Cathy's Blog!

Posted on August 24, 2026August 24, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

The Hero’s Narrative

I’m struggling with the political atrocities these days. There are so many things one might discuss but I’m going with the essay The Barbie Backlash by Susan Faludi, where she compares Christopher Nolan’s movie “The Odyssey” with Greta Gerwig’s movie “Barbie” both representing the hero’s narrative. She then goes on to discuss how women are treated today.

She writes: Mr. Trump’s return to power resembled a sack of Troy — with women getting the sack.

She goes on and comes to this on the treatment of women in the military in his administration:

Who are these veteran female officers relieved of their commands by the “central casting” (Trump’s words) matinee idol with the gelled hair and pocket hankie, the face that launched a thousand missiles?

Well, for starters, just in the Navy —

Admiral Franchetti: rose from surface warfare officer to command the Sixth Fleet; first woman to lead the Navy and the first permanent female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; 40 years of service. Fired from her post, no explanation. Replaced by a man.

Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield: commanded the Helicopter Sea Combat units; first female president of the Naval War College and the only woman on NATO’s Military Committee; 37 years of service. Fired from her post, no explanation. Replaced (in an acting capacity) by a man.

Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids: veteran of Desert Shield, Desert Storm and the Iraq war; commanded a carrier strike group; first woman and first Hispanic officer to head the U.S. Naval Academy; 36 years of service. Relieved of her post, no explanation. Replaced by a man.

Adm. Linda Fagan, Coast Guard; Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, Navy; Col. Julie Sposito-Salceies, Air Force; Lt. Gen. Telita Crosland, Army; and on and on. These women didn’t claim heroic status; they embodied what the military has traditionally valued: service, teamwork, courage, dedication. But in terms of their mythic warrior life journeys, they are among our Odysseuses. And their elevation has enraged some Odyssean wannabes eager to enshrine what Mr. Hegseth calls “the highest male standard.”

In his book “The War on Warriors,” Mr. Hegseth maintained that so-called D.E.I. hires have made the military weak and “effeminate.” The “standard,” though, has nothing to do with military effectiveness. Were Admirals Franchetti and Chatfield, General Crosland and company fired for not being good enough? Or for being too good, with skills and experience that threatened the restoration of a masculinist culture? Small wonder the photos of Mr. Trump’s cabinet meetings — especially after the departures of Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Tulsi Gabbard — have begun to resemble the shipboard scenes in “The Odyssey”: men seated around the edge of a long wooden ellipse, with a board table standing in for a galley deck. Pull, boys, pull!

Mr. Trump’s return to power resembled a sack of Troy — with women getting the sack.

We were at the beach yesterday with my son and grandson building in the sand. The high tide will wash their creations away. May the same happen to all that Trump and his cronies have touched.

Building a sand castle that even protected by a moat, the incoming tide will wash away!

Posted on August 20, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

How We Meet What Comes

I’m struggling with the political news these days. The bombardment of corruption and lies stuns. How then do we revive, bring in the tide?

I find support in Rebecca Elson’s poem from her book, A Responsibility to Awe. She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma at the age of 29. She continued her writing and scientific work until she died of the disease at the age of 39. I offer the first two stanzas, and then can’t stop and give the whole poem.

ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH
by Rebecca Elson

Sometimes as an antidote
To fear of death,
I eat the stars.

Those nights, lying on my back,
I suck them from the quenching dark
Til they are all, all inside me,
Pepper hot and sharp.

No outer space, just space,
The light of all the not yet stars
Drifting like a bright mist,
And all of us, and everything
Already there
But unconstrained by form.

And sometime it’s enough
To lie down here on earth
Beside our long ancestral bones:

To walk across the cobble fields
Of our discarded skulls,
Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis,
Thinking: whatever left these husks
Flew off on bright wings.

Posted on August 17, 2026August 17, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Strength

Here’s the winning poem in Tricycle Magazine’s Best of Season haiku for Fall 2026.

this world we live in

ten thousand scarecrows on guard

and only one bird

You can find your own interpretation but I consider that we are the one bird that can defeat those who try to scare us with what is false. As birds we fly up, and seeing the whole field, we feast on the truth.

And here are two birds – Great Blue Heron and Great White Egret

We do it for all. Here’s a squirrel at the base of the redwood tree in our yard.

Posted on August 17, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Taking a Bath

Hannah Arrendt in an interview recorded in 1973 and published after her death:

“If everyone always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all anymore – and rightly so, because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, to be “re-lied,” so to speak. So a lying government which pursues different goals at different times has to constantly rewrite its own history. That means that the people are deprived not only of their capacity to act, but also of their capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”

It’s time to hold the GOP accountable for their lies and deceit. Be like a bird. Take a bath!

Posted on August 16, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Land’s End

Going through photos from the summer of 2019, I came to a visit to Land’s End, and then to the labyrinth above Rodeo Beach.

So many ways to open and offer a place to rest

Labyrinth in the Marin Headlands above Rodeo Beach

One woman carried and placed these rocks for people to circle in contemplation and prayer.

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Simplicity

In my meditation today, I found myself visualizing H.A.L. 9000 in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey as he was being shut down for malfunctioning. H.A.L. stands for Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer. According to AI, heuristically means that the computer would “solve problems, learn, or discover things through practical experience, trial and error, or mental shortcuts rather than strict rules or exhaustive calculations”. It was programmed to be like “us”.

Oddly, I found myself reflecting back to A, B, C, and 1, 2, 3. Then I settled into earth, water, fire, and air, and felt my blood and bones, the movement and passage of air. Can a computer do that? Perhaps.

Herman Hesse wrote: While wandering down the path of wonder, I briefly escape the world of separation and enter the world of unity.

The morning when I read that the president wants the new fleet of aircraft carriers to more resemble those from World War II even though the change could cost billions, I thought of how senility can settle in so that one doesn’t know what time period they’re living in. They’re caught in a world of separation, their own mental breakdown.

I’m hoping to keep flossing my brain cells so my synapses can flow and connect to the time in which I live which changes every moment, and yet, within impermanence is simplicity as we adapt, connect and perceive a world of unity.

Our president needs to be shut down and removed. He is malfunctioning. It’s way past time.

Boats float on water, docked in Tidal Time!

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Connection

Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen died at the age of 87 on August 8th. At the age of 15, she was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Not given the expectation of a long life, she chose not to marry or have children. She became a doctor, an amazing doctor and healer, and did that work for 65 years. I have two of her books, Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather’s Blessings. I highly recommend both.

Both books are filled with wonder, hope, and inspiration. I open to this in Kitchen Table Wisdom. She’s on a visit to Fiji where she’s informed “it’s considered good manners in Fiji to acknowledge total strangers on the street.” “The proper form was to make eye contact and acknowledge each other either by nodding and smiling or by saying “Bu-la”. I’m reminded of my time in Nepal where Namaste and a bow with palm-touching hands was a given.

She returned to California from Fiji and noticed walking on her local street no one greeted her or smiled at her. She writes “In some very profound way I felt both invisible and diminished. Yet the street was totally familiar. It was my home.”

She continues: “The Fijians are aware of a basic human law. We all influence one another. We are a part of each other’s reality. There is no such thing as passing someone and not acknowledging your moment of connection, not letting others know their effect on you and seeing yours on them. For Fijians, connection is natural, just the way the world is made. Here, we pass each other with our lights out as ships in the night.”

A place to gather, rest, celebrate, connect.

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Blessings

This morning I woke to the sound of rain. Yesterday a friend and I walked back and forth to Tennessee Valley Beach. Though the weather was iffy, we felt the call, and then the colors in the gray were another call, another stroke of the gift of life in water, earth, air, and stone.

I’m re-reading Gretel Ehrlich’s book, The Solace of Open Spaces. She writes of the dances of Native people, the gatherings, the connection with sun, rain, earth, our breath, our steps.

The color of the water against a wall of stone

Posted on August 12, 2026August 12, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Simplicity

I read Garrison Keillor’s column this morning. He writes:

I’m told that it would take about $167 billion to eliminate malnutrition; about $160 billion worth of food is wasted every year. Somewhere in there is part of the answer. Call it Democratic socialism, call it Christian obedience, but it’s a principle we need to agree on. And then we need to agree on Medicare for everyone. This summer I’ve gotten hauled into a couple of New York ERs along with people with no funds, no insurance, and the absolute kindness of doctors and nurses testifies to the goodness of our country. Highly trained professionals leaning down to comfort one Lazarus after another — Abraham would be pleased.

It’s rather simple isn’t it.

Thich Nhat Hanh: “Emptiness means to be full of everything but empty of a separate existence.”

The iris flower symbolizes **faith, hope, wisdom, and courage.**

Posted on August 11, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Stillness

I listen to Pico Iyer speak of The Pilgrim’s Way on Waking Up. One section, The Chapels of Contemplation, brings me to Naoshima and the Chichu Art Museum. In his immersion in the art and life there, Iyer writes: “In truth the soul’s joy and liberation lie on every side of us, if only we can come to our senses.”

Come to our senses.

Pause, and if you’re intrigued, venture into the museum and integrate into a way of living in community on an island in the Seto Inland Sea in Japan. Is Naoshima Utopia? Read the article and see what you think. Certainly it invites a look into how to integrate old and young, nature and art, and new ways of perceiving and being in the connecting liveliness that brings stillness to our world.

https://benesse-artsite.jp/en/soichiro-fukutake.html