I sit on a bench down below in our yard, commune with a giant redwood tree. I feel its gratitude for the hose of running water I’ve placed at her feet. We appreciate the hum.

When we moved to this house over forty years ago, the tree was a quiet presence at 12 or 14 feet.  She was surrounded and protected by giant pines. Over the years, the pines became diseased and had to go, so the protected tree now stands tall and alone in her reach for, and touch of the sky.

One of her offspring grows nearby protected by her branches and shade. Also protected are two little redwoods from Chris and Frieda’s wedding. They were sprouts and now they are four feet tall.  That’s exponential growth in 11 or 12 years.

As may be obvious, I love stillness.  Right now I’m surrounded with activity as squirrels scamper through the branches of the trees, and jays squawk, crows caw, and smaller birds add higher notes on which to raise and rest the spine. And yet, for a moment, there is no time. I have no idea what time it is, no need to know. It’s Labor Day, a day of rest. I see light coming to the tree, so movement is happening, but time, what, in this moment, is that?

Last night I listened to a Sensory Awareness recording.  As I’ve shared, Sensory Awareness is a practice, a cultivation of awareness of the inner/outer environment, recognition of the one world we share. It’s simple really, and yet, like meditation, it’s considered “work”. We’ve been trained to habit which may allow a zoning out, rather than meeting each moment “new”.

Francesca was leading on the recording, and invited us to bring awareness to a daily task.  As she released us to our journey, she said “Bon Voyage”. Those words reverberate through me as I sit here now.  I see myself waving goodbye as those on shore shout “Bon Voyage”, and yet, I, too, stand on the shore waving. I’m ship, both, all.

I woke this morning saying Bon Voyage to myself, seeing myself rising and carried on the journey of this day.

I performed my morning tasks, ah, performed, no, I was “in” my morning tasks, tasks and I meeting as one.  I remembered a Huma session I experienced years ago. I was on the table, and the words “Nothing Matters”, reverberated through me.  The practitioner affirmed, “Yes, nothing matters,” and I said, no, that’s not it. Nothing matters.  I wanted her to understand that I was feeling that Nothing matters too.

For me, awareness of what we what perceive of as nothingness supports this examination of stillness and movement.  I may look like I’m still but my heart is pumping, ears and cells are antennas open to receive, and lungs are processing oxygen and carbon dioxide in a living exchange with trees. Plus, I’m on a planet that’s moving and turning in space. 

Stillness hums like water running through a hose.

Bella and I are enjoying the breeze and afternoon ease.  

I’m reading Ocean Vuong’s book, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.  I can’t read it straight through.  It’s a meditation, a poem, a history, a story of love, compassion, generosity, fear, hurt, and sorrow.  

I come to these lines, and pause, step back, embrace more fully and wholly the ocean of his name and what he’s saying.

He writes of a man speaking of his son’s death – “I’m broken in two.”

And the author says, “In two, it was the only thought I could keep, sitting in my seat, how losing a person could make more of us, the living, make us two.”

He goes on and then writes: “Into – yes, that’s more like it. As in, Now I’m broken into.”

I think of the passing of those I love. Yes, I’m broken “into”.

Outside watering, I pluck golden plums from the tree and, like the birds and squirrels, I feast.  The plums are small, bite-size, and come in abundance each year. I water the wind chimes of which I have many and consider support and how I receive the early morning light as it moves, a dance of shadow and brilliance, exchange and touch, with garden, earth, and me.

Today I attend another “celebration of life”.  My son pointed out that lately my life seems to consist of a great many “celebrations of life”. I reflect and agree.   

The first funeral I attended was my father’s in 1969. He died in a motorcycle accident when he was 47 and I was 19.  Because of his age, the church was filled and a Soprano sang Ave Maria during the mass.   

Because we moved a great deal when I was young, and transport wasn’t like it is today, when my father’s mother died, he flew from San Diego to Chicago for the funeral and when my mother’s mother died, she flew from San Diego to Bloomington, Indiana for her mother’s final goodbye.  

We didn’t talk about death in those days.  Now, people my age are studying aging and dying, wanting to meet it openly and fully, and so what was once called a funeral, and then, a memorial, is now a “celebration of life”.

I’ve always resonated to the  artwork of Paul Klee, and now I sit with his words.

A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.

A line is a dot that went for a walk.

A simple flourished line is an active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal. A walk for walk’s sake. The mobility agent is a point, shifting its position forward.

I wonder if a funeral is simply “a line going for a walk”.  People gather in a sacred place usually wearing black. Voices are quiet and subdued. They come to listen and reflect.

With the memorial, the dot goes for a walk, but with a little less of a container. There are no sidewalks. I see a dirt path with grass along the sides, a little more freedom, flowers a little more colorful and looser in their vase clasp .    

Now, a celebration of life includes a video of all the years. Photos and music, laughter, food, and wine are offered and shared. Often, the deceased has planned it all, has planned a celebration where the funeral and wake are combined.

Fred Astaire comes to mind, dancing in his top hat and tails, swinging his cane with precision and grace.

My plan is simply to be scattered, each person scattering and remembering, silent as the movement in leaves.

Yesterday I rode the ferry from Sausalito to San Francisco and back again. I was content to sit, watch, and feel the movement of fog and waves.  I’m still with the rocking and the float, the carriage. In some ways, it’s like climbing up into a tree, being held as the earth turns round.  

I met my daughter-in-law for lunch, and because I was early, sat in the shade and watched an array of people parade and stroll by.  We are a diverse bunch, we humans, and I wondered what was going on in each person as we were gathered together in one place, the ferry building and its surroundings, for a time. And yet here we are on one planet, gathered together for a time.

This morning I ventured down to our local grocery, Good Earth.  The produce is a gathering of summer light and delight. I chose peaches, raspberries, and blueberries, and two kinds of lettuce from Green Gulch, a few miles away.  I came home to make a fruit salad, eased in honoring the seasons as they turn in each of us.

Students are back in school. We turn toward fall as the sweetness of summer fills the grocery store bins, our stomachs, our hearts.

Yesterday I learned of the Ok glacier in Iceland, which was declared dead in 2014 because it was no longer able to move because of its shrunken size due to climate change.

On August 18th, mourners gathered to commemorate its loss and climbing to the top of the mountain on which it once lived, placed a plaque to mark its loss. 

The words written by  Icelandic author Andri Snaer Magnason, melt the heart. May our melting hearts bring greater connection and awareness, not more loss.  

“Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as glacier. In the next 200 years all our main glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”

Where I live near the Golden Gate, the fog is never the same: wet, dry, thick, thin, present, not, moving, still.  

Today it is wet; the decks, plants, and soil are wet, and I’m filled with the weight and stillness of this day, a weight that knows gravity as friend.

I am peace and ease. Breath swings easily in and out. I don’t rush, simply carried to what is next to do and be on my Monday morning list.

In this place I notice my voice is slow and deep, a generous unwrapping of vibration in time and space. 

Today I looked down off the side of my deck and the light was such that the trunk of a tree looked like the fur and body of a squirrel. I tried to get a photo but just like meteors flying through the sky, it was a moment.

I was reminded of this photo from low tide at Mile Rock Beach. Sometimes low tides, like hard times, expose new places in which to dwell, explore, cultivate, change, and thrive.