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
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?”
Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world.
– Robin Wall Kimmerer
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.
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.
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.
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.
I try to look on the positive side of life but I just watched this from 80 days before the election. We know what happened. Is there anything we can do now?
Yesterday, I walked to the beach at Tennessee Valley. The birds and flowers are resting. It’s a time to move inward and reflect on what nests within, what comes from release and connecting to birth.
I’m with these words of Annie Dillard:
We live and move by splitting the light of the present, as a canoe’s bow parts water.
I slow to split the light of the present.
I know many of my friends, like me, are depressed with the political situation, and yet we just spent time with our five year old grandson, a time of wonder, beauty, exuberance, inspiration, innocence, and trust. He believes in Santa, and I think of the story I love:”Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”. We must focus on children, become like children and believe in generosity and sharing the abundance that is here knowing there’s more than enough when we each cultivate our own knowing and experience of enough.
Silence is essential.
We need silence, just as much as we need air, just as much as plants need light. If our minds are crowded with words and thoughts, there is no space for us.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
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