It’s May, the lusty month of May as sung in Camelot, and yet, this morning all is quiet and still.  It’s light and still early so I stay in bed luxuriating in the rising of a day that feels calm to me, open, unknown, as again I stir the inner wrappings of sheltering-in-place.  

I feel expansive as though I can fully claim this space and the movement of breath, of air, as it moves in and out, but it’s not claiming as much as noticing. What is this movement of breath in and out?  I extend, and I’m three dimensional- four – more.

As I’m with breath, simply breath, my diaphragm releases, and I revel in the gurgling that flows like a river, a symphony of my own.  

The diaphragm is the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious.  We might think we have a tight hold on what we know but when we release into the unconscious, there is so much more.  Today I feel into the formation of what guides us, this immersion in water, ground to clouds, this change of form.

A few years ago, a friend and her husband decided to memorize a poem a day.  They began with “The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear.  Then yesterday a friend said she is memorizing a poem each day on her hike.  She, too, started with “The Owl and the Pussycat”.  She emailed me:

“My favorite line to say is Dear Pig are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring said the piggy I will……say it, Cathy, it just makes you feel so monumentally silly and happy.”

Say it.  It does, but it has me wondering what it is about this poem that is considered to be nonsensical.  Why an owl and a pussycat?  What’s the symbolism, and is there symbolism, or is it just a way to jiggle the mouth and body/mind all around?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43188/the-owl-and-the-pussy-cat

Today I began reading Rescuing Ladybugs: Inspirational Encounters with Animals That Changed the World by Jennifer Skiff.

I was feeling a little glum when I began.  I’d been to my local grocery store at 7:oo for Senior Hour and there were only a few customers in the store, all wearing masks, and carefully, mindfully, and somewhat furtively scurrying around.  There’s still no flour and very little pasta but certainly there’s plenty of food, more than one might imagine when one stops to think about any reality other than the one we were living in. 

Because I’m so rarely out though, it’s an adjustment to see so few cars out on the road. It’s a shock.

I read that social isolation will continue where I live, and I agree with that even though it’s hard not to see my grandchild and hug and kiss him.  I appreciate Facetime but it’s not quite the same, and yet I’m grateful that I can easily shelter-in-place as can my family and friends.

I honor the adjustment required when something this huge and still not understood has been unleashed.

This book gives concrete examples of how rescue and change are possible.  Empathy, memory, compassion, and possibly telepathy are shared among all creatures.  We can save ourselves, and the world, and together we will and are. I trust this to be so.

This morning I enjoy a back and forth exchange with an old friend on being aware of “counting down”.  We are of an age and there is a desire to convey some wisdom from our age, and in that, there is trust in how we imprint on the wind.  There’s nothing for me to do.  I’ve lived a good life and I trust that, and now there is a need or desire to release and be.  

Moles and gophers are busy in one section of my yard these days.  It’s unused, left natural for the critters who live in the area, but a neighbor’s cat loves sitting next to opportunity ready to pounce when a bright-eyed creature pops out of a hole.

My cats have never been hunters.  One even came to me when a bird flew wounded into the house and was lying winded on the floor.  We watched together until he or she was able to mobilize and fly back out.  

I feel such peace today and perhaps it’s because of the beauty of Mother’s Day and all the love that came my way, and the way of others I know and cherish, and all of us are mothers, mothers to ourselves, and this world we share.

I see this pause to shelter-in-place as an opportunity to go within, and slip underground like the moles, gophers, worms, and voles, and consider how we aerate the earth with our ability to ingest, chew, digest, and pour out our own intestinal touch.  Like the starfish, the sea star, we can expel our stomachs to feast, take in and release, over and over again.

Be Peace!

I read the following right before bed last night and my dreams were invitingly expansive and intense. 

Robert Bly in “Letter to James Wright” – 

Do you remember that cliff

We once imagined – hundreds of swallow holes,

   And an old Chinese poem rolled up inside

Each hole!  We can’t unroll them here.  We have

To climb inside.

This morning I’m with words of  Herman Hesse: 

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

I’m happily home unrolling scrolls inside.  

Today, Mother’s Day, I enjoyed a beautiful day, and there’s that place of missing my mother, so I balance on what’s here today, family, though seen on a screen not in person, and my mother as she floats freely now.

I read poems, articles, and essays on mothers, motherhood, mother nature, mother earth.  All comes through mother, and yet on this day, I feel such expanse as though my mind is a fallow field.  I soften and rest like flowers not yet ready to rise and lift out of the ground.  

And now it’s 8 PM and the howl begins.  It’s a given these days, and dogs and turkeys join in.

Tomorrow is a new day as we rise knowing the rhythm in honoring from where we come and what now births.

The fog blew in during the night.  A wrap that says rest in one spot, no need to move, and yet, I want coffee and breakfast and a clean tablecloth.  I light a candle and warm in the flame, even as movement is slow, enclosed in this new day.

I’m dealing with aches and pains, unusual for me, and yet, I have exciting plans. Yesterday I ordered redwood bark that will be delivered today.  I plan to spread bark over the area I’ve been weeding to give the soil a rest.

Maybe I want that for myself: resting the soil beneath the breath as I move gently into a new day.  

It’s the beginning of Mother’s Day weekend.  Since my mother passed in 2005, I always feel a little sad as I sit and remember her. I wish she were here, and yet, I woke from a dream around 3 where Senna Dog who passed away recently was lying next to me.  All is here.

I’m reading an interesting book, Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal.  We know there’s more here than we see and perceive, and so I’m invited into the exploration of curves, and how straight lines don’t always reveal what we might explore.  

The New Yorker this week has a fascinating article on Sesame Street.  I hadn’t realized the name came from “Open Sesame”, giving “the idea of a street where neat stuff happens”.

The show peaked in 1983 when it dealt with death to explain to children that the actor Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, had passed away.    

The article goes on to say “The Reagan years marked the beginning of the fall. The federal government all but stopped funding educational television in 1981, and deregulation meant that the F.C.C. accepted “The Flintstones” as fulfilling a station’s “educational” requirement.”

“Kids’ TV in the nineteen-eighties involved mainly plastic toys: “My Little Pony’ n Friends”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”.”

And so here we are in a world where “The Flintstones” was considered educational TV.  

We know what deregulation has done, and again, this is Mother’s Day weekend. We celebrate all mothers, and especially bow down to Mother Earth, and the mothering occurring within each of us as we live our lives with attention and nurturing care.

Peace!

I sit in my own little spaceship as I open my computer to news, exploration, inspiration, and travel of the day.  Talking to a friend this morning, I realized what I’m feeling is contentment.  I work in the yard, pluck a blueberry from a bush and fully taste, taste and savor the touch of the blueberry as it receives nourishment from the plant and pours it into me.

I’ve been questioning why I don’t seem goal-oriented these days.  I’ve never been particularly goal-oriented, but now there doesn’t seem to be a smidgen of anything pulling me forward.  I eat when I’m hungry, well, also when bored or depressed, and I sleep when tired.  Maybe that’s enough.

Today I’m with enough.

I’m also with a practice of Frank Ostaseski, who wrote The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

To help us with upheaval and change, Frank is sharing a practice he’s using all day long.  He pauses and places both hands on his chest. 

He feels the contact, feels breath, and says: “I choose love.” 

My friend also pointed out we seem to be hearing more birds singing.  Well, that’s true until this Monday when construction and chain-sawing returned, but yes.  She wonders if we’re hearing more singing because the birds can hear their singing in the silence, and are announcing more jubilantly their place in the world and sharing it with their friends.

Peace! Love! Choice!

I rose early and watched the full moon as she set.  Again, I was out early pulling weeds, pruning, and removing ivy from climbing up trees.

I feel refreshed from the touch of the trees, the sky, the living ground.

I’m reminded of the Ray Bradbury story, All Summer in a Day.  Set on Venus, the sun is only visible for an hour or two every seven years.  One little girl who remembers it from before writes a poem:

“I think the sun is a flower,

That blooms for just one hour.”

As strange as shelter-in-place has been, I wonder if when it’s truly lifted, we’ll walk outside with wonder and hug all those we see, flowers blooming like suns.

Sheltered-in-place, we’re offered an opportunity to evaluate what comes in as life begins to open with possibility.

What did we like about this time, dislike?

I feel myself balanced on a teeter-totter.  I haven’t felt well the last few days so I go back and forth.  Am I doing too much or not enough?  Do I need more physical activity or am I craving a mental challenge? What is this moment asking of me? What am I asking?

I feel  I’m dropped between two walls, unsure which one to climb, so maybe I’ll just push them both over and stand arms outstretched, and announce: I’m here.

I see how my six month old grandson loves to hold both arms out as though to embrace the whole wide world.  He’s whole in himself, whole in the world.  He reaches with his whole being for what he wants, and then, when he gets it, he might give it a toss.  No attachment, just exploration and curiosity, so this day, today, how do I balance my young and mature selves, and where do I reach?

I was up early, pruning and weeding.  I’m always surprised at how it looks like a reasonably small job but each cut and pull introduces whole new landscapes and views.  Who knows what’s there, so a one hour plan becomes three.

Today I saw two photos representing manipulation and point of view.  Both were of the same scene but the side angle showed people honoring social distancing and patiently waiting in line six feet apart.  A photo of the same scene, shot from the front, made it appear people were clustered together and anxiously pushing ahead to enter.   

How then do we look at and interpret our own lives?  Do we zoom in or use a wide angle lens?  Where do we stand?  Do we look out from within and embrace the world with arms outstretched and an open heart?  Sometimes, and other times like anemone at low tide, we close and rest.

Today I balance both as I cleanse and fluff my nest.