Rose and Thorn

by Amy Carpenter

“like a steady ship doth strongly part

the raging waters and keeps her course aright;

ne aught for tempest doth from it depart,

ne aught for fairer weather’s false delight”

                                         -Spenser

Each evening over dinner, our family asks each other the above question, usually prefaced with the habitual, “So…?”, as in, “So…rose and thorn?”.  A query into the day’s adventure, it’s meant to elicit clarification. What was the brightest moment, and what most challenging?  We inherited the tradition from old friends and have since shared it with our family at large, having many lengthy discussions over the years of what it means to each individual (young and old) to speak of the roses and thorns of life.

It is an equally appropo question to apply to the subject of love, which will be much talked-about in the month ahead.  While endless well-intended dollars are spent on the hallmarks of Valentine’s Day- cards, chocolate, jewelry and dinners out- very few moments will be spent celebrating the thorny business of human relationship. And yet, it is the thorny business that defines and shapes us much more than roses and chocolate and sweet poetic phrases delivered on a 4 X 6 piece of store-bought parchment.  Why then, do we not celebrate these more shadowy sides of love? 

We know, those of us lucky enough to have fallen flat on our faces at least once in our romantic history, that the deepest parts of ourselves – and not always the pretty parts- are displayed naked on the surgical table of intimacy.  One could argue that the most challenging act in relationship is not that of witnessing our partner’s flaws, but in having our own mirrored so openly, with no room for escape.  But when the thorn is removed and the pathway of the heart laid open…well, there is a rose of the sweetest variety. Often we feel most deeply loved right in the middle of that tangled-up, bloody mass of thorns and skin. Whether our partners, our children, our siblings or friends, the roses of relationship sustain us, but it is the thorns that hone us, and cause old married couples to declare that only after years and years of both, do they define themselves as truly “married”.  Of course, marriage or no, that is the stuff of intimacy; year upon year of roses intermingled with some very important thorns.

So then, why not celebrate it all in the month ahead? To claim the successful navigation through troubled waters as equal in value to the calm, languid hours afloat on balmy seas. After all, we are called to experience both if we are human and in love. 

Giving in to Beauty

Amy Carpenter

April, 2015

“Since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool

while spring is in the world

my blood approves

and kisses are a better fate

than wisdom”

-E. E. Cummings

It’s April in Maine and never have we been so happy to see mud.  Mud means earth, and thaw, and the occasional fecund breezes promising grass and flowers and most of all, warmth. One can almost hear the chorus, singing a rendition of the Oliver Twist classic, “Mud, glorious mud!!”.  After all, this winter held the wildest combination of cold, wind and snow ever remembered. There were times when the drifts rose so high against our doorstep (windows, propane tank, driveway and cars), we had to “shovel” out with mittened hands the piles that reached above our chins, while 40 mile-an-hour winds whipped faces and we tried in vain to clear our noses of an endless stream of snot. Entire afternoons spent shoveling, with the wearying knowledge that in two days-time we’d have to do it all over again when the next storm hit.  So why shouldn’t we sing now that the glorious mud is finally here? The brisk days of April will maintain their hold on the earth a bit longer, mud or no, as we wait for the first flowers to break their fragile heads through the soil. Until then, we must find Beauty where we will, for just like a first kiss, Beauty awakens us as if from the sweetest of dreams.

Roger Scruton, in “Why Beauty Matters”, sets forth that Beauty reflects human desires, and therefore “should be reinstated as a central concern for our civilization”.  Beauty is as necessary to the human condition, he states, as truth or goodness.  Likewise, scientific study informs us that the rear portion of the brain delivers our inspiration. In moments of pause and reflection, the creation of new thought, artistic insight and worldly endeavor is first formed from these messages sent by the back brain.  The eventual expression of these ideas, no matter how small, allows us to live in connection with all things, since the whole of life is made up of creative force.

Beauty provides us sufficient pause to receive such necessary insight. Whether spying a glimpse of the rising blood moon or a first encounter with Gustav Klimt, Beauty revives our soul. Within its short halting breath, we get a chance to live at once outside the world we know, to be transported to a place where that one small perfection utterly reins, at least for us in that moment. Whether it comes in the form of a well-loved painting, or the first red teaberry currants spotted in the melting snow, chance encounters with Beauty enliven us. Newfound possibilities and angles are made available when our brain awakens to that one passing image or view.

In the mud of April, with snow still possible and summer an approaching dream, it may be just the time to fill our cups with Beauty, in whatever manner we see fit. To chase after it the way we do a professional challenge or potential for love, to make Beauty our daily replenishment, as vital as food or drink. For without it, we find ourselves in a spiritual desert, where life is nothing more than utility, devoid of meaning.   As Plato said, “Beauty is the revelation of God in the here and now”.   We join in that revelation each time we surrender to such moments, finding ourselves relieved of suffering, newly inspired and imbued with the divine light of heaven.

Grief and the Tear-Drop Stuffy

September, 2013

Amy Carpenter

"To feel everything within the self, and everyone as the self, is to be fully alive!”

                      -Julianne Everett  (Heart Initiation)          

When confused, write.  This has been my personal mantra and frequent advice to clients who have found journaling helpful in their lives. Still, I could not have anticipated how pertinent that advice would be right here and now at this blog’s entry point. The idea for a blog site began with our upcoming trip to India, and a desire to share aspects of preparation (inner and outer) for this long-awaited spiritual adventure.  I decided to entitle it “journeying” - a discussion springboard for other types of travel, emotional, psychological and spiritual that we all find ourselves facing in life, whether we want to or not.  As it turns out, I now sit here at my desk feeling nothing but sadness and bewilderment, wearily hoping the mantra will stick.  

Last weekend, a massive car collision in Belfast took the life of our teacher, just weeks after her husband died of respiratory illness in late June. My daughter’s class, the 6^th grade at Ashwood Waldorf school, have had Ms. Kalmath as their teacher since the first grade. On the night before the first day of school this year, Anikka learned her teacher was dead.

Having worked with grief and loss, I know what to expect as an emotional aftermath of such tragedy.  Being a long-time Waldorf-Mom-Wanna-Be, I know how to enlist the beauty of the magical realm to comfort a child, reminding them of the power of angels who now hold their loved one in a place of peace.  I know that metaphorically the shades are drawn and the house grows quiet for however long it takes to start feeling a bit of normalcy, or joy again.  What I didn’t know, or perhaps forgot, was just how strong the basic human need for structure, community, and tangible comfort is in the face of such devastating tragedy.  When Anikka first heard the news, she wailed for a long time, she wandered around the house, wanting to be hugged, then wanting to be alone.  Duane and I stood like tin soldiers, numb to our own needs, waiting to tend to whatever she might ask for, praying to find the right words for the hard questions.  In the end, what Ani did was very simple. 

Enlisting our help, she took all of her stuffed animals (along with every miniature creature she could find in the house), placed them in two huge garbage bags and brought them upstairs to the living room.  There, she re-assembled all the animal-life, large and small, into a “stuffy circle”, crawled right into the middle of it and lay silent in the fetal position for the next twenty minutes.  There was only room for one person or I would have joined her.  But it wasn’t my circle.  Anikka knew what she needed and once she gave it to herself, it was enough. The next day, she packed her new messenger bag full of paper and pencils, and headed off to school.

In my humble Waldorf-Mom-Wanna-Be mind, Ashwood was never more glorious than it was on that 1^st day of school, the day we all mourned together for Ms. K.  In the morning, the 6^th grade, along with their parents and a few grandparents, met for tea in the classroom to talk about the special memories (mostly humorous) we saw represented in the items she left behind. We held hands and shared these with each other as we laughed and wept. Later, the entire school community ended the day early and met at the great Ash tree in the center of campus. The children of the school placed flowers, rocks and special trinkets at its base. We then formed our own sacred circle, holding hands and walking round in a silent, teary spiral across the adjacent field.   My neighboring hand-holder was a kindergartner who wore a bowler hat and a suitvest. Without turning around to look at me, he simply took hold of my hand and pulled.  He didn’t let go until we were out of the spiral and across the field.  I thanked him as he walked away, still never seeing his face. Afterward, there was nothing more any of us needed to say or do. It was complete.

Anikka hasn’t sobbed or wailed since that first night.  I think she knows Ms. Kalmath is safe in the arms of the angels and her beloved husband.  She knows she herself is held in the arms of her family and the larger school community. Last night, being a self-declared therapist-in-the-making, she told me her plan to build a new kind of stuffy, in the shape of a tear-drop, with the words “feel the rain” across the front. “Get it, Mom?,” she asked, “It’s a water-drop with ‘Feel the rain’ on it, like ‘feel the pain’?”

“I totally get it.” I reply.  “I would buy one.”

The stuffy circle remains in our living room, and may be with us for a while. As a class and as a family we are still stunned and sad, and will be for weeks to come.  I myself am hoping to get just one decent night’s sleep in the next several days.  But one thing is for sure; with every hug we get, and every encouraging text and email, I know how very un-alone we are.  And how, in the wake of tragedy and loss, we really do receive unexpected things that are very soft and open, like the sweaty squeeze of a five-year-old’s hand, or the cuddly warmth of a tear-drop stuffy.

Ironically, Ms. Kalmath was from Bangalore, India, a region we will travel near this coming January.  Her family there are waiting for the necessary Visas so they can come and bring their sister home.  The students of the 6^th grade, with the help of their new teacher, will make a book for the family to take back with them. Many of the pictures and memories of dear Ms. K. will be in it, so her people in India will know just how treasured she was.  Both countries will hold their ceremonies with the scattering of ashes, literal and metaphorical, as we try to say goodbye the best we can.  The circle expands, changes form, and goes on…

Of course, only the children know that these are grown-up matters, grown-up ways to create comfort as necessary and important as a stuffy-circle.  The reality is that the love their teacher had for them lives on in every mathematical equation and carefully-crafted sentence.  She touches their spirits each time they paint a beautiful picture or wrestle with social conflict, asking themselves the very difficult questions of how best to respond to challenge.  What is right, what is wrong, and what would Ms. Kalmath say?