One More Chance

Ted Reads One More Chance

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It was May 2020, a couple of months after COVID 19 had launched, and was successfully orbiting the earth. We were in the lockdown, shutdown, lock-in, lock-out, isolation phase of that adventure. Take a moment or two to reflect on how those times were for you.  It will help set the mood for what is to come here.

Researchers are suggesting that it changed all of us. Permanently, cognitively, and I would guess emotionally and spiritually whether we were personally caught by the instantly, permanently recognizable, prickly curse, or not.

A long-time friend called out of the blue on one of those days and reminded me that he had a vacant farm and renewed his invitation to come out and walk amongst one of nature’s seven-hundred-acre masterpieces. A farm that he owned. Anytime I wanted. No people. I could ‘legally,’ according to the COVID rules, safely go there.

This isn’t a farm that you can picture, unless you are familiar with the topography of middle Tennessee. Open meadows, rolling hills, vast vistas, dense forests, ponds, waterfalls, streams, fossils, coral, abundant wildlife, and unbelievable levels of quiet. State Park quality.

He didn’t need to offer a second time after having been locked down so long. As quickly as possible, Margie and I loaded up the car and set about to enjoy this fabulous gem, ‘knowing,’ in the back of my mind, that this would be just a brief encounter with “her...”  More about that later. 

He did caution me to “Not fall in love with the place.”  I was imagining he had other plans that did not include people like me wandering all over the landscape. It was clear that the opportunity was of limited duration. I would have this small window of time to take advantage of such generosity. A few weeks, or a couple of months and then it would all go away. And I was extraordinarily grateful.

We arrived at the farm, and as we typically do, we split up, to rejoin each other later. We spent several hours of a perfect spring afternoon in this natural world paradise. Many songs and poems would eventually be inspired by that place. It is that kind of magical place.

The time we had allotted ourselves to wander-about, was up. As I was walking down one of the many paths back to the car, this huge booming voice yelled “YOU NEED TO BE HERE!!!!!  It sounded like my grandmother’s voice, though it wasn’t her kind, nurturing and soft one.

This was a boomer of a message. It shocked me. It stopped me dead still in my tracks. It felt like a demand. I turned around to see who had yelled at me. No one was there. It literally caught me up short.

My entire life has been full of those moments when a voice from another plane seems to order me to do something. I am not sure that this voice I speak of is special. I believe we all have one. Sometimes it’s just a whisper, a gentle tap on the shoulder. Other times a bull horn. Apparently in this case this voice had to be loud and big just to get me to listen. It was a weird message. Not “It would be really cool to come back, or “It would be fun to come visit again.”  It was a demand, a command.

I have learned to listen to it. In this case, as in many of those moments, I had no idea what it meant, what I was supposed to do with the message. It wasn’t my land; my friend had just been kind and was offering me a chance to get out of town for a bit.

There is no water, except for the ponds and streams. No electricity. No toilet facilities. No shelter. 50 miles away from pretty much anywhere. WAAAAY out in the country nestled in a little valley that time seemed to have forgotten, accessible only by winding small country roads.  Getting there meant crossing streams with no bridges.

Not a house in that valley younger than a hundred. Nothing except a farm that had been resting, laying fallow for 25 years. Nothing, as it turned out, was actually everything. It wasn’t logical, but I did hear that voice. I have learned not to mess with the message but listen.

Within a few short months, I had a new “office” there. I was planning workshops out there. I was meeting with clients out there. My family was having glorious adventures out there. Friends joined me out there. I ended up naming all the ponds and streams after my family and friends. Margie later named it the “Green Cathedral.” And it was exactly that.

An ancient cathedral as magnificent as any to be found in Europe. No walls, no ceiling, no doors, but with all the magnificence of the finest.

lf, I told you about all the’ serendipitous’ things that allowed this to happen, it would be hard for you to believe and make this missive into a book. Looking back on all of it, it is hard for me to believe.

Long story short, the farm became the place where I “worked.” Over the next five years hundreds of people joined me there. It became a place where I met clients one-on-one to do the work I do. AND my own private refuge. It became one of those few places where I thought, “If I died here, it would be perfect.” 

There is a part of the farm where a huge flat rock rests at the bottom of a waterfall. The pooled water gently flows around and under that slab of stone. That became my “office.”  When the sun was out, sunbeams bounced off the water and lit up the cliff next to the waterfall creating a sparkly light show, as the Christmas twinkling lights do, or better yet, the rotating sparkly globe of a dance hall.

I would go to the farm 2,3,4 times a week over the next few years. Every season would find me there, in my unrivaled office. I actually slept there (in my office) a few nights. More than one person said, “I feel so much better just by being here.”  Nature as healer.

Fast forward five years to June of this year. For a number of reasons, I had to give up using the farm. Health issues, distance issues, expenses, etc. I traveled back to the farm, for one last hurrah. This was to be the last program. The last time I would be using the farm, the Green Cathedral.

I arrived a few days early to say my own goodbyes, before all the people came, to the place that had saved my sanity, my life and fed my soul. My flat stone office. The gentle waterfalls. The birds, flowers, deer, the mourning doves, coyotes, hawks, wild turkeys, turkey vultures, crows, the frogs and fish, and great blue herons, the fox, armadillos, the abandoned graveyard, the old ‘still’ pipe coming out of the spring. The wild blackberries, and the butterflies. Oh, the butterflies. Nights sleeping with the frogs. In my little ‘pod.’  Waking up in the morning to a snake curled up right beside me. That is where I met with people to do our work together.

The following is an experience and some words that came to me the last time I sat beside the waterfall. I just wrote them down as they came to me. Sometimes that happens. It is me speaking with that voice of my Grandmother that I heard on my first visit to the farm.

One More Chance

Grandmother, I almost didn’t have the chance.

to sit, wander and wonder, with you this one last time.

But here I am, now, which means I got the chance.

Death came visiting and allowed me to finish my affairs

One more chance to marvel of and be with you

Sitting beside the water’s slow cascade,

it is as if I can hear and see the blood coursing through your heart

You, Grandmother, whispering in a voice, older than memory,

insisting on my attention, I have come back to you

in the only way I could—

You, Grandmother

Who first spoke to me those years ago.

who would not let me mindlessly pass by

I’m sharing with you my final message.

You’ve invited me to sit on your lap

On the land, next to the falling waters, holding me

as if I, and so many others

had always belonged,

You, Grandmother, asked me to stay—

As you witnessed and helped me hold the divine creation,

In human form,

Listening with me to their voices,

the marveling the wonder of their sacred tears

watching the merge with the spray

of your holy waters   

In the circle of your arms,

in the hush between droplets

with all the wild ones watching on

we are illuminated by your sparkling lights.

You, Grandmother, witnessing how

I gave my best

to love those who came,

Mirroring, I trust in the same ways you loved me.

Patiently, wordlessly,  

sacredly

reminding me that each story is worth hearing again and again.

Because though familiar, if I listened carefully, it was never the same

Thank you, Grandmother, for seeing me,

for calling me, asking me

not to hurry past,

because you knew what I needed most

Thank you, Grandmother,

for giving me a chance to feel your presence

one more time to sit where the water meets the stone,

and the spirit meets the bone.