pop, slide, and clatter (erin jean warde)

May you, in whatever ice or sun you encounter today, be delivered from your fears. In this deliverance, may you be comforted by the Spirit, our Good Mother.

pop, slide, and clatter

We are showered with every day gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.

Today, if you listen closely, you can hear the pop, slide, and clatter of ice releasing its grip on trees, awnings, and more, here in Austin. Some ice is taking the trees down with it. I, personally, do not like ice storms. I specifically do not like them because I moved to Texas, ergo, I did not sign up for this. I don’t mind it getting chilly — I actually yearn for a life with 4 seasons — but there is a fine line between winter and struggle, and lately Texas has been skipping wintry bucolic landscape art and going straight for danger.

Over the past few weeks, in a fleeting desire to spend less money, I started being really careful about my meal plans. I began to “shop my pantry” as much as I could. Instead of getting rice noodles, I cooked the rice I had. Instead of getting cans of beans, I made the lentils I already had. Instead of buying new veggies just because they sounded good, I tried to get creative with the veggies I had, because why waste food during a recession?

I was very, very proud of myself. My grocery bills were still exorbitant if you look at what I got (and I didn’t even get eggs!) but I was proud of myself for being more conscious about my grocery shopping.

This was very exciting until yesterday. I had a busy day lined up for Wednesday work wise, so on Tuesday I placed a delivery order for groceries. At the time, I did not realize Wednesday was going to be the worst day of the Texas ice storm. I was — she smiled, proud of herself — thinking ahead! I waited until I was truly out of items before I re-ordered them, but I was finally out of quite a lot, so my grocery order was fairly large and important.

And my grocery order did not arrive. To make matters worse, my phone could not place or receive calls. So, I didn’t receive a call from H-E-B telling me I would not be receiving groceries, nor did any food arrive. A friend of mine lovingly offered to call and check up on it for me, and she discovered they cancelled all deliveries, I would have to go pick up my groceries, and I wouldn’t be able to do that until the next day (today), because they were closing.

Meanwhile, the picture above from CBS about foot shortages at H-E-B were not exactly helping.

Friends, when I tell you this hit all of my buttons. I struggle deeply with scarcity. I am an enneagram 6, which means I fear losing stability, and everything in me craves security. Yesterday, my core fear was unlocked. Not only did I not have a meal I could eat in the house, but roads were unsafe to travel.

Then, I began to reflect on how I had been working my way through my pantry. I wasn’t proud of myself for eating the food I had at home; I was quickly shaming myself for it: “You’re such an idiot for eating the food you have here. Now you don’t have anything.”

For dinner, I had pears and peanuts. I went to bed at 8:30p.m. because it was the healthiest decision for me. I didn’t sleep well, for pretty obvious reasons.

She knew different morning rituals, her grandfather’s pouring of the coffee on the ground and the one I carried out on the hill above our house, and that was enough for me. The sunrise ceremony is our Potawatomi way of sending gratitude to the world, to recognize all that we are given and to offer our choicest thanks in return.

I woke up this morning with a migraine, for pretty obvious reasons. I woke up still reeling from the anxiety of the previous day, still recovering from how it feels when your core fear is unlocked. But slowly, I began to wake up to the day and the waking began to heal some of my mood.

I looked out the window, and I could see the ice had lessened. I began to take comfort in the icy chorus of pop, slide, and clatter. I knew it was going to be okay. I made a cup of coffee in my home, where I had power, and remembered that many were iced in and did not have power. I grieved for how hard this must be for them, much harder than it had been for me.

I tried to remember that I had one night of a snack dinner, while so many go hungry for their whole lives. Not to diminish how I was feeling, but to let the anxiety transform from internal worry to external care, because that is anxiety’s best transformation.

I realized it is good to eat the food I have at home. And it is also good to have an emergency stash. Two things can be true.

Yesterday during the chaos, I looked outside to assess and saw my brand new Subaru Crosstrek covered in ice. Even in my anxiety I thought, “At least my car looks like it is in an advertisement.” I chuckled, a nice reprieve. Today, I got in my car and was grateful for it. Grateful for roads that were finally safe to be on.

As I drove to the grocery store to pick up the undelivered order, I began to be grateful no one brought me my groceries, because I was okay without them, and someone bringing them to me could have gotten hurt. Obviously, in an ideal world I would have liked to receive groceries and know the deliverer was safe, but I felt good knowing all things had resulted in our mutual safety.

The earth, that first among good mothers, gives us the gift that we cannot provide ourselves. I hadn’t realized that I had come to the lake and said feed me, but my empty heart was fed. I had a good mother. She gives what we need without being asked. I wonder if she gets tired, old Mother Earth. Or if she too is fed by the giving. ‘Thanks,’ I whispered, ‘for all of this.’

Today, maybe more than other weeks I’ve reflected on Braiding Sweetgrass, I am caught in the tension of scarcity and abundance. Today, I got my groceries, I am okay, but it’s also valid to have fear when we don’t have access to resources we need to thrive.

Even as I try to slide back into a heart of abundance, I do so acknowledging that for many, this isn’t a casualty of an ice storm, but a constant way of life. So while I want to be comforted by today, by the pop, slide, and clatter that means abundance has returned, I’m trying to hold onto the memory of the scarcity, so that my anxiety transforms from internal worry to external care. I want my heart to expand inside myself, from scarcity to abundance, but I want my heart to expand for everyone else, too. With the expansion, I want to become more at peace in scarcity, still more hopeful in abundance, and above all else: more participatory in a world reflecting something like the Thanksgiving Address.

“It reminds you every day that you have enough,” [Freida Jacques] says. “More than enough. Everything needed to sustain life is already here. When we do this, every day, it leads us to an outlook of contentment and respect for all of creation.”

…In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires. Gratitude cultivates an ethic of fullness, but the economy needs emptiness.”

…Gratitude doesn’t send you out shopping to find satisfaction; it comes as a gift rather than a commodity, subverting the foundation of the whole economy.

It is unsurprising to me that this would happen, during a season when I am already financially anxious, already trying to spend less money, already fighting inflation, already fighting a recession. Because how will I ever learn abundance if I don’t know scarcity? It is a profound blessing to feel scarcity, and then to be ransomed from it, even when I know I will feel it again.

But maybe the trick is that each time I am saved from lack, I can become more compassionate to the realities of lack around me, the deep need of the world, the hunger of the earth. And, in that opportunity to become more compassionate, I remember:

In the Spirit, I have a Good Mother, who gives me the gift that I cannot provide for myself. To grow in compassion, I must recognize how every day — without even knowing it — I come to the lake and say feed me, and my empty heart is fed. In the Spirit, I have a Good Mother. She gives what I need, she does not tire, She never leaves or forsakes me, and I believe She, too, is fed by the giving. Amidst the pop, slide, and clatter, I have found a prayer, both when I am staring into pears and peanuts, or a full trunk of groceries: Thanks, I whisper, for all of this.

May you, in whatever ice or sun you encounter today, be delivered from your fears. In this deliverance, may you be comforted by the Spirit, our Good Mother.

I hope you are enjoying Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

I keep ruining the reading schedule, so I am just going to list our next chunk of reading, lol.

We’ll be back the week of February 20th with a reflection on pages 118-155.

out of office

I will be out of office February 6-19. For this reason, I won’t have posts for these 2 weeks. Thank you so much for understanding. <3