Cathy's Blog!

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Geologic Plates

We’re in West Marin, in Marshall, on a house literally on Tomales Bay. I am bathed in the sound of lapping and waved in beauty as I sit on one continental plate and view another across the water.

What a contrast to reading Robert Hubbell today. Here’s an excerpt:

It is about whether Congress will retain its authority under Article I of the Constitution to lay taxes and appropriate funds through legislation. As of October 1, 2025, that remains an open question.

On Wednesday, Trump and his sidekicks announced billions of dollars in “cancellations” of funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. Trump has no authority to cancel those appropriations, but the GOP-controlled Congress is apparently willing to cede its control over the power of the purse—one of its chief constitutional duties.

But it gets worse. Not only does Trump claim the authority to cancel congressional appropriations, he also claims the authority to raise revenue through illegal tariffs.

He goes on and comes to this: If Democrats needed any further evidence that compromise with Trump is foolish, the president began canceling grants and projects in states that did not vote for him in 2024.

Withholding funds appropriated by Congress is unlawful in the first instance. But doing so to exact political revenge is among the most corrupt presidential actions in the history of our republic. The withheld funds do not belong to Donald Trump and should not be used for political purposes. Those funds belong to the United States of America, to be spent as directed by Congress.

Posted on September 26, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Nature

This morning I couldn’t face the news so I went down by the bay for the sunrise.

I returned home to a poem by Catherine Pierce, “Earth, Sometimes I Try to Play It Casual”, which was perfect for how I felt. Why play it cool or casual when the nature we are surrounds, supports, invites, challenges, and abounds?

Posted on September 24, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Beginnings

Yesterday Trump again showed his true colors to the world at the United Nations.

Given 15 minutes to address the UN General Assembly, he spoke for 57 minutes in a rant that will go down in history as cruel, embarrassing, false, and insane.

Heather Cox Richardson ends her column today with this: The United Nations correspondent for the Associated Press, Farnoush Amiri, reported that “[a] UN official said the UN understands that someone from the president’s party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered the stop mechanism on the escalator. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House was operating the teleprompter for Trump.”

We know that those Trump chooses to support and lie to him are incompetent, but who knew they can’t even ride an escalator without stopping it or manage to work a teleprompter. On the other hand, maybe it was purposeful, an underhanded way to stop him now so we can return to the well-thought out and considered values on which the country was founded.

Jimmy Kimmel was returned to us, and ended his beautiful monologue with the hope that the silver lining of this is bringing people from the left, right and center together to speak up for the First Amendment. He said he was touched by the speech that Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, delivered at his memorial on Sunday, in which she said she forgave the man who shot her husband.

“That is an example we should follow. If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. … A selfless act of grace, forgiveness from a grieving widow.” Kimmel said. “And if there’s anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that and not this.”

Two rocks share a wave at Rodeo Beach yesterday.

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Compassion

Yesterday I attended an all-day meditation retreat titled “With compassion, we turn the tide.” I can’t convey how it felt then and how it feels now, but I’m reverberating with the offering, the generosity and dedication of this group of nuns, and what each of us might bring to our lives and the lives around us. Here’s a documentary video to give a sense of the dedication a group of people choose in bringing generosity and compassion to their lives and the lives of others.

Posted on September 17, 2025September 17, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Focusing

My son informs that yesterday was Pythagorean Triple Square Day!

9/16/25 is 3 square, 4 squared, 5 squared.

Yesterday I went with a friend to circle the top of Mt. Tam and discovered a Monarch Butterfly Creek Garden in Mill Valley. Fall is on the way!

A Hawk plays above Mill Valley with Tiburon and Angel Island beyond

Downtown San Francisco is out of the fog

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Enchantment

I meditated in our front garden this morning. The hummingbirds were out though not in the mood for photos but a bee obliged.

Posted on September 9, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Forest Bathing

Today, a misty, slightly rainy day, I ended up above Muir Woods. I took the Ocean View Trail to the Canopy Trail down to Redwood Creek. After a visit to the cafe, I traveled up the Fern Trail back to the top. I offer photos of my journey.

In one tricky spot, I met three young people enjoying a snack. As I debated how to traverse the roots, one of the men offered two hands to help me down. I was reminded of years ago when on a hot day I’d walked from Pantoll down to Stinson Beach where, fully clothed, I walked straight into the Pacific Ocean and swam. When I emerged, a young boy stood there offering me a towel. Helpers abound.

Fog swirls across from the Mountain Home Inn

Bending to pass and rise up the Fern Trail.

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Zen Painting

In Zen painting, we may not be given color, only the single hue of ink. The intention is to bring forth that we each see color differently, so for each of us, there is a different interpretation of the range and layers in each stroke of black. We zero in on light and shadow, and receive our mood, perception, integration and need of contrast, light, time and space.

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Cathy Edgett

Fountain Joy

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Cathy Edgett · 1 Comment

Imagine

I just finished reading Jacinda Ardern’s book A Different Kind of Power.

Even as a child, she asked “Why?”

On March 15, 2019, in Christchurch, New Zealand a terrorist attacked a mosque killing forty-nine people and leaving others in critical condition. He had acquired his weapons legally. Following the response of Australia in 1996 to a mass shooting, where the conservative prime minister of the time, John Howard, moved quickly to ban “pump-action, semiautomatic, and automatic weapons”, New Zealand responded by reforming their gun laws in ten days.

And here we are in the U.S, not responding but instead reversing on the orders of a man who has not fought in any wars, and now decides to change the name of the Defense Department to the Department of War.

Tom Hanks was to be honored by West Point for his work supporting veterans. Thanks to Trump, that’s cancelled because Hanks supported Biden, not him.

Responding to Trump, West Point recently rehung a 20-foot portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, a West Point graduate who fought to preserve slavery for the Confederacy.

Asking ourselves why, perhaps we can reverse this daily travesty changing history, ethics, compassion, understanding, kindness and morality.

A friend shared that she’s been feeling “like a feeling painting”, with tears flowing easily, and then said as she reaches to receive and honor her inner knowing, “It’s something about being pulled up out of the mud and placed vertically on the earth.

May her words guide us as we align, and listen to Peace Train by Cat Stevens and Imagine by John Lennon.