Chapter 10 – Norfolk & travelling to the States

I continued to teach the course, returned to Australia a couple of times, deepened my connection with camels as I had found a lovely man near the Quantocks who had five camels. As I mentioned earlier camels are great to work with to resolve conflict. I also discovered they were wonderful to work with children. who can learn to express themselves looking after a camel, talking about how they imagine the animal feels and in turn talking about their own feelings. I knew about Equine Therapy, strangely enough qualifying in it years later, but for the time being I worked with camels instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also spent some time in Egypt and whilst there I learned to dive, interestingly with an instructor whose surname was Love at a place called Temple. It opened up a whole new world for me. The deeper we went, how colours disappeared, how my senses became distorted, how important it was to dive with a “buddy”, communicating continually with each other as well as monitoring our breathing. Understanding that I needed to pace myself resurfacing, otherwise I could irreparably damage myself or even die. Invaluable lessons for managing deep emotions and I loved it. The discipline of diving became a great metaphor in my teaching and therapeutic practice.

Australia had really got under my skin. There were camels there and diving! I was particularly drawn to a part of Australia on the Great Divide. I spent some time with a friend at his shack in that region. The sense of freedom and self sufficiency was very similar to my brother’s lifestyle in Tasmania, the way of life of the Aboriginals and Native Americans who had taught me so much. The nearest town was about 45 minutes away which was close by in Australian terms. A plan was beginning to take shape and I even found some land close to my friend. There was a school that my youngest son could go to that catered for the settlements scattered around. I began to imagine having a small centre using camels to help with conflict resolution between children and adults as well as teaching survival skills.

I had been teaching the course for a few years now, had passed on everything I had learned to an amazing group of people and it felt like I needed to leave now so that they could really make it their own without my being there. The Cottage was put on the market, the necessary papers for moving to Australia were almost ready. Suddenly a buyer for the house materialised, it all started to feel very real. Then, apart from the sale of the Cottage, the plans for moving to Australia fell through. The Universe certainly had different plans.

My oldest, closest friend lived in Norfolk; Sarah gathered me in her arms and said “Why don’t you come up here and live?” I guess it was meant to be as it became such an easy move. We found another cottage, this time called Holywell in a little village close to the sea, a school for Avrum. Beltaine, our beloved wolfhound, loved the beach. To be honest taking her to Australia would have been complicated. The strangest thing was my work continued without interruption, just differently. Holywell didn’t have the land to have a centre so I rented a unit at Creake Abbey which was ideal and idyllic. There was no one else there just some other units used for storage and some abandoned barns as well as some ancient ruins, a very peaceful spot indeed.

Avrum blossomed in Norfolk; he joined a local football club and got an after school job at a local hotel and made life-long friends. My oldest son, Leo, was also happy to come home from Uni, it was a lot closer than Australia. We all loved being by the sea; Avrum, Beltaine and I went to the beach every day. Avrum learned to sail, I honed my skills and Leo could go sailing in his holidays. Needless to say, sailing became another metaphor for life. Our lives completely changed – significantly it was a new century as well!

At some level we adapted very quickly. There was a sense of living on the edge of the world. The ever changing big skies, the endless undulating fields and being able to see the horizon, fascination with the light – which reminded me of Australia as well as deserts I knew. I had been coming up here since I was thirteen, staying with Sarah and sailing, now I was here all the time. Sarah was a very gifted painter, we loved talking about colours, their different shades, depth of shadows, quotes from different artists. We would roam the countryside, two free spirits chasing the sun across fields until it would finally settle on the sea like a graceful ball of fire till it disappeared. Remembering this painting and that as we meandered. I vividly remember a sunset of a deep red sun with a black line through it and both of us thinking of Japan at the same time.

Many times we would take our troubled or perplexed souls out to sea and by the time we had pitted ourselves against the forces of nature in her beloved boat, our souls would be restored to a peaceful state. If we couldn’t sail, it would be a long walk on the beach in companionable silence being absorbed by the weather, light, immersed in the natural rhythm of the Universe, feeding our shared love and respect for the world we lived in, inspiring our creativity. A true lasting friendship, beyond words to describe.

What took a little longer to adjust to was the pace of daily life. Popping into a shop, the post office or garage was not an option. The art of passing the time of day was very much alive. There was a ritual to being part of the community we had found ourselves in. I learned to slow down and smell the roses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paradoxically as well as slowing down, the Universe decided it was time for me to commute to Suffolk as well as London and Surrey for work. A dear friend moved up to Norfolk to hold the fort whilst I did this. It was a strange combination of being busy and then slowing down. The States was calling to me again and I also realised I needed to go on a retreat to digest all these changes. I found just what I needed at the Monastery in the Desert in New Mexico.

Little did I know this was going to be such a rich experience. Having made my way from the Albuquerque airport as far as Abiquiu, driving through the desert landscape, I was only too happy to stay the night at the inn next door to the O’Keeffe Centre. I had always been fascinated by her paintings and, after a good night’s sleep, it was an unexpected treat to be able to visit her Adobe home all on my own and experience the inspiration for some of her paintings first hand, in particular the view from her bedroom. The painting called White Road is a simple curved black line which had always been evocative in its simplicity but holds strong memories for me now. Before I left the centre, I bought a book about her and the relationship with the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who she married. The book was my companion during the retreat. It describes how he photographed parts of her body in a non erotic way and how they were about love.

After my thought provoking visit, I set off for the Monastery. Once I turned off the main road, I found myself driving along a dirt road leading deeper into the Chama Valley. Sometimes there was no trace of a track due to erosion from previous floods. I had to stop regularly to reground myself and pray for the courage to keep going. The reality was I wouldn’t have been able to turn the car round anyway. There was something very familiar about finding myself in a desert wilderness and not being able to go back, only forwards. Eventually I arrived at the Monastery.

 

The simplicity was overwhelming, the monks sang the psalms in the bible seven times a day. The chapel was built in the Adobe manner of terracotta mud. It only had plain glass windows, the brown and green layered cliffs a backdrop to their chanting. The only decoration, apart from candles, were two Native American statues in bright colours of the great father and the great mother. At meal times a monk would read whilst we ate. Once a day for an hour or so I would help Brother George bottle their delicious honey. He was very like the jolly bears we were filling and would tell me stories about his life at the monastery. He had a great twinkle in his eye and with a throaty laugh told me how much he enjoyed his rare trips to the dentist in Santa Fe because he could have a bacon sandwich which felt a bit naughty as they normally only ate fish. I was so grateful to Brother George for his company as the rest of the day, apart from chanting, was silent. I would walk out into the desert, smelling the scent of sweet grass and at times hearing the rattlesnakes reminding me that I truly was in the wilderness. Needless to say I had brought my faithful blunny boots with me. Here I was left with my own contemplations in the desert as well as reading about O’Keeffe and Stieglitz.

Their relationship was unconventional and they spent a lot of their time apart. Her primary passion was her art and particularly the landscape around me. Stieglitz’s passion seemed to be the landscape of her body, a photograph of her hands in the book has stayed with me ever since. Years later and, very unexpectedly, at the bookshop of Tate Britain, buried under a pile of books was a book solely of the photographs of her body. The dust cover was torn and worse for wear. I remember holding it like the Holy Grail and I walked trembling to the counter. Crying, I told the assistant how I had heard about the photographs. He smiled at me and said I could have it for a few pounds as it had been there, hidden for so long.

The book is like a black and white kaleidoscope of the many different aspects of love. They included forms of reverence, intimacy, unattainability, sensuality, fascination, deep love possibly tinged with obsession. These were all things I had contemplated on whilst I was in the Chama Valley and like finding the book in the Tate, not what I had expected to be doing. It was time to leave this rarified space and the comfort of Brother George and his honey bears. The drive back was less daunting and in no time I found myself on the highway heading for the next stage of my journey.

I briefly stopped in Santa Fe but if I am honest all I could think of was having a bacon sandwich as opposed to absorbing the ‘vibes’ of a supposedly very spiritual and fun town. My heart was still in the desert. The next day I found myself in the heart of mountainous Navajo land. My lifelong passion for wolves had led me here as I had heard there was a wolf sanctuary nearby. Walking into the reception area there was a huge painting of wolves. I knew it well as I had bought many cards of this painting over the years. What I didn’t know was that the artist, Jacque Evans, had bought the old ranch and founded the sanctuary in 1991 because of her love for these wonderful, and often mistreated, animals. She initially funded her work by selling her beautiful paintings.

That day I was the only visitor and spent a magical time with the many wolves. It was very sad to see the abuse they had suffered which was very evident in the newer arrivals. They were lovingly cared for with plenty of room to roam. There was an interesting paradox that the sanctuary was in Navajo country as wolves were also seen by them as a threat. Navajos were sheep farmers! Perhaps some reconciliation was now taking place as the sanctuary also ran an education programme. The theme of love, passion and paradox continued. As I closed the final gate to the ranch 60 wolves howled, the sound still reverberates in my heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After my experience with the wolves, I needed to digest my time in New Mexico, or so I thought, and found myself driving towards Chaco Valley and the Pueblo Settlements. Their history goes back 7000 years and I wanted to discover more about their way of life. I already knew about their exquisite basket weaving and pottery but something else was drawing me there. As I walked around one of the villages made up of adobe buildings blending into the Mesa landscape, I observed in a detached way, the communal bread ovens, pottery and baskets with a sense of anticipation. My body started to tingle as I spotted a different womb shaped circular building with a long pole ladder leaning against it. An old man pulled me down to the earth to sit beside him.

Quietly he told me about Kivas. They are a sacred building, the circular chamber built underground. Although I couldn’t see it, on the roof was a hatchway, a bit like an upside down attic. The ladder was symbolically tapered pointing skywards. The chamber was used for prayer and ceremonies, home of the Kachina spirits. The Kiva represented the emergence from the other worlds to the present one. He then explained the worlds this way:

 The first world was made by the Creator, whilst the deities Sotuknang and Spider Woman taught the people to revere the creator. The people forgot this and the first world was destroyed by fire. However the people who had remembered the Creator took refuge underground with the Ant People
 The Second World was created for their emergence from the underworld, it was beautiful like the first world. In the Second World the animals no longer trusted the humans. The people once again forgot the Creator and the world was frozen into solid ice and destroyed.
 The Third World was destroyed by floods
 The people were guided by the deities and emerged from the underworld to the Fourth World, Earth

As I listened to him, I felt I was actually living the ceremony, it felt so familiar, including climbing out through the hatchway and back down the ladder to sitting on the earth again. The old man handed me a gourd of water and disappeared. Later I would realise what a privilege the meditatative experience with him had been as women rarely entered a Kiva.

How I managed to get back in my car I have no idea, maybe the Kachinas guided me. The following day I was on a plane heading for Kentucky and the second half of this extraordinary journey.

It was such a relief to be met at the airport by my dear friends Black Bear and Joy. Someone else could be the driver now was one of my first thoughts! They lived in a gulley in the foothills of the Appalachians outside a university town called Morehead. I could almost hear the banjos greeting me to their home, a comfortable bungalow set in the middle of the surrounding land. As there were no fences, I could easily see their neighbours who were Amish or possibly Mennonite. They were in what is known as plain dress, particularly long skirts and bonnets for the women. They lived very simply with no electricity and horses for transport, always greeting me with beautiful smiles and yet reserved at the same time. I was naturally fascinated and had to learn to curb my curiosity and respect invisible boundaries.

On my first day I went for a walk with Black Bear’s delightfully bouncy dog. We explored cornfields full of multicoloured tassels I had never seen before. I wandered innocently into the woods until I smelt something very metallic and heard rustling nearby and remembered I had been warned about copperhead snakes. My companion had hunkered down. Slowly I backed up and tried to walk calmly out of the woods only to miss a pickup truck hurtling down the road. It was full of hillbillies, rifles over their shoulders, swinging demijohns of hooch between them. Oh my goodness, I had forgotten I was in Deliverance territory. This was the last time I wandered too far. No wonder they didn’t have fences.

As both of my friends worked at the University, I went with them a couple of times. Black Bear taught pottery and Joy had a senior position in the Art Faculty. I was in heaven observing Black Bear teaching his students as well as sharing the spiritual practices involved in collecting the clay from the countryside. Traditionally, he explained, it was usual to leave some tobacco when we take something from nature and to give thanks to the earth for the gift.

Another day, I spent time with the head of the photography faculty. We had a wonderful time talking about our mutual Irish roots and how ‘Angela’s Ashes’ by Frank McCourt had struck chords for us. We laughed and cried as we would quote passages at the same time. I shared how I had read about Stieglitz and I hadn’t known before that he was responsible for enabling photography to be recognised as a true art form. He took me to the research department and it was there that we found records of his book of photographs of Georgia O’Keeffe but that there had only been a few published at the time. We could find no trace of copies available. How precious it was to finally find my copy a few years later when I was no longer looking.

As icing on the cake, he took me to an exhibition of Chinese tribal costumes. They were hundreds of years old and the colours were still vibrant. Although they were flattened out on the wall like fans I felt as if I was being teletransported to a time when they were worn and imagined people dancing as the fabrics shimmered in a timeless way. Little did I know that this was a precursor to a real journey to the country of my actual conception.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we set off on a road trip through the Appalacians and the Blue Ridge mountains. It felt like living a myriad of country and Western songs travelling through Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and back to Kentucky. During our journey I often felt a deep sadness coming up through the earth knowing that we were often on The Trail of Tears, sometimes known as the Long Walk. This was when many tribes were forced from their homelands and moved to where the government at the time deemed they should be, perhaps this was more poignant because Black Bear was a Blackfoot, historically a displaced tribe.

Bizarrely we passed Dollyville, a theme park near Dolly Parton’s home. Souvenir shops littered the highway and I began to feel really angry especially when I saw big plaster casts of Native American chiefs used as advertising for everything on sale. Black Bear was aware of what was happening to me, and before I knew it he was propelling me through the front door of a friend’s house. I was greeted by a gentle giant of a Cherokee; I have no memory of what was said, but some kind of healing took place. He looked at me and finally said “Now you understand”. I remembered that my mother had been conceived in Canada in the wilderness of Iroquois land. I still have a tiny basket Black Bear gave me from the Cherokee heritage centre.

We made our way back to Kentucky via Pleasant Hill, a Shaker village. The atmosphere of peace was overwhelming and I learned that during the American Civil War, by some miracle, it was a neutral zone where wounded soldiers from both sides were looked after. The Shaker knowledge of medicine and in particular how to use poisons beneficially was phenomenal. I couldn’t stop crying as I was so moved by the simplicity of the furniture imbued with a quality I couldn’t quite understand. When I asked about this, it was explained to me that everything they made, they made as if an angel would use it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Returning to Black Bear’s home was returning to a sanctuary after this very emotional trip. That night I felt Beltaine, my precious wolfhound, get into the bed with me. In the morning I phoned home to discover she had developed galloping leukaemia and was dying. My friend assured me she sensed Beltaine would wait for me to return. It was time for me to leave, my heart full of paradoxes about humanity and life – One of the paradoxes was wolfhounds were originally bred to kill wolves and she was one of my greatest loves but then so were wolves.