Rilke in The Book of Hours translated by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows:
All becoming has needed me
My looking ripens things
and they come toward me, to meet and be met.
Rhythm pulses in me!
Becoming
Simplicity
Usually I keep vases around the house filled with water and flowers, but lately I’ve kept one vase empty of flowers and partially filled with water.
A vase – water – space.
The Sky
I’m entranced with the morning sky these days, the whole expanse and the parts. It’s a Rorsach test for my inner-outer mood, for the movement of breath in and out.
The Morning Ripens
I arrived early for a medical appointment today which offered immersion in sky, earth, creek.
Gratitude
We live in a complex world grounded in our own ability to contact and magnify simplicity. Today on a clear day with no wind our power went off. Like that, a change in plans. My morning rituals which include the computer stop and twirl. I grab a bag and walk down to Good Earth for coffee and prepared food. On the way back, I pause and note the infrastructure that supports life here. I know we’re all aware of Lahaina and Maui and how quickly things can change. This morning was another call to notice what I often take for granted, and to give thanks to all the connections that support the richness of the life I live here.
Peace and Joy
I’m balancing on these words of Anne Lamott:
Peace is joy at rest, and joy is peace on its feet.
Hmmm!
I’m also with the word tear which can be interpreted as wetness from the eyes, or breaking something apart. Is there a place they meet like joy and peace?
Our Precious Heart
I wake up noticing it’s still dark at five. We’re moving into a new season, and yet, warmth is still to come before the light dims to transition again.
A friend has received a pacemaker. It saves a life and changes it, so he’s with a series of limitations right now.
In this, I feel, nourish, and invite an extra tenderness to my heart today, as it beats loyally between my lungs.
I remember walking in Muir Woods in the winter rain. There was no place to sit as the ground, plants, and benches were wet, and I felt myself moving like the stream.
My cousin who is in Hospice now was told by her oncologist to read Eckhart Tolle. I thought it odd to suggest reading at this point but then I came across these lines of his.
Through death you will find yourself because you no longer identify with form.
I’m alive right now, identifying with form, and gratefully appreciating the rhythm of my heart, and that is this moment, now.
Peaceful, the gentle beat!
Seeing
To see, we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.
– Claude Monet
Life of a three, almost four year old
I spent the last two days with my grandson living in the realm of the imagination. The playground was closed so we settled under a tree with beautiful green leaves. We stretched our necks to become giraffes, and even now I feel my long, flowing neck and lips gently nuzzling and ingesting leaves.
A coyote is howling this morning. Perhaps it’s waking from a dream of the Supermoon last night. My meditation these days is “Beyond Multiplicity”, and I ground in illusion as I juggle, snuggle, crawl through, and open to rainbows in play.
Journeying
We drove to Santa Barbara on 101, a reminder of the work involved in growing our food. We passed fields lined with people bent over picking and pruning.
On the way back, we took country roads. In 2012 my sons did the Faultline rally and crisscrossed the California fault line in a vintage Datsun with other pre-1976 cars. They traveled mainly on narrow and challenging roads, not passable in wet weather, which it wasn’t then or now, and discovered uncrowded beautiful landscapes, another example of the variety and complexity of the state in which we live. Our destination for lunch was the Parkfield Cafe, worth it for the atmosphere, food, and apple dumplings.
I didn’t take pictures inside the restaurant as it opens at 11:30 and immediately fills with hungry people, all a little more weathered than we. It felt intrusive to gawk and take pictures of saddle stools and the giant fireplace. We ate outside as we do when we travel with Ebi and Ginger, two rescue greyhounds who attract attention wherever we go.
I offer a taste of our trip yesterday.
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