The Journey of the Three Giant Aliens

On the day after Christmas, I ventured into a big box McStore to take advantage of 50% off on all holiday items.  I was specifically looking for wise men, because my nativity set is lacking these, and I've been trying to find some for years, but they never seem to be "sold separately." I've seen many wonderful nativity sets that include wise men, and have often been tempted to just get a new one, but the one I have, while not the finest to be had, has great sentimental value to me, as I've had it since childhood.

Here it is, in all its plastic, badly-painted glory:

You may notice that we added a nursing cow a couple of years ago.  This was when June Amber was going through a cow phase, and it just seemed appropriate to have a mama and her calf at the nativity.  You may also notice that under the angel's outstretched foot is evidence of a roof fire.  This was from the year that I placed a candle just a little too far inside the stable.

What you do not see here is wise men (or shepherds, for that matter).  So joy of joys!  I found three individually sold wise men between the big red bows and the four-packs of plastic Santa cups.  It was even worth waiting behind a woman and her young child who held up the checkout line for a price check on a singing Justin Bieber doll.

So here they are, set up on my dining table and on their way to the manger:

Aren't they handsome?

When I got them home and started playing with them, I noticed this on their (literal not figurative) bottoms:

The fact that they're from China made me wonder where my own nativity set is from, and lo and behold, I inspected it and discovered it's actually from Depose, Italy.  Huh.

But what really interested me on this label is the whole concept of the difference between a "decoration" and a "toy," and why the manufacturers felt it necessary to make such a distinction.  Are there only two categories for what these figures can be?  And what does that even mean, that they should be used ONLY for decoration and not for playing?

After I took the above photos, June Amber came home, and she played with them too, and accidentally knocked one over, resulting in his hand being broken off at the wrist.  Now the "not a toy" warning made some sense.

I decided not to glue the hand back on because it seemed fitting to me that during a long and arduous pilgrimage, there would be such trial and loss.  If you take Eliot's The Journey of the Magi to heart, a much deeper brokenness was experienced by the wise men.  And at least it wasn't the hand he was using to carry his gift to the Christ child.  

Other than that, there was really only one minor issue with my beautiful new magi - they are not quite to the scale of everyone else at the manger.  They are, in fact, twice as big as Mary and Joseph.  But I figure that's okay, because they were supposed to be from a strange land anyway, so who says they couldn't have been giants? (Although I suppose if they're from China, that would be unlikely.)  Also, if you look at it from their perspective of distance, it works.

Only when they reach the stable on Epiphany, will their size seem shocking, and perhaps that's as it should be.  Besides, with a giant benevolent Santa watching over the whole thing, it's all relative.

At the Crossroads

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of pilgrimage lately.  It has been one of those themes that starts coming to me from several different directions at once until I find myself viewing it from a number of interesting angles. 

During the writers' conference that I participated in a couple of weeks ago, I had a major epiphany about my relationship with the San Francisco de Asis church.  From my very first post about it, I used the word "pilgrimage" to describe what I was doing in walking over there.  I said it was like taking a little daily pilgrimage, but what I've now realized is it's not a series of small pilgrimages, but only one, a long and profound one.  It's not a long journey in terms of physical distance but of time and moving through layers to an essential core.  

And today on Claire's blog, her post is titled "Pilgrimage as Inner Journey," and astoundingly connects with my own experience and thoughts.  She starts the post with a pilgrim's prayer, and one of the phrases that really jumped out at me was the plea for "a guide at the crossroads."  Because a crossroads is exactly where I am.

Ever since the writers' conference I have been dealing with the sense of moving to a deeper level with my relationship to the St. Francis church and the book I'm writing about it.  The piece I submitted for the conference workshop was woven together from various blog posts about the church, and the thematic thread I used was that of nakedness.  Some of you may remember my post last fall called "Naked in the Town Square."  I drew out the theme from that post to encompass the whole piece, and found it developing in my heart and mind as I did so.  Today in Claire's post, she talks about inner pilgrimage as a process in which she hands over to God all her life, both inner and outer, a process which feels like "stripping bare."

I am naked at the crossroads right now, because the conference made me realize that this book I'm writing is no longer hypothetical - I'm really doing it, and that process means getting more deeply involved with the church.  It occurred to me that it's time to talk to the priests and let them know what I'm doing, that it's only respectful to do so.  And also that one of my desires is to weave journalistic writing in with my memoir-ish stuff, and in order to do that I must connect with actual members of the church, get to know them, interview them.  It's time to move beyond the courtyard and enter the building, the body.  And this frightens me, for a number of reasons:  Fear of approaching people I don't know, doubt of myself having the "right" to be writing this book, boldness to claim that I'm doing so, putting myself and my writing out there to be scrutinized by people who have been members of the church all their lives.  Naked, naked, naked, in the stark light of day.  It would be so much easier to keep sitting in the courtyard with the hummingbird moths.

But honestly, the thing that frightens me most is in how I will be altered by deepening my relationship with this church.  I fear that I will be swept away, lose myself to it.  I have been flirting with the church, and now I'm confronted with the choice to make a commitment that I have no idea where it will lead.

Claire speaks of pilgrimage as a time of testing and says, "There is always a moment when it gets too much."  And to continue beyond this point requires surrender.  This is the crossroads where I now find myself.  Will I, as Claire puts it, allow the path I'm walking to "walk me?"  Even as I write this though, I realize it already is, even though I still have strong resistance.

Just now the church bells began ringing, calling the people to worship.  Today is the feast day of Santiago, and the annual Taos fiestas honoring this saint are in full swing downtown.  Hearing the bells, I feel an aching longing to be at the mass, but fear holds me back.  I'm not Catholic and I don't know how to do things like enter the pew and even if I did I would feel like a fake going through those movements.  I don't know the words spoken and sung during mass that Catholics know by heart, many of which are in Spanish, which I don't speak.  I don't know if they have childcare for Eliana or if I'm supposed to keep her with me, and I'm too afraid to ask.  And so I don't go.  I sit here and write about it instead.

Interestingly, the specific pilgrimage Claire refers to is the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and she writes of currently being elsewhere in the world, missing that place, knowing that today there is a huge celebration of the saint for which it's named. 

An amazing thing that came to me through the conference was in a discussion I had with one of the other participants who said she sensed that my deepest connecting point with the church is through St. Clare, not only in terms of the statue in the courtyard that I love, but also her story, that this woman perceived wants to be told and lived through me.  So today I am thankful to both my Cla(i)res for being my guides at the crossroads, and the awesomeness of this interlacing is not lost on me.

The name, Cla(i)re, of course, is related to clarity and light.  I have many photos of the statue of Clare in which she is framed by incredible clouds.  This is the metaphor I turn to today.  Recently I closely inspected an iron cross in the courtyard that I had never paid much attention to before.  I discovered that there is a Latin inscription on it, "Occurrent nubes," which Googling led me to learn means, "Clouds will intervene."  I love the mystery of this, I love that I can look at the clouds of my own doubt and fear and see how they interfere with my clear direction, but also in some way contribute to the overall pilgrimage.  A pilgrimage is not a straight walk from here to there.  Clouds refract light into variegated beauty.  They soften the harsh light that exposes nakedness.  They intervene on behalf of clarity if I only pay attention and keep walking the path, however haltingly. 

Ghost Ranch Gathering: The Journey There

The open road leads into storm,

through mists and mysteries.

 

Rain patters on the windshield

as I peer into bluster.

 

Skyline rolls along,

 

into varied landscapes

and shifting skyscapes,

tilts and turns

as sun begins

to surface.

 

Through valleys of trees
in their autumn dresses

into canyons and

up and down hills,

on I journey
until I come into the heart
of the high desert.

I meander along
the gravel entrance road,
entranced.

I am
hushed,
beyond words
for this beauty
to which I have arrived.

The Little Flowers of St. Clare

I've always been a big fan of St. Francis of Assisi.  Anyone who would strip naked in the town square as a statement against superficiality and rampant materialism is ok in my book.

But it's only recently that I've come to appreciate his cohort, St. Clare.  My previous sense of her was that she was sort of a twelfth century religious groupie, but since I've been walking to the San Francisco de Asis church, I've found myself irresistibly drawn to her, because of the beguiling and enigmatic statue of her that's in the courtyard.

As you can see, she's surrounded by flowers.  I first started my walks, my little pilgrimages, in early August, when her garden was in full bloom.  In fact, the day of my second walk, I came home and looked her up on the computer, and discovered that her feast day was in two days, on August 11.

The most impressive thing about Clare that I discovered is that she was the first woman to write a monastic rule.  She started the order of nuns known today as the Poor Clares, and the set of rules and guidelines that she wrote to govern this order was approved by the Pope on August 9, 1253, two days before she died.  I just happened to find this out on the exact anniversary of that day.

I also found out that she's the patron saint of laundry workers, which, since I'm planning to open a laundromat, really just gave me chills.

It's true that she was inspired by and devoted to Francis, as he was to her.  In the courtyard, their statues are catty corner to each other, facing each other; hers in the east and his in the west.  When I go there at twilight, the setting sun behind Francis lights Clare up.  And I think this is how it was in life.  They were rarely together physically, but always in spirit, always looking toward each other, illuminating each other.

 

I've never been one to venerate statues.  I'm not Catholic, Buddhist, or Hindu.  But visiting the statue of St. Clare has an odd effect on me.  Every time I go, I end up sitting in front of her garden.  There is what I can only call a substance of spirit about her statue, a sense of presence.  No, no.  I don't think her statue is alive, or that her spirit is trapped in it or something.  Don't commit me to the loony bin just yet.  But just look at this, and tell me there isn't power in it:

There is something mysterious and real there.  Made all the more keen by the profusion of life in that spot, and the life infused into the church building she stands by. 

In case you didn't know, the San Francisco de Asis church is a real adobe structure, meaning that it is made of mud and straw.  Each year, the parishioners get together to re-mud the building's exterior.  So the church is literally anointed by the life of all those hands, all that devotion over two hundred years.  This is my view from where I sit in front of Clare.  You can just make out Francis to the left.

This place is a symphony, and the adobe walls are the bassline.   Throw in Clare and Francis, the chortling doves that roost in the bell towers, the hummingbirds and bees and the multitude of hawk moths, the fragrance of the flowers, the movement of clouds and the echo of magpies and ravens over that huge round sky - and the symphony is complete and exalted, the senses and spirit exult.

The Good Walk

I've always liked the idea of taking daily walks, but only if it involves arriving somewhere different than where I started. Seeing people walk in endless circles around the neighborhood makes me feel slightly embarrassed for them, and a little sad. Like watching monkeys at the zoo.

I've moved around a lot, but I'm finally in a neighborhood where I can take walks and actually get somewhere. Not in the utilitarian sense - I'm not walking to the grocery store or the bank, but to somewhere I can rest for a bit, somewhere inspiring. Since June, I have lived in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, the home of the famous San Francisco de Asis church, which was painted numerous times by Georgia O'Keefe, and photographed by Ansel Adams (and countless others). I can see the steeples from my front porch, and if I walk a little way down my street, I can cut through an almost hidden break in the bushes, cross a board laid over a skinny acequia, and walk through this little grove that opens out into the gravel driveway that circles the church.

 Shortly after I moved here, I found myself drawn daily to take this walk, as if those steeples were whispering my name. This sudden irresistible urge always hits me just before sunset, which is the all-around best time of day in northern New Mexico. This is when everything lights up with magic and you understand why it's called the Land of Enchantment.

So I get to take a little pilgrimage every day. I sneak away from the cacophony of a house full of kids, and step for a spell into a pocket of peace and delight.