Week 29--in which we find comfort in laughter and crows

Beautiful Ones,

It has been another week of chaos, cruelty, and heartbreak, capped by CBS (once respected for newscasters like Edward R Morrow and Walter Cronkite) firing Stephen Colbert, a truth-teller par excellence.

This is the standard fascist playbook. First they go after the professors and lawyers, then the librarians and teachers, then the physicians and scientists, journalists, authors, and artists. And always, always the comics.

Power cannot bear to be laughed at. Hence, America has a rich history of political humor.

Perhaps you remember the cartoon the Washington Post blocked in January. A great political cartoon if ever there was one. It’s simple, as all great cartoons are. In black and white, Jeff Bezos and other tech executives kneel in front of a massive statue of a massive Trump. There is one tiny figure in color at the base of the statue with his face to the ground: Mickey Mouse. It was a brilliant cartoon and it made me laugh-cry. When the Post squashed her art, Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes, resigned, stating press freedom was under attack.

And so it is. And firing Colbert proves it.

This is why we must laugh.

Laughter relieves the pressure cooker that is the moment. And make no mistake, laughter is dangerous. Because humor points to the absurdity of the lies we’re being fed. And once you see the truth, like execs on their knees, you can’t unsee it.

As I sit down to write Notes from the Field on this Saturday evening, I find myself needing humor. Needing the warm feeling of gathering with friends to laugh. I’m not alone. There’s a reason millions of us gather to hear John Stewart, The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, Josh Johnson, and of course Stephen Colbert.

But laughter isn’t enough. Provocative humor is a necessary medicine, but it’s not the only one.

If I had to make a list of what is carrying me through the horror right now, in addition to humor, I’d add:

Creativity—There is nothing more fulfilling than creating something. Right now, I’m creating the sixth ART intensive with my collaborator Cathy Stevens Pratt. As we dive deeper and deeper into the intimate relationship of Reverence and Devotion, I find I am sustained by wave after wave of wonder, awe, and beauty. And joy. The sheer joy of creating.

Real Conversation—With friends who love to explore deep topics, big questions, mystical, magical things.

Reading—For ART 6, I am immersed in a couple dozen books revealing the long rich history of Goddess devotion through time, how our Paleolithic ancestors discovered mysticism, shamanism, and the labyrinth, and the astonishing beauty of world. The more I read, the more I cherish being alive on this rare, magnificent, blue planet.

Writing—I bring my reading, conversations, creative impulses, questions—everything—to the page where it all merges and meshes into something new, something unexpected, something provocative to explore.

Nature—A massive surprise in developing ART 6 on Reverence and Devotion is that “devotion” is not about homage to a god (as the dictionary says) or even to a Goddess. That’s just one aspect of devotion. The secret to devotion is that it is a natural product of reverence.

So the heart of ART 6 is Reverence.

Would you like to step into a field of reverence?

Start with Mary Oliver, the sublime poet of nature. She is famous for saying that there are three keys to living a satisfying life:

1. Pay attention
2. Be astonished
3. Tell someone

So, in ART 6, we are going to start as Mary Oliver suggests by looking around, noticing what wants to be noticed, giving it our attention, and being amazed at what we see.

As Cathy and I experiment with ways to do that in preparation for ART 6, we find we are astonished, just as Mary Oliver said, and reminded that we live in a world that is precious and holy.

I have one other recommendation, perhaps a bit odd.

Do something fun.

For no reason other than it’s fun. For me that’s the New York Times Spelling Bee and other word puzzles. My day begins with coffee and the Spelling Bee.  A lot of people join me in wrestling with the Bee, and over time, have created a lovely community. I started to pop in there for the clever hints. And, after solving the puzzle, stuck around to read what everyone was saying. I love all the poems, deep etymological dives, personal anecdotes. And quotes.

There’s a woman “Bear” who posts a lovely quote every day. I never miss. Yesterday, I had to stop and reread her quote from Margaret Renkl’s newest book, The Comfort of Crows. Renkl writes two columns a month in the New York Times, always about Nature and how spending time in Nature is carrying her through the political horror.

This quote is so beautiful, that I read it to Cathy and we’re going to weave it into our Reverence and Devotion intensive somehow.

Take your time reading this passage from The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year. Let the beauty, truth, and hope in her words rest on your skin and be absorbed into you body to feed and sustain you. I'm bolding the words that speak to my heart.

“To follow politics these days is to court bewilderment, denial, complete despair. Too often, I feel I am living in a country I no longer recognize, a country determined to imperil every principle I hold dear and many of the people I love, too.

Immersing myself in the natural world of my own backyard—or the nearby parks and greenways, or the woods surrounding our friends’ cabin in the Cumberland Plateau—is the way I cope with whatever I think I cannot bear.

I am not trying to hide from the truth but to balance it, to remind myself that there are other truths, too. I need to remember that the earth, fragile as it is, is heartbreakingly beautiful.

I need to give my attention to a realm that is indifferent to human mutterings and naked human anger, a world unaware of the hatred and distrust taking over the news.”  

Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year

Would you like to explore Reverence and Devotion?

Then please follow this link to

ART 6 
The Memory of Reverence ∞ Devotion

Life is Fragile. Handle with Reverence.
And Laughter and the comfort of crows! 

Janet
PS: if you were not in ART 5, you will need your Sigils from the four Libraries of the sacred elements in order to open the locked vaults in ART 6.

You can get them by purchasing ART 5 On Demand, it’s only $205. With that purchase, you are entitled to a discount for ART 6, bringing the final cost of ART 5 to just $124. Quite the bargain.

When you order ART 5, I'll send an email on how to begin to gather your elemental sigils so you're ready for the deep adventures in ART 6.

ART 5 Divination

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