Author: Mary Elyn Bahlert

I am a spiritual seeker, a seeker who has "taken a drink from many cups." I love to accompany others on the deeper journey to witness to their True Self. Now a writer, photographer and poet, I have retired from full-time ministry as a pastor in downtown Oakland, CA.
memories, nostalgia, remembering, Uncategorized

Facing the dark – entering the deep of the year…

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I grew up in the Midwest. There, the darkest times of the year also heralded the beginning of the coldest times of the year.  Now, since I have had the pleasure of living in a Mediterranean climate for many years, I hope for rain to quench the dry land as winter approaches, I watch with interest the days grow shorter, and I watch the final red of sunset linger over the Bay, sink down beyond San Francisco into the Pacific.

*

Here in Germany to visit friends and to visit Christmas Markets – the Germans know very well how to do Christmas! – I am reminded of how the darkness shapes this season, and I remember the Festival of Lights that is Christmas, and the lighting of candles that honor Hanukkah, fall always during these darkest days. Here in Germany, darkness comes on early as the temperature hovers just above freezing.

As I walk through the Christmas Markets of Regensberg this year, I see the same trinkets again and again, and sometimes, a treasure shines out from the rest, and I stop at a tent covered booth to look closely. Will this be a good gift for Joanne, I think? Can I carry this lovely toy in my suitcase without breaking it?

Christmas music playing from speakers hidden somewhere in the eaves of the buildings that circle the Market adds to the festive flavour of the season. Sometimes, the cold air sweeps me away again to those dark December evenings in the Midwest, marching over snow covered ground to select the perfect tree from a well-lit city lot, the perfect tree that Dad carries back to the car and fastens securely with a rope for that purpose, into the trunk. Then, I’m back in Regensberg, as quickly as I left, turning round and round to see where Jeff has wandered, knowing he enjoys the music and cold and darkness and even the crowds, as much as I do.

Yesterday, I learned that Bill, the widower of my good friend Sue who died so young, Bill, who made her so happy, has passed. Melancholy and memory seem to go well with the cold and the Christmas music.

Still, the holidays are here with their mixture of merry and melancholy. When I return home, after Jeff and I select our own tree from a lot in the city, I’ll sit across from the sparkling lights with a cup of egg nog, I’ll remember all those I love who are gone now, who I hold in my heart in the reflection of the lights.

Christmas-time in Wien, Austria. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 12/2024

 

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“There are places…”

Mary Elyn Bahlert

“There are places I’ll remember, all my life, though some have changed…” – Lennon & McCartney

Today as I walked in Oakland between rain storms – we’ve been promised a winter with lots of rain! – I was remembering places in my life.

I remember the walk from 11 and Ring to 9 and Ring Street as I made my way to kindergarten at LaFollette Primary School – I didn’t know then that I was beginning the walk to a life different from the one I had been born into. I didn’t know then that the teachers who taught me would not only open the doors for me to another world, but that I saw in them – and remember – women unlike my mother. And I saw myself in them.

I remember the evening I sat as the dark came on at the Mathilda Brown Home on 42 Street – behind Oakland Tech – in Oakland, as I sat in the dark beside my mother’s bed, and where she would die the next day. As I sat there, a song filled my mind: “how can I help to make you understand, why I do, what I do? Going away to a distant land, far from the home I love…” (Bock/Harnick, from Fiddler on the Roof).

I remember walking along Piedmont Avenue in Oakland on Halloween Night over a year ago as little Celeste held onto my hand, dressed in her princess costume, and as we passed the other children out to reap the Halloween bounty from the store fronts. She was quiet, careful to stay connected to me in this place, so far from her home.

I remember that I’m an old person now as I passed a man with wrinkles who walked slowly, and as he met my eyes with his own and greeted me, another neighbor from the neighborhood. I’ve changed. He’s changed. But inside of us, we are the same as we’ve always been.

I remember that soon Christmas will be here, and I’ll try to make the house in Oakland cozy, something that’s hard to come by in this temperate climate. And as I sit in the darkened room in front of the Christmas tree with lights shining out from its branches, I’ll remember Christmases past, a long time ago now, a lifetime ago.

I remember as I walk close to home, that I am grateful for this beautiful place, this temperate climate, this lull in the morning’s showers, this air so fresh in my lungs, this place that is home to me, and has been for a long time.

Some of these memories I’ve held onto for many years, as if I can see in my mind’s eye every passing moment. Some of these memories will be gone soon, maybe never to come again. I’m sad. I miss them already.

I remember that this beautiful tree has been a faithful, beautiful companion to me for a long time. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 11/2024

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Travels

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I love the tech-y stuff that allows me to write my words to you and then to pack my suitcase and take off for a few weeks. At the end of this month and the beginning of next, we’ll be traveling to Europe to visit Christmas markets in various cities. A couple of years before COVID, I was privileged to travel to Vienna in the weeks before Christmas, where I took part in a winter retreat led by Christine Valters-Paintner (abbeyofthearts.com), a retreat leader, Benedictine Oblate, and prolific poet and writer. There, I met other travelers from all over the United States who gathered to retreat together and to enjoy Vienna by day and night.

One of the best Christmas Markets in all of Europe – the taxi driver who had delivered me to the retreat house from the airport told me so – materialized in the square right outside the window of my room in an old monastery, whose monks now have day jobs and who returned to the retreat center every evening. Several new friends and I walked all over Vienna to see the other markets in our free time, and daily we walked a few blocks away to a cafe that had been frequented by Sigmund Freud before he and his family fled to London during World War II – we were told.

After dinner, I would walk from a restaurant where all retreat members had had dinner, back to the retreat center, and I’d go to my own room where I prepared for the night. As the darkness fell, the shutters of the portable stalls in the square below my windows opened to reveal hidden treasures – clothes, food, and drink – winter drinks. I’d hear the voices of the shop keepers and the folks who shopped for Christmas delights, and the sound of folks in revelry, enjoying the dark evening with the lights and music filling the night. The smell of alcohol rose from the street below and filled my room.

At ten o-clock PM, something happened. All at once, the street was silent. When I looked out the window, I saw the booths that had been alive with people and activity were shuttered, the street dark and quiet. “I’m definitely not in the U.S.,” I thought.

After I returned home from the retreat in Vienna, I told Jeff often about the beauty of the place. That telling ignited a longing in him, too, to see the Christmas markets in Europe. I expect that as you read this, he and I will be enjoying new friends, fellow travelers, as we visit several cities of Europe, as we see the Christmas Markets. This year, we’ll leave on the trip after Thanksgiving, so we’ve been preparing by making sure we have enough warm clothes for the chilly days and longer nights there. We’ve even packed wool hats and long underwear – a memorial to our days growing up in Wisconsin.

For us, the Christmas Markets, full of laughter and wonder and crowds enjoying the colder nights, will mark the holiday time this year.

***

When I travel, as I prepare to travel, and when I return home and mention without thinking much about it where I’ve been, I remember. I remember the way I grew up, the life in my family. I remember that my mother and father wanted something more for me: “you will be a teacher,” my father said, more than once. I’m surprised by the life of privilege I have had, a life so distant from my people that they could not have envisioned it. “I have not forgotten you,” – I say to the ancestors. I remember where I come from. As I navigate the world – the world of privilege – I am always grateful, and I am astounded when I reflect on my life. The dreams of the ancestors come with me to these places, they walk with me, they see and they listen, they smell the fragrance of hot mulled cider drifting to my window.

***

As I travel, I’ll be thinking of home, where the trees are preparing for winter, too. – Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 10/2024

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Thanksgiving

Mary Elyn Bahlert

The holiday season is quickly approaching, the end of the year when the season of lights – that time when darkness slowly darkens and gives way to the light at the winter solstice – arrives, day by day. In the Bay Area, I often have to work hard to give myself a winter-cozy experience in this season. But this year, the heavens are in tune with the season, days of rain welcoming us to the longer nights.

When I sat to write this piece, I was thinking that I am not one given to focusing on giving thanks. Over the years, I’ve studied with healers and shamans, and teachers of all kinds – many of whom would say that a grateful heart, a grateful attitude, is a good thing. Necessary, even. But in my own temperamental way, giving thanks does not come easily. If I’m to fill the journals I’ve started over the years (Oprah says that if I write down 5 things I’m grateful for every single day, my life will change…), I’ll have to be more disciplined about the practice of giving thanks. All change begins with practice, in my experience. Practice, practice, practice.

But today I’m grateful for the beautiful tree that accompanies me here in the house on View Place – the birch has been a faithful companion as long as I’ve lived here, and I’m grateful for a cozy house as the season of holidays approaches. A quiet house, a place of comfort in a world that is often crazy-making. Today we’ll welcome a 4 year old and her parents to join us for a week, and the house will not be quiet, but filled with laughter and fun – and tears, I’m sure. The cat has taken to sitting with me on the sofa where I have my morning coffee and chat with Jeff. She seems to live a grateful life.

On Thanksgiving Day, we’ll join a bunch of Bahlerts at their little house on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, where the sound of little ones running past us will fill us up as much as the lavish meal. I’ll bring the pies: cherry – two this year, by special request – apple, and pumpkin. I remembered to buy whipped cream before the store runs out.

And if I remember, if I stop all the busy-ness that’s inside of me for a few moments, I can be grateful, too, in honor of the holiday.

Happy Thanksgiving week, everyone!

Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, View Place, November, 2024

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In sha’ Allah

Mary Elyn Bahlert

“In sha’allah,” I like to say. “God willing,” or “if God wills it.”

These simple words have come into my consciousness – and my vocabulary – in later years. Before our cultural lens widened to include the people and the practice of Islam as their faith, I had not heard this expression.

But I like to say it now – often. Sometimes I say the words quietly, to myself, and sometimes, I say the words so that someone hears them. Either way, the beautiful words serve as a reminder: so much in life is, very simply, out of our control.

There’s a simple beauty in the Arabic words, “In sha’ allah,” and simple truth, as well. And there’s a simple truth about life, about life’s uncertainty. From day to day, we are in control of so little – the weather, the actions of others, the politics of our time, how other people act – or don’t act, what my spouse chooses to do – or not do, and even the outcome of my own actions.

To me, surrender forms the center of a life. We can act – we must act – and then we surrender to what happens, to what is, and to what will be. “In sha’ allah.”

“In sha’ Allah“, photo of window at Bethany United Methodist Church,
San Francisco, CA, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 11/17/2024