Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Hope

It’s raining, all night, and now all day. I love the sound and watching the plants open and renew.

A few years I ago I was at Commonweal and heard Frank Ostaseski speak. I give a taste of that here, but first a few words from his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully.

“Hope is an optimizing force that moves us and all of life toward harmony.  It doesn’t arrive from outside; rather it is an abiding state of being, a hidden wellspring within us. When the mind is still and awake, we can see reality more clearly and recognize it as a living, dynamic process.  Hope that is active has an imaginative daring to it, which helps us to realize our unity with all life and find the resourcefulness required to act on its behalf. We can sense the lightness, the buoyancy of this kind of hope, the enthusiasm and positivity it engenders.  It energizes us to engage in activities that we imagine will enrich our future. This version of hope is a basic human need.”

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Nurturing

I learned about Commonweal years ago when a good friend had cancer.  I’ve loved Rachel Naomi Remen’s books for years. Today I quote from an interview with her in the Commonweal newsletter on A Life with Purpose.

She says, “My grandfather believed that each of us has a holy purpose and that we fulfill this purpose in many ways – through our relationships, our families, our careers, or just on some street corner somewhere. We may fulfill our life purpose simply by something we say to some stranger on a bus.”

She continues on speaking of collective purpose which has a Hebrew name, Tikkun Olam, which translates as the word service.

“One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, writes about this in his book Cat’s Cradle.  According to Vonnegut, God has organized the world into working units called Karasses.  A Karass is a group of people who have been born to serve one of God’s holy purposes without ever knowing. Their lives and their work may bear no outward relationship to one another. No matter.  They serve their holy purpose together perfectly. Vonnegut says the members of a Karass circle around their holy purpose like electrons circle the nucleus of an atom. Some orbit very close to the nucleus. Others orbit at a great distance. But all are bound to their holy purpose by spiritual bonds, bonds of the soul. Those who orbit very close to the nucleus may be friends or even a married couple. But most others are total strangers: people whose lives and work seems to bear no relationship to one another, people of all ages who speak different languages and have different religions, people who will never meet or have any awareness of one another. Yet their lives fit together in service to their holy purpose. Vonnegut contrasts this to the Grandfaloon, the way human beings organize the world. The people in a Grandfaloon think they are related to one another but actually have no relationship to one another at all; for example, the Yale class of 2003 or any professional sports team anywhere.”

She continues: “According to Vonnegut, should you have the good fortune to meet a member of your Karass, you feel a sort of deep recognition that you can’t explain, a sense of bondedness, a feeling that this other person is truly family.”

And here we are!

Fluidity

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Quivering

Sometimes I think, oh, enough words, as I did this morning, and then I’m invited to peruse my bookshelves and one book calls, and I pull forth Mark Nepo’s Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred, and settle my feet on the floor, my bottom in a chair.  What’s here now?

I manage to read a few words and pause with these of Stanley Kunitz: The Universe is a continuous web.  Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.

But then my cat Bella feels I’m clearly not doing anything important and should be petting and kissing her.  She is a Calico and when I chose her and her brother almost 14 years ago from a cage at the Humane Society, I was told she would never be affectionate.  That is not so. She demands attention, is insistent, and will not be ignored, so I lift her into the chair next to me, and pet and kiss, and notice especially her ears since I was hoping to read a book on listening.  I place my lips on her ears and wiggle them back and forth with a kiss. She licks my hands and face.

“The whole web quivers.”  

And since a quiver is also a case for holding arrows, I see how the heart is a target aimed and struck.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Mesh

I finish reading the book, The Power of Open Questions, and sit with three questions:

Can I stay present in the midst of limitless possibility?

Can I relax with wonderment?

Can I live my life as an open question?

As I contemplate this, I slip from words and see only a question mark – an upward curve and fall and dot.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett · 2 Comments

Noticing

It’s evening and I’m pausing before I journey to my neighborhood book group holiday potluck celebration.  

I’m with the words of the Persian poet Ghalib who wrote: “For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river.”

This time of year there is a dip to connect as we navigate the dark like twinkling lights.

Are we raindrops entering a river?   Perhaps we drop more noticeably into a river of time as we feel one year melt into the next.   

Lao Tzu said: 

“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” 

My intention is to live in the present and be peace.

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Curving to Hold and Let Go

The moon is luminous in the sky this morning.  It sips to shrink.

I’m with words from David Whyte: 

Apprentice yourself to the curve of your own disappearance.  

Can I do that?  Apprentice myself to the curve of my own disappearance.  

At my age,  I understand I won’t live forever.  Each moment and breath is precious, a gift, and I desire to be in the pause that knows and honors that, the curve that holds awareness in its lips, a smile. 

The moon shows us each month how to grow, shrink, and disappear.  She shows us as she stays whole yet gives us a moving view that is teacher and guide.   

Moon in the sky this morning, on her way to disappearing


Morning Light

What reveals when leaves leave


Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Softening

This is the third Sunday of Advent and that has meaning for some.  The day is softly coming to light.

I look up the meaning of advent, and come to “coming”.  I find myself coming to the word adventure, a place we come to explore and discover.  We each have our own way to worship. For me, it’s something deeply inner I’ve always felt and known.

I watch the sun rise and feel that rising in my chest.  It’s a new day.

I’m reading The Power of an Open Question by Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel.  She begins the book with her experience of rock-climbing in Colorado. She quickly learns rock-climbing forces her to pay attention. She has to notice “shallow patterns and textures in the rocks”.  

She says “Hanging off a rock is an exaggerated experience of facing the unknown.”  “When we can’t find a foothold, the mind falls into an open stillness – the same-open stillness we encounter in any situation in which we lose our familiar points. If we have the wherewithal to relax, we find our way.”

Knowing one can’t hang there forever, “we work with our own fear and slowly soften.  Now, this is the fascinating part: as we soften, we notice all kinds of new patterns and shapes emerging from the rock. We see places to balance we didn’t see before. We’re not doomed after all. As we soften and open, we access a special intelligence, unimpeded by habitual, reactive mind.”

For me, this time of year allows that.  It’s a time to notice and receive.

Softening like wax warmed by flickering flame, I look for new patterns and textures to open and touch like treasure chests. What invites me now?

Oh, look and see what rests atop the rocks!

Pigs Fly
Inside the Treasure Chest


Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Good Morning

I wake early today and go outside to look at the moon.  The owls are hooting and now I know this is the mating call of the Great Horned Owl I’ve been hearing, and male and female are back, and if all goes well, we will have baby owls in late March.   What an omen of Joy!

Yesterday I was watching the crows and the hawks screeching across the sky.  Was it battle or play? It looked like play as though each was perfecting its flight and hanging out as our weeks of rain lead to sun today.

Nature shines through more clearly with the leaves fallen and coating the ground.  Branches stroke the heart with their reach and bend.

I’m with this haiku by Issa this morning.  This is one translation.

Does the woodpecker

stop and listen, too?

evening temple drum 

May your day be one of beauty and peace!

Morning Sky to the East



Morning Sky to the South


Posted on by Cathy Edgett

This Time of Year

Wreaths are on the gate and front door, and I’m enjoying writing Christmas/Holiday/Connecting cards.  It’s nostalgic though as for many years the length of the list didn’t change, and now there are huge gaps and pauses to reflect on those who aren’t here.

The full moon was yesterday and the December and June tides are always dramatic, so I check the tide table before I go in and out. I’m awake with awareness of changes in flow as transition swings between the notes of my breath like gauze and this morning’s wrap of fog.

Yesterday a friend sent me these words from Hafiz.  A poet is someone who can pour light into a spoon, then raise it to nourish your beautiful parched holy mouth.

I’ve also seen it translated as pouring light into a cup, but I’m entranced this morning as I sip from a spoon, thinking back over poems I love.

I’m also with these words. 

The birds have vanished into the sky,

And now the last cloud has drained away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

Until only the mountain remains.

– Li Po

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Unfolding

When I first heard Charlotte Selver, my teacher of Sensory Awareness,  talk about unfolding, I didn’t know what she meant.  

Now, 26 years later, I begin to get a hint.  At the time, I thought of it as origami in reverse, would see myself as a swan unfolding outward to how I was “before”, the blank slate so to say.

Over time, I’ve folded into roles, roles I love, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and with intention, perhaps a bit of sage, and now, as sage I unfold page by page, and revel in what’s here now.

My feet are on the floor, receiving, and my hands move through the air, each finger a probe, a ribbon, a waving trust playing with the light. I embody the realms meandering like rivers through my blood and bones, and one day I’ll reach the sea.