Yesterday I walked along the marsh with a friend. We saw red-winged blackbirds and egrets. I took no pictures as we were discussing serious subjects, friends dealing with serious health issues and end of life. I came home tired, and went to bed early but then woke at 3:30 from the most amazing dream of strength, beauty, and trust.
I sit here now, and though it’s still dark, I feel the day coming to light, and then, I hear the first gobble and caw, and now the tweets.
Live according to your highest light and more light will be given.
We have a day to honor mothers and one for fathers and yet I sit here today feeling enveloped by my mother who passed away in February 2005. She is here with me, in me, with her sweet smile and desire always for peace.
I used to think she should be stronger in judgment, or what I preferred to call discernment, but now I understand. There is a place of letting go, of gentle strength, the Mr. Rogers type of strength.
I revel in her knowing these words of Nipun Mehta.
Surrender isn’t a sacrifice of the known but rather a celebration of the infinite.
There are many cars on the train we are on, and we can’t see and seam them all at one time but my mother is here.
One of my Mother’s Day gifts was a bottle of perfume from Powell’s bookstore called “Eau de bookstore”.
I’ve missed being in bookstores. Browsing them is one of my favorite things to do and with the pandemic, that was out, so there the books were shut up inside, and I, on the outside looking in.
Of course my house is filled with books but there’s something about a bookstore, the arrangement, exploration, discovery, and excitement that I’ve missed.
Before I opened the bottle, we discussed what the smell would be. Would it be musty or filled with light? I sprayed the scent, and yum. The smell was pure delight.
The blurb says: “The riveting scent of books, with subtle hints of wood and violet, come together in Powell’s by Powell’s. Wherever you are, experience the comfort and nostalgia of Portland’s most iconic bookstore. You won’t be able to put it down.”
It’s true. I inhale and exhale the enchanting smell of wisdom and connection shared over the years!!
I wake and stay in bed listening to a symphony of bird song, twitterings and tweets, caws, and turkey gobbling that percolates through all my cells. It’s morning in May and we celebrate the mothering that connects us all.
This quote from an unknown source comes my way today.
“If at first you don’t succeed, try doing it the way mom told you to in the beginning.”
Perhaps there’s a way to balance that, or perhaps not, but today I remember all the women in my life, related and not, who’ve enriched, guided, brightened, opened, and paved my way. I’m grateful for celebration and honoring, a day to be with the birthing that continues to transform and unfold.
Yesterday I emailed a friend and the email returned with what augments all her emails.
I offer it here.
Five Vows From Joanna Macy and the Work that Reconnects:
I vow to myself and to each of you:
To commit myself daily to the healing of our world and the welfare of all beings.
To live on Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products, and energy I consume.
To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, the ancestors, the future generations, and my brothers and sisters of all species.
To support others in our work for the world and ask for help when I need it.
To pursue a daily practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.”
I sink into the truths of this mothered by the roots, branches, leaves, and fruits of trees.
Yesterday I again left at 6:15 to drive down to take care of my grandson for the day but this week it was light whereas last week it was dark. It feels miraculous, life and light changing on this planet we share.
Grandson is pure delight and we spent time running around, hugging, and looking up through trees. One redwood hung down enough we could bounce the branches up and down fanning ourselves and the tree.
Today I went to two museums, the Legion of Honor and then the De Young to see the Calder-Picasso exhibit. What a treat!
I sit now listening to the wind chimes, the play of air and form.
When I went through chemotherapy, I learned that in receiving, I was giving. I didn’t have the energetic resources to give anything but reception and I saw the gift in that, the beauty of completing a circle of exchange.
Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about receiving things, which can be much harder than giving. – Alexander McCall Smith.
There’s so much going on these days and so many places to put our attention that sometimes I pause and sit in the middle, center myself in quiet and all that’s swirling and whirling in and around me. There’s nothing to do or even be.
I receive these words of Jane Hirshfield:
We cannot let our ideas blind us to our unknowing.
This morning, my surroundings are stirred by bird song. I’m lifted on movement and sound, stirred.
The name, May, allows me to unfold in a request. May I open, trust, thrust.
The name comes from the Roman goddess Maia, a nurturer and earth goddess. She is the goddess of growing plants.
The word also comes from the Latin word majores, “elders” because elders were celebrated during this month. It makes sense as our wisdom grows, softens, and blossoms in spring and falls in fall.
I’m with movement today, movement within and around me, and I continue to be stirred as I read and absorb these words of 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.
I’ve been in a pause of silence. I caught a cold from my grandson and that has pulled me into an inner landscape. It’s odd to have survived the “pandemic” and then be caught up in the inner journey of contemplation and analysis of retreatthat healing invites.
As a child, the evening before this day we made baskets of construction paper and filled them with candy and flowers, which early in the morning we hung on the doorknobs of our neighbors.
This morning I’m looking out on beauty, a half moon bright in a blue sky. My husband and Friend Skunk met this morning and each calmly went their own way. Two deer visit our yard in the early morning hours these days.
I’ve been thinking about impermanence. A friend suggests writing quotes I love on a piece of paper torn in a strip and folded into a circle like a little boat. Float the boat in water and watch the words and possibly paper dissolve.
I anchor that with these words of David Whyte:
Reality met on its own terms demands absolute presence, and absolute giving away, an ability to live on equal terms with the fleeting and the eternal, the hardly touchable and the fully possible, a full bodily appearance and disappearance, a rested giving in and giving up; another identity braver, more generous and more here than the one looking hungrily for the easy, unearned answer.
Orchid flowers again The sky yesterday morning Gardening on the roof at Slide RanchMonday morning beauty along the coast Look closely to see a Woodpecker in my yard
I’ve come to a place of pause and trust, at least in this moment. May this continue as a knowing, honoring, and acknowledgment of the words of Rainer Maria Rilke.
“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”
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