Thursday evening

I’m not sure what the average life expectancy is nowadays for women in England, where I live. It was 82.4 in 2008-2010, and had risen by two years since the previous calculation.

I guess it depends on how you take the average, and how much you want to complicate the picture by socio-economic and linked geographic considerations. I was intrigued to discover, when I did an area study as part of my training for ordination back in the early 90s, that a person would be more like to die in Hastings, at whatever age they were, than anywhere else in the south east except Hove. I still don’t understand that statistic. I mean, how is that possible? Surely – irrespective of age – we are all 100% likely to die. Whatever. Mystery. Anyway, moving on.

So I was thinking the likelihood is that average life expectancy for women in England must be about 84 by now. 84 is 7 x 12. There are seven days in a week. This means that a woman in England (like me) could choose to see her life as a week, and figure out which day she’s on.

I know Sunday is meant to be the first day of the week and Quakers even called it First Day, but that doesn’t feel natural to me – I guess because in the church we have come to think of Sunday as the Sabbath and obviously the Sabbath comes at the end; I mean, you don’t start the week with a rest, do you?

So to me Monday (a bold flat strong primary yellow colour) is the first day of the week. Tuesday, which is blue, is Day 2. Wednesday (green) is Day 3. Thursday is red and Day 4. I don’t have a feeling about the colours of Friday and Saturday, but for me Sunday is yellow but different from Monday. Sunday is a juicy translucent colour of yellow like lemon juice or a sunbeam. And it is Day 7.

Happily, as there are 24 hours in each (real, normal) day and we are thinking of 12 x 7 being 84, that makes it easy to divide up each figurative day because of 24 being twice 12.

I am 56 but nearly 57. 12 x 4 = 48 and 12 x 5 = 60. That means I am well on through Day 4 (Thursday). I’m assuming a day starts at midnight, so Thursday began at midnight when I was 48. At 56, end of last July, I reached afternoon tea time on the Thursday of my life (4.00pm), and next month when I’ll turn 57 it’ll be six o’clock on Thursday – about supper time.  

My mother is 86. I guess that means she’s borrowing from eternity.

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Amendment: If you read the comments you will see that Pilgrim has correctly worked out that my life has reached Friday teatime, not Thursday! Nearly the weekend . . .

Walking home.

I think I’ve written about this before on this blog. Apologies if repetitious. To recap. 

There was a day when, as I young mother, I stood waiting for a bus. I’d come to live in this sprawling, straggling town expectant with my first child. Now I had two children – a baby of a few months old and a toddler. It’s not an easy town to make friends in, as it has no centre, strings out along the coast – and I was not a driver back then. Plus, I was shy. But I had made one friend, and once a week used to catch the bus to visit her. In those days, strollers on the bus were unthinkable; you had to fold them down and carry them on. It was hard to do this with a toddler whose hand needed holding by the busy roads, and even harder carrying a daybag of nappies and wipes etc, and a babe in a sling. The walk to the bus stop from our house was about half a mile – a long way for a two-year-old, but we made it.

It was harder still for a two-year-old to stand still at the kerbside waiting for a bus that did not appear. An hour went by. In the end we gave up and walked home, as by then the baby was awake and crying. My toddler cried too. The day was hot. She didn’t want to hold my hand any more. I judged it not safe for her to walk alongside the road without holding my hand, so I made her do it – just by gripping on tight. All the way home, she screamed and I gripped. Her eyes were screwed shut, her cheeks red and shiny, her mouth wide in a ceaseless yell. For half a mile. At two-year-old pace. All the way home. I had a bag to carry, and a baby. I said nothing. We just had to get through it. I remember that day.

Ram Dass said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Thich Nhat Hanh said: “Be present for yourself and for the Sangha. Practise for elder sister is practice for younger sister.”  He said: “If we are an elder sister or brother, we have to act in such a way that our capacity to communicate remains solid and the bridge of understanding is maintained between us and other members of the Sangha. When this bridge collapses there is no help for us.” (from his book Joyfully Together)

Sometimes you can build it again. I was not present for myself or for the community in the form of my child, that day. I let the bridge collapse, even though I kept her safe from the traffic and held on tight to her hand. Well: I guess, the least you can say, though she yelled steadily and I stomped along in stony silence, we were still holding hands, still walking each other home – after a fashion.

Thich Nhat Hanh also writes very helpfully about anger. He has the best chapter I’ve ever read on the subject in his book Peace Is Every Step.  See his steps of anger management/mindfulness here.  

He says, when we are angry, the tendency is for the anger to be bigger than us; we become consumed by anger, and therefore identified with it. So the first task is to notice the anger. In so doing, at once we have separated ourselves from it, and made it safer. We are no longer consumed by it, no longer inside it and identified with it.

He suggests we treat our anger as a parent would treat an angry child. Take it on our lap and speak soothingly to it, wait for the storm to pass, find out what is wrong.

I have noticed, recently, that my (uh-oh) inner child (dang, how I hate that phrase!) is angry. Actually, enraged. This last few days I’ve caught myself out looking for things to be angry about – and finding them. Pegs to hang it on.

I think for a long time my inner child has been very, very angry. We walk along together, elder sister and younger sister. I cannot escape the task of walking my inner child home. My actual child is a grown up woman now. But here’s my inner child – I’m stuck with her – screwed-up eyes and bright red cheeks, yelling and dragging her feet, trying to wring her hand out of my grip. I have no idea how to deal with her. For fifty-seven years I’ve been trying to walk this child home. I sure am sick of her. I wish she’d shut up. She wants to be heard. She wants to be noticed. I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s the matter with her. I have tried Wise People but they all turn out to be quite normal really; not functionally wiser than me. I’m elder sister. It’s my job. We still have a long way to go. Whatever can I do?

Noticing

When I was fifteen and had not known the Lord Jesus for myself very long, but had great joy and faith in him, I asked him for a gift.

I asked to be a seer. That’s another name for a prophet, traditionally, but to me there’s a different nuance.

The word ‘prophet’ came into the English language in the Middle Ages from the Old French prophete. That arrived in France via Latin from the Greek prophētēs, which means ‘spokesman’, from pro ‘before’ + phētēs ‘speaker’ (from phēnai ‘speak’). ‘Before-speaking’ is obviously the same as ‘fore-telling’. So a prophet will either see ahead, or see deeply enough into present reality to identify in today the seeds of what will flower/fruit tomorrow.

Therefore seeing is an important component to being a prophet, but the foot falls on speaking. Speaking out is the essential task. Or maybe to be entirely accurate, there is an outbreath to prophecy, which is the foretelling (or forth-telling); but there’s also an inbreath, which is being called into the presence of God. Without time spent centred on the mystery of God’s presence, the prophet has no source of anything to say.

A seer is a little bit different. A seer may or may not say anything, but sees – notices. I didn’t aspire to any public role of proclamation, but I did want clear eyes to my spirit; so I asked to be a seer.

And in his grace, the Lord Jesus granted my wish. In fact, I can’t think of anything I’ve asked of him that he’s denied me. He is a generous master.

So, as a result, my life’s work has been noticing things. It’s what I do for a living. I notice how things are, and I write down what I’ve seen, in books and articles, and that pays my bills. The thing that people who enjoy my writing always say about it is that it is so real. ‘More real than the Velveteen Rabbit’ is the comment I have stowed in my heart and treasured above all. Where this reality makes it through, it is because of the gift the Lord Jesus gave me; to be a seer.

There’s a necessary discipline attached to noticing things. If life is cluttered and busy with a hectic environment and lots going on, it’s possible to notice only the loud and obvious. To notice the small and subtle, it’s necessary to get quiet and solitary and still. So that’s what I do.

I am always excited when I notice something new; when a thing comes to my attention that I’d entirely overlooked before – and that happened this morning.

As you know if you read here often, I think a lot about nutrition and health, about de-toxing and clarity of being; and I live in a shared house with four other adults.

Today I noticed something.

When we eat, we derive energy from food – calories, fuel, stuff to keep us going and build up our cells and give us strength for the day. Our food energises us. Without food we get weak and tired and eventually sick and, after a long time, dead.

In the morning, as we casually and intermittently happen to convene in the kitchen getting our juices and oatmeal and whatnot for breakfast, I often ask people what they will be doing today. What I really want to know (I realized today) is, will they be at home or working elsewhere.

Some days Alice and Hebe work at home (at the moment, for example, Alice is working in the studio here on a commission for a painted and gilded mirror), other days they will be going out (most days Hebe and often both of them go to the stonemasonry just over a mile away where they design and cut images and lettering for headstones). Fi is mostly based at home (as I am), but has tracts of time when she is away on other adventures or out at a recording studio for her work as a musician. The Badger is away in Oxford, three hours’ drive up-country, for half the week.

This morning I noticed something going on in my psyche that made my enquiry, as to where household members would be based that day, more important than just friendly interest.

To be a seer, when you notice something you have to pay attention to it, or it will slip out of the grasp of your noticing Eye, much as a dream fades and is forgotten if you don’t write it down after you wake up with it still vivid in your mind.

So, my attention caught, I looked carefully at the small soul movement I had detected, and realized something. I actually derive energy from the other members of my household – real energy, just the same as I get energy from food. When we are together here in this house, it’s like being fed small nutritious snacks all day long. Their vibrational presence constantly tops up my energy. When they are out, that energy is unavailable. So it helps to know in advance who’s in and who’s out, so I know if I am feasting or fasting today, and can be aligned with that expectation in my inner being.

I had never noticed this before. There are some people who drain my energy so much I feel quite desperate; I have to steady myself to wait patiently to get out of the sphere of their aura, not screaming or saying anything rude but just firmly disentangling from the strong urgent sucking of their spirit.  My family is not like that. They are strong, clear souls who know how to stand balanced in their own space and keep focus. Being alongside them is peaceful and calming. They run like a mountain stream. I feel very privileged to live with them.

I was enabled to notice this today because I have been clearing, clearing, clearing; getting my life and being more streamlined, more prepared. I met with a friend (another seer) earlier this week – we meet up every few months to compare notes. What she is hearing is ‘Time is short’. What I am hearing is ‘Not long now’. Neither of us knows what imminent thing life is telling us about, but given the latest findings on climate change, I do wonder if what we are sensing is more than just personal. Whatever it is, I know that the best way to be ready for the unknown is clarity and simplicity. Travelling light, both internally and externally, gives the maximum flexibility and responsive choice. ‘Problems arise where things accumulate’*, so in my body, possessions, schedule, commitments and mind, I have been continuing to clear, clear, clear, in the hope of being the best seer I can be, as well as available, calm and compassionate as and when required.

Something else that came before my attention today stopped me in my tracks, as my soul whispered ‘Yes’: 

**

*Quote: Toinette Lippe Nothing Left Over

** Image: FACEBOOK.COM/PHILGOODLIFE

The roof community

Among my most treasured and favourite acquaintances, visitors always welcome, I would include Benedict and Mrs Corbie – a pair of crows who live near us and drop by every day for breakfast – and lunch and supper as well if they’re on offer.

Their society is a delight. I love crows. Intelligent birds, avid problem-solvers, they recognize human faces and allocate names to their human friends. They are masters of cross-species communication (both by telepathy and by gesture and demonstration), curious, friendly and loyal.

Just at the present time, things are tough in our garden for Benedict and Mrs Corbie.

A pair of jackdaws is vying for the spot on the old capped chimney where the Corbies were hoping to build their nest, and in recent times those jackdaws have stepped up their harassment – buzzing and dive-bombing incessantly – to a level that’s wearing us all out.

The jackdaws used to call by to bully the Corbies, but this weekend they have begun patrolling the roof with a vengeance,

striding along the ridge tiles

drinking from the gutters so they don’t have to leave

keeping vigil on the chimney pots

The Corbies don’t stand a chance.

A pair of herring gulls living on the roof next door also competes more fiercely than before for any corvine tidbits put out for the Corbies. They have a good reason, though.

And the seagulls are courteous and patient about helping themselves to food.

They watch

and wait

asking nicely and approaching cautiously. I let them have something even though it’s really for the Corbies.

After all, since the jackdaws are right there on the roof the minute the seagulls go out for their groceries, it’s better if Mama Gull has supplies near home so she doesn’t have to be away too long.

There are also sparrows who come and go under the roof tiles next door, but they declined to sit for their portraits today.

I hope in due course to be able to post photos of the Corbies, but with all the commotion and harassment involved in competing for a roost, Benedict spotted my camera, said “Whoa! What the hey?” and flew off without his afternoon tea.

This was the best I could do. Can you see him?

Here.

But though wary and shy, he is a good friend. He is well used to me and Hebe, and where Hebe goes the cats are usually not far behind.  This morning early as I sat on an upturned flowerpot, guarding the Corbies’ breakfast from opportunistic seagulls and magpies, waiting for Benedict to turn up, suddenly came a short snarling row from the garden next door. In a flash, two things happened. The old dog fox (who also visits us most days, whose food we put out at dusk at the end of the garden in a private, secluded dell) jumped up onto the wall dividing our garden from the neighbours, still snarling over his shoulder at the adversary who’d startled him. On the instant, Benedict was there in the lowest branch of the nearest tree, roaring such threats and insults that Brother Reynard hurried away, intimidated. Watching down into the darkness under the trees beyond Komorebi, I saw a foxy face appear in the shadows, he still scenting the delicious smell of cat-food in the bowl on the grass. But he thought I looked dangerous – me and my corvine friend; so he withdrew, silently.

The adversary who’d startled Brother Reynard? Our black cat Miguel, who appeared over the garden wall once Benedict had scared off the fox, puffed out to twice his size and strolling up to the house with a nonchalant swagger.

Since the Corbies like to have breakfast shortly after sun-up, there’s usually no-one else around to take photos when they come by, but if I can I’ll get some pictures for you. They are the most beautiful birds, and dear friends. I hope despite the territorial war going on, they can find a nook of their own that suits them well.