This is a photo of me unwinding a tangled buoy line on Burrows Island.
This blog has been about untangling while holding onto the thin cord between the worlds.
Today I signed the transfer papers for the land at the title company. Arriving in Anacortes brought a wave of sad-happiness. The tears were close to the eyes and hovering. After the signing I pulled into the port parking lot to listen to the wind moan in the sailboat rigging. Mars was rising over the Cascades. The sea was a froth of bioluminescence. All the sadness, all the schemes fell away as walked to the point called “Cap Sante”. I only felt gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I leaned out, over the railing on the cobble beach and told the wind: “It’s like I lived a whole life here. I did have a studio in the old hotel! I did write the book about spirits in the waves! I did sew the song of my kayak through every channel and tidal flat! I did love deeply enough to grieve with open moans and an old mans body!”
The story of this place deepened because it has been an Avalon… a blessed isle for me. It’s a place made holy because I fell into moments out of being present and quiet. My solitude brought me closer to the land and the hum of the sea. I think about how this place is now in my bones…the salted wind and splash song of cobbles rollicking in the waves. These are the very songs of the universe… inside of me!
I never really took the chance to see a place or a hold great love until I took the chance and came here. I found my emotional self here. And now I leave this particular place. And this is a sort of death. And yet this leaving is pointing to other forms of Avalon, perhaps closer to my everyday life. I am grateful that I could be loved by the land here, especially in the havens of fir and arbutus along the shoreline. Once you bring some part of beauty, a way of love, or a landscape into yourself it can only grow deeper and richer and more alive. The engine for this deepening healing comes from gratitude.
All the sorrow of losing my beloved, witnessing the death of the forest, wrestling with my self imposed isolation led me to this very moment. And this moment probably is the only real thing. Tomorrow I visit the land one more time. Tomorrow I let the standing stones remain just as they are with no elaborate ceremony or decommissioning. Before I go I thank them and sing to them. And I leave the shame about the dreams that I let slide. The stones might be buried by a machine or lovingly wedged into a wall or even carted away. It is as it is. And I can’t help but wonder what imprint the stones and the earth I (we) loved will carry into the future? The fancy houses and the plans of the new people will also pass someday. And the stones and the earth and even the song of the shoreline forest will remain somehow because I saw them. The summer moments of reclining hand in hand in the grasses, the poems I made, the laughter on the edge of a dream in the morning, I hope these all reverberate and bless everyone who comes to this place even as I disappear.
Avalon is a holy place that appears and then fades and then appears again in the mist. It is a place where the Beloved teaches that religion is kindness and love is compassionate attention. Like the land, these are things that cannot be possessed. They only live when they are passed on in gratitude.
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This blog has been about untangling while holding onto the thin cord between the worlds.
Today I signed the transfer papers for the land at the title company. Arriving in Anacortes brought a wave of sad-happiness. The tears were close to the eyes and hovering. After the signing I pulled into the port parking lot to listen to the wind moan in the sailboat rigging. Mars was rising over the Cascades. The sea was a froth of bioluminescence. All the sadness, all the schemes fell away as walked to the point called “Cap Sante”. I only felt gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. I leaned out, over the railing on the cobble beach and told the wind: “It’s like I lived a whole life here. I did have a studio in the old hotel! I did write the book about spirits in the waves! I did sew the song of my kayak through every channel and tidal flat! I did love deeply enough to grieve with open moans and an old mans body!”
The story of this place deepened because it has been an Avalon… a blessed isle for me. It’s a place made holy because I fell into moments out of being present and quiet. My solitude brought me closer to the land and the hum of the sea. I think about how this place is now in my bones…the salted wind and splash song of cobbles rollicking in the waves. These are the very songs of the universe… inside of me!
I never really took the chance to see a place or a hold great love until I took the chance and came here. I found my emotional self here. And now I leave this particular place. And this is a sort of death. And yet this leaving is pointing to other forms of Avalon, perhaps closer to my everyday life. I am grateful that I could be loved by the land here, especially in the havens of fir and arbutus along the shoreline. Once you bring some part of beauty, a way of love, or a landscape into yourself it can only grow deeper and richer and more alive. The engine for this deepening healing comes from gratitude.
All the sorrow of losing my beloved, witnessing the death of the forest, wrestling with my self imposed isolation led me to this very moment. And this moment probably is the only real thing. Tomorrow I visit the land one more time. Tomorrow I let the standing stones remain just as they are with no elaborate ceremony or decommissioning. Before I go I thank them and sing to them. And I leave the shame about the dreams that I let slide. The stones might be buried by a machine or lovingly wedged into a wall or even carted away. It is as it is. And I can’t help but wonder what imprint the stones and the earth I (we) loved will carry into the future? The fancy houses and the plans of the new people will also pass someday. And the stones and the earth and even the song of the shoreline forest will remain somehow because I saw them. The summer moments of reclining hand in hand in the grasses, the poems I made, the laughter on the edge of a dream in the morning, I hope these all reverberate and bless everyone who comes to this place even as I disappear.
Avalon is a holy place that appears and then fades and then appears again in the mist. It is a place where the Beloved teaches that religion is kindness and love is compassionate attention. Like the land, these are things that cannot be possessed. They only live when they are passed on in gratitude.
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