What the terrain had to tell me

The lily pads on the little dam felt like delicate embodiments of the human children of all ages for whom the world is at this moment grieving. In wintry colours of flesh, rust and olive they seemed to be finely-sliced cross-sections of brains, floating here now, defying all explanation, delivered to this sanctuary, being breathed by wind, which was sharp and insistent, and combing his patterns persistently towards me. And I wondered whether "the beautiful" really does "change in such kind ways" (Richard Wilbur), and whether there really is a "mercy of wild things" as Barbara Fairhead has written. And whether I was transgressing something by seeing the lily pads in such an unexpected way? There was no contrivance, but it is true that my heart was unable to hear in the clatter of the bendy reeds anything other than a hoarse, multiplicitous grief. The Afrikaans word 'snik' came to mind to describe the sound they made - a perfect onomatopoeiac word to denote the spine-wracking gasps that often accompany intense sobs.

Despite my melancholy state, the communion of lily leaves and wind and water with my bemusement left me feeling no worse. A little clearer, anyway, about the depth of grief mantling our world. As if such a ‘living cemetery' in the sun, whence new blooms will soon spring, is the only way I am given to see the spirits of these many, once-warm beings?

Weed (It's not what you may think it is)

 1.      Preamble

It is star-shaped and yellow and so delicate as to feel like a miniscule spray of mist. I am on my three-year-old haunches, mesmerised by its beauty. She speaks to me. She says she is from the stars and she asks me to look after her. I tell her that I will visit her every day. I keep my promise.

Then I sense the caretaker’s wife standing behind me. She is big and pregnant. I often play with her other children, who are older than I am.

She says, “What are you doing?”

“It’s a flower,” I say.

“It is a weed,” she replies. “We must pull it out.”

She is gentle. I don’t remember pulling out the flower. I remember agreeing with the caretaker, but I don’t remember pulling out the weed.

It has remained forever in me.

 

***

 

2.      Reflective Notes

Journey through dance

Driftwood Studios

5^th February 2023

First, we did a RAIN meditation, listening to Tara Brach.

Recognise Allow Investigate Nurture

I remembered the feeling of following my mother’s back, as she refused to turn her face to me, embarrassed by me, & me feeling cast out, unwanted, unworthy. And I knew I must re-mother myself.

 Then we walked in the lovely garden & I felt the moist grass under my soles, which have become so tough from all my barefoot walking. And I nudged the driftwood dinosaur, who looks away, into the foliage, & I found a little clearing near there, where I could hide – my bright gear did not camouflage me! But everybody was quiet and discreet.

 

Then we danced. It was strange at first with the words Cher was reading over the music, I am so sensitive to words spoken or written. But I realised this was a time to be more conscious. I breathed in the colour spring-green, which felt delightful. Then, when Cher told us to breathe in red – that was at once instinctive, it pulls me to feel so primitive, or primal, & lastly I found or was given a luminous blue sphere, Cher spoke about holding a seed, & my very beautiful sphere became a blue flower, & I remembered a tiny flower I once loved between the cracks of the paving, which spoke to me of the stars. It had a voice, & I danced her.

 

***

 

3.      Sharing

Each participant in the Journey through dance read their reflections. How many different worlds had combined in the studio, each one contained within her body! Some felt that they had freed themselves from reining in the love they feel for others and the world; another felt aware that she was releasing barriers she tended to put up, for fear of losing her independence; yet another travelled through her father into history, wars, complex family heritage rippling out into, or from, her individual self.

When I read my reflective notes, Claire said, “You are the flower.”

“A weed in a crack,” I replied sardonically.

“Yes,” said Claire, “and look how much it has influenced you.”

 

***

 

4.      Renewal

The next day, I walked along the beach near where I live. Suddenly the wind breathed an emission of positive memories of my mother into me, surprising and elating. The Journey through dance had wiped away an ancient, stagnant grief as if it were only a greasy mark on a glass. I no longer needed to think of all the wonderful things, whereby my mother influenced me during my life – I could feel them all again! The splendid books she piled on me; her not minding to walk in the rain; her irrepressible cheekiness and big-mouth-laughter.

I don’t need diligently or desperately to list or remember the bouncy, flowering weeds in the cracks of my mother’s persona anymore – they, too, are in me, abundantly so.

Even better, her back is no longer turned towards me, as I turn to face myself.

“You are allowed to be brave. You know how to swallow your fear and breathe fire with it!”

 

***

 

5.      Blue fire

I take up where I left off. I return to that point where I gave up on the little flowering weed pushing up between the paving stones. She was yellow like the sun. The Journey through dance gave me a blue sphere to hold: was that her sky?

Where will you lead me, little star-flower weed?

I don’t know why, but the words “blue fire” follow me, as well as your colour, yellow.

I’ll wait and see.

 

***

 

6.      Forgiveness

I ask forgiveness of all those readers, whom I disappointed, because this is not a story about dagga.

 

***

 – Silke Heiss, Sunrise-on-Sea, February 2023

 

Wine in the spirit (extract from Between the Realms)

So happy. Am over the halfway mark with the fourth draft of Greater Matter. Having to re-read and work with the poems, it's making me miss Norman more again and simultaneously feel him closer than ever. I actually feel guilty for the irreverence of Life: at how hard I have to slog to stay close to what matters. This is slog like I've never allowed myself: not the usual duty and drudgery that's helped build my life in the past, it's more vital, but harder than anything I've ever experienced before. Destiny-type stuff. Even a mouse has a destiny ... each day, my own weakness is a revelation. And yes: I'm happy.

Perfectly Present - title poem from Section 5 of Greater Matter

The tortoise of me is making slow, but steady progress. Here's the title poem from the fifth section of Greater Matter.

Perfectly Present

I spent time with fellow-widow Gwyneth

– our regular weekly keeping tabs

on our days, work,

thoughts, experiences –

she too’d been mugged

by the mugginess dragging down the sky;

that it wasn’t only me who was dof  was reassuring.

Over tea and cake and talk

there was a cooling,

we discussed the blessing of thoughts that appear as beings,

intentions that catch you in motion

before you’ve thought –

our obedience to intuition

makes us a port

for

Spirit.

I came home to the sunflung polka dots of white roses dancing

in the hedge beside the garage door;

and writing this now

– not in the obligatory present tense

(which many modern writers use for no better reason than to hog an effect)

but in the elegiac mood

of reverence that holds in faith

that which we can’t

grasp –

I am certain

that what is past

is perfectly present.

- Silke Heiss