I’ve been in four different locations in the last four days, and I sit here now in a beautiful home integrating cataract surgery.  There’s a great deal involved as the brain works to orient to a new way of seeing.  I think of how we focus, wide and open, small and detailed, and I see how my eyes are being challenged to learn new ways of seeing.

Oddly, with the new lens the right eye is fixed.  It will never change.  I have a card saying I have an “artificial” part in my body.  When I had the patch on the right eye, the left eye worked hard to compensate even though it has limited vision, but it took over with a mighty force, and now it seems a little lost or maybe afraid.  I’ll have surgery on that eye on the 14th.

All of this is to say how precious vision is.  We all know it in one way, and perhaps we take it for granted in another.  Stop now and give your eyes a tender recognizing hug and kiss of gratitude. What a gift is sight!

In this new place, I hear different birds chirping this morning.  I’ve left the marsh and am perched upon a hill with the changes spring brings.  I’m immersed in sensing, sensitivity, response and responsibility, and love and trust.  

In the end, it’s only when we face ego down that we truly see ourselves.

– Ashwini Narayanan

We are showered with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and the exhale of our shared breath. Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put out into the universe will always come back.

– Robin Wall Kimmerer

Yesterday I was at Larkspur Landing and coming up to the fountain saw two turtles. They weren’t moving and didn’t look real so I thought they were decoratively placed to allow the mallards to step over to enter their abode. Then, they moved, not much, just a blink and a shot of tongue. Yes, the turtles are real, and judging from the cobweb the mallards aren’t impressed with their house.