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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Rumi: Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
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?
I’m reading Stefan Laeng’s Substack on Charlotte Selver and Sensory Awareness when I notice a helicopter flying back and forth overhead, flying between the ocean and Mt. Tam. Then I smell smoke and get an alert about a vegetation fire. Now, the alert says the wildfire is near Rodeo Beach where I almost went today. Rodeo Beach is right over the ridge, so now my eyes are constantly looking up and watching the sky. I walk outside and take some pictures. I don’t see smoke but I am awake.
My nose is wiggling in the air like Mole in Wind in the Willows when he’s called outside by the smells and sounds of spring. This is a different smell, not the warm, comforting smell of a fire burning in the fireplace. This is a call to alertness. It’s primal.
I look at what I’ve been reading.
Fritz Perls: We don’t have an organism. We are the organism.
Charlotte: So the question would be: is there a state possible in which we can be without watching and without observing—simply awake? Is there a state of awareness possible which is permitted through our whole self from head to foot? So that everywhere we can be aware?
What I have most learned in this work is what it is like to be there for what is needed. It is a very difficult thing to understand that the appetite for having and getting can be transformed into a giving. To the end of her life Elsa Gindler (Charlotte’s teacher) said, “What does this want from me?,” not “What do I want from it?”
I keep returning to Charlotte’s words: What does this want from me? And How do I meet what comes? In this moment, I’m awake, listening, aware, alert. A helicopter travels back and forth overhead. And now the ding of a new alert. Forward progress of the fire is stopped and fire crews will remain on the scene. And helicopters continue to travel back and forth.
From Heather Cox Richardson:
Last night, at exactly 9:25—9 to 5—the top of the Empire State Building in New York City lit up pink. The antennas of Chicago’s Willis Tower—formerly the Sears Tower—lit up pink, too. So did the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier, which also sported a giant pink heart. The Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee; Reunion Tower and other buildings in the Dallas skyline; and the Longfellow, Burns, Fore River, Braga, and Zakim bridges of Boston; Caesar’s Superdome in New Orleans; and, of course, Nashville’s KVB Bridge and historic Metro Courthouse were all lit up in pink last night.
The Arthur Ashe Stadium played “Jolene” during the U.S. Open. Jack White played Jolene in London. Elsewhere in London, the Buckingham Palace band played “9 to 5.”
All this and more for a woman born on January 19, 1946, in Sevier County, Tennessee, in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains without electricity or running water.
I read the tributes to this outstanding human being. I didn’t know that when the pandemic struck in 2020, Dolly donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to fund research on developing the Moderna’s vaccine. She then got her Moderna shot on camera and performed a new version of her hit “Jolene.”
“Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, I’m begging you – please don’t hesitate. Because once you’re dead, then that’s a bit too late.”
Then she rolled up her sleeve and offered one final piece of medical advice:
“Don’t be such a chicken squat. Get out there and get your shot.”
Go to youtube and watch her sing and get her shot. We’ve been looking for someone to shift the tide on this horror show. I’m sorry for her passing, and yet, I thank her for giving us the shot of inspiration we need. She’s giving us our shot of hope and trust in love and care for all!
Thank you, Dolly!
I read the news and come to these words by Thich Nhat Hahn:
This, my dear, is the greatest challenge to being alive: to witness injustice in the world and not allow it to consume our light.
And this poem by Thich Nhat Hanh:
I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm—
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
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