University of Nebraska Press Blog
Showing posts with label We Who Walk the Seven Ways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label We Who Walk the Seven Ways. Show all posts
A Time to Sow
Today, tomorrow and the day after that are not scheduled. At first, my tired body takes over completely. My mind begins to drift, to play, to turn over like gentle careless rolls, like those lazy waves on the beach.
"After a lifetime of giving, I was finally beginning to figure out how to become open and receive. The lessons came in bits and pieces from numerous friends. From the story I heard about a rabbi who said that all of the experiences, teachings and gifts offered to us in our earlier years, the ones we were not yet ready to receive, were sitting near our heart, waiting for our heart to break, and let them in.
I needed to allow vulnerability and heartbreak to pierce me in order to let the light in, to let the dark in, and within the mix came joy.
I learned from the words of a Mexican actor and activist in Mexico who said, in order for her to manage all the poverty and injustice she sees, she must meditate, otherwise she would not be able to stay sane and cope with it. She said in meditation, she gave thanks for her pain and sensitivity and for realizing what goes on. And if she didn't feel the pain, it would mean she didn't care, and was beginning to harden. Her words guided me. I'd much rather feel pain, sorrow and worry than be indifferent.
I couldn’t always volunteer to do as much as I'd like or to bring forth needed change in the world, but I was aware, deeply aware, and I cared. I began giving myself a few quiet minutes each day to give thanks for my awareness.
There was a time when I didn’t know how to feed my spirit and ended up muffling it with demands and distractions and staying busy, instead of stilling the center.
I tossed out my to-do list. Canceled unnecessary appointments and gave myself more quiet hours each week to be silent and listen within.
At the end of each workday, instead of trying to get more and more done, I sat outside in the twilight watching the sky and the light change from day to night. The wind came up and the chilly air embraced me. In the light of the stars and the moon penetrating the night, I began addressing my fears and one after the other I tackled them.
Each phase of the moon, the crescent of first quarter, to the almost full three-quarter moon called me and I saw how each phase lights up the earth in a different way, her effect on the waters, and my emotions, and the way she lights up the shadow side of life.
In Native cultures the moons do not follow today’s 12-month calendar. Instead, there are 13 moons and they follow the seasons. A full moon two days after the equinox, was related to change, the influence of the thirteenth moon and the way she heralds change, bringing times of transition and new opportunity. In the daylight dragonflies came and hovered over the pond."
An excerpt from We Who Walk the Seven Ways
Thank you to my readers. We Who Walk the Seven Ways is not only about me. It’s also about the people whose lives are braided with mine, defining it, and shaping me. My story is told as I’m nearing seventy, in 2023, looking back over three decades at the friendships with the elder Native women who informed, instructed and shaped me into the woman I am today.
My readers are becoming part of my story, woven and braided within the circle. Reader insight, thoughtful questions, and stories shared are bringing me to a powerful depth, for which I am grateful. I’m ever thankful for readers who have enjoyed my book and care enough to offer ratings and write reviews. In addition to the heartfelt gratitude to readers who find a deep connection to my story and writing, I also have an appreciation for those who challenge my writing voice. I might not agree with the writing, tone, structure and style they are hoping to find, yet it offers an opportunity for those readers to be seen. Five stars to my readers. Thank you for inviting me in.
Thank you to the University of Nebraska Press for publishing my memoir, the many Book Clubs who have selected my book, Poets & Writers magazine for inviting me to take part in the Ten Questions interview, and Foreword Reviews for a five-star rating. Many thanks also to numerous bookstores for shelving We Who Walk the Seven Ways and restocking.
I thank my many teachers from the many directions, in all their many forms, who helped my journey begin, and are helping to bring it home.
Reader support continues to arrive in unexpected ways. I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to everyone who is helping with this book. You know who you are, and of the role you have played. You are making my life and story rich and I tenderly thank you.
Memoir, Migration and This Wilderness in My Blood
My bags were packed and the boxes were stacked. We were downsizing and moving from the city where we lived for forty-three years. We didn’t have a new house to move into, not yet. While we searched for another home we would live in a 26-foot travel trailer on loan to us and parked on land a family member owns in the redwoods in Northern California.
The morning our belongings were loaded into the truck, I walked through the empty house thanking the space, saying goodbye to the home that sheltered my family for three decades. And before I got into my car to make the long drive, I checked my email. The editor at the University of Nebraska Press, sent an email saying she liked the manuscript for my new memoir, We Who Walk the Seven Ways. They were interested in publishing, and asked for revisions.
Oh, for joy. Happiness. And crazy-making. Take on the task of revising my book manuscript when I was in the process of uprooting my life?
Time driving alone in the car settled my thoughts.
When I arrived at sunset I was filled with calm, strength, trust.
The trailer was parked by the barn, in a meadow, near the house where my grandkids, daughter and son-in-law live, with other homes nearby. Still, it was more off grid than I expected.
Multiple times each day I walked uphill to the house, downhill to the car, up again with groceries, drinking water, to do laundry, take a shower at our daughter’s place. We didn’t have trailer hookups and needed to be mindful of gray and black water waste. But we had electricity, internet, plenty of cold well water running from the tap. I gained respect for my privileges and felt positive I would become a better person, and I have.
Every day and most nights are bookended with writing. Writing backed against hiking hills with my grandkids and the dogs, or house hunting. I reached wide to be tender, loving, with my husband, and my family. When I write, I go deep. It’s not easy to move between my mind-world and the outer world.
After a day of writing my daughter’s kitchen is the place to be. Not all of our meals are complicated. Yet the days when we cook from scratch, gives us time to focus on gratitude. The dogs are at our feet, watchful, my grandkids help chop, mix, stir, then dash off, lost in play, then return to the kitchen. We clear the day’s clutter off the table, sit down and savor every bite.
Some people sit and meditate in silence. Others climb Kilimanjaro. Along with my 2-mile morning walk in the redwoods, I hiked to and from the trailer often. When we first arrived, the ground was muddy with rain water. Soon yellow, white and purple flowers dotted the earth and my footsteps formed a path. The flower season was short, the weather warmed. Green foxtails appeared, and quickly dried, sticking in my socks. At first, I grumbled about daily supply hikes in the rain or heat, my arms loaded, and then it became my mediation. I enjoyed the journey, paying attention to the earth, sky. Walking mindfully, stepping carefully.
I am thankful for love and shelter, but we are too crowded in the trailer. We brought too much stuff and it's packed into a too small space. I'd planned to bring only what we needed into the trailer. But instead we included all of the things we "might need" but never did need. My friend Stacy referred to this as a “soul polishing” experience. On my low days I cling to her beautiful words. Stripping off the old expectations, shedding, growing, reaching. I look up and see the trees, the beautiful trees all around me.
Eventually we found a tiny place near the ocean, and for the last few days we lived in the trailer, I worked on my memoir.
On my last day writing in the trailer, I opened the window wide. The wind played in the trees and the air was heavy with the scent of mountains and earth. I had the window open to keep me company. I was lonely.
I love being with the people I love, and I am also happy alone, and I am never lonely. Yet for the past week I felt like poor me, I must sit down all alone and write.
Then I started thinking about how the characters in my favorite books are my friends. Relationships I remember long after I finish reading the book. My most loved books leave me feeling the author invited me over for a long chat at her kitchen table. I favor memoirs so intimate I feel myself leaning over the shoulder of the writer, feeling her thoughts and sneaking into her life.
Thinking about the characters in my favorite books opened the window wider for me, and I found the root cause of my loneliness. With revisions nearly completed, already I missed the characters in my memoir.
While writing I had intimate chats, wandering back over time with Marie, Ann, Mary Lou and Irene. Dancing with Irene long after the moon was full, wearing moccasins beaded in colors of sunrise, clouds and blue skies, her buckskin dress swaying. Irene danced the powwow competitions, Women’s Buckskin style, Northern, in the Golden Age category. At seventy-five with her tight jeans, blue-black hair and flirty personality, Irene reminded me so much of my aunt Jo, I had to keep reminding myself that she wasn’t my aunt Josephine.
I missed the flow of these women, the ones with the grandmother faces, walking the seven ways. How they made me laugh, and told me the truth even when it was hard for me to listen. While writing, I brought them all back, made them come alive again. The women who over three decades, lifted me from grief, instructed me in living, and showed me how to age from youth into beauty.
First published in Women Writers, Women's Books
Copyright © 2023. Terra Trevor. All rights reserved.
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We Who Walk the Seven Ways is Terra Trevor’s memoir about seeking healing and finding belonging. After she endured a difficult loss, a circle of Native women elders embraced and guided Trevor (mixed-blood Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca, and German) through the seven cycles of life in Indigenous ways. Over three decades, these women lifted her from grief, instructed her in living, and showed her how to age from youth into beauty.
With tender honesty, Trevor explores how every ending is always a beginning. Her reflections on the deep power of women’s friendship, losing a child, reconciling complicated roots, and finding richness in every stage of life show that being an American Indian with a complex lineage is not about being part something, but about being part of something.
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“Terra Trevor’s memoir is a gentle invitation to journey with her across decades, an invitation to notice with her as she seeks healing and finds belonging. There were phrases and sentences I underlined, places where I wept, passages that will remain with me as they drew me to insights I’d previously struggled to name. I closed the final pages and knew that in reading this book, I had been the recipient of a generous and much-needed gift. While I can certainly finish a book in a day, I chose to move slowly through this one, letting each idea, each paragraph, each reflection gently spill over me, allowing the pages to alter me in some way.” —Patrice Gopo, author of Autumn Song: Essays on Absence
