Trees need space for light and air to move through just as we do.
I admire the men who climb up into trees and cut branches by hand.
Tree Pruning
Miracles
Today I read Wislawa Szymborska’s poem “Miracle Fair”.
The poem begins with:
The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.
And she begins a list, a way for each of us to view, expand, and embrace what comes to us as we meander through night and day.
A miracle that’s lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it’s got more than four.
A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.
An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
I balance that with the Israel attack on a Gaza hospital killing 20, including journalists and medics. One needs fingers and toes to count the number of dead. One needs a see-saw to balance joy and sorrow, gratitude and grief, as we center in the heart that holds it all.
My son sends me photos of his friend, a red-shouldered hawk, he sees on his morning walks.
Unity
Today I read what E.B. White wrote for The New Yorker after watching Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon on July 21, 1069.
E.B. White:
The moon, it turns out, is a great place for men. One-sixth gravity must be a lot of fun, and when Armstrong and Aldrin went into their bouncy little dance, like two happy children, it was a moment not only of triumph but of gaiety. The moon, on the other hand, is a poor place for flags. Ours looked stiff and awkward, trying to float on the breeze that does not blow. (There must be a lesson here somewhere.) It is traditional, of course, for explorers to plant the flag, but it struck us, as we watched with awe and admiration and pride, that our two fellows were universal men, not national men, and should have been equipped accordingly. Like every great river and every great sea, the moon belongs to none and belongs to all. It still holds the key to madness, still controls the tides that lap on shores everywhere, still guards the lovers who kiss in every land under no banner but the sky. What a pity that in our moment of triumph we did not forswear the familiar Iwo Jima scene and plant instead a device acceptable to all: a limp white handkerchief, perhaps, symbol of the common cold, which, like the moon, affects us all, unites us all.
Swirling
Today in my meditation, I saw and felt the day turn to light as the earth turns on its axis and we move around the sun. Yesterday, I got my hair cut and asked my hairdresser why one side flips up and the other side curls under. I learned that our hair spirals in a circle around our head, each of us with a swirl as individual as our fingerprint.
I’m swirling in movement today, anchored in the cord of impermanence, change.
Adaptation
Sometimes life feels like a bunch of pick-up sticks. Clasped together in our palm, we let go, either willingly or with a push from outside, and the sticks fall, so we’re given the opportunity to put them back together again in a whole new form.
I read about humans needing to adapt to increasing heating patterns on the planet. Impermanence. Change, and how do we meet what comes?
Enchantment
I was at Rodeo Beach today. The fog was in and the beach was covered with Vellella vellella, a result of the recent full moon tides.
I hadn’t realized each apparent individual is a hydroid colony, composed of tiny, anemone-like creatures. Related to jellyfish, they are carnivorous, and catch their prey, mainly plankton, with tentacles dangling in the water.
A Pause
Today, I’m again overwhelmed with a president who, on an ever-changing whim, goes against the constitution to levy tariffs that affect each one of us and everyone in the world, and that is just one thing he does daily. Therefore, I opened Stay Inspired, Shelter in Place, 2020. It’s an expensive book but 100% of the profits are donated to NO KID HUNGRY.
This book is the inspiration of Lisa Dolby Chadwick, who is the founder of the Dolby Chadwick Gallery. You can order the book through the gallery. It’s a collection of poetry and art. Open to any page and find beauty and comfort, perhaps even laughter.
In Dean Young’s poem “Whale Watch”, I smile and recognize these words:
… I have seen books with pink slips
marking vital passages
but this i do not recommend
as it makes the book appear foolish
like a dog in a sweater.
Here’s the last line of Rilke’s poem “Sunset” translated by Robert Bly.
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
Again, I recommend Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “So Much Happiness” which can be found at poets.org.
Ken Wilber:
Great art suspends the reverted eye, the lamented past, the anticipated future: we enter with it into the timeless present; we are with God today, perfect in our manner and mode, open the riches and glories of a realm that time forgot, but that great art reminds us of: not by its content, but what what it does in us: suspends the desire to be elsewhere. And thus it undoes the agitated grasping in the heart of the suffering self, and releases us – maybe for a second, maybe for a minute, maybe for all eternity – releases us from the coil of ourselves.
This book is great art and releases us from the coil of ourselves.
Trees
I finished the book My Head for a Tree: The Extraordinary Story of the Bishnoi, Guardians of Nature by Martin Goodman. These guardians show us how to live when we honor and value interconnectivity, oneness, wholeness, and this world we share.
I spiral on the words on my Flying Edna Desktop Calendar. “I do not go to the forest to be alone. I go to be with the ones who speak without human words.”
As we’re inundated with stories of political horror, it’s important and essential to be with the beings who give us oxygen, and share our roots and nourish our soil and soul.
Thanks
Today I read the news and then I balanced it with the poem “Thanks” by W.S. Merwin. You can read the poem here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57937/thanks
He ends with:
we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is
Wouldn’t Peace make more sense?
Arundhati Roy:
It’s odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian don’t hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to “rid the world of evil-doers.”
My niece is visiting and is staying on a houseboat in Sausalito. There was fog the first morning, and now blue skies and sun. Last night a seal swam by, and the tides move in and out.
Cathy's Blog! 