We leave Santa Barbara today.Our visit has been exquisite and I want to share another side.As is clear, I love taking pictures. I thought I was taking a picture of a rock with some local history on it but a man in the far distance started yelling at me because he thought I was taking a picture of him. I hadn’t noticed him, as there are homeless people here, and so there is the usual honoring of quiet respect and awareness of the disparity that we sadly know. Back at the hotel, I realized yes, I had captured his image in the background and I deleted it.
Today I post images of rocks and sand, movement, dwelling, connection, and change.
Bubbles surround a rock as we travel round the sun A shell outlives what it hostsA step lasting longer than I Even birds leave footprints in the sandTangled in changeBeauty and GraceLiving Trust
It is a weight and a fullness. Moisture fills the body, sadness, a reach to understand this parting of the veil, opening to the light.
I’m trying to stay with the weight of the grief, to not run away from it, and I know it’s not just about my cousin, that it’s about all the grief we’ve experienced in our lives as though it creates a mountain on which we climb until we reach our own peak and lift.
Yesterday on my return I drove to the bay to sit, just sit in the abundance of life here. Sausalito is filled with people from other places, different accents and the excitement of curiosity and not knowing exactly where you are.
About a month ago as I was processing this deep feeling of grief, I wrote these words for myself and I share them now.
Like gathering tufts of wool sheep have left on branches and trees, we gather the spirits of those we love who’ve passed, make a cloak for ourselves of wisdom we weave and share.
Boats float and lift on moving waterMt. Tam overlooks it allBy The JoineryLooking up
This morning I drove east to Rio Vista to visit my cousin and say goodbye as shetransitions into a new journey. The drive was exquisite through the delta and past the golden summer lands of California.
On the roundabout I miscounted when to exit so I ended up on a deserted gravel road which was perfect as I needed a pee break.
On the left side of the road was an old-fashioned windmill with a gathering of cows.
Country Life
And on the other side was this.
Modern ways to gather the wind
At my cousin’s house, she showed me a box of cranes, 100 cranes, that my sister-in-law had made and sent to her to help her with her journey of healing and coming to peace and wholeness.
100 paper cranes gathered in a box Here is the story of paper cranes!
This morning the sky was a mix of clarity, fog, and a vibrant pink streak. Now all is blue with some white streaks of clouds. Touch possibility and guidance in change.
Rumi:
Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.
I’m both anchored and soaring in this summer light. I know many are suffering from excessive heat but here is perfect temperature and peace.
In my meditation this morning I could feel how clearly the bones come down in response to gravity and the nervous system rises and soars to some inner call.
All is changing, and yet at this moment my world is quiet and still. I put a blanket down outside last night to watch for meteor showers. What a gift to lie flat and receive the light of stars. I didn’t see any shooting stars but I did see two airplanes, lights flashing, as they flew by.
Black Elk:
The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit and that its center is really everywhere; it is within each of us.
Leaving San Francisco on the ferry on FridayA place to learn, interact, and seeTaveling NorthThe Golden Gate BridgeEvening sky that night with a crescent moon resting to the right
I’ve been going through old journals and keeping and tossing.
I came across a sweet memory. A hummingbird flew into a friend’s house, and to guide him or her back out, she filled glasses with water, and put a flower in each one, and set them in a path to the open door, and out the hummingbird went.
There is such kindness in the world.
Last night, I watched the documentary, Going Clear, about Scientology. It’s shocking and important to see how a cult develops when we hand our power and inner knowing over to another. Instead we need to trust what we know, and feeling within, follow the vases filled with flowers that guide our way.
An egret comes closer and struts by so I can see how it’s done!Checking the brakes before a downhill launchAll intact!And back up the hill – muscle power rulesBy the Bay
I’ve now cleaned everything out of one room except the moveable bookshelves. The closet is empty and now when I speak, the room echoes. Nothing catches or holds the vibrations of my words.
I take that inside. What if I’m not holding onto memories, especially judgments and/or grudges? I feel I need some anchoring within, some awareness of my travels, connections, and pilgrimages, so I can respond with the wisdom of lessons learned through experience, and yet when is it too much? When is there a need to open and cleanse?
How much do I need to hold onto to feel connected and safe?
Might I choose to be like a bird with the warmth of a nest and the ability to fly through a sky bracketed with branches like shelves? What wisdom does the bird harvest from grasses and leaves?
I’m reading The Starship and The Canoe by Kenneth Brower. He writes about two men, a father and son. The father, Freeman Dyson, is a renowned astrophysicist who designs a spaceship to explore the stars. The son, George Dyson, lives in a tree house and explores the coastal wilderness and waters of the Northwest in a canoe he designed and built.
At one point, George is camped by the Icy Strait. He is alone as the full moon rises when he hears wolves howling near him.
“Wolves had come down silently from the forest and had infiltrated the beach grass. It seemed to George that the sound went straight to the center of his being. It passed through the center and out the other side, traveling over Icy Strait toward the moonlit mountain.
All his sensibilities quickened. Now and again, when the wolves stopped for a moment, George heard each grass blade rustling, each wave lapping. Waiting for the wolves to resume, he heard the blowing of humpback whales as they swung in close to shore.
The wolves were ending their song, when, from the sea, the whales answered it. George swears that this is true. The whale music was, he says, like whistling, trumpeting, and singing combined. It resembled no work of man he knew, but it blended perfectly with the chorus of the whales. The forest’s mournful ululations mingled with the brass winds and wood winds of the deep. The Earth was singing to its moon, and the sea was harmonizing.
George sat silent in the middle of the music, yet did not feel left out. It seemed to him that the two worlds, land and sea, were coming together in him. This morning he had padded, like the wolves, in bare feet on the mossy forest floor, and this afternoon he had paddled Icy Strait, like the humpback whales. A triumvirate, they praised the moon: lupus, George, leviathan.”
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