Cathy's Blog!

Our power is out so I’m camped at Steve’s office after early morning coffee at Peets, and a return to home to shower.   

This morning I watched people stagger in for their caffeine lift. Two women had pulled a coat on over their flannel pajamas, and as though sleep-walking moved along murmuring coffee, coffee, as they wound their way to their chosen source  of renewal.

Before that though, an early morning gift was going outside around three or four to place blankets and pillows on the deck, and resting face up, watch the stars.  With all the lights out in our area, I could see dimensions and layers of stars, knowing some were whole galaxies, not just stars. I saw five meteors flash.

All of this meant I didn’t read the news until 1:30 today.  I find it hard to believe.

It’s Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  One man’s son is here also as his high school is closed to honor the day, and, yet, we are observing a humanitarian crisis, innocent people killed.  Why?

I come to this poem for support.

A Gift

Just when you seem to yourself

nothing but a flimsy web

of questions, you are given

the questions of others to hold

in the emptiness of your hands,

songbird eggs that can still hatch

if you keep them warm,

butterflies opening and closing themselves

in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure

their scintillant fur, their dust.

You are given the questions of others

as if they were answers

to all you ask. Yes, perhaps

this gift is your answer.

~ Denise Levertov ~

Last night the not yet half moon was a beacon in the sky spreading light.  It seems as though as the days shorten, the moon offers even more light. Plants respond to the change in how to receive as do we.

Yesterday coming back from Woodside, we and other cars were speeding along 280 when traffic came to a halt.  We creeped along for 30 minutes, or so, and then came upon the reason why. A horrific crash left crushed cars spread across two lanes of the four lane highway.  Lights flashed from trucks and ambulances.  Like that, lives changed.

As each of us looked, and drove past, there was a difference in the quality of the driving, a slow down from the previous 85 to 65, a visceral knowing of fragility and gratitude. It could have been one, or many of us.

I was grateful for the carriage in which I rode. My son who was in a different car on a different freeway, his slowed to 15 mph, pointed out that at the Folger Estate Museum, where we’d just been, we’d been looking at carriages from the past, carriages which would have required days to travel as we were, open carriages with no shock absorbers or air conditioners, and though we were in different cars on different freeways, we were communicating. How amazing is that!

This morning I wake and feel my body responding to seeing such a crunch of metal, a safety we take for granted, feel my spine extending, and again I think of the sea star with it’s five armed reach. I’m living; I move, moved.

Yesterday after brunch we went to the Folger Estate, a former estate now a beautifully preserved museum from the past, the CA past, which includes the Native people, but also those who came in 1840 and divided the land into grants.  Today the buildings are preserved, children are educated, and horses are housed.

We sat under oak and bay trees and savored soft talk.

Today I feel a call to turn my yard toward fall, to be in the preserve that is mine for a time to care for, an extension of my receptors and probes, like fingers and toes.

As I again contemplate this stable designed by Arthur Brown Jr. who later designed the City Hall, Coit Tower, and the Opera House in San Francisco, and the Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus, I think of how we are told Jesus was born in a stable. I’ve never visualized it quite like this.

Enjoy your day as you expand on the meaning of words, and the mobility, flexibility, and airiness in your tissues, the blessings in this moment, this symphony we share that titled simply is Life.

You can learn more about the Folger Estate here: https://www.huddartwunderlichfriends.org/

I rise and watch the day come to light. My “baby” was born 42 years ago tomorrow. I sit with memories, a sky rising with light. Birth expands around words, like a womb, shared.