American beech tree (Fagus grandifolia). I love this particular beech. The creek edge has eroded leaving this tree's roots hanging out in the open.

Greg Brown has a song about "grandma putting summer in jars"... In the winter, I'm delighted by jars of summer, caught by the toe.

The hobbit home! Complete (of course) with lots of house plants.

Yosemite!

I'm learning how to upload photos from my new camera. Everyday, I walk in the woods (well I miss a day here or there, but usually 5 days a week, I go to the woods). I'll share some photos with y'all of the recent beauty I've found there.

Recent Ramblings in the New Year

There is much to say!
Over the break I went home to Ohio and then out to see the Vince. I have a camera again and hope to upload some photos soon. I've also done a lot of reflecting this week. I'll share with you two long rambles.

but first, my grateful list:
-the new year
-my dear, supportive Berea pals Jessa, Rene, Beth, Les and Drew among others
-music
-spending time with people
-my family
-Vince
-a few of the things that the Witwers said... in response to a question about how one might go about multiple 100 mile races "I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, sometimes it wasn't comfortable, but I just kept going"...also they frequently said "we're young yet, we'll learn"
-reflection
-healing, maybe that's what it is all about?
-sunny days, oh my soul is grateful!
-the unwavering and beautiful presence of the woods on Brushy Fork Creek
-having a job/volunteer position that is meaningful and pays my bills

Okay...now to the rants:
The first is in response to the play "Our Belongings" written by a Berea College student about date rape.
The second is a ramble about my heart in winter. I shared this with many of you over e-mail, but thought I may as well post it here also.

Happy New Year to all of you, may you find peace in healing your wounds (and those of others) this year.
You are loved!
Megan

In response to "Our Belongings":
Dear Christian, (the playwright)
I write you this letter after seeing your play last evening. The "talk back time" that was intended to stimulate conversation and reflection was helpful, but because my healing is a new process I was not able to articulate my feelings at that point in time. I am a survivor of molestation and rape. Both of the situations were isolated events, and still they are challenging to process. In the first case the incident was painfully reported without any resulting consequences. The message I gleaned from that series of events was that my voice did not have power in these matters. I share my story not in a search for sympathy, but rather a search for the healing nature of recovering my voice.


My perspective is from a person who has only recently recognized these situations for what they were. I would venture to say that if I had experienced more prolonged situations of similar oppression, I might have an even more difficult time speaking about them. Because these types of incidents often result in the survivor feeling without a voice, I wonder if other people in the audience were also unable to articulate their feelings at the time.

I appreciated that the play revealed the humanity in both the rape survivor (a term that I prefer to victim) and the person who committed the rape. My healing process has been as much about anger as anything else. In feeling angry about being raped, it is easy to condemn the man who was the perpetrator. However natural this one-sided line of processing is along the path to healing, it is but one place along that path and important that to me to continue walking through. In The Hidden Wound, Wendell Berry speaks of how the oppression of African Americans is a system that harms American white as well. Therefore, he argues, it is a system we all must work together to dismantle. I see a similar reality here. Both rape survivors and people who have committed rapes need to reclaim their humanity. In the newness of my healing, I ask myself what that work looks like. Is it by forgiving my perpetrator, and if so, how on earth would I start that process particularly as he is someone I do not have a way to contact? Is it by seeking community with other rape survivors and people who have previously committed rape? Is it by reflecting with my partner, who is working to be an ally in my healing? He is also unsure as well what this process looks like. I wonder if the MAARS and Venus groups on campus works to train allies. I also wonder who is providing the less popular, but perhaps necessary space for perpetrators to reclaim their humanity, and what does this process look like? If perpetrators could participate in the transformative work of speaking their truth by both admitting fault and recognizing that their humanity is deeper than that incident, might it be possible for them to become allies?

This brings me to reflect again on some of the comments that came up during the talk back time. The woman who worked at the Rape Crisis Center said to bring up an issue so culturally ingrained and to not take a stand is to further the normalization of such crimes. I agree. Also though, in my searching I can see that this provides an opportunity, or a space, for survivors to speak out. The effectiveness of this space depends on the survivors, who may, as I did, find themselves in an all too familiar struggle to speak up. I am also concerned that many people left immediately after the play without engaging in the group discussion. I recognize that this play was intended to be a spring board, a catalyst for audience reflection and discussion. Who is committed to continuing this conversation, and how might we do so?

In appreciation for providing a place for me to refocus my efforts to heal,
Megan
****

Onto the second ramble:

This I believe: In bundling up.

After leaving the grant writing course which I'm taking, and spending time thinking very hard about ways to use words with great command and purpose, I tend to find my mind seeking refuge—looking for, and finding, a more relaxed tone. Today, the third day of class, was no different in this aspect. We spend so much time editing, articulating, condensing writing that afterwards my mind lets out a sigh of relief similar to after meeting a large project deadline that has been looming for months.

When I left the Draper building the weather was not what would be described pleasant by most. We are going into our third overcast day in a row (I realize that three days isn't long compared to other places) and the rain had just turned to a light hail. Regardless of these conditions, my soul felt a certain amount of relief being outside. I believe in bundling up and going outside anyway. There's an indoor track that many people walk on for exercise. I have spent a few afternoons there myself, as well. But my preference still tends to be outside.

This winter I am again confronted by what may be un-diagnosed seasonal affectiveness disorder (SAD). Weather has the potential to impact my well being. At the same time I have been broadsided by the surprising pain and challenge of loving someone deeply. As Khalil Gibran would say, I weep from "too much tenderness" accompanying love and when I weep in sorrow, "in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight." After a week at home with family and then a week with Vincent's family returning to my single apartment felt more like a space of emptiness than a space for personal growth and empowerment as it had been before my vacation. After coming home from a community meeting of folks organizing a local home energy expo I found myself in tears over the idea of returning to what in better times I call my "little hobbit home" aka-my nestled basement apartment with a view of a backyard full of fruit trees. It was like when I first returned from my trip and found all recent new e-mails to be from environmental list serves to which I subscribe, rather than friends whom I hadn't seen. I must explain that what I felt was in reality an exaggerated loneliness because I had received e-mails and calls from friends over the break, but many of the friends who use my Berea account were still resettling in after the holidays themselves. However exaggerated the loneliness is, it feels real and it touches on a few things in my history.

The work-related distress hails from a repeat offense that I have historically committed. It is this: in pursuit of meaningful work (or at times its less meaningful, but equally doted upon relative: perfection) I can lose my priorities. All self-care goes out the window in favor of overtime and late nights. I continue to fall into the trap of using meaningful work as a place to find my purpose. In doing this, I forget that what I really want to do is choose love. Oftentimes my work is one outlet for this (Gibran says "work is love made visible"), but it is never the only outlet. After a long day of juggling complicated deadlines and tasks to complete and coordinate, coming home to an empty apartment makes me question my priorities. There is a fine line, however, as I often find energy to re-center myself in solitude, other times I feel desperately lonely. Recent sadness has been a helpful reminder to seek out balance in my work life. I should mention too that in deciding to live alone I knowingly took full responsibility for managing my time. After four years in intentionally communities, I wanted to know what my life would look like if I were in charge.

This recent loneliness also speaks to previous bouts of depress that I have experienced. These are most often correlated with winter, coincidentally or not. I know deeply that I have a community of friends that is spread around the country, which I can call should I forget that I am loved. Sometimes though, often in winter, I can't feel their love. After crying on the way home to my apartment last night I asked myself "when will I grow out of falling apart this way?" The answer I felt was one of acceptance. I have certainly "fallen apart" less frequently than in my younger years. Yet coming at the situation from that angle isn't helpful. Hoping to one day reach a level of inner-peace in which I never fall apart again doesn't acknowledge that it is these times of breaking down where I meet the seeds of new growth I hadn't yet imagined. So instead of boycotting, resenting, or reprimanding winter (seasonal or emotional) I instead choose to bundle up. Rather than praying for a cessation of hard times, I seek to listen for what I might learn. David Wilcox sings of this paradoxical value of loneliness, "when I get lonely, that's only a sign some room is empty, that room is there by design. If I feel hollow that's just proof that there is more for me to follow, that's what the lonely is for." While listening to my loneliness I can bundle up to make the experience bearable. I can stay over at a friends' place, I can take vitamin D to reduce winter blues and use my sunlamp daily, and just know when to call it a hard day. This naming of challenge is certainly evidence of growth compared to my history of handling depression. I believe that our biggest lessons in life are the ones we are repeatedly confronted with and given ample opportunity to re-work. We can get stuck in these or we can look at them as seasons, recognizing that hard times pass and there is beauty in what is.

Right now I'm learning that my priority of following what feels like my heart's work around the country might not be the only choice. There might also be importance in committing to this man who I could see as my partner (should he feel the same), and I might find relevant work near him. The situation is complicated further by my sense of home in Appalachia and my proximity here to my family. How any of this reconciles itself as a life-journey or decisions of where to go next remains to be seen, but there is wisdom for me to hold onto in this as well. Rilke says "...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." Patience isn't easy for me. It requires strong believes that this too shall pass and that the present moment is worthy for its own sake, therefore what I experience now is a waiting worth accepting. Living the questions at this moment for me is about bundling up. Perhaps in the spring I might find direction, or maybe not that soon. "And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course," says Gibran. I pray for such worthiness.