I met with a friend yesterday and we discussed the aging process.  When I go in for my annual physical now, I have to draw a clock face, and then draw the hands to a time I am told.  It’s felt really silly to me until I read the poem below. I never recognized the complexity in “reading” a clock. I think I remember learning, and I remember teaching my sons.  I wonder what it is for children today that so much is digital. Maybe they can’t read a clock face. Maybe they “read” in other ways.  

I remember the first time I watched my young niece jump a unicorn in a computer game.  I could tell she understood the spatial aspects of the screen in a way I didn’t feel I ever could.

Yesterday my son, his wife, and I discussed screen time for babies and what it might do to do their brains.  It is suggested that a baby not view a screen for the first two years, and some philosophies say much later than that.  I enjoy Face Time with my grandson. Some say that isn’t screen time. Certainly there is a different response when he sees me in person.  All senses are involved, not just sight and sound. I’m round, dimensional, complex, complete.

Because I’m spending the night in Menlo Park, I participated in my grandchild’s bath time.  He kicked and splashed and the more we laughed and applauded, the more he laughed and splashed.  The feedback was clear. I am loved and I am love. In my immersion in air and water, playing with both, and these funny big people who think I’m the most marvelous being in the world which, and I take the narrative back, he is and we are.

Allow yourself to be as appreciated as raucously and vigorously as a baby in the bath.  Splash Joy!

We have a new pot to heat water for our morning coffee. We like to watch water drip through a cone so we each make our own cup.

We were sad as we watched the old pot lose memory and consistency but after another pour of luke-warm water while knowing the pot was doing its best we now have a sleek new model.

This one keeps a digital accounting as the water rises in heat, so one can  begin the day mesmerized by the rising numbers until at 200 degrees, a beep, beep, beep.  It’s true that one becomes more easily entertained with age. It’s a return to childhood, a return to meeting the excitement of change, a world that is always, every moment, vibrating and new.  

Steve and I took Uber or Lyft in and out of the city yesterday to meet one son and his wife.  Our returning driver lives on a houseboat in Sausalito and transports boats back and forth, so recently brought a boat from Tahiti to Hawaii to here.  He described many an adventure, but then, each moment is that. He sails the seas, and I watch water heat.  

I’m traveling a wee bit south today and spending the night down there, so I’ll see how computer connects in a new place.  My computer tends to resist change, and I respect that, so I’m open to what computer needs. We never know and perhaps vibrational inconsistency is what moves our heart back and forth in a dance delighting in, and stimulated by how and what we meet. Enjoy your Monday, the start of a new week.

Feng Shui translates to “wind-water” in English and is about energy circulation and flow.  We harmonize with our environment, feel where energy is stuck. Last night I couldn’t sleep so rose and meditated in a newly cleansed room.  I could feel the energetic shift in the room, the opening, welcoming shift in me.

I’ve removed two standing bookcases as well as two shelves that were attached to the wall.  Artwork is down and only a few items returned, so the room echoes, and in that echoing, I wonder what comes to me now.

The full moon may also have affected my ability to sleep.  I sat in the dark, meditated, and sensed. Then the rain came.  I felt a need to be awake to witness the weather, earth, and moon in their shifts, echoed in me.  

I thought it was the Hunter’s full moon so meditated on predator and prey and Thich Nhat Hanh’s wonderful poem, “Please Call Me by My True Names”, where he explores and explains how we are everyone and everything, both predator and prey.

This morning I learn the January full moon is Wolf moon.  The wolves may have been howling, but I didn’t hear them last night.  Though I couldn’t see the moon I felt it’s light.

We’ve occupied this abode for over 42 years.  Going through what’s here is like going through an archaeological dig.  How do I meet what I’ve gathered over the years with full perception and new and grateful heart?  

I  come to what I consider my most private room.  The white Bible with my maiden name engraved in gold is here.  It’s a gift from one grandmother. The Christian Science books from my other grandmother nestle close.  Both women were amazing and I bow to the wisdom and grace in my ancestry.  

In this room, I have an array of baskets that cluster a variety of things and today I delve into one to find a miniature herb garden kit my mother gave me right before she died.  I find a tiny spade, and four tiny two-inch pots with metal labels for Basil, Coriander, Parsley and Thyme. There’s a little book on herb gardening. In addition, there’s a set of cards, Creating Sacred Gardens Knowledge cards by Elizabeth Murray.  I pull out a card. It’s the Arch. 

 “The arch, one of the most sacred symbols of the ancient world, signifies openings and exits and the cycles of life-death-life and creation – destruction – re-creation.  It is also the symbol of the Earth Mother. Arches are prevalent in Druidic, Hindu, Arabic, and Greek temples, as well as in Christian churches.”

“Positioned over garden entrances, arches welcome us and offer a sense of grace and fluidity. They suggest a rainbow reaching from earth to heaven, bringing good luck and blessings.  Arches also make a particularly appropriate setting for marking rites of passage.”

The arch represents the soul’s longing for grounded and spiritual connection.  I sit with that now. Yes, that is my desire – grounded and spiritual connection, and so I envision an arch over my head, a rainbow dropping light like dew, transcendent awareness of gifts gathered here and everywhere.  

Peace!

Books are heavy, not necessarily one at a time, but when there are many, yes they are, and so this morning my sacrum area is asking for a little more ease in the movement and sorting of thousands of books.  One wall of our living room hosts floor to ceiling books. I’m trying to clear that out so that I can move books that cover two walls in each of the other bedrooms onto the living room shelves.

I’m making progress but I see there will still be books in the back of the house and that is okay since books make a house a home but there will be a little more space, and each book will feel comfy with its neighbors on the shelf.

John Keats wrote that “My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.”

Perhaps that’s what these books mean to me.  I am their keeper, and I love what they bring to and inspire in me.  I look around and feel the leaves of their pages feed and nourish me.

It’s the fifth of January, a glorious day here, and I’m happy to fill the monastery of my imagination as I honor the priestess I am.

Rain in the night, then, clear, and now I enjoy blue sky augmented with clouds moving the reins of love through my heart, feet, hands and chest.

I pulse with love like a bell struck with a gong.  The vibrations go on and on.  

I tremble at the fragility of the political situation, pause for guidance. Tears come, and knowing love trumps fear, I center myself in the mud I am, the moving clay, moist with tears of connection.

Liquid, the bearer of healing, tears.

Bees are buzzing in the rosemary, the universal symbol of remembrance.  My father died 51 years ago today. I center in the fluidity of tears.