Missing Witches - MW Mary Oliver： I Got Saved By The Beauty Of The World

00:00:00.000 If you want to support the Missing Witches Project, find out how at MissingWitches.com. 1.00

00:00:05.840 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:09.060 Be a witch! 1.00

00:00:10.480 Be a witch! 1.00

00:00:10.660 Be a witch! 1.00

00:00:11.460 Be a witch! 1.00

00:00:12.460 You must be a witch. 0.96

00:00:17.040 You are Standing at the Edge of the Woods by Mary Oliver.

00:00:21.360 you are standing at the edge of the woods at twilight when something begins to sing

00:00:30.320 like a waterfall pouring down through the leaves it is the thrush and you are just sinking down

00:00:39.780 into your thoughts taking in the sweetness of it those cords those pursed twirls when you hear

00:00:50.120 out of the same twilight the wildest red outcry it pitches itself forward it flails and scabs all

00:01:00.420 the surrounding space with such authority you can't tell whether it is crying out on the scarp

00:01:06.960 of victory with its hooked foot dabbed into some creature that now with snapped spine lies on the

00:01:15.720 earth or whether it is such a struck body itself saying goodbye the thrush is silent then or

00:01:25.540 perhaps has flown away the dark grows darker the moon in its shining white blouse rises

00:01:34.600 and whatever that wild cry was it will always remain a mystery you have to go home now and live

00:01:42.200 with, sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence, for the rest of your

00:01:51.160 life.

00:01:54.160 I know I will read Mary Oliver's poems, sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,

00:02:03.180 for the rest of my life.

00:02:05.680 This season marks the five-year anniversary of the Missing Witches project.

00:02:09.720 Missing Witches has led Risa and me to discover, meet, learn from, and fall in love with so many witches

00:02:17.840 Past, present, and future

00:02:21.300 Some we met in books, some on Zoom, some in person with hugs and food and deep conversation

00:02:29.140 Maria Gimbutas led me to Star Goody

00:02:31.860 Zora Neale Hurston turned me on to Faith Ringgold

00:02:34.960 We follow breadcrumbs to gingerbread witch houses in the woods, and take tastes of sweet foundations.

00:02:44.080 But never before have I felt as if a spirit didn't simply want me to learn about them,

00:02:49.780 didn't simply leave subtle hints around for me to find.

00:02:53.540 But rather, in the case of Mary Oliver, she positively demanded to be included,

00:02:59.560 and take her place in the missing witches' pantheon of ancestors, aunties.

00:03:04.960 and guides. Mary seemingly insisted that I learn about her, read her poetry, and share what I found

00:03:11.780 with this coven. See, there was this period where, in my life anyway, she was inescapable. Around

00:03:18.140 every corner, her poetry memed into an algorithm that seemed divinely designed to infiltrate my

00:03:25.600 psyche and not let up. Everywhere. Again and again, every Google search result for poems about

00:03:33.120 blank somehow alluded to her work. At a certain point, I said aloud, okay, Mary, I see you. I'll

00:03:39.520 learn about you. I'm noticing you. I gave Mary what she wanted, my full and explicit attention.

00:03:47.880 And then in my research and poring through her poems, I discovered that noticing that attention

00:03:53.940 was the currency that Mary valued most. Not for herself. She was known to be a recluse,

00:04:00.320 rarely gave interviews nor discussed details of her past. No, Mary didn't value being noticed, 0.63

00:04:07.300 she valued noticing. In her essay on the overlooked eroticism of Mary Oliver,

00:04:14.620 Jenna Cadillac describes Mary as a, quote, poet of attention, end quote. But I suppose in death,

00:04:22.420 Mary relaxed her reclusiveness because, as I told you, she told me to pay attention,

00:04:27.420 Not just to our surrounding nature, our human nature, but to her

00:04:32.960 Look at me, pay attention to me, her presence nearly screamed in my ear

00:04:39.160 And much like the woods, or the beach, or a poem

00:04:44.740 The more attention I gave, the more my attention became appreciation

00:04:50.520 Admiration that turned to wonder and adoration

00:04:55.020 I discovered details about Mary that I would otherwise have missed.

00:04:59.680 And she went from a poet whose poetry I liked to a dear friend whom I love,

00:05:05.300 to whom I turn with a wink and a smile for counsel, for beauty, to get saved.

00:05:13.720 As I was writing this episode, an unwitting coven mate posted a Mary Oliver poem to our Coven Circle feed.

00:05:20.760 I asked if she wanted to say anything about Mary for this piece. 0.90

00:05:25.020 And blessed fucking be her heart, she sent me an essay. 0.91

00:05:29.460 See, this is the effect that getting to know Mary has on us all. 0.98

00:05:34.640 Asked for words, we deliver multiple glorious paragraphs of appreciation.

00:05:41.480 Mary sometimes makes you love her, but always makes you want to write and write and write.

00:05:48.460 Our coven mate, Aaron Bensinger, wrote, quote,

00:05:51.000 I consider Mary's poetry a sacred text in my agnostic, atheist, pagan practice.

00:05:58.240 Like her, I walk an earth-honoring path on lands where I am a multi-generational descendant of settler colonizers.

00:06:06.160 How do I reckon with my people's bloody history on this land?

00:06:09.920 How can I love it while also being honest about the damage that has been done?

00:06:14.000 I have come to believe through her work that the lifelong work toward creating the answers begins with listening and paying devoted attention

00:06:24.280 Erin continues

00:06:25.920 Mary excels at capturing the magic in the mundane

00:06:29.320 In her work, every being is worthy of equal attention

00:06:34.200 And is an equal contributor to the whole of the messy, beautiful ecosystem

00:06:40.960 A blade of grass calls for no less attentive care than a fox

00:06:45.720 A carcass no less important than a butterfly

00:06:49.120 As a character in her own work, Mary does not aspire to achievement

00:06:54.580 She is a writer, yes, but she comes to the craft with an attitude of collaboration

00:07:00.340 She is in constant conversation with the mystery of poetry

00:07:04.400 But still she keeps at her craft

00:07:07.140 Shaping it along the way into what her desires deem it ought to be 0.92

00:07:11.900 She reckons in a similar way with the Christian God

00:07:16.860 She frequently invokes the name of God and its associated motifs

00:07:22.120 Prayer, repent, divinity

00:07:24.700 It becomes clear in her work, especially toward the end of her life

00:07:29.400 That the God she speaks of is not a patriarch in a throne atop an airy paradise

00:07:34.840 God is being

00:07:36.600 is everything, especially the tiny details, especially the bigger picture. Her work holds

00:07:44.780 some of my personal truest values. Care, attention, animal companionship, land and life stewardship,

00:07:52.900 death as a sacred rite, life as a beautiful mystery, and the written word as a powerful

00:08:00.100 tool to convey it all.

00:08:02.620 She sings loudly the praises 0.96

00:08:04.400 of life's natural glory

00:08:06.120 that others may too turn

00:08:08.060 their senses to the world around them

00:08:10.180 and listen.

00:08:12.040 A quiet, natural

00:08:14.200 evangelism.

00:08:17.040 May we all be so.

00:08:19.420 End quote.

00:08:21.540 Thanks, Aaron.

00:08:25.220 Before

00:08:25.940 I knew her,

00:08:28.140 I had always imagined Mary as an

00:08:29.940 angelic creature, wafting through the woods, pausing to notice the trill of a thrush, stopping

00:08:36.940 and falling silent, weaving the pain of humanity into its song, and producing for us a poem.

00:08:45.000 She told Stephen Ratner, quote, I take walks. Walks work for me. I enter some arena that is

00:08:53.140 neither conscious or unconscious. It's a joke here in town, I take a walk and I'm found

00:08:59.680 standing still somewhere. This is not a walk to arrive. This is a walk that's part of the

00:09:06.860 process." I imagined her soft, glowing, welcoming, and unassuming above me, above us all.

00:09:23.140 in invitation she wrote just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world

00:09:32.920 i beg of you do not walk by without pausing to attend to this rather ridiculous performance

00:09:41.240 it could mean something it could mean everything it could be what rilke meant when he wrote

00:09:49.700 you must change your life, end quote. Then I discovered a detail that brought Mary back to

00:09:59.060 earth, by my side, back down to the gutter and soil and ridiculousness, where frankly,

00:10:05.880 I've always been most comfortable. As I said, interviews with Mary are rare and few. So I

00:10:12.140 turned to a video of her memorial, where people of note gave their eulogies. Maria Shriver,

00:10:17.740 Hillary Clinton. And then, the closer. Up to the mic crept the Pope of Trash.

00:10:27.260 And only in that moment did I learn that Mary Oliver and John Waters were lifelong friends.

00:10:34.260 Those of you who know me understand how important filmmaker John Waters is and was to me in my

00:10:39.960 self-building. I became obsessed with his work when I was probably too young to be watching

00:10:46.000 such scenes unfold. For better or worse, John Waters sculpted my young mind, molded me into

00:10:54.400 a person who thought freak was a compliment. Unafraid to take chances or make a fool of

00:10:59.740 myself, I understood, as a developing child, that we must always keep our sense of humor,

00:11:07.000 especially when we're smashing the status quo. Be ridiculous. In his eulogy, John Waters said, 0.99

00:11:15.060 as if right to me, quote, Mary Oliver was not exactly who many of you think she was. She was

00:11:21.780 no earth mother dancing through the woods in slow motion like a deodorant commercial. No,

00:11:27.220 she could be a drama queen. She loved to feud. God knows she never suffered fools and was way 1.00

00:11:34.380 beyond opinionated. I love that Mary, the contrary one, the angry but loving brainiac, 0.95

00:11:43.120 The one that only nature could soothe

00:11:46.060 Well, sort of soothe

00:11:49.000 End quote

00:11:50.460 Worlds collided and I re-thought everything

00:11:54.180 I noticed how much of Mary's serene poetry was punctuated with roaring laughter 1.00

00:11:59.860 Learned how her long walks in the forest happened partly because she was so fucking poor 1.00

00:12:05.700 That foraging in the woods became part of her survival 1.00

00:12:08.440 No woodland fairy, she was a puckish sprite 1.00

00:12:12.620 A chain-smoking lesbian who cursed and drank and was a troublemaker. 1.00

00:12:19.320 Now, gracefully, Mary has relinquished her pedestal and tumbled happily down to sit beside me on a bench and hold my hand, 1.00

00:12:29.720 pointing out leaves and blades of grass and calling my attention to them.

00:12:35.060 Mary and I are no longer creator and fangirl. We are friends.

00:12:39.900 Am I a fool to believe that from beyond the grave she wants and demands to be my companion on this noticing journey?

00:12:49.520 I find her reply in her poetry, A Thousand Mournings 0.98

00:12:54.460 Quote foolishness? No, it's not

00:12:59.080 Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree

00:13:03.780 To do this I have to climb branch by branch and write down the numbers in a little book

00:13:09.920 So, I suppose, from their point of view, it's reasonable that my friends say, 0.93

00:13:15.520 what foolishness. She's got her head in the clouds again. But it's not. Of course I have 0.97

00:13:22.240 to give up, but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder of it. The abundance of the leaves,

00:13:28.680 the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort, and I am in that delicious and

00:13:37.200 important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth praise. End quote. I imagine Mary working

00:13:48.000 as a secretary at Steepletop, the estate of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and reading Edna's poetry and

00:13:54.420 studying it. I imagine Mary's bookshop in Provincetown, which she ran with her lover Molly,

00:14:00.580 the two of them deciding to hire a young John Waters to work there and telling him he could

00:14:05.060 have all the books he wanted, but he had to read them. In her poem The Summer Day, Mary

00:14:11.540 asked, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? So I'll ask you

00:14:20.040 all, dear Coven, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary's

00:14:29.400 early life was not easy she said quote it was a very bad childhood for everybody every member

00:14:37.560 of the household not just myself i think and i escaped it barely with years of trouble but i did

00:14:44.760 find the entire world in looking for something but i got saved by poetry and i got saved by the beauty

00:14:54.200 of the world

00:14:55.220 end quote

00:14:57.260 Mary was 0.97

00:15:00.080 sexually abused as a child 0.58

00:15:01.840 and told interviewer Maria Shriver

00:15:04.040 quote, I was very little

00:15:05.500 but I had recurring nightmares

00:15:07.460 there's damage

00:15:09.520 that's why I wanted to be

00:15:12.320 invisible, I'm sure

00:15:14.140 and it certainly

00:15:16.420 made it hard to trust

00:15:18.020 but with the help of a few

00:15:20.480 real good people

00:15:21.520 I finally feel

00:15:24.060 healed.

00:15:26.780 Kind of late in life.

00:15:29.500 End quote.

00:15:31.920 What damage has made you

00:15:34.200 want to be invisible,

00:15:36.400 dear Coven?

00:15:37.800 I know, for me, solitude

00:15:40.020 feels safe, and I

00:15:41.940 sometimes have to force myself out

00:15:43.860 of my hermitage, because

00:15:45.920 as much as interdependence may scare

00:15:48.080 me, I need a

00:15:50.060 community. We all

00:15:52.040 do.

00:15:52.280 mary described a certain witchcraft to podcaster krista tippett saying poetry is quote very sacred

00:16:01.000 it wishes for a community it's a community ritual certainly and that's why when you write a poem

00:16:07.960 you write it for anybody and everybody and you have to be ready to do that out of your single

00:16:14.160 self it's a giving it's always a gift a gift to yourself but it's a gift to anybody who has a

00:16:24.980 hunger for it end quote i want us all to get into this ritual of writing just write and write and

00:16:33.360 write and write for self for community a gift to give and receive and walk and keep walking

00:16:42.740 Write poetry and prose and essays and long-winded personal emails.

00:16:49.420 Our covenmate Killian suggested that their journal has become an altar,

00:16:53.740 and I think Mary Oliver would relate and approve.

00:16:58.080 Mary said, quote,

00:16:59.060 I decided very early that I wanted to write, but I didn't think of it as a career.

00:17:04.820 I didn't even think of it as a profession.

00:17:06.760 It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life

00:17:13.980 And I didn't question if I should

00:17:16.920 I just kept sharpening the pencils

00:17:19.660 I never felt yet that I've done it right

00:17:22.760 This is the marvelous thing about language, it can always be done better

00:17:27.160 But I begin to see what works and what doesn't work

00:17:31.020 I begin to rely more on style, which is, as I say, apparatus or method

00:17:36.360 than on luck prayers or long hours of work i keep a notebook with me all the time and i scribble

00:17:44.940 the angel doesn't sit on your shoulder unless the pencil's in your hand end quote let's take

00:17:52.680 some lessons from a best-selling poet's life in an interview she said quote it was never a

00:17:59.420 temptation to be swayed from what i wanted to do and how i wanted to live end quote in her poem

00:18:06.040 the journey she expands. Quote, but little by little, as you left their voices behind,

00:18:14.460 the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice,

00:18:22.320 which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper

00:18:31.480 into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save the only life

00:18:40.260 you could save, end quote. Mary began writing poetry in earnest at age 14 and did not stop

00:18:49.040 until her death in 2019 at the age of 83. And she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize

00:18:56.940 because she just kept writing. Awards cannot come unless the pencil is in your hand. And let's all

00:19:05.220 take Mary Oliver's Ghost Who Haunts Me as a role model, too. Reach out to people you think you

00:19:11.080 might love, who might love you. Demand attention when you need attention, and don't be shy. Mary

00:19:19.380 may have been reclusive in her lifetime, but in her poetry she is generous with her truths,

00:19:25.100 her honesty, her emotion. So if conversations are hard, try poetry. When life becomes difficult,

00:19:35.040 become a poet. Seek out the beauty in a world that sometimes feels ugly and cruel. Be saved by it.

00:19:45.720 Then go and notice someone else. Write love letters to ghost poets. Remember,

00:19:53.640 Mary's angel called out to me, but didn't sit on my shoulder,

00:19:58.500 didn't sit beside me, until the pencil was in my hand.

00:20:04.540 Keep sharpening the pencils. 0.98

00:20:08.800 Mary will continue to be a guide and a balm for me.

00:20:13.300 Months ago, I was sleepless the night before a trip to Scotland,

00:20:16.600 my mind flipping randomly with icy fingers through a card catalog of all the things that could possibly go wrong.

00:20:25.400 So I rolled over and opened my laptop, turning my attention to something more productive than listing travel disasters,

00:20:33.000 beginning my research past the poetry and into the life of Mary Oliver.

00:20:38.400 Almost immediately, I discovered the name of Mary's lover, life partner,

00:20:43.380 and a wave of calm and protection washed over me.

00:20:47.640 See, when I was 11, my mother, sister, aunt, and I went to Ireland on an ancestry-seeking mission.

00:20:53.720 One of my most photographic memories of this trip is the bronze statue of Molly Malone,

00:21:00.400 the beautiful fictional fishmonger of song, proudly pushing a cart of baskets.

00:21:05.800 for the rest of the trip we sang in dublin's fair city where the girls are so pretty i first set my eyes on sweet molly malone as she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow crying cockles and mussels alive alive oh

00:21:25.760 so in the exact moment of seeking refuge from britannia travel anxiety the universe chose to reveal to me the fact that mary oliver's love was named molly malone

00:21:39.360 molly malone cook and my whole body filled with an ancient childlike sense of going home of singing songs and exploring the world and everything being just fine of being alive alive oh

00:21:55.920 and it was mary's story that brought me to that place of calm i turned to her in bibliomancy when i need her advice i opened to a random page of devotions a collection of mary's poetry which she herself curated after her cancer diagnosis

00:22:13.400 In a moment of intellectual self-doubt, my thumb forged across the fore-edge of the book,

00:22:19.760 and out popped Mysteries Yes.

00:22:22.860 Quote,

00:22:23.700 Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.

00:22:30.080 Let me keep company always with those who say look, and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.

00:22:39.080 End quote.

00:22:40.100 I have a friendship with Mary Oliver.

00:22:42.120 However, she bestows her wisdom and delivers me from anxiety, and I, in return, pay attention.

00:22:50.040 But more than just attention, Mary told Krista Tippett that attention without feeling is just a report.

00:22:58.400 Quote, you need empathy with it, rather than just reporting.

00:23:04.000 Reporting is for field guides, and they're great, they're helpful, but that's what they are.

00:23:10.240 But they're not thought-provokers, and they don't go anywhere.

00:23:15.840 Attention is the beginning of devotion.

00:23:21.340 End quote.

00:23:22.960 Mary wrote, happiness when it's done right is a kind of holiness.

00:23:27.360 Later adding, quote, appreciation is a very valuable thing to give the world.

00:23:33.980 And that's the kind of happiness I mean.

00:23:37.020 End quote.

00:23:37.640 What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life, the only life you can save?

00:23:49.000 Before we leave Mary Oliver today, leave her to be reclusive for a while in the spiritual realm,

00:23:55.900 let's give some attention, devotion, appreciation, and thought provocation to Mary and her most famous poem, Wild Geese.

00:24:06.040 After all, appreciation is a very valuable thing to give to the world.

00:24:12.520 She and we are all friends now, taking our place in the family of things, in this missing witch's coven.

00:24:24.660 Wild Geese 0.83

00:24:25.940 You do not have to be good.

00:24:29.160 You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting

00:24:35.680 You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves

00:24:42.440 Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine

00:24:46.260 Meanwhile, the world goes on

00:24:49.060 Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

00:24:53.680 are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

00:25:03.280 Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

00:25:11.480 Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,

00:25:18.480 calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,

00:25:25.120 over and over announcing your place in the family of things. 1.00

00:25:36.640 You must be a witch. 0.98

00:25:39.540 If you want to support the Missing Witches Project, 1.00

Missing Witches - October 02, 2023

MW Mary Oliver： I Got Saved By The Beauty Of The World

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