Cathy's Blog!

I made a fire in the fireplace last night as I listened to the welcome sound of rain. I lit candles to savor the quivering light in the dark.

My neighbor gave me a fairy door to go with my other fairy door.  A local man makes each one individually and gives them away.

Yesterday my neighbor and I  took a walk on the Oakwood Valley Trail to immerse in the fairy landscape there.  Water was still dripping from the morning rain, and it was a land of enchantment. 

Clearly there are all sizes and types of fairies.  I was reminded of Cathedral Woods on Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine.  We beckon our landscapes to open, to nourish what flourishes within and in the soil beneath our feet and the trees that rise from roots twined to feed.

I also nourish on words as lanterns, as stars and fairy lights.

So many I know are facing personal challenges right now, and the world is on edge and off balance, so I come to poetry and these words of  Mahmoud Darwish: 

 ‘A poem in a difficult time / is beautiful flowers in a cemetery.’” 

We’re home from Half Moon Bay and it’s raining.  Pure delight.

Frederick Franck: 

When a monk complained about the world’s evil, the Buddha stretched his hand toward the Earth: “on this Earth I attained Liberation.”

I’m in Half Moon Bay nourishing on changes in tides and light.

Although the moon is a vast and great light, it is reflected in a drop of water. The whole moon and even the whole sky are reflected in a drop of dew on a blade of grass.

– Dogen

Each morning I receive wisdom and guidance from the Center for Action and Contemplation.  This morning Richard Rohr recalls his first experiences with the prayer of the Pueblo people in New Mexico: 

In 1969 when I was a young deacon in Acoma Pueblo, one of my jobs was to take the census. Because it was summer and hot, I would start early in the morning, driving my little orange truck to each residence. Invariably at sunrise, I would see a mother outside the door of her home, with her children standing beside her. She and the children would be reaching out with both hands uplifted to “scoop” up the new day and then “pour” it over their heads and bodies in blessing. I would sit in my truck until they were finished, thinking how silly it was of us Franciscans to think we brought religion to New Mexico four hundred years ago!