I was at Rodeo Beach today. The fog was in and the beach was covered with Vellella vellella, a result of the recent full moon tides.
I hadn’t realized each apparent individual is a hydroid colony, composed of tiny, anemone-like creatures. Related to jellyfish, they are carnivorous, and catch their prey, mainly plankton, with tentacles dangling in the water.
Today, I’m again overwhelmed with a president who, on an ever-changing whim, goes against the constitution to levy tariffs that affect each one of us and everyone in the world, and that is just one thing he does daily. Therefore, I opened Stay Inspired, Shelter in Place, 2020. It’s an expensive book but 100% of the profits are donated to NO KID HUNGRY.
This book is the inspiration of Lisa Dolby Chadwick, who is the founder of the Dolby Chadwick Gallery. You can order the book through the gallery. It’s a collection of poetry and art. Open to any page and find beauty and comfort, perhaps even laughter.
In Dean Young’s poem “Whale Watch”, I smile and recognize these words:
… I have seen books with pink slips
marking vital passages
but this i do not recommend
as it makes the book appear foolish
like a dog in a sweater.
Here’s the last line of Rilke’s poem “Sunset” translated by Robert Bly.
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
Again, I recommend Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “So Much Happiness” which can be found at poets.org.
Ken Wilber:
Great art suspends the reverted eye, the lamented past, the anticipated future: we enter with it into the timeless present; we are with God today, perfect in our manner and mode, open the riches and glories of a realm that time forgot, but that great art reminds us of: not by its content, but what what it does in us: suspends the desire to be elsewhere. And thus it undoes the agitated grasping in the heart of the suffering self, and releases us – maybe for a second, maybe for a minute, maybe for all eternity – releases us from the coil of ourselves.
This book is great art and releases us from the coil of ourselves.
I finished the book My Head for a Tree: The Extraordinary Story of the Bishnoi, Guardians of Nature by Martin Goodman. These guardians show us how to live when we honor and value interconnectivity, oneness, wholeness, and this world we share.
I spiral on the words on my Flying Edna Desktop Calendar. “I do not go to the forest to be alone. I go to be with the ones who speak without human words.”
As we’re inundated with stories of political horror, it’s important and essential to be with the beings who give us oxygen, and share our roots and nourish our soil and soul.
Today I read the news and then I balanced it with the poem “Thanks” by W.S. Merwin. You can read the poem here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57937/thanks
He ends with:
we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is
Arundhati Roy:
It’s odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian don’t hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to “rid the world of evil-doers.”
My niece is visiting and is staying on a houseboat in Sausalito. There was fog the first morning, and now blue skies and sun. Last night a seal swam by, and the tides move in and out.
On Saturday I enjoyed a neighborhood luncheon of eight women celebrating life. I was surprised to hear how many had grandfathers who came to this country when they were 12 or 14 speaking no English and, yet they contributed and thrived. Their grandchildren are proof of that.
My niece is currently driving across the country to visit us. Because she and her beloved dog are traveling together, I decided to re-read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. It was 1960 and he wanted to understand what was happening in the country so he outfitted a camper truck and left the East coast with his dog Charley and drove up to Maine, across the northern route to Washington state, down to CA and across Texas and the South. I recommend the book to understand the changes in our country that could lead to Trump and Vance, and Congress killing funding for public broadcasting to silence dissent.
At Book passage, I bought a book, My Head for a Tree: The Extraordinary Story of the Bishnoi, Guardians of Nature. The author Martin Goodman travels to Rajasthan, in northern India, home to the Bishnoi, a desert people whose religion is built around nature and wildlife conservation. In 1604 two Bishnoi women were beheaded in defense of trees. In 1643, when trees were being felled for use in celebrations of the goddess Holi, a local Bishnoi named Buchoji killed himself in protest. On September 11, 1730, over 363 Bishnoi were beheaded to save trees. These people are fierce and still willing to die to save trees. They understand the peril of not recognizing our connection with all that’s here, the roots that connect us all around the world.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Karamazov:
Love every leaf…. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an abiding universal love.
At the park, I saw a little boy, perhaps two or three, laughing and waving, but I couldn’t see anyone there. Then I realized he was playing with his shadow, waving, laughing and dancing with his own image. If only we could greet all aspects of ourselves with such joy and glee, no hiding, only reception and awareness of all that’s right here for us to see, receive, and be.
When my grandson was four, he watched butterflies and a caterpillar, and then went into the house and returned with a long strand of yellow yarn which he weaved through the wires of a fence so the insects would see the fence and not be hurt.
I’m with that today as I read news I find horrifying though I continue to work with non-judgment and trust in ebb and flow, and the recurring phases of the moon.
I’m reminded of Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in prison, but refused to carry a grudge against his captors. He later said of his release from prison, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”
Thich Nhat Hanh: This, my dear, is the greatest challenge to being alive. To witness injustice in the world and not allow it to consume our light.
In reading The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, I learned that “When Hiroshima was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945, it is said, the first living thing to emerge from the blasted landscape was a matsutake mushroom.”
I’ve been at Green Gulch Zen Center and farm for four days. I parked at Muir Beach and after crossing a wooden bridge, I walked into a land of gardens, bunnies, quail, deer, and flights and songs of birds. I can’t imagine one country dropping a bomb on another but I can imagine the mycelium web of mushrooms surviving the damage. I offer photos of invitation.
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