By Hand: A Meditation on a New Year of Gifts

Drawing by the author, May 3, 2009

By Hand

If I follow this line, will it lead anywhere?
If I start at the root, will I capture the outline of the tree?
If this is not beautiful, can it still be art?
If I ask you to read this, would it be enough?

If I start with black, will I end up with purple?
If I make fifty lines, will the next patch be eighty lines?
If I make a curve here, will the next shape be linear?
If I make downward strokes, will I then make upward strokes?

If I don't think, will the drawing draw itself?
If I breathe deeply, is it meditation?
If there are no words, is it a poem?
If these are the leaves, is there a tree?
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When was the last time you made something by hand? I drew the drawing above in 2009. This was significant to me. I had just lost a baby. It was an ectopic pregnancy and I was on maternity leave. I remember painting, too, after my first miscarriage in 2005. For some reason, the loss of life spurred a very deep need in me to create something with my hands. It was an expression of grief. And hope.

I thought back to this because I mentioned on Facebook, today, that I wanted to go back to an artisanal life: a time when we enjoy well-made things (not mass-made things), well cared-for things, things that last for lifetimes. It's not about a consumerist life but a life that combines art and work...when work is finally not something that has to do with money but something to do with full self-expression and service to others. Then no one would have a job, just a vocation. Then everyone would have a gift to give to life and life would only have abundance to give back for every gift. Then everyone would know everyone in their community...because you would know the person who sewed your clothes, the person who wrote the books you read, the person who cooked your lovely meal, the person who repaired your chair, the person who grew the tomato in your salad, and so on and on.

I come to this as I prepare for life in 2014. I want this to be a year of gifts. Below is a video of Amanda Palmer's TED talk on the art of asking. It's the other face of giving. Because one does not give if one is not actually asked. That's the beauty of a gift: it is given from the heart...not out of obligation but out of appreciation.


I imagine a life, a world populated by gifts that people give to each other. A life that needs no copyright because each one is unique (and uniquely gifted). I imagine a world where we recognize the gifts given to us, freely, by the earth. I imagine a world full of gratitude for all these gifts. I imagine each person, each creature of God alight with gratitude.

So here's to your 2014 (and mine). May it be the beginning of a new age of gifts.

A Meditation on "Each Moment A White Bull Steps Shining Into The World"

EACH MOMENT A WHITE BULL STEPS SHINING INTO THE WORLD
by Jane Hirshfield

If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself
would be treated,
brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant—

Stroke the white throat,
the heavy, trembling dewlaps
you’d come to believe were yours,
and plunge.

Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling,
That you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

(From her book, The Lives of The Heart)

I credit my friend, Eileen/ Peripeteia (her blog), for prompting this blog post. I truly love the poetry of Jane Hirshfield and when I saw her post, I was delighted with the gift of the poem above.

Recently, I have been through some much chaos and turmoil. But all of these things I have accepted as gifts, as blessings. There was potential loss in each of these events but we were spared. And that brings me to the core of this poem. It is about things I came to believe were mine. It is an illusion. There is nothing, really, that belongs to me. If anything, I belong to the ether, to the earth.

But there is a gift in all of these: that I came to love. Love has nothing to do with possession. It has everything to do with giving up, letting go, thriving in generosity. Everything to give, nothing to lose. I adore the ritual in the words of the poem: "Say the accustomed prayers/ oil the hooves well..." It is in gestures that something becomes precious, not the thing itself. It is the silence that accompanies the moment, it is the drawing of my hands together, the act of saying the words aloud.

The last line makes the poem so moving..."Let the envious gods take back what they can." When has anyone not thought this? Especially when a loved one lies sick in bed, hovering over a line that one cannot bear to behold. "God giveth, God taketh away." It is full of rage and yet it is also full of the love that cannot be taken away.

So, tears came to my eyes today. I have been given not just one gift but several. Let the envious gods take back what they can. There is no diminishing the light of love.

Three Hundred Thirty Two Steps

by Justine Tajonera


I would never have known this information in the past,
not without a pedometer. But just today, my steps
were measured, my cellphone keeping pace and time.
Those were the number of steps, there were calories
burned, distances covered in fractions of a kilometer.
It is a new frame for the pink hair clips that went into
the paper bag. It is the canvas of that stroll from building
to building, under a canopy of cloudy skies.
Three hundred and thirty two steps could mean
anything in a data-driven world where proof and
patterns and predictions are currencies on their own.
But I put it aside as I breathe in and out.
I have something for you when I come home.
The macapuno tart, the one left out of three pieces,
is side by side with my little gift. I imagine the sculpted pink
ribbon on your fine brown hair. There are more steps
left for the day, more goals, more items to tick off.
And then there is you. There is the changing scent
of your breath and the heady way I feel when
you shout with delight at my arrival. Distances
are shortened with your smile, with the mystery
of a brown paper bag that you will take
from my hands.

Below is an edited version (2013-07-25). I thank a fellow poet, Rose, for helping me with this. Much improved. :-)

Three Hundred Thirty Two Steps

Those were the number of steps, there were calories
burned, distances covered in fractions of a kilometer.
It is a new frame for the pink hair clips that went into
the paper bag. It is the canvas of that stroll from building
to building, under a canopy of cloudy skies.
Three hundred and thirty two steps could mean
anything in a data-driven world where proof and
patterns and predictions are currencies on their own.
But I put it aside as I breathe in and out.
I have something for you when I come home.
The macapuno tart, the one left out of three pieces,
is side by side with my little gift. I imagine the sculpted pink
ribbon on your fine brown hair. There are more steps
left for the day, more goals, more items to tick off.
There is the changing scent of your breath
and the heady way I feel
when you shout with delight
at my arrival.
Distances
are shortened with the mystery
of a brown paper bag that you will take
from my hands.

Little Gifts

by Justine C. Tajonera

There was one morning
I discovered your socks in my bag
at work.
I started to cry, not yet knowing
if I was sad at the thought of you
waking up without me
or happy that I had something
of yours to hold me
together for the rest
of the day.

The other day, you were
already asleep
when I got back home
and I saw your slippers
outside your room
and again, I started to cry
not knowing if I was happy
that you were getting enough rest
or sad to have missed
tucking you
in bed with me.

These little things
string along in my mind
and break open my
heart.

I cannot yet
find the words
to describe why
each little thing
that you do
and leave
for me
to find

are lovely
little gifts
that throw open
all the windows
in my
life.

For Badger
Sept. 14, 2010

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