Friday Five: Wind in My Sails

Sally, over at RevGalBlogPals, writes:
"... sailing is a family passion, we love the water and the wind, and take delight in the fresh air and quiet, but also in the competition, striving to do our best!
How about you?

1. Is there a sport/ hobby that is more of a passion than a past-time for you?
I've never been one for sports, although I do like salt-water swimming and Messing About In Boats and I adore a good game of Extreme Croquet.
My hobby/passion is the exploration of folk culture and traditions--especially those of the British Isles. (I come by this anthropological bent honestly-- growing up in a multi-ethnic family with three adopted siblings, intercultural study was simply a part of daily life, and provided a goodly portion of our family fun.) With some like-minded friends, we even started a nonprofit organization to support our folk culture habit, although it's in "sleep mode" while we finish building our house. The Piper and I have justified the purchase of many a CD and weighty ethnographic tome by saying, "It's all for the Ceilidh House library, of course--and we'll use these as reference materials when we teach our bagpipe and Gaelic language students!"

2. Outdoors or indoors?
Outdoors: festival-going, "ethnically-correct" gardening and orchard-tending with heirloom plant varieties, and staying close to the salt water that bouys my spirit and connects me to my ancestors. Indoors: delving into books, gathering with other folklore enthusiasts, swapping stories, and having great music session around the woodstove.

3. Where do you find peace and quiet?
Not sure right now-- it's been a hard year. I seek peace in the slow intake and release of breath, the comfortable closeness of my partner, the gradually-revealed beauty of our almost-finished house and the slowly-emerging health of our land. Quiet is easier to find than peace--I am thankful every morning and every night that I can begin and end my days surrounded, almost entirely, by natural rather than human-made sounds. (I'll relish the quiet more fully when I can find my missing whetstone and "take care" of a couple of extra roosters, if you know what I mean!)

4. A competitive spirit; good or bad, discuss...
A competitive spirit is like fire: a good servant, a terrible master, and dangerous to play with. I appreciate its ability to overcome inertia and get a person moving towards a goal, but I don't like the way others tend to be left in a person's wake. I should come clean and declare, right here, that I am a vicious card player, but fortunately my commpetitive streak is matched by a tendency toward distraction and terrible bad luck in the dealing of hands.

5. Is there a song a picture or a poem that sums up your passion ?
I've posted links to Richard Hugo's poem, Glen Uig, in previous posts. It captures some of the essential pain and joy of reconnection to one's past. Here's another poem from Cathal O Searcaigh, translated from Irish Gaelic by Gabriel Fitzmaurice:

A Portrait Of The Blacksmith As A Young Artist

I'm sick and tired of Dun Laoghaire.
Of my bedsit in Cross's Avenue,
A pokey place that cripples my wordsmith's craft
And leaves me nightly in the dumps
Scrounging kindred among the drunks
Instead of hammering poems for my people
On the anvil of my mind.
Almighty God! It's gone too far,
This damned silence.
If I were back in Caiseal na gCorr
I'd not be awkward, half-alive.

No way! But in the smithy of my tongue
I'd be hale and hearty
Working my craft daily
Inciting the bellows of my mind
Stirring thoughts to flame
Hammering loudly
The mettlesome speech of my people.

--found in Writing the Wind: a Celtic Resurgence: The New Celtic Poetry, ed. Thomas Rain Crowe.

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Friday Five: Bucket List

SingingOwl over at RevGalBlogPals suggests that we offer our personal "bucket lists" for the traditional Friday Five. I never saw the Bucket List movie, so the words brought something different to my scattered mind:

"There's a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza..."

I loved that song when I was a child. It seemed endlessly funny, the way each problem on the ol' homestead sent Liza and Henry farther into the Slough of Despond...all 'cause there was a dad-blamed hole in the gosh-darn bucket.

Now that I live on a homestead myself, the song ain't so funny--just achingly familiar. In my life, a "bucket list" is likely to involve an actual bucket, and if'n it don't have a hole, well, the side may be split or the handle near to coming off.

Och, but enough whinging and whining. The sun's come out to warm the weary earth, and I shall plant peas in the garden today. This morning I said goodbye to The Piper's Son, who is headed off across the country to a new job and the unfettered freedom of young adult life. I'm thankful, today, for the extraordinary gift of his help this past year as we turned our old woodshop into a genuinely lovely little house. I'm also excited for him, fresh-faced and ready to discover his place in the world. Oh, and this morning, after he left? After wiping away a few sentimental tears, I got out the utility knife and the drill and put up the last piece of drywall in our bathroom, bringing the house that much closer to being done.

Now, about that bucket list:

1) Restore this old farm and open a Bed & Breakfast with a Celtic theme. I'd cook sumptuous Celtic breakfasts, all ingredients homegrown and/or fresh from other local farms. The Bagpiper would provide evening entertainment and, for those who request it, an unforgettable wake-up call! Instead of being isolated and exhausted by the hard work of farming, we'll be constantly invigorated by the stream of vibrant visitors who come to appreciate this farm's unique blessings and gifts. We'll hold Celtic Spirituality retreats for church groups, Farm Discovery weekends for armchair homesteaders, Writers & Artists retreats for weary professional women (BTW, I count caregiving of any kind as a profession, so just about all women would be qualified)...

2) Become fluent--or at least comfortably conversant--in Scottish Gaelic. (I started learning this beautiful, soulful language several years ago, but had to end my classes when I left for seminary.) Of course, to continue my studies, I'd need to spend a fair amount of time in, well, SCOTLAND! Ah, home of my ancestors and my Spirit's Other Home... Tir Mo Ghraidh! There I would sing with the seals, wander the moors, caper at the ceilidhs, wrap myself with the mountain mists and eerie, ancient peace of the isles...and the Bagpiper would travel along, sometimes choosing a different path for her own musical pursuits, but always joining me to bless moonrise and sunrise, to share our stories at the start and end of each day.

3) In keeping with #2: Make music such a central & powerful part of our shared life that it continues to heal & energize us. Ideally, it should also open opportunities for us to travel and make music in the places--and with the people--we most love. (Also, ideally, we would develop a corps of sturdy & steadfast farmhands, available to mind the farm when we depart on occasional musical jaunts!)

4) One other journey: to travel and explore some spiritual, as well as cultural roots. I'd like to see some of the Continental Celtic strongholds and archeological sites in Brittany, Austria, and Galicia. I also want to take a side trip to Ravenna, Italy, to see the church mosaics there--especially the one where there's a lifesize procession of the Church Mothers. I've been intrigued ever since I heard of these mosaics. In one, there's supposedly a woman with the title "bishop" above her head!

5) I've been a caregiver--to siblings and other people's children--much of my life. There has always been a bittersweet element of release in this work. The children always return to their parents at the end of the day, and my guidance and gifts have always been secondary. That can be a good thing--to leave the "hard part" to others--but still I'd dearly love the chance to "have a wee bairn or twa" all my own. There is so much joy and mystery that I'd love to share, as well as the shared work and earthly delights of this beloved farm. I'd like to raise up a child who sings freely, works earnestly, laughs readily, and lives fruitfully.

Speaking of being fruitful, ain't nobody gonna be fruitful around here if'n I don't get out to the garden and plant those peas!

Friday Five- time out edition

Being a farmer is part of my calling, but it is only one of my vocational passions. I have recently been working to reweave the threads of a rather tattered call to ordained ministry, a call I plan to pursue in the United Church of Christ. (This is a rather new denomination for me, but I've worked in a wide range of churches before, including United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, and Mennonite congregations.) Now I am struggling to reconnect the different aspects of my vocational life. I've recently joined a webring full of wise, wild and wonderful women--and a few men--who inspire and support this process. Today I'm doing my first official "RevGalBlogPals Meme."

Sally over at RevGalBlogPals writes:
"Holy Week is almost upon us, I suspect that ordained or not, other revgal/pals calendars look a bit like mine, FULL, FULL, FULL.....

Jesus was great at teaching us to take time out, even in that last week, right up to Maundy Thursday he withdrew, John's gospel tells us he hid! He hid not because he was afraid, but because he knew that he needed physical, mental and spiritual strength to get through...

So faced with a busy week:


1. What restores you physically?
Singing. It is one of the most healing pursuits I know. It helps me breathe. The sound moving through my body shakes loose my grief, releases my joy, and awakens a resonance in my bones. I don't sing often enough, but when I do, every part of my being is energized. They say the same space in the brain that processes music also serves to modulate the space between ourselves and others. When we are worn down by community stress and difficult relationships, no wonder there's such healing power in singing together!

2. What strengthens you emotionally/ mentally?
My friendships with strong women and gentle men, and the laughter and understanding that move back and forth between us. Another source of strength is my sense of rootedness: in my American pioneer and Celtic immigrant heritage, in the multigenerational wisdom and stories of my mentors and kinfolk, and in my own sense of calling and connection to the sea and the land. I grew up on an island and have learned that my emotions and thoughts have their own tidal rhythms. It is only when I forget to attend to these rhythms that I lose my balance.

3. What encourages you spiritually?
Gardening! When I plant and tend and nourish and harvest in the garden, I do these things for my soul as well. The garden has always been a safe, restorative spiritual space for me, even with all the weeds and pests and the chickens pecking holes in the tomatoes. I grew up gardening, and even when my mother and I quarreled and misunderstood each other, we always spoke gently and lovingly together as we shared the work of gardening. When I neglect the garden, I often find I am neglecting myself as well. When I'm angry and despairing, there's nothing like a session of weed-pulling to settle my spirit. The herbal scents, the touch of wind, the feel of dirt on my hands, the hoped-for "just desserts" of ripe fruit, the satisfaction of wrongs immediately righted... ahhh!

4. Share a favourite poem or piece of music from the coming week.
Gerard Manley Hopkins is, for me, the ultimate Holy Week poet, but I'm hard-pressed to choose between "Carrion Comfort," "Peace," "God's Grandeur," and "That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire..."

5.There may be many services for you to attend/ lead over the next week, which one are you most looking forward to and why? If there aren't do you have a favourite day in Holy week if so which one is it?
I have always had a deep appreciation for Maundy Thursday and the Tenebrae service. How many other rituals allow us to name, accept, and embrace the shadows that haunt us and surround us? So much of Christian worship--and pop culture--is focused on light and brightness and "being of good cheer..." I find myself hungry for these rare opportunities to acknowledge the darkness--the blank emptiness of despair and the gestational, dream-filled fullness of the Soul's Dark Night.