Within 5 hours of me sending my last ‘lily-message’ we got a phone call
from a woman called Jo living in Merick Park
‘I believe you have lost your jack russel – we have found one’

We checked that this was a brown-and-white female with a long tail
but we knew it was Lily when she asked
‘does she sit back on her haunches with her front legs held out straight’
Kate, Eli Bo and I drove over to get her

There is no way to describe the joy in seeing this little animal
who carries so much of our lives

Bringing her home to Max and Tony and Rory…
Max couldn’t stop kissing her

Only Lily knows what happened
she was covered in red soil that is found on Merick Park hill
she must have run across the vlei and got lost on the other side

she looked as if she has been sleeping outside
but she had either been fed or had scavenged food
her front paw is sprained – as if she has scratched her way out of somewhere
(Lily has been known to claw holes in doors if locked somewhere by mistake)
she is limping,
and the pads on her feet are tender as if she has been running on tar roads
she is exhausted and a little shaken – but she will be fine
she walked in on Jo and her family on Sunday afternoon
Jo phoned the vet on Monday – and she got our phone number

Today, as Lily and Max lie together
stretched out at the A-frame door
I wonder
about the power of prayer/ritual/connecting/good wishes/love
and when we do what we do with intention
is this what calls in the magic

On the weekend I spoke to a woman who had lost her dog
who she found again
and she asked me if I was calling Lily back – connecting with her

and I realized that this was something I was finding so difficult
as my imagination took me to the awful places she could be
I did the phoning and the poster sticking-up and the vet-visiting
and I had not really, therefore
been calling her home with clear intention

so I did

What was it that called Lily home?
was it people sending love and support from everywhere?
was it my and Tony’s mothers giving to St. Anthony an ‘ear-bashing’?
was it the Mwanzas praying on the vlei?
was it the presence of the other Jack Russell, Lily,
when they brought her into their circle on 11.11.11. at Hazelwood ?
was it Bev H holding thumbs?
was it the poster we left on trees and at vets?
was it Lily?

or was it all of these things working together with the same intention?

Above the window
a pair of sun birds search the branches for spider webs to build their nest
life goes on

Thank you all for listening so patiently
and my love – coming from a much deeper place
to those who have not found their loved ones

When we came home in 2004 we decided it was important to introduce some joy into our lives
something to help remind us of the lightness
as we walked through the dark of the same-old-same-old

Tony and Mel drove to Bulawayo and came back with Lily and Max Ndebele
twin Jack Russel puppies
two halves of the same spirit
posing always in exact replica
whether basking in the sun,
curled in their baskets
watching for rats
walking the paths to the vlei

bottoms together, tails turned outwards

and they played
as we sat on the veranda at night digesting yet another outrage
they danced and boxed and leaped over one another
paused
pounced, chased, spun
like coordinated lightening
like joy

tony walks them every night in the vlei
slowly coming down from the day

they sit at the doorway when I am in the A frame
they follow Mel around the garden
they dance a greeting when Kate and Rory come up the path with Eli
they eat together
sleep together

on Sat night – Guy Fawkes
we went out for dinner leaving Max and Lily in the house
(they don’t seem to mind noise  or bangs)
with their windows open
in our fairly impenetrable walled or fenced garden

when we came home two and a half hours later
she was gone

we walked the surrounds with torches
drove the roads
called the 24 hour vet
she was gone

Sunday everyone searched
the Mwanzas and the Zambezi kids
we drove and walked everywhere
searching ditches,
calling

we stuck up posters and phoned SPCA and Friends Foundation and vets

today is Tuesday
we have had two false alarms as other Jack Russels are found
but no Lily

Lily is the wild one
the tart
who seduces everyone by sitting on her haunches to have her stomach scratched
who leads the ratting raids
and wants to be brushed first

Max lies at the door step
or by our feet
lost his soul mate
trying to understand this unbearable ache

we try not to imagine what could have happened to her
those dark pictures that haunt us
her trapped somewhere
unloved

in some way it would almost better to find her dead

So we sit – with this Lily sized hole in our space
in our hearts
wishing we knew

11.40am
the thermometer on the verandah reads 32.7 (humidity too low to measure)
we still have to get to 2.30pm before it will stop rising…

Last week I paid a visit to Tel-One (our land line provider)
I parked in the shade and watched a few bemused and disbelieving people
stumble down the old steps clutching a large yellow book

Inside there were no queues
or bustle
just the guy entering and re-entering your ID number slowly into the computer
in 10 minutes I too was floating down the worn PO steps
I too was clutching a 2011 Telephone Directory
(last one was issued 2006 – all hope of a new one was lost years ago.)
with  yellow pages:
that reassures that all the electricians, plumbers, panel beaters etc. who disappeared off the map
have indeed re-emerged
(it is a comfort to find Mediocre Business Merchants still listed in Kaguvi Street)

even more………

I also held a paid up receipt for US$65 confirming that within a week
a ‘splitter’ would come and split my land line
and we would be connected to the internet via a fiber optic cable
for a small monthly fee of 30$
imagine
– a gateway into the 1st world – wherever it is – and no-one else seems to know!!!!

(this is an added comfort as the satellite broadcasting BBC and NPR seems to have dropped out of the sky lately and radio addicts like Mel and me feel as if we have lost a good friend.)

Internet – in the house!

no longer will I saunter off next door, computer under-arm
through the coffee trees and the vegetable garden
to perch on a rock under the masasa trees to down load my email

A friend or ours arrived here a few years ago with all her goodies packed in zip-lock bags
as she saw us pounce on them with whoops of joy she said in the nicest way
‘you Zimbabweans are so easy to please’

Since we moved into American currency so much has changed:
we now get zip-lock bags and Thai green curry paste and South African crackers
even if there is no change under a 1dollar note

We cross the edge in small steps
first the outdoor fire under the fig tree
then a gas ring
then a spare water tank (for when the power is out and the borehole stops working – municipal water failed years ago)
later came an inverter – so we can watch a video / listen to music
then a reading light in the lounge

Mel took us our latest step over the edge
by fitting lights above our gas plate and kitchen sink
(low power – connected through the inverter to a battery)
No longer is there the same rush to get all the candles lit when the power goes out whilst cooking supper

And I wonder
will we lose our ability to flow, to make a plan, to ride the waves?
our need to connect to one another to know what is going on
our creative spirit born of living on the edge?

It’s all so much more convenient…
having a telephone directory that works

Time tips
flooding the world with light
within a week the canopy will close around us
as the dry dusty world draws close her new green cloak

Large portions of the garden are now monitored by Heuglin robins
who perch above our heads and rattle warningly
shepherding their new fledglings out of reach

The paradise fly catchers  arrived two weeks ago and we have already begun to find their nests
housing tiny sitting females – beaks in the air
The couple who had their nestlings snatched by goshawks last year are also back
they sit in a considering way over the old nest
‘is it worth patching up? – perhaps if we put in a new carpet’
do they remember their loss at the gut wrenching level that we do
or is it just a new season?
a new present in the spiraling of time?

Two  White-faced owls
perch fluffily on the fig branch outside the a-frame
watching for food…

I finally worked out where the black and yellow caterpillars come from
(the ones that utterly devastate the calendula crop within days)
the eggs are neatly inserted in the flower buds
and the minute larva hatch into a container of golden petals

as I watch, a wasp lands on one of these gold-eaters
and strikes with a deadly sting
and as it slowly writhes its last moments on the planet
the wasp busily severs off one end
to take this newly killed morsel back to its young

and I – who was about to get rid of all the buds-with-holes to protect the calendulas
am challenged to see the world through another lens

Life cycles at every level

The barbet argues ferociously with the Honey guide
who is trying to lay her egg in the barbets hard won nesting-hole
3 new species of cuckoo have moved into the garden
each one of them with a plan to drop their eggs into the nest of some unwilling surrogate parent

A trillion tadpoles have hatched in the pond
will they all hatch into a trillion croaking frogs?
what act of nature will limit their population?
the pond skimmer slowly sucks the juices from a drowned moth
and the spider who has diligently spun webs overhead
now winds the latest prey in its threads

the guppies have had baby guppies
are they eating enough mosquito larvae to limit this seasons swarms?
are their enough mosquitoes to keep them all fed?

it is that same old matter of survival

but at a distance – this beautiful system shifts a gear into new and abundant life
against the back ground of flaming bougainvillea and purple jacaranda
is a pattern of colour and shape and flower and insect
difficult in detail
unraveling in beauty.

Life
September 2011

Already the temperatures have hit 30 degrees C
the days get longer as dusk and dawn stretch golden fingers into the dark

Spring

warm air wraps us in its silken cloak as we sit on the veranda at night

still two months before the rains…

but life is everywhere

full buds at the tips of dry branches
waiting for the day when the risk to remain
tight-wrapped
is more painful than the risk to blossom

with extraordinary individuality
each tree chooses its own time to face this new birthing
patient with their own calling

sifting through the  Rue flowers
a bee gathers pollen
grain by grain

On the 15th there was a lunar eclipse over most of Africa
25 Tree of Life facilitators were at a workshop together
where they had been exploring their lives, their experiences, their visions

They were at a place where huge granite rocks split open the ground
and, atop one of these towering monoliths
with a view from horizon to horizon
they watched the slowly-growing golden-bite eat into the moon
entering the shadow – losing its light
the growing radiance of the stars

In Shona tradition this is known as the ‘rotten moon’
death and rebirth?

In modern culture it is explained as the moon moving into the earth’s shadow
as it slips slowly backwards in its orbit around us

the discussion ensued…
different views were aired
new ways of seeing
looking for meaning
cell phones were taken out
and families and friends in rural homes and  high density townships
were brought into the web of witnessing

Stories from our ancestors carry old wisdoms;
reminding us of our connection with the land and the changing seasons,
of great harvests and great warriors and teachers,
and of the turning of the planet and the movement of the stars.

But these are the new ancestors
- these moon watchers
and they are living new stories
organic stories that change as they are lived
changing in meaning as they are re-viewed, re-told

Stories not locked in the unchanging stone of ancient tales
but sculptured and woven onto the surface
changing shape in time and space.

What are the stories we tell as we paint our lives?
do stars flow from our mouths?
stories of joy and connection?
of power and endurance?

Will we be the ones who refused to accept what is unacceptable and acted on our truth?
Will we be the ones who stopped allowing outside power/culture /social taboos/approval
- act as barriers to us taking responsibility?
Will we be the ones who walked with love and grace and gratitude?

everything changes
when does the balance shift?

the rulers who hold power with a violent fist
are hitting  back with renewed vigour
for they have everything to loose

and their only tool is our fear

today is winter solstice
we had the first fire
now the days grow longer the sun stronger

a new turn in the spiraling of time
old stories – new stories
one day we all will be the ancestors.