Entering a Netherworld

When you are juxtapositioned from urban living to living in the garden of Eden so to speak, a rainforest of migratory birds of all sounds and melodies, critters chasing each other in your own backyard and deer visiting your daylilies that had popped up overnight, you all at once understand the communion with nature long missed. Everyday there is a new light upon the land, thunderstorms, rain bombs, torrential gusts, snowflakes, leaves of all colors and a breeze unlike any trade wind I have felt in the islands. Why here? The state of Tennesse on the map was alluring to us and also to our friends. Without pre-meditation, it arrived in our consciousness as a safe harbor for who-knows-what-will-come. More on that later. I do not write syfy or paranormal, but it may show up here and there in a short story. I am prefacing this blog with our arrival in Tennessee, a place where I am urged to write and paint with my watercolors. I find respite in the 70 ft red oak, hickory and pine trees that serve as a canopy of protection and shade. This is Cherokee land and the natives always said, when you are sad or grieving, it saddens the Earth. Return your grief to the trees. Acknowledge, let it go into the river of forgiveness. Replenish and open your heart, Grief is a teacher. To hold back forgiveness closes the meridians in the body. In a word, forgiveness is for the self. We abandon the old, to reach new chapters of our destiny. This I have done but admittedly, I have had to repeat the ritual. It is never a one shot deal. There is always a sadness to leave a certain place, people and lifestyle, so there is where I claimed my emotion. Day by day, the grief is lessened and in its staid, is a lightness of being and an urgency to once again use emotion to write and resurrect my love affair with words.