a placenta among friends
I found this morning a bit cold when I rose from bed; autumn, they say dismissively. It seemed logical then that I should add a new page to this blog-thingie of mine: "Contests, Awards and Deadlines" — under the idea that we all need awards and if other people are as bad as I am in remembering when various deadlines are due then a check-list of sorts will help someone, somewhere. I also submitted three sonnets to the 12th annual Howard Nemerov Sonnet Contest, as well. You might think all I do is write villanelles in my free time, but I spent the year of 2004 doing little else than write sonnets. And really, to win $1000 for one of your own sonnets? That would be wonderful. In the meanwhile, here is today's pick for poetry magazines to submit your work to and keep an eye on:
Rainbow Curve, a journal of poetry and fiction, seeks submissions for Issue #8 (Spring 2006). Sample copy: $7 (includes postage). Send submissions or guideline requests with SASE to Julianne Bonnet and Daphne Young, Editors, Rainbow Curve, P.O. Box 93206, Las Vegas, NV 89193-3206.
Yesterday began splendidly, as many splendid days do, with brunch. What I liked the most about brunch was there was a steady flow of fresh coffee. I know its a diuretic, but I love it so. Then it moved slowly into the afternoon and I attended a placentas burial ceremony.
The Genesee Neighborhood Co-Op in Lansing has, among other things, a social garden plot at the end of one of their cul-de-sacs. What was once several families backyards has now been turned into a communal courtyard/ common space. It looks rather nice and now has in addition two newly planted, placentally-enriched apple tree saplings as well.
Two of Shelby's friends had babies last year and they kept their placentas in their freezers until they felt it was time to hold a "placenta burial ceremony" in honor of their children. The placentas in question had been placed in large mixing bowls and looked like so much raw meat I had a small flashback to a sweat lodge ceremony I attended in the shadow of Mt. Charleston1 where the elders passed around a bowl of raw meat and blackberries to share in after a seriously hot sweat with eighteen Grandfathers2. That certain red-wet meatness sitting in its own juices found only in mammal flesh; I recall looking down at the bowl and thinking: "If I eat this everything will change — everything." The sweat-lodge meat-and-berries mixture, that is, not the placentas.
It was a boundless day, full of small clouds and leaves just starting to change when we sang a couple of home-made songs and lowered the placentas, one to each baby apple tree, into the ground. We all scooped a cup-full of fresh earth to help bury them. Now these children will be forever linked to this semi-ruined industrial town, this geography of wastelands, this sprawl of suburban hieroglyphs. Not so bad, when you think of it. My parents did something similar with my own placenta. They drove out into the wild foothills of Los Angeles and hung my placenta in a tree that looked as if it would last for another five hundred years. That was 1970, when there still were wild foothills. It is strange to think that at the hungry i The Kingston Trio could have introduced their song "South Coast" talking about mountain lions and everyone knew that they were still prowling about; "but the lion still rules the barranca/ and a man there is always alone." I have no wish to go hunting for that tree, that part of the world; it was probably chopped down decades ago and paved over. I am probably now spiritually bound to a mini-mall or 7-11. Mapping of nowhere, hieroglyphs of suburban sprawl, the navigation of our wastelands, indeed.
- The Southern Utes consider Mt. Charleston that can be seen everywhere in Las Vegas, NV, the holy center of the world. As a gesture of friendliness, reciprocity, tutelage several elders hosted a monthly "open" sweat lodge for those of use who aren't Ute to share in a sacred experience. One glance at the mountain, however, and you see it is a crime against nature that the center of the world has track homes and smog surrounding it everywhere [back]
- A "Grandfather" is a large stone heated white hot and placed in the fire-pit in the center of the lodge. Since stones are sacred, the leader of that day's sweat lodge goes out in the pre-dawn light and finds two dozen or so Grandfathers that wish to participate in that afternoon's sweat. Once everyone is in and the lodge flap secured, it is pitch black inside. You sit shoulder to shoulder with nearly naked strangers who are now friends for that short period. The only light is the crackling of stones, the only sound is our chanting and singing and the hiss as water is added to the Grandfathers. Even in the foothill of Mt. Charleston, 100 degrees outside is still 100 degrees. Added to that five Grandfathers and your fellow sweat lodge companions' body heat and you find yourself in a "sweating freely" heat. Eighteen Grandfathers and my lungs rip and burn, I am calling out to long dead ancestors I know nothing about and life is about as glorious as one could wish. [back]