A Winter Ritual

I place a cup on stone.

I honor the lines of my parents, of Eaton and Riddle.

I pour water into a cup.

I honor the lines of my grandparents, of Eaton and Ruston, of Riddle and Art.

I pour water into a cup.

I honor the lines of my great-grandparents, of Eaton and Smith, of Ruston and Wicker, of Riddle and Durant, of Art and Burke.

I pour water into a cup.

I honor the lines of my two-times great-grandparents, of Eaton and Tenney, of Smith and Dutcher, of Ruston and Ireland, of Wicker and Whitcher, of Riddle and Gillett, of Durant and Burnah, of Art and Pils, of Burke and Conners.

I pour water into a cup.

I honor the lines of my three-times great-grandparents, of Eaton and Treadwell, of Tenney and Targee, of Smith and Sears, of Dutcher and Bird, of Ruston and Richardson, of Ireland and Lenton, of Wicker and Lusk, of Whitcher and De Lozier, of Riddle and Clickner, of Gillett and Berry, of Durant and Lavalley, of Burnah and (possibly) Fortin, of Art and Blume, of Pils and Burzee, of Burke, of Conners and Dowd.

I light a candle and watch the flame flicker to life. I call to my ancestors. I ask them to watch over me as I heal. I ask them to watch over my dreams as I sleep.

I pour water onto the earth, emptying the cup in offering.

May it be so.

Be a Good Ancestor Now

I’ve been doing my own genealogy for years, and recently I have begun to help others search for their ancestors. I have literally seen the lines, uninterrupted, of parents and children, and parents and children, stretching out and down from the past into our waking present. I cannot see that without also being able to envision my parents’ names at the top of that tree, with the unknown generations who will stretch out past us. But what world are we leaving to those who will come after?

I can no longer think of the future without wondering which generation of my family’s children will run out of fresh water. Do I care? Should you care? After all, I won’t be here. Yes. Yes I should. Yes you should. Anything else is selfish and human selfishness is killing the planet.

Human selfishness is killing the planet. Which means it’s also killing us. We need to cultivate the mindfulness that the planet we walk on is part of us. Our blood, bone, and tissue evolved from the life that crept out of the oceans. We carry the earth within us. We are not separate from it.

The way Western culture lives is not sustainable. Most of the people I know work hard and get little in return for it. I know they often decide not to care, because they don’t think they can make a difference, and if no one else is sacrificing, why should they?

Big Corporation wants us to think that. They want us to feel like we can’t make change. That’s part of the problem. We all need to make hard choices or the places we love, that feed us, will keep disappearing.

Make choices like your decisions will decide the fate of the next seven generations of your descendants. Because they will. This week I am sharing some photos of my favorite places in nature, places I hope those who come after me will be able to experience for themselves. Included among the photos are quotes on sustainability

The supreme reality of our time is ...the vulnerability of our planet.

- John F. Kennedy

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?"

- Rachel Carson

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.

- Henry David Thoreau

We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.

- Terri Swearingen

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something.

- Carl Sagan

One planet, one experiment.

- Edward O. Wilson

There is a great need for the introduction of new values in our society, where bigger is not necessarily better, where slower can be faster, and where less can be more.

- Gaylord Nelson

Reducing our levels of consumption will not be a sacrifice but a bonus if we simply redefine the meaning of the word 'success.'

- David Wann

Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.

- Kurt Vonnegut

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

- Cree Indian Proverb

Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

- Albert Einstein 

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

- Native American Proverb

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.  

- John Muir

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.  

- Edward Everett Hale

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.  

- Archibald MacLeish

Again and again

Some people in the crowd wake up.

They have no ground in the crowd

And they emerge according to broader laws.

They carry strange customs with them,

And demand room for bold gestures.

The future speaks ruthlessly through them.  

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Quotes Contributed to:

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) was the 35^th President of the United States of America. Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was an American marine biologist. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian. Terri Swearingen, a nurse from Ohio, was the 1997 Goldman Prize winner. Carl Sagan (1934-1996) was an American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and author. Edward O. Wilson (b.1929) is an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist, and author. Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005) was an American Democratic Senator and Governor from Wisconsin. David Wann is an author/speaker of sustainability. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) was an American writer. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. John Muir (1838-1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher. Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was an American author, historian and Unitarian minister. Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was an Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist.

Saying Farewell to Childhood Friends

Twenty years have gone by and I cannot comprehend the volume of time that has past. Some days it feels like a mere blink, and I am unchanged. And then the moments come where I feel as if I have burned to the ground and rebuilt myself many times since the girl I was then. The way time feels is not constant.

And yet, twenty years later, my graduating class found ourselves together again. Many of us hadn’t seen each other in that stretch of time and yet it did not stand between us. None of us were the same, but we were familiar. We’ve all had life happen. We’ve all taken uncertain paths in the search of knowledge, success, happiness. We’ve struggled through dark days. We’ve felt more complex emotions than we could have imagined when we were last together, both sorrow and joy, and all of the shades in between. It alters.

            It was a good weekend with old friends. I wanted to know if everyone was happy. I wanted to see that everyone was well.

Then there came the point in the evening where we took a moment to acknowledge our classmates who are no longer with us. It was a longer list than I expected. Some died through illness, some through choice, others through horrible accident. I didn’t know them all very well but I remembered them from our hallways. A few of them I had known about, but two names in particular were a shock to me.

One was my neighbor and childhood friend, Tracy Lee Flint, Jr. We called him T.J. growing up and he begrudgingly permitted me to call him that during high school. We weren’t terribly close as teens, having grown up and out in different directions. But neither of us forgot those days of our childhood together, playing summer-long games of mock war and re-enacting Star Wars. With his dark hair he was always Han Solo.

Another was my friend, Christina Adkins, who we called Tina. She moved away, but before then she was one of my five closest girlfriends. We were a tight bunch, all dealing with our own personal turmoils together, spending most of our time outside of school together. I hoped that someday we would all find happiness, but especially her. And I hope she did before tragedy found her. Her ending broke my heart.

I excused myself. I splashed cold water on my face to shake it off, so that I could be there with those still living, and celebrate the times we shared. I was grateful to discover that the many of the bonds we made then were still strong.

A week later, I sat on the shores of Lake Ontario, a sadness sitting in my chest, with the desire to transform that emotion into something else. We create rituals every day. They’re about intention. That’s where the magic lives. So I conjured some to let the spirit world know that I remembered those who were lost.

I used what was available around me, my voice, the water before me, and what was washed ashore at my feet. I collected pieces of driftwood, one for each of my fallen classmates, and walked out to the end of the pier, the land falling away behind me. I waited until the tides turned outward.

I repeated the names of the dead out loud, including those of my childhood friends. I wished them peace. I wished them freedom from pain. I wished their families a balm for their grief, and a return to joy.

I sang a song to the water and the wind. I wished my living classmates safe travels, health, and happiness to their last breath. I know we will lose more as the years pass. It’s a part of life, this living and dying business.  

I watched the waves carry the water-polished wood away. I watched the waves carry my prayers away, my heart brighter. I remember.

The Magic of Ferns

In September of 2011, we suffered flooding in my town so badly that our area made the national news. For one night, my neighborhood was cut off on all sides by water. It was heavy in the air. We were saturated with it. Hours before the river levels crested and then fell, I walked the nearby park to find it littered with fungus of all kinds. Many of them I had never seen before and haven’t seen the like of since.

In the aftermath of all of that moisture, one little fern frond sprouted in our yard, just before autumn walked in. The following spring, it reappeared, a handful of fronds. There was something about it that felt like a gift. Ferns are sacred to my household. Ferns and birch. Even my landlord seemed to know to mow around it without having to be told.

For the third year the gentle fiddlehead has returned, a small gang of curls waiting to unfurl. And it speaks to me. Every year I am reminded of the moments that follow painful growth and great change. The stretching out into new spaces. The discovering of new edges. For me the ferns are a promise of possibility, a promise of hope.

Sometimes we need to have symbols. We need totems or guides that mean more to us than what they are. It’s how we move forward when the world seems determined to hold us back. Some days are harder than others, and the darkness chips away at the hope you have managed to hold onto…

Most days are good. Most days are blessed. But we are all human, and we all have days, weeks, months where it just feels like bad news after bad news and sucker punch after sucker punch. I wonder how my ancestors did it, how they found the courage to keep waking in the morning and going about their days when the future seemed so intangible.

On those days I turn to nature. I go with gratitude to our small garden and I put my hands in the dirt, pulling weeds and tending to the growing things. In the working of the garden the world of rushing traffic and ticking clocks slows until it flows invisible around me, air that cannot touch me. There are just hands and the dirt and the sun warming us. The world I am in narrows. My breath slows. My heart grows lighter.

The fiddlehead ferns dance in kind. They allow me to watch their emergence into the world above ground. They appear, coiled in protection as they shield themselves while they discover their new edges and the feeling of air against raw skins. When they are ready, when they are matured, when the time is right, they open themselves to the sun. They turn their fronds to the light.

Bindrunes for Transformation

When someone I love dies, I say silent prayers that they be free from pain and the tethers to their physical body. I wish that their spirit and soul- for I have seen all the proof I need to believe they exist as entities of their own- transition into whatever it is that comes next for us, as effortlessly as possible. I wish their souls to be at peace so they do not walk in the waking world. In the moment of loss, I try to be selfless.

How do we grieve? How can we wish our loved ones peace in the wake of their loss? How do we say goodbye in a meaningful manner? I’m the kind of person who needs something tangible. I want to put my hands on the dead body and feel that lack of life. I need to feel that their spirit has moved on. I need that in order to convince my brain there is a reason for the physical emptiness that will come. I like to be hands on. It’s not for everyone.

            In the last three years we have had to put two dying cats to sleep, both of whom were young enough that the moment left us unprepared. We stepped up and did what needed to be done, but afterwards the grief left me wanting for more, for a ritual to help me process through the transformation as well.

I like symbolism and the magical intention of it works for me. I use runes in a lot of my healing work, not for divinatory purposes, but for the magical focus of their linguistic meaning, and the emotional translation. I understand the energetic connection between their forms, how one shapeshifts into another, and their origin stories.

I took that knowledge into the woods. Both cats were cremated, the bodies that had betrayed them burned to ash. To heal and soothe my heart, I did my ritual with water. I used the beorc rune, the symbol of the birch tree, of growth and new beginnings. I mirrored it on itself so it became a bindrune, and I took note of the other runes in the image revealing themselves to me. I drew my bindrune for peaceful passage on a piece of birch bark. I threw the birch bark into the water and I let myself cry for my loss.

On a second piece of bark, I broke the top staves off the bindrune and spread them, like wings unfurling. I drew that onto a piece of sycamore bark. Sycamore sheds it’s bark by growing more wood rings beneath it, stretching and splitting it until it sloughs off. I threw that one into the water and simply quieted my heart while it was swept downstream. I waited until I couldn’t see it anymore.

I drew a third bindrune on another piece of sycamore bark. I broke the bottom staves and spread them, again, like wings unfurling. I thought of all the wonderful and weird memories I had of Luna and Bella, and how they both filled my life, in similar and different ways. I let that joy fill me, and I set the bark adrift in the water.

I drew one last picture on another piece of birch. I drew a more fluid interpretation of the bindrune with the staves broken. I drew a butterfly. I said a prayer of hope for Luna’s transformation, for Bella’s transformation. I knew my grief would remain for a while, yet, I accepted the necessity of both passages as I laid the white bark in the water.

It didn’t make the hurt go away faster. But it was a ritual that was meaningful for me. To open the way for dealing with my sadness, it allowed me to accept that we did what we could for Luna, and for Bella. It helped me accept that, as unfair as it seems, both of their times were meant to be shorter on this earth, and that we gave them both good and full lives while they were with us. It reminded me of the love, and because of how much I loved them, it’s important to share that love and carry it on into the world.

Author’s note: In the photos for this post, all the pictures are on birch bark. I do not take photos while I am doing my rituals and did not have any sycamore bark at home to use.

The Origins of Deity

On a mountain top in the Berkshires last week, we were hit with a hail storm beyond belief. One minute, the air was damp and thick with humidity. We were sweaty and dreaming of showers when the rain started.

What happened next was amazing.

The hail began to fall, thudding against the roof of our three-sided rustic cabin. And then we were yelling to be heard over the sound of a million dime-sized pieces of ice falling like a sheet of winter onto our springtime. I can’t be sure how long the hail storm lasted. I was so awed by the magnitude of it as we sat in wonder and worry. It was easily thirty minutes, probably forty, and maybe more. Possibly still, it took less time than it seemed.

I have never seen hail last more than a minute or two. Time stilled as we watched it drop and crest like waves rolling off of the tarp, falling in mounds. My breath hung frosty in the air, which was cold. The ground was white. The animals of the woods were silent.

I had a moment of primal fear that the roof would not hold or that the worst was still to come beneath the pounding onslaught. I wondered what my ancestors might have thought the first time they experienced any weather of magnitude. Would they stare up and shout at the sky?

“Why are you doing this?!”

“What do you want from us?!”

Did they name the thing that accosted them? Did they pray to it and beg it to stop as if it had sentience? Did the forces of nature surprise and frighten them into unwanted submission? Did they make offerings to it of food, wealth, or dance? Did they mark the end of the storming with what they had been doing to entice it to their will? Did they ritualize that action as the thing that would end the storm, should it come again? Did they hold it as sacred?

Is that how deity began? By separating aspects of our natural world and giving them human faces? By not understanding that sometimes things happen. Not to us. We are part of what is happening. We are not the sun. We are not the center of our world. The earth is the center of our world, just as the sun is the center of the earth’s world. We are the current of time flowing over the earth. We will come and go as deities have come and go within our cultures.

I think about our ancestors and how the way they lived and their spiritual beliefs evolved over time. In my personal practice, much of my discovery has come from moments of need, of reaching out, of reading patterns in the cause and effect.

I sat in awe of the hail, of the forces of nature that came upon us suddenly in a storm of thunder and lightning. I was humbled by my unimportance beneath the storm. I thought of the things that make me fearful, of the shadows that loom over my head.

We survived the hail, and we rebuilt what it destroyed. In these rites of passage, we each hit our walls and we make choices. We survived the unending days of cold sleeting rain that followed. We gathered together and found laughter and joy in the struggle.

It’s like Brigadoon, I thought, slipping into the mist as winter settled over the mountain. I dreamt of Frost Giants and wooden halls thick with fire and warm drink. I dreamt of my ancestors from the frozen Northlands. And we all carried on, with one eye on the sky above us, lest it open itself again.

Winter Solstice Wonder: Snow Falling

“They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could 

the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we 

ever recover from the wonder of it?”

~ Jeanette Winterson, The Passion

The world we live in is a vibrant kaleidoscope of magic and science, for science is magic that has been placed in boxes; a deconstruction of wonder. It is this place of wonder my spirituality has found me, breaking down those walls of distinction to simply be moved by the beauty of… everything. There are days when I feel like I see the whole world for what it is for perhaps the first time.

Winter is coming to the land that I live on, to the city that I live in. In America, Solstice marks the beginning of our coldest days, which for those of us in the Northeast, usually means snow. It’s an excuse to snuggle down with loved ones and nest in blankets in the shelter of our homes. It’s a reason to pull into ourselves and reflect on what we have gratitude for, and what is important to us.

I also find snow to be quite beautiful.

There is breathtaking wonder in falling snowflakes, in the filigree of crystalline symmetry, as the little frozen worlds slide in to meet each other and catch on edges; each snowflake a delicate crystal. How amazing it is that they fall into each other, hugging and holding on to create something solid and larger than itself. Under a blanket of white, the sleeping earth becomes encased in diamonds of ice.

The sunbeams fall on snow, momentarily blinding our vision and we must reach into other senses. The dancing light flits across the surface of earth, refracting and sharpening in the cold chill of breath. And we smell winter, freezing against our mucus membranes. And we taste winter in the icy cold within our lungs. And every bare particle of flesh feels itself retracting against the frosted air. That is what it means to be alive in snow-drenched winter time. When the sun shines it’s brilliance we forget the cold, if just for a moment, and bask like lizards in the reflective gaze.

On Solstice night, we sit through the longest dark of the year. We’ve watched the days get shorter and we’ve been turning our porch lights on before making dinner. We’ve stood in bursts of sunshine and soaked up the solar vitamins in preparation. Winter may just be beginning, but with its start comes the promise of lengthening days. The air is cold but the sun is warm, a hope that shines through the intruding chill.

            Yet even as I anxiously await the first flurry of snowfall, I see the pattern of the worlds and know that as the darkness retreats, snowmelt will warm with the early spring breezes. It will sink into and feed the ground below us which, in turn, will nourish seedlings so that they might flourish in our gardens. Then plants and flowers will grow in warmer sunlight, to nourish our hearts and bodies.

            All this is wonder, beheld in the beauty of a single snowflake.

            On the longest night, we greet this turning. We greet this movement forward, into a new spring, a breath of freshness in an age-old pattern. What appears to be a never ending circle when viewed from above, is an ever-winding spiral, a journey circling around and moving upward with each turn when seen sideways. It’s a pattern we know, which is how I know that on winter nights, when the moonlight is strong, the fallen snow will shimmer with the reflection of the sky above us. The earth we trod will be awash with fields of glittering stars.

            That starlight lives within us, a spark of ancestral matter. And it is this gift I reflect on most. All the light I need lives within me. All the hope I need is in me. Every day, I hold fast to this truth and let it illuminate my darkness, and hope that someday, others will see their own source-light, too.

            “Your first parent was a star.”

             ~ Jeanette Winterson, Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles

Dream Vision from my Ancestors




An original illustration from a dream vision, private collection.

 

A name trips across my tongue and dances upon my lips. Robert Moulton… born 1495 in Ormesby, a small village in North Yorkshire, England. Robert, who was alive when Columbus announced his discovery of a New World, Robert and his wife and their two-year old son John. My ancestors who were alive when a Spaniard crossed a vast black space called Ocean and found alien life on a new planet.

What did they think when the news reach their ears of a land on the other side of the ocean, strange and new and unending? Was it another story woven by fairies, or did it alter the landscape of their world? Did it change the axis of their importance in their centric universe? Did it fill them wonder?

In a dream, I am standing on an island, my feet buried in white sand, surrounded by water of a jeweled peacock hue. This is my island and the island is me, I know the edges of its boundary well. There are dark grey rocks off shore, with sun-bleached crags jutting out of the water at varying degrees. They are close, they are near and I call them Father and Mother, Grandfather, Grandmother, Uncle and Sister. In the light of the morning sun I walk in the shallows among them.

Further away, where the water deepens, grey tips cut through watery skin, stones called Great-Grandmother and Great-Great-Grandfather. Each generation before me spreads out, sinking beneath the sea. The monuments lie beneath, lie within, whether my eyes can see them or not. They are there because they were.

            The ancestors whisper into me with the ebb and retreating flow of tide, leaving gifts of shell and crab, driftwood and stone behind. The ocean pulses out there, somewhere beyond what my eyes can see. There is a pull, a vibration in the water as if a voice is trying to stretch through time to reach me.

I whisper back into the roar of the surf, “I am collecting the driftwood. I am building a boat. I will find my way back to you.”

What I Thought I Knew

Every autumn, I travel to the Berkshire Mountains to attend Twilight Covening, an event created by the EarthSpirit Community. It’s a time to do deep magic of connection with other people, with the lands we live on, with the changing of seasons, and it’s a time where I find a deeper connection to myself. I use the sacred space and rituals to prepare for winter work, for there is always work to be done. Every time I find myself reaching a place I worked towards, I see that the path stretches out further still ahead of me. There is no end to the current. I am the current. There is more to do, more to learn.

This year the work I was doing was around learning tools to replenish yourself when you are depleted. I often ask the question, who cares for the caretakers? We all have someone in our lives we count on to have the answers and to solve the problems (even if it’s ourselves). We can’t care for others if we are not cared for. It doesn’t stop us from trying. Most of us often deflect from our own needs, wants and workings, thinking we are better people for sacrificing them in the wake of the needs of others. What happens when we have exhausted ourselves in caretaking? Who, in turn, cares for us? This weekend, I was given an answer, one that was so simple it should have been obvious.

We worked in the sun of the mountain top to connect to the spirit of tree, water and stone. The spirit of breath, fluid and bone. I thought it would be easy. I thought I understood what that meant. I have spent my life hugging trees, grounding in water and loving the stones of the earth. I forgot the layers of consciousness that are difficult to perceive from this side of the world.

We are one species of the earth’s children and many of us cannot hear its voice anymore. We have to learn to quiet and listen. It wants to teach us what it knows. And when we are depleted of energy down to our core essence and we have exhausted all of our resources in the care of others, we must turn to the natural world, our mother, and *trust* that she will help us, giving us what we need, moving through the world for us while we rest in ourselves and receive those gifts. It’s not the same thing as shutting down emotionally to do what needs to be done. It’s staying connected, and staying present, but being supported.

When we were connecting to stone, we were told to “push beyond the depths of our own silence,” to find stillness. Only I was rocking. I have nerve-damage in my left leg from an accident that is obvious to no one but me. Sitting on the floor for long periods of time causes nerve firings down the length of my leg. In that moment in the pine forest, when I realized I was rocking, I understood it to be something I do to distract myself from the pain, to move that excess energy through my body in a current and grounding it outward so it does not burn.

When I was sitting in my rock, a giant nugget of mountaintop with rough veins of quartz running through it, I didn’t know where to start. I took some deep breaths to my version of stillness and I opened myself to the stone beneath me. I whispered to the earth that I did not know how to find its stillness. I took myself to the edge and told the stone that I could not speak its language through the barrier that was my pain. I asked the mountain, the deep ancestor, the bones of our planet, to teach me to find stillness.

I felt so cold, sinking in until the edges between us blurred. I moved to the very skin of the pain of this body and then I took a deep breath. The stone beneath the pain was waiting for me. In one flash, pushing through the barrier, I experienced the fullness of the pain in a blinding white light like being electrocuted. And then… there was no pain. None. For the first time in ten years, I was sitting in exquisite stillness and silence, aware of the sounds of the world around me, but inside we were at peace, the stone and me. I wept openly for a long time, as our clan time commenced. “Once you know something, you can’t unknow,” my Clan leader said.

That peace lives inside me, and that place without pain does, too. It requires work on our part to find it. It requires that we take the time to build a relationship with those spirits. So to find it again I will build relationship with stone and learn its version of stillness. Anyone who has ever navigated a human relationship… it’s that big. It’s that serious. It requires that level of commitment. And once you open that door, the world opens to you. You just have to get out of your own way and listen.

This walk, this path, this work is opening before me and I accept it though it is frightening. I am opening myself up to something infinitely larger than I can comprehend. I am opening my consciousness up to something that will constantly keep me humbled and in service. But what am I if not a child of this world around me, part of its genetic make-up? What am I if not a daughter of the Earth? What am I if not breath, fluid and bone, if not also tree, water and stone?

Connect to the EarthSpirit Community.

Flooding in Binghamton, Part V

September 17, 2011:

One week later and looking ahead.

The water up to the flood wall, photo from newsfeed.

It’s freezing right now. It’s a beautiful wintry night, as if the earth has emerged from a trance the way I do, so bitterly cold you can’t get your bones warm. I can feel the chill coming off her, through my walls and into my home, radiating off the wooden floor. We have no heat right now.

Tonight I am thinking about all of those displaced people, a couple hundred left who cannot go back home, whose homes are not safe. And so many more still trying to replace heat and hot water tanks. And still some without power until all the homes are checked. Everyone has a flood story, ranging from inconvenience to devastation to despair.

The damage is unbelievable. Every area that was underwater has to be gone through, one house at a time, by the city code workers checking the foundations and looking for hazards that would compromise the safety of the home. Like the flood in 2006, many homes will need some serious work before their owners can rehabitate. What happens to them between now and then? Other houses have been condemned, which means owners are not allowed to step foot inside. So when I say people have lost everything, I mean everything.

It could have been worse. It’s my mantra right now. It could have been worse. That doesn’t make the reality less bad. It makes things like heat, water, shelter, basic hygiene more important. More relevant. I can’t even imagine what the people of New Orleans went through after Katrina. I just can’t let myself think about it.

Downtown Owego, underwater, newsfeed photo.

Owego was underwater. Johnson City was underwater. Twin Orchards was underwater. Conklin, Kirkwood, Union, Windsor, Unadilla, Binghamton, Apalachin… and so many more places were partially or fully underwater. Several NYSEG substations flooded. Two sewage treatment plants flooded. An entire school was lost in Endicott. It was the first week back. Union, Vestal and Conklin towns are still under curfews and some towns have to boil water, signs of lingering effects.

Most people have heard of the pet store in Johnson City, who did not evacuate their animals on Wednesday and Thursday morning were not allowed into the building that was underwater. It wasn’t safe to go into the water and at that point, unfortunately, authorities were rushing to evacuate residents who had become priority. One hundred animals died. It’s saddening. It’s saddening that there was any loss of life.

It could have been worse.

The police, guardsmen and first responders, including FEMA workers, have been working tirelessly, often on 12 or 14 hour shifts to get people home and cleanups in motion. Dozens of donation centers have opened up handing out food and clothes to families who lost their homes. Businesses are pitching in to raise money for flood victims and/or do their laundry for them, offer free bowling games, etc. From the debris of what was left behind, the idea of community is growing from the muck.

I have a story second-hand of Wegmans, our favorite grocery store, handing a check to an employee whose house flooded that would cover the costs of a new water heater and furnace. I have followed the stories on Facebook of people stopping into Whole in the Wall, a favorite local restaurant, to help clean up and rip out the sodden insulation. The fact that they thanked another local restaurant, The Lost Dog Café, for feeding them during the cleanup is heartwarming.

Lourdes Hospital, 2011, photo from newsfeed.

In 2006 Lourdes Hospital, on the river, flooded and had to be evacuated. Just this past April they finished the construction of their new flood walls. They held beautifully. In aerial photos you can see the flooding of their parking lots around it, but besides reports of needing to use generator power, the hospital remained safe.

I am proud of my city. We learned from the last flood and while this one is proving to be more devastating, the information for residents came quicker and the response time was faster as well. We weren’t prepared but we were better prepared all the same.

After a natural disaster, there is no such thing as business as usual, though it's true the world keeps moving forward. Perhaps we need to be more like the water that ravaged us, flexible and changing and less like the earth we build our homes with. It’s more metaphor than opinion. We think of earth as stability and security (at least, those of us who don’t live in areas prone to earthquakes).  We build our homes and think we are safe within them. But in Ouaquaga Creek, the flood waters move stones the size of cars with ease. I keep thinking of a time when humans were nomadic, moving seasonally to suit the changes of the land instead of figuring out ways to make the land do what we want it to do.

There are layers to everything and my brain tends to find strange nooks and crannies. We’re coming up on the Autumnal Equinox, a time of balance as we are coming out of an extreme natural imbalance. Many of the houses that were flooded also flooded in 2006. Those residents are facing a tough decision of whether or not to rebuild (again) or move. There’s this community feeling of needing to rebuild to show that we’re strong and we can overcome… in a general sense. But at the individual level of existing paycheck to paycheck, how many times do you watch your home flood before deciding that rebuilding may be a fool’s errand? I do not envy those faced with such a decision.

There’s no way to tidy this up in a conclusion. We are still learning the extent of damages and we are still figuring out what needs to be done for the immediate and distant futures. You may not hear much about us on the news anymore, but the reality is that the work of recovery is only just beginning. For us, this is just starting. Be grateful for the many blessings you have.

Keep us in your thoughts. Keep us in your hearts.

Flooding in Binghamton, Part IV

September 11, 2011:

The fellowship of friends.

On a day when our city was still underwater, relevant and happening now, the world retreated to 10 years past, a day no one can ever forget. I know where I was and everything that happened the moment I first saw the news. It is forever etched into me like grooves on vinyl. I can close my eyes and replay it enough on my own. I do not ever wish to watch it again. For me, today, my emotions are too raw, and we’re still in this current disaster.

Instead it was a morning of finding out what roads were open and what areas were still underwater, to see if we could get to a last minute gathering of friends to barbecue chicken salvaged from a home that miraculously missed the flood by a couple of houses. It had lost power and the meat wouldn’t keep.

I was weary and feeling vulnerable, but needed the comfort of friends. I needed the touch of people I loved. We are humans and we are meant to touch one another. It’s a language that we do not often make use of. We isolate our bodies as if we are each islands in an ocean, with so much space between us. For days I have existed on a physical island, cut off from the world by real water. And I needed those bridges back. I needed to see my friends and see their safety.

And, after two days eating tuna on crackers, chicken sounded really good. Just before we left, a storm rolled in and I cried. I did. The sound of the rain was too much, too soon, and I immediately found myself uncertain of leaving home. So I made myself, and was glad I did.

The company was a mix of exhausted, grateful, heartbroken, empty, hopeful and open people but the common thread was presence and sincerity. Gratitude. There is an openness in people who have faced a great change. Some may be overwhelmed by despair, some may hold on by staying in motion, but it is the moment where they stand together just before everything alters that connects them.

My city is connected because this flood happened to us. My county is connected because this event happened here. Those who live on the Chenango River and the Susquehanna River are all connected, because we are at their mercies. It’s not personal, it’s Mother Nature. Maybe the lesson we’re supposed to take away from a flood is bigger than the obvious ones of detachment from material things. These disasters throw us back into our bodies, pulling us forcibly out of the routine day-to-day factory world we live in and push us back into being alive.

I had gone for companionship and was unaware at how closed in my body was for a while. Taking a breath, I leaned over and put my head on my friend’s shoulder. And the shell I had built that was my fear of being flooded finally broke. I was able to stop myself from sobbing but I sat there, touching, and having gratitude that everyone I loved was all right.

In a way, it’s an interesting juxtaposition. In 2001 my partner and I had just moved to this city. We knew no one. Had a friend not called from Boston to ask us if we were okay (he thought we were much closer to NYC) we might not have known. We might not have connected the television up in time to see the second plane hit, to watch it as it was happening. We might not have spent 24 hours at the table, just the two of us, isolated from our loved ones by miles, watching the bodies fall.

This year found me experiencing that same wave of helplessness at the grief and loss of so many people’s sense of home and stability. Feeling useless in a city that needs help is much better done in a room of friends. I know people who have lost. I can’t help but think if I lost everything, what would I miss? From that perspective, I realize I have much more than I need.

It is important that those who were spared help take up the excess for those who were devastated and I am watching it happen. I am helping it happen. I have watched passersby stepping in to help carry loads to the curbside. I have been one of them, talking to more neighbors in the last few days than I have in ten years. I have heard that community folk are helping local businesses clean up, bringing offerings of food and water where they are not as physically able.

We’re taking care of each other. We will take care of each other.

Flood Gratitude

            I have gratitude that my little family was all in one place during the flood. That my partner was able to get home before roads and bridges were closed. I have gratitude for hands to hold and shoulders to lean on. For friends who delivered cat litter to us when we realized we didn’t have any. Everyone I know is safe.

            I have gratitude for water we collected before the river flooded. I have so much gratitude for water I can drink. I have gratitude for gas that allows me to boil water before drinking it. I have gratitude for power that flickered but didn’t die, that allows me to keep in touch with loved ones far away and assure them of our safety.

            I am grateful the river has crested and that the waters are retreating. I am grateful for the brief rains that have washed the hazardous materials away and cleansed the vegetation drowning in mud. I am grateful for a landlord who made us a priority though he was evacuated from his home. I am grateful for the sump pump and the end to the flash flood warnings.

            I am grateful to the emergency crews who worked through the heavy rain and the flooding to safeguard the city and evacuate people, tolerating and understanding the energies of scared and panicked residents. I am grateful to the internet and news for offering up-to-date and as-it-was-happening reports. I am grateful that we had enough food. I am mostly grateful that I have plenty of unneeded belongings that will allow me to share with those who are now without.

Flooding in Binghamton, Part III

September 9, 2011:

The waters are receding.

Behind Riverside Drive.

In my city, the waters are receding. The river crested overnight, allowing me a sigh of relief. We could stop waiting for the physical swell to get worse. Roads and bridges are still closed. The police, guardsmen and emergency responders tell us that the best way we can help is to stay home- those of us whose homes are not underwater. I think I am still in shock.

Most people are already moving forward, cleaning out basements, replacing water heaters, and trying to get back to work. Some people are boiling or disinfecting water and waiting for their power to come on. A quarter of the city is still crammed into evacuation centers where they have been for over 48 hours, wondering what has become of their homes and facing the possibility they have lost everything. I have to remind myself of that… and try not to feel guilty for being spared.

It was guilt that pulled me out of my house for another walk with my friend. I walked the edges of two rivers and found the line between what was home and what was water blurred. People were crying, sitting on their porches in a state of shock, standing in small clumps, everyone making eye contact, coming out of their personal isolation and looking for connection. They wanted to know they weren’t alone. In hard times, we need to know we’re not alone.

People stood at the new shoreline, staring. They all said the same thing- I can’t believe how much water there is. An old woman cried next to me, for her two daughters, both flooded and evacuated. She told me how she had watched the water line creep up into the houses from her apartment, and pointed behind where we stood. Only then did I notice the mud in the grass and the debris line of leaves, algae and twigs behind us. Only then did I realize that the water had been six feet higher than what I was looking at, just the night before.

It’s one thing to watch the photos on the internet and news. It’s another thing to stand before a force of nature and drink it in with your own eyes. Any excitement I might have felt at the idea of that much water was sobered by its reality. Fallen trees were crossing my field of vision in mere seconds, the river was moving that fast. The sun was shining and the water was going down, but the danger was still there. The floodwater is not done yet. It’s not time for business as usual yet.

My friend and I, mindful of the pain and grief around us, spent our time contemplating what it means to be an animal in the natural world, stopping often to watch the water in motion silently. We were not people who wanted to put their lives in danger. We were pagan women who needed to see the destruction caused to our city, to remind ourselves of the awe-full power of nature. We needed to know just how lucky we were.

We overheard residents along the Susquehanna discussing how they had been looted. They were pulling rugs and furniture to the curb, trying to avoid prolonged contact with the thick, viscous and stinking mud left in the wake of the water. It’s the kind of smell you can’t imagine ever getting out of your olfactory cavities. Trust me.

I found the mummified remains of a critter in mud on the road between the old debris line and the new one. It might have been a raccoon. It could have been someone’s pet. It might have been long dead and buried elsewhere, stirred by the waters and risen again. It was a grim reminder either way. Our bodies are our bodies and mine is still walking and breathing and praying. I spoke one for the corpse, wishing its spirit peace. It’s something I do.

Backtracking home the way we came, we saw the water had dropped two feet since we started. It was a significant visual acknowledgment. The ground seemed a bit more solid beneath me. We went back, quietly up the Chenango and into the residents who were trying to go about their everyday, arguing with the very people who had been fighting the rising waters on our behalf. To keep us all safe, even the noisy people who were untouched by the flood, and for whom it was easy to forget that this just happened yesterday. Is still happening to us.

The sun is shining. The waters are retreating. The heat will bake the mud that remains, turning it back into earth.

The homes behind Riverside Drive.

You can see all the mud left behind.

The leaves in the forefront show the original flood line, before it started to retreat.

We fared better than others. This is Apalachin, and the flood line reached up the sign. Photo by Laylla Forsyth.

September 10, 2011:

What the water leaves behind.

Four days in and towns around us are still underwater. People’s lives are still in limbo. The pictures we’re seeing are worse than I could imagine. It’s not New Orleans after Katrina. It’s not Joplin. It could be worse- it could always be worse. And for us, it’s the worst we’ve seen. We stayed to the house again, watching reports for roads open and closed, or washed away. Today, people are talking. Neighbors are reaching out. Strangers are helping strangers. My people are showing their best colors.

I walked the park at sunset, escaping the sounds of the landlord pushing the last of the water from the basement. The wooded pass is still covered with fungus of varied and multiple hues and shapes, a testament to rebirth. But the smell filtering into the beautiful violet and lavender sky was of death and dank and what gets left behind. The houses along the park were flooded from oversaturated ground tables and the furniture, rugs and old Christmas trees piled on the curb reeked against a Monet-colored sky. Drunk college kids played golf in the public areas while local residents carried belongings outdoors, to be carted to the dump.

The Mayor announced that no one would have to pay a garbage fee for flood debris. For the next week the bus lines will run free of charge, with an apology that some of the roads are still inaccessible. We absolutely still have no idea the extent of the damage.

Most of the people in the areas that are underwater (again) are people who live paycheck to paycheck. And insurance companies will quibble with them (again) over whether or not it was damage due to river-water-rising flooding or ground table saturation flooding. From our perspective it doesn’t matter. Devastation is devastation. When I think about the people who were hit hard by both floods, I wonder how much horror one heart is meant to be able to hold. This is a devastation that will linger emotionally long after the garbage and debris are cleared away.

I’m suddenly starting to see just how lucky we are.

Yesterday: Part II, My city is underwater.

Tomorrow: Part IV, The fellowship of friends