Today, Pico Iyer writes a guest essay in the New York Times about when he lost everything in the 1990 Santa Barbara fire. He says, “Years later a friend would tell me that the Sufis say that you truly possess only what you cannot lose in a shipwreck.” Living where I do, I am aware of the fragility of the landscape, and the pulse of impermanence.
I read that Trump is a master of the image, of framing and lighting and that’s useful, of course, as here he is again, and then, there is a place of reality, not fantasy.
He’s moved the Inauguration supposedly because of the cold weather, but I wonder about the image of an inauguration with small crowds, many of whom don’t support his lies and deceit. Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi will not be there. The image may be out of his control.
I think of how we open and close doors, of how we allow the eyelids to cover and uncover the eyes. How do we meet what comesand unify the tides?
View of San Francisco from Sausalito Friday morningTransportInvitation
I went to Rodeo Beach early this morning where it was sunny and warm, no wind. I watched the changing waves, some flat, others crashing and flaring. I saw a Great Blue Heron, bluebirds, and otters in the lagoon. Sitting down on a “bench”, I learned from a passerby that the bench wasn’t there yesterday, and yet there it was, for a moment, today.
Great Blue HeronCalmA place to sit todayExuberanceShadow and Light
I was on a Sensory Awareness Zoom call this morning. One person on the call lives in Santa Monica and the other in Pasadena. It’s unfathomable what they are experiencing, and though their bags are packed if they need to evacuate, so far they are still in their homes, but among those they know, they are among a few so blessed. Family members and friends have lost their homes, and it continues, and the air is burning their lungs.
One thing not being mentioned is how those who work in the restaurants and businesses are affected. Their jobs are gone. These are people who may not have the finances to carry them through this. The other clear statement is that this level of tragedy is a result of climate change. Robert Hubbell wrote of living in his house for 46 years and never before hearing the thundering sound of hurricane force winds.
Somehow this country elected a man, a liar and felon, who denies climate change. It’s sobering and yet the work of Sensory Awareness helps ground those of us who work with the practice of it.
Today the question was asked and answered. Why do we do this work? Intimacy! Intimacy with ourselves, others, and the world. It’s about connection and discovery. We may say we know something like the palm of our hand, but do we actually know the palms of our hands? Have we really looked at them, touched them, felt how different they are from each other as they open, close, and extend?
Today we were asked to bring a pebble or small stone to the call. I brought a stone I picked up yesterday at Stinson Beach. I chose it because it was protected by another larger rock from being washed out to sea with the next big wave. Today, as I examined my stone without looking, only touching, I felt its intricacy and complexity. When I brought it to my face, I was struck by the softness of the stone, the receptivity and connection of face and stone.
We are all affected by these fires. The trauma and pain affect us all. We’re connected in experiencing what binds us all: earth, water, fire, and air, the elements by which we’re formed and shared.
Water and sand meet at the beach – intricacyNature’s art in water and sand – Formations and patterns on the beachA Sandpiper walksWaves and Rocks
I continue to check on the fires in Los Angeles. Northern California was inundated with rain this fall, and Southern California got none. Today the air here is clear and the air smells sweet with spring. I contrast that to the air in LA right now, to the loss, devastation, and fear. So much seems unimaginable these days. We’re being stretched.
Today, after seeing a Great Blue Heron by the creek, I saw a Great Blue Heron standing still in the water of the bay.Patiently the heron waits, and then, the trigger neck stretches and snaps to catch a fish. I’m with the stillness, the gentle waitfor change.
Tomorrow is a National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter though it seems we’re already mourning as we’re thrust into the contrast between his leadership and concerns for human rights, the environment, and peace, and what comes.
I had a blood test this morning which was anchored before and after with seeing birds by the creek.
Mr. and Mrs. Mallard out for a morning peruse.A Great Blue Heron!Scratching an itch.Majestic blending in!
I found myself eating peanuts yesterday as I read Jimmy Carter’s book A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety.
I learned that at the age of five, he set up his own business, picking peanuts, boiling them, and packaging them in small bags which he then walked two miles to town to sell. He was an entrepreneur at five.
NASA is grateful to him for saving the Space Shuttle program which continues to benefit us here on earth.
His words are on the Voyager Golden Record: “This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
Yesterday, Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, given to those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” to twenty Americans including former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the January 6 committee. Today, Trump attacked Cheney and others who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, as “dishonest Thugs.”
Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”
There’s an old saying: Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. I disagree. I believe words can hurt, and they can connect, comfort, and heal.
In George Saunders’ book A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he comments on Leo Tolstoy’s short story, Master and Man. He writes that “Tolstoy is proposing something radical: moral transformation, when it happens not through the total remaking of the sinner or the replacement of his habitual energy with some pure new energy but by a redirection of his (same old) energy.”
Saunders says we don’t have to “become an entirely new person to do better; our view just has to be readjusted, our natural energy turned in the right direction”.
For example, if you are a world-class worrier, your worry energy might get directed at extreme personal hygiene, you’re “neurotic”. If it gets directed at climate change, you’re an “intense visionary activist”.
In the book, as a man is dying, he comes to realize “oneness”. The question becomes if he had lived after the realization, would he have returned to the series of lies that he told himself, lies that motivated him to go forth and prove he was better, best, “central”, “separate”, and “correct”.
On Christmas Eve, the family went to Bedwell Bayfront Park in Menlo Park. As we climbed up the hill to savor the views, we found we were on a poetry trail. Called the Great Spirit Path, the trail is a single poem broken down into 53 verses spread throughout the park. Each verse is represented by a large stone sculpture inspired by Native American pictographic art.
This “Stonehenge by the Bay” is a stone poem in four stanzas designed by Menlo Park artist Susan Dunlap and installed along a ¾ mile long trail. Each of the 53 rock sculptures represents a phrase in the poem. It is made of 892 rough natural stones weighing more than 505 tons.
As we enter this new year, we can choose where to focus, expand, and integrate. We can caress and reflect the bones of the earth, the bones in ourselves, and the words that bind and heal.
A landscape of words and stonesUpIntegrationStone by Stone, Articulation of Bone, Step by StepLooking into a Stone
Cathy's Blog! 