Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Centering

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.

Rain drops on the branches will soon bring leaves

Rosemary brings bees to my yard

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Letting Go

Years ago one of my sons decided to let go of his toys.  He is like me, attached and appreciative. He went through Matchbox cars, models, Legos, and carefully and reverently placed them in boxes so when a child opened and received what was there, their heart would leap with joy.

I find myself now having made a New Year’s commitment to type recipes into the computer and let pieces of paper go, and to let go of some of my books.  The way it’s going it will be years. I type in a recipe and sit with memory. I pull a book off the shelf, sit down, think, yes, this is the last time I’ll read this, and then, immerse, and so today, two books have been chosen to go, and I see that this process needs a faster pace, so I find myself doing math problems to assess exactly how long it might take.

If three books departed the house each day for a year, that would be over a thousand books in a year, which is about right, but can I release three books a day, and a year is a long time, so maybe six books and then six months, or maybe, and so here I am. This exploration has led me to realize it’s time to go to the grocery store, and buy some carefully chosen ingredients, and cook.

At least then there is transition, transformation, and flow.

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Lie Down

Tomorrow will be 51 years since my father passed away in a motorcycle accident in 1969.

I was in Mexico City and struggled to get back home.  Flights were booked as people returned from vacation and finally the American Embassy stepped in to ensure I got home.

Now, today, fearing the threat of war, I look at an abstract goddess figure my brother gave me years ago.  Her lap is a bowl where you place your wish for the day, week, month, and meditate on invitation, reception, and request.

Right now I have a little red elephant placed there.  I think of the animals destroyed in fires due to climate change. I think of pain ringing through each of us as we take in destructiveness in a multitude of forms.

I’m with these words from the poem “Lie Down” by Nancy Paddock.

Lie down with your belly to the ground

And then rise up

With the earth still in you.

Times have always been challenging, but I believe today is a good day to: 

Lie down with your belly to the ground

And then rise up

With the earth still in you.

As May Sarton said: “Plant Dreaming Deep”.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Reflection

Last night we were out enjoying Christmas/Holiday lights.  It’s already staying light a little longer, and one Maple tree has the beginnings of buds.  It’s amazing what sunlight can do.

The news is challenging, and yet the earth continues circling around the sun.

I’ve decided to type my recipes, of which I have multitudes, into the computer, to give them an unspotted, unstained, clearer view of organization and life.  I’m doing it mindfully, no rush. I have a few more years here, and then, who knows. For now, this moment, I wait for day to light.  

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

The New Year

It’s official.  It’s 2020. I’ve already written two checks and used the right date.  I like this new year. It’s easy to remember and stresses vision and clarity.  May we all be curious, joyful, receptive, and well.   

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

New Year’s Roots

In soft morning light, I walk over to my neighborhood park.  I cross over a bridge and peer down into a running stream. I walk along a muddy path, and sit on a bench surrounded by trees.  Light flickers through, and birds twitter, bounce, and perch.

Sun touches my cheeks through trees.  I’ve been going through quotes that have meaning for me, and I sift through them as I listen to the song of the stream.  

Lao Tze: Be still like a mountain, flow like a river.

Lao Tze: Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?  Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself.

I want to wait until my mud settles and the water is clear.  I’m aware this is the year for clarity and 20/20 vision. It’s in the date.

As I sit patiently and wait, people pass by with dogs who need a love pat and kiss.  One man tells me his dog is a rescue from China, flown to San Diego, and now here on a path we share.  

Connection flows and I’m with these words of Richard Powers: The bird and the branch it sits on are a joint thing.

Then I remember Rumi: Maybe you’re searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.

And Rilke:  If we surrendered to earth’s intelligence, we could rise up rooted, like trees.”

With that, I decide to return home, but along the way I meet neighbors out enjoying the first day of the New Year air, and we talk about how we love living here.  We’ve been here 42 years and many of my neighbors as long or longer.

My roots are here.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

The New Year

It’s 2020 and we move through an open door to whatever is ours to create. I rose at 4 to meditate, invite, receive. I lean back, then, forward, sway, and believe. Here is an offering for the New Year!

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Silence

In my last post I felt a need to purge, offer, and share, but now I come to silence.

May we also meet there.

Frank Ostaseski describes it well in The Five Invitations:

“Deep silence is not merely a pause between sounds. It is an inner quietness felt in the heart, still as new-fallen snow on a mountain pass.  This silence strips us of both belief and disbelief. It takes us beyond the known, beyond language, and into the sacred.

Silence is a natural response to the presence of the sacred no matter where it appears. Through silence, we become aware of the majesty in the ordinary; the beauty, the unity, and the depth of the sacred that is always around and within us.”

Blessings on us all as we transition from one year to the next.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett · 2 Comments

Transition

It’s the last day of 2019 and there’s so much I want to do and say on this last day.  It’s an artificial line in one way, and in another, a conclusion.

I realized today the two toughest years in my life have been 1969 when my father died, and 2019, when my brother died.  The two years are fifty years apart, so since I won’t live another fifty years, I’m hoping I’m moving along on this journey that tracks joy and pain.

Somewhere I read that there is no life and death but spirit may need new form.  I’m with how spirit grows and outgrows and needs new form. It helps with acceptance and release.

Each day I receive a poem and comment from Tracy K. Smith who served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019.  I’m subscribed to her offering Slowdown. I receive it as an email but you can check her out here: https://www.slowdownshow.org

I love knowing that her father built bookshelves in the hallway leading to her parents’ bedroom.   Books. Treasures. Insight. Growth.  

In her memoir, Ordinary Light, she writes when asked if she wished she were white:

I don’t think we ever truly forgot about whites, even when we were alone among ourselves in the thick of family. I doubt any blacks do. There’s always a place in the mind that feels different, distinct; not worse off or envious but simply aware of an extra thing that living in a world that loathes and fears us has necessitated we develop. Perhaps that thing is the counterbalance to the history of loss I often tried to block out with silence: a riotous upswing that, quickly, painlessly, allows the mind to unravel from all the knowing and wondering it has been taught to do; a simple tickle of recognition capable of catching us up in a feeling—no matter how very fleeting—of historical joy.


Today, Tracy writes:

 Every New Year’s Eve, just before midnight, my husband and I take part in a wish-making ceremony. It’s simple. We each make a list of five things we’re grateful for, five things we resolve to accomplish in the coming year, and a whopping ten gifts we’re ready to receive from the Universe…

It’s cathartic, a way of glimpsing yourself from three distinct perspectives: the recent past, the near future, and something like the Cosmic Present, where every conceivable possibility exists at once.

I sit with that as I also sit with these three questions from The Power of Open Questions by Elizabeth Matthis-Namgyel:

Can I stay present in the midst of limitless possibility?

Can I relax with wonderment?

Can I live my life as an open question?

And for a little humor.  Two jokes have stayed with me this year.

Adam and Eve were the first people not to read the Apple terms and conditions.

And there is this:  

“A horse walks into a bar and orders five shots of Jack.

The bartender says, “I think you’re an alcoholic.”

The horse replies, “I don’t think I am.” And promptly vanishes from existence.

This is a joke based on the line from the philosopher René Descartes. “I think, therefore I am.”

I would have explained the joke first. But that would have been putting Descartes before the horse.”

And for my grandchild:


I’m wrapped in love
A blanket swaddled, moving, breathing,
rippling, waving, trusting. 




The balloon of my being opens- 



You, grandchild, are my umbilical cord 
breathing life and joy and love and bliss 
in me and the wider world we see and be.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Essence

Last night I pulled out my calendar for 2019, Ram Dass, Be Here Now.  It was my guidance system for the year, and now I’m returning to The Reading Woman for 2020.

I’m with nostalgia as I look back over the year.  It’s been a tough one with the loss of my brother. There’s a scar, a scar that will always be there, even as it comes together to heal.

I just finished re-reading the book Dune by Frank Herbert.  It’s as relevant now as when it was written, sobering as it examines ecology, religion, spirituality, power, dominance, and the balancing of what we perceive as good and evil.

The book is set in the future, and came from Herbert’s study and curiosity surrounding the sand dunes on the coast of Oregon.

I’m intrigued with this quote from Dune by Pardot Kynes, First Planetologist of the planet Arrakis.

Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. This is as true of humans in the finite space of a planetary ecosystem as it is of gas molecules in a sealed flask. The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.

I sit with that now, with how each of us cultivates the most from our existence, from what we’ve been given to survive and thrive.

Two words guide me: perception and trust.  I trust that my perception is my own, even as I expand it into a wider sharing and truth.

We are here together even as we move the space we are given within the whole.

I’m also with the words of Antoine de Saint-Exupery who wrote The Little Prince: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Perhaps that is the gift of this time of year. We pause and reflect on what we need, and what we intend to create, or maybe there is no intention, only reception, only opening to receive.

If you’re old-fashioned like me, you can literally tear pieces off a calendar and toss them like confetti in the air. 

I ask myself as this day comes to light: How do I refine my life in this new year, keeping it simple, and whittling it down until there’s nothing left to take away, only essence and a deeper opening and connection to source?

How do we keep our own lens open, cleansed and true?