Revelations of Divine Love
“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
―
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
Winter in the Rockies
Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. A white flower grows in the quietness. Let your tongue become that flower. – Jalaluddin Rumi
Winter is quiet in the Rockies. The weekenders have returned to their busy lives in the city – work, shuttling kids, running errands. Those of us fortunate enough to live here full time bundle up and slow down.
The snow falls and melts, and falls again. As the weeks go by, there is less melting and more accumulation. The ice thickens and becomes covered with snow, silencing the creek’s gentle murmur. A thick white blanket insulates the earth, muffling sounds – the owls calling to each other, the coyotes celebrating a kill.
We awaken predawn to a cold house and begin our morning rituals. Craig builds a fire in the wood stove while I put the kettle on. I sip my tea while he reads aloud – Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, the Dalai Lama – something that helps us adjust our mindset, I read our Rumi poem for the day, invite the bell to sound, and then sit a short meditation as the fire crackles into warmth. On the mornings we drive into town to work or spend time with my mom, sometimes our meditation is only five minutes. Still, it helps. We are not Buddhists, but we’ve found we have much to learn from many traditions.
We’re often asked about the commute. A little over an hour, we try not to do it more than three or four times per week. It’s a beautiful drive. In the winter, we leave in the dark and watch the sunrise slowly illuminate the horizon, reflecting on the frozen lakes and snow covered trees.
The days we are here more than compensate for the days we are not. Even when we’re driving through the snow.
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
A December Morning
“You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.”
―
The fire crackled in the wood stove and coyotes howled in the distance while Craig and I did our morning reading and meditation. When I opened my eyes, the sky was ablaze. I ran out onto the deck with my camera, the colors becoming more vivid and complex with every breath.
We finished our breakfast as the light caught the snow on the wagon trail, reflecting pinks and reds and golds between the dark sage. The colors were still evolving when we started down the mountain. It’s always a good day when we see a moose. They bring me back to my childhood in Alaska. But this morning we were blessed with the sunrise, elk, moose, and a herd of deer crossing the road in front of us while drivers flashed their lights at each other in communal protection – of each other, and our fellow mountain dwellers.
Just a note on a December morning. In gratitude for the sky, the weather, and all they have to teach us.
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
Patience of the Season
Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. ~A. A. Milne
Patience is at the forefront of my mind this Thanksgiving week. The holiday season can be a difficult time for those of us who have suffered loss during the year. As families come together, tensions can run high. Small things that normally wouldn’t bother us can grow larger and more jagged. Patience gives us the opportunity to overlook our differences and remember the many reasons we love each other.
This year, we are also thinking about how to keep each other safe. The CDC is warning of a tripledemic whammy this season – Covid, flu and Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection (RSV). So far, our family has been hit with two of the three. We are all recovering – something to be truly grateful for. While the guidelines on masking and distancing seems to vary from day to day, we’ll take precautions where it doesn’t cause too much hardship. In our case, Craig and I are still testing positive for Covid, so it seems wise to postpone our family get-together until after Thanksgiving.
Patience isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but I’m using this time of increased solitude to catch up on reading and writing.
Wishing you all a safe, healthy, and Happy Thanksgiving.
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
The Great Turning
“While the responseometer or our collective mobilization doesn’t yet show the high degree of universal engagement needed to address our planetary emergency, if you look for them, you can see impressive steps toward what is required. In every country, in all walks of life, people are turning up with an intention to play their part. They are turning away from behaviors and ways of doing things that cause harm. They are turning toward ways of doing and thinking and being that support the flourishing of life. This is the Great Turning — and you are likely part of it.”
~ From ACTIVE HOPE: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power, by Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
Oil, Cement, and Music
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds us closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” –Friedrich Nietzsche
The fawns have lost their spots. They are gangly teenagers, still following their moms, but with distinct minds of their own. It’s not uncommon to see a doe on one side of the road and her fawns grazing on the other side. They don’t realize how dangerous these roads are, but often their parents don’t, either. Drivers beware.
The moose calves almost look like yearlings. They are still smaller than their parents, but losing their baby faces. Their ears are more proportionate to the rest of their heads but, like the fawns, they are not yet wary of the world.
Like our wildlife neighbors, our own family is a blend of ages, ranging from age 4 to 85. We’re all growing and making mistakes. We create messes and beauty, and beautiful messes. We do our best, learning to love and forgive each other, to celebrate the milestones and accomplishments, to laugh and grieve together.
Love deepens through the many ways our lives intersect. It is, as Nietzsche said, the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds us closer together, and the music that brings harmony.
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
Like Trees
If we surrendered
to Earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees
~Rainier Maria Rilke
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
It is Done
I clicked on the Writing for Peace website today (for old time’s sake) and was greeted with a notice that the account had been “suspended.” It was just a matter of time. I guess they hope that the shock of seeing the end termed that way will compel some people to keep it up longer. But, as I said in my final Writing for Peace post, it’s time to let it go.
I will be forever grateful to all the writers and artists who shared their work with us and to the young people who took the time to meet our challenge. We have heard from so many young writers about the ways their lives were changed, but the truth is they changed our lives, too.
A friend recently compared Writing for Peace with the metaphor of the stone dropped into a pond. Together, we made some waves. Thank you.
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
On Grace
I’ve been meditating on the meaning of grace.
As a child, I knew the word as a kind of prayer – “Let’s bow our heads and say grace.” It was something we did before dinner with guests, or when my grandmother was staying with us. It wasn’t until I came to Alcoholics Anonymous as a teen that I first heard the word used to mean a gift, freely given and undeserved. My life, until then, had taught me nothing was given unconditionally. Grace was a frightening concept.
I complied with the requirements of a twelve-step program out of desperation. My only hope for sobriety was to trust in a power greater than myself, and not necessarily a benevolent almighty god. I just had to trust that the program designed by two hopeless drunks could help me stay sober. I turned my will and my life over to this higher power, because I didn’t know any other way.
There were times when people fell off the wagon and returned to the meetings beaten down, claiming that their “slip” had been God’s will. Once, someone referred to a friend’s death, a fisherman in his early twenties who started drinking again and died by suicide, as God’s will. The idea that I was turning my sobriety over to a God that might will me to drink in order to teach me a lesson was terrifying. I found no comfort in clinging to a lack of agency as an excuse for my personal failings. Too many friends didn’t survive their slips for me to take a chance on the theory. It was by finding my own definition of “grace”, one day at a time, that I came to believe that my higher power doesn’t prescribe cruelty for personal edification.
I miss the mark on a regular basis. Learning to acknowledge my mistakes and forgive myself has helped to deepen my understanding of grace and its lessons in compassion and unconditional love. There is also an acknowledgement of my, our, innate worthiness. Grace may be a gift, given freely, but I no longer believe it is undeserved. We are each deserving of grace not only because of our potential, but because we are made of the same stardust, have the same elements coursing through our veins, and generations of trauma molded into our DNA.
My definition of “grace” continues to evolve. I’ve come to believe that we are all perfectly flawed creations-in-progress, filled with a multiplying grace that may take a lifetime to understand.
And that is a gift freely given.
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.
On Impermanence
“Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh
Wishing my friends who are celebrating Rosh Hashana a very Happy and Healthy New Year!
Copyright © 2022 Carmel Mawle. All rights reserved.