#60.10, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

          “Maybe it is true that Hannah doesn’t know everything about marriage,” I’m telling Layla, “And you may be right, that she can’t understand what it is to be married. But don’t, for a moment, forget marriage is about the beautiful life. So, this papa’s demand to you in this, ‘Please keep the belonging to one another sacred and beautiful. Marriage is not purposed with rearranging blame or transferring sins onto some poor wandering creature’.”

         Will hears the donkey snorting and trotting up the path to their patch. He comes out to greet Layla and takes the baby in his arms as Layla steps from the cart.

         Somewhere, amid the welcome home and greetings and the turning the cart around and the leaving, Will calls out to me,

         “Papa Laz, I’ll take good care of them. Trust me.”

         And I sort of do trust him.  I know they are working through the raw beginnings of relationship together. Dear God, thank you for this moment of hope and this window of knowing their lives could actually be good.

         Going back home alone, of course I’m aware my patriarchal lecture might just go past Layla unheard. But right now, I need to listen myself. Right now, when our own sons and daughters have found their life partners beyond the walls and our cottage and the warmth of our hearth, I need to value relationship too, even when it is just Ana and I.  It is a brief moment for our life together. Maybe the sin that was lifted from us by the beautiful cat is that of not noticing the beauty in our own simplicity and now we are rescued.

         I’ve learned not to assume that Ana only wants quiet in her illness and her aging. She might need something living to accompany her gaze at old memories. And now that we are dealing with her health crises, we are all thinking about the things that make a life joyful. Maybe the chaos of family is joy.

         So, returning here, I find my ax sharpened and an exacting plan by Hannah for construction of a sleeping loft in the Creek Cottage. Vizsla and I go into the woods for strong and sturdy saplings to be its supports.

         Dear God, thanks for the crowd and the noise and the pets and the strangers and the family, for the beautiful noise of now.

(Continues tomorrow)

 

#60.9, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

         Vizsla is down here at the creek cottage this evening with his fleece. He told Hannah that Brandell says he can’t stay there with them any more nights. Vizsla says marriage has turned Brandell “selfish.” This Avar seems a little miffed. Apparently, he was accustomed to sharing the tent with Gaia and Brandell while they journeyed. Different tribes have different customs I know, but I can see Brandell’s side in this.  So now, this little creek cottage, barely large enough for Ana and I, has Layla and the baby, Hannah and Vizsla, and Inky the kitten, all sharing the sleeping floor.  Well, now Inky the kitten is sharing our bed. Ana is fine with that. 

         Vizsla snores.  The baby cries, and Hannah stirs the fire and lights a lamp.

         This won’t be forever. Well, maybe Inky’s place in our bed will be forever, but tomorrow I’ll take Layla and the baby back to the castle fields. Then Hannah and Vizsla will…  Actually, it is known that Vizsla has no home and Hannah is always just here. 

         On the journey to the place the Avar’s had set their families while they battled with the Persians against the emperor, Vizsla learned that his mother had died and he has no other family left to return to.  So actually, Vizsla is like the wandering stray and Hannah has chosen to take him in. That is a good thing all around.  They do seem to belong together.

         When I’m gone tomorrow, Hannah and Vishla can sharpen the axes, and prepare to cut the poles needed to build a sleeping loft in this cottage.

         With the morning light, I take Layla and the baby back to the castle fields in the donkey cart.

         “Layla, I wanted this time aside from your sister to ask you about something you said to Hannah.”

         “What is that, Papa?”

         “I think I overheard you say to your sister that she wouldn’t understand using a witch’s critter for transferring evil, because she doesn’t know what it is to be married.”

         “Probably I said that. But you don’t understand it either Papa, because you and Momma don’t have any sins so you don’t even know.”

         “Marriage isn’t a sin dump or a blame pit, Layla. Marriage is lots of beautiful wonderful things. Just look at Willinod there, sleeping in your arms. But if a spouse is nothing more than a receptacle for the other’s sins, then the marriage has failed.” 

(Continues Tuesday, September 24)


#60.8, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

         It isn’t hard to change the topic from death to life for these grandchildren, especially when they take notice of Inky, the kitten. The vase was broken because Inky searched the shelf of precious things for something that was moving, something that had a glimmer of playfulness, and there it was — a feather that was ruffled at its edges so that it would move with the slightest breeze. That was how the clay vase was shattered.

         Now both of our wooden pails here at the creek cottage are being used for settling out the new clay, and it will take days to make a ball of perfect clay. So, the children go up to the farm to borrow another pail from the goat shed. It comes stained with use as a milking pail, and the kitten is bedazzled. What could be nicer that a warm wood pail that reeks of goat’s milk just right for curling up in?

         Ana shoos the kitten from the pail, and scrubs it with well water. The water whitens with the milk curdles as the pail becomes clean. The nearly milk poured into a tea dish is lapped up by the kitten as a delicious nourishment. Let this place become known now as home.  Everything is lovely and good. Life is always on this good side of whatever stinks.

         It is a completely joyful peace I see here, for Ana watching Haberd’s three chasing after a tiny little furball, which is also chasing after a feather on a string all the while she holds the fourth grandbaby in her arms. All this while the two adult daughters worry over the quality of gift for their older mother who should probably wish for quiet – call it tranquility or maybe stagnation? No. That isn’t Ana’s wish now. The visits from family, the kitten, the feather, this is the precious now of life that Ana cherishes.

         The very still and quiet shelf of precious things that have been salvaged over the years to speak of what once was and now is lost, seems to be the wishes of youngers, only imagining the still-life of elders.

         Remembrances, just because older people have so many of them, seem all there would be for one who has many years of life to ponder. But stagnation is to lose sight of now. It is a purposeless stillness.

         When the child returns to the edge of the creek, will the floating fish be there in that stillness?

(Continues tomorrow)

#60.7, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

         We were talking about the nature of life and that the one thing that defines life is the constancy of change. Growing, coming and going, keeping and letting go, these are all things of change. Life is never stagnant. In fact, the opposite of life is stagnant.

         So, Ana sends me off to take the grandchildren to the creek to dig for clay. That’s what set me thinking about the nature of stagnant things. I came along with them to guide them away from the stagnant pool that was trapped to stillness at the water’s edge. We saw the white belly of a dead fish in the muck and I told the children to stay away from “that stagnant water.”

         “What is stagnant?” asks five-year-old, Sam.

         “It means water that doesn’t flow so it isn’t moving, or living, or changing.”

         “And it stinks” says the oldest, Ann.

         Now that sets me to wonder, is the stink the death part of the stillness, or the life part?

         I told little Sam to stay away from that stinking water and now he has a stick in his hand and he is dipping the stick into the slimy muck of it. My adult nature is scolding, while seeing from a child’s perspective the clump of algae just under the surface is green and living. Poking it with a stick exposes life within the stillness.

         Try as I might to distinguish the stagnation from the flow, stench from fragrance, death from life, it is always that living edge of death that is the most fearsome. Psalm 23 takes us to this edge, “Lead me by still waters,”

         So, the children and I dig for the cold and smooth, sticky clay. Everyone gets a turn to dig.

         When we return to the cottage with dirty children and our pail of clay they want to start immediately making treasures to stay forever on Ana’s shelf of precious things. But Ana says they must wait for another day, because the good clay has to settle out in stillness.

         “No! It will be dead, then” argues Sam.

         Ana looks at me wondering what this the child knows of death.

         “We were talking about the water that doesn’t move being stagnant, and we considered the death of a fish.”

         “Oh.”

(Continues tomorrow)


#60.6, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosgas Mts.

         Inky, the kitten Layla gifted to Ana is stalking the plumage of a feather in a clay vase made by a grandchild. With the next waft of breeze through the window, Inky is on the shelf of precious things. Then, with one swat of an over-sized paw, the feather ruffles and the clay vase is shattered on the floor. Hannah sweeps the kitten up in one hand, holding the baby in her other, and she tosses the kitten out the door. This time he wasn’t sent out to be forever wandering, because I am here to scoop him back up and return him into the loving hands that will teach him the lesson every child and critter here knows. This house is a place of nurture where the bowl of fresh goat’s milk will always be a welcome home. And we have yet to make a home for this cat.

         Layla is apologizing a stream of “sorry’s” to her mother for the behavior of the gift-kitten, as she is sweeping up the raw clay dust and fragments that were once a masterpiece of child art. Hannah would rescue the feather if she wasn’t holding Willinod. I hand the kitten back to Ana.

         Ana explains the goodness of all of this. “Not only do we have the beautiful cat, but here is a good reason to dig up some clay for the grandchildren to work with and this time, I will filter it finer so the good clay will settle out and I can give them better clay for their art. Then, we can put the new vases and bowls they make into the heart of an autumn bon fire for hardening and maybe the new vase will hold water. It won’t crumble into dust when the cat knocks it to the floor. And the grandchildren can also make some new bowls from that better clay for the cat’s milk.”

         Layla keeps on apologizing, “I’m so sorry Momma.  I didn’t mean to bring you trouble”

         “Layla, you brought me a little living creature. That is the perfect gift for an old woman who desperately needs a reminder of beautiful life. And life is all constructed of changes, and sometimes a broken pot. That is what life is, in fact, life is change.”

         “I’m pretty sure, Momma, you didn’t mean for things on your shelf of precious things to change.” Layla continues her remorse.

         “So, are changes always worthy?”

(Continues Tuesday, September 17)

#60.5, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

         Hannah has returned from the castle farms in the donkey cart, bringing Layla and baby Willinod to visit Ana. Layla brought her mother a gift of a little kitten, but Hannah finds the “witchy” purpose for it detestable and so the daughters argue.

         Now that Ana has been given the kitten she graciously accepts it.

         “This is a wonderful gift, Layla. I have all these flowers plucked from their roots and all I can do with them is water them and watch them wither. So surely, I don’t need more dying flowers here. But a kitten is living, it is something that will be growing into a wonderful companion and something that needs me.”

         “I wasn’t sure Momma and Hannah said…”

         “It is exactly what I need to fill the empty place in my arms when you and little Willinod are off, home again.”

         Layla doesn’t mention the intended purpose for this kitten as a witch’s vessel to transfer away the evils of this cancer. And what if that purpose were to be realized?  What would happen to the cat? Would it be freed in a wilderness to wander endlessly, as was the sacred goat from an ancient tribe? Or would it be loaded up with evil and returned to the witch who spawned her, to be boiled in a caldron of curses?

         I’m pretty sure the cat will have a fine long life as a farm cat, as long as she keeps her distance from the hoofs of beasts. No sooner does it have a place on Ana’s lap, but that it has a name – Inky. [in remembrance]  Of course, it is Inky.  In our obsessively literate house, it is the black of the oak gall inks laid onto the white parchment with a lettering brush that gives meaning to a page. When I look at the shelf of stilled and stiffened things, collected as “precious” in this house, this little Inky freshens the notion of “precious.”

The kitten is indeed, a vessel for transference, but not of evil, rather, she is a bearer of goodness and life. Ana is delighted.

         Just now, Inky is captivated by the items on the precious things shelf, and a breeze sweeps in the un-shuttered window and tickles the plumage of the feathers the grandchildren collected into a clay vase. The feathers ruffle, and Inky stalks them.

In remembrance of Inky the cat from the childhoods’ of Carol Ann and Janet.

(Continues tomorrow)

#60.4, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

         Ana is just enjoying the grandbaby in her arms –laughing, giggling, playing baby games.  Ana doesn’t know the nature of this little gift from Layla. When she sees me bringing a birdbox in she thanks Layla ever so profusely for a bird. Ana has always loved birds and her pigeons are precious to her, not just because they bring news of family, but because they are birds. She loves her geese, and the owls, and the cuckoo that nests near the healing garden.  She just loves the birds.

         Layla turns to me, “Take it back out Papa, I’ll bring something better.”

         She pushes me back outside with the cage. We talk.

         I suggest, “Let’s just let her see it. A kitten has its own gift for making itself likeable.”

         “But Hannah told me right off, Momma won’t like this witch’s cat.”

         Hannah chimes in, “I didn’t say she wouldn’t like a kitten. I said she didn’t believe in that notion of putting sins and evils onto a critter.”

         “Maybe she just never heard of that Hannah, maybe you don’t know everything!”

         “Just think about the whole big idea of it, Layla, like Momma does. Surely, she wouldn’t think a gracious God would make a critter just to bear the sins and evils for someone else.”

         The sisters are bickering. I know better than to offer an opinion.

         “So, Hannah?” argues Layla. “You know nothing at all of marriage.”

         “Marriage?  This is nothing about marriage is it, Papa?”

         Layla is set on firing up these sister’s other ongoing argument.

         I intervene. “Layla, tomorrow, after you’ve had your visit, I will be the one to drive you home. So, use this time here to make amends with your sister and you should give your mother this beautiful gift you have for her.”

         I take the kitten from the cage and hand it to Layla. It is a loveable little critter. No birdcage is needed.

         We all go back into the house and Hannah takes the baby from Ana, and Ana takes the tiny kitten from Layla.

         “Oh! Layla!  It’s so tiny and so dear!  Is this what you had in that pigeon cage?  It is so sweet!”

         “Did you want a bird, Momma?”

         “Layla, it is darling. I’ve never had a kitten before.”

         “I should have just brought you flowers.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#60.3, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

         Layla has come to see her mother and she brought a kitten to give as a gift. Now Hannah is telling me it is an infant reminder that the castle fields are seeded with ancient superstitions pretending evil spirits into life. She tells me the cat is supposed to receive the illness and take it from Ana. Hannah, and Ana too, have seen this strange notion put to use too often. It is the idea that an evil or an illness is passed along to another using a particularly cursed animal for transference. [footnote]

         “So, Hannah, you think this kitten was meant as a gift of magic?”

         “Clearly, it is was a gift given to spite this surgeon’s blade. When the cancer had spread beyond the reach of my blade, some castle witch sent naïve and innocent Layla this magical, so-called, cure.”

         “And so, Hannah, what is it you fear, that it will work, or that it won’t?”

         “Papa, are you arguing with me because you just can’t let go of your ancient root where Jesus sends pigs hurdling from the cliffs to drown demons? [Mark 5:1-20] Or maybe you are clinging to your Jewish root, burdening a poor goat to carry all the sins of Israel into the wilderness for an annual ritual. [Lev. 16:20-22]”

         “Oh, fair arguments, my brilliant daughter! But we both know your mother’s opinion of this and she isn’t going to send this little kitten away to be burned up by witches just because you made a proper surgeon’s choice when you saw the spread of the cancer. I know she knew what this disease was all along. And we both know she doesn’t expect this dear little critter to be a sacrifice to give us a wish for a magical healing.”

         Now here is Layla. She’s told her mother she is bringing her a gift, but she didn’t tell her what it was. I’ve to put the little kitten back into the bird box for the grand presentation.

         To Layla I say, “She usually only gets dying flowers. Something living will be a nice gift.”

         “Thanks, Papa. I’ve been worried she won’t like it when I tell her what it is for.”

         I follow Layla and Hannah and the bird cage into the house, wishing there really was some creature that could release us from worry. 

[footnote] “transference” is well explained in Chapter III, pages 148 and following of The Golden Bough by James G. Frazer (New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1981-reprint from 1890 edition) An interesting aside—how ancients circumnavigated scientific understanding of contagious disease and also the use of the term in classical psychology.

(Continues Tuesday, September 10)

#60.2, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.
 

         Hannah took the donkey cart today, over to the castle lands to see her sister and the new baby, Willinod, and now she’s returning, and with her on the cart are Layla and the baby. This is what Ana wishes for more than anymore fists of flowers to stuff in the flask. Ana’s smile alone illuminates the room with heaven and now Layla is grinning too and the little granddaughter chimes in with a baby’s giggle.

         Hannah delivers this baby and mother to Ana and she goes back out to the donkey cart. I follow.

         “If you want to stay down here and visit also, I’ll take the cart up and set the donkey to pasture.” I offer.

         “Papa, look at what Layla brought for Momma.”

         Here in the cart is one of our pigeon cages, as it is being returned to take another bird back with Layla, but there is something moving in the cage that isn’t feathered. It is a furry black kitten starring between the oaken sticks with searching green eyes — eyes nearly the size of the tiny critter’s whole face. The infant voice issues an assertive “meow” expecting its language to be clear. It is clear. I know it is saying, “I don’t belong in a bird crate.”

         I open the cage, and wrap the whole little kitten in one hand. It is soft and warm and ever so tender. Hannah seems to be rebuffing all this cuteness.

         “Don’t you like kittens, Hannah?”

         “Not this one.”

         “What is wrong with this kitten?” I ask, assuming Hannah and Layla have discovered sibling rivalry. But that isn’t the issue here.

         Hannah explains her displeasure.

         “Layla and Will have made an acquaintance of… of someone they call a practitioner, but she is a wizard of the worst kind. She works outside of known medicine, and mixes potions and speaks in spells and omens that sound to strangers of God, like prayers.”

         “Here is this innocent little kitten…” I mention.

         “It is a beast for the transference of soul and sin.”

         “Is that what you think this kitten is, Hannah?”

         “That is its purpose as a gift for Momma.  When my blade failed to rescue Momma these neighbors, dabbling in magic, said the cancer is the work of the evil one. Momma doesn’t like us to speak of devils, I know.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#60.1, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Creek House in the Vosges Mts.

Ana seems well on this new day, though the dread of her diagnosis is a heavy weight on her and all of us who love her.

         Mater Doe named Ana in spoken prayers, so those who came to worship at the secular church in the woods shared in the prayers and they know of the fears and assume we nurture hopes. Neighbors with courage enough to visit the sick stop by the Creek Cottage to see her smiling and welcoming as always, though the scurry to serve tea to guests is handled by me just now. Harvest season is a busy time anyway, so a continuous line of visitors at our door is both a blessing and a curse. She always chooses to call visitors blessings and welcomes them.

         The water flask for flowers on the table is stuffed with stems. Everyone who comes by brings a handful of fresh flowers crowded together with the lavender stems I so foolishly delivered to the surgery when they needed violet leaves.  But I have to say, the lavender has lasted through the healing of her wound and the fragrance hasn’t faded.

         She laughs when we are alone, “Laz, it looks as though every blossom on the creek path has been picked clean just to fill my vase.”

         “Yes, the goats and the geese are surely missing these late summer blossoms.”

         More thoughtfully she answers, “I don’t think people always care that critters appreciate beauty too so they just go snatching up every daisy they see, just to make me a bouquet.”

         “Do you really think the critters see what is beautiful?”

         “Of course, they do. If you lift your eyes from the beauty of the sun setting behind the hills on any evening and gaze at the horses in the pasture, every eye is on the extravagant display of sky colors, even though they are only beasts.”

         “Horses know things.”

         “I noticed a sheep once, gazing at a rainbow.”

         “I don’t think God gave beauty to people alone. I think all of life becomes enwrapped in it. People claim it as ours alone, since claiming things is what humankind do best.”

         There is another knock at the door and more neighbors come with more fistfuls of flowers.

         I refill the boiling pot on the hearth which still has the dregs of chamomile flowers and mint leaves to make our tea.

(Continues tomorrow)