meandering alongside meaning

flow, story, imagination and thickening water

Aug 24, 2024

the long-in-the-tooth Apple Trees that speckle the park out back are casting off their fruit as august wanes. a feast for Wasps, assorted Insects and whoever else relishes dining on such delights. photo by anne richardson

dear sojourners,

i miss the House Finches. once regular visitors to the birdbaths, sightings are now sparse. was it something i did? said? i forget sometimes that i avail the water and few blooming plants on my deck as offerings to these Beings, as well as the Anna's Hummingbirds, Black-Capped Chickadees, Song Sparrows and, yes, the Wasps, as part of co-existing, not so they will entertain me. still, i miss the flurry of activity that likely coincided with nesting|brooding|tending|fledging. these wild Beings are listening to the seasonal beat of Earth. so listen, i say to myself.

a fury of a Thunder|Lightening|Wind|Rain storm raged through last Saturday evening. an august’s worth of Rain let loose in two, three hours. filled the birdbaths to the rim. the official amount: 0.4”, though a friend said her Rain gauge measured an inch. the dry-dirt Ground said, too much too fast though the weary patches of crisped-to-brown Grass accepted the sacrament into Roots and blushed with pale spring memory the next day. our collective prayer was for No-Lightening-Caused-Fires. our state has set a record for charred acreage and the season is still at its height. no more human-caused or natural-caused fires we beseech the dark skies and our fellow humans, though these days, both are intertwined.

water|flow|meaning-making. whatever i pick up to read or tune in for a listen seems to have that theme. so pay attention, i say to myself.

i read Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, A memoir (2010,)….finally. i don’t know that i could have read it five, 10, 14 years ago (when it was first published.) you have to be open to not flinching. to allowing the story to be. lidia doesn’t write to please you. she writes because stories and language matter. factual retelling is not the point, because our memories are not a digitally accurate archive. memory is a corporeal experience. memories and the stories they tell will change over time because they are not static. they are water. at least this is how i absorbed her words, but i also offer you a few of her own words from the Q&A section at the end of the book so you can see where i’m coming from:

“Turns out, according to neuroscience, the more you actively ‘remember’ something, the more the headstory you carry around changes. Every time you recall something, you modify it a little bit and that’s because brains…work through a mixture of images, pictures, feelings, words, facts and fiction—all ‘recollected.’ Eventually you are not remembering what happened at all, but your story or head movie about it. The safest memories are probably those embedded in the brains of people who have lost the ability to retrieve them.”
“In writing, every narrative and linguistic choice you make forecloses others, directs the story a certain way, focuses on a particular image, extends a metaphor that on another day, you might have chosen differently. Form has everything to do with content in this sense. So what is ‘true’ in non-fiction writing is also always being ‘crafted’—given shape and composition and emotional intensity—through our narrative choices as writers. And that’s in addition to the science of memory. So the true story is always a fiction. This is why I have come to believe that non-fiction and fiction are as inextricably linked as memory and imagination—which, as it turns out, also use the same brain circuits when they are active.” (Chronology of Water, pg 299)

her thought on “safest memories” makes me wonder about folks with dementia (my mother had Alzheimer’s, plus i engaged with many folks with dementia when i worked as a hospice chaplain). has someone who has dementia lost their ability to retrieve memories and therefore those memories are held in a “safe place” (even if those memories are perhaps not “safe?”)

or, maybe, unable to sequester a memory one doesn’t want to engage with, it is unintentionally retrieved and “storied” and “imagined” but within the languaging capacities of the dementia brain (however that is unfolding at a particular point in time and dependent on the type of dementia.)

i find this all fascinating, for the stories that arose as i sat with my mother and those with dementia often had metaphorical images and a way of playing with language that when listened to with patience and curiosity, seem to fall under this idea that “non-fiction and fiction are as inextricably linked as memory and imagination.” i am curious to hear what you think.

the pool where i swim laps has been unusually busy this week. the water thick with energy. i crawl through the enclosed Water as i do my crawl stroke. i am grateful to Water for holding me. i want the other swimmers to leave their unsettled energy out of the pool. maybe its me. it is me.

i dreamed last night that a woman, a brown-skinned woman, in a war zone had a baby. she wrapped the baby as securely as she could and placed the baby in a porcelain toilet that had no lid or tank and was in the open and the woman, bare-breasted, waited beside her infant. then, as dreams often do, she was in some sort of clinic, still without covering, still dusty. no one seemed to care about her as she sat with her child, trying to breastfeed. someone came and took her child and left her alone. offered no explanation. no words of when/if her child would be returned. she sat, legs splayed, on a white sterile table in a white sterile room with a small spot of blood between her legs on a white sheet. i woke sad. i woke feeling this was a bigger dream. not a dream to “figure out” but to be with. there was no water in the dream. my dreams have been filled with water. where was the water? i share this dream with you not for your thoughts on what it means for me, but as an offering.

is it necessary for humans to make meaning out of life to have a well, “meaningful life”? death? for suffering to have a sense of purpose or order? when you dwell in Grief world and abide in the thresholds as i do, “meaning-making” is “part of the process.” at least that is what my education has led me to believe.

i remember when i first read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” (1946,) i was both troubled and anguished (or perhaps something else…it has been a while and, memories, right?) it offered a path through suffering. or maybe that is what i wanted to believe.

most of today’s Grief theories and books focus on meaning-making after loss. the consensus has formed that by making sense of the loss, or at least making space for how to move forward in life with the loss, one needs to find meaning (i won’t list research here, but if you are interested, i can offer sources.) i am not opposed to this…mostly. and…i’m wanting to push back. but then i wonder: would that leave only a meaningless life? it isn’t about one or the other. there is a story in here somewhere. where is the imagination?

we place SO much emphasis not only on grievers, but on everyone in our culture having a “meaningful” life (and yes, i am guilty of this.) can we simply “be” for a bit? after loss can we just allow ourselves to be present to being with whatever feelings are arising (or even if no feelings are arising) ? take our time. when our kiddos graduate from school. when we finish a “big project.” when something good happens in our day. can we just be with it for what it is without having to turn it over and inside out and make it “meaningful?” and i am coming clean here…i do this all the time! why do i keep coming upon “water|flow” themed writings? what does this “mean?” what are the connections? i drive myself nuts some days.

Redwoods from north california. photo by anne richardson

and then there is this other random “meaning thought” that is bouncing around in my mind. if we, as humans, are drawn to being “meaning-makers” with our relatively short span as a species on the planet, what other Beings are “meaning-makers?” one of my favorite places is Northern California where the ginormous Redwoods abide , some thousands of years old. we know Trees have complex webs of communication (often engaging Mycelia). why wouldn’t they try to make meaning of Wildfires, of clearcutting, of disease? these ancient wise elders, Trees, navigating the Earth, have stories…i imagine meaning-filled stories.

and not only Trees, consider Whales, Corvids, Moss, Lichen, Rocks…a lengthy list. so do they language meaning into their communication? we know so little. mystery.

and when i work with folks in my role as a spiritual companion, finding meaning in loss or the spiritual journey often arises, but also having permission to not seek one seems refreshing.

Thanks for reading following dandelion seeds! This post is public so feel free to share it.

part of this meaning meander came from reading Ghosts of Tsumani, Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone, (2018) by Richard Lloyd Perry. toward the end of the book Lloyd Perry recounts some of his conversations with a Buddhist priest who has spent time with families directly impacted by the Tsunami. he also had a profound experience the night of the Tsunami. his temple is located on a hill a distance away from the Tsunami’s impact, but power is out and all is dark. there is no communication. he is unable to see the carnage below, but ”knows something enormous has happened….[and] it was entirely natural.”

yet he knew in supporting families, “…I realized that when I began my work, giving support to people who lives had been destroyed, I had to attend to the heart of human beings and their suffering and anguish. But I also had to understand those sorrows from the cosmic perspective.” a both/and tension. the priest share that a grandparent wanted to know why their grandchild died but not them. why the randomness of “who?” “People wanted to understand their survival.”

the author and the priest don’t offer glib answers. no answers at all except to conclude that to walk alongside and allow more stories to be told is the best we can offer one another until the people sharing stories can “find the answer on their own.” i would add that it may take a lifetime as the stories will keep being rewritten from that “inextricable link between memory and imagination”…and, dare i say it, a need to find meaning.

Báyò Akómoláfé recently posted on FB (8/15) a new word, panrheic (all, to flow).

“A word that suggests we are all in flow; that difference is not separation; that we are not 'things' that 'move' in the world - instead we are movements that 'thing' with the world. All-flowing, all-moving, lines emerging and vanishing.”

like most ideas Báyò writes, it takes me time to ponder, but this one resonated because it related to water and flow, those themes appearing over and over in my life these days. i suppose i’m trying to make “meaning.” or just allowing. noticing. i wonder how the Buddhist priest who had the profound experience of the Universe and sorrow and natural occurrences after the Tsumani would read these words.

White Egret taking to flight. photo by anne richardson

i went to the Coast with a friend a couple of weeks ago. couple of nights away. we played Scrabble. i may love words, but i am a lousy Scrabble player. it was still fun. the house sat above a Bay. Brown Pelicans dove in for snacks. White Egrets and Blue Herons waded in the shallow depths. took their time feasting. the second morning a man was walking in the bay. not canoeing or kayaking. walking. slowly. perhaps he dreamed of being a Heron. a dream i could relate to. tide was out in the morning. folks were clamming and crabbing. holes dotted the wet sand as the tide crept outward. holes…sudden water projectiles. step. squirt! step. squirt! squirt squirt! step. like a fountain at a kid’s park, without the timing. bouts of laughter. ah the Coast. my place of restoration and refreshment. no need to poke around for meaning

random dude walking in the bay. photo by anne richardson

my summer project has been to sort through old photos and papers. not just from my kiddo’s childhood or mine, but those stored by my mum (who died 6.5 years ago) and my grandparents’ (long gone, but we hold onto the photo and paper trails of memories in my family.) this project will linger well into autumn as the handling of photos and papers entails handling energy. the stories left unsaid. i don’t know everyone in the older photos and still i am unable to “toss them.” a wise friend said that perhaps they still have a story to share. fiction or non-fiction. it is all linked together.

i did pawn some off on my brother and cousin. and i have found treasures. photos of my nana, who i don’t remember ever smiling—smiling! a postcard send to her from my granddad before my father was born because my aunt is mentioned as “baby Betty.” my granddad in uniform with eight others. it must of have been WWI, though the postal date has faded. this grandfather died when my father was a lad. a man i know few stories of. i can’t even identify which one is him in the photo. my grandmother called an abbreviated version of her name i had never heard before. so yes, this is a slow, slow process because story and memory and there is no one left to tell them, so i have to allow the photos to speak. and they only speak in hushed tones i have yet to decipher.

old family photo/postcard circa late 1910’s

as i tried to unpack some of what is flowing through me with my spiritual director last week, i realize am in a place of unknowing. of allowing myself to be comfortable with not knowing and some days being quite uncomfortable. a sense of dissolving many of my previous roles. of not being a threshold dweller but being threshold. dissolving into threshold. maybe i am imagining this. maybe i am a fiction.

when i walk my new neighborhood, coming home with purple-stained fingers from nibbling ripe Himalayan blackberries along roadsides, it is gift. noticing the feast of fallen Apples from aged Trees ready to feed all comers, it is gift. sighing into cooler days before a final fit of hot weather arrives to close out summer, it is gift.

summer’s end, less than a month until the equinox. the harvest season is about loss as fruit is released from the vine. letting go nourishes::sounds meaningful. or just how these wild Beings are listening to the seasonal beat of Earth.

the nights draw in sooner and the Crickets have returned. their chirp, my gateway sound to autumn as sun sets. window open and fan-free for now, i drift into sleep amid their frenzied desires. then, deep into night the Coyotes, now maturing, their yips fill the air. the other evening they set off a Dog barking. i could almost see them sauntering away into the full blue Moon shadows, flowing like Water, flaunting their freedom.

i would love to hear your thoughts on meaning-making. or how you dwell in the change of seasons. or how does Water (or any element) present in your life? or are your feeling unsettled/dissolving (i’ve heard that from others, so i am not the only one)? what is on your mind|heart?

following dandelion seeds

meandering alongside meaning

flow, story, imagination and thickening water

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