I’m in Half Moon Bay nourishing on changes in tides and light.
Although the moon is a vast and great light, it is reflected in a drop of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky are reflected in a drop of dew on a blade of grass.
– Dogen
We are all affected by what is happening in the world. In feeling that connection, I’ve upped my meditation time. I honor a need to go within and renew in compassion, and in that, I feel a deeper connection with those I meet. We all share in this world we create.
Yesterday, at my ophthalmologist appointment, I learned my eyes are doing great. If you’ve ever had the test for your peripheral vision, where you click when you see a flashing light, you’ll know how delighted I was to hear that I caught them all. I’m seeing more than straight ahead. I round to curve and spiral what surrounds.
I sync to these words of Alan Watts
“The sensitive nervous system is part of the external world. And the external world is an event in the nervous system. The inside of the box is outside the box, and the outside is inside. I mean, you know, it seems to flip flop perpetually.”
It’s a time to honor darkness as it comes, harvest. The veil between the living and the dead is thin. The ancestors come through and with a pause of reflection, we feel the ancestry we all share. Today, tonight, and tomorrow, is a time to expand out into viewing our planet and the world of varying roles from a wider space.
Each morning I receive wisdom and guidance from the Center for Action and Contemplation. This morning Richard Rohr recalls his first experiences with the prayer of the Pueblo people in New Mexico:
In 1969 when I was a young deacon in Acoma Pueblo, one of my jobs was to take the census. Because it was summer and hot, I would start early in the morning, driving my little orange truck to each residence. Invariably at sunrise, I would see a mother outside the door of her home, with her children standing beside her. She and the children would be reaching out with both hands uplifted to “scoop” up the new day and then “pour” it over their heads and bodies in blessing. I would sit in my truck until they were finished, thinking how silly it was of us Franciscans to think we brought religion to New Mexico four hundred years ago!
Because many of us are affected by this time of bombardment from world events outside of us, events we hear or read about, it’s a time to be tender with ourselves, to cultivate and allow inner knowing and, in that, to respond with nourishing calm.
Rather than closing our hearts to so much pain, or becoming debilitated by it, we can let our hearts break open and allow energy and life to move through us, as us.
We can be the example we want to see in the world.
Thich Nhat Hanh who had to flee Vietnam wrote: “When the crowded Vietnamese refugee boats met with storms or pirates, if everyone panicked all would be lost. But if even one person on the boat stayed calm and centered it was enough. They showed the way for everyone to survive.”
Yesterday I fell into Erling Kagge’s beautiful book Silence: In the Age of Noise. He is a Norwegian explorer and the first person to reach the South Pole alone.
He writes:
Americans have built a base even at the South Pole. Scientists and maintenance workers reside there for several months at a time, isolated from the outside world. One year there were ninety-nine residents who celebrated Christmas together at the base. Someone had smuggled in ninety-nine stones and handed out one apiece as Christmas gifts, keeping one for themselves. Nobody had seen stones for months. Some people hadn’t seen stones for over a year. Nothing but ice, snow and man-made objects. Everyone sat gazing at and feeling their stone. Holding it in their hands, feeling its weight, without uttering a word.
On Wednesday a friend and I sauntered the path that circles around the top of Mt. Tam. We climbed up to the Lookout Tower, the first place to catch a fire in the area. I’m still vibrating with the peaceful trampoline feeling of each cell bouncing within the sacredness of an open, expanded, and shared view.
Monday afternoon I was in Sausalito in the sunlight. Tuesday morning I was in Sausalito in mist and fog. Seeing came closer. I felt a special bond with those I passed, intimacy in this shared embrace.
Jane Goodall:
Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.
My grandson turned four yesterday and was celebrated and honored with a Halloween birthday party of 50 people, most of them small. It was a feast of princesses, dragons, and Spiderman. A Harry Potter character arrived, and Madeleine, and the Cat in the Hat.
A castle Bouncy House was a hit as children climbed in and slid out.
Watching children bounce, slide, and play, I thought of how peace might be obtained. We each have a Bouncy House, or maybe every block in a neighborhood has one, and we gather to bounce and feast where there’s a place for everyone at the table and more than enough to share.
I was at the dentist yesterday. The office is decorated with pumpkins and bats.
Last night, a warm night, I lay outside on the deck with the moon and stars. Then, the wind blew in as though bringing threads to connect a time of year when the veil between the living and the dead thins.
I’m with this quote by Audre Lorde:
We have to consciously study how to be tender
with each other until it becomes a habit.
Cathy's Blog! 