Cathy's Blog!

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Love

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, but this morning I watched the replay of the Half Time Show. Wow! So much was conveyed in the show: a wedding, love, the blackouts in Puerto Rico, giving his grammy to a five year old who represented and reminded us of the horror experienced by five year old Liam. Benito’s message is clear. The only thing more powerful than hate is love, and the majority of people are loving. We have a few who don’t understand the message, but most of us do.

Together, we are America. Together, we are one planet bound in love.

Great White Egret and Duck at Rodeo Beach

The two together – room, space, food, and shelter for All!

Posted on February 2, 2026February 2, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Black History Month

I was on a poetry/meditation call where a woman shared she envisioned this inner/outer world we share as a teabag immersed in a cup of water. She sees us immersed in an ocean of water and air flowing in and out.

The image is with me as I reflect back to 1976 when Republican President Gerald Ford officially recognized February 1 as the first day of Black History Month, a month to honor the accomplishments and contributions of Black people throughout our history.

Now, the Trump administration denies and stomps on that contribution. How does that affect us all, this denial of inner and outer flow? One can only feel compassion for a tragic group of people isolated and contracted in fear and hate. What a horrific way to live on a planet that teaches and shows us how to thrive in connection, generosity, reflection, and inner and outer flow.

Earth turns and the path of sunlight returns

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Ataraxia

Though I don’t use Facebook these days, they send me memories which sometimes prompt me to look to see what I posted on this day in 2017, nine years ago.

I wrote: Last night the word of the day in my Toastmasters club was Ataraxia, which means “a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety”. Ataraxia is tranquility. On Wikipedia I learn that the word is a Greek term and was used to describe the ideal mental state for sending troops into battle. It seems the perfect word for these days.

The Presidio in San Francisco where cannons rest in peace

The Golden Gate Bridge and a slice of the Children’s Playground

Play structure for children to play inside

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Compassion and Respect

Children speak. From The New York Times today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/opinion/ice-kids-liam-ramos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IlA.rhDW.teKBFX5BEARh&smid=url-share

“You are scaring schools, people and the world,” one student at Valley View Elementary, just outside Minneapolis, wrote to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Exactly a year after President Trump’s second inauguration, ICE agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old prekindergartner at Valley View. In and around Minneapolis, a city under siege by federal immigration authorities, scores of students are staying home out of fear of being abducted or have had family members who have been taken. As supplies for families too scared to leave their homes line the hallways of the school, immigration patrols rove outside and Liam languishes in a detention camp more than a thousand miles away, students have written letters to ICE agents. For the video above, Times Opinion asked some of them if they were willing to share their writing. “I think you should make friends with the world. Love, a Valley View student,” one child concluded.

Conejo means Bunny in Spanish. Bunny in Half Moon Bay

Thinking of Liam Conejo Ramos in his Bunny hat!

Posted on January 28, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Childbirth

A friend’s daughter is in labor. A circle of family and friends are with the dilation as we wait and visualize 8 cm. I remember back to the birth of my sons, that transition period, and it can be painful, very painful, and then the reward, all pain forgotten, only the joy of a new being in the world, a deepening connection and reverence for continuing life.

Perhaps what’s happening in this country right now is childbirth. Painfully, we gather in community to renew and expand the vows on which this country was founded. We re-read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence over and over again, trying to teach it to those who are working to overthrow our government and create a dictatorship.

When those who object to the policies of this corrupt administration are labeled and murdered as domestic terrorists, we come together to act, and as in childbirth, we expand in connecting new cords when one is cut.

Posted on January 28, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Peace

Yesterday I walked with a friend to the beach at Tennessee Valley. The beach was completely changed by the storms and high tides requiring a possibly wet crossing to and from the ocean. Enjoying lunch, we savored the company of a Great Blue Heron strolling and rollicking in a graceful journey to dine on lunch.

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Ziplining

As we navigate these challenging times, we respond with ease as my son Jeff does while ziplining. We slip into our meditation posture and organize our communities. We unite.

Lydia Polgreen says let’s not label these people in Minneapolis protestors. Let’s call them what they are: community organizers. Her words:

But what I saw in Minneapolis is better described as organizing and concerted action. It is an important distinction because so much of what is happening is invisible — people engaging in a form of neighborhood watch, walking vulnerable kids to school to shield them from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Church groups organizing food parcels for families too afraid to leave home. Community groups using encrypted messaging to compile spreadsheets of suspected ICE vehicles and activity. Others are logging and archiving endless amounts of evidence of ICE atrocities. This is the product of deep community organizing, not merely spontaneous actions driven by immediate anger.

Posted on January 25, 2026January 25, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Circles of Light

Tonight I made a fire in the fireplace and lit two candles to reflect on and honor those who’ve tragically passed: Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

John Squadra wrote: When you love, you complete a circle. When you die, the circle remains.

These two people who loved and were loved, completed many circles that now expand and remain.

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

The Power of Empathy and Imagination

Rebecca Solnit inspires us as to what matters in her essay today: This Cold Winter, Love is a Superpower.

One paragraph from: https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/this-cold-winter-love-is-a-superpower/

The poet W.H. Auden wrote in a review of the final book in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, “Evil, that is, has every advantage but one – it is inferior in imagination. Good can imagine the possibility of becoming evil – hence the refusal of Gandalf and Aragorn to use the Ring – but Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself. Sauron cannot imagine any motives except lust for domination and fear so that, when he has learned that his enemies have the Ring, the thought that they might try to destroy it never enters his head, and his eye is kept toward Gondor and away from Mordor and the Mount of Doom.” You can see the attempt to consolidate power in the president, as supported by the conservative six on the Supreme Court, and by the surrender of Congress’s powers by the Republican majority, as an attempt to create a one-ring level of power in radical opposition to the checks and balances and ideals of democracy and accountability that have been central to this nation’s official ideology, however imperfectly realized.

Birds of a feather – let’s flock together!

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Protesting

I had to choose between a vigil and a protest today. I chose the protest at the Manzanita parking lot near where I live. It was inspiring, All the cars honking as they passed and waving – not everyone but most, and now I know there is a huge variety of horn honking, different sounds, patterns, and lengths. Wonderful signs and people. And there are younger people now which is great, and more ethnicities. I walked back to the car with a woman from Minneapolis. She said she knows the cold in which all those people protested and are protesting. There’s no way to wear enough to warm the feet. It’s not like where I live. Unfortunately I’ll miss next Sunday as our family celebrates the business my husband started here in our home forty years ago. Forty years!