I wake and feel myself sifted in layers like cremated ash.

I look out at my Japanese garden.  Two crows rest there.

Today the grief for my brother’s passing is spread throughout me like mulch.  I receive the transformed elements of grief, joy, memories, peace.

Yesterday was a volatile day.  I’m on edge, quick to react with not the bliss I intend.  Frustration is a knife cutting my day into fragments, and maybe that’s okay.  My friend Elaine points out that the well is deep and complex. I consider that as I stand below and look up at stones and moss. Maybe some days I can’t climb up to the light because of the slipperiness of wet moss.

I also say to Elaine that my son Jeff has been my knight in shining armor. She points out that a knight needs a damsel in distress. Ah, yes, and so I have been.

I’m with the cover of my book Airing Out the Fairy Tale which I’m gratified to learn that people love.  I believe it took two months to come up with the image for that cover. I would talk to Patrick and explain what the trip to Nepal meant to me, what it is to go through menopause and midlife crisis.  He, a male, reached to understand and created image after image. We both related to the ones with fire, but when it came to the cover we wanted the mountain, Ama Dablam, mother and son, a sister to Everest, and a woman on a suspension bridge with the wings of birds.

You can check out Patrick at: http://www.jpliphotography.com

You can order Airing Out the Fairy Tale: Trekking through Nepal & Midlife on Amazon or ask your local book store to order it for you. It is an offering to the celebration that is life. It also honors those who’ve passed circling around Mount Everest as they travel on. Life is rich with blessings, balanced on the cultivation of peace, trust, request, reception and ease.