Posted on by Cathy Edgett

A New Year

I’m up in the night, awake, as the fog blows in and the wind rings the chimes that surround my home.  I light candles for scent and flickering brightness.  One candle holder has Japanese Kanji characters, and I reach for meaning.  I see Sky and Sun and then a square that when I look it up has multiple meanings. At first, I’m enchanted with one meaning, Opening, yes, perfect, and then, I read another meaning, enclosure. Enclosure.  I’m feeling safe and enclosed, blinds down though the view is private, but it’s fall now, and though we carve pumpkins for light, the pumpkin encloses its seeds, and I feel seeds inside ripening. 

The Kanji square can also be perceived as Mouth, yes, the mouth, opening and enclosing, ingesting,  which brings me to the image of the mouth of a river where water that’s been enclosed and held flows into a larger body of water, meets the sea  And so do we, as we breathe in and out in an exchange of connection and renewal. Life!  And it’s a new moment, a new Year!

What do you see? What do you need?

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Gratitude

This morning when I read of another of Trump’s tantrums, this one with the Supreme Court, members he appointed to obey him, rather than to honor the law, common sense, and their own conscience, I remembered when my very young son spouted: “You’re not the boss of me.”  

He was proclaiming his individuality which is essential and important, and he was learning he was a child in a family, in a community, so his proclaimed autonomy fit into a larger world, one meant to protect and integrate him. He was a part of a whole.  

Trump views himself as a king with unlimited powers.  He doesn’t know the constitution, doesn’t know the Declaration of Independence.  He doesn’t seem to know or care that there are three branches of government, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial, created to balance one person’s ego and corruption.  And so now we endure another temper tantrum.

An unknown friend goes back through my blog and likes posts from the past.  His likes bring me to past posts, and today I’m with a post from November 23, 2021 titled Gratitude. I was celebrating the honoring of gratitude as more than one day of Thanksgiving. I wrote: 

This is the week designated for gratitude.  The light spreads its rays as though we are meant to climb out of ourselves into connection with a wider world.  We can also be grateful for who and what we are, this wonderful assemblage in time and space.

Alan Watts:

WHAT I AM REALLY SAYING IS THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO DO ANYTHING, BECAUSE IF YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE CORRECT WAY, YOU ARE ALL AS MUCH EXTRAORDINARY PHENOMENON OF NATURE AS TREES, CLOUDS, THE PATTERNS IN RUNNING WATER, THE FLICKERING OF FIRE, THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE STARS, AND THE FORM OF A GALAXY. YOU ARE ALL JUST LIKE THAT, AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU AT ALL.

May Trump one day learn the wisdom that makes us Whole!

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Non-violence

Today I’m contemplating Mahatma Gandhi and what he accomplished with his commitment to non-violence.  He led the resistance that led to India’s independence from British rule.  I think these times are requiring us to do the same, to honor non-violence as we resist this intended takeover by those who care only about making themselves even wealthier than they already are.

The 14th Dalai Lama tells the story of a Tibetan monk who spent 18 years in a Chinese prison labor camp. When asked about the dangers he faced during this time of torture, confinement, and abuse, he replied that his only true danger was the risk of losing compassion for his captors.

These examples are inspiring. It may not seem we’re facing such challenges, but things are changing rapidly.  It is to be aware and prepare.

The water in the fountain rises and falls, rises and falls.
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Love

I’m starting this post with a quote from Thornton Wilder in The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a book I read periodically.  I believe in the power of Love.  

There is a land of the living and a land

of the dead and the bridge is love, the 

only survival, the only meaning.  

With that, I suggest everyone read Heather Cox Richardson words for today, September 12.  She begins with this:

On Thursday, in The New Republic, conservative judge J. Michael Luttig published a dire warning to the Republican Party…and to all Americans. In the piece, Luttig outlined how Republicans could refuse to seat elected Democrats in January after a Democratic victory in the 2026 midterm elections of November. “The coming crisis,” the piece says, would be “The Final Battle for America’s Democracy.”

Luttig spelled out that Trump is fighting a war against America’s democracy. While the refusal of Vice President Mike Pence to assist his power grab made it fail in January 2021, Luttig notes, today Trump and his Republican congressional allies are more determined than ever to take over the country.

Luttig focuses on the ability of House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to prevent the recognition of duly-elected Democratic representatives on January 3. Johnson has the power, Luttig says, to remove the current House clerk, Kevin McCumber, and replace him temporarily with a MAGA loyalist who will refuse to list Democrats on the roll of those elected to the 120th Congress.

We know what Trump did on January 6, 2021.  Only Mike Pence’s courage stopped it.  Now, they’ve planned more carefully, and they have Mike Johnson doing Trump’s bidding.  I don’t understand it and I know we’re all doing what we can to ensure our vote counts, and yet, it almost didn’t in 2021, and now, and with it all, we hold onto and believe in the power of love.

Mary Oliver: My work is loving the world.  

Light Comes

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Moving Into Fall

It was a beautiful low-tide morning at Rodeo Beach. Driving there I saw an egret standing on a branch on a tree surveying the view. I think of the ecosystems we share, the richness of connection, the variety of allies we nurture and need.

Sun rising to greet the rocks rising to receive
So many forms and ways to meet the waves as they come
Cupping in Elation
Exposure at low tide
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Moving With and Through Sorrow

I’ve been struggling with the world seemingly turning upside down.  I’m not so naive as to believe politicians haven’t always skewed the truth, but there was at least an appearance of honesty, decency, and morality.  I find it challenging to listen to Trump and cronies blatantly lie and skewer the truth day after day.  I know the media is more and more controlled by the super-wealthy, and yet, I still struggle.  

Today I had a cranial-sacral session where I felt an ocean of sorrow behind the knee in my right leg. I had a second biopsy yesterday for squamous cell cancer on my right shin, and I was feeling a little discouraged, and there it was, sadness sloshing around. 

I know that 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by water.  On average, an adult human body is made up of approximately 60% water.  That’s a lot of water to bounce, balance, and bring to stillness.  

Feeling sorrow so deeply, I felt how I can support myself by turning into the rhythm of the earth, my home. I can balance with the pull of the moon, the push and pull of the earth’s tides, high and low, changing through the 28 day cycle. I can center in my gut rather than hovering and tottering on the edge of fear.

Muhammad Ali’s words come to mind: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, the hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.”

Currently, we’re even more fully awake to the lies; blindfolds are off, and knowing enough, we float like butterflies, and sting like bees.  We balance on flexibility and respond as we hone and polish our fight.  

Ebi and Ginger run to catch a frisbee.
Ebi wins this one.
This is how we’ll rest, renew, and celebrate on November 3rd, 2026. I’ll add champagne.
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Passage

Busy with our grandson, I’ve been happily neglectful of the news but today I’m with the passing of Wendell Berry and Gloria Steinem, two powerful greats of my lifetime.

I sit with Wendell Berry’s poem “The Real Work”, with what can motivate us now to continue the work of these two wonders.

The Real Work 

  Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings

Guidance for teaching our children, our future.
Honoring the beauty, intricacy and inter-connectivity that nourishes and enriches our lives.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Meeting What Comes

We’re in Menlo Park in charge of our grandson and Mirabel, his best friend, a perky one year old Keeshond.  I take my grandson to school in the morning, first grade, and we’re early each day so he can play.  Being with children, children so loved and hugged as they’re dropped off, one feels hope for this world we share.  

May we all take off and swing!
Dipping into and smelling the roses.



Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Connecting Response

I rose early this morning.  It was warm, for here, and still, as I watered by hand outside.  Then, the wind came up, shaking the trees with a shift, and the fog came pouring over the ridge. 

I’ve been with the disaster in Nepal and Tibet as we see more examples of climate change, change that isn’t bound by the boundaries of countries.  Many who died were on a spiritual pilgrimage. They were circling Mount Kailash, a 33 mile trek.

Again today I’m with the words of Fritz Perls: We don’t have an organism.  We are the organism.  

And this organism extends beyond what we perceive as “ourselves”. We are all affected by what happens on this planet and around it.  

I read about the immediate response to the fire near me.  Responding resources included two fire crews, four Type 3 wildland fire engines, two water tenders, three helicopters, including MCFD & PG&E Helicopter 6PG, one air attack and two air tankers. Totaling about 70 first responders.

I watched the helicopters going back and forth long after the fire was officially out.  The response was quick here, and yet, this country is currently led by an administration wearing blinders, going backwards when it comes to climate change.  Each day we’re reminded, whether we live where we’re dealing with unprecedented flooding, tides, winds, or breathing in smoke from another country, another state, or nearby.  Climate change is real.  How do we come together as a planet in response?

Looking up from my deck