miso walk, part 3

 

Then, it is true that meaning arises from presence. I know this because my mentor told me it is true.  This is why the sideways glances when I am not paying attention. She’s always ready with a lesson but it is uncanny really that they never seem to be lessons. I only get the ‘ahas’ after we have met. However, this unexpected visit and this attention to my attention…. hmmm, something tells me the metaphor of our relating is being extended to my concerns.

It is funny how recently I have felt my mother’s presence. Leaping Lena.  She leapt because she was known to not wear underwear and her friends thought it was funny to lift her schmatas up to see if that were true at that moment. Leaping Lena, just like the herds of caribou, leaping and running so fast with the power of their great numbers. Maybe this is how that leaping translated into my mother’s genes. Something in her, something prehistoric said to her innermost being, ‘Don’t wear underwear and we will make you leap.’  There is no leaping in isolation, only in the herd, that’s why her friends were part of the makeup of this recreation of her genetic code. There is no miso in isolation. The microorganisms love company, crave attention and their master’s presence.  

A wise person wrote that isolation is devoid of meaning. Meaning must have connection. No audience, no miso. I have known connection through love and listening. Ecosystems and the beings they contain know connection through levels of moisture rising and falling within trees and plants; or levels of salt or places to lay eggs with food sources nearby to feed the nesting mothers and the coming chicks. Ecosystems and biomes are big ways of saying everything is like an egg, seemingly self-contained with all the nutrients one needs before pipping through the shell with its egg tooth, creating the small aperture which eventually turns into the entranceway to whatever destiny the egg is carrying.  Imagine the living mechanisms of ponds and fields whose edges around the world touch bays, estuaries, mangroves, and rivers. All living systems are edged by active connections with lives most will never know. But the egg cannot survive in isolation. Meaning, and life arrives from connection to sources, trails, waterways, and winds.

Now, the dragon may not understand winds until it has reached its 100^th year, but it will feel them and thrive because of them. They say that Mercury is the messenger of the gods. But many would say that it’s the winds. Most will agree the winds are important. But we also look for water when we look for life.

The water the water the water. The essence, sand and dust of our loved ones, the pull of the moon and unseen forces, all belonging and all connected. Tides come and go. Some call it a cycle. Some see the sets of waves and know that iterations have their changes in the mighty growth of increments. That’s what I was thinking. But my mentor was walking along the edge of the bulwarks watching the cell tower. She didn’t even turn back to see if I was listening. But I heard her say, “Osprey have been known throughout time to recognize water dragons.”

Those steeped in their work know intimacies of interactions that cannot be seen by the casual observer or even the connoisseur. This knowing takes living with what you want to know. Listening is important. Ask any miso master or ask any cow bird that’s been raised in another bird’s nest. It knows it is a cowbird only when it hears its mother’s song.  I envy those in the daily repetition of work that brings them to the edge of the wetlands and waterways. But when I remember my mother or listen to my mentor, there are clues that I think will lead me where I need to go.  

 

 

from miso walk, part 3 of 3

 

miso walk is a chapter in bird dreams, riding hope, - sometimes a fable, weaving  our connections to birds,  meandering rivers and dragons, fermenting miso and consciousness,

wetlands, our extended kin and ancestors, our mentors, and Wisdom.

Inspired by actual events and a sense of place and belonging by a woman who addresses the reader  on behalf of the earth

 

Here’s my links for more writing and copies of my books

https://amzn.to/3F5N7No   
https://linktr.ee/fredakarpf