Meaningful Mud's Monthly Mu - January 2025
"My heart stays hurtin' and hands stay workin'"
Hey there,
A happy 2025 to you all and a hearty welcome to Meaningful Mud’s Monthly Mu January edition.
I had to pull myself toward myself, as my old high school teacher and athletics coach Mr. Parfett - of blessed memory - would frequently yell, and resist the temptation of beginning this month’s read with the ‘I can’t believe 2025 is here’ banality, which finds a way of sneaking into most conversations this time of year. Despite this platitude generously offering itself as a smooth transition into the meat and tofu of this January newsletter, it seems that the start of a new calendar year is actually quite believable relative to all the pretty unbelievably crazy sh*t, tragic and dreadful but also good and hopeful, flavoring our current moments.
Over this past month, my world has been turned slightly upside down, albeit this existential crisis being of a very ‘first world problem’ texture. Through a series of painful stings to my face and feet, I recently learnt that the beloved stretch of sea (yes Lee it is a sea and not an ocean), which is the site of my morning swims, is also home to the spindly siphonophore during the months of November and December.
Whilst I have become an impassioned expert on the mysterious ways of this marine organism, for the purpose of this read all you need to know (who am I to tell you what you need to know) is that the stretchy siphonophore and its branching tentacles create a vicious web in the open water, administering sharply excruciating stings when making even the faintest contact. More so, this devious bunch are mostly transparent. So the moment you realize you have entered the den of the siphonophore, it is oh too little too late (not so different from the other realms of life I guess).
Abruptly, without warning, the sea’s salty offering of liberation and renewal was snatched from my tenuously fragile grasp; my enclave of tranquility tainted, my source of stability and solace blemished, smashing to smithereens my ever so flimsy and frail illusion of control - plunging me into a mourning of endless hypotheticals and dramatical imaginings of never again coming proximate to the ecstasy of open water swimming.
Life and living does this to you; undesired experiences obliterating your relationship with the world.
Heartbreak, loss, grief, disappointment, regret, rejection, unrequited love - all too often cause us to retreat and recede inwardly, turning away from ourselves and the world. We become so consumed by our own pain that we cannot make space to ponder the thought of the pain of our others, never mind the pain itself.
“It’s tough out there. That’s why I am not out there,” as my one friend truthfully quips.
But as long as we are here there is the imperative to be here and out there, which means to feel and to love and to dare to give and to connect and hope and dream in all its precarity, messiness, fragility, complexity and magic.
So as we enter a new year, my simple wish is that we all continue to swim in life’s individual and collective metaphorical waters, despite the stings and the siphonophores. May it be a year of discovering the world and being discovered by the world in return.
And lastly, may we always be stuck in Meaningful Mud!
Take great care and thanks again for your being here.
In the Blackwater Woods
By Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
“Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
The menu ain’t the meal but give it a bash anyway
Sharing with you all a simple recipe for some heartwarming peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.
What you’ll need:
1 ripe banana (mashed)
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
1/3 cup chopped peanuts
Instructions:
In a bowl combine the mashed banana, peanut butter and maple syrup. Gently stir in your oats and fold in your chocolate chips and chopped peanuts.
Scoop onto a lined baking sheet and flatten into 6 cookies. Feel free to sprinkle more chips on top to your heart’s content.
Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes at 190 degrees.
Remove and add a sprinkle of flaky sea salt.
Thank your divine, devour one cookie, breathe and devour another. Share the remainder.
“If it feels alright, maybe come over here.”
― Nathaniel Rateliff, When Do You See
Sonic Suggestions
“The lonely ocean that cried that laughed and cried who dreamed that he laughed that he cried that he knew that he dreamed that he laughed that he cried.”
(A rough translation on my end - Rotem, I hope I caused no harm!)
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― Wendell Berry
Thank you once again for stopping on by. It is not taken for granted!
Please also consider forwarding this little offering to a loved one, friend or stranger and feel free to reach out should you wish to share any comments, critiques or suggestions. I would love to hear from you all.
Wishing you all a joyful January!
About to go for a swim