The Robin Flies - Standing on the Edge of Home

After having been away for two days, I awakened this morning to tweets, not those found on-line, but the baby bird kind. The little one that just last week was only a beak bobbing in the nest perched on uncertain legs on the edge of home.

Would this be the day he or she began to explore the wider world beyond this home of twigs and leaves in the crepe myrtle just outside the kitchen window?

I poured a cup of coffee, called my neighbor who I've learned also loves
birds to update her of the potential for flight as little tweets continued.

Before settling in to write, I looked out again to find the source of tweeting, the little life I've watched in the nest for two weeks, whose mother I've watched for much longer sitting on still uncertain legs perched on the hood of the neighbor's car.

That was two hours ago as I've continued periodically to find myself at the kitchen, actually in the kitchen window standing on my own perch a bar stool providing better access to view this new life leaving home.

Twice the little robin fluttered from the car's bumper then hood to the nearby garbage can before loosing his balance or flying into the wall.

After not seeing it for awhile, I made my way outside where the neighbor found it perched at the base of the crepe myrtle. How can some thing so small feel so precious?

I now of course want to regularly run out to ensure a neighboring cat doesn't find little bird. I want to hover as it grows to ensure the hawk occasionally circling above doesn't discover it. I want to dig worms for its sustenance in case the mother doesn't return. She came around twice with food but I question whether that's enough for one so young. Then I recall she also had another in the nest, another child that seems to have left over the weekend. Like a mother working two jobs, she may be flying back and forth with worms to feed two not to mention herself.

The last time I watched this process from start to leaving was nine years ago. A robin nest in the corner of our carport arbor became the delivery room for five babies. My nephews who were closer to baby birds than young adults in my mind at that time were visiting as the last ones flew from the nest. Somewhere in a drawer upstairs I have recorded on cassette the flight of one into our house. It not so gracefully flew right into the siding on the house then recovered on the gutter's edge before leaving.

This robin is precious to me because it is life reminding me of the preciousness of moments, moments of life that tick away on time's clock.

Outside the kitchen window, the nest once a womb, once home is now empty.

Humankind, you and I, stand on uncertain legs on the edge of home, deciding like the little robin when and whether to fly.

The Night of Flight

After watching this dear bird off and on throughout the day and ensuring a neighbor's cat found lounging under the car didn't "find" it also (though the cat obviously knew it was there), I awoke in the middle of the night to hear a down pouring rain. Oh how it rained and I worried. I thought of parents concerned for their child's safety and my own mother worried about me as I flew to California at twenty and Africa at twenty-two.

I lay in bed that night with my hands raised in prayer asking that the little bird be protected wherever it might be.

The next morning an eerie quiet pervaded our yard where usually there are sounds of robin, cardinal, wren, blue jay and crow. I hoped the quiet was related to the skies still gray dampness.

That was two morning's ago.

This morning I pull into my driveway to see two robins, the larger of the two see sawing back and forth, bobbing its beak to the ground then back, modeling for a smaller one how to find worms. The larger one bobbed then the smaller one imitated. I stood and watched. I don't know if this is 'my' baby bird but I want to believe so. Regardless I watched the instructor of the two hop from the asphalt to soil where it found a worm which was immediately delivered to the younger one.

I too was delivered nourishment, food from nature feeding my soul instructing me in the beautiful ways of nature.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 27 June 2011

To Rory McIlroy Wherever You Are

Though his victory is a week old, ancient in today’s news cycle, I’ve continued to ponder Rory McIlroy’s winning golf’s US Open. At the young age of 22, McIlroy has I suspect kept golf writers and analysts busy this week dissecting the techniques or secret to his record setting and recording tying win last Sunday in Bethesda, Maryland just outside the nation’s capitol.

For those unfamiliar with this young Irish golfer’s story, it’s not just any story. There are four coveted majors in golf - the Masters, the US Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship.

In April McIlroy entered Sunday’s final round at the Masters with the lead having led each of the three days prior. Then before the golfing world he proceeded to shoot the worst round in Master’s history by any professional golfer leading after the third round moving from first on the leader board at the day’s start to tied for fifteenth at day’s end . McIlroy’s play mid-round set the stage for major humiliation when he triple bogeyed the tenth hole followed by two three putts and another shot hit into the water.

The proverbial wheels came off yet McIlroy did as most men do not. With all of golf watching, he publicly owned his disappointment and heartbreak responding in complete contrast to how men generally respond when vulnerable.

I still recall Australia’s Greg Norman in the ’96 Masters blowing the largest 54 hole lead in Master’s history to loose in the last round. Rather than fully owning the day’s disappointment, Norman chalked it up to a bad day vowing he’d forget about it and go out and play again.

He definitely had a bad day and resorting to analyzing his game rather than owning his full emotional experience led to bad weeks, months and years as his golf game was never the same.

After McIlroy’s meltdown, rather than resorting to positive thinking and rationalizing as happens in our head over heart, disconnected, disown your insides, don’t let them see you vulnerable and emotional society , McIlroy owned his insides rather than acting like they didn’t exist.

In our not-so-open society, he spoke to reporters from his heart. He was transparent and real after a devastating loss thus increasing his chances of ultimately winning.

Sponsors will now pursue this young man, needing his commercial presence to capitalize on his recent success and maximize their profits.

I suggest men and many women of the United States need McIlroy. We need his authenticity and willingness to own the spectrum of emotional experience from heart break to joy as was so beautifully displayed at the Master’s and the Open.

We need you, Rory McIlroy, because you won the Open in a society that is emotionally not-so open. When embarrassed and humiliated as you could have easily been, you didn’t deny or hide your emotional self. You named and claimed your full experience.

Americans including our many politicians could benefit from this young man’s beautiful example of owning the full array of human experience without shame. The disowning of experience and vulnerability lends itself to an internal disconnect laying the foundation for quiet shame, compulsions and addictions evidenced in politicians and authorities who serve as mirrors for a deeper dynamic In our culture.

We could all learn a lesson from this young man’s playbook. The lesson of taking the risk to be authentic in the face of vulnerability would dramatically alter our daily personal interactions potentially influencing global interactions.

Rory McIlroy, wherever you are, I encourage you to stay open. Continue to be a model of emotional authenticity. Continue to experience the light in a child’s eyes as I’ve read you did in Haiti and take time off from tournaments as you’re doing presently. If you continue to be true to yourself and not what others want you to be, you are already a Master of the secrets to a deeply satisfying journey. You’ll stay atop life’s leader board, the one that counts far more than the one holding Sunday’s scores.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 26 June 2011

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Tear Down That Wall

I reach to pet my cat, this tabby I found that also found me three years ago.
I stroke his white neck, rub an ear.
His ear's warm. Is he okay?

I don't want him to die, darts through my mind.

Where does this come from, this fear prompting me to hold back?

Have you ever felt that moment, the precise second fear wants you to retreat,
when the wall or shield ever so slightly reveals itself?

I've spent much time behind that wall.
This crucial moment with my cat illuminates the choice.
To lean into fear or stay behind the wall.

Attach.
Protect.
Risk all, feel all.
Risk nothing, feel nothing.

Although I was not a fan, I hear shades of Reagan to Gorbachev,
"Dawn Kirk, tear down that wall."

My wall needs no wrecking ball.
Bogey does just fine.

I reach to pet my cat.
Through this tabby that found me, I find me
as well as the bridge from my heart to the world.

Bridges are the infrastructures in which I invest.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 23 June 2011

The Key

Summer in my yard is lively.

Hydrangeas, coneflowers and lilies take turns
pleasing me and hopefully a few passers by.
Bees dip into the hosta blooms

Tiny bird beaks bob up and down in the nest
as their mother arrives with food.
Summer is alive.

The key is to see the aliveness when all appears lifeless.
To sense and feel life flowing in leafless trees, bare branches, frozen soil.

The key is to find and feel the soul in all things
especially things appearing dead.

This is how we will heal the hardened heart of man.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 22 June 2011

Chasing Light, Finding Light - A Solstice Reflection

"Light may be chased and light will be found wherever creativity and soul abound."

Summer Solstice in Nashville was short on sunlight as clouds delivered episodic rains through the day. Yet as I reflected this morning on my yesterday, I realized light was anything but sparse.

After work I wove my way to Jane & Rod's house on Elmington to find soul friend Bernie Ellis sitting on the tailgate of his truck selling his first batch of blueberries! This is our fourth year to enjoy Bernie's berries. The first summer we picked them early on a Saturday morning on his farm in Fly and I returned home to make several jars of jam for the first time. Last summer I went into a berry frenzy of sorts and made blueberry bread, cobbler and thirty something jars of jam dispersed over the year to family, friends and self. In addition getting Bernie's first bunch of beets, made me nearly as happy as the kid in "The Christmas Story" who finally gets his coveted Red Rider bb gun.

I then made my way to Centennial Park where I found even in dicey weather the Nashville Symphony's conductor Giancarlo Guerrero, President Alan Valentine and the symphonies Brass Quintet performing and selling the symphony's just released cd "Chasing Light." I especially wanted to share with the conductor what the symphonies music had meant to me. In his comments to those assembled, Conductor Guerrero said, "Music is not just to be listened to but to be experienced."

This was one of the gifts our symphony gifted me with this year, the experience of feeling classical music, feeling it in my body, heart and soul.

Lastly I nabbed Jerry just home from work and went to the LeQuire Gallery for a summer opening of "The Stable" works from various artists represented by the gallery. Alan and Andree have created a storehouse of light in their gallery on Charlotte. (Cllick HERE for a complete listing of summer events and classes.) Sculpture, paintings, block prints and more shine with creativity offering inspiration.

Turning out of the gallery parking lot, the setting sun painted swaths of pink across the west bringing to a close the longest day of the year. We turned into a nearby empty lot and stopped to view Nature's art as "Chasing Light" played.

On the cd I purchased, Conductor Guerrero had written "Dawn, Keep chasing the light." On this Solstice evening I literally did that very thing driving about town surprisingly not entangled by traffic but with ease chasing the light and finding light, the light of food, music, art and the setting sun itself.

Now on this day after Solstice, seconds of light drift away day by day as dark gradually returns. Yesterday's experience of light despite clouds will remind me in winter's short days that experiences of light are anything but sparse. Even in the dark, light may be chased and light will be found wherever creativity and soul abound.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 22 June 2011

The symphony performs a free concert next Tuesday at 7:30 at Centennial Park. Click HERE for info.

The GAP - What Might Your Cap Read? (A Tribute to My Father)

It's fitting that after a five year absence this cap reading "Genuine Antique Person" came home to my mother last week as Father's Day neared. She and I initially found it, a prior holiday gift from my sister, in early 2006 while cleaning out my father's closet after his death. Although I took many of his clothes to the rescue mission a place to which he contributed, it didn't seem right not taking the cap where it said it needed to go, the place my father frequented when living. The tag reads:

"Genuine antique people sometimes loose track of their comings and goings and need help getting back. My name is Don Kirk. If found, please return me to the Coffee Club at the Dinner Bell Restaurant."

Yes, we took the cap to the Dinner Bell, my father's second home, a local restaurant where when not delivering the mail, riding country roads or birdwatching on his hillside porch, my father could be found in country give-and-take, sitting in circle telling stories, tall tales and real with the Coffee Club.

My mother called last week to share the story of the caps return or second return of sorts. A young man she hardly knows, a former employee of the now closed Dinner Bell, had just brought it to her. He had seen it lying around now homeless and thought she might appreciate it.

The cap reminded me of my father but also the beauty of rural folks who have been connecting through telling stories in restaurants and Sunday School, on front porches and roadsides, at ballgames and in backyards forever.

I began to ponder the word antique. In this case antique implies old, old and forgetful thus not having value. I associate antique with having value, not monetary value as much as meaning filled value.

Value's a concept as varied as people. Yet with busy lives today and our propensity for sound and sight bites over thinking, value's a concept increasingly co-opted by advertisers, politicians and political action campaigns - values-oriented organizations in name often serving as covers for the wealthy and corporations.

Recently on a road trip I saw a (corporate owned, of course) fast food restaurant selling a mini-size ice cream treat. In this era of half-gallon size soft drinks for 99 cents and cheap, jumbo, biggie, super-sized everything, I found a mini milk shake a move toward the positive until I remembered how AgriBusiness treats cows warehousing them to produce milk for corporate ice cream. Personally I find the way animals are treated today unconscionable and try to avoid buying corporate name brand milk products for this reason.

How does this relate to value? We're continually being told through commercials, ads, articles and the fair and balanced news as to what we should value and believe when each of us has the capacity and opportunity to reflect and consider what we really value.

Contrary to appearances that I'm a Genuine Antique Person (GAP) who's lost my way in the above comings and goings and need help getting back on track, I suspect GAP's know something valuable that's forgotten as we in our comings and goings are bombarded by ads and political sound bites. We're the ones often unknowingly lured off track.

Just as my father experienced connection with nature while watching birds and driving rural roads, he likewise found connection and community with others through the Coffee Club. Genuine antique people may not be tweeting or climbing corporate ladders. They may loose track of their comings and goings but in doing so many of them know the things that most deeply hold meaning. Through their quiet examples, they offer us something of value in relation to the simple savoring of life in today's busy world. I suspect my dad wasn't the only GAP who closed the gap between self and other through stories over coffee, riding rural roads, walking neighborhood streets or counting finches at the feeder.

This idea of antiques and what I value got me to thinking. What would my cap read?

"I, Dawn Kirk, happily loose track of my comings and goings. If you find me though and fear I'm lost just lean me against the nearest boulder or tree. Take me to a field where cows still graze or to a running stream or sit me in a wicker chair on my neighbor Judy's front porch where I'll happily share energy, stories, sorrows and dreams
as I'm reclaiming the value of antiquity."

I imagine a world in which we more consciously contribute to the closing of the GAP within and between. What might your cap read?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse, 20 June 2011

I Am One with My Rain Barrels

Yesterday post-rain, hail and lightening as a group of folks left my home, I hurriedly walked out the door with them. Feeling more like five than fifty two, I excitedly announced I wanted to check my rain barrels.

I was surprised to hear one person ask, "Why do you have rain barrels?"

I quickly said, "To water my garden. I've raised beds."

She shared her attempts this year at growing tomatoes and left.

Yet I was left with her question and my unsatisfying answer.

Why do I have rain barrels?

The obvious answer is to water my garden. It's not about saving money since beyond my two raised beds and four potato bags we've dozens of hydrangeas, ferns, coral bells and hostas reliant on Metro's water.

'Why do I really have rain barrels?' I wondered.

The seed was planted at Uplands, a progressive little retirement community to where friends moved in Pleasant Hill, TN. They along with their neighbors had rain barrels. Rain barrels then became PC or environmentally fashionable.

We purchased our first one in 2008, cut off the gutter despite Jerry's concern, and presto the next time we had rain it worked. I felt such satisfaction watching the gutter's little waterfall. I also discovered the water fall quickly filled the barrel. Store bought rain barrels can be pricey. Thanks to a news story, I found a class at Shelby Bottoms in which for a third of the retail cost I could make my own.

One quick class and a few bucks later, I had three rain barrels and verbal directions on how to drill holes in the sturdy plastic and connect the three with PVC pipe. I suspect I was the first woman on my street fifteen years ago to own a plumbers snake and know how to use it but fast forward all those years and now I'd rather write about plastic and PVC than tackle drilling and gluing.

Last week I realized there might be another option for connecting the barrels. With sections cut from an old garden hose and the gadgets that go on the end of hoses (thanks to Hillsboro Hardware) the barrels were joined. For ten days I've hoped for rain on our rainless radar until yesterday when it appeared we might have enough liquid sunshine to prompt an overflow from barrel one to barrel two.

As I said goodbye to folks I'll probably never see again, I really did feel like a kid running out to check on a new toy. I excitedly showed them, "See. There's the water line." Since the cheaper versions are white, the water level's visible. Barrel 1 had filled and overflowed to barrel 2.

Today I've checked the barrels several times and smiled. It's not as much about my idea working as the satisfaction felt in collecting rain and appreciatively holding it until the skies aren't so rainy and my plants are needy.

Not only have I acknowledged the held water but this morning as most mornings, I went out early and greeted my garden. Yes, I audibly said, "Good morning. I'm happy to see you."

The plants were glad to see me too. In the process I found a green bean and was surprised by what I think are carrots that need thinning.

So here's what I've discovered about why I really have rain barrels.

I've rain barrels for the same reason I plant seeds. I experience a harmony, peace and presence in my body, deep satisfaction within, when I'm consciously in relationship with the environment. When I'm on autopilot, not listening or awake, I'm anything but peaceful and present.

Collecting rain, growing things, feeding the birds, escorting the bug from my journal page via a leaf while writing outside are all about beauty to me, the beauty of being in relationship with Nature's living things.

Beauty is being gifted with water from the skies which I in turn gift to my garden when it's dry. Even if my plants do not bear fruit, I am gifted through their presence and process.

The rain, the plants, the soil, the sun are integral in the many magical circles in our world, magical circles through which Mother Earth is sustained and sustains us.

When awake and aware, we are like the rain barrels collecting the wisdom, love and imagination spilling down from Beyond flowing into form as words, images, songs, sensings and knowings, growing circles and supporting sacred cycles everywhere.

When I am awake and aware, I am one with my rain barrels.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 16 June 2011

Rain barrel class this Saturday June 18 10am with Gardens of Babylon at this link. Class is ten dollars and rain barrels will be sold discounted according to website site HERE

Here's a link for ongoing rain barrel and composting bin's for reduced prices in Middle TN with upcoming area events sponsored by TN Recycling Coalition. Click HERE.