Moving Forward

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”
Dalai Lama

The garden

Brannin Beuhner outfitting himself with his gear (the harness)
Bear & Owl Tree Care
First Class Arborist, Certified Logging Professional
Fully Insured and Licensed
400-6913/ 733-4959

Leaning back with chainsaw to cut deadwood from the walnut tree

Looking quite relaxed up there.....

This shot kinda puts it all in perspective...

Swinging! Is work supposed to be this fun?!

Ben tending to the apple tree

The remains

It was a tough last few days. For those who have followed my blog, I know that you have been wondering the fate of our small school. This past week, the town voted 269 to 230 to close Lubec High School. The day before the vote, a group of us gathered at Flatiron Corner and rallied in support of keeping our children here in our own community. News crews and journalists snapped photos and interviewed participants. For two days or more we were the headline for most of Maine. Other districts watched with anticipation, hoping that their school will not be the next casualty of underfunded education.

I first received the news at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday evening, 2 1/2 hours after polls closed. My sister had just arrived from central Maine and the unfortunate timing for her meant that she would have to listen to me repeat over and over for the next two hours "I can't believe this is happening." I was in shock. The next morning I woke feeling sort of numb. I went to my "pottery cave" to throw, and as my hands cupped and centered the clay, a whole flood of emotions poured out of me. I realized that I was moving through the stages of grief. The sadness deepened as empathy built for my students, whom I imagined were experiencing emotions much the same as mine, only ten-fold more intensely.

I was thankful for a call from a friend asking me to walk with her. It gave me the opportunity to process the event more fully. A second walk later that morning with my sister down the boardwalk to Mowry Beach, and up through town, brought me in contact with folks from the community. I could hear in their voices the same shock and grief that I was feeling.

That afternoon, Kristin and I returned back to the house and started to plant a garden. I was tired form the drama, but felt that now, more than ever, I needed a symbol of hope and growth. I laid out a design similar to the inner square in a mandala with four gates and a "seed" center.

Moments after we made the rows and mounds, the sky broke open and weeped heavily. Floods of rain came down over the garden. Then, as quickly as the storm swept in, it cleared out. Sun streamed intensely over the spruce, maple and birch, making the green of the leaves glow against the grey. A double rainbow arched over the town.

I felt at that moment that I had let go of my worry and pain and could sense exciting new beginnings about to unfold.

My sister left Friday afternoon and on Saturday morning my longtime artist friend Becky arrived from Portland for a visit with her very energetic seven year old daughter Alice. We enjoyed a day of beach-combing and shopping and we even went to an art opening at the library downtown. When we go back to the house Brannin Beuhner of "Bear and Owl Tree Care" called to let me know that he had a free evening to tend to some of our injured trees. Last summer's construction left many of the limbs broken, sharp-tipped, and pained. Brannin and his apprentice, a very interesting organic farmer/sailor/yogi from Vermont, began to climb and cut. At first, it was odd to see the bareness left behind. But this morning when I woke, it all felt good and healthy.

Becky, Alice, and I went out to breakfast at Village Restaurant then burned off energy at the West Quoddy trail. All felt perfect, listening to the waves crash the cliffside. Wild irises speckled the grass, and the air smelled salty and clean. We returned back to homebase to find Brannin and Ben here for day two of restorative tree care. Last night we mainly watched the simple hand-sawing of spruce deadwood but today's task required the more serious gear - a harness! Like a spider, Brannin climbed up "his thread" to a big dead walnut limb.

This walnut is the most majestic of trees in our yard. It stands taller than most, and despite it's huge girth and age, it weathers the elements, and still each summer, blooms green with fresh young leaves and produces walnuts that occasionally fall to the ground. Lately the dried-up dead limbs have been looking sorta tired.

Brannin, dressed in his harness, swung a beanie-weighted bag attached to his "spinneret" over the limb. He pulled himself up, swinging to and fro, until he could latch onto the branch with his arms. He then hauled up the motorized saw and began to cut away the deadwood. Each grayed and balding branch that fell to the earthen blanket seemed to lift the spirit of the tree canopy.

The Walnut tree looks even more proud now. I will from this day forward refer to Brannin as "The Tree Whisperer". He has a quiet aura about him, intuitive and sensitive to the trees' needs. He removes only what is necessary and approaches the task with reverence. He heals the wounds of the wood.

It was a tough few days emotionally, but my own healing has begun. The universe presented me with an unforeseen challenge, and is forcing me toward change. Like the garden, I am ripe for growth. Like the walnut tree, I am letting go of deadwood. I choose to not wallow in the pain of losing our high school, but instead, will look forward to new perspectives and opportunities.

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If you are in need of an arborist to help heal or re-shape your landscape, I highly recommend Brannin Beuhner. Even though he is located here in Lubec, he tells me that he is currently working with folks as far south as Portland.

Bear & Owl Tree Care
First Class Arborist, Certified Logging Professional
Fully Insured and Licensed
400-6913/ 733-4959

Headline: Highly Contagious Flu impacts Billions

It seems fitting, now that I think of it, that the first artwork to grace the walls of my new studio space is a drawing of a skeleton.

Symbolically, it represents the basic structure. The foundation has been poured, the walls raised, the floor laid. And now, though it is sturdy, a hollow feeling remains, awaiting all the necessary components to make it a complete living organism: furniture (vital organs), window and floor trim (muscle), and a working artist (lifeblood).

The new addition is sort of like having a third arm added to my body. I have always made do with two but could certainly put a third to use. It feels a bit strange and I am not quite acclimated to it yet. Having our house nearly double over the course of the last few months has been overwhelming at times, but also exciting. The new studio will allow me to work with clay year-round, no more below-freezing barn temps to deal with, lugging buckets of water back and forth, and hungry nesting critters who find my fiber creations tempting and cozy.

Fifteen years ago I had a vision. No, it wasn't a mystical white light pouring over me with the voice of God speaking profoundly about my soul's purpose. It was more of an an epiphany. In one moment of clarity I felt I knew my life's purpose and could "see" the physical environment in which I would work and what I would be doing, and how I would be contributing to the healing of this Earth. I just didn't know how I would get there.

At the time, I was not a teacher, at least not in the public school classroom sense. My life was a blank slate and anything was possible. Back then, I wouldn't have understood how even the smallest change or experience would influence my journey and bring me to this moment, which is still not the end, but very much the beginning.

So, I had this vision: a space for people to create, and in the process, heal. Over the years, The "retreat" has morphed in the physical sense, being tweaked in my mind to what is adequate to meet my goals, but also manageable. Instead of a massive arts-compound with cabins and hordes of people shuffling through and the stress of running a major business, I decided to focus on a more intimate, personal approach: a healing space for my husband and me where we invite others, in a more laid back sort of way, to create and heal with us.

The Gahnadi Quote comes to mind "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

And certainly, much change is needed. My approach is to strive for a life of balance, creativity, empathy, knowledge, kindness, truth, love, and sharing. That's a tall order, but a satisfying one. Just imagine, what if that were to become the latest pandemic? The headlines would read.....

Harmony Flu Sweeps Across the Globe: CDC Warns World Peace Inevitable.

Living at the Edge

We live at the easternmost edge of the United States in a teeny little town called Lubec. Living here is an experience like no other. How we got here was an unusual, unplanned bit of fate.

I am a native Mainer - but central Maine is a completely different lifestyle than "downeast." My husband is from Los Angeles. We were both living in Knoxville, Tennessee when the opportunity came up for us to move to Lubec. Chris' grandfather had a house here that was vacant and he felt it would be a perfect place for an artist and writer. So, we packed up the Uhaul and in three weeks time had a new home and life in a region of Maine that we had never visited before. Of course, we had a glamorous image in our mind...coastal cottage on a sea cliff.

As we continued our drive (a good 20+ hours) up route 1 in Maine..the road became increasingly more deteriorated, the treescape changed (spruce instead of lush maple and oak), and businesses were nearly non-existent. Now, being a town without a Wal Mart or McDonalds is fine, but this gave the word remote a new meaning for us! Here, there are no traffic lights for 50 miles. The eagles soar overhead and bear ramble through town. In winter, there is one, sometimes two, diners that are open for business, and the local market closes by 6:00. Gas and heating oil prices are higher, food costs more, and wages (if you can find a job) are pitiful. Sea smoke pours off the bay signaling another extremely cold day. If you lose power in a storm, Lubec is not the first town Bangor Hydro rushes to repair service to. If you need anything - say a new pair of underwear or a prescription filled - it is either a 70 mile or 100 mile roundtrip to Machias or Calais. And, our little coastal cottage on a sea cliff.....? We arrived to a house, no running water, trees overgrowing the barn entrance, kitchen ceiling being supported by a birch tree branch, no stove, and a 1920's era Westinghouse refrigerator that did a superb job of melting ice-cream and freezing vegetables. And, we have to barricade the cellar entrance every night lest the raccoons break in and tear things apart.

Yet, here were are, eight years later still living here. The first few years were challenging, to say the least. But sometime around our third or fourth year here we began to meet some of the most interesting and incredible friends. They are poets, authors, healers, musicians, artists, storytellers, dancers, peace activists, Buddhists, Quakers, Shamans, naturalists, world travelers, teachers, weavers, and organic farmers. These incredible people, coupled with the raw beauty of this area has us now understanding why people come here and call it their paradise. It is a hideaway from the mainstream where nature is still in charge.

We can walk out our front door and choose from a dozen or more hikes. We can launch our kayaks in South Bay behind our house or in Johnson Bay if we want to tool around the salmon pens. We once saw at least fifty eagles circling over Carrying Place Cove. There are ancient shells hidden in the clay beds at Mowry Beach. Here, you hear the real "downast accent" that the Stephen King movies never seem to get quite right. In summer, painters line the streets to capture the glow of sun's first light on buildings. On Wednesday evenings, Summer Keys classical and jazz music pours out of the Congregational Church. Crow Town Gallery has the tastiest food spreads at their art openings that feature "local" but accomplished artists. On Fridays we pick up the best tasting wood-fired bread from Ed and Diane's place, and we have the sweetest little natural foods market at Sun Porch Industries. Martha is always stocked with fresh breads, coconut milk, spices, rice and pastas which seem to be our main staples. And, if you feel like doing some international travel, just hop in the car and drive across the bridge to Campobello Island, Canada.

So, we have to live miserly to get by here and we are sometimes cold with all the drafts in this old house, and traveling to visit family is a huge production and expense...but the treasures of this little village are worth the extra effort.

To visit some sites about this area check out:

http://lubecme.govoffice2.com/index.asp?Type=NONE&SEC={216C09B5-1156-4827-833E-B285802A912B}
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubec,_Maine
http://www.culturepass.net/
http://www.summerkeys.com/
http://www.cohillsinn.com/
http://www.thecclc.org/
http://www.qrlt.org/

(In the painting above: The view from Klondike Mountain - overlooking South Bay, behind our house. The posts from an old pier are still visible at low tide. The pier once was attached to a business that was part of the Klondike Gold Rush - yep, right here in Lubec! It turned out to be a scam.)