I sit by the ocean, watch waves and clouds – no need to move – it’s as though I’m on a cruise ship and I am: my boat, the earth.
All seems so simple and clear, each wave unique, each inhale and exhale, each moment. I rest in flow balancing in and out.
I’m with the words of Paul Valery: Breath, dreams, silence, invincible calm … you will triumph.
I’m by the sea in bunny mode. Friday, I bought a bunny for upcoming grandchild, and today I see one outside our room at Spanish Bay nibbling on the lawn. The Velveteen Rabbit brought to life accompanies me. All is gentle here, tender. There’s something about the ocean and coastal trees, a scent that moves in and settles, gives a sense of flying with pelicans and gulls.
I’m by the ocean. With photos, I’ll share. Ah, and then there’s connectivity, which is obvious where land meets sea, but less clear when swirling through the air.
The wind blew in and doors slammed. According to my phone, the temperature drop was 28 degrees. We’re back to what we perceive as normal here along the coast.
I stand outside in the dark, hair stroked, and think of emotions, trends, relationships, and politics, and how the wind blows through.
I come to Richard Rohr and he reminds me of these words of Thomas Merton from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. Merton is standing on a crowded street corner in the midst of an ordinary day when …
In Louisville, at the corner of 4th [now Muhammad Ali Blvd.] and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. . . . This changes nothing in the sense and value of my solitude, for it is, in fact, the function of solitude to make one realize such things with a clarity that would be impossible to one completely immersed in other cares. . . . My solitude, however, is not my own. It is because I am one with them that I owe it to them to be alone, and when I am alone, they are not “they” but my own self. There are no strangers. . . . If only we could see each other that way all the time. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and “understood” by a peculiar gift. . . .
“A peculiar gift”, and yet I, too, have felt this at times, or perhaps been opened to it, or immersed, or embraced, and perhaps not so directly and articulately, but yes there will be a digestive squirt and swirl, as though yes, there is no division between you and me, in and out, solitude and togetherness, and of course as Walt Whitman says, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
How do we balance these multitudes? That is the joy and task.
Rohr continues: “In October of 1968, just minutes before his death, Merton told a large audience of Asian monks at a Calcutta conference: “My dear brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. What we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.””
Why is that so challenging, and yet, as I sit here, waiting for dark to turn to light, I see that as my carrot for the day, my mantra. I trust in permeability, and the touch of the wind as it vibrates through unity in diversity. I trust in parts as whole.
Last Saturday night this snake was one of the Animal Ambassadors for Wildcare. I remember the first time I held a snake. They are not slimy. They are beautiful. Enjoy the strength and resilience in the movement of scales.
The birds are singing as though it’s spring, and perhaps it is. I had dreams of Halloween, and then I woke to a symphony outside my open door. I looked out to rose-pink and thought of the moments, each one divided into seasons when we notice, when we’re awake.
Yesterday when I walked toward the bay, I saw a seal frolicing and doing somersaults, but when I sat on the rocks to watch, no seal was visible, only two gulls sitting with me, and the magic in the water shifting, moving, just like all that makes up living in me.
Gratitude is a symphony, and I sit lifted on the chords as I ground on the garbage truck’s deep rumbling as it gathers and recycles what’s been used.
Today I watched this egret through a fence. He/she’s the white spot in the middle of the metal square. A bulldozer bulldozed nearby, very near, and yet, the egret was calm and content to continue its look for food.
Then I saw this vine climbing up two poles. Nature is amazing. We are nature. Our democracy is threatened right now and we can ignore what distracts and keep climbing toward the nourishment of the sun, which when the skies aren’t polluted, we see. Clean air. Yum!
I wake in darkness, absorb the taste and textures pored with reflection. Then, rising, walking outside, I receive the morning pour, the ridge touched with light, lit; like a match, crows caw.
Today like the trees dropping leaves, I realize it’s time to clear off my desk so I can see the surface and feel the way I branch.
I uncover an article by John A. Baron, my Alexander Technique instructor.
He asks students to “experiment with their use by holding themselves in deliberate tensions, then collapsing, while continuing to stay with the piece”, the poem “The Swan” by Rainer Maria Rilke.
He continues, “One could also experiment with opening and closing physically with relative ease, or with drifting into movement, then into stillness.”
The poem is this.
The Swan by Rilke
This laboring of ours through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobble along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.
And then dying to let go, releasing ourselves
from the very ground in which we stand –
is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself
into the waters, which receive him gently and,
as though with reverence and joy,
flow back beneath him, as wave follows wave,
while he, now wholly serene and sure,
with regal composure, and ever more indifferent,
he allows himself to glide.
I’m with this now, this opening and closing, and drifting into movement, then stillness, as I watch Greta Thunberg as she speaks today before the United Nations General Assembly. She is a force we cannot ignore. She’s proof one person speaking out can change the world. May it not be too late as we lower ourselves into the truth of what she says as wave follows wave.
It’s the first official day of Fall, and where I live this day begins wrapped in fog, a habitat, that for me rings tender and safe.
I feed the kitties and meditate, start with something I read yesterday that leads to this:
Inhale: Receive. Exhale: Fluidity.
Two simple words propel and anchor my breath: Receptivity and Fluidity.
I open Pir Elias Amidon’s book, Free Medicine, to this:
“When Robert Kennedy lay dying from an assassin’s bullet, his blood spreading across a kitchen floor, he opened his eyes and asked, “Is everyone all right?” I like to believe that question eased his homecoming. At least it taught me this counter-intuitive calculus: when you are in need, give.”
That brings me to reflect on leaves. In fall, the days shorten and night lengthens with a yawn and a stretch. Time for rest.
Temperatures cool. Leaves stop making food. Chlorophyll breaks down, and green disappears, giving way to red, orange, and yellow. A breeze blows through and leaves drop to decompose, nourishing and protecting the ground, Mother Earth.
With increasing light and the vibratory call of birds, new leaves return in spring.
Living, dying, giving, receiving, all cycles as One.
When my youngest son was five, I signed up to train as a Terwilliger Nature guide. We led children into nature at Muir Woods, Muir Beach, Richardson Bay, the Mill Valley Marsh, and Ring Mountain. Ring Mountain was my site, my place to lead.
Ring Mountain was the home of the Coast Miwok and we introduced children to life as it was when living with everything at hand, and how differently from that many of us live now.
Making a grocery list, we led fourth, fifth, and sixth graders up the mountain to the petroglyphs at the top. First, we gathered Pennyroyal from the pond below, and placed it in a thermos to steep so when we came to the midden along the stream under the Buckeye tree, we sat and drank tea.
Above the midden, a place where clam shells and other garbage were tossed, a rounded hole in the rock shows where acorns were ground, to easily be leached in the stream. Acorns are a powerful food source, and fish was plentiful in the bay below. As far as we know, life was bountiful and peaceful, and because Ring Mountain is preserved, it is a peaceful spot, though it overlooks the high-security prison San Quentin on the other side of the bay. Being there balances even more clearly the wonder and joy of being outside and not locked up behind bars.
The Terwilliger organization which began with Mrs. T. leading groups of children has expanded to become Wildcare which is still involved with education but also cares for and advocates for animals.
Last night I attended a fund-raising Gala for Wildcare. Ambassador animals also attended the event. I felt for them, even as I understood their confinement is essential, and they are well cared for, nourished, and loved. Their lives are not like those at San Quentin.
I sit here now feeling how feathering compassion for all beings illuminates all our lives.
This red-tailed hawk can’t fly because of a wing fracture that didn’t heal properly. The little opossum has no eyes.
