John Wiercioch
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Reflections on the Art of Living

Through A Window

10/25/2019

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​Through a Window

Dusk in the Andes
En route to our lodging
after a full day 
full of stunning views 
at Machupicchu
that make your heart soar
and ground your soul.
Our train rolls through
this mountain valley
tracing an ancient path
beside the Urubamba River, 
tall shoulders of steep cliffs 
hugging either side.

The cars rocking gently to and fro
soft Peruvian music mingles 
with soft conversations. 
The unfocused mind 
pulled by a glance
out the window, 
spies a rusty steel bridge
painted white long ago,
that calmly spans the 
rumbling rushing waters. 
Old lamps on the trestles 
cast their golden glow quietly
in the misty haze of the evening.

A father on the far side, looks on 
lovingly as his young daughter
in a white pressed dress with lace, 
skips lightly as a thistle seed
in the breeze, 
across the solid iron,
her rhythmic steps 
in perfect pace 
with our swaying cars.
We careen toward and then
beyond the bridge, 
enveloped within the surreal, 
strangely comforting dynamics. 
Then padre e hija fade; so too 
the bridge, the river, and the cliffs
all swallowed by darkness
as we flow forward
into the night.
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The Apo, Pachamama, & Eduardo

10/25/2019

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This morning the mountains nearby are wearing a shawl of mist, and we are preparing to head back to Cusco then Lima then home. Although it is with some sadness to depart, I feel so fortunate to have made this trip and to be leaving new friends here, who I am eager to see on my return. 


Yesterday I met Eduardo, a shaman of Inca lineage and heritage. His visit offered us an opportunity share in a Coca leaf ceremonial reading at our lodge. The group aspect was fascinating as he honored Pachamama at the start and closing. Community is very important to these traditions, as is honoring the earth and the natural elements. He lives within a community the traditional manner without electricity and modern conveniences (By choice—NGO have offered), at an altitude of near 16,000 feet! 


We are comfortably nestled in a valley here at about 9,000 feet. The mountain ranges command the landscape and such river valleys with small plains dot the geography and mark locations where most people have settled. Watching the clouds float by in the blue skies yesterday, we could literally see them being divided by the mountains as they passed overhead. It is easy to see how the powers of the natural elements would evolve into mythologies of the region. Such symbolism is not childish; for certain there’s a deep appreciation and understanding of how these ecosystems work together and each component is interwoven, from which our more “scientifically driven” culture could learn.


We took turns privately engaging with him, receiving a general reading or invited to ask specific questions we might have. It was very interesting. I asked guidance about my career and personal path, as well as personal relationships. I was a bit surprised by the responses and it will be interesting to see how my life plays forward. We  shared a lunch with our unpretentious guests, and learned about their families and children. Prompted by a great question from one in our group, even gained insight into our shared mischievous childhoods. Juan Carlos told a tale of how he had once collected lizards in his pockets as a boy and tried to hide this fact from his mother on returning into his home. Eduardo confided he had tied together then shoelaces of some intoxicated adults who had been celebrating and fallen asleep. Following the ceremonies each enjoyed partaking in an offer of chocolate and some tequila from some in our group. Through and through these are down to earth people who laugh, live, and love with all their hearts. 


At the closing of the ceremony Eduardo and his assistant Juan Carlos pulled out a few dozen small tokens, symbolic and actual, that acted as representative offerings. Intermixed with this, one by one we each presented coca leaves we had chosen earlier. He carefully consciously blessed these and each addition of his offerings with words, breath, chants/prayers and intention and steadily built a small beautiful sculptural assemblage. We all received a blessing separately and a cleansing of “bad energies” — who doesn’t need that? — and then a final communal send off. 


I was wonderful to meet them and participate. As a “take away” we were advised to rise joyful that we were alive, share that joy with others and the earth, and do everything with a conscious and sincere heart. Of course this meshed perfectly with the path I have been following for the last several years. Eduardo was most delighted to accept my offering of a golden shafted feather from my hat from a Flicker, a native Virginian bird, and add it to his own chapeau. I’m honored and happy to have a new “brother” in the Andes. 
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Reflecting on Joy in the Majestic Andes of Peru

10/22/2019

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There’s something about this region that makes one reflective. Perhaps it’s the immensity and grandeur of the landscape: the huge glorious mountains, the expansive plains, the rushing rivers, the dramatically shifting weather. As there are few cities, much of the region offers incredible views of billions of stars at night. These immersive sensations combine to make one aware of our tiny place on this planet and in the Big Scheme. 


Through dozens of neighborhood bench chats I was fortunate to get to know a complex yet generous, kind soul in our local village in Roanoke, James Tarpley. Known as the Angel of Grandin Village, he transitioned a few days ago. He was much loved and will be missed by many. He was well known for his simple acts of helpfulness in our neighborhood. His twinkly eyes were nestled within a wrinkled walnut-brown face that could be counted on to bloom into a wry smile, or erupt into a burst of his familiar resounding laughter that routinely transformed hundreds of us on a daily basis. For me he’s a perfect example that while “small,” we are not insignificant; since we are a communal species and also conscious, we have the opportunity to have some degree of affect upon each other and our world. Though seemingly minor, our exponentially rippling effect is incalculable. Certainly, as we have seen in positive and negative ways, this can be conspicuous when human energies are pooled, especially in our fragile, interwoven world. 


This Peruvian setting, known as the Sacred Valley by the indigenous cultures, seems to encourage being reflective. I can’t help but feel the energies of “apo” the spirits of land and especially the mountains which dominate one’s horizon—in many places  they literally surround one like protective paternal gods and goddess. It’s easy to grasp how the mythologies of the region evolved and took on the forms they did. I use the word mythology not as a sleight nor ‘falsehood” (Christian spiritual traditions are a mythology to me as well) but rather use the word myth to describe a way a people or culture understands, expresses, articulates, or make sense of their place in the universe. 


There are many paths to deepening our wisdom and gaining insights about life. A yoga practice is one. Other spiritual traditions, or less overtly, assisting those in need, tending to animals or the earth, doing personal meditation, or taking a walk in the woods may all empower our purpose. Whether practiced today, or back hundreds of years in the Inca era, or in ancient times, creating a painting, building a stone wall, or spinning wool into yarn can all be centering activities. The forms are varied but to me the essence is the same: a wordless sense of fully being in the moment, and an awareness of how we are not independent entities but utterly interconnected energies sharing our brief moment of life. It makes sense to me to make these as joy-filled and beautiful as possible.

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It Looks Like Any Old Alley

10/18/2019

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It looks like any alley in an old neighborhood. 


I walk it all the time. It’s at the back of my yard, the yard of the first house I’ve ever owned on my own. I made it my home 15 years ago after a few years renting, following the end of my marriage. My house is now approaching the century mark, built in 1925, in Wasena neighborhood which this year celebrated its hundredth year. 


I live on a south-facing hillside yet surprisingly there were virtually no trees on this small city lot. I continue to help in the transformation of the place. I’ve terraced the steep front and added a dwarf pear, apricot, and had a few peach trees come and go. A sister gifted me with an 18” dawn redwood that’s planted along the alley, and now 18’. I’ve steadily replaced the front lawn with wildflowers and ever less mowing. I no longer need a gas mower and am able to comply with the city ordinances by selectively weed-eating with a battery-charged tool fueled by the solar panels on my roof. I have a small inground concrete fishpond—apparently from a time when that fad took hold in this hood—it’s cracked and now serving as a bed filled with my plantings


Despite a rocky yard, I love having my hands in the earth. I’ve established several small garden plots that continue to gain more fertile soil. My other sister gave me some ever-bearing raspberry stalks that keep surprising me with more treats. This year, the example of a friend spurred me to add blue berries and two fig trees. The same wise friend taught me purple dead nettle can be harvested and turned into a pesto. I routinely am gifted (admittedly with minimal effort) with harvests of fruits from the trees, tomatoes, beans, and other backyard basics whose bounty varies each year. It’s extraordinarily satisfying to collect some string  beans from the row under the sunflowers at the back of the alley and add them to a meal. I can step out my back porch door and collect kale and sautee it in olive oil with some garlic or add it to a soup right into the winter months. 


I bike and walk the streets of my neighborhood all the time, for errands and pleasure. I’ve watched the homes change color, yards change forms, and residents come and go. I know several neighbors, and certainly there are better opportunities to meet more by walking. 


When you walk the alleys it’s a more intimate, less public experience. Of course it was more interesting both to me and my teenage son, so we used it more than the sidewalks. It’s a bit more unruly, inhabited by more dogs, cats, and wild critters: rabbits, ground hogs, chipmunks, occasionally the thoroughfare of deer passing to nibble on garden “take-outs” as they journey toward the river. I’ve even been told a sheep farmer visiting from Ireland literally “smelled a fox” in my alley. There are wine berries to nibble on, and wild flowers to see, and random encounters with all manner of discarded items. 


I like to walk down the alley behind my house in the early morning (which is what’s in this photo).  If I’m awake, there’s always something to catch one’s eye. More conspicuously, for several years there was an old rusty, windshield-busted VW beetle parked in the small plateau adjacent the alley a few houses down. Birds sometimes perched inside though I never saw a nest. Some folks have beautifully manicured backyards. Other folks have wonderfully wild or semi-abandoned yards. This alley’s uphill along a natural terrace, so in places there’s the longer view in several directions. It offers a slightly better sense of the lay of the land, especially in winter. I can glance southeast and see the old mansion that served as a Knights of Columbus facility half a mile away. Looking southwest I can glimpse sunsets through the trees. 


Although I continue to meet new neighbors and life is ever shifting, after fifteen years of hoofing it, one can come to feel connected to many in the hood. Dog walkers of all shapes and sizes of course have their reliable routines. I’m the odd dogless walker. 


Every home has stories. One neighbor’s uncle and father built his quaint house adorned with a lovely low stone wall around the yard. He never lived elsewhere, right into his passing last year at 73. Down the block a heavyset man who works as a bouncer has a daughter on the spectrum who he has taken care of as a single dad for 15 years. There’s the new couple with two kids in a stroller and two dogs. There’s the spooky house that’s in terrible shape, owned by an aging and two generations resident who no longer lives in it, yet also  can’t bear to let his own history pass to a new family, apparently holding on in hopes of some Hail Mary solution to his conundrum to keep his family legacy alive as he passes. A stroll in one direction takes me past the home of my sweet young neighbor with three kids who tragically lost her equally young husband to illness last year. In a small home the opposite direction, a soft-spoken couple with an ultra-gregarious little dog Abby, constantly feed the birds, (and squirrels, rabbits, deer, and in a way likely everything living creature) in their backyard. Further down I pass the eclectically landscaped home of a couple and recall fun Thanksgiving and holiday dinners we shared there, bittersweetly, because they’re now split and both have relocated. 


As my yard has changed form and color, so has my home. My once white-trimmed, white siding, red brick house with a whitish stucco foundation is now cream-trimmed, with olive green siding, golden bronze brick, and has a deep umber-colored foundation. 


Places have meaning and, I feel, are imbued with and can retain energies. Standing in my backyard I’m flooded with all sorts of memories. I recall collecting bountiful handfuls of veggies and wildflowers, and more slowly watching trees dying or gaining in height, their changes steadily recording the years creeping by. There are images of apricot blossoms surviving the snows and continuing to grow into fruit. A quick glance at old photos confirms people grow too. There’s those mud-filled memories of my son and I slogging away in a trench in the rain, using a winch to restore a failing former garage foundation. That twelve year old boy who dutifully helped me engineer the supports has become a fine young adult and successful engineer. There’s images of nieces and nephews standing beside shrubs that they now tower over. 


There’s specific instances—that winter day wandering my yard after learning my father had died after a long illness. The day I heard my son had achieved and accepted a job offer in another state. The recent spring day etched in my mind when that same flowering apricot in full bloom acted as a backdrop following a pivotal conversation with someone whose sweet interaction with me literally reframed my life. There are dozens of centering moments for me all around here: my toes touching the earth; my hands gently patting sunflower seeds in freshly worked soil; my sweaty arms swinging a pick at stubborn roots; my being simply savoring the mockingbirds’ songs; or hundreds of times walking the streets and alleys simply to reconnect with myself or beyond me to life itself. 


Sure as the dawn rays streaming through the interweaving, tenacious vines on forgiving trees, and the squirrels’ chatter, wrens’ chitter, and crickets’ chirping in this alley, we all play our roles and contribute notes to the local symphony of our communities, and the grand one of life itself. If we’re fortunate, we may occasionally recognize and appreciate the process to which our presence contributes a small but crucial bit of life-affirming energy. 

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Small Fries

10/2/2019

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​Small Fries

Kerplunky splashes as fish bodies flop back into the river after chasing an air-borne fly are among the unique sounds one gets to hear when quietly tubing. Occasionally I spy a few fish underwater, but mostly they see my ecliptic shadow and move away. I realized today I’ve never gotten a good photo of them. This murky image isn’t a great one, you have to kind of peer into it: the little slim bodies, the rocks in the river bed beneath them, the bendy reflection of the trees on the back at the top. But I like the way the forms of these squiggly little guys speeding within the currents seem to have the same “form” as the reflections of light on the water, suggesting the interconnections of it all. Similarly, the image offers a small sense of the abundance of small fry and the cycles of life, and why the herons I’ve come to know often come to dine in these parts.

We’re so fortunate for the work of so many folks (local, regional, state and federal) over the last couple of decades who have essentially restored the Roanoke River (and thousands of others across America) to its wonderfully clean state today. Most days it’s clear enough to see the bottom three or four feet down — in depths beyond that the reflections and shadows at a particular time of day and amount (or lack) of sunlight limits seeing it. Only after rains, in the natural process of sediment being redistributed and stirred up, does the river get cloudy. 

It’s been so heartening that almost every year at some point along the Greenway (which borders this river) I’ve seen an osprey. Like the bald eagle, (which others have seen on this river and in this city!) they feed mostly on fish. Heartening because if the fish are carrying contaminants or poisons within their flesh, these birds, as top-level predators, will accumulate them more than any other animals. It’s precisely what drove the bald eagles into severe decline in the continental 48 states when I was a kid. And it’s only because we’ve begun paying attention to our role within ecosystems, and stopped indiscriminate polluting of our precious fresh water systems, that they‘ be rebounded so I well. 

So of course it’s also infuriating and mind-boggling that we have elected people in position as of state and federal oower eager to loosen so many important safeguards on our water, land and air.  Which will return the life in our lakes and rivers and oceans back to the precipices, just as other issues like agricultural fertilizer runoff and fracking and pipelines are putting new strains on their healthy existence. It’s a strange, sad denial of the fact that we are integrally linked to the health of our precious freshwater resources. 

I post often about the many critters I’ve seen, last evening I saw two deer and two playful groundhogs. But also on this 90º October day (with two more hotter ones expected!) I encountered several people—all of whom I chose NOT to photograph out of respect for their privacy. (The fish didn’t get a choice.) 

As I was putting into the water, three folks were setting up to fish on the bank: a grandmother (who wanted to know how cold the water was—it wasn’t), a man in his thirties who carried a chair for the elder, and a young girl I presume was his daughter. In some ways it’s irrelevant, but in others I think significant, that the woman and man were Caucasian, and the playful young girl had brown skin—just like the river’s health steadily improving, I take this as a sign our societal health has improved in the last several decades. I wished them luck with their fishing. 

As I passed under the bridge, a familiar fellow with long brown hair, a heavy beard, and a calm presence was writing in what appeared to be a journal as he sat cross-legged on the sandy bank. We’ve come across each other several times ear this spot, and we bowed “namaste” when our eyes met as has become our custom.

Around a couple of bends, I drifted near a young teen up to his waste in the water, with a sweet mutt dog swimming at his side, both happily cooling off. Barley dog-paddled up to me and we said hello. In response to my How are you doing? his partner said: “Gotta be doin’ good on a day like this, bein’ right here!” I agreed whole-heartedly. Just a bit further along an older fellow, another fisherman with his dog were packing up and heading back toward the Greenway. 

As I approached the second set of gentle falls, a beautiful young woman in a vivid yet soft cobalt blue garment, with a large black & white head-wrap was standing shin-deep along the rocky edge. The site of her poised, unforced statuesque posture, the colors of her figure against the dry green and brown grasses and olive waters was stunning. Guessing by her clothing, hairstyle, rich skin color and features, it seemed very likely she was an immigrant. I wanted so much to ask where she was from, what she was pondering; was it a potent recollection of her homeland, or was she simply enjoying the cooling waters and not thinking about anything?...but she seemed so content and immersed within her space in that place, that I chose not to interrupt her reverie. 

She smiled ever so lightly as I passed. It was a just wonderful to cross her path. She could well have been the archetypal river maiden of any river in any part of the world at any time in history. Floating onward, allowing my tube to spin freely after bumping some rocks, the clouds and treetops swirled overhead, and for a few moments I felt like I too was just a teeny small fry, merged into a place, beyond time.
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    ​John's Blog

    Writing offers an opportunity to clarify my thoughts and feelings. Often these relate to my art and may offer insights about my work. I learn from engaging with others and welcome comments. 

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