Cathy's Blog!

Posted on May 11, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Connection

In May, 2022, I read about Dawn Prince-Hughes who has Aspergers. In wanting to understand human communication, she began sitting outside the window of the enclosure for the silverback gorillas at the Seattle zoo. One day when she arrived upset, Congo, a silverback male gorilla noticed and rushed to the window. He motioned to her to put her head on his shoulder. They touched through the glass and felt the glass as fluid.

She writes: I probably stayed with him like that, with my head on his shoulder, for 30 minutes or so. I think it was probably the first time I was genuinely comforted by another person. Congo really set the standard for what social interactions should be like between me and another human being. You just can’t worry about looking like a fool. You can’t worry about getting hurt. You can’t worry about whether you’re right or not. It just boils down to wanting to be connected at all costs, at all risks. I no longer wanted to allow the permeability of my spirit to seek smaller and smaller shelters. It requires a completely open heart. I felt like I found a way to go home through the glass.

Posted on May 7, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Now

I return to a book by Jeanne Achterberg, Woman as Healer. Civilizations decline when they devalue women. From prehistoric times to the present, there’s been peace, growth, and prosperity when women were honored and revered for their role as healers and creators, as essential beings in this world we share. When they were held down, dishonored, and demeaned, there was war.

And here we are, again.

A Great Blue Heron stands stately by the path!

Posted on May 4, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Silence

In Erling Kagge’s book, Silence: In the Age of Noise, he writes of “how it feels good to share a joy”. He also writes of how words can interfere.

From the book:

Early one morning the war hero Claus Helberg, who later became a respected guide in Norway’s mountain region, led a group out from Finsehytta, a Norwegian mountain cabin.

“The summer light was returning, winter had released its hold, and new colours were emerging everywhere. The conditions were fantastic, and instead of commenting on it he began the hike by handing out slips of paper to each of the participants on which was written: “Yes, it is totally amazing.”

When the pandemic began we rarely drove and didn’t drive one of our cars which sat outside. The battery died. When we opened the hood to put in a new battery, we discovered this beautiful nest.

Posted on May 3, 2026May 3, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Holding a Stone

I’m re-reading Erling Kagge’s wonderful book Silence: In the Age of Noise. I know stones. As a leader and student of Sensory Awareness, I know how holding a stone or placing in on our body, or passing it to a friend and receiving a stone in return can wake us up. I feel each stone as individual and unique as each of us.

I resonate to these words of Erling Kagge:

Americans have built a base even at the South Pole. Scientists and maintenance workers reside there for several months at a time, isolated from the outside world. One year there were ninety-nine residents who celebrated Christmas together at the base. Someone had smuggled in ninety-nine stones and handed out one apiece as Christmas gifts, keeping one for themselves. Nobody had seen stones for months. Some people hadn’t seen stones for over a year. Nothing but ice, snow, and man-made objects. Everyone sat gazing at and feeling their stone. Holding in their hands, feeling its weight, without uttering a word.

Stones rest in a bowl shaded by Azalea and Pine

Posted on May 2, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

A Moment

I was in my local grocery store, Good Earth, excited to see the beginning of summer season cherries when I turned and fell into the eyes of a little boy in his stroller. His dad was checking out lettuce but his son and I shared a smile wide enough to embrace us both. I felt the arrow and target connect as one.

I walked around him, and he turned with me and again it was such a connection, an expansion of openness and oneness. It was communion that continues even now, hours later. There is such beauty in this world we share, such trust, and we do what we do for the children, for all children, and that’s why the gentle protests continue, nourishing what we believe in, bringing forth what we know is true.

Posted on May 1, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

A Sweet Story

For those of us who love A.A. Milne’s story Winnie-the-Pooh, it was good news to read that Queen Camilla gave a replica of Roo to the New York Public Library. Roo had been lost and now has been reproduced by Merrythought, Britain’s oldest surviving teddy bear manufacturer. Roo again joins Pooh, Kanga, Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger. The group is complete like childhood, stories, and dreams.

Posted on April 30, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

This Moment, Now

I’m struggling with the political news in this country, and yet, yesterday as I sat on my deck and savored my first sip of a fresh cup of coffee, I felt complete happiness and remembered the words of the Dalai Lama who when asked about the happiest or best moment of his life, responded “this moment.”

When Tara Brach asked the Dalai Lama his happiest moment, he replied, “this moment is happiness”. She shares this: On a visit to D.C., the Dalai Lama was asked by a reporter to share about the happiest moment in his life. He paused and then gave a very mischievous look. His response: ‘I think now!'”

This morning as I read the news, I’m carried on the musical composition of three different garbage trucks coming through picking up debris from three different bins: garbage, recycling, and compost. We are a community. This moment, now!

Posted on April 26, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Beauty and Art Around Us

On Friday I was at Cornerstone gardens in Sonoma and Saturday at the Las Gallinas Reclamation ponds in San Rafael. I offer a taste through photos.

Posted on April 22, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Clouds

I’m enamored with clouds as I consider the blue sky that’s always with us, and what floats and moves above, around, and through us.

In the book Where’d You go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, I read her description of the sky and clouds in Seattle.

“The sky in Seattle is so low, it felt like God had lowered a silk parachute over us. Every feeling I ever knew was up in that sky. Twinkling joyous sunlight; airy, giggling cloud wisps; blinding columns of sun. Orbs of gold, pink, flesh, utterly cheesy in their luminosity. Gigantic puffy clouds, welcoming, forgiving, repeating infinitely across the horizon as if between mirrors; and slices of rain, pounding wet misery in the distance now, but soon on us, and in another part of the sky, a black stain, rainless.”

And on she goes … may we each do the same as we observe and reflect on movement above, around, in, through, and connecting us.

Posted on April 21, 2026April 21, 2026 by Cathy Edgett

Noticing What Is

Yesterday I sat in the park watching clouds as I waited for my son to emerge from a medical procedure. Today I was with a falcon in the park.

Krishnamurti: The ability to observe without judgement, is the highest form of human intelligence.

I augment: “all intelligence”. The clouds, falcon, medical procedure, medical personnel – all One.