Yesterday I walked along the fairy trail. It was raining an hour before, and then the sun came out though I was sheltered in an Oakwood Valley of ferns, trees, and streams. It felt magical and now I peruse the photos and see images in the water, trees, moss, and lichen to explore.When I returned home I saw the camellia bush offering buds and blooms.
In being with so much transition, I’m with these words of Robert Thurman:
When you understand interconnectedness, it makes you more afraid of hating, than of dying.
Entering the TrailImages in the CreekFairy mushrooms light up in decaying a log Sunlight leaks throughLeaning InMushrooms like mouthsWhere holes inviteImages in the bed of a creek I thought I saw two eyes, but it’s leaves caught in a webMore decomposersCamellia BudOpen with Scent
As I settle into the newness of 2024, as though walking on fresh sand, I reflect on how a four year old views the world. When I told my four year old grandson we were walking toward a special bench, he saw a tree bent lengthwise like a log and ran to it. Is this the bench? Well, of course, it was. It was a place to sit.
When we walked around our yard, most of it natural, he saw a stack of dead bamboo piled to decompose. To him, it was a treasure trove. We now had magic wands, staffs, swords, and walking sticks. When we came upon some fallen branches, he saw antlers, so he and his grandpa made a headband of cardboard and attached the antlers with duct tape, and he was Bambi, the “adult” Bambi, not the baby one.
Today my brain froze as I dealt with computer issues, and I knew it was time to take the advice of Wendell Berry in his comforting and inspiring poem The Peace of Wild Things, and go to the water and birds.
“For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
ExploringEgrets gather at the marsh – Five Golden Slippers and One Great White with a yellow beakDifferentiate egrets by looking at beaks and feet A wider embrace and expanse
From the Headlands looking east through the Golden Gate BridgeEgret at the Lagoon at Rodeo BeachGreat Blue Heron at the Lagoon at Rodeo BeachRodeo BeachAngel Island from Sausalito Looking down into the water in Sausalito
What calls us now? What meets us? What relationships beckon like tides moving in and out?
How do we meet this day as never before?
What comes together and breaks apart and comes together again?
As this box of Picasso Tiles says: Be creative. Be unique. Be you.
On the outside of the box: Be Creative. Be unique. Be you!Ginger is currently hurt, so Ebi stays by her side. Friendship. Companionship. Care. Words to spark and secure the New Year!
My four year old grandson has been staying with us. He loves words, and is fluent in our language and a language of his own. It’s clearly fun to play with sound as air winds round and round and plays with tongue and mouth as meaning and nonsense resound.
Today I removed the Christmas books from the wall system, and browsing through the bookshelves re-discovered The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris.
They wrote it as a “spell book”, to conjure back twenty words lost from the most recent version of the Oxford Junior Dictionary. Words like acorn, adder, dandelion, newt, otter and willow had been replaced by attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The outdoor and natural world had been replaced by the indoor and virtual. The lost word that most surprised me is “otter”.
The page on otter ends with this:
Ever dreamed of being an otter? That
otter underwater, thunderbolt, that
shimmering twister?
Run to the riverbank, otter-dreamer, slip
your skin and change your matter, pour
your outer being into otter – and enter
now as otter without falter into water.
And so now on this last day of 2023, do just that – “slip your skin and change your matter”. Today and tomorrow are days to conjure new ways to speak, be present, and play.
Otters play in the sand at Abbott’s Lagoon Mother and baby otters swimming home Mother and Baby Otter
It’s the time of year where we light candles and inhale the scent of winter, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. I’m savoring the shared cheer. It’s a tender time, and may this pause to absorb all the holiday traditions nourish us on our journey into a new year.
Some favorite things!At a BMX track awaiting the coming of Santa’s sleighFirelightAs we travel through the tunnel from one year to the next
On Thursday at Rodeo Beach, a coyote passed by me. I took pictures but it wasn’t until I looked at them at home that I realized the coyote was injured.
I checked the symbolism of a coyote: cleverness, resilience, and strategic thinking. It’s also seen as a symbol of death and rebirth, because coyote howling is often heard during times of transition, dusk and dawn.
This coyote wasn’t asking for sympathy though I felt it as he or she was rather mangy but the coyote simply pranced courageously along, an example of how to meet what comes.
I am grateful for a Sensory Awareness class this morning with Misty Hannah. We worked with curiosity, with what we might uncover or discover that we never knew before. She asked: Can we meet this moment as never before?
And I feel in this moment that I meet the teachings of a coyote and the universe gathering as never before. I ask and explore how many universes does it take to lift my foot from the floor? How many universes came together to bring a coyote close to me to share a wound that didn’t slow or alter a path? How many passages open before, in, and around me? How many universes do I bring together as I open to meet what comes?
Curiosity may have killed the cat but a cat has nine lives. Curiosity opens doors.
An injured coyote – an open wound Clearly tagged and assured in its travels – a gentle gifted teacher and guide!
The light doesn’t return immediately. There is a pause.
This is my day to slip into quiet, and honor the words and advice of Wendell Berry.
“I go among trees and sit still. All my stirring becomes quiet around me like circles on water.”
Circles on Water.
Yesterday afternoon as I returned home, traffic was stopped. It took an hour to drive less than a mile. For some reason, I perceived it as a gift. I rolled the car window down, well, pushed a button actually, looked out at the marsh and listened to Holiday Songs.
As we honor this time of year in whatever way speaks to us, we also prepare for a new one. Intention sets a place of honoring the connections we share, the communities of which we are a part, and which are part of us.My intention is to more clearly see and honor the moments as gifts.
Living, blood flows, circulates, connects, and the breath comes in, nudges and explores, and moves out, changed, like circles on water. Our presence gives weight to the stones.
Enter the rose!The rhythm pulsing within Nature creates inside a hole in a log resting on the beachHeart Melts
Nature calls to me on this shortest day of the year so I go to the Marin Headlands and Rodeo Beach. I carry with me these words from the book Open Heart, Open Mind by Tsoknyi Rinpoche: A shadow is projected by some source of light, and by recognizing and acknowledging our shadow selves we can begin to trace a path toward the light.
The is the time of year to look within and “trace a path toward the light”.
View of San Francisco from The HeadlandsLooking out toward the ocean – cloud with wings Looking Back I’m surprised to see a banana slug venturing out into the openThe slug is racing toward a stick Structure rising on the beach Egret and Great Blue Heron by the lagoonThey both take flight when a dog passes nearby
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