The Circle Turns and Returns Again

If you are tuned in to the natural cycle of the year, as I am, and if you pay heed to the stages of the sun’s apparent journey through our skies, as I do; if, additionally, for the sake of family and friends who subscribe to them, you pay respect to the religious traditions that surround us; if you enjoy this period of the year because of the goodwill, the festivities, the parties and the re-connection with distant friends whatever the source or inspiration for these efforts and events; why, then, the period between Thanksgiving at the end of November and Twelfth Night on January 6 is one long round of glorious celebrations, one long feast for body and soul!

And that, in a much less Dickensian sentence, is just what I’m enjoying!

It would be tedious for me to list all the times and places that I’ve been celebrating the sun’s turning and returning; suffice it to say that they’ve included a snowy, sunny stone circle in Quebec; a joyous celebration with children and their families in New Hampshire; delicious family meals cooked by my daughters Jessica and Louise here in Vermont; much visiting hugging, exchanging of news, greetings and presents; walks on the windy blessed shore of Lake Champlain; candle-lit evenings of dance with precious friends; holiday concerts; wreath-making; dance, and more dance!

Today, December 28, I’m still looking forward to celebratory New Year circle dances in Burlington and St. Johnsbury; to Burlington’s fabulous First Night celebration, and to an 11^th-night fire circle to greet the January full moon as it rises, we hope, over my backyard.

The sun’s standstill and slow return has been a special moment in the year since people first noticed it many thousands of years ago. It’s spawned countless myths, beginning perhaps with Gilgamesh or even earlier. It is, indeed, really THE story, the basic and only story, because if it doesn’t happen both daily and annually, we cease to exist.

The story is this:

“The sun returns, the sun disappears, the sun returns.”

It is a circle, it’s the eternal circle, and that’s why we dance in circles.

 

Return to the Miracle

A little while ago, November 18 to be precise, I wrote in this blog about the recent miracles in my life and I failed to mention the one occurrence that really set me thinking about this. It was not a large miracle, but it was a very unlikely happening. I realize that al possible events can happen, however strong the odds against them are,  but it's still remarkable.

My dancing friend Meaghan from Canada has developed a beautiful morning practice of a sequence of meditative dances. At multi-day dance gatherings she dances them early in the morning and those of us who wish to, join in. The music is beautiful and the movements flowing. We dance wordlessly for 45 minutes, blessing the opening of the day with this deep practice. As we stand together around the candle after the final dance, the last track of the sequence plays. It's a blessing written and read by the Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue.

I've danced those dances with Meaghan and heard that blessing many times. But in November 2014, after I came home from the gathering at Neskaya, I looked up some information about John O'Donohue and found that his first published book was Anam Cara, A book of Celtic Wisdom.

I made a mental note to find a copy of that book, perhaps at the local library. Then I cleared some junk out of the basement and headed for the town's repurposing center, en route for the library.

I deposited my recycling, dumped some construction debris, and carefully placed my old boom box on a pile of other defunct appliances that an employee assured me tend to breed and multiply overnight.

Mission accomplished, I headed for the "free" shack to see what I could score, and browsed a few broken lawn chairs and some mis-matched cutlery.

A man came in with a heavy box and began to unload books onto the shelves. I watched, and drew closer as the tiles began to pull me in, seeming to be connected as they were with spirituality and natural wisdom.

 "Those look interesting," I remarked. The man smiled and, half turning toward me, said over his shoulder: "Help yourself".  As he emptied the box and moved aside  I reached out for the nearest book,  a small paperback with a golden cover . . .

. . .   and found my hand  closing over a copy of Anam Cara by John O'Donohue.

John O'Donohue and friend

I don't know what the odds of that happening are. Do I have to take into consideration that any book in the world might find its way to a municipal waste processing center in Burlington, Vermont, USA on the precise day that I stopped by?

I don't know, but it seems like a little miracle to me! So I'm reading the book very carefully.

The Blessing for Beauty begins like this:

"May the beauty of your life become more visible to you, that you may glimpse your wild divinity."


http://www.johnodonohue.com/

Beautiful Dancers

Here are several photos of Rita, Barbara, Melly, Deb and Samira dancing "Bells of Norwich", December 1, 2014.

 

 

 

Our circle dance community in Burlington has been growing slowly over the past three years since Melly Bock began convening circles. We've had some beautiful and inspiring events, including this afternoon when we danced in the Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. It's a very welcoming Jewish community that opens its arms to our sacred but totally non-religious dance.

This particular dance is set to a song about the words of the anchorite Julian of Norwich. The lyrics and music are by Sydney Carter and I don't know who choreographed the dance - maybe Colin Harrison -  it's a favorite in the Circle Dance community as the winter begins to draw in.  We added the scarves to enhance our small circle.  In the photos the dancers are dancing the chorus.

The words of the song remind us that spring will return someday, and here in Vermont, with deep winter beginning in November and no daffodils blooming until May, we need reminding!

Bells of Norwich

(Note: "Norwich" rhymes with "Porridge")

Daffodils in the snow, Brighton, England, March 2005.

Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go.
Here by the tower of Julian, I tell them what I know.
CHORUS:  Ring out, bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go
     All shall be well again, I know.

Love, like the yellow daffodil, is coming through the snow.
Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.
(sometimes changed to "it touches all I know")

CHORUS

Ring for the yellow daffodil, the flower in the snow.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, and tell them what I know.
CHORUS

     All shall be well, I'm telling you, let the winter come and go
     All shall be well again, I know.

By Sydney Carter
Copyright Stainer & Bell, Ltd.
On "All Shall Be Well Again", FSI-96

According to Carter, Julian lived at about the time of Chaucer,
in a cell (she was a hermit and a mystic) in what is now the
Chapel of Julian in Norwich, England. According to differing
sources, Julian spoke to her God in a vision, asking why evil was
necessary in the world.  The answer she got was that it was
indeed necessary, but that "All will be well; all manner of
things shall be well."   That, then, became
her message, and she apparently brought peace to the troubles of
her area  by repeating that message.

(Adapted from : http://crydee.sai.msu.su/public/lyrics/cs-uwp/folk/j/julian_of_norwich)

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.