This "ofrenda" is offered for my parents. Mom passed away in December 1983 and Dad in July 2001. I can not separate myself from them. The reader would say "of course you can't separate yourself from your parents." My version is that I still think of them every day. And in some ways they live on in my house. I use Mom's pots & pans & big spoons and Dad's end table sits beside my living room sofa. Mom's grandfather's desk is my desk; Dad's storage chest is my storage chest. I understand myself to be part of their linear path.

The picture on the alter is of the two of them walking back down the aisle after their wedding. It is October 9, 1948. She is 22 and he is 25. He has returned from an Austrian POW camp at the end of WWII. She is an only child who loves to dance. They meet at Duke University and marry after she graduates. Their life is before them and they do not know what it will contain. They do not know how hard they will work for the next 30 years. They do not know of the 4 children they will have, or of the cancer that will start to consume her in 20 years. They don't know of the anger and hurt and frustration any more than they know of the joy and love and laughter. They do not know of the crazy pets, including a squirrel named Pepperoni that got equal billing at one of the daughter's wedding, or the houses with water pipes that freeze in the winter or cars that backfire and scare the neighbors. They do know, however, that they have joined hands and have chosen to set out together.

Under the picture in the middle is a small blue salt dish filled with salt. The salt dish was my grandmother's and then my mother's. There is also a red macrame strand attached to a bell--one of Mom's Christmas decorations, and a celadon green stone--the color of love. In front stand 6 candles: one grouped in a foursome--four cardinal directions/four children and a candle for each Mom & Dad, in silver candlesticks they received as a wedding gift.

To the right of the picture are flowers from my garden--yellow St. John's Wort and one magenta coneflower that bloomed this past week! There are also two dishes of candy. The dishes are from my grandmother's china that we used at Christmas. One dish contains butterscotch for Dad--a first generation American who parents came from Scotland. The other dish holds candy corn--Mom loved it! Behind the dishes is an old deck of cards. We were a family of card players--hearts, spades, double solitare. Also on the right are two glasses of water, should Mom and Dad get thirsty.

To the left of the picture is a glass of wine (cheers!), a big jar of buttons handed down from my mother's side. In it are buttons from her mother, herself, and me. I will pass it on to my daughter. For sweet bread, I offer them applesauce muffins. These are a family favorite--Mom made them at least once a month and they never lasted long... I've also added a small brass dish shaped like a porthole. This was Dad's. I gave it to him one Christmas and asked for it back when he died. He always had boats--big boats, little boats, boats that worked and boats that gave out. "Running aground" was a common term in our family... And finally, a quirky little set of carved dice from Mexico that I found in his desk while cleaning out his house--why he had it I have no idea, but knew it had to go on the altar!

I now live in the same neighborhood we lived in when we moved to town in 1965. I'm the only one who has stayed in Greensboro. Everyday I live in my memories--driving past Friendly Shopping Center, going to the Farmer's Market in the dark morning, Mom teaching us to drive on these streets--I think of these things as I move through my days, now in October 2006 and everyday before today. There is no separation between then and now--it's a continuation. I miss my parents. I feel them around me, although I couldn't say why or how. I wonder how they are doing, if they see each other, if they see us 4 kids and our kids and our crazy pets. I would love to hug them once more...

A personal note here. My middle name is Storie and it is from the Scottish side of my family. The "story" goes that the original spelling was "storey" but my parents changed the spelling. As many Gaelic names are tied to occupation, I've often wondered about storytelling in my history...And that's the reason for the name of my blog-I tell stories about art.

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Irish Folk Tales

I swear I could hear traditional Irish music playing in the background while reading these stories. Even more so, the stories became songs--the main character walking (or running) in the course of their journey became the fiddle; high and low points of the journey became the strings and drums; pauses in the stories were pauses in the songs; and all came back to the beginning through their inherent cyclic nature--fantastic!

Folk tales were passed down orally, as was the music, and characters took on larger-than-life qualities. The mythological journey in the landscape was a journey of the soul, with tricksters and giants and monsters to battle and wise elders to guide. And at the end of each journey, after having learned a bit more, the protagonist returned home to the self, wiser and stronger for having made the passage.

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The King of Ireland's Son
This is a young man on a moral journey that stems from a killing he has committed. Yet we see early on he is a good person by the payment of a dead man's debts. This soon-to-be ruler is kind and protected by others, but not very effective in his own right. The story is quite circular--each meeting of new people who join the group along the way is told in the same words. While the little green man asks for a kiss as his reward, the other 3 only wish for a place and a garden--a home. Every night the king's son can not see a place to stay, but his little green companion can and approaches the giant owner of the place in the same way--and each are giants who fear bigness! After several lyrical stops and starts, the son finds the one woman he can marry, only to be thwarted. But the little green man's perseverance and quick wit saves the day so the king's son and the woman can marry. The little green man is the one who carries the story although it is supposedly about the king's son--a comment on who really does the work in Ireland?
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Dreams of Gold
Anthony stealing from a church? Rather than having a blatant devil-monster emerge from the ground to swallow Anthony, it is the thought of another real person seeing the theft that stops Anthony. Then the storyteller remembers another story about how a cobbler helped a man from Mayo. The cobbler dreamed of gold in the man's own garden and so the man returned home (treasure lies within). No monster under the bridge either---this one is rooted in the everyday.
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The Birth of Finn MacCumhail
A terrific story with all the elements! Love, danger, killing, family preservation, wise elder, mythological half-human half-animal creatures, hiding in the woods, self sacrifice and ultimately, advancing the well-being of the greater whole. Like the king's son story, "Finn" is circular--parts are repeated as the characters move forward. Yet this time, the king is not benevolent. Instead, the king is the enemy and Finn is his grandson. Even more so, unlike the king's son, Finn has to earn his royal blood. Yet because he is the next ruler, he sees the necessity of working for the greater whole (rather than from self-interest as his grandfather did). And so Finn's story ends with his ascension (his birth) to true leadership.
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Usheen's Return to Ireland
Another Return to Home story, this one more soft and luscious, yet not triumphant in the end. Usheen journeys into the water, the source of life, and finds a heaven that is "in everyplace, all about us." He misses his old way of being and so returns only to find all of it worn away. He forgets his "heavenly" source and guidance, touches earth, and immediately withers away. A Garden of Eden story...
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The Man Who Had No Story
Brian is a simple man with little sense of self. Each day he does his job and goes home--that's his life. And so when his job stops, he does not know what to do. How many people today rely on their jobs to describe themselves???? We've been doing this for years apparently! Anyway, he sets out on a journey to find himself. Others see him differently than he sees himself. With their declarations, he becomes a fiddler, a priest and a doctor! It is so easy! He only had to believe... And in the end, magically returning to his starting point, Brian learns he is so much more, and does, in fact, have a story to tell, as do all of us...

The Essential Rumi

A rainy, cold night--a perfect time to go into Rumi...For the personal exploration of Rumi I selected three poems that spoke of unexpected gifts: "Quietness" (p. 22), "As Ripeness Comes" (p. 290) and "Refuse the First Plate" (p. 336).


Quietness

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
you're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you've died.
Your old like was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.


I fought becoming quiet. Fought it tooth and nail. Fought it for several years. And then one day I gave up. I realized the quiet was not going to go away and I was the one who had to acquiesce. This is the "die" Rumi speaks of. It's a letting go of old ways that don't work anymore. But you don't know they don't work anymore--that is what you discover when you are quiet. This poem makes me think of being out on the water in my kayak. I love to paddle under open skies. I go by myself or with a close friend who is as quiet as I am in our paddling. We move out from the shore and warm up our stiff shoulders After a bit our bodies fall into a rhythm--paddling is done with your whole body, not just your arms. We move steady and fast and silent for the first 15-20 minutes. Then we stop and see where we are. We do not like to talk, we watch instead. And we breathe. And we dip our fingers into the water to see how warm it is that day.

I have paddled under a full moon on an otherwise dark night. It is an act of trust, of faith. I have come still in the middle of a lake on the dark night and looked up to the moon. There is nothing between us. I am there because I choose it. That was the odd thing about surrendering. I now choose quiet as much as I can. I crave it. I came to like myself in the quiet. I am myself in the quiet.

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As Ripeness Comes

What souls desire arrives.
We are standing up to our necks
in the sacred pool. Majesty is here.

The grains of the earth take in something
they do not understand.

Where did this come from?
It comes from where your longing comes.

From which direction?
As ripeness comes to fruit.

This answer lights a candle
in the chest of anyone who hears.

Most people only look for the way when they hurt.
Pain is a fine path to the unknowable.

But today is different.
Today the quality we call splendor
puts on human clothes, walks through in the door,
closed it behind, and sits down with us
in this companionship.


There is a saying I have learned over the last few years that comes back to me every now and then: "Suffering is optional." Now when you are in the middle of a really crappy time, that edict sounds trite and condescending and you want to smack the person who presents it to you. However, as hard as it is to believe, it is true. I wished I'd gotten that one earlier...

"Majesty is here" is a beautiful line. Majesty is always here. That which is royal, that which stands above, that which makes us small--a towering tree for example.

Ripeness is a natural progression. This makes me think of old bananas that are sweet. Their outside skin looks brown and bruised, but inside is at its peak. Banana bread and banana pudding can only be made with ripe fruit. The fruit starts bitter and becomes sweet over time. Aging is bitter-sweet.

Gifts are everywhere. Acknowledgement of a gift is as much a prayer as pleading is.

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Refuse the First Plate

There is a deliverance that comes
when you move from eating greasy scraps
to more beautiful, noble food.

One kind of food gives you flatulence
and diarrhea, a heaviness in your stomach.

The other keeps you light
as you ride the ocean.

Fast, and watch what arrives.
A materially full person is not alert
for dishes that descend.

Don't always eat what's offered.
Be lordly. Refuse the first plate.
Wait, and the host will send out better food.

Lift your head like the tallest mountain in the dark
that the dawn turns red, then gold.


More words (like "majesty") that allude to a kingdom: noble food, dishes that descend (from above?). Be lordly. Lift your head. Be shown as gold.

One of the hardest things to do is to put yourself first. Do you take scraps because it is offered and you do not want to hurt someone's feelings? No, you say "thank you, but no" and smile with kindness. But it is rude to turn down what others offer! No, it's not. This is one of the unexpected gifts of becoming quiet. You learn to hear and listen to your own voice. You learn to trust your own voice. You learn to be still and watch and wait and see what happens. You float for a while and see what happens. And you do this because you honor yourself. To allow yourself to be shown as gold is hard. We want to deflect and turn our eyes downward. Rumi said to stand in your place, and allow yourself to be shown as gold. Because when you do, the one next to you will want the same for themselves. It's how we feast at the table together...