Wednesday, March 5, 2008

A Meditation on the Dark

It is long since I sat here to write. The snow has started to melt, and spring is on the way. I can feel her in the warm sunshine, the sticky mud, the calls of birds returning home from the South. In the season of growing light, why do I still persist in chasing the darkness?
It is important, I have found, to keep perspective. Without darkness, light means nothing. There is no contrast, no joy. I seek the dark because I am exquisitely at home there. It is my place of origin...I was born at night in February, in the middle of a howling storm, in the plains country of Montana. Dawn was a happy surprise, no doubt- but darkness came first and it will surely follow after.
Today, readers, if you wish to be inspired, try a 10 minute free write on darkness. Free writing is a fabulous tool for exploring the outer reaches of your mind. When you start, simply write whatever comes to mind and let the words flow. Do not pause to check your spelling, grammar, parts of speech- throw them out the window and keep writing. Do not let your hand stop moving for any reason until the ten minutes are done. Your mind will wander, jump off a cliff, and run hard and fast away from the topic you've chosen...this is normal and natural. Do not resist. Follow the flow and see where it takes you.
The following is an excerpt from my article on Leanan Sidhe, the Dark Faery Muse of Ireland. You can find the complete article archived on the www.creativity-portal.com website under my Multicultural Muses series. It began with a free-write on the dark...

Darkness
A damp green mossy darkness, eyes aflame, luscious smile luring you in. Shining wetly in the foxfire of a lonely March night.
Colors: Twilight blue ascending, stone-grey, mahogany, emerald green, evergreen, the green-black of a lush peat-field. Bluebell-blue, amethyst, opal, jade, and sapphire. Storm-grey, misty white. Deep indigo midnight blue, moonlight. Frogs and toadstools, fairy-rings. Swamp-fire glowing eerie, eldritch, witchy green and leading men astray. All things half-glimpsed, not quite seen, and all the things you thought you saw that were never really there at all. Starlight, uncertainty, faltering steps in the darkness… losing the path, then finding it again with bald relief in new unexpected places. Lose your way, she beckons you deeper, deeper into the woods, deeper still… to a secret sacred place down by the river.
A pool in the moonlight, cold and still, a silver-blue mirror reflecting starlight, moonlight, and your fortune there. .. for those who dare to look!
O that mad blueberry violet glint in her eyes, she knows secrets un-numbered, untold, un-named. Innumerable. Her secrets, her mysteries a blue legion, prancing through the owl-struck night on faeries’ wings.
Will ‘o’ the wisp, o wander…lead me on a wild chase til morning, a-hunting over fen and fog…wander through the wood with me. Lead me down that shadow-path, the hie me safely
home!
Reveal your dark secrets, Moon-lady, Divine. Beloved Muse, take me wandering! Call to me, my heart will answer.
Feed me fat upon moonbeams and silver water… make me smile sadly, knowing too much.
Enchant me! Weave your webs to bind me, know I will always escape to tell my tales, to weave webs of my own…
Dark wanderer, I need you! You are part of me already, though you may know it not. Who conjures who? She needs no wand to cast her spells.
Blue pearls and black-eyed girls… will drive you mad for wanting… leaving you all hollowed out and alone, forlorn, o sweetly forsaken one.

I will always cry out in surprise and joy for the light... but my true home is in the shadows.

Molly Childers
March 5, 2008
Durango, Colorado

Friday, February 15, 2008

Snow Days: Myth Versus Reality

When I was a kid, snow days were a lovely break from the boring grind of the classroom, worksheets and spelling tests and blah blah blah. When they announced school closures on the news, we kids cheered. My mother wept silently, slipping into the bathroom for a Valium or maybe a toke or two on an illicit joint as she envisioned a whole day trapped inside with us. Dad escaped to work and we played outside all day, pegging the neighbor's kids with snowballs and white-washing each other, building snow-forts and igloos and snowmen with ugly wool hats. It was fabulous and fun. Recently, I had a few snow days.... but somethng just wasn't the same- the thrill had gone out of it somehow...
Now, as an adult, I'm here to tell you it ain't all a winter wonderland.
Here's the breakdown of some statistics regarding and related to our recent snowfall and several cold spells over the past month:
Snowfall: About four feet of the white stuff, total, with drifts up to our windowsills in some places, easily seven or eight feet tall.
Vehicle Casualties: One battered Chevy Nova, which finally gave up the ghost during our first big storm. This means that my husband and I are carpooling in my truck, which is a stressful and expensive propostion with gas at a ridiculous $3.08 per gallon in good old Durango. Our other vehicle will not make it up the raw roads of our subdivision during the winter, so it's parked for the season. We even took it off of our insurance policy to save a little cash... which is great, because extra snow means...
Extra Expenses: About $200 in plowing fees to get our driveway plowed out, miscellaneous expenses for emergency items like batteries, propane, and distilled water for our camping stove, candles, etc. in order to survive while camped out in our house with no electricity, water, or telephone for four days. You might also want to budget for a few hundred to repair your bumper, door, etc., after the inevitable collision with a Texan in a Hummer who has no idea how to drive in the snow but insists on talking non-stop on a cell phone while he attempts to navigate the icy roads. Add in the cost of a broken snow shovel, because this will inevitably happen at the worst possible time and you will need to replace it before the next storm. You'll also want to reserve some funds to go out and get drunk during Durango's annual Snowdown, to get your mind off of the fact that this town is going to the dogs and the realtors. And if you injure yourself while shoveling your porch, well, there goes another couple hundred bucks to the chiropractor, acupuncturist, or doc of your choice.
All of these extra expenses are a real bummer, especially since you were snowed in when you were scheduled to be at work, earning your rent on this overpriced cabin in the woods that looked so seductive when you rented it last summer...so on top of the exorbitant plow driver's fees and a huge candle budget, you're making less money than ever...and in Durango, that's bare bones indeed. In a town where I once competed with a PhD candidate for a lousy $12-an hour job with a local non-profit, it hurts to lose even a day of work. Every dollar counts double in the winter time. Add in another two or three hundred bucks because the wood you cut all summer is almost gone and winter is still here, and maybe here to stay for a few more months. That's a heavy financial hit for some of us lower-income mountain folks. (We're the ones who rent a tiny cabin, rather than building a hemmorhoidal trust-funded trophy home on a ridge line. The ones who serve your drinks and take care of your kids and cook your $18 gourmet burgers.) Ouch.
It can be tough to make a living here, to stay here year-round when most of our wealthier neighbors only visit in the summertime.

But then... there are days like today, when I can sleep in and slop around the house, writing all morning and watching the snow pile up. I can drink ten cups of lemon ginger tea to stay warm and wear my favorite fuzzy socks and have a real snow day. Even taking into account all those expenses and headaches, you also have to factor in...
Perfect bluebird skies: infinite
Puffy little clouds that look like unicorns, maple leaves, dragons, and chubby baby elephants: priceless and lovely treasures of the sky.
Hot-tubbing parties under the stars: yay! Sheer joy and sweet debauchery, cake and champagne in the jacuzzi!
Each snowflake: unique and lovely ice-crystals, each one is a poem, the goddess in a fingerprint...
Our winter neighbors: ravens, magpies, deer, all kinds of other birds, other eccentic locals who keep mostly to themselves but will pull your truck out of a ditch if you get stuck. I prefer them to the summer folks who come to ride the train and leave with nothing of this place inside their bones... Those soft-looking Texans in their cowboy hats who wouldn't know what to do with a snow-shovel if they were buried in a snow-drift...they don't belong here. The raven and the deer are here to stay, and so are we.
The sight of a single wing-tip brushing the snow, silent as a sigh. Tracks of a mole in a white winter feel. Scuffled marks of the pounce, the kill, oddly beautiful.
Endless games of gin rummy, Chinese checkers and Mancala, played with my husband while the snow fell down outside.
Sitting in front of the fire.
Snowshoeing trips into the wild and back out again... coming home and coming home and coming home, building a fire and making dinner...and hoping secretly for another snow day tomorrow. The raven and the deer are here to stay... and so are we.

-February 15th, 2008
Durango, Colorado
Another Snow Day

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Seeking the Fire

I am walking the dark road alone. This is a poem, is a prayer, is a seed, is a path made of moonlight. I wait and watch patiently for a sign; a way to know that I am free. I write this in the hopes that you will read it and find the fire that lies banked within your heart. That you will find your passion, find your hope again, and soar. Everything depends upon this; it is no more and no less than your one and holy purpose on this earth; to find the thing that makes you burn and leap into it, dance with it, sear the pain from your soul and leave there only something sanctified.
I will show you a scar where there was no scar...see the raw bloody lips of a wound, slashed with a cold knife. There it is, dripping all over the floor. Crimson flowers blooming. I will make it shine, I will make it sing...and when I'm done, you will never be sure of exactly what it was you saw... You will only know that it was dark and beautiful.
There is a castle in the air, but none may reach it except in dreams. Whirlwind, spin-drift, and lullaby your way there, floating on a cloud. Tell the mermaids and my angels I am waiting. Tell them I am coming home.

-Molly Childers
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Durango, Colorado