Friday, October 15, 2010

Scavengers...


I have become more interested recently in this idea of “useful debris”. Perhaps some of this is moving to reside in a much bigger and more densely populated urban area. There is trash everywhere here, especially in the poorer neighborhoods and industrial warehouse zones where I spend a lot of time. This existence is always a challenging dichotomy for me, the gritty urban reality which often foments such brilliant creativity and vibrant community on one hand, the rural wilder forest reality where the natural cycles and lives of creatures prevail on the other. I felt for years that when I finally pushed myself out of the nest of my hometown, which occupies a particular balance between green space, human community and artistic outlets with the urban, that I would move toward the more wild spaces. In the open places the wind and the birdsong are louder than the traffic and I am greeted each morning with a clearer mind for my practice rather than the sometimes inspiring, sometimes hopelessly muddled noise of the city dwellers.

The scavengers have been most present with me, the ones with whom I cross paths, who peer at me from under brush, watch me from power lines’ perch, scamper away just as I am approaching and seek me out in dreamspace. The bald-headed vultures who consume and make use of that which is too rotten and rank for the taste of most. The raccoons who have adapted so stealthily to city life by pawing through the veritable mountain of sustenance and shiny treasures we throw out routinely. The crows who flock often together and speak constantly of their critique while daring to swoop down for French fries or pastry crumbs dropped in the middle of busy streets. The skunks who leave their bold olfactory marks behind after their forays into our refuse. What are these messengers telling me?

Here I am, in the midst of the slow, lurching death of industrial decay, mustering some understanding of my own present place in this bigger picture. Learning the lessons of the scavenger, making a life out of the cast-offs, reinventing ancient skills with the manufactured means at my disposal, adapting to this strange life without giving up the essence of my creature self. I had this well-practiced in a place in my home, where at least superficially voice was given to the need for open spaces where trees and critters have a chance to flourish. This place is different, it calls for the ingenuity in me if my feral self is to survive where the urban hustle attitudes prevailing, with the neverending noise of traffic and trains and fights on the street, and the very real energetic density of this many souls all moving to and fro endlessly.

The muse that speaks to me in this place is of a mumbling, hermitty collector. A small hooded creature most often spotted pawing through others' bins of garbage or the sparkly bits that tend to gather near railroad tracks, who can disappear on a dime by side-stepping realities at first unwanted notice. I can’t help but wonder what this creature is going to do with all those gems and pieces of broken toys and lengths of wire and flattened springs and twisted sticks they find. Perhaps they only show up to spark my imagination.

My precious tender heart must find a safe and well-protected place to call home if we are to survive this particular adventure intact. Time, perhaps, to continue the spellwork I begun on stage at home…I recognized the tearing and restriction of having my heartstrings strung up in so complicated a manner between so many in that place. I lovingly gathered them back and began to weave a soft resting place for that most sacred beating drum in my chest. I held it close to me in sweet reverence and understood this to be the place from which I could most truly give with my whole self. So now I have taken this heart to a new home where its very survival seems to be threatened. What now to take care of this intuitive listening organ?

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