Cathy's Blog!

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Perception

I wake and think I can’t see until I put my contacts in or put glasses on but I actually can see. The cataract and lens replacement surgery worked, and I’m slowly coming to believe it. It’s clear when I drive. I see road signs and lines that were blurs before. The world is edged with invitations I missed.

Sitting on the couch at home, I realized there is a gap in one tree and I can see through to the ridge, and yet I’m still in a somewhat state of disbelief as it’s become so clear how we create our world and focus.

I’m reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream. It’s a fascinating look at all he accomplished and how influenced he was by his environment, parents and grandparents. We all are, of course, whether it’s to absorb, or push against, but he did what he did because of it, and then came to an inability to adapt. This issue of response is often with me. How do I respond to what comes now and now and now?

My iris plant isn’t yet blooming but I resonate to this poem and how when the flowers emerge I’ll see little vases holding flowers perhaps infinitum like fractals. I’m opening to see life the same way as patterns of curiosity open, close, and merge, like night and day.

This poem is from Billy Collin’s poetry book “Musical Tables”.

Argument from Design

Six petals on each iris,

every other one

with a small yellow streak,

which resembles a tiny vase,

holding a few flowers of its own.

Bridging the clouds, water, and ground –

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Ring Mountain

When my youngest started kindergarten, I trained to become a Terwilliger nature guide. My site was Ring Mountain, where I am now. This morning I stepped out and passed two houses to cross a stream and enter the sacred site.

This is Coast Miwok land. The Nature Conservancy bought it when the Tiburon Mariposa Lily was discovered to grow here and nowhere else. There is serpentine at the top surrounded by sandstone so flowers developed and then were caught as though planted to keep this land always open in honor of the native people and plants.

I couldn’t go far today because of the mud but I know there is a midden here and a hole in the rock where the Miwok people ground their acorns. It’s under a buckeye tree which loses its leaves in the winter and grows them back in the spring. Therefore sunlight is moderated, and it’s next to a stream, so acorns are leached so they can be pounded and eaten.

Salem Rice, an expert on Bay area geology, said that there were more different kinds of rocks on Ring Mt. than across half of the country. It’s a paradise of rocks and because there’s no pollution lichen grows luxuriously on the rocks.

In those days, I lead fifth and sixth graders on field trips on the mountain. I showed them how one could survive right here. Everything was provided. The bay provides clams, crabs, fish. Quail run free and can be caught in special traps. Boats can be built from the tule grasses if one wants to venture across the bay. Tule also provides housing, and soaproot provides soap. It’s a paradise and the road below is actually called Paradise.

With the children we also discussed the modern day. People need homes so how do we balance the natural landscape with that? The children understood. They are wise, like owls. Last night, I was entertained by the hooting of an owl.

At the top of the mountain are petroglyphs facing west. This is a sacred place. My photos only give a taste of a small part about 2/3rds up as I couldn’t walk very far along the trail with the mud, but more days come along with rain today.

Crossing the bridge to enter the sacred site

Rocks and water nestle together – change each other’s song

A vision of Lichen on rock – Annie Algae meets Freddie Fungus

Soapwort leaves nibbled by deer – the root provides the soap

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

A Quiet Day

Today I drove for the first time since the surgery. What a thrill to see so clearly road signs and lines, to differentiate and define.

We lose sight gradually, and then, like that, the gift of return. I feel new, like a child, or a flower lifted in spring.

Centering strength and opening enclosure, still held

At noon today, a ship heads under the Richmond/San Rafael bridge toward San Francisco

Again, I’m surprised it fits – amazing what we can do as we expand our connections, travels, and views

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Seeing

Those of us with my myopia as children were often enthusiastic readers. I loved my books, my inner world and drew vision in, held it close. I was in fourth grade when it was discovered I needed glasses, and then each year a new pair until I was 13 and got hard contact lenses which I wore for 60 years.

Now the right eye is corrected to “perfect” vision, and the left will soon have correction though not too far, to just about a foot in front. What I find puzzling is that I grumbled when I had to switch to glasses for seven months so my eyes could adjust to their natural shape.

Now, I want to wear them. They have become a crutch, a measure of safety or perhaps protection. They cover a large part of my face. Am I hiding? Do I find comfort there?

We are very strange creatures in how we adapt, and where and when we hold on, and where and when we let go. I think when I see so much detail, I find it puzzling. Where do I focus? Do I take the world in whole, or in pieces? How do I receive this universe of which I’m part? And then there is the seeing that has nothing to do with the eyes. I can sense 360 degrees around like a tree, and perhaps that’s the division. This feels so precise. I think of the poem “Monet Refuses the Operation” by Lisel Mueller. Despite any reluctance, fear, or concern, Monet had successful eye surgery in 1923, and it’s a beautiful poem.

I think Mueller’s poem gives a sense of my struggle. What is seeing? Where do we focus, and when? Where and when do we attach, and let go? How do we give and receive?

How will this change in perception change my life? I can only wait and see, and I’m grateful as can be for this opportunity to play with change and response and immersion in this life and giving we share.

A Garden of Delight, both near and far and I can see both near and far and in-between!

A teeny-tiny garden under the stairs – could be easily missed and here it is – bend down and see.

Larkspur ferry going to San Francisco at low tide

Ship approaching the Richmond-San Rafael bridge

Amazing! It made it under and through – lessons abound!

Posted on March 2, 2023March 2, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Fragility

I’ve been in four different locations in the last four days, and I sit here now in a beautiful home integrating cataract surgery. There’s a great deal involved as the brain works to orient to a new way of seeing. I think of how we focus, wide and open, small and detailed, and I see how my eyes are being challenged to learn new ways of seeing.

Oddly, with the new lens the right eye is fixed. It will never change. I have a card saying I have an “artificial” part in my body. When I had the patch on the right eye, the left eye worked hard to compensate even though it has limited vision, but it took over with a mighty force, and now it seems a little lost or maybe afraid. I’ll have surgery on that eye on the 14th.

All of this is to say how precious vision is. We all know it in one way, and perhaps we take it for granted in another. Stop now and give your eyes a tender recognizing hug and kiss of gratitude. What a gift is sight!

In this new place, I hear different birds chirping this morning. I’ve left the marsh and am perched upon a hill with the changes spring brings. I’m immersed in sensing, sensitivity, response and responsibility, and love and trust.

In the end, it’s only when we face ego down that we truly see ourselves.

– Ashwini Narayanan

My friend paints the most beautiful “totem poles”.

How often do we miss the colors in day coming to light – the Richmond Bridge

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

The Grand Finale

As I’m ready to leave the houseboat for the final time, the rain slows and the birds come to feed in the low tide.

As the tide moves out, they migrate toward the dock and boat

Posted on February 27, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

A Wild, Windy, Rainy Day

This is my last day on the houseboat and the rain is pounding down, accompanied by thunder and lightning. There’s a few hearty ducks bouncing up and down but most, like me, are tucked.

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

What’s the Plan?

I’m going through photos I took at and from the houseboat. I come across these three and smile. It looks like planning a hijacking to me. Maybe it’s because tomorrow is my last day on the boat, so perhaps I have some thought of taking the whole environment with me, as of course I do.

Three Great White Egrets and a Great Blue Heron seem to be hatching a plan.

These boats could offer great places to lay eggs.

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Golden Slippers

The Snowy Egret or Golden Slippers has yellow feet and a black bill.

The yellow feet turn black in the low tide mud

Tme to leave the mud and step into flight

View of San Francisco from Sausalito yesterday

Posted on February 25, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Marsh Birds

I watch egrets and herons stand still, maybe take a step and then, another, until, and then … a fish!

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack – feeding depends on the tides.

I’m with these words of T.S. Eliot, from “Ash Wednesday, Part 6”;

Teach us to sit still.

I learn stillness and response watching my feathered friends. They are exquisitely feathered right now. It’s breeding as well as feeding time, and it’s cold. They also spend time grooming.

Oddly, each time I go to type houseboat, I type lifeboat. I think both are true.