it's a mystery.

we watched shakespeare in love the other night. hadn't seen it in so long that i'd forgotten one of my favorite lines, "it's a mystery..."
everything is. it just is. even the genius of tom stoppard and marc norman working with shakespeare and capturing every bit of glorious and bawdy and romantic feeling of the bard and showing what bards they are themselves. they capture it all. the huge giant messy mystery of life!

in the full version of the oxford english dictionary there are two whole pages of a BIG book dedicated to the word.
the definitions at the outset are divided into two categories. theological and non theological. to me they are saying virtually the same thing and the not theological is more appealing so that's where i'm going...

"a hidden or secret thing; a matter unexplained or inexplicable;something beyond human comprehension. a riddle. or enigma."

and with that goes the feeling. for me it's a feeling of tremendous expansion almost as if my consciousness can actually have a party because it has found a place that my small little brain cannot explain. can't reduce to the flat, hard place of logic.

lots of things can trick me into remembering we are all from this giant mystery. and there are places on the planet that bring me right to this place. right into the mystery. two of them have been built by humans to explore this very idea. whole cities dedicated to exploring the mystery. or that's what we imagine. we don't really know because, well you know, it's a mystery...
we get to look at images or actually go to places on the earth like this and feel it. and then carry that home with us and for me everyday i try to remember that place. and more than that i try to feel it. let it take me, that crack in the sky that lets me get between here and there. where it seems the deepest creativity falls from. where real love abides. where we are from. who we are. that's what i feel.

above are two of these places. Teotihuacan in Mexico. the second largest pyramids in the world and Machu Pichu, in Peru. the last image is putacuse (yikes sorry about the spelling) the happy mountain. the mountain of joy. she is the mother and there is a little doorway in the side of her that if you let your brain slip will open for you and you can fly right out into the vast vast mystery. lovely....

The Way of the Heron.

a few weeks ago my beloved friend Emily came to herondale farm from her home in teotichuacan mexico to co facilitate with me a workshop focusing on creativity. (check out her amazing blog,www.livingwithpyramids.blogspot.com), this workshop led us deep into the mystery of transformation and creativity. it was big magic. and like all things magical, the energy began swirling days before emily even arrived. the workshop centered around the grace and peacefulness of the heron spirit. days after the workshop i found this passage in a book called, Native New Yorkers:

"the Lenape, as part of the Algonquin world, were inheritors of what Eunice Bauman Nelson, an elder of the Penobscot tribe has called 'The Way of the Heron.' in the lenape the translation would be Aaney Talika. It is the way of the peacemaker, and it is a great tradition through out the Algonquin world.... the Lenape were the Grandfathers, the elder statesmen of the realm."
Evan T. Pritchard
Native New Yorkers. the legacy of the algonquin people of new york.

so it seems the land once again spoke to us. leading us deep into our own hearts and deep into the heart of this place. and perhaps we have all been called to "the way of the peace maker."

THE ANGEL OAK

I grew up in the south, South Carolina for the most part, but we were wanderers across that state. back and forth from Columbia to Bennetsville we roamed. but for five blissful years we settled in Charleston and that place buried itself under my skin, left its imprint permanently. I loved that place so much it still pulls me. The smell of the marsh. The hot wet air. The pelicans loping across the sky. And a 1,500 year old tree called the Angel Oak out on John’s Island. A few years ago I guess I just needed to answer that pull and so I began writing out the memory. It turned into to fiction holding all the feelings of that place.
I wrote about two ghosts who were bound up with each other on earth and then stayed bound up when they turned to spirit and a tree called the Angel Oak.
Here is a little snippet from that story.


"I went down in the Valley one day, I heard the angel singing."
Inez held Hopes hand, singing as she wove with her through the tree’s arcing limbs, the two wraiths falling like sunlight through the leaves of the Angel Oak. Hope was frightened. She had never bargained on flying being part of her job description. She wondered how Inez had mastered this flying floating thing as if she’d always known that one day she would soar. Inez ignored her protestations and showed her where to alight, high in the tree, where the view was good.

I don’t like heights, Hope said.
The tallest tree in paradise, the Christians call the tree of life, Inez sang. And then she turned to Hope. Come on, sing with me, she said. Sunday’s dawning soon.
We used to come here all the time, Inez. I love this tree, is this why you brought me here?
Just sing.
I don’t know this song.
The spirits will come.
Spirits?
Inez giggled a wheezy sound through her nose.
Spirit’s other than the two we be.
And when she saw the confusion on Hopes face she added.
If you hadda looked closely if you ever came on Saturday night you would have seen Angels, floating brightly above the water, carrying spirits along on their wings, bringing them back to earth, back to the tree, to sing. Ain’t you never seen them?
No I don’t believe I ever saw that, Inez. Hope smiled a knowing smile. A smirk really.
You don’t believe me?
I didn’t say that.
Humph. Well just wait. You’ll see.
Shadows began flitting along the bent boughs. Shadows arriving and singing songs so sad the wind began to moan. And there were hundreds of them materializing from shadow to shape until finally the Angel Oak was entirely covered with spirits. Their voices rang across the sky, hard to hear, easily mistaken for the wind, or birds or some strange whirring insects that rattled just before dawn. They sang all the songs at once. Nobody knows the trouble I seen. Nobody knows my sorrow, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, You got to walk that lonesome valley, Swing low sweet chariot, there is a balm in Gilead, Wade in the water,. Roll over Jordon. I’m going home all swelling from the python like branches of the ancient tree..
Who are these people? Hope whispered.
My ancestors.
Have they always come here?
Yes, for a long long time.
Why could I never see them before?
Were you looking?
I don’t guess I was.
You got to look to the past to remember your future, Inez said.
Hope began to quake.
I don’t wanna be left behind when the saints go marching in.
A small girl fluttered down and settled next to Hope. She clutched onto Hope’s arm and looked up at her, her brown eyes wide and sad.
Where’s my Mama at? she said.
I don’t know sugar. Hope turned to Inez, What is this child doing here by herself?
Where’s her mother?
Inez shrugged and began to clap her hands with the others as they sang.
The tallest tree in Paradise, the Christians call the tree of life.
Well don’t you worry, Hope said to the child, you stay with me until we find your mama.
She can’t do that, Inez said. You’re too late.
What do you mean?
Just then, a woman, alive on the earth, wandered under the tree and stood with her neck craned, peering up into the branches draped with spirits and Spanish moss.
Isn’t that the bird woman? Hope whispered.
Yes, Althea can see us. Not many can. She has the call. Inez waved.
Turkey buzzard on its way, someone shouted down to Althea.
Althea nodded her head. Too bad, she muttered and wandered away.
What’s that mean?
Inez just tsked her teeth and shook her head. Mm-mm-mm. She said. while the others sang that Paul and Silas bound in jail sing God’s praise both night and day. hallelujah...

-from I Heard The Angel Singing. Iva Peele


a few weeks ago i took my youngest son to Charleston. we drove out to see the Angel Oak. He was as mesmerized as i've spent a lifetime being. The ancient old tree still growing and holding up our memories for 1500 years has seen more than any than we can imagine. A thousand years before the Europeans came to this place and brought with them people they’d stolen from Africa, this tree was watching the original people go about their lives. Century after century it’s been aborbing it all. all the secrets and mysteries of this place held inside it's trunk and stretched out limbs...

teepee

may

last year around this time i wrote about my favorite tree. a tree that signals the start of spring and the bursting forth of life.
this year an angel hovered under the white blossoms at sunset.

what my friend Roberto said.

"what's going on at this farm, what we are doing here, is going to amaze us because the earth, too, feels alone. the earth feels the separation from us as keenly as we feel loneliness."
-Roberto Luna

and now we are all, Jerry, Andy, roberto and i, along with the white family, we are all making a conscious concerted effort to return our full attention here and already it feels different.

we are returning to her. more deeply even than raising animals and farming. we are all talking with her and sending blessings every day. we have built a medicine wheel and made offerings and are listening to her... a give and take...

and as a result, there is a kind of opening.
a kind of conversation back and forth, you can hear the whispers under the leaves rustling. little flashes of light here and there in the woods as if the woods are revealing their dreaming
it is a love affair...


and after all my resisting i begin to understand that somehow i belong here. i was born only 15 miles from here and my ancestors farmed only twenty miles from here over a hundred years ago. so although i grew up in the south and consider that slow warm place my roots perhaps there are roots here i had never considered.
have i found my way home?
how mysterious.

as i wrote these words a red tailed hawk flew close to the window.

how fitting to contemplate on a blustery easter sunday.
a new beginning.


te amos te amos most intriguing life.

xx

Dreaming summer and The Book of Dreams

THE Book of Dreams is my artist statement for this pinhole portfolio, many of the images are here in my blog so it seems appropriate to post. i'm also putting it here today for Andy. he will understand why i think... certainly the land speaks to him often and more intricately than it speaks to me because he spends his life working with it, growing beautiful things...
so keep dreaming Andy. You are awesome and amazing!!
xx
iva

The Book of Dreams
Artist Statement
I live on a farm in a remote pocket of New York’s Hudson valley. I wander the fields for hours and often for as many hours there is no human conversation. At first, I believed myself to be alone. I believed myself to be lonely. In fact I often used to find myself shouting out to the Drowned Land Swamp.

“I am lonely. I am lonely.”

And much to my surprise the swamp had a reply.

“ Stop. Look. Listen. Learn the summer. Learn the winter. Underneath the silence you will hear the land humming quietly. We are dreaming here under the snow. Under the saw grass and cattails. We are dreaming here. Come back to these places over and over again and we will teach you to dream with us.”

And so this is what I do. I dream this place. There are moments of great joy. Great beauty and then, inexplicably, there will be a sudden rush of overwhelming fear. It is not rational. It is not an intellectual exercise. It is a dreaming between the beating of my heart and the sudden flight of the heron loping overhead. It is a dreaming with some unfathomable creatures. Wearing wings. Wearing masks and befriending crows. They whisper to me and I am a child again. Unfettered and free.

I set up my camera. Literally a large format wooden box with a pinhole for a lens. I slip in a sheet of film and begin to dance the dreams. The dreams of a place. Light falls onto the film. The film drinks the light and images form and the pictures are made. I am never entirely sure what pictures will come. I print the images and the dance continues. When another person views the images they become part of the dream . Their own dream in their own place.
1500 years ago in Mexico the Toltec people talked of dreaming heaven on earth. It was the human job to realign our hearts with God by dreaming heaven here. An anonymous Aztec poet later wrote
"These Toltec’s were very wise,
It was their custom to converse with their own hearts….
They created a whole system,
The book of dreams…"

This work is my Book of Dreams.





today it is cold and there is snow. it is april but winter is holding on tight. it takes a fierce determination on my part, to keep listening and working with a place when it snows in april, but i learned with my heart in peru that even if we cannot see the sun, it is always there, in the heavens and in our hearts because we are of it. we are of the earth and of the sun and of the cosmos, the great mystery, we are it... and so now while the snow is still coming down, and i live in this place on earth in my human body, i am dreaming summer... this dreaming began two days ago when the sun actually came out from behind the gray and brought with it a hint of warmth. a taste of things to come. the birds burst into a delirium of song. I stayed outside as long as i could, i hauled my camera out with me. and i am learning, i am learning, slowly but still learning, to live with a place, no matter what...

and soon my beloved crab apple tree will be bursting with raucous blooms. in the meantime, my angel and i are dreaming dreaming dreaming summer....


xx