I’m balancing on these words of Anne Lamott:
Peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet.
Hmmm!
I’m also with the word tear which can be interpreted as wetness from the eyes, or breaking something apart. Is there a place they meet like joy and peace?
I wake up noticing it’s still dark at five. We’re moving into a new season, and yet, warmth is still to come before the light dims to transition again.
A friend has received a pacemaker. It saves a life and changes it, so he’s with a series of limitations right now.
In this, I feel, nourish, and invite an extra tenderness to my heart today, as it beats loyally between my lungs.
I remember walking in Muir Woods in the winter rain. There was no place to sit as the ground, plants, and benches were wet, and I felt myself moving like the stream.
My cousin who is in Hospice now was told by her oncologist to read Eckhart Tolle. I thought it odd to suggest reading at this point but then I came across these lines of his.
Through death you will find yourself because you no longer identify with form.
I’m alive right now, identifying with form, and gratefully appreciating the rhythm of my heart, and that is this moment, now.
Peaceful, the gentle beat!
To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.
– Claude Monet
I spent the last two days with my grandson living in the realm of the imagination. The playground was closed so we settled under a tree with beautiful green leaves. We stretched our necks to become giraffes, and even now I feel my long, flowing neck and lips gently nuzzling and ingesting leaves.
A coyote is howling this morning. Perhaps it’s waking from a dream of the Supermoon last night. My meditation these days is “Beyond Multiplicity”, and I ground in illusion as I juggle, snuggle, crawl through, and open to rainbows in play.
We drove to Santa Barbara on 101, a reminder of the work involved in growing our food. We passed fields lined with people bent over picking and pruning.
On the way back, we took country roads. In 2012 my sons did the Faultline rally and crisscrossed the California fault line in a vintage Datsun with other pre-1976 cars. They traveled mainly on narrow and challenging roads, not passable in wet weather, which it wasn’t then or now, and discovered uncrowded beautiful landscapes, another example of the variety and complexity of the state in which we live. Our destination for lunch was the Parkfield Cafe, worth it for the atmosphere, food, and apple dumplings.
I didn’t take pictures inside the restaurant as it opens at 11:30 and immediately fills with hungry people, all a little more weathered than we. It felt intrusive to gawk and take pictures of saddle stools and the giant fireplace. We ate outside as we do when we travel with Ebi and Ginger, two rescue greyhounds who attract attention wherever we go.
I offer a taste of our trip yesterday.
We leave Santa Barbara today. Our visit has been exquisite and I want to share another side. As is clear, I love taking pictures. I thought I was taking a picture of a rock with some local history on it but a man in the far distance started yelling at me because he thought I was taking a picture of him. I hadn’t noticed him, as there are homeless people here, and so there is the usual honoring of quiet respect and awareness of the disparity that we sadly know. Back at the hotel, I realized yes, I had captured his image in the background and I deleted it.
Today I post images of rocks and sand, movement, dwelling, connection, and change.
When in crisis, we often want to keep busy with our hands, that connector to our heart. That’s where we reach out and touch, reach out and receive.
Today I do the simple tasks of living, laundry, dishes, bed making with awareness of connecting hands and heart.
It is a weight and a fullness. Moisture fills the body, sadness, a reach to understand this parting of the veil, opening to the light.
I’m trying to stay with the weight of the grief, to not run away from it, and I know it’s not just about my cousin, that it’s about all the grief we’ve experienced in our lives as though it creates a mountain on which we climb until we reach our own peak and lift.
Yesterday on my return I drove to the bay to sit, just sit in the abundance of life here. Sausalito is filled with people from other places, different accents and the excitement of curiosity and not knowing exactly where you are.
About a month ago as I was processing this deep feeling of grief, I wrote these words for myself and I share them now.
Like gathering tufts of wool sheep have left on branches and trees, we gather the spirits of those we love who’ve passed, make a cloak for ourselves of wisdom we weave and share.
This morning I drove east to Rio Vista to visit my cousin and say goodbye as she transitions into a new journey. The drive was exquisite through the delta and past the golden summer lands of California.
On the roundabout I miscounted when to exit so I ended up on a deserted gravel road which was perfect as I needed a pee break.
On the left side of the road was an old-fashioned windmill with a gathering of cows.
And on the other side was this.
At my cousin’s house, she showed me a box of cranes, 100 cranes, that my sister-in-law had made and sent to her to help her with her journey of healing and coming to peace and wholeness.
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