Night Rose

As black oil gushed into the deep blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I had the privilege and pleasure of seeing the Pulitzer Prize-winning nature poet, Mary Oliver, read last week. For some reason, the experience brought on an unaccountable fit of despair and hair-pulling angst. I worried that great art, especially expressed so gently and beautifully, should have this effect on me. Instead of inspiration, I felt desperation. Good grief! How in the world, I kept asking myself, does the woman manage to block out two wars, oil pouring into the Gulf, and the systematic destruction of our planet long enough to write nature poems? Hundreds and hundreds of incredibly descriptive and soul-stirring nature poems? For the rest of the night I felt "slain in the spirit," as Southern evangelists like to say you must feel before you can experience salvation. They may be onto something.

This world, truly, is full of grief for the sensitive soul. It is all too easy to despair over the destruction of the natural beauty of Earth, the original creation. We weep at the poor quality of life the great majority of the human race suffers while the few wallow in wealth and greed. What can we do that is more constructive than beleaguering our loved ones with the burden of our quite real and even justifiable response? Being ashamed of our feelings doesn't help. Only action can ease our troubled minds.

Exactly how, you may ask, can we reshape this dark place of grieving and despair so that our sensitive souls are not frozen by bitterness at what is, in fact, reality? We must remember that reality occurs on different levels at the same time. The wild rose blooms even as another species goes extinct from human carelessness. Drawing attention to the rose doesn't mean we ignore the dying dolphins. We must find a way to shape the wet, raw clay of grief into some slight but recognizable form of beauty, then fire it with our imaginations–a discipline that requires us to sit down with our art, even when it feels most painful and impossible. How, how, how do we go from this hair-pulling angst to creating a poem or painting?

First, we must accept our sensitive selves and the feelings we experience as part of an artistic nature. This can be difficult if you don't have friends around who are happy to indulge your freak-out for a night or two. Allow yourself the space and time to experience what may feel (and look) like a form of temporary insanity . Then lock yourself in your room with pen, paper and a book or two of poetry or prose. Begin reading. Find a poem you love. Read it over and over again. Read it silently. Read it aloud until a sense of calm begins forming like a small cloud in the distance. Then copy it by hand, word for word, onto a clean sheet of paper as if it were new. As if it rose from your own imagination in the immediacy of your grief.

We don't have to start over from scratch. At times our pain may be too great to construct a creative piece from the scraps of our sorrow. This is a good time to let those who have gone before us, have suffered these feelings and prevailed, lead us though our healing and back to the balm of our own words. The Richard Wilbur poem, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" is just such a poem to me. It eases my heart and calms my wild, unruly spirit. It is, for me, poetic vailium, a diazepam for the soul, a simple cure for my existential anxiety with no hangover. Why don't you try it? Begin here, with this poem by Mary Oliver:

The Roses

One day in summer
when everything
has already been more than enough
the wild beds start
exploding open along the berm
of the sea; day after day
you sit near them; day after day
the honey keeps on coming
in the red cups and the bees
like amber drops roll
in the petals; there is no end,
believe me! to the inventions of summer,
to the happiness your body
is willing to bear.

Art and Heart Connections

One of the best benefits of putting your art out into the world are the connections that come about from your act of courage and trust. I've met so many interesting and beautiful people, artists and appreciators alike, since I've been writing, hosting poetry events, and reading my work to unsuspecting audiences! You never know when that six degrees of separation will shake your hand and say, "Hey I know you!"

When I lived in the Asheville area I applied for and received a NC Art Council Grant to spend a month at a fine arts center in South Africa. All I knew at the time was that it was in Zululand and was called Caversham Press. I flew from Asheville, NC to Durban on the Indian Ocean in South Africa via Atlanta, GA. You got to go through Atlanta to get anywhere if you live in the South.

At Caversham I met the owners, Malcolm and Ros Christian and worked with their apprentice Sean Strohle to create my first visual art poetry collaboration. What resulted was an amazing fold-out primitive art piece called "Passages Through Poetry" and friendships with these three fine people that will last forever. Not to mention that I have seen some of South Africa and fallen in love with the place, her people, and their artwork.

Malcolm Christian is one of the truly great art mentors of the world. Sure, that's my opinion, but ask anyone who has ever listened to him more than 10 minutes and they will affirm the fact. He talks about creativity and you can't help but listen, can't help but get fired up and want to burn up the page with your own creative blaze. After Malcolm, you understand the importance of art in creating a better world, the connectedness of all the lines we write and all the lines we draw. Like the aboriginal songlines of Australia, our work connects us to our ancestors and to those we may never actually meet. In this world of you tube and blog posts, the world is much easier to traverse than it was, even in 2001 when I went to South Africa.

The picture above is a small proof, but you know for yourself what is possible if you are willing to send your art out into the world, free to make whatever mark it may. This is a picture of Nomkhubulwana, a Zulu word for Mother Earth, and a perfect symbol for Mother's Day I might add. She appeared at the Fayetteville Farmer's Market upon it's 2010 opening the first weekend in April. Nomkhubulwana is made entirely, no pun intended, from used TIRES! She is gorgeous and life-sized. I hung around her for a long time, snapping photos with the spring blossoms behind her, so different from the trees in South Africa from which she came. I thought about my time there, my friends there, Zululand, the people, the incredible world of elephants and giraffes roaming free. I sat and stared, suddenly homesick for Malcolm and Ros, the midlands near Howick, and the Leopard Lodge where I spent a week near the home of the Zulu king.

When I got home from the market, I sent a picture of the elephant to Malcolm at Caversham where fall is coming on even as our spring bursts all unbridled from the winter's bare trees. And this is what Malcolm wrote back to me:

"It is a sculpture made by a friend of ours, Andries Botha, and in fact I went to her naming ceremony in Durban prior to the beginning of her journeys. It was a very moving ceremony performed by an elderly African Game Ranger from Umfolozi Game Reserve, close to where you and Sean stayed at the Leopard Lodge. He ‘sung’ her into existence and named her Nomkhubulwana. She IS great!"

So you see, my friends, it is a small world after all. If you have never visited South Africa, you cannot imagine its vastness, and it is just one part of the giant continent that is Africa. Now imagine that an African artist wants to create an elephant as a message of peace to send around the world, and that artist just happens to hale from South Africa. Okay, then remember that a NC poet so wanted to see Africa in her lifetime that she applied for a grant, won it and ended up in South Africa at a lovely fine arts residency called Caversham with a mentor called Malcolm. And Malcolm just happened to be friends with artist, Andries Botha, who created the elephant. Now think how all these lines got tied together in the little town of Fayetteville, AR in the Ozark Mountains, and you just have to believe in the miracle we call Art, now don't you?

This is the official end of my post, but if you want to know the story of Nomkhubulwana, read on.

NOMKHUBULWANA

Nomkhubulwana is a heavenly deity who, being a virgin is closely associated with young marriageable girls. In addition, she is associated with the sky where she lives in the rainbow and the multi-coloured rainbow snake is to be found in the pool where the rainbow ends. It was Nomkhubulwana who taught people to build their homes following the hemispherical construction of the rainbow.

Nomkhubulwana appears in the morning mists and children and girls are the first to see her. She usually appears to girls in the maize fields and so is associated with good crops and good rains. As she does not age, she is always of the same age-group as maidens. Men must not look at her for fear of being struck by blindness or incurable diseases.

According to many women, Nomkhubulwana is naked except for a string of white beads around her waist. Nomkhubulwana may be appeased by the observance of nomdede, a festival prepared for her by girls and unmarried women. Days in advance they prepare beer and food for the festivity. On the morning of the feast the young women put on the clothes of their lovers or brothers and take some cattle to the grazing fields. They take turns in feasting and herding the cattle.

After the day’s work they leave the calabashes with drink and food, such as beans and pumpkin seeds, on an overhanging rock for Nomkhubulwana to enjoy. Thus her blessing is sought in their love life, for good harvests and cattle raising.