Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Dancing on the Edge of the World

Yesterday, I was at Sutro Baths in San Francisco. I checked out the Land’s End Visitors Center, a treasure trove of temptation, especially books.

From How To Read Nature by Tristan Gooley:

Plants react to colors. For example, if we are dressed in blue we can change the way a plant grows, while if we wear red we will influence its timekeeping. The process by which plants grow toward light is called phototropism and is only influenced by blue light. Red light, on the other hand, influences photoperiodism, which governs the plant’s sensitivity to the time of year. The changes in a plant that result from our choice of clothing color may be imperceptible to us, but the knowledge that they are reacting can change the way we think about them.

Dancing!
Do rocks respond, though much more slowly than plants, to color too?
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Wonder

Today we were at Land’s End and the Cliff House. Who could not exult and be astonished.

In Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, he writes:

There’s a reason we are drawn

to gazing at the ocean.

It is said the ocean provides

a closer reflection of who

we are than any mirror.

Kevin Kelly reminds us:

The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.

Totem Power
Carving
Seeing
Steadying
Splashing

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Winter Solstice

In the Northern hemisphere, it’s the shortest day and longest night, the time of year when we light candles and build bonfires to welcome back the light.  Anthropologists believe that solstice celebrations go back at least 30,000 years which makes sense when we consider how carefully our ancestors paid attention to and honored the changing of light and movement in the skies.

Misty Hannah led Sensory Awareness today and because this time of year we are so aware of shadow and light, she worked with noticing shadows where we were, and noticing and playing with shadows we ourselves make.  How deeply does a shadow penetrate?  There must be light in a shadow because we see it, so notice the depths, and how it feels to let light into your eyes when the lids are up or down.  It’s a day to play!

Light and Shadow in Old Mill Park
Light and Shadow in the Stream
Light and Shadow in the Bay
Posted on by Cathy Edgett

The Present

It is a time of presence, of going within, and honoring light and dark. I revel in fluidity moving in and out like ocean and atmospheric waves.

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.

– Lao Tzu

Meeting what comes
All Ways New

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Gifts

French philosopher Simone Weil:

“The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, what are you going through?” 

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard
Bridges
Couples swimming together
Egret appearing to walk on water

Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world.

 – Robin Wall Kimmerer

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Stretching

Yesterday, I appreciated the notification of a possible tsunami.  A helicopter flew and hovered overhead. This morning I find myself remembering different translations of the words of Masahide:

My house burned down

I now see

The rising moon.

or

Barn’s burnt down —

now

I can see the moon.

When I got the notice to move to higher ground, though my house is safe, I left because my medical appointment required dipping down to drive by the bay.  Though the notice was cancelled by the time I arrived, the office, which is by the bay, was still in a tizzy.  They had evacuated, but my ophthalmologist said at first she didn’t know where to go, and then she thought of what it would be to leave and learn everything was gone.  It was a time to reflect.  Yes, though everything had returned to normal, what might have happened.  Like that, change.

My meditation practice is about impermanence and interdependence.  I think the political news has us all awake recognizing impermanence and interdependence.

I come to the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.  

We’re being stretched. 

Maple leaves fall as bamboo which represents enlightenment stands and stays.
Abundance

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Falling Leaves

Today Robert Hubbell points out that the Democrats could have changed much of what’s happening by expanding the Supreme Court.  They controlled  the House, the Senate, and the Presidency from 2021 to 2023. Expanding the Court required only the passage of the bill by a majority vote in both chambers of Congress (and creating a carve-out in the filibuster, which requires only a majority vote).

They didn’t act and now we deal with these biased rulings. Hubbell gives a partial and devastating list.

Dobbs (overruling Roe v Wade), Trump v. US (fabricating presidential immunity out of whole cloth), Bruen (concealed carry of handguns in public is a universal right), Bremerton (okay for football coach to lead public school athletes in prayer at midfield after games), Cargill (a bump-stock rifle that can fire 13 rounds per second is not a “machine gun”), and Snyder (bribes given as “thank you gifts” are not illegal). 

These days I hear leaves falling.  They make a sound as they swish through the air and land.  We, too, sound and resound.

Fountain speaks with sound and fluidity of image and form
Gates open, close, and open!

Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Tis the Season

Today I was in the Sausalito bookstore, Books by the Bay.  This time of year, stores in Sausalito participate in a contest display of gingerbread houses. Perusing, I met a lovely woman visiting from India who had just come from Muir Woods.  We both agreed Muir Woods is a cathedral. She shared a photo with this sign.

In Muir Woods
Conversation Starters!

The Gingerbread House
Stuffed Friend! We noticed some candy had been nibbled from the house!
Stained glass window in the Gingerbread House!



Posted on by Cathy Edgett

Bluesky

I’ve never been on Twitter, now X, and haven’t been on Facebook for some time now but today I read about the coup stopped in South Korea, and accountability for Trump’s choices, and though the media in this country excuses Trump’s pardons and goes after Biden with one pardon for his son who was targeted as his son, it seems the people are awake and responding.

Bluesky is exploding as a social media alternative to X which is now compromised by Musk.

Bluesky focuses on users, not advertisers, and is not bought, utilized, and managed by the richest man in the world for one purpose, his own.

Reflect!