Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Imagination

Last night I opened my book Breast Strokes to a day when I was walking with 3 year old Zach who informed me he was an airplane. His arms spread, he flew over a speed bump, and said, “Look at that cloud.”

I sit with that now, knowing we can be or do anything. 

A friend sent me the website of an amazing photographer Jay Tamang who is from Nepal and works at the Mill Valley Whole Foods as a shining light.

I’m struck by his words accompanying a photo from the Merced River, Yosemite.

The moment I arrive in Yosemite, something shifts inside me. It is not just the sight of it — it is the feeling. Like the valley itself reaches out and says: you are home. I don’t rush here. I settle quietly by the bank of the Merced River, where the water runs cold and clear and ancient, and I let the stillness take over.

My mind begins to travel — not forward, but back. Back through centuries, back through the very story of this earth.

I look at the granite walls rising around me and I wonder: what did this place look like when the first Native Americans walked this valley? They were not here by accident. They were called here — the way all seekers are called to places greater than themselves. They understood what took me years of photography to learn: that nature does not belong to us. We belong to it.

I go back further still. I imagine this valley buried beneath a mile of glacial ice, the great granite domes pressing upward with unstoppable force. El Capitan. Half Dome. The Cathedral Rocks. They were not built. They were revealed. The mountain always knew what it was. It only needed time to show the world.

Sitting by the Merced, I feel the smallness of my own life — and I am grateful for it. Here, I feel more alive than anywhere else on earth. More at peace. More certain that everything is unfolding exactly as it should.

We are all, like the granite, still being revealed.

You can view his work here: tamangphotography.com

My photo. What do you see in the rock and sand? What touches you, and reveals?
My photo of St. Francis nesting in a section of my yard

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Memorial Day Weekend

This is our stay at home weekend as we honor those who gave their lives for freedom.  As a child, we often drove from Iowa to Indiana, and put flowers on family graves.  My uncle put flags on the graves of those who served.  

This is from Heather Cox Richardson today:

President Donald J. Trump’s proposed triumphal arch would sit at a rotary on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The proposed arch obscures the Lincoln Memorial, built to honor the president who steered the country safely through the Civil War, but perfectly frames Arlington House, the mansion built by enslaved Americans and once owned by Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The arch does not frame the nation’s honored dead, but frames instead the home of the man who led the armies of the Confederacy that killed them.

How did things become so skewed?  

Heart
Intricacy

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Aftermath

Grandson is home from the hospital, playing happily with his toys.

Today my son introduces a friend of his, Justin, and me, to each other as he loves both our blogs.

I come to Justin’s blog, “are you electronic,” and yes, I am intrigued.

One post is on Virginia Woolf’s essay, “The Death of the Moth”.  Perhaps this week because death has felt uncomfortably, hoveringly close, I relate even more closely to two of the paragraphs in her essay.  She is watching a moth at her window.

What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fibre, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life.

Yet, because he was so small, and so simple a form of the energy that was rolling in at the open window and driving its way through so many narrow and intricate corridors in my own brain and in those of other human beings, there was something marvellous as well as pathetic about him. It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zig-zagging to show us the true nature of life.

She’s already shared with us what’s outside the window. She begins here.

Such vigour came rolling in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book. The rooks too were keeping one of their annual festivities; soaring round the tree tops until it looked as if a vast net with thousands of black knots in it had been cast up into the air; which, after a few moments sank slowly down upon the trees until every twig seemed to have a knot at the end of it. Then, suddenly, the net would be thrown into the air again in a wider circle this time, with the utmost clamour and vociferation, as though to be thrown into the air and settle slowly down upon the tree tops were a tremendously exciting experience.

And with that, we engage in this dance of transition, of soaring and settling, of weaving in and out of a net knotted with individuals connected in the whole, Indra’s Net.

Justin’s blog: https://www.areyouelectronic.com

Rock becoming pebbles
Looking into a Log

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Great News

The text just came through to “Fab Fam” from my daughter-in-law.

Great news! The MRI came back. The bone is infected, but there is no abscess. We’re going home with several follow ups scheduled for blood draws to track. Yay!

Well, an infected bone may not be the greatest news, but that there is no abscess which would have required minor surgery to drain is super-good news. And he’ll be home, despite his joyful time at the hospital.

I can’t believe the relief. Again, thank you for all the prayers, lit candles, and support. I felt it, and I know he did too. We all did! Support! Connection! Love! Gratitude! Deep thanks in all ways!!

And the tide moves in and out –
Posted on by Cathy Edgett · 2 Comments

Ease

Today I’m with the words of Jame Broughton.  At every crossroad / be prepared to bump into wonder.

I’m also with the words of Mark Twain.  “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”

I just spoke with my son Jeff, uncle of grandson.  He and grandson’s mother are at the hospital with Keo who doesn’t want to leave.  He loves it.  His dad spends the night in his room.  They have a great bathroom with a shower.  The food is wonderful.  People dote on him.  On the pediatric fourth floor, there’s a library, a room filled with toys, an art room, and an outside play area.  What’s not to like? 

They still haven’t heard anything on the results of the MRI, but it’s almost 1:00, so the nurse said it’s likely he’ll be there another night, which is good because he doesn’t want to leave.

We worried about him having an MRI.  He slept through it.  I think of all the worrying I’ve done in my life.  I’ve read about Beginner’s Mind for years, but maybe this whole week has me sinking into what that really means.  Can I meet life openly and enthusiastically, “prepared to bump into wonder”?  Can I set intention for laughter to roll through me like a boat rocked in soft waves? Intention set. Wonders abound. Life can be Light.

Rock formed one way, then lifted and turned – easy as that.
Wood drifts in from the sea; shelter forms, created by hands unseen.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Perspective

I’ve been posting about my six-year-old grandson and his time in the Stanford Pediatric hospital.

Today, I learned he would have an MRI.  I’ve never had one but I’ve heard about the pounding and the claustrophobia.  Yikes!  Worry set in stronger than before.

So, how did he do?  Well, he feels he’s too old for naps so even with all that’s been going on since Friday, he is clear.  No naps.  I’m too old for naps.

It’s been painful for him to lie down flat, but somehow when he lay down for the MRI, he fell asleep and slept through the whole thing, and there you have it.  Once again, an example of how we meet what comes.  No one told him it would be scary.  He met it fresh, well, actually asleep, but what’s fresher than that.  His adventure continues.  He’s currently writing and illustrating a “graphic novel”.  I’m curious to see the result after all of this.   

If I ever have an MRI, I’ll say to myself, “Great, I’m in need of a nap.”  

Thank you all for all the prayers, concern, and care coming his and our way.  I’m so grateful!!  I’m swimming in tears.  Monday I read him Alice in Wonderful.  I never really related to the book, but now I “get” it.  I’m big. I’m small, and I’m swimming in tears.  And perhaps, the whole thing is a dream!!

What’s more dreamlike than Rodeo Beach in the fog and mist?

Posted on by Cathy Edgett · 1 Comment

Out of the Woods

Great news on my grandson.  The antibiotics are working.  His mother writes “He loves hotels.  This is like a hotel plus movies and he’s the center of attention.”

Now, we just need to keep him entertained.  I’m going down with “The Complete First Series The Prophecies Begin: Warriors”.  He has a window seat in his hospital room with a view.  He’ll be there tonight and maybe another night depending how quickly the infection is wiped out.  

Modern medicine.  Wow!  We live in the best of times when it comes to medical care.  Now it needs to be health care for all, not just for those who can afford it. I’m waving a flag of gratitude.

Splashing in the Fountain – Happiness Ho!

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Resilience

A month ago I bought my grandson a book called That’s Good! That’s Bad by Margaret Cuyler and David Catrow.   It’s essentially the “Is That So?” story about the back and forth that happens in our world, and how we meet it.  It’s about perception.

Today we got a call from the physicians that our grandson needed to return to the hospital.  Obviously we united in what I might call “false cheer”.  “Oh, the tales that you’ll tell when you go back to school” etc.  Meanwhile I drove home in tears.  

But then we FaceTimed with him.  He was still in the ER as they waited for a room to open up for him.  He was hooked up to an IV and excited about all the machines.  He bounced up and down to show us how the machine showed his heart rate increasing and decreasing.  With sign language, he signed the whole alphabet for us, and showed us a drawing he did, and explained the complexity.  He shared how excited he is because he gets to go in an ambulance from one part of the hospital to another, and he gets to have an “overnight”.  

Talk about a lesson in perception.  I’ve spent the night in the hospital three times, twice for the birth of my children, and once for a lumpectomy.  I never greeted it as an “overnight”.  I’ve never been in an ambulance but I doubt I would have seen it as an adventure.  These last days dealing with the fear and sadness in the ups and downs of this with my grandson have been a huge lesson for me in how I might meet life now.  For one thing, all that matters is family, friends, connection, and perception.  Everything is so precious, every moment, exchange, breath. I’m precious too. Can I let myself feel that?

I still read the political news which is staggering, and yet surrounding that is the Love we share, the Love that is tangible and matters, and will carry us.  I don’t post photos of my grandchild but I have one here of him strapped in ready to go to the ambulance.  He has a huge grin on his face as he holds a small carton of milk. He’s wearing his Valkyries hat, and his Grinch pajamas because he loves Christmas so much he wears Christmas pajamas all year.  He’s my example of resilience, and how we meet what comes.  Life is an adventure.  Children show us the way. They give us Joy.

Living in the mist that unites tears and laughter in Receptivity, Resilience and Joy!
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Gratitude

My grandson just got home from Stanford pediatrics.  It’s been quite a weekend but he’s been diagnosed and is on the mend.  We live in a country where every person deserves excellent health care, especially children.  Health care brings us all together in the deepest connection, gratitude, and trust.  To see health care taken away from so many when this country has the money breaks my heart.  Perhaps my grandson would be alive without the care he was given this weekend, but I can’t say that for sure.  He was given test after test, and doctors discussed and discussed.  What a gift this was, and is, for him, and his family and friends.  Every child and every person deserves this.  We have the resources. Let’s use them to save and enrich the lives with whom we share this time on the planet, this time, a gift, connecting and enlivening us all now, and now, and now.

Looking through
Fragility and Strength