It amazes me that abundance flows so easily into my life – my Irish neighbor brings her special soda bread, my fishing neighbor brings trout freshly caught. Meanwhile, a friend stops by unannounced and fixes the iron gate which nows opens so smoothly it is almost puzzling how it didn’t before.
Since Then
Outside the high windows of what was once
our kitchen—before that, a weaver’s room—now a study—
the breeze-bent lilacs continue to wave and sway;
the weeping willow grazes buffalo grass;
the copper roses blaze and extinguish,
blaze and extinguish and blaze . . .
but the peacock that appeared one afternoon
strutting up and down the back garden’s brick path
hasn’t been seen again, and was not—
unlike the five tawny owlets
perched for weeks on a beam of the kitchen portale—
digitally photographed, turned into a screen saver.
Almost everything’s been put on automatic pay
but on some cloudless nights
I find my doormat’s openwork rubber
enstarred with a cellophane sheen—
the moon’s monthly bill,
still in your name.
CAROL MOLDAW
Field
Spring 2012
The men came the other day to whack, saw, cut and scrape the Queen Palms in the side yard, the very same palms whose fronds were so huge seen from the height of the red tower built in back of the LaLa where I was to be the king sitting in her counting house counting all her money, only now the whole enterprise has shifted to a brave new world of getting, less spending, and learning how to be. Believe me this was forced exile into the land of the few, but having arrived here I truly marvel that I was ever there, wherever that was.
I cried when I first saw the frondless, chopped up, skinny tall Queen palms – all of that lushness gone and now sun coming in everywhere you look. My palms have been a source of problems – they allowed those pesky termites to travel to my roof, they swiped the windows and walls of neighbors scaring them in the night with the swishing to and fro – and now they are just these straight arrows, pruned to the point of nonrecognition. Much like myself.
Yesterday, sitting on the bayou with the beautiful scarf a friend brought me from Indonesia a neighbor said you look so glamourous – well necessity is the mother of invention and despite having given away 99% of my scarves last year in the Great Purge (who knew I would be bald this year and actually need scarves) – I have found new ways to wear head scarves, many new ways.
I read a blog about why you shouldn’t have a job. But what has caught my attention more than learning how not to work, is realizing that there is a deeper meaning to life’s work and that doesn’t mean you should head to the nearest nonprofit, but more that you should evaluate how you live from the ground up – I blindly bought into the rat race fully believing there was no other way – until the path presented itself and now, I’m scratching my head as to why I was going down the other path.
Listening to John Bloom the other night about rethinking money and the making of money was enlightening. I would suggest a listen to this interview but also read his blog or even his book. We are hoping to read this book soon, but in the meantime you can read Bloom’s thoughts on his blog.
For now suffice to say, having had my own hair cut, though I don’t recognize myself in the mirror no more than I recognize the Queen palms in the yard, it has allowed the light to come in and remove the sinister shadows that allowed armies of life force sucking pests to run ramshod over me.
We’re back in the whirlwind of life regardless of our energy level – Tin was going down for his nap when his good friend’s mother text me that we had a once in a lifetime opportunity to get to the Navy base and see the Blue Angels for real – so up from his nap (who says we’re rigid) and dash across the river and there they were in all their glory – the real Blue Angels, and there we were snapping photo ops one after another.
My neighbor said when the text came in, there is only one answer Rachel, “YES!” I knew that if I didn’t get Tin up from the nap he just went down from that forever I would be plagued by “You could have taken me to the jets but you wanted me to sleep?” Especially in light of the fact that his good friend is more than likely going to be a Blue Angel pilot – he’s 4 and that’s what he wants to be so you have to buy into his passion despite the years between the vision and the reality.
Wow.
After last night’s panel discussion on Rudolph Steiner and Waldorf education, I met today with someone who was looking into our school to see what needs shoring and what is working. Then I picked up the little munchkin and took him with his friend to see the tall ships docked on the mighty Mississippi. My fav was the Indonesian ship which reminded me of Bali and all the beautiful people, architecture, food and I felt a longing to be on the high seas and be an adventurer much like many a seaman has signed up for the Navy with the same dreams.
But most important it felt good to be out with Tin and not feel as if I had to check my emails, feel guilty, or whatever, I was just being a mom and learning more about his education (which is helping to educate me) and checking out this awesome event where New Orleans is hosting the kick off of a four year commemoration of the War of 1812.
Later we hosted three students and it was interesting to see how children become young adults become people and so on. Life in all of its strange passageways.
The Navy has descended upon New Orleans occupying all ports with historic Tall Ships that are on display all week while the Navy personnel file out to our community to do service. I saw a bunch in City Park painting the pagodas. All cute, sweet and young. Hard to think of them having to actually go to war and makes you wonder about all the service people who die in war who are mostly anonymous to most of us who they are protecting.
I remember living in San Francisco and having no barometer for the change in the seasons other than the Blue Angels flying in fall. What a welcome sight and sound they created when they flew dangerously near the skyscrapers there. One of my all time favorite pastimes was to be on the roof and watching them. They are here this weekend in New Orleans flying over Lake Ponchartrain – welcome Blue Angels!!
A Norwegian roof rat made its way into the yard and I believe was killed by one of the cats – which, I don’t know, but I’ll put my bet on Bam Bam who is a long time stalker of prey. The reason I know this was a Norwegian is that my neighbor who I asked to get it out of the yard told me and he’s a biologist and knows these types of things.
Who knew Rudolph Steiner – I didn’t – before Tin started Waldorf, but since he’s been there it seems that Steiner is all around me – he is speaking about finance, he is speaking about agriculture, he is speaking about education, he is speaking about the spirit, he is speaking about community, he is speaking about compassion, he is speaking about our inner most selves – and he keeps on speaking – the man would be 150 years old today, and yet as one person said in the film clip we watched tonight of The Challenge of Ruldoph Steiner, he was not only ahead of his time, he is ahead of our time.
A four member tag-team of Steiner experts on social finance, biodiversity, education, and Anthroposophy spoke tonight at Tulane about social transformation as conceived by Steiner and its applicability in modernity. Each gave his/her view of Steiner’s three-fold concept of Spiritual/Cultural, Rights/Agreements, and Economics and while they were steeped in the silos of each of their disciplines it was most remarkable about how the three sectors overlapped and interwove and created a whole that connected them to a larger picture.
John Bloom distilled the sectors into Spiritual/Cultural being the principles of freedom, Economics that of brotherhood, sisterhood and mutuality, and Rights/Agreement that of Equality. His perspective was financial and he drew a picture from the three-fold concept of how the Western world has gone too far into its meet my needs mentality and why in awakening to other’s needs our needs are met (here in New Orleans we call this service).
Robert Karp described the three-fold concept via anecdote – Rights/Agreement, look no further than the recent Supreme Court’s decision to allow corporations to fund political campaigns as a right of free speech, which ends up further eroding equality rather than engendering it. Or rather if a patient were admitted to a hospital and doctors drew straws to see who would administer rather than who among them were the most capable – this is Spiritual/Cultural. Perhaps the most poignant example he cited came from his own camp and that is the budget of a farm, which is developed with the consumer and the consumer understands what it takes to run the farm and therefore the price is set between the farmer and the consumer – Economics – meeting one another’s needs. Biodiversity asks the question what does a farm look like? Is it what the industrial world has defined it as – a food factory – or is it a place of reciprocity between farmer, consumer and land?
John Bloom said if we get food right, everything else would fall into place – possibly my favorite take away from the evening.
Perhaps my other favorite take away was from Patrice Maynard who said we must trust human destiny – her message conveyed hope in its reverence for children all the way to our own society.
And Torin Finser told of a dream he had that reminded me of how my mother always recited a nursery rhyme for me when I was young, which went like this:
I see the moon
The moon sees me
God bless the moon
And God bless me.
Only after Tin arrived, I read a version of the poem that went like this:
I see the moon
The moon sees me
The moon sees the boy I hope to be
God bless the moon
And God bless me
And God bless the boy I hope to be
And in those last stanzas reside all that Steiner set out to accomplish when he moved away from trying to united his comrades into a vision of a new world order after WWI and instead began to plant the seed of tomorrow in the children by creating a platform where they (and we) could be all they hope to be.
Tin has been talking about Rogan a lot lately saying he “looks just like him” – Rogan is blonde, blue eyed and stocky. I tell him you look nothing like him.
But today, Tin said, “Mom, I want to look like Rogan.”
Mom said: “Look, Rogan is a cute boy, but I like the way you look, because when I see you my heart melts and I think you are perfect from your head to your toes.”
Tin points his finger at me and says: “You got it.”
SUCCESS IS AN INSIDE JOB.
Being relaxed, at peace with yourself,
confident, emotionally neutral, loose, and
free-floating- there are the keys to
successful performance in almost
everything you do.
dr wayne dyer