The Western Edge

 We spent three Sunday mornings on Zoom with David Whyte exploring the mythopoetic world of the western edge of Ireland.  It was wonderful, and it set me thinking about edge dwelling.  This is a topic I've thought a lot about and dreamed a lot about (my dream group calls them "borderland dreams").  

So, here's the poem that arose out of it:

And hasn't it always been

the pull of the western edge,

so that going west has meant

heading towards your own 

boundaries?

As for us, we were born 

to the eastern edge, 

but we left the old settler shore 

that looks towards the known

as soon as we were grown 

enough to follow the call.

We had to pass through

the middle of things,

but were neither drawn 

nor allowed to stay there

for very long.

Oh, you can settle here.

We are, of course, settlers here -

interlopers, owners, usurpers.

It will never be sufficient,

but we can apologize

for ourselves and our actions,

and we can bring something

to the land.  We can know

and treat the edge place

as holy.

So, if you are here,

an edge dweller,

you are charged 

to use the edge 

to sharpen your wits,

to call forth dreams of healing,

to watch the sky at night

and at the turnings of the days,

and to love where 

you felt guided

to do your work.

And what is out there

past the waves slapping

the western shore?

Do we yearn to go 

still farther out,

towards another edge,

to the Great Beyond,

to the sea, to the sky,

to Orion's belt?

You know - Out There,

to what cannot be known.

Further.

Some Days You Get the Elevator (and Some Days You Get the Shaft)

The hardest part about having a broken foot right now is that it restricts my activity, when being active is the best way I know to keep from sinking into depression.  I so miss swimming, my best mental and physical health strategy for the last 25 years. 

The house isn’t selling after 6 weeks on the market.  I guess it’s going to take someone out of the ordinary to really appreciate what we have created here.  We love our house and think it looks fantastic.  But it isn’t like the standard new house.  We don’t have a large master bedroom.  No garage.  We’re next to some (practically unused) freight tracks.  The Redwood City schools aren’t great.  What we DO have is a wonderful cottage, a very large family room with (gas-starter) fireplace that has housed many, many salons and rituals, an organic vegetable garden, a beautiful kitchen, lots of storage, a hot tub and nice deck.   The problem is we’re in Silicon Valley – and are looking to get out.  Silicon Valley types seem to want more conventional homes.  People who would like our house probably live in Berkeley or Santa Cruz.  There’s not a whole lot to love here any more, other than friends and the weather.

Some days I seem to be able to look more philosophically at my situation.  I’m 3 weeks into healing the foot, so hopefully about halfway through.  We don’t HAVE to move, and we have lots of reasons to be okay here (though living in a staged house is annoying at best).  I have Max’s wedding to look forward to.  And Ruby to cheer me up on our weekly visits.  Having this blog to work on has been helpful.  I know I have so much to be grateful for.  My problems are so small in the general scheme of things.  But guess what?  It doesn’t help when I’m feeling like this.

All my appreciation and philosophy seem to have taken a vacation today. 

This is NOT the kind of blog post I want to write.  All the others so far have had some content I could be happy to put out there.  But, honestly, I’m spending a lot of time, a lot of days or parts of days, in this place, and it feels a little dishonest to only post the stuff that I like or that makes me look thoughtful and on top of it.

I do have to say that I get more depressed when my other symptoms are up, and today’s one of those days.  I HAVE decided I need to stop saying either “I’m sick of this” or “I’m tired of this,” because I don’t think it helps me to not feel either sick, tired or both.  What I’m trying to remember to say is, “I’m ready for this to change.”  I am.  Really ready.  For all of this to change.

Maybe I can at least get a poem out of this.  I haven’t exactly been following Stafford’s poem-a-day method, but I have written quite a few during this period.  So, okay.  Here goes.

Philosophical

David Whyte has been visiting my dreams.

We walk and talk together.

When he spoke at Stanford last month,

he spoke a lot about his friendship with John O’Donohue,

and his grief over the passing.

John, he said, was a philosopher-poet.

He, David, a poet-philosopher.

It is a fine and wonderful distinction.

What am I? – I wonder.

Not a philosopher, really,

though sometimes philosophical.

A poet? 

It’s not my primary calling.

Perhaps I am a priestess-poet,

in a time when neither priestesses nor poets

have an affirmed place.

There are no temples

other than what we create

in our minds, yards, or trees.

Poets are mostly self-published and marginalized.

All I can do

is go out to the garden,

raise my arms to the heavens

as priestesses have always done.

Bow down to the earth to whisper

to the ancestors.

Leave a few lines of poetry

tucked into the flowers.

And acknowledge myself.

Well, it’s something, and it feels good to have written.  It’s funny putting out rough, unedited poems into the ethers.  Well, what have I got to lose?