I've written three books, each a part of my journey to elderhood. Now with this blog my intention is to give a moment to moment accounting of my life as it is now, and now, and now. I'm a leader and student of Sensory Awareness, and a practitioner of Rosen Method. I believe in the connective and collective power of Love.
I sit outside with the book Silence In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge.
Immersed in silence, I hear leaves fall, the tingle of a windchime, and the giggle of a young child pushed on a swing by her dad.
From the book: I find myself thinking about how silence can be experienced without the use of techniques. The threshold for finding silence and balance can in fact be lowered. You don’t need a course in silence or relaxation to be able simply to pause. Silence can be created anywhere, anytime – it’s just in front of your nose. I create it for myself as I walk up the stairs, prepare food or merely focus on my breathing. Sure, we are all part of the same continent, but the potential wealth of being an island for yourself is something you carry around with you all the time.
Looking across from Sausalito to Angel IslandSanta plays hooky from the North Pole as he enjoys the sun in Sausalito.Net reflected in the water, catching silence, not fish.
I’ve been trying to understand Trump’s boat attacks. Why, especially when he pardons a man at the top of drug trafficking?
This guest essay by Phil Klay in the NY Times today allows me to understand.
Klay begins with this:
When Trump administration officials post snuff films of alleged drug boats blowing up, of a weeping migrant handcuffed by immigration officers or of themselves in front of inmates at a brutal El Salvadoran prison, I often think of a story St. Augustine told in his “Confessions.”
In the fourth century A.D., a young man named Alypius arrived in Rome to study law. He was a decent sort. He knew the people at the center of the empire delighted in cruel gladiatorial games, and he promised himself he would not go. Eventually, though, his fellow students dragged him to a match. At first, the crowd appalled Alypius. “The entire place seethed with the most monstrous delight in the cruelty,” Augustine wrote, and Alypius kept his eyes shut, refusing to look at the evil around him.
But then a man fell in combat, a great roar came from the crowd and curiosity forced open Alypius’s eyes. He was “struck in the soul by a wound graver than the gladiator in his body.” He saw the blood, and he drank in savagery. Riveted, “he imbibed madness.” Soon, Augustine said, he became “a fit companion for those who had brought him.”
We must continue to stay on top of what’s happening, and not allow what happened to Alypius, to happen to us. It’s a horrific manipulation to destroy humanity and the continuing development and evolution of peace, communion, fairness and democracy.
St. FrancisHarmony at Tennessee ValleySerenity at Muir Beach
Our six year old grandson has been here visiting, so we’ve enjoyed a grand old time, including fatigue, as some of us are older and more energetic than others. Tuesday was a perfect beach day. A friend asks if my grandson still believes in Santa. It seems so. He knows the Santas at the shopping centers are fake, but he seems to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Santa are up at the North Pole orchestrating the making of toys with the elves. Well, I believe it is so, so maybe that’s why. If you haven’t read, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”, you must read it. Santa is as real as love, and truth, and giving, and gifts.
Also, my grandson and I love the book, the Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien didn’t always have the money for gifts, but he had the gift of intellect and wit, and so letters were written explaining each year why the gifts were destroyed by the North Polar Bear, a most wonderful affectionate, and generous, though clumsy guy, and so, perhaps, for some, no gifts that year but a wonderful letter of explanation. Check out the Tolkien book of Father Christmas Letters on Amazon, or maybe in your local independent bookstore. I had to go to England to get my copy but that was many years ago. Now, it’s more readily available.
We are with the King Tides that accompany the December full moon. Grandson was enchanted with water over the path in Sausalito, and the designs in the water as he sat and observed the ever-changing gifts.
Wow! The joy of a high King Tide!Muir Beach December 2nd.Surfers at Muir Beach, a rarity.
I head outside and walk briskly feeling I’m back in the Midwest where I grew up. No loitering or sitting on benches, just moving along, as I hope the country does as we strive for and implement morality, and cultivate and honor democracy.
I read that salmon are in Coyote Creek near where I live, so I went to check and didn’t see any today, which may be because the tide is pouring in, so no ducks, fish, or otters, only waves in the water and reeds.
I’m with words from Anne Bancroft in Weavers of Wisdom: The Senecas hold a stone and when it becomes warm and pulsing, they enter the silence within.
The creek this morning!Thanks to the rain, mushrooms sprout in our yard.And there’s this!Intricacy
This is a celebratory week. I focus gratefully on what Thanksgiving means to me.It’s a time of reflection, a time to gather and share, a time for family and friends. It’s also a time to celebrate and honor courage, and so today I focus on Senator Mark Kelly and his sense of duty and commitment.
Senator Kelly issued the following statement in response to Pete Hegseth’s tweet:
When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired – which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.
In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.
Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.
“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”
Standing in the WavesThe crescent moon last night moving toward Full!
In reading The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng, I come across and reflect on this exchange on free will.
“I said, “There must be free will to choose. Do you know the poem about the two roads, and the one not taken?”
“Yes. That has always amused me, because who created the two roads in the first place?”
It was a question I had never considered.”
Of course, that opens up questions on creation that may go beyond our thoughts on free will, but I’m with the roads that tangle and untangle before us. What guides us in our choices? How do we meet what comes?
The beach at Tennessee Valley yesterdayThe rains are opening up the stream to the oceanWays to crossCut down Eucalyptus TreeBeauty in the Grain
I read about Ken Burn’s offering on the American Revolution, a look at the complexity that led to the formation of the United States. Part of the motivation was a want and desire to expand beyond the Appalachians. I’m reading The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. The book begins in 1939, in Penang, and looks at the circumstances that led to WWII in Asia, so focuses on Malaysia, China, and Japan.
We teach children simplicity, good and bad, and that’s necessary at first, like teaching how to get along in society, but then, we mature and learn the complexity of relationship, complexity in ourselves. We learn to navigate, move, and integrate the pieces we are.
Right now, the United States is divided by those who gain personally in division. We need to expose our shadow, to look openly at our history and in exposing, embrace a history that is complex. Hiding or denying doesn’t help us now.
In looking at the whole more clearly, we further honor the planet we share.
Branching, discarding, and transforming in the FallSacred HeartMushrooms sprout in the rain in our yardMr and Mrs Mallard and an egret in the Corte Madera marsh
Each material has its own shadow. The shadow of stone is not the same as that of a brittle autumn leaf. The shadow penetrates the material and radiates its message.
Sverre Fehn: (1924-2009)
I’ll never look at my shadow the same way again.
Light is not something vague, diffused, which is taken for granted because it is always there. The sun does not rise every day in vain.
Alberto Campo Baeza: (1946 – )
I’m grateful the earth turns giving us both night and day and the transitions between.
This morning I opened Billy Collins book Water, Water, to learn from the poem “Winter Trivia” that “It takes approximately two hours for a snowflake to fall from a cloud to the ground.” He then goes on to consider what he and his wife do in the two hours that a snowflake falls from cloud to ground.
I’m with that as I sort through the journey of the day, considering passage, transition, coherence, communion, and connection.
In the poem “The Cardinal” Billy Collins writes:
They say a child might grow up to be an artist
if his sandcastle means nothing
until he leads his mother over for a look.
And so, it is for each of us to mother what we do, to be artists in creating our lives as we flow from cloud to ground, and rise back up again, delighting in the dance of impermanence and change.
Flower and FruitBe like water and MirrorRoot, Rise, Ground
When walking outside, I see leaves falling. I flow through the crunch. Today I strolled along the Corte Madera Creek and learned that a concrete channel, installed over fifty years ago, is being restored to its natural state.
I remember these words, and allow a smile to flow down like a leaf to rest in the pelvic bowl.
Lanterns Information on the restoration projectDucks navigate the openingAn expansive changeClouds play over the top of the mountain
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