Carmel Mawle

On Grace

October 11, 2022 admin

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.

On Impermanence

September 25, 2022 admin

“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!

The Autumn Moon

September 23, 2022 admin

It rained through the night and, when the sun broke through this morning, the saturated forest was suddenly illuminated. In the west, a rainbow appeared against the dark clouds over the yellow-tinged willows along the creek. Patches of gold and reds are appearing among the aspen groves. It is Autumnal Equinox. The earth, the forest, the sky, we are all in beautiful transition.

The Autumn Moon

by Ryokan

The moon appears in every season, it is true,
But surely it’s best in fall.
In autumn, mountains loom and water runs clear.
A brilliant disk floats across the infinite sky,
And there is no sense of light and darkness,
For everything is permeated with its presence.
The boundless sky above, the autumn chill on my face.
I take my precious staff and wander about the hills.
Not a speck of the world’s dust anywhere,
Just the brilliant beams of moonlight.
I hope others, too, are gazing on this moon tonight,
And that it’s illuminating all kinds of people.
Autumn after autumn, the moonlight comes and goes;
Human beings will gaze upon it for eternity.
The sermons of Buddha, the preaching of Eno,
Surely occurred under the same kind of moon.
I contemplate the moon through the night,
As the stream settles, and white dew descends.
Which wayfarer will bask in the moonlight longest?
Whose home will drink up the most moonbeams?

English version by John Stevens
Original Language Japanese

Golden Eagle

August 27, 2022 admin

“The golden eagle, that lives not far from here, has perhaps a thousand tiny feathers flowing from the back of its head, each one shaped like an infinitely small but perfect spear.”

~Mary Oliver

Another Modest Proposal, in memory of those lost

August 24, 2022 admin

On Memorial Day, I hiked our property’s wildlife trail with Max and my three-year-old granddaughter. We descended the rocky path into the ravine, wove through aspens and the dense stand of lodgepole pine, then scaled the granite formation we call Moon Temple. There, she released my hand to climb from one boulder to the next.

“Are you going to be a mountain climber when you grow up?” I asked.

She nodded, her eyes fixed with fierce determination on her next hand-hold. Watching her climb, my heart ached with love and the knowledge that across the country other families were grieving the loss of their children.

Since the Uvalde shootings, when 19 children and two adults were murdered by an 18 year old with an assault weapon, the death tally continues to rise.

I know many on the right believe more guns in the hands of the “good guys” will protect the innocents that our trained police could not. Gun sales spike after every mass shooting, and we will never get real solutions from lawmakers funded by the National Rifle Association.

I believe in the power of the written word to change minds. I’ve ruminated over taking the approach Jonathon Swift did in his 1729 satirical essay, “A Modest Proposal.” During that time, Irish families couldn’t pay their high rents, let alone feed or cloth their offspring. Much like today, the propertied elite were indifferent to the suffering caused by their greed.

Jonathon Swift proposed that, rather than watch their children starve, the Irish should sell their babies to feed the wealthy. He goes so far as to suggest recipes for infant flesh, “a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled.”

Swift’s proposal raised awareness and inspired activism. I thought something similar might shock both the left and right into working together to end this insanity. The parallel to Swift’s satire would be a gruesome scenario something like a “whack-a-mole” game at a county fair, but here the moles are school children cowering behind their desks. The exorbitant fees for this game would be paid directly to the 2nd Amendment-supporting representative of your choice.

But I couldn’t write it.

It was too horrible to imagine. If the facts of gun violence in this country aren’t shocking enough, my fiction never could be.

Are there words that could sway gun lovers, those who value their imagined personal safety (or sport, or collections) more than the lives of innocents?

I suppose this is the dilemma for all writers who hope to change the world through their words. Reading fiction can increase empathy. Writing for Peace was based on that premise. We shouldn’t give up transporting readers to new understanding and compassion, but sometimes the best course is to write and call our legislators, opine in our local papers and on social media.

When our children’s safety is on the line, the most powerful writing we can do is register to vote, to show up at the polls, and to elect representation that will protect our democracy and human rights—representatives who refuse to accept money from the NRA or the gun lobby.

So here is my very modest proposal:

I challenge my writer friends to keep searching for the right words, and to keep working for change…

…for the sake of our dreamers and future mountain climbers.

Hopeful Imaginings

November 5, 2018 CarmelMawle

It’s Election Day Eve morning. The temperature has risen to 34, and the snow is dripping off the metal roof faster than it’s accumulating. I find myself wondering if this unforecasted warmth is a sign of the much-discussed “blue wave.”

No way to know until we know.

Either way, change is on the horizon. So we wait.

I try to keep myself busy. There’s a lot to do. Still working on getting our house in Fort Collins ready to rent. Still sorting through 22 years lived in suburbia, separating what will go to the kids, be donated, or go to storage, from what will fit into the cabin with us.

When the snow started this morning, it quickly went from tiny swirls to thick heavy flakes blowing from the north. The layer of clouds over the south were thin enough that the snow was illuminated in sunlight, though no blue sky shown through. Knowing better, I search the sky for meaning, for signs or omens, and this well-lit blizzard seems hopeful to me, too.

When the blue finally appears, I watch the clouds go their separate ways, and scribble a poem.

On the Wind

The clouds swirl and churn
in westerly gusts,
translucent and opaque,
sunlit whites and rainbow tinged,
roiling across the deep static blue.

The clouds are story-tellers,
masters of the unspoken
spoken word.
Petroglyphs and cave drawings
in motion on blue lapis.

Dragons and horses and ravens,
hunters and warriors,
whirling dervishes, and wizened orators
dance and change places,

a choreography of lives and deaths,
real and imagined.

If you weren’t able to vote earlier, tomorrow is your day. Brace the lines and make your voice heard.

So much depends on it.

Transitory Life in the Rockies

October 22, 2018 CarmelMawle

The female mosquito lives approximately 50 days, while her male counterpart only survives 10. The painted lady butterfly, who spends summers fluttering among the Rocky Mountain wild flowers, has a life cycle of one year. The blood-sucking Rocky Mountain wood tick lives up to three years in the wild, and can survive 600 days without feeding. The life span of the deer up here is two to three years, mountain lions and coyotes live about 10, moose can live 15 – 25, and bears up to 26 years.

All of these sentient beings take what they need to survive, and leave the rest. The larger animals also leave footprints, fertilize the landscape with their waste, crush grasses and break branches as they move through the dense underbrush or bed down for the night. They leave a narrow wake.

In contrast, the life expectancy for a woman in Colorado ranges from 67 to nearly 90 years. I’ve been known to eat more than I should, put another log on and open the windows to listen to Pan Handle Creek, and more than one head of lettuce has sadly wilted in my veggie crisper – a despicable carbon footprint. While I’m keenly aware of the impermanent nature of our time in the Rockies, I find myself driven to leave some kind of lasting mark. I want to clear the land of dead wood, stack cairns, and build a stone path from the river all the way up to Moon Temple. I dream of one day building a garage with a couple of guest rooms, and inviting guests to enjoy a hearty breakfast before they hit the trails or spend the day writing in this inspiring environment.

None of us are guaranteed our next heartbeat, but if statistics bear out for me, I have anywhere from 10.5 to 32 years to fulfill these dreams. And then the hill will be overgrown and covered with the skeletons of our now-standing aspens and lodgepoles, the stones will creep and tumble down to the river under the hooves of large mammals and the freeze and thaw of winter, and the foundation of our establishment will crumble to dust in not much longer than it took for me to make my minuscule mark.

The Rocky Mountains were created over the span of 25 million years, beginning 80 million years ago, rising up from tectonic plates that are over a billion years old. In that context, not only my little mark, but the mountains themselves, are nothing but “a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass.”

I learned this week that the sciatic pain that has been dogging me since a fall on the ice last February is the result of six bulging discs, one of which is compressing the nerve. I haven’t spoken to a doctor yet (and that’s a for-profit healthcare story I may write about another time), but the diagnosis was devastating. Why? Because it may limit my tiny mark in this place I love. Oh, how we form attachments in this life. There is a possibility that my mobility will dramatically change within my lifetime. Or maybe not. I really don’t know.

Today, I am typing by the open window while raindrops hit the decking outside. I just put another log on the fire.

Rocky State of Mind

October 11, 2018 CarmelMawle

Over the last couple of days our Moon Mountain palette of deep greens and golds has transfigured into crystalline whites. Against the snow, the evergreens look nearly black, shadows glow in shades of blue, and the faded yellow of dried grasses and aspen leaves stand out in sharp contrast. The sunrise is reflected in the snow caught on branches, and outside my window, individual snowflakes sparkle on the thick blanket of white.

I started the fire this morning, and sat in the dark with my hands wrapped around my mug as pink light slowly defined the horizon. And then I threw on my coat and boots and stepped into the snow to capture the colors with my camera, just as a bull moose strolled by.

I’m soaking up all this beauty like hot spring mineral waters. The last couple of weeks have left me feeling like many survivors – triggered, sad, and depleted. In the aftermath of Dr. Ford’s brave testimony, I’ve felt again the silent and helpless little girl within. I’ve been shocked and outraged by the corruption and cruelty of this administration, felt the gut-clenching response of my karate training as I watched a victim of sexual assault be mocked by the president of our United States. It’s not a self-defensive response to physical danger, and the adrenaline surge leaves me further drained. But I am grateful for that ingrained reaction. It is a reminder that I am not helpless, that powerlessness is an illusion.

Years ago, I became consumed with a situation in Iraq. A group of Kurdish men, women, and children, locals who had aided the U.S. during the first Gulf War, were hiding in a barn as Saddam’s troops rolled through the village in tanks looking for traitors. They had a limited supply of food and water, and mothers were covering the mouths of their babies in fear that their cries would give away their location. I couldn’t sleep for days, trying to rally the city’s church council to support a bipartisan effort to save these people. As the minutes ticked by, then hours and days, they were running out of food and water, waiting for help from a government that had deserted them, and I increasingly lost any sense of distance or perspective.

Most of the activists I know have suffered some degree of burnout. Empathy may be a gift that allows us to connect with others, motivate us to compassion and activism, and lead to a kinder, more peaceful world, but it takes a toll on our bodies and mental health.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say “don’t get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT).” It’s a saying activists would also do well to remember. In order to maintain the energy levels needed to keep going in the face of what can seem at times hopeless, the body, brain, and soul must be nourished. It may be tempting to grab fast food on the way home from the protest, but what our bodies really need is healthy proteins and colorful foods rich in antioxidants and complex carbohydrates. Anger and despair lead to sleepless nights and loneliness (we’re not alone, we’re in this together), and all of these will deplete energy reserves, leading to depression and burnout.

For generations, nurses have told new mothers to sleep when their babies slept. While it might be tempting to use that quiet time to clean the kitchen and do the laundry, if we don’t take care of ourselves first, we won’t be able to take care of anyone else.

I learned something about myself and my limitations in that experience. Just as my grandmother used to say “garbage in, garbage out,” I had to examine where I was spending my energy. Instead of focusing entirely on the negative – war, famine, climate disaster, injustice – I needed to find a way to shift my energy toward solutions, developing the skills in myself and others to work effectively for peace and justice – writing for peace.

I’m not always successful, but shifting my focus towards positive change, away from the explosions and death cries, I am able to hear that still small voice warning me of low reserves. And that is when I stop and look around at this mountain where I live, or listen to snow-melt dripping off the roof, or Max’s quiet snoring.

Beauty and goodness and love are food for the soul, and they are all around us. We are not alone. We are not powerless. Far from it. So do what you need to do to replenish and stay strong. Eat your vegetables, get a good night’s sleep, meditate or pray, seek out your friends and loved ones, and find the beauty that is all around you. Moon mountain is a state of mind.

November is just around the corner. When and how will you get to the polls? Do you need to take the day off? Daycare? Do you or anyone else you know need a ride?

Take care of yourself, and start making plans.

Thanks for visiting me in my Moon Mountain home. I hope you’ll join me here regularly by subscribing to my Rocky Mountain blog. Wishing you strength and resilience… Carmel

Moon Mountain

October 4, 2018 CarmelMawle

Recently, one of our grandsons came to visit. He’s four, and pulling slash (the highly flammable dead wood) was a grand adventure. He was a mountain man, a biologist, and a geologist, pointing out every unusual moss rock and bright fallen leaf he came across.

Hiking back up the steep incline after dumping a load into the pick-up, I asked him what he thought we should name our hill.

Without hesitation, he said, “Moon Mountain,” grinning ear-to-ear with the kind of uninhibited confidence every child should have.

So now, we live on Moon Mountain in the Colorado Rockies. At the top of the hill, next to the ravine, is a granite outcropping where fissured boulders stand like Celtic ogham stones. Craig and I had already begun calling it the temple; Liam renamed it Moon Temple. I like it. If you were to nestle among those stones, you could see the moon rise, travel unfettered through the star-filled sky, never creeping below the dark forested horizon until it sets into the west. It’s a fitting name.

The aspens are turning. Many of the leaves have fallen, but the trees stand in communities, and when they shed their leaves they all do it together. Where a road separates an aspen community, you’ll see one side barren-branched, their shining bark fully exposed, while their neighbors across the road are still in full color. Do they retain memories of the time before the bulldozers came, tore apart their root systems, and created the winding dirt roads? Are they lonely? It’s possible. Scientists are increasingly finding evidence that the trees do communicate with each other.

But, while they have been cut off from the larger forest, they still have their close families. From the outside, they appear to thrive magnificently.

When I think about the children locked in our for-profit detention centers, I wonder what they have seen before they were torn from their mothers and fathers and other family members. As they crossed the miles, did they name the hills, trees, or rocks? Did they marvel over the beauty they passed, stockpile those memories so they could turn to them, hills and valleys, trees and rocks and flowers, during bleaker days? Or did they enter those walls and cages with only memories of the traumatic events that sent them fleeing to the hope of a safer future? If so, I pray that hope will sustain them.

Dear children, you can’t see it from where you are, but outside your walls the world hums with color. The trees cry out to each other. Leaves are falling. Not in sadness, but in the ongoing natural change of a beautiful globe rotating on its axis. If you have lost hope in a nation that once declared, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” then put your faith in this. Outside your walls, change is happening. We, the people, are working for justice – for you, for your mothers and fathers, and for all our families. Like the aspen communities, you deserve to thrive. Name your mountains and temples.

Cry out your truth, the world is listening.

And don’t give up hope.

#WhyIDidntReport, and What Happened When I Did

September 26, 2018 admin

“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”

Donald J. Trump

6:14 AM – 21 Sep 2018

Women across the nation are sharing their own horrifying experiences and the reasons they never reported them to the authorities. I read the stories with a mixture of sadness, anger, and pride. No matter how many years pass, the reliving is still painful and raw, but these women warriors are going to battle for one of our own – Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

We believe her, not only because she is a highly credible witness, risking her career and personal safety to come forward when this nation most needs the truth, but because her story is ours.

The first time, I was seven years old. I was physically terrorized and sexually assaulted by a babysitter. I didn’t report it because she threatened to hurt me and kill my family. I didn’t report it because I was ashamed. I didn’t report it because I feared that, if the grown-ups got involved, I would get in trouble, too.

I was a shy girl, quiet and vulnerable. There were others after that – acquaintances of my parents, neighbors, and teachers. My parents never knew. I never told.

Until I was nineteen. Waiting for a bus after an A.A. meeting, I was dragged through a hedge at knifepoint. I hadn’t yet started Karate, but I screamed and fought to the best of my ability. Every attempt to escape led to increased violence. He raped me in a muddy creek in a cold dark ravine. I ended up in the hospital, brutally beaten, hair yanked out in chunks, knees grated on concrete, hands, face, and throat sliced open. The police were called.

So this time I did report. I had been minding my own business, waiting for a bus. I was wearing blue jeans and a thigh-length army parka, not remotely seductive. I hadn’t been drinking.

I’ll leave the question of whether it was better to report to the authorities up to you.

They sent an officer to interview me in my home. I was alone when he arrived, a large silver-haired man with a gun. He sat facing me at the table, took out a clipboard, and began questioning me about what I had been wearing when I was raped. Still heavily bandaged, one eye covered with gauze and tape, I found myself trying to justify my choice to avoid panty lines by not wearing underwear that night.

There were a couple of line-ups, another traumatic experience with a hypnotherapist, but they never arrested the man. They never found him.

That was 37 years ago. When it comes to reporting today, many departments have victims’ advocates available. It’s unlikely that female victims will be confronted by a male police officer when they are alone. But, even now, “The Vast Majority of Perpetrators Will Not Go to Jail or Prison.”

I’m not implying that victims shouldn’t report to the authorities. But the decision to keep quiet is not only common, it’s understandable.