Earth-Sky-Knitter

This is an old Irish/Celtic saying - attributed back to the ancient first poet of Ireland, the Druid Amergin.
His song, as retold throughout time is:
I am the wind on the sea
I am the wave of the sea
I am the bull of seven battles
I am the eagle on the rock
I am a flash from the sun
I am the most beautiful of plants
I am a strong wild boar
I am a salmon in the water
I am a lake in the plain
I am the word of knowledge
I am the head of the spear in battle
I am the God that puts FIRE IN THE HEAD
Who spreads light in the gathering on the hills?
Who can tell the ages of the moon?
Who can tell the place where the sun rests?

And his song was further entrenched in the Irish collective soul by the poet W.B. Yeats in his work, The Song of Wondering Aengus in 1899. In this poem, Yeats details the story of a man who wonders out into the wood because “fire was in [his] head” and takes a branch from the revered Hazel tree with which to fish. What he catches looks like a fish, but is in fact “a glimmering girl; With apple blossom in her hair; Who called me by name and ran; And faded through the brightening air.”

What is all this about. Well, the term “Fire in the Head” is a phrase for being called to another word, to be taken by the fairies or to “Faerie” (fairyland) or a sign of one who can travel to and realms unseen by others and return with special knowledge.

Fire in the head. Heed the call. Ever urged on by my Irish, I have been doing some reading on Celtic spirituality and Earth centered faith. I have been suffering from chronic and severely debilitating migraines for years. A phrase like this stopped me in my tracks. There are several books and a lot of information dealing with this phenomenon. In his book “Fire in the Head, Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit,” Tom Cowan refers to this calling, as the “vocational crises” of the one who is being called to their true nature as a seer, healer, traveler, etc. And, this crises is marked by the onset of debilitating illness or unusual behaviors. Hmmm, got my attention. Sliante.

 
(Photo by Paul Aiken for the Boulder Daily Camera -click photo or see link below)

It’s come to Boulder.

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/may/10/police-searching-suspicious-men-outside-boulder-hi/
This is a town where we very blissfully live our little lives, eat organic produce, do yoga and some still don’t lock their doors.

The school bus didn’t come to pick up Jack this morning, and another bus’s driver said he’d be taking our kids because there was an “incident” at Boulder High and the buses were being held at a nearby Safeway parking lot. A kitchen worker entered the school at 6am and saw two guys in Camo wearing ski masks. The school was shut down, the SWAT team called in and news helicopters buzzing buzzing all over the place. Terrorism at home in the most literal meanings of the words. Sigh. They are taking the situation very seriously, but the police admit they’re not sure what they have - a Senior Prank (stupid) a robbery or a “threat.” I don’t know what to say, except I don’t like this. I’m saddened.

The other day I mentioned that what I had on my mind (other than ee cummings, Bob Dylan and knitting the paintings of Joan Anderson) was contemplating being a dharma brat.

I realized this could be misread, as though I was thinking of becoming one. In fact I have been musing somewhere in the back of my mind what it means to me to be one. I’ll let you know soon, when I have fomulated a clearer idea about it. It’s something I know I am (despite the fact that someone on Facebook defined Dharma Brats as being under twenty - no so honey, let’s try under forty. CTR showed up in North America in 70/71. I think of myself as “first wave” - gee sounds a bit like an invasion [Hmm]. More on that later.)

When I was in college, there were two poets who kept me going - who got me excited about words, and interested in how to use them without conventional boundaries.
Bob Dylan and ee cummings.

“who pays any attention
to the syntax of things” (from “since feeling is first”)
ee cummings from Wikipedia

The thing of it was, cummings paid very close attention to syntax - he held a masters degree in English from Harvard. So, his explosion of the common use of grammar and syntax was very studied, extremely purposeful, and something he began to play with in childhood.

It is a thrill to view punctuation as a part of the visual construction of the poem, and to listen to imagery of characters and love affairs. To me, it remains an invocation to a state of Synesthesia - to see smells, to taste colors and to paint (and knit) words.

Last week an allusion was made to this poem on ER. It’s a beauty of a love poem - here in its entirety -

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

Love lingers long in cummings’ work - sometimes with heat - a favorite line . . . “shocking fuzz.”
of your electric fur.”

I am compelled to knit some ee cummings. Hmmm, there’s an idea.

I have a plan to knit some paintings. My friend Joan Anderson is an amazing painter and teacher of contemplative art who’s work moves from the the edges of abstract to, more recently, contained forms, and uses the shapes and lines of kimono and ceremonial robes - right up my alley. I told her I want to knit her paintings - she liked that.

Reading cummings or listening to Dylan are like taking in the richness and stunning colors of a beautiful handpainted yarn. You need sunshine to understand it, you need to touch it to know its hand and drape, you integrate it with all your senses.

And speaking of Shakespeare in the Alley. . .

Perhaps it is best that he speaks for himself

- a lyric of the moment -
“there’s no one to beat you,
no one to defeat you,
‘cept thoughts of yourself feeling bad.”
I keep this quote from “Ramona”  on hand for those moments when I get down.  Right on.

What’s on my mind today:

1. Contemplating being a dharma brat.

2.
Ceremonial Coat by Joan Anderson(click image for larger view)