Last Sunday evening we got home from a wonderful trip to tiny Bornholm Island in the clear Baltic Sea. I was nervous to come back to our Copenhagen, fearing that it would not feel like a homecoming at all. When we finished our London spree in the Spring, our return to our flat was just that – a return. We were still too displaced to feel as though we were coming home. Thankfully, this time when we cracked open our door and wadded through a week’s worth of unnecessary mail, we found that we were happy to see our apartment, to wander through the rooms raising the shades and opening the windows, and to sleep in our own beds.

After the first few minutes of re-orientation though, I started to feel a bit ill at ease. Sure, part of it was just the let-down of coming back to the mundane tasks of the everyday after a week in a sunny slice of heaven. But there was also an underlying twitchiness that made me feel as though there was some uncompleted task following me through the quiet rooms. Then it struck me – where were the housemates?

Since 1998 we have always lived with wonderful housemates–some for short terms during life transitions, some for years as we watched our histories weave together. After ten years of coming home to someone, the sudden nuclear family-ness of it all has left us disoriented. Now, once we’ve unlocked the door, flopped down our bags and grabbed a drink of water we start to wonder…where are our housemates to talk to? Who can we tell about our trip? Who can we ask about how work is going, or whether or not the garden survived the record heat? And most importantly who’s around to explain why the dog’s tail is purple?!?!? (Yes, once our housemates dyed the dog’s tail with kool aid. She’s quirky, that Emily.)

It’s odd to live just us four after ten years of living with Sharon, Susan, Lindell, Duffy, Amber, Josh, Kristen, Rebecca & ‘Ren. I don’t dislike it, but it’s strange, so strange it’s affecting my dreams. Last night I dreamt we were moving into to a sublet rental. It belonged to someone we knew, and we had thought we’d let them leave their office set up in the spare room. Then I realized, “Hey! We could have another room for someone to live in!” Next scene: a garage sale and a guest room.

My guess? That communal living thing, it’s not just a part of our past… it’s simmering on the back burner. I hope so. I certainly do.

I enjoy the architecture of holy spaces: churches, abbeys, monasteries, temples of all types. Europe suits such a fancy, and lets me see a wide variety of structures meant to honor something – though what they honor is sometimes a bit off from the original goal. This week we are on holiday at Børnholm: Denmark’s only rocky island! (Sometimes the Danglish on signs can be quite amusing. My favorite so far is “Feminism Squats my Heart”…but I digress.) Børnholm has proven to be far more charming than its English tourism by-line. It’s a pretty leafy island in the Baltic Sea, with fine sandy beaches, clear water, and pretty woods through which to bike. In addition to home brewed brown ale (quite nice) and smoked herring (not so nice), Bornholm’s claim to fame includes several Rundekirks – round stone churches white washed to a gleaming brilliance. We were lucky enough to visit a couple of these unique bulwarks, which have served as a combination places-of-worship-cum-look-out-towers since the early 1100’s.

I was particularly struck by Nylars Kirke, the smallest and least significant of the bunch. It’s stolid bulk and cool interior is just the type of space that appeals to me – old, earth-rooted, and simple. I was compelled to touch things there. I ran my fingers along the rim of the grey stone of the baptismal fount, planted firm in the center of the building; placed my palms on the stout center column and felt the wisdom held in its age; ran my hands along the curving outer walls to feel the warmth of the sun-kissed wash and the underlying chill of the hewed stones.

These are the kind of places that speak of home to me—these simple rooms with history in their walls, with time poured into their mortar. It is in these nearly abandoned places, anchored deep in the unwinding days of time, where I my footing can be found.

a small sketch from my travel journal

It’s the night of Summer solstice. At home in Seattle the sun is at its highest right now, and hopefully the skies are clear to give the locals some much-onged for warmth during this cold Summer on this, their most treasured day. Here in Copenhagen–which is not yet home—the sun is starting to set, though the light has barely ebbed. Well after ten o’clock I can still read easily in the twilight glow that’s stretching over our high city balcony.

John Mayer is in town, the poet whose blues have sustained me through these strange and wrenching times. I searched for tickets—begged, borrowed and threatened to steal in two languages—but alas, none were to be found. Instead I’m sneaking smokes and playing all the live songs I could download one after another too loudly through the open windows of the living room. Message in Bottle (which I once heard Sting perform on an awkward date in an enormous arena). My Stupid Mouth (The Blogger’s Lament.) 83 (whimsical. nostalgic.) And finally, Gravity, my touchstone, my anchor.

I have been dreading this day, alone and away from my community on one of our most holy days. Paul is at a work party. One which has a reputation for being a bit of an orgy. One to which spouses are not invited. The girls are asleep after what for me was an exhausting night of homemade pizza, sing-a-long movies, and reading aloud extraordinary long chapters of Harry Potter. The grand finale for mom was one of those long, drawn out bedtimes only clever children can create, and enough dishes to make a restaurateur cry. But now that I’m here, alone with the dog, listening to John and watching the swallows dart after invisible insects; I find that I am actually okay in with this solitude, watching the sun slip into sleep, being grateful for the light.

At Stonehenge this morning the sun crested over softly arching hills, struck the blue-hued Heelstone, and drove its light between the arches of the great trilithon. Hundreds were there in dreadlocks and druid robes, smelling of travel and patchouli, trying to name something unnamable, making it up as they go along. Isn’t that what we all do? Cobble something together from shards of history and intuitive pull? Look for the meeting point between what we know and what we hope to be true?

I was at Stonehenge not long ago, fresh from the opulence of Europe’s finest cathedrals, ready to be unimpressed by a ring of stones surrounded by security fencing. I was surprised to find such holiness there, walking in a round where people have paced for thousands of years; waiting for the shard of light to crack the sky; hoping for a life continued. I followed the tour and when I reached the Heelstone, paused to touch its side. As I felt the warmth of the sarsen stone under my hand, I noticed a young woman walking counter clockwise to the organized tour, her shoes in her hand, her feet on holy ground. Seeing her example, I wanted suddenly to sink to my knees. It was all I could to do still my voice, to not incant ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ But I was unaccustomed of being a stranger in a strange land for so many long months, worn down from always sticking out, from always being obvious. I did not have the confidence to kneel in front of so many tourists in windbreakers and cameras. (Who knew the bending of the knee could be an act requiring so much strength?) Iinstead I stayed my hand on the stone, leaned my weight into my palm, and let my soul pour out thanks. Gratitude for the light. Gratitude for continuance. Gratitude for all that we need to go on.

It was not, and this is not, the Solstice I have come to remember. It is not the riotous and ridiculous parade; the familiar and homespun pageant built with our own hands; the silly, colorful crowd of thousands. Instead it is a new lesson in holy moments—stumbled upon alone (yet with casts of thousands now past); a mishmash of vices and virtues, of new songs and old stones. I feel as though I am soaking somehow in this history, in this present, and in the sun—always our promise of a future. I am melted. I am melded, somehow, me in this chair alone. And I think—held in this mystery of solitude amidst the companionship of souls—I think as the sun now fades, “Dayenu, it is enough.”

Ladies and gents, this morning I bring you a very special cross-cultural experience: Eurovision 2008.

Yes friends, long before Simon Powell got snotty on American Idol ,the citizens of Europe have been fighting amongst themselves to find the best songs/performers for the last 53 years. Last night the big finale was held in Belgrade, Serbia and 43 countries reported in with live voting results. With production numbers akin to the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, and with ratings to rival the Superbowl, Eurovision swept the continent last night. Even in little Denmark it was broadcast on no less than 3 stations with voice-over commentary in Danish, Swedish and German.

Truly, I’ve never seen anything weirder.

So here, to ease your way back into the work week with a smile and a baffled shake of the head, are my top pics from Eurovision 2008.

Most Enthusiastic
Latvia – seriously committed to the pirate look with Wolves of the Sea.

Most Confusing
France – always so classy, what with the women in beards an all…. Maybe they should have let Bret and Jemaine enter Foux Da Fa Fa instead.

Most Warped
Azerbaijan – operatic goth angels and something akin to vampires. Someone should probably check their basement for body parts.

Best of Show (According to Moi)
Croatia (music video, not show performance) — 75 yo rapper scratching on a gramophone w/a great band. This one is actually truly good.

Most Avant Garde
Bosnia & Herzegovina - Like the love child of Weird Al Yancovich and Cindy Lauper. Trip-ee!

Best “Ewwwww!” Factor
Spain - Apparently, Borat’s cousin rocks the house for Spain–complete with playskool electric guitar solo.

Most Likely to Rock Hard
Finland - These guys rock like Vikings! (This isn’t the live performance, but their music video. I actually kind of like ‘em!)

Official Winner (Really)
Russia - Do you think ripping open his shirt put them over the edge, or was it the ice skater?

P.s. My regular Monday post is still going up at BlogHer today. It’s on poetry as prayer and you can find it here.

One of the things I love to do when I travel is too look for what the Celts called “thin spaces”—places where the natural and the spiritual intersect. Most often these are places in nature—streams, wooded glades, or sacred stones. But being the city girl that I am, I often find these holy spots in unexpected urban places. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness journal entry I wrote while visiting two of London’s famous chapels: the ornate and royal Westminster Abbey, and the lesser known and a more austere White Chapel (aka St. John’s Chapel) at the Tower of London.

Walking into this famous cathedral I am immediately disappointed. The view from both the left and right is a jumble of overwrought memorials, each one trying to outshine the next. There are so many of them that at first, I think some have been moved from another part of the cathedral for restoration work. But no, this is the cobbled together result of centuries of hero worship—a marble bonfire of vanities.

This is not a cathedral, but a tomb. Not mosque, but mausoleum. A place of worship, perhaps, but what is one to worship here? Power it seems. Money. On our more optimistic days, perhaps we could say artistry is worshipped here, as the stone has given way to sculptor’s hands, as the tombs shift from warlords to writers.

There is a staff of dear men here, trying to hold back the encroachment of effigies. Men who don red robes and hold wine aloft, who offer candles and incense, and who insist on a minute of stillness at the top of each hour to send their prayers out on a loudspeaker amongst the tourists.

I am standing in the ornate Lady’s Chapel when the bell of my first hour here chimes. The high arched ceiling is an architectural wonder of pleats and patterns. The eye is overwhelmed by its intricacies. In this visually explosive place, I am surprised and grateful for the crowd’s quiet acquiescence to the hourly call to prayer. The room goes silent as a vicar prays for survivors of Burma’s’ flood and China’s earthquake. Tears come to me unexpectedly, and I look longingly at the altar piece – Mother Mary caring for her young—and wish that I could sink into this moment and hold a little space for the parents who are mourning losses today, for the children whose mothers are gone. But although the crowds is willingly stilled for sixty seconds, they are balanced like racers on the balls of their feet, ready to spring forward and consume more sites. The second he says the Amen, the flow of traffic proceeds again, drifting quickly past the Marian shrine, and on to the huge black-and-gilt memorial of King Henry that dwarfs the small white altar.

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Yesterday I sat in another White Chapel, this one at the infamous Tower of London. Compared to the Lady Chapel at Westminster, the White Chapel of the Tower is barren. No, not barren, but spare. There is symmetry here between the clean arches and the rough stone, and a purity of line. It is not ornate. The kings never stayed here long and all the furnishings had to be simple so they could be carried with the court on progress. There is only a simple altar with a central cross, rows of wooden seats, and a single center aisle. All of the beauty is held in the Roman arches, and the age of the stone.

It feels very thin in the chapel, surrounded by all of the uncarved stone. The only representational shape the small cross on the altar. Even though we are several flights up into the Tower, I am drawn to the earthiness here. The altar is roped off, but I come as close as I am able and stand in the heavy stillness. I feel my body align into a centering pose, and I ask to be shown something of this holy space. It comes at me in rush then: the weightiness of the decisions made in this place, so regal in its starkness. Pious rulers knelt here seeking guidance. Greedy rulers came as well, justifying their often vicious actions by naming them as God’s own.

People stream behind me as I feel the importance of the White Chapel. They are flowing through this space to see what lies on either side. The chapel is merely a hallway to most. The portion of the Tower where the White Chapel stands is flanked on either side by rooms full of weapons: colonnades ringed in flintlocks, cannons in every corner, a whole hall of armor with enormous codpieces designed to intimidate one’s foe. Warfare and trickery lay heavily in most of these spaces; bloodshed and sorrow have baptized so many of these rooms. Power misapplied and malingered. But here, in this still stone room, in this dim light, even amongst all these shadows, a un-distilled power resides—some kind of force I cannot quite name: God’s power perhaps, too often ignored, man’s too often honored, and the ongoing strength of stone and silence.

More on Westminster Abbey and looking for London’s thin spaces coming soon…

Related Posts:
Mother Mary Calls to Me
Fairy, Mallard, Lily, Tree: A Christening
Oceans Vast: In the Wake of a Tsunami
Prayer Flags: Intercession for the Gulf Coast

Practicing gratitude for things like this helps keep me where the light is.

Given that we’ve recently moved to a new nation, I’ve done very little public writing about our life in Denmark. There are sheets and sheets of morning pages in my spiral notebooks – mostly about displacement and how it’s triggering delayed mourning in me over a whole slew of lost things. Most of them I can’t bring into focus yet, but one or two are starting to get a little less hazy. Eventually I’ll be able to write about them here, but for now they are still percolating prior to public display.

One thing that has caught me off guard here is the level of depression I’m experiencing. In spite of the charm and adventure of living in Europe, depression is always waiting to find a nearby nesting place. Any of you who have been through a stint with depression knows how even one day of that old sorrowful feeling can make you fear sliping back into the abyss. I’m not overly concerned thus far. As long as the migraines stay relatively infrequent and the Spring unrolls into Summer, I should be okay. Keeping an eye out for my cycle buddy doesn’t hurt either. Still, there are days where there is crying, and phone calls to Jen, and where not even chocolate can help.

Staying present helps. I’m finding that living in the here and now is more helpful than slipping into a past I cannot reclaim, or spinning forward into a future over which I can only pretend to have control. But staying present does not come easily to me. My spirituality tends towards the prophetic which means I live a little less in the now and a bit more in the not yet. In addition, my works as a writer tips me towards the past to find connections between old stories, and casts me into the future looking for new inspiration. But the now, well, the now doesn’t come easily.

Having a rhythm for the day helps me stray present to the current moment. Every day that I deviate from my regular rhythms I find myself living in regret (I should have done X instead…) or being frozen by options (should I write? Bike? Clean the toilet?). Without routine my day too easily becomes a four-hour binge of Dexter, followed by a crabby afternoon where I try to write after the kids come home from school. (Never a good idea.) Last week, when I strayed from the routine, Jen had to spend the bulk of the day talking me out of the sobbing mess that once resembled Rachelle.

Right now the essentials to my daily rhythm include:

Walking through the college garden on my way home from dropping the kids at school. I’m finding that in this busy urban neighborhood I need the relative quiet of the park. Otherwise my tendency to get distracted by sparkly things goes on hyper drive and I can’t quite seem to calm my nervous system.

Writing my morning pages. This practice from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way are a mainstay for many artists and writers. My habit of penning three pages comes and goes as needed, and right now it’s quite needed. I write them every morning as soon as I get home from the school/garden. Now that it’s sunny I can write them on the bedroom balcony – any extra Vitamin D has to help the gloom as well.

Yoga. Yoga. Yoga. Thank god for yogis on DVD. I have to have at least 45 minutes of Vinyasa everyday or I wobble about completely off center. I don’t think I even knew how to be present at all until I started doing yoga. I spent all of my time regretting the past or wondering about the future. But yoga keeps me focused on the current breath, the work of holding one pose and flowing into the next – at least for a few minutes.

Working on a regular schedule. After yoga I grab a shower and get to my desk. Sometimes I actually have to set the kitchen buzzer to make sure I show up at the page on a regular schedule. When I first came to Denmark I tried to write 4-5 hours a day, but right now I’m finding that even 2 or 3 hours is a good day’s work for me – at least when it comes to working on a manuscript. Then I log another couple of hours answering emails and typing up blog posts. Then my alone-time is up, and it’s time to leaving once again to fill my bike basket up with the days groceries, then peddle to the school and pick up the kids.

Without this routine, this rhythm to my day, I’d be a) a basket case, b)completely unproductive.

What staves off your depression? and/or What helps you stay productive as a writer/artist?

mother mary calls to me, whispers words of wisdom…

The stones lie here, behind a building, beneath a sign, under the shadow of the grand cathedral. Once, sometime before 1100, there was a church here, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This is what is left. This, and a small sign, first in Swedish and then roughly translated into English:

“This was Sancta Maria Minor, Little Mary’s church. The people loved Mary. She understood their language.’”

Is that what we long for, when we search for the feminine divine? Something Mary reflects in pale shadow? Someone who understand our language? I think yes. I think so.

“In my times of darkness is she is standing there in front of me, speaking words of wisdom….” Play us out boys…

Eden, then five, sits pretty and pensive at our passover table.

This is the first time in eight years that we won’t be celebrating Pesach (Passover) with our community. Our dishes and haggadah (prayer books) have arrived, but we’ve yet to gather the kind of friends that would want to take part in a 4 hours meal with this electic goy girl. I’m treating my Passover jones by writing about how I got started celebrating with a Seder. You can find that story over in my weekly post at BlogHer. And here’s some pretty pictures, taken by my friend Emily Button, from our first Passover with Monkfish Abbey, back in 2004.

Anointing everyone at the table before going in to dinner.

On Passover, we eat reclining on a pillow to show that we are free. (Slaves weren’t allowed to eat reclining.)

A full glass is sign of joy. Here we diminish the wine in our glass to signify solidarity with those who suffer.

Paul serves up matzo ball soup to Catie. (3 yrs)

Eden in the role of fairy at the arboretum in 2006. Picture by MadGiddy.

There is a demonstration garden at the college of agriculture and veterinarian arts, which lies between our flat and the children’s school. I walk through it sometimes, on my way back, to escape the roar of the traffic on the morning-busy streets around our new home. The garden is moving towards its finest season, unfurling leaves and blooms.

There might be fairies here, I think, and thin spaces such as the Celt’s revere. A friend of mine, a full-blown adult, believes in fairies. She is not the type to wear caftans either, or to name her children ‘Willow.’ She’s actually an incredibly intelligent and well reasoned academic. She works with the poor all over the world, and struggles to find paths of escape for those caught in the throes of human trafficking. She is wise, my friend, and knows you cannot love reason too much and still nurture hope. And so, fairies. Why not? Why can’t the earth and her energy—the creative force of fern and flower, earth and air—why can’t these things sometimes appear to those with sighted eyes? Stranger things have happened.

At the very least, there is creative power in this place, so eagerly tended by students, their futures unfurling before their very eyes—all the possibilities of their own growth spilling out with earth and seed from their mulch-rubbed fingertips. All this cultivating. All this growth. It is the first thing we know of our parental divines: God Created. God creates. In this bright urban garden, with people barely out of their teens, that holy work continues.

I walk through the curving paths, trying out a new graveled walk or step-stone passage each time I visit. Today the garden leads me to Mallard couples, sleeping in loose pairs on the grass with their heads tucked under their wings. They look for all the world like croquet balls abandoned when the players were called away to tea. There is a pond here too, with a marsh tucked into one curve, and a lily pad farm in the other. As I walk along the curve of the pond, past low borders of bent-willow fencing and calla lilies as yellow as lemon tarts, I am greeted by a cherry tree which stretches wide where the pond path meets the trail to the gate. I pause there under her branches, the beautiful cherry, always our first hope of Spring. The air seems to hum with energy. Thin Spots. Fairydom. In a heartbeat she christens me, the cherry tree and her humming court. And then, with a slight reluctance, I move on, towards the traffic and city bustle, the chores and the normal—life beyond the narrow gate.

Just before I reach the street, there is a transitional space of sorts—the brick-paved expanse of the college drive which stretches wide between the garden and the roadway. There, I am greeted by the school’s fountain: five charcoal granite slabs slick in the sunlight. I hesitate a moment, feeling obvious and strange. Then I walk up the slick lower steps to the spring bubbling forth at the top, dip in my hand, touch my forehead, breastbone, the boney crest of each shoulder.

A baptism then, into the life of fairy and mallard, lily and tree.

For most posts about my sacred life click here, or become present to your own sacred life with Sacred Life Sunday. Thank you for being here!

Have you noticed that your children leave you at every age and stage? When they stop nursing. When they can crawl into the next room while you are folding laundry. That first bright, merciful day of Kindergarten. The night they’d rather read Harry Potter by themselves than have you read it out loud because they can read it faster. When they hit the age where they can make thier own toast and eat breakfast on their own. …. I thought the leaving thing only knocked the wind out of you when reached the infamous “empty nest” stage. But really, it happens all along the way. I didn’t realize there would be so many passages that leave you breathless, trying to mourn and celebrate in one burning moment.

…….

Leaving Souren has been a little bit like a death. I hate to be so melodramatic, given that there are so many things going on in the world that are ever-so-much harder and more devastating. Leaving your semi-adopted teenager in the States in order to go gallivanting around Europe with your two adorable blood children and a handsome husband—this barely makes a mark on the ‘hardships’ meter. Still, it’s hard, to take a child into your heart and then to say goodbye.

I know, of course, that there is the telephone and internet, and even old fashioned snail mail. But if you’ve ever known, or met, or even grazed shoulders with a teenage boy, you should realize that communication is not, generally speaking, their strong suite.

I knew, when we left, that most communication with Souren would be over. And I’m trying to not put my happiness under his text messaging thumbs. You simply cannot let a teenager take the wheel of your happiness. That’s even more daft than letting them drive your car on prom night.

But at night, when those nasty little buggers come to get me, I am mournful, and I re-think the wisdom of being so nonchalant about grafting a child who is not my own, so firmly onto my family tree. In those dark moments, I write maudlin poetry on the pages of my notebook. (The emotions of my days and nights are so different, sometimes I am left wondering, which is more me?) Though the pain in these overwrought words are real, I have to ask myself, would I hesitate to love this way again…to love this way still? When we are paying attention to the true and the questions, these are the things that come up. These are the ponderings that make up the reality of whom we are and who we are to be. So of course, the answer must always be, ‘amen.’

——

loss is a wolf at the throat,
there, at the front of the neck
where all you cannot swallow
lies exposed and unprotected

the ache and the tear of it,
the way you bleed unchecked

this is what it is
to take another’s child,
graft him deep into your veins.

i cannot recommend it,
this unchecked rushing of the blood
when the graft does not take,
when the bloodline is severed.

even birthing blood ceases with the hours,
after the placenta tears.

but what of that wound
of which nature has no counterpart?
does this blood then run without clot,
without ebbing,
leaving in its wake
more than the womb as hollow?