Snow and a labyrinth

Well, I guess snow in Vermont is about the least surprising news of the century.   It did, however, give me a chance to hone my snow-labyrinth-creating skills out in South Hero. See my post of 11/11/14 for more details of snow labyrinths.



Quality control: Johnny testing the Labyrinth

That's Stave Island in the background.

First snow, winter 2014/15, my house in Burlington VT.
I seem to have this same shot from each of the past 18 years!

A Little Jersey Heifer

 

English farmland

In every relationship I‘ve ever had – and there have been a few – there is a pivotal moment, a "make your mind up" instant ,on which the whole future of the relationship hangs.

We were standing in the barn one cold spring morning when I realized that Chris had already made his choice, made up his mind, and it was time for me to make up my mind.

We’d been dating for about 18 months. I’d found him in a catalog – Green Singles – which seemed like a good idea as it meant the men would be pre-selected for environmental friendliness.

I sent in my £20 and my 100 word blurb about myself – how could they resist me? And they asked me for the three things I most wanted in a man – besides being green and single of course! Number one was easy: Tall! I had to think a while about number 2, but after all, what could be more important than: Tall. Then number three followed quite naturally: Tall.

Pretty soon I received my list of twelve tall green single men living not too far from me in southern England.

I got myself a three-ring notebook – you remember Mitt Romney’s binder of women? This was  my binder of men, with little page protectors for each one, in which I put their photos and notes about our conversations and meetings.

Pretty soon I whittled the twelve down to two – Chris, of whom more later, and Malcolm. Malcolm was a gamekeeper. I’m a big fan of D.H. Lawrence, so I knew that every girl needs a gamekeeper at some time in her life. It was a tough choice, but Malcolm made it for me when he decided to take a job up on the Yorkshire Moors, hundreds of miles away from where I lived.

So Malcolm went off to Bronte country and I was left with Chris. Chris was a farmer and the farm was called Manhood End.

It was a 20-acre small holding where he lived with his father, mother, 99-year-old grandmother and his brother. Over the years they’d done just about everything you could do in a smallholding to raise money, but by this time Chris had settled down to raising beef cattle and flowers which he sold to the local florist.

I was a single parent of two young children and was holding down a very demanding public relations job in a town about 30 miles away from where Chris lived.  Our relationship flourished. We had a lot in common as well as both being green and single. We saw each other on weekends and he sometimes came over in the week, too.

A little jersey heifer

He really loved animals a lot, so I wasn’t surprised when he told me one day: “My neighbor just bought six little jersey heifers. I went to see them and one of them came right up to me and looked at me out of those big brown eyes. I couldn’t resist:  I bought her, and her name is Emily.”

I thought: “Aw, how nice, what a lovely man, he loves animals so much.”

It wasn’t until later that I began to think about what a little jersey heifer would grow into. Some of you may have a farming background and know that a jersey heifer grows into a milking cow. And a milking cow can put a real damper on a social life.

But that was off in the future, and in the meantime our relationship was flourishing. With two young children and a busy job I didn’t often have a chance to get away, but Chris and I were thinking that it would nice to have a small vacation together, so I managed to arrange for my mother to look after the children over Easter weekend. In Britain that’s a four-day weekend because both the Friday before and the Monday after Easter are public holidays.  We hadn’t decided exactly where we’d go, but I knew it was going to be a really precious time, and I was looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, Emily was growing up. Chris had her artificially inseminated - not a pretty sight.

Which brings us to the cold spring day in question, when we were standing in the barn and I said: “I thought me might go to Dorset over Easter weekend. There are some good beaches down there. What do you think?” He looked at me blankly: “Easter weekend?”

 

“Yes” I said, “For our vacation, Easter weekend.”

“Oh I can’t go away Easter weekend,” he said. “That’s when Emily’s going to have her calf.”

I was stunned: I could not believe that this man had chosen to arrange Emily's insemination so that she would be dropping her calf at the very time we were supposed to be enjoying our precious vacation. I could see that he’d already made up his mind about who was important to him, and it was time for me to make up mine. And that, my friends, was the end of the relationship, because that was the first and only time that I have been passed over for a cow.

(Story copyright Julia Lynam 2014)

 

Miracle number two: The Moth

Julia: storyteller

I have issues with personal story telling. There’s lots of it about, especially if you like to listen to spoken word radio, as I do: The Moth and Story Corps on NPR, not to mention TED talks and On Point.  BBC Radio 4 is also full of them. Even in our modest city of Burlington there are four or five different groups running occasional Open Mics and StorySlams.





Ranger Julia telling story to hawk

I’ve been telling stories all my life (that statement’s open to interpretation, isn’t it!). I remember telling stories to my little sister, seven years younger than me, as we walked the mile to school along Cardiff streets. Years later I “became a storyteller” constructing programs of traditional stories to tell at libraries, schools and camps. Later still I became a national park ranger and realized that the job consisted largely in bringing to life true stories about nature, people, places and events in stunningly beautiful locations.  

 Somehow, in recent years I slipped into telling personal stories. I blame Recille. She encourages me. She runs a gentle story-sharing circle at the public library in Williston, Vermont, on sporadic Mondays. I enjoy the challenge of plucking a true story out of my memory to fit the prompts she provides. But it didn’t stop there.  I joined one of her school projects and told my American Parcel story at Charlotte Central School. I began attending her Open Mics, which are non-competitive: we simply enjoy and appreciate one another’s stories. But then I discovered competitive events like the Vermont Storytellers evening held in the Monkey Bar in Winooski and Extempo, the monthly central Vermont StorySlam organized by the elegant Jen Dole.

 The pace was hotting up. There were winners at these events, judged in various ways. If there are winners there must also be losers Hmmm.  I began to have my doubt about this whole thing. What were we doing? Why were we telling these stories? Why was I getting up there under the lights, microphone in hand, to talk about myself? What is personal storytelling about anyway?

 

"The proper study of
mankind is man"

The proper study of humankind may well be other people, to paraphrase Alexander Pope, which means we all enjoy a well-told story about someone else's life; but should that lead us to hang out our dirty linen in public and invite others to laugh at it? Or are we connecting to subjects of universal significance by using particular illustrations from our own experiences?

 Besides which, I wasn’t winning. I came near once at Extempo, but no result.

 So I was backing off this whole idea. I was busy working in the national park, telling stories all day; I had no wish to do it in the evenings, too, I told myself.

 Then The Moth came to Burlington. That’s the real thing: the National Public Radio syndicated thing. Every month in 2014 a Moth StorySlam would be held. Anyone was invited to participate, throw their name in the hat (literally) and take the chance of being one of the ten selected tellers that night. There would be judging. There would be one winner each time.

It was hard to get tickets and I was living away from Burlington, but the lure of a national program of personal storytelling was too great for me, so I managed to get a ticket for the September event and my name was drawn. I thought I told a good story on the required theme of “Pride”, but no result. I noted that the winning story was, as usual, a funny, sexy one. That’s what the crowd likes. Aw, well, I wasn't keen on the idea of competitive storytelling anyway. I had philosophical caveats about it.

Come November, I decided to go along as a mere spectator. The theme was “Rivalry” and I couldn’t think of a story; and I didn’t want to compete anyway.   I settled down with my glass of wine, my friend next to me, and listened.

We were into the third story of the evening when it came to me: “Of course I have a “Rivalry” story! The Little Jersey Heifer is a “Rivalry” story!   How could I have been so stupid as not to realize that?”  I sat there chastising myself and silently rehearsing my story to see if it really fit. It did!!! It did, it did!  And I hadn’t put my name in the hat! Stupid, stupid, stupid.

The interval intervened. Recille turned and surprised me by asking: “What are you thinking about?” I stalled. I wasn’t ready to share this stupidity of mine. Besides, I now had a plan.  “Oh” I extemporized  “I was thinking how people respond to stories about places they know, the local connection is a really good idea, don't you think.”

I excused myself, ostensibly to go to the bathroom, which I did anyway just to make the excuse real. But en route I diverted to the stage and casually asked the handsome young director: “Do you have enough tellers tonight? Because I didn’t put my name in but I’d like to tell if you need someone.”  He smiled gently and replied: “Oh yes, we’ve got enough tonight – but you could come and tell at Brattleboro on Tuesday.”

What I thought was: “Frigging Brattleboro – that’s nearly 200 miles away, I’m not driving down there in the dark on a hope and a prayer!”   What I said was “Oh dear, thanks anyway.”

I resumed my seat, determined to put this frustration and disappointment behind me. I was mentally rating the tellers, figuring out who had won, when, following the eighth story, the handsome young director came to the microphone. “It seems some people have left, and we don’t have enough tellers," he announced:  “There was someone who came up to me in the interval asking about telling. Is that person still here?” Is she, by gum! “That was me” I hissed to Recille. I raised my hand – yes, that was me.

So, miraculously, I was the tenth teller that night. I told my heart out. I hit the high spots and the low spots, and in between I kept them guessing. They laughed in all the right places; they applauded when I finished. It was funny; it was sexy; even more miraculously - it won!

Yes, I won the Moth StorySlam. And, y’know what: this competitive storytelling might not be such a bad idea after all!

Oh, are you wondering about the story of The Little Jersey Heifer? Watch for my next Post!

 

 

Animalia

This is not the miracle I meant to write about in my next post, but today I received this picture of  these free-standing painted plywood animals created by artist Liza and ranger Marie at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont.  They're intended for use in children's programs.

I think they're quite miraculous!

Liza is looking for work, so if anyone needs an artist of this caliber, please let me know.

A Time of Miracles

Miracle number one is my friend Sally. I first met her in a dancing circle many years ago and we re-connected last year on the Winter Solstice at the Earth Clock in Burlington. Since then she’s become an intrinsic part of my group of dancing friends here.

 

Just over two weeks ago, on a Thursday, Sally’s heart stopped. She suffered a

massive cardiac arrest and fell down dead. Miraculously, in the room with her at the exercise class were medically trained people: two doctors, a nurse and an EMT. They sprang into action and began CPR. Someone fetched the AED from the reception desk and within minutes they had Sally's heart beating again. Someone had called 911 and the ambulance whisked her away to the emergency room.

 

Not Sally, but you get the picture.

Days later I asked her what she remembered: “Nothing” she said: “One moment I was in the gym, the next I was lying on a bed and some man was asking me to open my eyes. But I didn’t want to open them.” When she did finally open them at the request of a friend, Sally found that she was in hospital. Tests followed. The cardiac arrest hadn’t been painful, but the ensuing treatment was. The electric shock from the AED left her torso bruised, and then the doctors made an incision and implanted a defibrillator just above her left breast. That, apart from anything else, made driving impossible – she couldn’t wear a seat belt for a long time!  Now, she's a little tired but seems none the worse for her brief foray into the afterlife. She’s even being courted by heart charities as a poster child.

 

Sally always glowed with life and health, but now every time I look at her I see the very special rainbow glow of a miracle, the glow of a person who has died and come back to life. “I may change my birthday,” she says: “After all, I was born again that day.”

 

Thinking about this miracle moves my consciousness into a special zone, an elevated zone of feeling: sounds seem clearer, colors brighter, trees more beautiful, the world more marvelous. And it was in that heightened condition that I discovered the labyrinth I wrote about last week, a place of joy at the top of Church Street, just waiting to be discovered.  The labyrinth  spawned a story which I told last Monday evening at the Open Mic story evening run by my friend Recille in the UU church, outside of which the labyrinth lies.

 

That storytelling may have been preparation for the next night, when miracle number two, my own more modest miracle, manifested itself

 

Want to know about it? Read my next post.

 

 

Labyrinth

Seven-circuit labyrinth

It’s a word I’ve known all my life: the mysterious labyrinth appears in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur from Greek mythology, and my childhood was steeped in those sort of stories – I loved them. I didn’t really think much about labyrinths as a physical entity until the late 1990s when Lynn Hartwood, a sacred circle dance leader living in the North East Kingdom of Vermont, introduced me to labyrinth dances.

He liked to make labyrinths in the snow – I’m talking about the classic seven-circuit labyrinth that he, and I, too, learned to walk from memory. Lynn developed a “labyrinth step” for flattening the snow: you lift your first foot quite high – depending on the depth of the now – turn it outward at a 45 degree angle like a duck, and place it carefully in front of you, then repeat with the other foot, taking short steps to tamp down a path. It’s a sort of a forward herringbone and is designed to create the clearest possible path with the least number of steps. It works beautifully and, if I remember rightly, Lynn incorporated the labyrinth step into a dance he choreographed to a Loreena McKennit track.

I became adept at making snow labyrinths. Winter of 2000, when I was living in Orchard House at Camphill Village USA in Copake, NY, I walked out after a four-inch snow fall and created a labyrinth behind the house. I must have done a pretty good job because my house mother, Anna Ree, leaned out of a second floor window and said “Julia, you have an amazing sense of spatial awareness.” I hadn’t been aware of that but by 2000 I’d been circle dancing for seven years, and must have developed that skill. It goes to show how important a chance remark can be because Anna’s words revealed to me that not everyone has that sense, or, if they have it, has developed it. That was a revelation to keep in mind when leading circle dance and it’s informed my facilitation ever since.  In the wider framework, it led me to appreciate that what comes easily to me: writing, public speaking, dancing, remembering plant names, may not be so easy for others, just as what comes easily to them: singing, skiing, childcare, bread-making, may lie outside my natural talents.
 

Lynn led us in a different kind of labyrinth dance one night in Windsong and Paul’s lovely straw-bale sanctuary in Monkton, Vermont. He sprinkled grain all over the floor, put on a 50-minute track of music recorded in the womb-like temple of the mother goddess on the island of Malta, and led perhaps 15 dancers in a long dance. As we danced, we created the path of the labyrinth in the grain. Me, I remember the beginning of the dance and I remember the end of the dance but during the intervening 45 minutes I was somewhere else entirely, probably in the temple of the Mother Goddess.

The Burlington labyrinth

Since those days I’ve explored and created labyrinths in many places and many ways and just today I encountered one in downtown Burlington Vermont. Now, I’m an Aquarian and I take that for an excuse for my love of the incongruous, so there, beside the Post Office, among the surround- sound of fire engines screaming by, I walked the sacred path.

Backdrop of federal building and firetruck

And the labyrinth, of course, is more than a physical pattern in snow, grain, grass, stone or sand. It is a symbol, almost a manifestation of the subconscious. I've carried many questions, dilemmas and challenges into labyrinths with me, because walking into a labyrinth with focus and intention, I experience a journey into my inner being.  In and in and in, the paths may veer outwards but they lead inexorably to the center. There lies the heart of the matter: maybe the fearsome Minotaur, but here in Burlington a surprise awaited me: the central point, the pivot of this labyrinth is an ash tree (Fraxinus americana to those of us who remember plant names!)



Ash bark is said to resemble cantaloupe skin

Levity aside, the ash is a significant tree, being Yggdrasil, the tree of life, in Norse mythology, connecting the depths of the underworld with the heights of the heavens and providing a perch for the ravens of Odin who carry news of earthly deed to the gods.  In our local Abenaki tradition it is from the heart of the ash tree that the Great Spirit called forth the first human beings, the people of the dawnland.

 



Carefully placed bricks define the labyrinth

The Burlington labyrinth is traced in the grass around the ash tree with a double row of bricks, planted narrow edge up.



Leading ever inward

We’re in late Fall and parts of the outline were obscured by the golden fallen leaves of neighboring maples.  I was able to walk the path because of my superior spatial awareness and because only parts were hidden, but the leaves led me to discover that the bricks provided a tactile method of following the path. A person with limited or no vision could walk this labyrinth, could experience this journey, by following the bricks. Was this intentional in the design? It’s a beautiful aspect of the construction which elevates the provision of a labyrinth in a busy downtown, a considerate gesture in itself, to a higher plane of recognition of human differences and human compassion.

This idea resonates with me because I created the snow labyrinth at the Camphill Village for my dancers there, many of whom live with physical and intellectual disabilities. I set out lumieres made of candles in brown paper bags and that evening we danced in the labyrinth among their magical glow.  It didn’t matter that it started to snow, it didn’t matter that dancers blundered into the ridges and defaced my careful creation. It mattered a bit that the wind whipped up and caused the candles to ignite the paper bags – that was pretty spectacular!

 What mattered most of all was that the stars came out and we held hands, exploring the inner sanctum of the labyrinth and having a darned good time!

The candle-lit labyrinth brought to mind a line from an old Welsh song:  

“Dyma fford i fro gogoniant”,  
which translates as: “Behold a path to the vale of glory”, 
 from the song “Ar Hyd y Nos” – “All Through the Night”, about the gift of a starlit sky.
 

 

 
The End!

 

 

 

As the snow begins to fly . . .



Folding into the distance . . .

. . . my summer season ends.
 
Saturday November 1, I embarked on the next chapter of my life, celebrating it with a farewell hike on the stunningly scenic stretch of the Appalachian Trail from Pomfret Road to Cloudland Hill.



The trees are old friends here

I scaled the ladder-like set of steps at the roadside, climbed through a gloomy red pine plantation and out onto the meadow that soars upwards, rewarding the hiker with a view of gentle tree-clad slopes folding into the distance, punctuated with the scarred face of the Suicide Six ski area.

I’d not hiked the trail so late in the season before and it seemed unfamiliar in places (no wonder I got lost!) where deciduous trees had shed their leaves and the usually shaded trail was open to the snow-filled sky. Those leaves were inconveniently carpeting and obscuring the path! And yes, it snowed!

A solitary hiker

Just one other hiker was on the trail, well-equipped, and “stitching” together a section of trail from New York to Maine. Oh, and I got lost, unconsciously following natural flashes of white bark on aspen trees instead of white AT blazes.



I was on the downward slope by that time, so I knew which was the way to the road, but I was disoriented enough to enjoy the frisson of excitement and discovery as I encountered trees I had never seen before. Do I know every tree on the route, then, you might ask. Well, no, but large trees are so rare in this part of the world thanks to recurrent logging over the past two hundred years, that I do recognize the more significant ones.



Choke cherry colors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday November 2, Joanne and I rose early, because of the clocks “falling back”, wrapped up warmly and headed down the hill – in her car because mine was full to bursting with belongings to be transported to Burlington – to the Pomfret Teago Firehouse for breakfast.

It was the annual fund-raising breakfast, and very good it was too! We have a volunteer fire department in Pomfret, as in so many small Vermont towns with their wooden houses, so the atmosphere was one of happy appreciation and camaraderie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The event was well attended and the maple syrup, of course, was as local as can be: “Who made it?” I asked: “John Peters” was the answer.

 

 

 

 

 

Later that day I arrived in Burlington to be greeted by a sunshine-illuminated golden-leaved maple in my own back yard. Gee, but it’s good to be back home!