Space

What the pandemic has given us is increasing awareness of what we need, and much of that seems to be awareness of caring for ourselves and those we love.  

When I hear the word “space”, I think of Star Trek and exploration of the “final frontier”, but when we look within, there’s a beginning frontier to explore, one that appears to open out into a spaciousness in which to pause, renew, rest.

I’ve been with my journals from Nepal in 1993.  There was no safety net for the people, and yet those we met had their village, the support of their village.  At that time 50% of the children died before the age of five.  

I met a man, Donny, who was sick with worry over caring for his six children.  His corn was destroyed in the monsoon and he lost his thatched roof but he was proud that his sunflowers survived.

Yesterday, my son asked me about the “good old days”.  I spoke of my grandparents who lived through WWI and the depression, and then came WWII.  There’s always something to test us. 

We are here to see how we meet what comes, and I think of Kathmandu in 1993 where the leaves were swept with brooms, and the floors washed by kneeling.  The pace was both rapid and slow, noisy and quiet, and here we are, each of us, wrapped in a world that connects us all.

Tomorrow is a huge day for our country.   Democracy is both fragile and strong.

Yesterday I learned about The Robber’s Cave Experiment that was the inspiration for the book Lord of the Flies.

I read that nearly six decades later, experts have called the experiment unethical as it appears to have left  lasting mental damage on its subjects. I think as more and more comes out on the danger of what happened on January 6, 2021, each of us is shocked.

And yet on Christmas Day, the James Webb Space Telescope was launched.

According to NASA, “thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians” — from 306 universities, national labs and companies, primarily in the U.S., Canada and Europe — contributed “to design, build, test, integrate, launch and operate Webb.”

Smithsonian Magazine noted that “Webb will help scientists understand how early galaxies formed and grew, detect possible signatures of life on other planets, watch the birth of stars, study black holes from a different angle and likely discover unexpected truths.”

Wow!

May we more deeply and expansively unite in observing the space within us, as we explore and expand our knowledge of the space we share.

https://earthandskyimaging.com/?doing_wp_cron=1641404792.1273291110992431640625

This Day

Rain all day yesterday and now today a gray mist as birds fill the air with chatter, tweets, squawks, caws, and shrieks. 

I’m with these words of Rilke: 

We wasters of sorrows! How we stare away into sad endurance beyond them, trying to foresee their end! Whereas they are nothing else than our winter foliage, our sombre evergreen, one of the seasons of our interior year.

I honor winter evergreen and bare trees, welcoming the place of deepest feeling where sorrow and joy meet, rooting in a rise of gratitude, ease, and care.   

Looking East
Looking West
Looking South and Out

Original Face

My first blog was a sharing and exploration of my journey through breast cancer treatment in 2005 and 2006.  The book Breast Strokes came from the blog.

My second book was about the relationship between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, a complex one for sure, as each of us is complex and when we have two women loving the same man, a man perceived differently by each, understanding and compassion come to the fore.    

The third book, and the initial reason for this blog was my journey to Nepal in 1993 when I was 43.  I wrote it without the journals I so meticulously kept while there, so I relied on memory, but sometime this year I discovered the journals, carefully wrapped and tucked away.  I kept saying I’d go back through them, but then, there was always something “more important” to do but today,  New Year’s resolutions connected to hands connected to heart, I step back into the trip.  

My New Year’s intention is to post every day, and part of that will be a sharing of what I discover as I go back through journals from 27 years ago.  Today, I realized that the theme of the book, Airing Out the Fairy Tale, and my life, and possibly yours, relates to the Zen koan, “Show me your original face before you were born.”

Vicki, Celeste, and I went to Nepal on a spiritual quest.  We stayed in Kathmandu at 5000 feet to prepare.  We flew into Lukla at 9000 feet, and from there we walked down to acclimate before we continued back up.  

Today I’m reading of standing in line in Kathmandu on October 3, 1993, and it’s not really a line, but instead a cacophony of people anxious to get trekking permits.  I saw that all those around us were young, and yet I felt young even though I was 43.  Not intimated by age, I wrote, “Our spirits are high and so high we will go.”

Now, reflecting, I feel I touched my “original face” in Nepal. I was given the gift of understanding, a visceral immersion, elemental and original.   It is said that all souls circle around Mount Everest, Sagarmatha in Sanskrit, and Chomolungma to the Tibetans, when they pass. My mother-in-law passed away when I was there, and now, this beginning of a new year, I honor those who’ve passed even as I release.

Peace resides with the Tides!

Elaine Chan-Scherer’s photo of the sunset last night at low tide – Ocean Beach

New Moon

It’s the time of the January new moon, so King tides.  The flow is deep, and what’s hidden sleeps and is revealed.

My father passed 53 years ago tomorrow, and each year, I think the wound, the loss, is healed, but then, today, I’m held in soft tears, sweet ones, not salt as memories seep through.

These words of Ram Dass comfort me today, draw me forth. 

You are an entity, passing through a life, in which the entire drama is an offering for your awakening.

And there’s Cheri Huber:  Continuous awareness of being awareness takes continuous practice.

Today, I woke aware of what judgment does, and I release judgment of myself, and let it flow out with the high tide to reveal the treasures in the low.

Yesterday the light called me to capture photos in my yard. Wind chimes OM and flowers bloom honoring young light.

Grace

Today I prepare for entry into this new year.  I took the decorations off the tree on Friday and have been sitting with its glory and inspirational shape for two days, but today is the day it must be carried outside.

In that journey, I’m with Toni Morrison’s words from her book Beloved.  

Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face… Love your mouth… This is flesh… Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms… Love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. And all your inside parts that they’d just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver — love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts… love your heart. For this is the prize.

Friend Squirrel – we share a place

A New Year

I breathe into the space of 365 days and nights opening before me like a kaleidoscope turning.  

Today I was on a Sensory Awareness call with Ray Fowler leading.  He said to “note how allowing space is different from waiting”.  

Just that might be enough to massage my days with murmurs whispering each movement no matter how small or indistinct.

Hafiz: The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with love.

New Year’s Eve

I’m still with water as we leave one year and move, invited to, the next.

Takuan Soho from “THE RIGHT MIND AND THE CONFUSED MIND”.  

If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.

New Year’s Eve, 2017, from Tiburon
Beautiful view of San Francisco four years ago

Technology

This world requires technological knowledge which is why I often call my son for Tech Support.  Today is one of those days.  I was getting email messages asking why I wasn’t responding.  It seems that over 105,000 messages have been stored in an account I don’t check because it forwards to another account.  It was full, which I didn’t know, so now those over 105,000 messages are deleted, and all “should” be working as before.  I say “should” as I thought all was working but there was one more snafu to overcome which I discovered when my sent emails were returned. I believe all is currently working, and if you haven’t heard back from me, that’s why.  

I’m grateful I just posted about being water so I could crash on a shore of adjustment and sink into the sand of passing time.  Does that make sense?  Probably not since my brain fries with computer glitches and then I pour water on, and now I’m water-logged.

I’m grateful I have a son who can “take over my screen” and fix problems from afar.

Okay, back to different forms of water as I now work with organizing files and papers to prepare for the new year.

Peace and ease as I move gently and forcefully into 2022.

Fireworks at a beautiful wedding we attended in CT in 2019
CT. in May
And rivers eddy and flow

Be Water

As this year comes to an end, we’ve been meeting with a lawyer on our end of life plans.  It’s something to contemplate how much of one’s body to donate after death.  Specific organs or all organs – information for research – education.  We have signed a DNR, and are updating that to ensure, and still there’s something sobering in it all even though we are very clear.

Therefore, I’m with the words of Bruce Lee where he speaks of emptying the mind to become formless and shapeless like water, which “can flow or it can crash”.  He said, “Be water, my friend.”  

Of course, there are a multitude of ways to visualize that.

The Long Dark

Guardian Light

Did it seem a little lighter this morning or is it that I’m staying in bed a wee bit longer to reflect. We’re upgrading our Trust, which means I saw my younger brother is still there as someone who would help oversee our desires when we pass.

Change.

Yesterday I watched this beautiful talk with Michael Lerner and Francis Weller at Commonweal. I recommend it.

https://tns.commonweal.org/podcasts/weller-lerner/#.YcoAoC-B2X1

I walked outside to get the mail and a beautiful hawk was sitting on a branch of a tree. I ran inside to get my phone and friend hawk and I spent some time together. Blessings. Blessed.

And now it’s enough. He lifts and prepares to swoop in a wide curve, to circle in flight.