On the day of the Winter Solstice, a Facebook friend of mine, Katrina Martin, sent out this post:

 

Last night at our Winter Showcase, the first graders got up and said what super powers they'd like to have. One girl called herself Nurse Girl and said she could heal people with her hands. Another girl called herself Seed Spitter. She could spit seeds that would grow trees and flowers at the speed of light. Another child wanted super powers to see spirits so he could see his grandfather again.

 

And I'm not sure if anyone told these kids that they have the power to do those things right now. This is why I want to work with kids. To nurture these desires and cultivate them so they don't grow up thinking these things can't happen. I'd bet that girl can already heal people with her hands. And I'm sure that boy is already communicating with his grandfather, maybe in his dreams. The last girl just needs an outlet where she can plant things and watch them grow and flourish.

 

Need I explain why I love Facebook! There are several wonderful things to ponder and appreciate in this message.

 

First, consider the superpowers these children long for. At least among the ones Katrina mentions, the children don't want unlimited access to the toy store or a bottomless cookie jar... they want to heal people, to be reunited with a beloved grandparent, to plant trees. At six or seven years old, they're considering how to better their world.

 

The second striking thing about the message is Katrina's response. She perceives the wishes of these children not as mere fantasies but as indications of gifts they already have. And her desire is to support them in nurturing their visions so they become reality.

 

As I wrote Katrina after reading this message, I believe that the sacred responsibility of each of us is to see and directly appreciate the magic in others, that they may believe in it and activate it more creatively themselves. Katrina is already doing that. 

   

On the main street of my village of Thompson, Pennsylvania, a small storefront window displays an ever-changing selection of exquisitely crafted wood furniture--no piece of which is more than a few inches high. The creator of these miniature chairs, tables, and chests is Wayne Shontz, who, along with his wife Sue, owns The Woodshed.

 

Wayne, now in his eighties, came to his profession through two separate paths, one artistic, one social and spiritual. He was already a woodworker, crafting shelf units, when he came upon a book about how to build Shaker furniture. He had long been interested in the Shakers, a sect of Christians who practiced communal agrarian living and believed that God's spirit could be directly transmitted to men and women through revelations that often included spontaneous dancing, or "shaking." The Shakers are also well known for their beautiful furniture. "I had visited their communities," said Wayne "I was interested in their religious style and in those kinds of utopian communities. I liked the simple lines of the furniture." When he discovered the book of furniture designs he decided that, instead of trying to execute a full-sized piece, he would focus on making a miniature. He has been doing so for the past thirty years.

 

Every piece is intricately styled. The pieces are held together with nails the size of exclamation marks in a novel. The drawers open and shut, the cupboard doors close smoothly on tiny hinges, and the chairs are upholstered in leather with miniature gold studs binding them to the wood.

 

Wayne's wife, Sue, who calls herself a "dabbler" in the miniature furniture business, makes Adirondack chairs and has recently perfected a deck chair, complete with a striped miniature canvas seat and notches that allow a doll in need of some relaxation either to sit up or recline. She also makes "room boxes," little scenes that tell a story. One features a mouse dashing down the leg of a table after tipping over a vase of flowers. A cat watching from a doorway will obviously get the blame for the accident.

 

The Shontzes sell their furniture at dollhouse shows in the eastern states and in Michigan. Do they ever get tired of making the same kinds of pieces over and over? "Never," says Wayne. "It's always a challenge to recreate something." His next project, he explained, opening a well-thumbed book of furniture plans, is to create a Shaker desk, more detailed than any of his previous work.

 

 

  

Thompson is a small diamond-shaped village surrounded by woods and fields. The population is just under 300 people. In the 24 years since my husband and I have lived here, the town has been in decline. Several houses have been abandoned since the mortgage crisis and others are fading. Several of the small businesses, including an old inn and restaurant, a grocery store, a doctor's office, and a gas station, have closed. Still, it is a sweet place, with a creek called Starrucca weaving through it and around it.

 

For two decades I've been thinking that one of these days I want to follow that creek. Two weeks ago I did it.

 

On a Sunday afternoon, I scuttled down the hill at the eastern edge of town, just beyond and across the road from where our land ends, and made my way down to the creek. Here's a bit of what I found:

 

A thicket of hemlock trees... a cliff so steep I could only keep my balance by clinging to small saplings... a beautiful tiered waterfall ... goats freaked out by this trespasser behind their field... which families use the back of their property for dumping and which take care of it... "This is private property!"... a pool wide and deep enough to incite fantasies of a swim on a hot summer day... a tiny bird's nest built between two blackberry canes... a feeling of well-being in some places, uneasiness in others... one backyard actually has its own bridge for the creek to flow through.

 

I followed the creek to the other side of the old mill pond at the western tip of the diamond, where it crosses the road in a culvert, then I turned around and walked home. I feel like I have now been through the bloodstream of my village.

 
My friend Liz Brensinger sent this link to K.D. Lang's extraordinary rendition of Leonard Cohen's beautiful song, "Hallelujah." As I watched it the first time, my heart broke wide open for all the beauty, sorrow, and yearning in this world.

K.D. Lang sings Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

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The Beloved, the universal symbol of your ecstatic bond with your own radiant self, invites you to say YES! to Life. The Beloved is an archetype who appears in the myths and legends of many lands, in the prayers of mystics, and in Jungian psychology as a symbol of the integrated Self. Elusive yet accessible, always beckoning you to step over limitations into your own greater adventure, loving you utterly as you are, yet perceiving how you can be more fully you, the Beloved invites you to step into the whole world as if into the arms of a waiting lover.

Facilitator: Trebbe Johnson

Registration and Cost info: Contact Rowe

Instructor: Trebbe Johnson

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