Tag: Nature

we are always changing (the ocean)

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The ocean is always changing.

I’ve read that, in various forms and architectures, many times over the years. So many iterations of the same, ancient human knowledge, and yet I have never truly known, not really, until today. I don’t think I fully understand anything until I’ve experienced it, viscerally, without analysis.

The thing about the ocean is that the waves are always there, the water always has a relatively consistent chemical makeup, and the sand changes so imperceptibly that it appears to remain the same for thousands of years.

And yet.

Every single time I walk to the beach and stand facing the horizon, the ocean is new. Completely, astonishingly new. There will never be another day, and never has been, when the ocean has been this particular shade of purple as the sun rests behind charcoal grey storm clouds, or this pale, shimmering blue like the inside of an oyster shell, or this impossible frothy thing, awash with orange as the last daylight slips beyond the horizon.

She is untamable.

The crests of her waves shine with bright pleasure one day, and the next she is throwing herself against the sand in grief. Just when I think I know her, can pin her down, find a pattern, she is off again. Using some other palette, some other context. Of course, we hear that the ocean is wild, in “the literature” (to be read with a posh British accent and a sardonic smile). She is a wild, mystical beast, you cannot tame her.

I plant my feet in the sand and gaze out at the water, open to whatever she has to say. Needing a guide. Needing connection. Hoping that her magnetic dance can draw me out of the cramped body I reside in. I have collected so many barriers that it often feels like I’m wandering a maze of my own design. Each wall has helped me, protected me, in moments of extreme distress, but now I need to let some go. I need a dissolving.

And she is here. She is as ephemeral as she is powerful. Her body never stops changing. Her shape never stops shifting. Her context never stops evolving, each part responding to another part, a tapestry of overlapping elements and systems.

I face the ocean and ask her the one question I am always asking.

A vision comes back to me. It is 2018. Tara Brach is guiding me through a meditation. I bring my most heavy, unmanageable problem to the feet of my most wise self. I ask for her guidance. I surrender to presence, breathing in and out. By way of an answer, I receive an image, clear and colorful. I am standing on a grassy riverbed. I am full of something. Is it hope? Is it peace? Is it fierceness? It is something close to equanimity. My bare feet rest firmly in the grass, arms relaxed by my side, as I look slightly up and to my left. I can see my back and the slender, half-moon shape of my profile, and my hands, like dancers by my sides. I see the river, slow, dark, wide. I see all of this from ten paces behind myself, watching the energetic breeze lift my long, brown hair, my fingertips sway slightly with the movement of the wind. I am alone, and yet, I am not alone in the slightest.

I think of this now as I stand before the ocean. Is this an answer? Or simply a continuation of the question. Does having an answer matter? The cycle continues. Just as the cycle of the tide, of each wave, even, has no ending, so does this question I am asking. This need. There will never be a question and answer that satisfies the longing, just as there will never be a moment when the ocean is exactly the same as she was before.

The ocean is always changing. She is wild, untamable, a beast, a mystery. Is she so different from us, then? Is she so separate? One day I am dancing down the sidewalk in the dark, and the next I am wishing I were gone. The parade, no, the circus, of emotions, saturates my body almost every moment of every day. I am elated, now I am scared, now I am heavy with regret. Nothing is constant. Just like her.

And I smile, then, because I realize that the ocean is teaching me. And the question will be asked, and the need will be presented, over and over, and true power will be created by the cyclical movement of it all. I realize that this power, the kind that I had in my vision, comes from being a witness to it all. I realize that it is not a dissolving I need, but an opening. I realize that my feet are holding up my body, pressing firmly into the earth, and that I am looking up and slightly to my left. And I am here.

Ocean

I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.
In the personal life, there is

always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.

-Mary Oliver, from Red Bird

all this will be ruins

Siena Rose1 Comment

All this will be ruins someday. The earth re-membering herself, re-calling her own Name. All this will be ruins someday. The bright red METRO MATTRESS DISCOUNT SLEEP SUPERSTORE sign will crack and sink into the soft forgiveness of the mud. Every Grande styrofoam cup will slowly settle beneath the dirt, snap into pieces, become one with bulging roots and galaxies of mycelium. There will be no plastic left, only vivid tangles of roots. Swelling. Sighing. It will all be ruins.

All this will be ruins someday. Every desperate, pavement-sodden parking lot will cry out in relief as burbling streams find their way through the concrete, saplings shove themselves up between tiny crevices, and grass sprouts up, along the perimeter, now in the middle, now in every possible direction. It will all be ruins.

All this will be ruins someday. Ruin, from the Latin word “ruere,” meaning “to fall violently,” turning into an Old English word meaning “act of giving way” and the Italian word “rovina,” meaning “to knock down, tear out, or dig up.” Ruins. What a relief to release the burden of progress and productivity. It will all be ruins.

All this will be ruins someday. A re-in-statement of the natural order of things. A letting-go of the chokehold we have on the world, this dangerous and exhausting myth of control. A digging up of all that we have imposed on Her. All this will be ruins someday.

May that day come sooner, rather than later.

nobody is abandoned

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It’s like feeling a flood of desire, sudden, without the usual bristling or wincing. The sky is the new blue gazing out of a baby’s face, not yet fully formed, inevitable. Everything – that burst of breeze, this unfurling leaf – feels just out of place enough so it feels like I have landed in an alien world. The grasses with their tiny white flowers. The insistent wind. The expectant, sweet air. The mothering of it all, the singing.

We sit in the warm grass and fall back, arms outstretched, letting the earth inhabit our bodies, hair tangled in the green grass, hours-old bugs flying inches from our noses.

And the sun. The Sun. Nobody is abandoned. We are swaddled in the sun. We are newborns. We are suppliants to the sun. We are on our death beds, smiling.

an evening visit

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I wouldn’t have thought to sit outside, with the air as cool as it was. This must be why we keep friends, I thought, so we’re not just doing what we always do, in the way we always do it. I wouldn’t have considered the blankets, and the warmth of the dogs, and the feeling of fresh air filling my lungs. It was my friend’s porch. Across town was my house, where we’ve experienced two drive-by shootings on our street, multiple stolen car chases, and a flat-out murder in our front yard, in which the wounded man stumbled down our driveway, finally collapsing and dying in our backyard by the lilac bush, where my partner found his body minutes later. Often, as I stand on our front porch drinking coffee, men will stop to inquire if I have a boyfriend, and if I work out, as if that is their business, as if I am inviting them to ask, just by existing on my own front porch in the morning. Across town, being outside has felt less relief, more risk. Outside, we’re at the whims of the natural order of things, but with guns. But here, in my friend’s neighborhood, where there hasn’t been a wayward gun shot for years, we took our blankets out to the back porch as the sun set in the evening. The light was a cool blue, sky still bright against the swallows and bats that flew eastward, mysteriously only flying in this one direction. We posited that maybe it was actually only one bat, flying in circles, just to confuse us. But this was simply a silly story made up to amuse ourselves as we sat there. We talked about the crops we were planting (zucchini, fruit trees, tomatoes) and what time of year was best to plant seeds. We talked about the work we were doing on our houses. We talked about how healing from trauma is non-linear, but how processing it seems to alleviate symptoms. We sat in silence a lot of the time. We talked to the dogs. We breathed in the air. Our nervous systems relaxed after each of our separate, scattered and stressful days. We watched the light die and noted how the longer days had somehow brought life back into our bodies. We talked about cycles. I wouldn’t have thought to sit outside, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

On Chicken Coops

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About two days ago, my grandma and I started receiving irksome texts from my dad. Where’s the chicken coop? he kept asking, I’m sure it’s on the property. He wouldn’t give it up – he even sent us pictures he had taken last year of this mysterious chicken coop that was supposedly in my grandma’s Floridian yard. The problem was, there was no chicken coop to be found. There was an old red shed, filled with mismatched chairs and gardening tools. There was a big deck, and a round outdoor table. There were palm trees and aloe growing everywhere. But no chicken coop.

My grandma made sure to clear this up with my dad. She told him that “the whole thing is gone” and that the previous owner “probably cleared it away so (the) house would sell better.” And so, after many bemused texts had been sent back and forth between my grandma and my dad, the mystery of the missing chicken coop mystery was dropped (the only person who truly dropped it was my grandma – I’m sure my dad was still agonizing over it).

Today, in a rush of inspiration, I decided to go on a search for the chicken coop. What’s the worst that could happen? I turned on “We Can Do Hard Things” by Glennon Doyle, and walked out into the sunshine of a gorgeous Florida afternoon. I felt like a brave adventurer, out to discover whatever might happen along my path.

In truth, I vaguely remembered where the chicken coop was. I was actually there when my dad first discovered it, and I remembered seeing it with him, and being astonished by this rare treasure: a relatively large chicken coop in the backyard of a house in the Florida Keys. But, because everything is generally very cloudy in my brain, I thought maybe the chicken coop had been at a different house, or that I was mixing it up with a childhood memory of a chicken coop, or that I had simply fabricated the memory of a backyard chicken coop, and now it was parading around in my mind like a real memory, trying to trick me.

So when my dad first started sending chicken coop inquiries, something dim stirred in my brain. I ignored that dim response (because it was dim) and continued on with my life. But after a couple of days, the call of the chicken coop grew too strong to resist: I knew it was out there. All I had to do was go out and find it.

A minute later, I was standing in front of the chicken coop door. It was mostly obscured by vines. We had missed it because, until yesterday, there was a big tree covering it. We assumed the shed was a part of our neighbor’s property – we didn’t realize that we had access to a door. In that moment, I felt like Mary in The Secret Garden (I reread that book this past summer – there is some problematic racism in it, but I still connected, on a deep level, with the story of a girl growing healthy by spending so much time playing outside) finding the door for the first time.

I yanked it a couple of times, and it opened. Then, I snapped a few pics to send to the group text with my dad and my grandma. Proof. And then I went back inside and continued on with my day.

Moral of the story? What you’re looking for might just be right in front of you.

Just kidding. There’s no moral. It’s just really ridiculous that my grandma and I didn’t know there was a chicken coop in our backyard.

On Driftwood

Siena Rose4 Comments

This morning my grandma and I woke up in the darkness at 6am to shoot a music video.

We wouldn’t have done this, except we were walking along a remote beach last week, and came across this abandoned homestead made of driftwood. There once was a community of people living here, my grandma said: I used to see them when I walked my dog down here years ago. In place of the colorful tents and long-haired men that once nestled into the sand, only a driftwood castle remained. They built this massive, angular structure, the center of their village, the gathering place. They tied emblems to the ends of the bone-dry branches: old Nikes, beautiful glass bottles, buoys, and strips of colorful ribbon. They painted a few branches with vibrant blues, yellows, and pinks, penning all-seeing eyes and names of past lovers. They put up a plaque for someone named “Red” who died there in 2009. There were clear outlines of different rooms, like the Aztec ruins in New Mexico.

When we first came across the driftwood complex, I felt like I was in Peter Pan’s wonderland. The place had magic. I felt so inspired. I casually mentioned how great it would be to shoot a music video there, and my grandma said, why not? We should do it.

I don’t think many people can say that their grandma was the videographer for their music video. I’m feeling really blessed to be in this position. My grandma happens to be a really masterful photographer, so she’s accustomed to being behind the camera, and was really excited about collaborating on this project with me. And I’m accustomed to being in front of it – it’s part of my job as a professional musician. I especially love shooting music videos where I’m interacting with nature – I shot one on an iPhone camera last fall, and made one with Lilac Milk last winter.

So this morning we drove out to the beach for sunrise and shot the first footage for the new music video for my song Meteor. In the castle on the sand.

Breathe

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mug of tea, you sit there so silently
you make it look easy
to simply be

maple tree, bending in the breeze
you seem so happy
you seem so free

I’m not looking for much – just a little relief,
just a hunger for touch.

And a place I can breathe,
a place I can be happy.

river wide, taking life in your stride
you have nowhere to hide
where do you go to cry?

winter ice, preserving the night
you seem so calm inside
where do your traumas lie?

I’m not looking for much – just a little relief,
just a hunger for touch.

And a place I can breathe,
a place I can be happy.

I’m not looking for much – just a little relief,
just a hunger for touch.

And, as I stand by this dream,
I finally can be free.

May

Siena Rose1 Comment

there is a time to rest

among the soft flowers

[they exist

whether you are there

or not]