VISIONS OF GAIA (p2)
5 SONG OF THE SOUTH
_
Let Freedom Ring
* 'How have I loved thee? Let me count the ways.’ *
From the air, looking down on green fields,
Or peering thru snowflakes, praying to see land;
Traveling past cloud towers of sculpted
Whip-cream cumulus
Low gravity snowdrifts of fantastic shapes-
And that is just seeing you from the air.
Now, driving deeper into the South
Honeysuckle air wrapping me sweetly
and seductively filling my senses.
Hills mist-shrouded and lush
Elder hardwoods standing straight and blooming
Tulip poplars and sycamores
Thistle and teasel and mullein
Sweet clover and alfalfa
and wheat already gold.
My senses are assaulted
And my heart is freed
from the bondage of the North.
Each time I fret and start to pick up
The burden I have put down
Another breath releases me.
My husband would call me a slut
So to love the land
So to feel this rapture,
To feel my heart lift up
And praise the Lord
that I can see this land again.
And I am not home yet.
This is Pennsylvania and Maryland.
We haven’t gotten to the farm yet
To my own trees, my own fields, my own creek.
My land which he calls worthless and empty
Because the last time he was down
He didn’t get a deer.
He doesn’t see the beauty, he doesn’t see the value.
He gets depressed.
Tough shit.
This time I didn’t bring him.
This time I don’t have to worry about satisfying him,
about whether he’s happy.
I can open my heart to the land, and take the time
to share these places with my son.
This is our time together with the land.
I want many more times like this.
The warm air caresses me.
I go on and on, further into freedom with each mile and breath.
The air getting thicker,
The land opening up into canyons dark and green,
tempting us to explore their depths.
Flowers and moss, running brook and waterfall.
Wide rivers with children at play.
Freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom is in the heart.
* this line is from Elizabeth Barrett browning, 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
* 'How have I loved thee? Let me count the ways.’ *
From the air, looking down on green fields,
Or peering thru snowflakes, praying to see land;
Traveling past cloud towers of sculpted
Whip-cream cumulus
Low gravity snowdrifts of fantastic shapes-
And that is just seeing you from the air.
Now, driving deeper into the South
Honeysuckle air wrapping me sweetly
and seductively filling my senses.
Hills mist-shrouded and lush
Elder hardwoods standing straight and blooming
Tulip poplars and sycamores
Thistle and teasel and mullein
Sweet clover and alfalfa
and wheat already gold.
My senses are assaulted
And my heart is freed
from the bondage of the North.
Each time I fret and start to pick up
The burden I have put down
Another breath releases me.
My husband would call me a slut
So to love the land
So to feel this rapture,
To feel my heart lift up
And praise the Lord
that I can see this land again.
And I am not home yet.
This is Pennsylvania and Maryland.
We haven’t gotten to the farm yet
To my own trees, my own fields, my own creek.
My land which he calls worthless and empty
Because the last time he was down
He didn’t get a deer.
He doesn’t see the beauty, he doesn’t see the value.
He gets depressed.
Tough shit.
This time I didn’t bring him.
This time I don’t have to worry about satisfying him,
about whether he’s happy.
I can open my heart to the land, and take the time
to share these places with my son.
This is our time together with the land.
I want many more times like this.
The warm air caresses me.
I go on and on, further into freedom with each mile and breath.
The air getting thicker,
The land opening up into canyons dark and green,
tempting us to explore their depths.
Flowers and moss, running brook and waterfall.
Wide rivers with children at play.
Freedom, freedom, freedom,
Freedom is in the heart.
* this line is from Elizabeth Barrett browning, 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
_
6 ADOLESCENT RAINSTORM
_
Nature has called to me at many times, in many ways. This particular encounter occurred when I was barely adolescent, and a rain had come. My sisters and I were at home with my mother. I am sure my stepfather wasn’t at home. It had to have been spring or summer. The urge took me, and I asked my mother if I could take my clothes off and run out into the rain. She said OK (I can’t imagine what she was thinking) and off I went, into the rain shower.
The light was extraordinary, and the air was full of warm rain. I ran off down the hill, and out into the field as I was enveloped in the sensation.
I will never forget it, the feel of the shimmering rain. It was an encounter that I took for granted at the time, and only now see how lovely a dance it was.
Now, better than forty years later, I still recall the loveliness.
Nature has called to me at many times, in many ways. This particular encounter occurred when I was barely adolescent, and a rain had come. My sisters and I were at home with my mother. I am sure my stepfather wasn’t at home. It had to have been spring or summer. The urge took me, and I asked my mother if I could take my clothes off and run out into the rain. She said OK (I can’t imagine what she was thinking) and off I went, into the rain shower.
The light was extraordinary, and the air was full of warm rain. I ran off down the hill, and out into the field as I was enveloped in the sensation.
I will never forget it, the feel of the shimmering rain. It was an encounter that I took for granted at the time, and only now see how lovely a dance it was.
Now, better than forty years later, I still recall the loveliness.
7 THE GREEN MAN AND THE DANCING MAIDEN OF SPRING
_
So- it was April 2010. For several years I had been writing down poems and/or visions, many nature-based; many of which came to me while driving and some in dreams. More recently as I studied Shamanism in the context of comparative spirituality, as well as brain information processing, I became more interested in the topic of visions.
In this particular case, it has been a strange spring. The winter was warm, and the spring has been quite wet. As a result, 4/1/10 is not still deep in snow, but rather the fields are greening up aggressively. I was on Rte 22, can’t remember if it was around Smiling Hill Farm, out halfway, or by the fields in Scarborough just about to the Buxton line.
As I looked at the curve of the field in its green skin, I got a very distinct feeling of the shape of a man’s flank, reclining in the sun. Not the entire organism, but just the feel of the skin the liveness, and the identity. When I say ‘feeling’, it was tangible- as if my spiritual hands had touched it. As time has progressed, I have become more understanding of the hands as sites of mini-chakras from whence come the same connections that allow 2-way interconnectedness with Life and all its forms.
It was an hour later when I was feeding the cows at home and hearing spring birdsong that I put it together with the frequent vision of the spring maiden, dancing in her many guises of willow-the-wisp fog over a pond, or the shimmering of early leaves, and of course the voice of birdsong itself.
And the 2 cohered into a whole. I can still feel it looking out the window beside my computer desk here on April 2nd. I have never been comfortable with the ‘Green Man’ concept, but this was so fundamental an identity with the fields and the sweep of the land, that it was obvious. An interesting twist on ‘Mother Earth’. Oh well, sex and gender are relative concepts.
**********************************************************************************************
Addendum to THE GREEN MAN AND THE DANCING MAIDEN OF SPRING
4/6/2018- It has been a hard winter, and April has been more of the same- very much a winter month. And yet- as we see each sign of advancing spring, there has been opportunity to draw together 'The Dancing Maiden of Spring' into a more complete piece. It draws on 'Will O the Wisp' (7/15/03, getting in the hay) as well as 'Green Man' (April 2010).
The Maiden, of course, is always here, in all seasons, in some guise, and holds the heart and power of beauty and youth and innocence. I am sure she strides through the harshest blizzard and revels in its power as well (think Elsa in 'Frozen')
**********************************************************************************************
The dancing maiden of spring
How we long for you!
Willow-the-wisp
fog over pond,
shimmer of early leaves,
voice of birdsong!
The snow is cleared,
your dance floor awaits.
Nature is hardly silent,
Spring's cacaphony ensues,
owls and cattle,
geese and doves.
Soon we must see you.
stopping to stroke the pussywillows,
lending grace-notes to opening flowers,
dancing with the lightest foot,
with a smile to echo the sun as you turn.
O my beloved.
So- it was April 2010. For several years I had been writing down poems and/or visions, many nature-based; many of which came to me while driving and some in dreams. More recently as I studied Shamanism in the context of comparative spirituality, as well as brain information processing, I became more interested in the topic of visions.
In this particular case, it has been a strange spring. The winter was warm, and the spring has been quite wet. As a result, 4/1/10 is not still deep in snow, but rather the fields are greening up aggressively. I was on Rte 22, can’t remember if it was around Smiling Hill Farm, out halfway, or by the fields in Scarborough just about to the Buxton line.
As I looked at the curve of the field in its green skin, I got a very distinct feeling of the shape of a man’s flank, reclining in the sun. Not the entire organism, but just the feel of the skin the liveness, and the identity. When I say ‘feeling’, it was tangible- as if my spiritual hands had touched it. As time has progressed, I have become more understanding of the hands as sites of mini-chakras from whence come the same connections that allow 2-way interconnectedness with Life and all its forms.
It was an hour later when I was feeding the cows at home and hearing spring birdsong that I put it together with the frequent vision of the spring maiden, dancing in her many guises of willow-the-wisp fog over a pond, or the shimmering of early leaves, and of course the voice of birdsong itself.
And the 2 cohered into a whole. I can still feel it looking out the window beside my computer desk here on April 2nd. I have never been comfortable with the ‘Green Man’ concept, but this was so fundamental an identity with the fields and the sweep of the land, that it was obvious. An interesting twist on ‘Mother Earth’. Oh well, sex and gender are relative concepts.
**********************************************************************************************
Addendum to THE GREEN MAN AND THE DANCING MAIDEN OF SPRING
4/6/2018- It has been a hard winter, and April has been more of the same- very much a winter month. And yet- as we see each sign of advancing spring, there has been opportunity to draw together 'The Dancing Maiden of Spring' into a more complete piece. It draws on 'Will O the Wisp' (7/15/03, getting in the hay) as well as 'Green Man' (April 2010).
The Maiden, of course, is always here, in all seasons, in some guise, and holds the heart and power of beauty and youth and innocence. I am sure she strides through the harshest blizzard and revels in its power as well (think Elsa in 'Frozen')
**********************************************************************************************
The dancing maiden of spring
How we long for you!
Willow-the-wisp
fog over pond,
shimmer of early leaves,
voice of birdsong!
The snow is cleared,
your dance floor awaits.
Nature is hardly silent,
Spring's cacaphony ensues,
owls and cattle,
geese and doves.
Soon we must see you.
stopping to stroke the pussywillows,
lending grace-notes to opening flowers,
dancing with the lightest foot,
with a smile to echo the sun as you turn.
O my beloved.
8 The Rut
_ It was a dream- probably dreamt in
winter- but in the dreamtime it was more likely full summer or fall. In the dream it was
night, probably full moon, and the bedroom windows were open. I was alone, standing by the closet. In the half-dark,
there was a mist- half visible, half a scent.
It came in waves; waves of scent and sight that were palpably thick like honey, thick enough to nearly be running down the window panes.. I could feel it, I could smell it, and I could see it. It seems to me that it was a manifestation of pheromones of desire. It was clear to me that I was a human having the experience that for deer would be the rut in males, or estrus in females. . I knew I was going to go out the window eventually but there was no hurry. For the moment I was mesmerized by the intensity and the intoxicating beauty of the experience.
The nearest thing I have seen to this in reality is when the pines loose their pollen. In certain years, on a warm day, if you look across a field at a grove of pines, all of them release the pollen together and it rolls out in billowing clouds. Tree sex.
When I search my memory for analogies, I come up with more. It is a little reminiscent of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, when Titania falls under the spell of the juice of a flower transformed by the effect of cupid's arrow. The mechanism is different, but even the title 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' perfectly evokes the experience.
Years after this dream, I heard again the old song 'Dance with me' and realized that it also catches the feeling.
I later put a new greenhouse on the side of the house. The bedroom windows now open into the greenhouse. When the jasmine and the brugmannsia come into bloom, I get wafts of the experience as well. But I had the dream better than 2 years before I built the greenhouse.
It came in waves; waves of scent and sight that were palpably thick like honey, thick enough to nearly be running down the window panes.. I could feel it, I could smell it, and I could see it. It seems to me that it was a manifestation of pheromones of desire. It was clear to me that I was a human having the experience that for deer would be the rut in males, or estrus in females. . I knew I was going to go out the window eventually but there was no hurry. For the moment I was mesmerized by the intensity and the intoxicating beauty of the experience.
The nearest thing I have seen to this in reality is when the pines loose their pollen. In certain years, on a warm day, if you look across a field at a grove of pines, all of them release the pollen together and it rolls out in billowing clouds. Tree sex.
When I search my memory for analogies, I come up with more. It is a little reminiscent of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, when Titania falls under the spell of the juice of a flower transformed by the effect of cupid's arrow. The mechanism is different, but even the title 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' perfectly evokes the experience.
Years after this dream, I heard again the old song 'Dance with me' and realized that it also catches the feeling.
I later put a new greenhouse on the side of the house. The bedroom windows now open into the greenhouse. When the jasmine and the brugmannsia come into bloom, I get wafts of the experience as well. But I had the dream better than 2 years before I built the greenhouse.
_9 DANCE WITH ME
_
As I have been assembling this folder, it came clearer to me that the preceding three pieces should be grouped together (‘Adolescent Rainstorm’, ‘The Green Man and the Dancing Maiden of Spring’, and ‘The Rut') .
I realized they have a common theme- that of the dance with the animating spirit or spirits of what we call ‘nature’.
John Hall and Johanna Hall wrote a song that I heard years ago (‘Dance With Me’), and it sums up these experiences perfectly.
Chronologically, I had experienced ‘Adolescent Rainstorm’ in about 1964. I was living here on the farm, and lived the experience, but didn’t write it down til about 2010. ‘The Rut’ also occurred here on the farm, before 2008, and maybe a few years before that. ‘The Green Maiden’ I have seen all over the place- here on the farm, out in Missouri, in Maine, in Florida; she is everywhere as one of the manifestations of Gaia. ‘The Green Man’ happened very specifically in 2010, as I was driving by someone else’s farm. I carried the vision- maybe writing it down on the way home, maybe after I got home- but the same day. Somewhere during that trip, the song ‘Dance with Me’, came on the radio. I hadn’t heard it in years.
Later that day, after I had fed the cows, I was looking out the barn door. The Green Man and the Dancing Maiden came together in my mind (I ‘saw’ her in the garden). I said, ‘huh’ and walked across the field to the gate. As my hand touched the gate, the visions and the song came together.
It was astounding. It had not been many days previous that I had been working in the garden, thinking of my husband and our wasted relationship. The words had come out of my mouth- ‘I need a working partner’. And now, here I was with the words of the song (see below), specifically speaking of a partner, and the vision accompanying it.
I am partnered with nature, in this extraordinary dance. When you think about it, the garden could not succeed, the farm could not succeed, life itself could not succeed, without this partner which is called ‘nature’ but which can as easily be called ‘The Creator.
So here is the song. You have probably heard it before.
Dance with me, I want to be your partner
Can't you see the music is just starting?
Night is falling, and I am calling
Dance with me
Fantasy could never be so giving
I feel free, I hope that you are willing
Pick your feet up, and kick your feet up
Dance with me
Let it lift you off the ground
Starry eyes, and love is all around
I can take you where you want to go
Dance with me, I want to be your partner
Can't you see the music is just starting?
Night is falling, and I am calling
Dance with me
[ break ]
Let it lift you off the ground
Starry eyes, and love is all around
I can take you where you want to go
Fantasy could never be so giving
I feel free, I hope that you are willing
To pick your feet up, kick your feet up
And dance with me
Dance with me, I want to be your partner
Can't you see the music is just starting?
Night is falling, and I am calling
Dance with me Dance with me
Dance with me
WRITERS JOHN HALL, JOHANNA HALL
It is truly astonishing and moving, that a woman of nearly 60 should be living this dance. How long has nature been calling me? As an adolescent, I had the sense to run out into the rain. I heard the call and I responded. With the dream of the rut, I recorded it and pondered it; I understood some of it right away, but it was years before fuller understanding came to me.
What *is* this that I am ‘seeing’?
As I have been assembling this folder, it came clearer to me that the preceding three pieces should be grouped together (‘Adolescent Rainstorm’, ‘The Green Man and the Dancing Maiden of Spring’, and ‘The Rut') .
I realized they have a common theme- that of the dance with the animating spirit or spirits of what we call ‘nature’.
John Hall and Johanna Hall wrote a song that I heard years ago (‘Dance With Me’), and it sums up these experiences perfectly.
Chronologically, I had experienced ‘Adolescent Rainstorm’ in about 1964. I was living here on the farm, and lived the experience, but didn’t write it down til about 2010. ‘The Rut’ also occurred here on the farm, before 2008, and maybe a few years before that. ‘The Green Maiden’ I have seen all over the place- here on the farm, out in Missouri, in Maine, in Florida; she is everywhere as one of the manifestations of Gaia. ‘The Green Man’ happened very specifically in 2010, as I was driving by someone else’s farm. I carried the vision- maybe writing it down on the way home, maybe after I got home- but the same day. Somewhere during that trip, the song ‘Dance with Me’, came on the radio. I hadn’t heard it in years.
Later that day, after I had fed the cows, I was looking out the barn door. The Green Man and the Dancing Maiden came together in my mind (I ‘saw’ her in the garden). I said, ‘huh’ and walked across the field to the gate. As my hand touched the gate, the visions and the song came together.
It was astounding. It had not been many days previous that I had been working in the garden, thinking of my husband and our wasted relationship. The words had come out of my mouth- ‘I need a working partner’. And now, here I was with the words of the song (see below), specifically speaking of a partner, and the vision accompanying it.
I am partnered with nature, in this extraordinary dance. When you think about it, the garden could not succeed, the farm could not succeed, life itself could not succeed, without this partner which is called ‘nature’ but which can as easily be called ‘The Creator.
So here is the song. You have probably heard it before.
Dance with me, I want to be your partner
Can't you see the music is just starting?
Night is falling, and I am calling
Dance with me
Fantasy could never be so giving
I feel free, I hope that you are willing
Pick your feet up, and kick your feet up
Dance with me
Let it lift you off the ground
Starry eyes, and love is all around
I can take you where you want to go
Dance with me, I want to be your partner
Can't you see the music is just starting?
Night is falling, and I am calling
Dance with me
[ break ]
Let it lift you off the ground
Starry eyes, and love is all around
I can take you where you want to go
Fantasy could never be so giving
I feel free, I hope that you are willing
To pick your feet up, kick your feet up
And dance with me
Dance with me, I want to be your partner
Can't you see the music is just starting?
Night is falling, and I am calling
Dance with me Dance with me
Dance with me
WRITERS JOHN HALL, JOHANNA HALL
It is truly astonishing and moving, that a woman of nearly 60 should be living this dance. How long has nature been calling me? As an adolescent, I had the sense to run out into the rain. I heard the call and I responded. With the dream of the rut, I recorded it and pondered it; I understood some of it right away, but it was years before fuller understanding came to me.
What *is* this that I am ‘seeing’?