter into its mold
and this is the butter for your toast.

Imagine you walked to Tibet from here
and you gathered the tea in your skirt on a steep
windy hillside, and then you
dried the tea in the sun for days
watching over it, you slept beside it
at night under a full moon.

Imagine the Buddha made your teapot.
He gathered the clay by the banks of the Ganges
and fashioned a teapot just for you
and built a fire of sandalwood to fire it in, and he walked
to Nepal to get the turquoise he ground for the glaze for your
teapot and on it he painted a Lotus flower.

Imagine now, there are angels singing to you because
You are so loved, now, while you are having tea with cream,
and toast, with butter and honey.
Enjoy.
~ Rachel Ballantine (Tea and Toast)
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Chama River Valley – October 23, 2015
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I have a present for you, she said, and pulled out a book she created. We sat outside eating giant cinnamon buns under the shelter at Tesuque Market, a pinon fire in an oven behind us barely cutting the almost too chill air. Noon, a time I’m not usually there. The small parking lot full, muddy with big puddles from the cold rain we’d had off and on for three days. I’ll read you a poem, she said.

I met Rachel on Facebook. She constantly has me chuckling with her stories, her sense of humor, wit, observations. We planned to meet last year but she couldn’t make it. This past winter she noted my interest incorporating bodywork in writing workshops, sent me a book for study. It arrived with a book of her poetry. This summer I got a 505 area code call, knew it was New Mexico, no one I knew. I want your opinion, she said. We talked for an hour. Last Friday I picked her up at the Santa Fe Train Depot, offered a day in town or a drive in the country. She opted for the drive. It turned out to be a gift to both of us. She needed escape from noise and place. I needed something perfect. We rode under splendid skies through the spectacular pattern and color of New Mexico countryside, the horizon clear, haze washed away. Drank in jewels of light sparkling on Abiquiu Lake, and blazing yellow-gold cottonwoods in sunshine, their bark like brown-black charcoal drawings amongst the color. We both felt fed, satisfied when I dropped her off. The next day I stepped out on the porch to the delicate fragrance of the live piñon trees spread out before me. Rare in the desert where the air’s so dry smells have little to cling to. Felt like a blessing.

Rachel shared this about the day: The Train Trip and The Fourth Dimensional Puzzle, or, A Harmonic Convergence. . .“it was my intent to take a train to see a friend and so all of the cosmos lined up for it to happen, from the past, from everywhere. I wore my grandmother’s Zuni earrings that my grandfather bought at Zuni from a ten year old boy, they were his first pair he ever made. that was in 1930. I wore my new jeans , made in Bangeldesh. I bought gasoline, where did that come from. the nice lady from Mexico at Lotaburger made my burrito, where did the beans, the flour come from. where did the coffee come from. I was grateful. I drove to the train station listening to Alice Cooper on my cassette player ‘I like the way you crawl across the cathouse floor’. At the station I think about the train tracks in the sun, who made them, who set them. who built the train? who wove the seat covers? watching the landscape I love the adobe houses and heard a woman behind me from New York City say ‘look those houses are so drab, so homely,’ I thought we take ourselves with us wherever we go. I met a nice lady who said she will buy my book. anyway my point is that when you have an intent all things converge like a giant web or fourth dimensional puzzle to make it happen. we are all in the midst of this every second. we are all held up by a million actions and people and unknowns every moment in utter connection. think about it!”

Yes! Exactly. And how many times have we done something never knowing what it means to either ourselves or another person? I questioned myself offering a ride in the country as I said the words. But it seemed right, and in fact, was exactly right. I can only think more was involved than random thoughts. It’s happened to you, too, right?

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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Rachel

I love Rachel’s book, Recipoetry of a Kitchen Mystic, A Cookbook Scrapbook.
It’s a beauty of poetry, recipes, handpainted and collage pages. Get it here.
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A favorite: Tea and toast for breakfast. Really.
A secret: I’d noticed her earrings, studied them. The turquoise, silver squash blossom.

Writing Novels Like a Hummingbird

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Heloise Jones

When I am really into a novel, I am seeing the world differently during that time –
not just for the hour a day when I get to read. I’m actually walking around
in a bit of a haze, spellbound by the book
and looking at everything through a different prism.
~ Colin Firth, actor

This little bird building her nest mesmerized me.

I read a hummingbird’s nest is the size of a walnut. That they’re so strong they’ll survive being whipped by the wind. And the tiny birds will cling tightly to their nest, protect eggs as a limb’s flung about in wide arcs. I wove that image into my novel. The same way I wove the Granny Woman in, though I don’t claim credit for her. She just showed up. I can’t even remember where I learned about these wise women healers who know herbs, are gifted with ‘the sight.’ I wove in my father, too. His frame, merchant marine days, his love of a yarn and how he opined. But that was invisible to me until I finished the book.

And I wove in something I’m hesitant to talk about, that I avoid mention except as occasional sidebar. The years of battering, the silence I carried. Because though it’s part of my experience, I’m so strongly identified with my redemptive story that it’s not the conversation I want to have. And I see people generally don’t understand the dynamic that exists within so many abusive relationships, nor the aftermath. That regardless of context and process, it’s not a fast track to redemption once one leaves. Mine took three years. And the journey before I left included several years of secretly tucking away $5 a week, looking to therapists for help and not finding it. Until one day I knew I was strong enough, set a date and stuck to it. For many months afterward unable to breathe at night, fear so heavy on my chest. All during this time without help from a soul I knew. Because one did not talk about such things back then. Not even with best friends. Not even when sporting a black eye.

So, in a way, it’s a foreign land uncomfortable for those who’ve never been there because it’s so counter-intuitive to what we know as healthy, as common sense about protecting ourselves from harm. Movies, images, stories are inadequate to fill in. + It was decades ago, is not the story I’m to tell. I weave that experience, my empathetic understanding into the work.

Many of us novelists write like the hummingbird builds her nest. We weave in pieces of experience, wonder-nesses (yes, it’s a word), stories and facts we’ve chased, researched, gathered, chosen. Tamp and settle them into shape and order with our hearts, souls, and minds. Wrap them with the strongest threads of our skills. Create a delicate weaving that when done is a story of perfect proportion, if we’re good enough. If we’re wordsmiths and poets at heart, we feel the beats by reading aloud. Adjust commas, line breaks, phrases. Consider the layers in meaning of words. But to write what we know – being human – we must listen, find the character’s heart, her culture’s heart. After all, what do I share with a ten year boy in the different world of 1952 rural Appalachia, whose only reference for everything rests in the woods and the words of his abusive stepfather? I listen. Then recognition’s sparked in authors and others who come from generations in the mountains.

An agent who rejected me a year ago writes, “I can’t get these people, this story out of my mind.” The reader enters the world, feels it like Colin Firth does. And it doesn’t stop with the page. I must listen to truly see people. For what can I really know of refugees fleeing war and devastation, people of color living under deep-seated racism in the USA, the maligned homeless deemed invisible, or even a right wing conservative. I must find a place in myself where we meet on a human level. Enter into the conversation with myself and/or the other. Experience that story. Said admitting I’m not Buddha, and I have convictions. But it’s a fascinating, beautiful journey. Even when not easy. One I share with you. At least that’s my hope.

What do say you? What journeys have you traveled with stories?

I’ve fallen in love with literature. I try to read for one or two hours every day. I only have one life to live. But in books I can live one thousand lives.
~ Young woman in Rasht, Iran (Humans of New York)

Another small journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: Understanding doesn’t make things easier for me. It keeps my heart open.
A favorite: The perfection of that tiny nest. Like it’s made of porcelain.

Waiting on Me to Catch Up

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Heloise Jones

Are you ready at a cellular level
for the fact that
you can not change the course
of all that has been set in motion
long before you even knew about motion
or had met the course
but now your heart has had its recognition
and as the river moves forward
the realization hits that your heart has already
grabbed hold, when you weren’t looking. . .
waiting for you to catch up
~ Kathryn Schuth
Are You Ready

Just out of the solidity of immersion in a completed work I’m fully familiar with, I’m not ready to step back onto steep learning curves or dive out into air, which is what it often feels like before pieces of the Vision coalesce in the world. So I’m taking you to my (once) home in Asheville, when I was writing a novel.

First, pause a moment at the top of the Charlotte St. ramp, gaze upon the gray, blue, purple waves of the Blue Ridge. When done with awe, turn away from the downtown skyline, drive past the gas station and Starbucks on through the remnants of a neighborhood where signs and parking spaces squeeze amongst the trees beside large and small homes. When you get to the tiny rock house on the left that once housed the art museum, see the rock wall with pillars like giant beehives, the park beyond with genteel old homes on its far border, turn right. Go past the 10’ tall crucifix and stark white Jesus on the corner, the miniature Spartan cathedral behind it. Wind up through the narrow lane chiseled from a broad boulevard by plump medians and painted lines. Past stately residences with lawns and hedges. Past condos where the view of the valley and mountains beyond are the sole possession of empty rooms, saved for a few human eyes now and then. Past the entrance to the huge rock edifice and red roof reminiscent of a cottage gone crazy on steroids, to where the road veers right up into trees promising wilderness. Here the bank drops to a deep overgrown ravine on the left, and driveways snake up the hillside on the right. Turn at the second left, curve and coast down through a procession of remodeled 50’s ranchers. At the yellow mailbox beside wintering plants, turn toward the house with artsy bronze chimney stacks under two ancient oaks. A brick rancher morphed with tall ceilings and large spaces, dressed like a cottage.

Inside, walk through the neat, light filled rooms with comfortable furniture, handmade side tables of lovely wood, all color and texture designed to please. Pass the abstract paintings on the walls, shells and stones amongst art pottery and glass. Go to my office where the art turns personal and symbolic. Where photos of me in Hawaii and Santa Fe, my spirit-homes, are pasted on walls without fanfare. To where my everyday life’s divided into stacks. Spiral notebooks with sturdy cardboard backs, colored flags at the edges, their pages filled with scrawl in blue ink. Pictures, papers and periodicals for research and reference. Notes and books on the business of book marketing. Folders for my daily current events. My lives most recently passed, such as producer of The Honeybee Project, tucked away in file drawers. The files and artifacts of my previous lives – business woman, artist, project manager – all moved to the basement.

At night I turn my computer off because its moonglow shines into the hall outside our bedroom. My husband doesn’t mind, but it teases me. Perhaps I’m missing an email. Perhaps this thing stomping my brain can’t wait. Perhaps if I just got up I wouldn’t feel as tired as I feel in that moment.

Often the book’s characters talk to me at night. Whisper I’m doing okay telling their stories. I know come morning they’ll hover at my ear, or catch me in the shower. That they’ll forgive me, wait, when I neglect them for long stretches. I never tell them they aren’t my bliss because that’d be a lie. I look forward to the discoveries in knowing them, in their stories. I could never tell it as good as they do.

And seems I’ve done a circle, because that last paragraph is where I catch up to the here and now. Big or small, things that give meaning, offer more to the world than the sum of me alone create solid ground beneath my feet. It’s when I catch up with my heart. We know how that happens, don’t we?

Another small journey to mindfulness. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.

A secret: Surprise insight this very moment (gasp) I really want to do this hard stuff in front of me that I thought I was doing because I had to.
A favorite: Hearts, Stars, and Spirals, all kinds

Cloudy Stargazing

Posted on June 15, 2015 by Heloise Jones

All the stars were still there.
Cloudy stargazing isn’t terrible.
In fact, it feels like faith.
~ Amy McCracken

Faith3

See the egg?

I’m of an age that when I say ‘aging is weird‘ to certain others, I get nods and insider smiles in return. We consider ‘over the hill’ balloons at 40 ridiculous. We matured during a time physical proximity was a component to finding one’s tribe. When comfort or mirrors of one’s feelings weren’t available with the click of a mouse. I’ve stepped way past thinking I know it all, past achieving more than one outward definition of success. I’ve gained clarity on the lines I won’t cross. Had passion pricked from my chest so often I love the journeys as much as the destinations. I know what I want in big chunks of my life, as well as small everyday pleasures. And as a curious explorer, toe dipper and deep diver, my Universe expands into the Soul-Center of Mystery, what I call magical. I know I’m privileged, and I see gratitude and generosity as responsibility. Privilege the tool given to help, share the spoils in ways that benefit the planet and others. So, with all these awarenesses, I made a public declaration a week ago (read it here) to step out, make my best offers to the broader world.

Two days later, in front of twenty of my peers at a Florida Writers Assoc. meeting, I was tested. There to learn the changing landscape of email queries to lit agents, I was thrilled the presenter chose my letter to critique for the group. Then she asked my name – pronounced Eloise, with a silent H – immediately commented on the pointlessness of unnecessary letters in a name. It’s French, I said, my grandmother’s name. She started reading, slowed down to praise my writing, premise, craft, skill in receiving personal responses from agents. But weirdness followed. Multiple comments I talk too much. Jabs at my quiet corrections when she misread my words. Declaration I love adjectives (two, carefully chosen), code amongst writers for amateur. Bit by bit I slumped, shrunk in my chair. And more than anything she said, that’s what bothered me most. This shrinking. Pissed me off.

I got what I went for re. queries. Know her behavior was inappropriate on so many levels, obviously not about me. But it took time to process. And Peace did not reign in Dreamland where I miss my connection flying because I help a boy, and a shuttle doesn’t take off. No win. Far from home with neither computer nor underwear. Gasp. My dead mother giving me new, size 3 pale yellow & pink flowered panties that appear will fit my size 2 frame. Yes, numbers in my dream. There’s urges from others I make new reservations, but the temple on my eyeglasses falls off, and I discover the bridge broken in two. I ask for superglue. All after fearful running, men wanting to mess with my mind, bursting in the moment I think I’m safe, put down my one treasure – a framed portrait of my son I painted years ago. I need superglue.

Here’s the kicker. Despite my years, my baby girl vulnerable self is still learning not to care about attacks. And my wise woman self is still remembering that though forgiveness for my trespasses, sins, and trip-ups may be hard, I can pardon myself. And in the end it is about me. The buttons pushed. The Universe asking when I make a declaration if I mean it, really mean it. Offering the chance to choose again, grow into it, say Thank You.

Occasionally butterflies flutter at my window. The side with raised blinds, where I can see them. Nothing’s flowering out there. I think they’re messengers.

Tell me. . .what declarations have you made?

No, the egg wasn’t intentional. I puzzled it for a while. I forgot Faith.

Faith2

Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
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A secret: On a lakeshore in Washington state I asked for a heart rock and found one right there at my feet. A perfect heart bigger than my hand. But I can have the hardest time asking anyone on earth for help.
A favorite: Rocks, and shells, in all states of being.