In Defense of a Murder of Crows

I read an article today that denounced the phrase Murder of Crows in particular and all other "absurd" words for groups of animals. While I accept that some of these terms, venery, dating from the Middle Ages, may in fact be antiquated I had several points at which I did not agree with the article. If you are interested you may find the original article here.

"Squamish 2015-01-11 064-LR" by jamesabbott1963 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

The first question Mr. Nicholas Lund asks is whether anyone actually uses these terms, because he contends that he has never heard them used. I've not going to sit here and argue that everyone uses all the plural animal nouns all the time.  However, if the author has never heard any grouping words for animals used aside from flock and herd, I would say he hasn't been talking to enough people in the world. I've heard plenty of them used by real people in all seriousness including the following terms: 

· Bats: colony 

· Bees: hive, swarm 

· Camels: caravan, train, or herd 

· Crows: murder 

· Dogs: litter (of puppies), pack (in the wild), 

· Dolphins: pod 

· Geese: gaggle 

· Lions: pride 

· Porpoises: pod, school 

· Prairie dogs: colonies 

· Rabbits: colony, nest, warren 

· Whales: pod 

· Wolves: pack 

· Vipers: nest 

Now, I agree that are some incredibly odd terms for specific animals are not used in normal parlance. I admit that I've never heard someone refer to a collective group of bears as a sleuth or rhinos as a stubbornness. But then, I also don't live in a place where I run into wild groups of rhinos. If I was late to work because a group of rhinos parked themselves in the road I could reasonably call them a stubbornness because it would describe the belligerent way that they collectively made my morning more difficult. Luckily, that has never happened to me in the Southwestern United States. But I have personally referred to bees as a hive and swarm, and geese as a gaggle, and crows as a murder, and I've heard plenty of other people do so. 

A small murder perched on a wire. - "Evening chat" by -Niloy- is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Mr. Lund tries to argue that scientists don't use them and therefore nobody really does. That's simply not an accurate sampling of the population. It might prove that scientists don't use those terms but it doesn't answer his posed question: 

Are there actual people in the real world who use special group names for certain species? Or is there just one nerd in an office somewhere with a field guide in one hand and a dictionary in the other, matching each species with a cute little term and laughing maniacally when the world collectively coos over the pairing? 

After he proves that scientists don't use terms of venery he claims that they exist only in the "world of bar trivia," where, "without real-world applications" they are "just morsels of linguistic candy rotting cavities into our scientific integrity".  I argue that trivia is not really the point of these group names. I don't argue that the terms have no scientific value. My problem is in the vehemence with which he believes the words should be removed from the English language. He proposed we replace them with bland but more scientific words like group.

No doubt calling this crow a visitor or a friend is also a transgression against the purity of scientific integrity but I like the photographer's point of view - "Crow visitor" by Fernettes is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

Would you really say... "Oh look at this group of jellyfish on the beach"?  You'd probably at least say this whole group, or, look at all of these jellyfish or, look there's thousands of jellyfish!  Because using the word group alone is too boring and entirely lacking in descriptive power. If thousands of jellyfish were surrounding a boat that I happened to be floating in, and they were slapping into the sides with every swell of water that lapped against the edges of my boat, I would probably call them a smack in that case too. I'd probably lean over the edge watch them smack into the boat, look further out and see an endless flotilla of them and say "Oh my God there's a smack of jellyfish out here, look!" Maybe it would come out slightly differently, but I would bet you substantial money that I would not say "look a GROUP of jellyfish!" 

Language is sometimes about tone and sometimes about feeling. And you can't convey those things with the word group.  I'm not arguing that some of these other words, these terms of venery, have any scientific value.  I merely believe that they have literary and poetic value.

Could you really capture the mood and tone of this moment by describing it as a group of three crows on a  roof?  I contend that you cannot. - "Cathedral of Our Lady" by marikoen is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 

I personally have not heard people say "a group of crows". I admit that I'm unusual and have unusual preferences, but it would stand out to me if people said group, because it would not be my preferred word for this context. I don't hear people use this. I've heard them use an exact count of the crows or the word flock, but honestly, I've heard many, many people refer to crows as a murder. Now, you could use the work flock, or group, sure. It just seems to me that most people don't do so, because it doesn't convey as much feeling. 

Is this just a crow or is this a solitary crow?  Words matter even if there is no scientific value to that distinction. - "as the crow flies" by Simon Clarke is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0 

Let me illustrate my point by telling you about the same morning in two different ways.  Firstly, using boring, strictly factual language and then again using poetic language Mr. Lund would disapprove of. 

Version A. 

I drove to work and I arrived about a minute late and there was this group of crows in my parking spot. I was briefly worried about hitting them while I parked, but I was also late. They scattered. Then I went inside and remembered it was my 90 day review. 

Version B. 

I drove to work this morning and arrived about a minute late. As I pulled into the parking lot there was a murder of crows waiting for me in my normal spot. I was ONLY a minute late but I was afraid to run over them, and then again, I was already late, so I hesitated briefly. I had this ominous feeling as their dark wings took to the sky and then I remembered as I looked over my shoulder at them on the way into the building that today was my 90 day review. 

Which version of my story conveys more of my internal emotional goings on? The one where I say group of crows and leave it to strict facts? There is nothing scientific about either story, but the story that contains the offensive "linguistic candy rotting cavities into our scientific integrity" is actually a much better story about my morning and how I felt about it. And despite his assertions, my poetic story has done no damage to any actual scientific integrity. 

If I called this a flurry of crows you would know what I meant, even if it's not the accepted collective noun for crows. - "as the crow flies" by Simon Clarke is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0 

Another of his points is that these terms, being that they only exist in the world of bar trivia, could easily be replaced with more interesting and scientific facts. He is right in a way. Trivia could be more interesting and scientific (such as the shape of wombat poop). However, the way that I use the terms for different animals is not in a field of trivia, it's in how I actually describe things in my world. And I would personally much rather have a poetic discussion about the things I actually see and experience in the world than a factual one about the shape of wombat fecal matter, regardless of how unusual it may be. Sorry, Mr. Lund, I think replacing venery with fecal facts is simply not the way to go. 

Then there is the point in which he mentions that "I just don’t see enough groups of other animals to need more words". Mr. Lund, I am ashamed. You don't see any other animals than cows and birds?  You seriously don't need any other words than herd and flock?  Scientist, lifelong birder, or not, if he doesn't see enough groups of other animals to need other words than flock, herd, and group, I suggest he doesn't see enough animals. Or perhaps he does and he is simply not using English in an interesting enough way. Does he call dogs in a plural form a herd or a group?  Does he refer to swarms of bees as groups?  He can continue doing as he chooses of course. But I think his language is lacking if he uses strictly and only the words, flock, herd and group for all animals that he sees or talks about.

He concedes that "certain terms of venery have made the transition from factoid to actual phrase. Pod of whales. Troop of monkeys. Gaggle of geese. Pack of wolves."  That almost makes this article worse for me.  It seems to me that Mr. Lund is saying, you can use terms that don't irritate me, but if it irritates me I will say that you are morally corrupting our scientific integrity with your choice of words.  Do tell, Mr. Lund, when does something gain enough strength in popularity for you to deem it an "actual phrase" and allow us, in your great magnanimity to use it as part of the English language?

I will now concede that I personally think some of the terms are silly.  I do not see why anyone would refer to a roiling mass of rattlesnakes as a rhumba, I think it disgraces the dance and does not adequately convey the horror of such a mass of snakes.  I might even ask someone why they thought that was a good word for it, after I'd run a sufficiently safe distance from said coil of snakes.  But I think it's more a transgression against poetry than it is against science.  I don't need to know or have ever heard anyone refer to rattlesnakes as a rhumba to know that they are referring to a plurality of snakes I don't want to be near.  That's the thing about terms of venery, they mostly denote collective nouns rather than a single rattlesnake.  And I don't have to know or agree with the term to understand what is being conveyed. 

"Caw!" by molajen is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

All of this aside, I clearly disagree with Mr. Lund, but he may do as he likes.  He is entitled to his opinions of the proper way to use English terms, however much I disagree with them. However, he continues with his article and he takes it one step too far for me. 

At the end of his article he is clearly worked up about the sort of people who try to rot our collective scientific integrity with such linguistic candy. He says that the next time someone tells him a term of venery he will respond with: 

“Did you know anyone who believes that is part of a ‘gaggle of gullibles’?" 

Telling people they are gullible for using a term you don't like is technically neither true nor nice. Mr. Lund could say they are foolish, or perhaps sentimental, but he doesn't appear to have the aptitude for understanding how to use words that he deems too whimsical. Or, for that matter, patience for anyone who is not on his wavelength of morally upstanding scientific integrity.

Don't get me wrong, I am by no means perfect.  I have my particular veiwpoints that I defend with more vehemence than necessary.  I will own that there are words I simply hate.  I am fairly certain, however, that I have never told anyone they are gullible for using a real word that I hate.  I just cringe a little and try to move on.  

People who use words and phrases you don't like are not gullible.  They would only be gullible, Mr. Lund, if they believed you when and if you responded to them with made up terms of venery, as you did at the start of your article, specifically to mock them. I'm afraid, however, that to deliberately mislead them and mock them for things that are not false, simply not to your liking, would cost you your moral high ground, your scientific integrity, and lastly, Sir, I'm afraid, that if you do that intentionally, you're just being an ass. A solitary one.

A rather solitary, moody-looking fellow.  I think he is pontificating on some point dear to his heart. - "Gangsta Crow" by www.charlesthompsonphotography.com is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

My Phlebotomist and My Living Metaphor Morning

This morning I woke up and everything was as though I was living in a metaphor come to life.

How to begin?  Let's see, I've been having a bunch of tests run.  So, this latest one involved a mobile blood draw person who came to my house.  Modern technology being what it is, my personal, mobile phlebotomist showed up this morning and promptly got lost.  He called me from nearby, unsure of how to find me.  In his defense many people get lost on the way to my house.  They see the dirt driveway and assume it can't be mine and call from the road confused.

So I woke up and got a phone call that went something like this.
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is your phlebotomist"
"Hi"
"I'm trying to find you.  Are you at the construction?"
"Ah, no, I'm one driveway further up the hill.  I'm the dirt driveway right before the giant rock and the gate is open for you."

I then went out to meet him, but let me digress for a moment.  How hilarious is this idea?  Can you imagine if I was working a construction job and I called my personal mobile phlebotomist to come out to the construction site?  Because I'm now imagining that I'm a massive lumberjack looking man, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, wearing a hardhat and having my blood drawn in one arm while I jackhammer one handed with the other.  Or smoke constantly with the cigarette between my teeth while I bend rebar with one hand and my phlebotomist ties a little elastic cord around my other beefy arm.  I think it's a hilarious mental image.

I can just imagine these guys having their blood drawn while working, can't you? - "F-327-CVFriant Dam Construction" by Bureau of Reclamation is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

Ok, now back to what actually happened this morning.

So he sets up and it seems that phlebotomists, not unlike dentists, tend to fill the silence with a bit of chatter.  The distinct upside being that you can actually talk and reply in this scenario.  He asked about my job, I said I was working in a museum.  He asked what I do.  I said I was a glorified secretary but I was staying in the history field since I was a history major.  And he began talking about how much he loves his job and how much that makes a difference.  Do what you love he says, and it won't matter how little the money is.  And then I look at my arm, in this living metaphor, feeling very much like he's implying that NOT doing what you love is to have the life literally drained out of you.

And then he started talking about how you just have to be open to opportunities.  That sometimes things are just first steps and you never know what will come from it.  That it's important for me to work in a museum and be open to the possibilities that can flow from there.  Again I look at my arm as he continues to fill vials.  Once a door is open, things flow through.  Maybe it was just the blood loss, but it all felt very surreal and dream-like.

"Don't quit your day dream" by Lindsay_Silveira is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 

Then we were all done.  He pet my dogs and said you could tell they were happy.  He said when he was little he wanted to be a dog and his dad told him, "you don't want to be a dog, you want to live life like a dog".  And with that last bit of wisdom, my phlebotomist departed.

So, there I was contemplating my mobile phlebotomist wisdom of the day.  Such a nice man.  And I ate breakfast and felt tired and I decided, no offense to my phlebotomist, who was amazing, that the world is full of bloodsuckers (metaphorical you know) and with that I went back to bed for an hour before work.

The Loneliness of a Stranger

The smell of coffee and cigarettes clung to her with the same loneliness that drove her speech.  A rambling collection of things were strung together in a strangely proud, and yet deeply lonely, conversation.  No, conversation is the wrong word.  We didn't converse so much as she talked and I listened.  I had gathered almost instinctively that she just needed to be heard, seen.

She told me that her Mom had passed and she was looking to become reconnected.  I am guessing that was where her loneliness originated.  She recounted a story where she and her mother had walked into the museum when it was closed but a meeting had been going on.  They were graciously allowed to wander the museum while the meeting continued.

She told me of the way she was only just realizing that all the places she likes to visit in Mexico and the US have turned out to be Kumeyaay sites.  She feels she is being drawn to them.  Maybe it's because she senses the deep roots of community in those places and she is drawn to them now that she feels alone in the world.

An intelligent woman, it rankled her in the way a familiar sadness does that she needed assistance when she couldn't reach a taller shelf.  Perhaps too it chafed at her that I was not less informed on the subjects in which she wanted to be superior.  It seemed important to her that she prove herself to me as someone who is well informed.

All I really know is that a day later I'm still contemplating the loneliness of that woman.  I feel her loss and sadness keenly and in my own way I'm grieving for her.  Sometimes I feel as though I see more than people intend for me to see.  Sometimes I think I can see right through a person to their deepest pains when they talk.  Is that a gift or a curse?  I can't do anything to help this woman, but maybe listening was enough.  We all have different roles to play in each other's lives, maybe yesterday she simply needed to be reminded that there are people in the world who will still listen.

I Am Purple

Recently, in the process of working through The Artist's Way, I was asked to do a bit of self-reflective writing.  The task was to pick a colour and write about yourself as that colour.  I picked my favorite colour and was really surprised by how much this writing task spoke to me.  This is what I wrote:


I am purple.  

I am red and blue simultaneously. I'm Royal, rare, at times misunderstood or undervalued. I'm work to understand or create but I'm elegant. I'm distinguished. I'm irises, dreams, warm grapes in the summer.

Purple Iris photo by Melinda Wilson 

I'm complicated, a blend of hot and cold mixed with abandon and passion. I'm quiet and ferocious by turns. I'm the subtle smell of lilacs and the intoxicating smell of lavender. I'm curling Iris petals and unfurling, lavender, velvety roses.

I'm refined and a wild spirit. I'm ethereal, magical and indefinable. I'm bold and shy. I'm the sort of complex that dusk and magic are made of. Real and romantic.

Purple Irises in Colonial Williamsburg photo by Melinda Wilson

I'm a wild Violet growing amidst the cracks of a sidewalk. I'm an Iris in a formal bed lining the path to an ancient stone Manor house. I'm immutable stained glass in a cathedral and fleeting hues in a sunset over the ocean.

I'm plums with sour skin and sweet flesh. Rich smooth color. I'm silk, velvet and satin. I'm flowers and fairytales. I'm fragile hope and vibrant strength.

Purple Flower in Geneva by Melinda Wilson

Let's be Old Fashioned Anglo-Saxons...

and write poetry.

That is, I was thinking there should be more poetry done in the Anglo-Saxon style using kenning.  Recently, I was thinking about how much fun it is to describe things in lengthy poetic phrases.  My favorite from reading Anglo-Saxon poetry, oh so many years ago, was the way they described the sea as the whale's road.

So, naturally, when this sprang to mind recently I decided I should write my own poem using kenning. Oh right, I haven't defined it yet and you may not wish to look it up just now, being as eager as you are, I am sure, to read my poem.  So, I'll just define it for you.  Kenning is when you use a poetic phrase to describe a word instead of just using that word.  Rather than saying you rowed a boat across the sea you would say that you rowed a boat across the whale's road.  A kenning for dragon would be fire-breather.  It's not a difficult poetic concept, nothing like conforming to a strict meter.  However, I think it's a lovely literary device.

Right, so now that we've defined kenning, I won't keep you in suspense any longer.  I know you are all dying to hear a little Anglo-Saxon styled poetry.  What would your day be without it?  Bleak.  I know.  Don't worry, I understand your concern about the dearth of kenning in modern society.  So, without further ado, here is the word pile of the day:

I make myself comfortable in the ocean's sand-box;
As the birds' highway lifts my hair in playful delight.
I build a tan grainy castle for the rolling water to devour;
While my toes find freedom from their leather plight,
My fingers find purpose in their tiny ground-pebble creations;
And my face grows warm with smiles in the day's ending light.

Winter Without Happiness

Happiness was my lover before the dark times.  Together we laughed through carefree, barefoot days and her hair sparkled in the dappled, spring sunlight.  Our lives were tangled up in the soft intimacy of quiet comfort, secure in each other and our places in the world.  Every activity, no matter how mundane, was made more beautiful with Happiness in my heart and by my side.  We felt certain our days would carry on as blissfully as the summer roses unfolded in the mornings.

Photo via Flickr "roses" by Samantha Forsberg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

Autumn brought with it a hint of the dark times to come but we bundled warmly and laughed in the crisp winds that playfully threw up leaves for us to dance in.  Happiness found beauty in the smallest things and the bite of the rain on a sharp edge of the wind simply reminded her she was alive.

Photo via Flickr "autumn and you" by cherry-vn licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

The dark times descended with a powerful suddenness that was inescapable.  Brooding clouds swept low with the same fateful thunderous wind that tore Happiness and I asunder.  Straining to reach each other and being dragged off by the dark, roaring winds of change, our hands, the last things to be torn from one another, our lonely, empty hands, haunted my memories.

Dragged reluctantly into a private war I fought many lonely, cold and dark battles.  I walked barren paths without companionship and the warmth of hope.  I had lost Happiness to the vast, lingering darkness.  What hope was left for me?  I wished for her sake she had found someone to share her days with and all the while I resigned myself to the lonely gloom being my continued lot in life.  I was a prisoner of the darkness and there was no hope of escape.  Memories of Happiness would float unbidden to my mind in the small hours of the lonely morning.  Bitter loss accompanied the heartbreaking longing I felt for Happiness.  I had once found perfect and beautiful ease in her company and the loss tightened my chest with memories of the dreadful, inescapable moment when I lost everything for which I cared.

Photo via Flickr "darkest path" by Mrs Janet R licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Somehow, amidst threats of still worse ends, I was released from my captivity.  I cared not that I was free; life was wearisome without Happiness.  Aimless wandering down tangled and dark paths seemed to lead further into the darkness.  My loneliness and lack of hope were complete.  I trudged on with tearful footfalls amidst the overgrown, winding way.  The fates were nudging me forward to better days though the overgrowth served to hide the gradually lightening skies from my view.  Hopeless and weary I moved with unnoticing and heavy tread through leaves that Happiness, had she the misfortune to walk this road, might have found beauty in.


Suddenly, it seemed so suddenly, my path ended in a town I no longer recognized as home.  Did it feel familiar because I had been here before or because all days were tinged with a familiar bleak and weary tint?  I cared not.  Tales wound through town of a worn out, empty husk of a person who had wandered through the darkness so long they no longer remembered the light.  One such tale reached Happiness.  She mourned for this broken soul and something began to glimmer in her mind, the first hint of hope that it might be me.  If the darkness could relinquish one soul it could relinquish me.

Photo via Flickr "roses" by PHOTOPHANATIC1 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

In a way my inner darkness was a spectacle.  Intriguing and self-contained it was a safe danger that drew spectators with its mystery.  Slowly pieces of my tale circulated in swirling dark eddies through town.  A poor soul, parted from Happiness, doomed to walk a weary world alone.  The story of my loss finally reached her and a whispered name of who I used to be.  The wind brought it to her ear.  The wind also whispered to me, Happiness, was all it said.  But somehow I knew that she was in reach.  I began to weep; all the tears I had not dared to feel in my loneliness and all the hopes I barely dared to believe could no longer be contained.  I shed my black mantle and walked haltingly to stand in the sunlight.  I will look for Happiness again.  And ever since Happiness heard my name, she has been running through the streets trying to find me.

Photo "Spring" by Madder Hatter licensed under CC BY 2.0 

“Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.” Hafiz of Persia

*******************************************************************************

This short story was inspired by the quote from Hafiz of Persia “Ever since happiness heard your name, it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”

It struck me suddenly that I've grown up thinking of Happiness as a teasing woodland spirit who is ever fleeing from your grasp, at her best, and at her worst, as never showing her face so that you doubt her existence.  I loved the idea of Happiness actively seeking you out.  This beautiful quote immediately reminded me of parted lovers and thus this story of parting and longing and hopeful reunion was born.

Photo via Flickr "Italian roses" by Steve Batch UK licensed under CC BY 2.0 

It is not for me to write about the reunion.  This is because you and I, we are each of us the protagonist, and the story of our separation from Happiness may be similar, but the story of our reunion with Happiness will be as unique as we are.  All I know is that Happiness is trying to find you and it is up to you to step outside into the sunlight and write your own reunion story.

Mending a Heart of Glass

So what do you do with a life when your heart lies in shattered piles of glass on the ground?

You cry.

Broken things need to be cared for, grieved over.  You can't pretend the trauma didn't happen, you can't push it down and just carry on.  You have to take the sad, broken things out of the pile at the back of your closet and bring them tenderly into soft morning light and grieve over them.  You need to weep for your pain, for your broken dreams, for yourself.

It's now June, nine months after I wrote about the wreckage that was once my heart and how it was first broken into a million jagged pieces of shattered dreams. (In the post When a Glass Heart Shatters).  And I think it is no coincidence that nine months after this accident I'm ready to revisit this topic and give an answer.  Nine months, the amount of time it takes for a baby to be born with a new heart, or, as I see it, the amount of time it takes for a broken heart to be reborn new.

But a new heart is not reborn without work.  At first you cannot even begin this work.  You must live from one moment to the next.  Trying to do otherwise is overwhelming.  In my other post I spoke about instinctively knowing that forwards and backwards were not options.  After a shattering the past is too painful.  There is no going back.  After a shattering the person you were and the life you had are broken and will never be the same again.  Thinking about the past only reminds you of how painful and broken you are in comparison to the whole person you used to be and your reality cuts you all the deeper.  The future is also too terrifying to contemplate; filled with unknowns and consequences that you know must arise from your shattering, but you do not have the courage to think about at first.  Instinctively you know that you can only change directions, but with the sudden way that all your old plans shattered, all new things feel unsafe.

So until you are strong enough to face anything else, you live only in the now.  Only living in this exact moment.  That is how you survive until you are strong enough to face new things and the implications of the shattering you lived through.  And you must keep crying.  You must grieve for all your pains, all your losses.  You must grieve in many different ways and you must allow yourself to feel as hurt as you are, pushing it down and pretending you are not hurt will not aid in your healing. 

Then slowly with determination not to allow yourself to die in a heap in the gutter you pick yourself up.  You stagger, you trudge one foot at time away.  Anywhere.  Just away from the wreckage.  Maybe you go right, maybe you double back to the wreckage and go left.  Maybe you fall a few feet away and cry.  But every time you slowly pick yourself up and trudge one step further.  You cling to family and friends for support.  The ones that stick by you are the ones you cherish as true friends.  Throughout this process of healing you will need them all the more.

And slowly in your stumbling steps you live in the moment and find that you notice things around you.  It may be a funny shaped crack in the pavement, or a brightly coloured leaf that has caught your eye.  You may notice a broken sign or a beautifully exuberant dog.  Noticing the broken things will touch on your pain and gently, ever so gently you will start to think about those wounds and heal.  Noticing the bright, beautiful and living things will slowly remind you of the beauty that can still be found in your world and you will gently begin to heal.  Always in noticing and gentle reflection there is healing.

One day, after who knows how many months of grieving and living in the moment, your staggering steps will find a hint of a path.  Just the beginning of one.  You allow the love of family and friends to sustain you and you let them gently guide you towards a straighter path, pushing you gently towards something that almost looks like progress.  It doesn't always look brave and big.  Progress can be as small as admitting that your past is staying in the past.  Progress can be admitting that you need to continue to stagger away from the wreck.  Progress could be finding a flower growing from a crack in the sidewalk and letting yourself believe that there can be hope in a sea of despair.  Or perhaps you just admit that you are still looking for answers, a way forward and you don't have them yet.

Looking eventually leads towards finding.

In September I decided I would curl up by the wreckage and wait for answers.  That was as brave as my looking was capable of being at that time.  I was waiting for God, for direction, for an answer for a start and a path.  My path had shattered.  I felt alone.  But out of a stubborn determination not to let my brokenness consume me I got up and moved one step.  Determination, and the love of family, and friends (and a few animals), kept me putting one foot in front of the other.

I admitted that my past was broken, that I was different.  I found that I could still find a sad beauty in the world and I left the glass shards of my heart in the back corner of my mind until I was strong enough to deal with them.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't wake up one day and find myself strong enough to do it.  I needed prodding and coaxing to even start.  The friends who care about me have pushed me closer to the pile of shards.  And some days I did a bit of clean up.  Some days I honestly sat on the curb by the glass shards and sobbed, grieving the injuries and the events that led me to this state.  Grieving for the wounds and the losses I've sustained.  Slowly there were days where I was finally able to make halting progress of consolidation and tidying.  I was starting to work on myself.  I went to therapy, saw a doctor, started caring for myself, for my physical, mental and emotional well-being.

And I personally think that God must have been listening to my silent cry in September because I think he sent me the people I needed in my life in order for me survive it.  He sent the right friends to be there for me.  He sent steadfast friends who knew the depths of my pain.  He sent me people to support me, cry with me, lift me up and love me.

Lastly, he sent me an artist.  I didn't know I needed one until he arrived.  God sent me an artist who saw all the broken pieces of my heart lying hopeless in the gutter and still found beauty in them.  And so I sat beside my heap of jagged, broken pieces of heart and I decided to grieve the injuries done to them and finally start to straighten up the mess.

When my artist would see a new wound I would see a sadness in his face that finally allowed me to feel as though I could openly grieve the deepest cuts.  I couldn't always see the beauty in my brokenness that he saw, but I was tired of avoiding the scene of the gutter and leaving that mess hanging around to loom over me and shadow my days.  So, slowly, ever so slowly, I picked up small pieces of jagged glass flung far out into the street and I grieved over them and put them in the main pile, consolidating.  One piece of glass at a time I tried to straighten up the carnage of my broken heart and dreams.

Cleaning up such an accident is more of a journey than a task.  It involves grief, and pain and it's a long painstaking process.  And when a heart has broken in such a dramatic fashion your body builds knots of emotional walls around it to try to prevent the damage from spreading.  So, you have to spend time carefully unraveling the knots of distrust, broken promises and other hastily constructed emotional walls in order to even come close enough to start cleaning up the scene of the accident.  This process is painful, but it is necessary for healing.

Some days you make real progress, you find a way to take three steps forward; you deliberately pull down small portions of the walls you worked so hard to build.  But there are also days where the emotional pain is too much and you kick pieces of your heart further into the gutter in frustration, despair and black misery.

But sitting beside me, bending down to reach into the gutter, not shying away from the dirt, jagged edges and misery is the artist that was sent to me.   Every time I fell he picked me up.  He grieved with me.  He took the broken pieces of my heart that I kicked into a corner.  He gathered them up gently and he told me that light shines through the cracks where the heart has been broken before.

He helped me go searching for words I could speak to my fear.  We embarked on a journey together; going through the Artist's Way which has taught me enough to be the subject of many future posts.  For now, however, it is worth mentioning that it is teaching me to practice gentle self-care and to speak back against the dark, doubting thoughts of fear in my mind.

My artist helped me find my words for safety by always being a safe place for my emotions to rest and by searching with me for the right words to fight back against the darkness.  I found them in an unexpected place.  Alongside my Artist, I had the privilege of hearing a Mayan Tribal Elder speak at a Cocoa Ceremony where she spoke about the tribulations of her people.  She said "We do not admit that we were conquered.  We were invaded, yes, but not conquered.  They may have tried to kill us.  They buried us.  But they didn't know they were planting seeds."  The moment I heard these words I began to cry.  These were the words I had been searching for to bring the piece of hope I couldn't find on my own.

How does one live in a world where bad things happen, where you know they can happen at any time to you, and still feel safe?  Here is where I find safety.  That whatever bad things may come, whether or not they kill me, they will only be planting seeds.  I may not be the same after.  But I will grow back, I will be stronger.  I am unstoppable.  And in this lies my safety.

On this journey, my Artist helped me notice the beautiful things.  As time went on he kept showing me the beautiful things in life, in the little moments as well as the big ones.  Every time I saw beauty in the world I would discover a small piece of my heart that wasn't completely broken.  The mess in the gutter was less daunting.  And slowly, he helped me gather all the pieces together with love.  He melted the broken pieces of my heart back together and he added new material, new glass, and my heart is now encased in this protective case of new glass that has no memory of fragility and is therefore stronger than ever.  And the cracks in the old pieces of my heart shine with the tenderness of empathy that brokenness pours into a heart.

I am old and new.  No, you cannot undo the brokenness, but you can decide what happens next.  I have found a seed at the bottom of the shattered heap and with the heat from a forge I have brought forth a tiny plant, my heart a Phoenix rising from the wreckage.  And my new heart, born with work and patience was given so much love by friends and family that I can never adequately express my gratitude to those who gave it.

When a Glass Heart Shatters

In September I asked this question and I meant everything that follows.  I'm posting it now because I think a lot of people go through life shatterings and feel alone and don't know what to do about it.  So, here is what I lived through:

What do you do with your life when your heart has been shattered into thousands of jagged pieces of broken glass?  All of them crumbled into a glittering heap of broken dreams that were once shiny and new, now lying flat on their faces in the road tarnished by dirt and no longer reflecting hope.

Some people have advised gathering all these jagged pieces of your heart together, picking them up and continuing down the same path you were on before.  I've looked at all their sharp edges and balked.  Gathering them up will only cut up my hands.

There is no mending of broken glass.  It's broken, it can't be put back together, picking up the fragments is dangerous to the safety of the rest of me.  I don't need to bleed from other places while I try hopelessly to salvage broken portions of my heart.

Over the last few years, I've sort of put a fence around my heart.  Caution tape and orange plastic fences around the scene of the accident.  Head on collision, lots of broken glass all in a heap.  Every so often on weekends, I stop by to marvel at the wreckage.  Even less often I come prepared with gloves and tweezers and I stoop down close to the pile.  I'll gather up two pieces of glass and glue them together and then leave them off to the side.  Maybe one day they'll function again, but I don't hold my breath.  There is one chunk of my heart still functioning and I've left it in there for examination by experts at the scene.

When these experts are on shift they do detective work and try to figure out where things went wrong and I more or less give the whole thing a really wide berth.  I don't walk the same path anymore.  I don't do the same things.  I've essentially left my heart in it's crumbled little pile and carried on with the one chunk I have left.

What's the point of picking up the pieces?  The world isn't what we want it to be.  It's not our bloody oyster.  It's the way it is.  Cold, impersonal, brutal and real.  It doesn't care if your heart gets involved in a twenty car pile up on the freeway, or is beaten with a bat, or gets thrown against a wall at the end of a relationship.  Whether you've lost someone, lost a dream, lost a whole life, lost all hope, it makes no difference.  The world is just the way it is and stumbling around brokenly carrying bloody handfuls of shattered glass isn't going to change that.

No, you can't just go on.  You'll never be the same.  Even if you miraculously managed to piece together your heart and glue it together with a billion uneven fractures into a whole heart you wouldn't be the same.  Even if you gathered every tiny sliver of glass up and not a single piece was left lying in the street you wouldn't be the same.  You would always have the scars, the fractures that were just a little bit weaker, the chance you could shatter again more easily, and the memory.  Even if you melted all of your glass fragments down and reformed them again you would remember that once they laid shattered in a heap, alone, broken, hopeless in a gutter.  And you would feel more fragile for it.

So knowing this, knowing all of this and looking at the sad pile of broken glass on the ground that used to belong to me, what do I do?  Solitude is calling to me but it offers no respite.  It calls in the way that solitude calls to a wounded animal.  It wants me to slink off to a solitary place and hope for a peaceful death.  My wounds, however, are not fatal.  They are of the marring variety, the sort that almost make you wish you'd died but leave you unmercifully in a state of sadly altered life.

Never.

The word that caused this shattering with a single blow.  It's finality gripping and crushing and harsh.

So where do you go from here?  Part of my life has ended violently, shattered and gone.  I see it lying there hopelessly fractured.  How can there be a forward now?  My cat nature tells me that I cannot go either forward or back.  That leaves me left and right.  But both options seem hopeless when faced with the jagged remains of what used to be a heart and the dreams that are gone forever.

Maybe I will lie here, curled up near the scene of the crime and wait for an answer on what comes next.  I hope God is listening because he is also involved in this wreck.  But I have lost hope that he will answer.

So, what do I do? 

If you want to know what I did with my life and my heart in the months that followed, the continuation post: Mending a Heart of Glass, will be posted soon.

Why aren't Mouse Cages More Interesting?

My Uncle has just started a business raising fancy mice as pets.  He breeds them to be docile and in all sorts of colors and varieties.  And so I was contemplating his selection of mice and remembering the hamsters we used to keep in childhood.  This started me down a whole weird path about what I did and didn't like about keeping hamsters as a kid.

It occurred to me that I don't actually mind mice or hamsters, but I really mind their cages.  Our hamster cage was a gaudy pile of interconnected and strangely shaped plastics in a variety of uncomplimentary colours.  So, it occurred to me that what I don't like is how very bold and ugly the cages are while at the same time remaining in largely boring shapes.  As an historian I've bemoaned the fact that we no longer make beautiful Victorian bird cages, but I've never heard of fancy looking cages for pet mice.  Well, I've never heard of or seen fancy cages for any animal these days.

And why is that?  They are made of plastic.  You could just as quickly mold them into any shape you wanted, complicated shapes being just as fast as boring shapes in the modern world of molds and factory production.  So, why don't we make them more interesting looking?  It's not like you can shove a giant cage away in an attic and not look at it.  So, why are we content with them looking the way they do?

I suppose all of this comes back to my longing for the world to be more beautiful, more interesting and more strange than it currently is.  I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way about large cages.  Even for fish tanks there are little columns and shipwreck things you can put at the bottom to make it look more interesting and piratey.  Why can't we do the same for mice?

I want my world to be filled with beautiful architectural shapes.  If I were designing a mouse cage I'd make it into a Greek temple, or a Moorish Palace.  I remember that cleaning out corners was particularly unpleasant, maybe I'd make a Roman Colosseum for my mice to live in.  Then I could name them all suitably impressive names and watch them manically run around in their wheels and pretend they were training for the gladiatorial Games.

Maximus would train ceaselessly while Claudius napped after a hard fight in the arena.  Arena just means sand in Latin by the way, not that sand is in any way recommended for mouse cages.  I simply got excited about the Latin.  Truly though, how can you get a fancy pet mouse and stick him in a boring square cage?  I think it would be much more fun to name your rex pet mouse Maximus and house him in something you don't hate looking at.  If I couldn't find a cool mouse cage I'd probably build him a Colosseum.  But then, I'm mad.  We all know this.

Anyway, if you happen to be looking for fancy pet mice and live anywhere near Rhode Island you should look no further.  And if you happen to find a cage that's actually interesting looking, do let me know.

Fill My Heart

Fill my heart with bird song, with leaves growing up reaching towards the light.  Fill my heart with green nurturing hopeful growth.  Nothing looks back in the garden.  Fill my heart with the sunlight filtered through leaves; the bright warmth of hopeful morning.

Shine light into the dark spaces so sadness cannot pool there.  Sing bird song to the recesses so that dark weighted words cannot dwell there.  Scatter darkness with warmth so that hate and sorrow have no foothold and only love can grow there.  Water the flowers so that the weeds cannot strangle them.  Fill my heart with the peace of a budding promise, that, like spring, brings hope to a garden.

On the wings of tiny cheeping birds fly the sad thoughts away.  Burn the darkness with the sun and reveal the hope for tomorrow.  Tend my heart with the care of a master gardener.

Stars in the Darkness

The stars had fallen, but some of them so slowly that nobody realized they were falling until it was too dark to see anymore.  The dark, gem-black of the sky had once been pierced by the bright lights of stars.  Or so the passerby who saw it years ago have told me.  Lately the sky felt dark and stormy.  The few stars left were so lonely they almost felt out of place.  I had been staring into the blackness so long that the missing stars didn't strike me as unusual.

Photo via Flickr by Kristin Jona 

So many years ago that it felt like a dream, I had watched the first star fall and mourned it's precipitous descent.  I held it in my hands, cradling that dying dream.  And then I laid it to rest beneath the protective limbs of a tree; on a hill where it could still see the sky.  I didn't want it to feel as alone as I felt.

As I lived through some dark times the stars kept falling.  I stopped noticing their fall.  It somehow felt natural now that the light would slowly be extinguished and the dreams would fade.  The blackness felt inevitable.  The time when the sky was full of stars and the world still had a hopeful light was so far away it felt like I'd imagined it in dreams of a better time that never was.  A time that could never be again.

Photo via Flickr by Stephen Rahn 

How long have I occupied this lonely hill with my fallen dreams alone?  Who can say?  I sit here in the dark, keeping my sorrowful, personal vigil.  I no longer mourn the stars sprinkled around my feet.  I thought it was only a matter of time til they fell.  I was so wrapped up in the emotion of the darkness that I didn't stop to ask why they were falling; all I knew was that I couldn't stop it.  My despair was as large as the sky, crushing and endless.

Then, suddenly, the night was different.  I realized in a moment that I wasn't as alone as I thought.  The warmth of friendship can be as shocking and illuminating as summer lightning.  A figure in the darkness, a friend, stopped and sat with me to share my dark inner vigil.  I was not surprised by their presence but I hadn't expected them to stop and sit with me in the dark.

Without so much as a word they glanced at the sky and then down at the piles of fallen stars.  I felt their sadness at the state of my night sky.  Seeing it through their eyes I could now see how empty and dark the sky felt with its bright dreams lacking.  I had no words to offer back to them about the state of things.  I had only silence and pain to offer.

Photo via Flickr by Martin Fisch

My silence didn't scare them.  We sat in quiet stillness surveying the darkness for some time.  Then gently they started collecting up my fallen stars, gathering up my darkened dreams, stacking my broken hopes up tenderly.  I asked what they were doing.  "We are going to put your dreams back up in the sky where they belong" they said.
"But, they are dark, they have lost their fire" I said.
"So, we will light them again."
"How will we do that?" I asked with a doubtful hope beginning to flicker in my chest.
"With love" they said and they reached out.
I held out an upturned hand to them.  Gently, into my palm, they placed a single dark star.

I looked down at one lonely broken dream and it felt heavier and heavier in my hand.  I cradled it with  both hands crying.  Gently they added their hands to mine to help still their shaking.  When I finished mourning the brokenness of my dream they closed my fingers around the star and added their hands around mine.  With four hands supporting my dream they said with the firmest gentleness "With love" and together with hearts open we re-lit my dream.

Original photo via Flickr by Leland Francisco

Tears now sparkled with light as they helped me release my rekindled dream into the sky.  It floated higher and higher until it joined it's few remaining star brethren and made them just a little bit brighter again.  And with the joy that followed, the love, friendship and hope flowed out of my heart and re-lit all the stars at my feet.

Photo via Flickr by Nic Redhead

As suddenly as my first star had fallen I was relighting my dreams and we were throwing them back up into the sky.  Lanterns lit with love and hope they floated upwards.  Being surrounded by brightly lit dreams is beautiful and magical.

Photo via Flickr by Jirka Matousek

With stars streaming upwards around us, I looked at my friend.  They smiled, "You deserve it," they said.

I smiled, my heart as bright as the stars.

We painted the night with dreams and light.

Photo via Flickr by Judy Schmidt

**********************************************************************

Photo via Flickr by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

With love to all the friends who have helped me stumble through the darkness and have with the gentlest most insistent love helped me rekindle my dreams.

Words rarely express the depths of emotion we want them to.  This is my attempt to express some of my gratefulness to those who have walked beside me through the dark.

I wouldn't be here without you.  You have helped light my darkness.

I hope that I can be even a small source of light for you in return.



My dreams are as vast as the sky, bright and limitless.

Photo via Flickr by Alessandro Caproni