The garden is complete, well, gardens are in constant motion and change, but it offers a respite to pause and peruse. I sit by the fountain and see and hear birds in the Maple tree above and frolicking in the fountain and among the rocks and plants.
Today I learn of a website where I can check the migration of birds where I live. You can do it too. https://birdcast.info
I’m reading a book called Lotus Girl by Helen Tworkov. It’s a memoir that gives a history of Buddhism coming to the West. Where I am now she is discussing the bardos with Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. She is adjusting to her aging process and realizes we go through some of the stages of being, adjusting to impermanence and change, the bardos, while alive. She’s in the “Bardo of Old Age”.
When she asks Yongey Minyur Rinpoche about the bardos and tells him about George Saunders book, Lincoln in the Bardos, he asks, “What’s a Lincoln?”
Of course, one might answer a car but it shows how much we rely on what we consider “common knowledge” in our conversations.
Last night when I read Trump’s garbled and incoherent reply to a question on childcare, I felt sorry for a man who is being primed to run for president when he is clearly incapacitated. I’m grateful Biden was persuaded to step down, and now when I read the words of a man who is off the rails, compassion swells. Why is he being protected? So he can be manipulated. Elon Musk would essentially be our president if he were elected, Elon and other fascists.
What is it to keep someone propped up for your own benefit?
Not acknowledging Trump’s deterioration is an inability to honor and see the cycles of life and death, the evolving transformation that connects the two. I walk more slowly now, think more slowly, as I pause and connect the dots to flow and dissolve, and, in this, I give my family time to see, and adjust, appreciate, and gather around impermanence and change. I am a campfire, once ablaze, now softening to a glow for toasting marshmallows, turning softly and tenderly to ash.
I savor my rejuvenated garden. The older plants are vibrant with new soil and mulch. They are teachers for the young ones now brought in. They are elders sharing their wisdom on seasons, impermanence, adaptation, and transformation. Grace!
We’ve been in Carmel for five days to celebrate my son’s fiftieth birthday. Everything was perfect. One daughter-in-law and I enjoyed a behind-the-scenes tour of Monterey Bay Aquarium. What a gift to see the attention and love that goes into caring for every creature there. We designed a toy to entertain an octopus and played a game where we were giant sea bass. Each bass gets its own food so is trained to go for a red circle or blue square.
Naturally we enjoyed the beach, the book store, and The Secret Garden, always a given, and the greyhounds were welcome everywhere.
Another daughter-in-law and my niece had a surfing lesson at 7 in the morning so I explored a beach, solitary except for rocks and sand dollars. I rescued three. I learned that a sand dollar given gently back to the ocean may live another six to ten years.
Aging, I find myself seeking open vistas. I’m nourished by spaciousness. Bridges connect and release like flowers opening to petals transforming fall.
As a child, I watched the conventions with my family. Last night I watched with a smile on my face, reveled in the open hearts, love, and beauty as we gather as immigrants, even if generations back, and neighbors, to celebrate feeding and educating children for the good and future of democracy and this country.
I’m thrilled.
Heather Cox Richardson ended her “column” with these words:
Tonight, after his acceptance speech, Walz walked off stage to a favorite song of his: Neil Young’s “Rockin‘ in the Free World.” Neil Young personally allowed the campaign to use the song. When the Trump campaign used it, Young sued to make them stop.
And therein, the contrast between the two parties right now.
Where I’ve been? On Sunday I went to Stinson Beach on a foggy morning. Low tide invited me to walk west of huge rocks.
The weekend before I participated in a four day meditation retreat. I knew that a retreat begins with the goodbyes, and yet, I didn’t realize the depths in which I was still dwelling until today I see I last posted August 10th.
What am I most with? Impermanence and Purification, being with and watching breath. Simple, right? At times, yes, and at other times, a tangled web that stayed with, untangles and purifies, or at least, that is what I currently understand.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche says there are three lifelong skills to study and cultivate.
One is compassion and loving-kindness which involves “being okay with not okay”.
Second is awareness, coming back to the breath, and not being lost in thought.
Third, wisdom, is “being with the breath as it is.”
Jane Hirshfield says it like this: Zen pretty much comes down to three things—everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.
My husband sent me this video as a great campaign song for Kamala Harris. I can’t embed it but you can go to YouTube and type in Keb’Mo’ Put a Woman in Charge.
I open the book Walking: One Step at a Time by Erling Kagge to these words:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that one saves time travelling only two hours from one point to another instead of spending eight hours on the same journey. While this holds up mathematically, my experience is the opposite: time passes more quickly when I increase the speed of travel. My speed and time accelerate in parallel. It is as if the duration of a single hour becomes less than a clock-hour. When I am in a rush, I hardly pay attention to anything at all.“
He goes on to write that one’s sense of space gets smaller with an increased pace. He compares it to driving toward a mountain rather than walking to it. Walking, “The mountain up ahead, which slowly changes as you draw closer, feels like an intimate friend by the time you’ve arrived. Your eyes, ears, nose, shoulders, stomach and legs speak to the mountain, and the mountain replies. Time stretches out, independent of minutes and hours.”
“And this is precisely the secret held by all those who go by foot: life is prolonged when you walk. Walking expands time rather than collapses it.”
What a thrill it is to see two people who smile with their whole being rather than scowl, lie, and hate.
Wow!
And yet we must continue to stay involved, and not become complacent. I’ll be writing postcards today and each of us can find our way to continue to promote the changes that the Biden administration has begun that will continue with Harris and Walz.
I love this from Heather Cox Richardson today.
Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month.
Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawn mower.”
Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.”
Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”
“Hello, Madame President.” In my lifetime. Yes!!
Today is our usual summer mix of sun and fog. We’re re-doing our garden, keeping the plants, but adding new soil, updating the irrigation system, and replacing rotting posts with stone. Yesterday, it wasn’t until evening that I saw stones had been placed. Today I saw the man who does the work alone.
Cathy's Blog! 