Because a new window shade is installed in the room where I write and navigate, I’m having the room painted on Monday which requires moving everything out to begin again.  I meditate on optimum feng shui, planning to consciously create a place of nourishment for where I am now.  What surroundings do I need to nourish and touch more deeply within?

In this exploration, I go through years of notes from the past.  I reflect on my trip to Nepal in 1993, a trip inspired when I received a midlife call. I responded to Sogyal Rinpoche who said to go into nature, and so I did.  I went to Nepal without expectation, trusting the call.  I was a hollow bone, the place shamans envision and become to invite an inner journey to enter and expand.

In midlife, we birth again, unfold into a wider womb.

I feel that call to birth again as I approach the age of 74.  It’s been thirty years since I was trekking in the Everest region of Nepal. At one point, I was walking on a narrow trail through a village when a tiny, old woman beckoned me into an equally tiny, old space, a small opening in a wall of stone. Flickering candlelight revealed a Tangka painting, a photo of the Dalai Lama and sacred books. 

Alone, I turned around in this tiny womb, and left a donation. When I emerged, the woman, an elderly, wrinkled  nun, placed some kernels of burnt popcorn in my hands.  I still taste that burnt offering, feel the touch of the nun and the kernels etched within me.  

Clay tablets caught in fires in ancient temples turned to stone.  The clay of my memories forms anchors in stone as I age, as I climb to a deeper knowing and trust in all we share.  

I respond to the words of Winnie the Pooh.

Sometimes the smallest things take the most room in your heart.

We watched the Fourth of July fireworks on a hill near where one son and his wife live.  We walked to our spot with folding chairs, and sat with neighbors as fireworks erupted around us.  We shared a view, and when I looked at the photos, I saw galaxies and thought of the Big Bang happening around and in us.

That morning we had brunch with friends who have a ten year old.  For her tenth birthday, she was offered a trip anywhere, Hawaii, the Galapagos, whatever she wanted.  She chose a place of her own, a “she-shed” placed in a back corner of their yard. She allowed me into her world of enchantment, a lovely lavender abode with places to express, honor, and bring forth her creativity which is varied and unique. In her nature cupboard, she carefully opened a box to reveal the perfect, preserved skeleton of a mouse. In another, the discarded skin of a reptile lay treasured in display.

This morning I woke from a dream where I felt the abundance around and in me, the earth thriving beneath my feet, the sky filled with the flight of birds.  We live in an exciting and vibrant world.  My focus is there, on growth and change, and these words of Emily Dickinson.

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

Yesterday I had an 8:00 dental cleaning.  I arrived early at the marsh.  At first I saw no birds, then, darting swallows and then two egrets.  The water moves in and out, tidal like the seasons as we celebrate light and shadow in these long days of summer solstice.  

Emily Dickinson:

To live is so startling, it leaves little time for anything else.