I open a Christmas/Holiday card to learn friends were visiting NYC and went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and lit a candle for my brother’s passing. My heart is touched.

Ram Dass passed away yesterday at the age of 88.  I’ve read his books, and watched him on-line, but was most touched when I saw him speak at the College of Marin.  It wasn’t that long after his stroke, and yet there he was in his wheelchair, cheerful and slow, measured one might say, but in the most expansive way.

He taught us how to give space and breathe just by his presence.  Nothing more was needed.

Today, I learn my two month old grandchild loves owls, and is gurgling “whoooo” and I think of all the creatures surrounding us, and the grace we share as we pause for this season of love and beauty, reflection and peace, connection and care.

I’m sitting with two quotes of Ram Dass as I listen to men scramble on my roof like Santa’s reindeer as they clean the gutters of all the leaves that have fallen in honoring this time of year.  The branches are bare, and people pass, and love is here.

Ram Dass: “Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.”

“You are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success—none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.”

Love is always here!!

Here we are in the shortest days of the year, and longest if you’re in the southern hemisphere.  It’s so exciting, this clear awareness of our planet’s tilt. I tilt inside, a tilt-a-whirl, and yet, there are also a few days where all is still, so I balance there too. The word solstice derives from two Latin words, “sol” meaning sun, and “sistere”, to cause to stand still. Feel the spaciousness in nature’s call and respond. Give yourself time these next few days to stand still.

In checking out two African penguins hatched at the Monterey Bay Aquarium last week, I learn that the aquarium has live web cams so you can view various exhibits wherever you are.  

https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals-and-exhibits/live-web-cams

Again, we’re wrapped in fog, and so I imagine the Aquarium is too, and yet, consider all the work on the planet to bring us together to connect land and sea. The penguins are part of a Species Survival plan for endangered species. Birth by birth, we build, and believing in the value, inspiration, and creativity in diversity, receive.

I’m with these words of Albert Einstein:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

May this be so!

Wreaths are on the gate and front door, and I’m enjoying writing Christmas/Holiday/Connecting cards.  It’s nostalgic though as for many years the length of the list didn’t change, and now there are huge gaps and pauses to reflect on those who aren’t here.

The full moon was yesterday and the December and June tides are always dramatic, so I check the tide table before I go in and out. I’m awake with awareness of changes in flow as transition swings between the notes of my breath like gauze and this morning’s wrap of fog.

Yesterday a friend sent me these words from Hafiz.  A poet is someone who can pour light into a spoon, then raise it to nourish your beautiful parched holy mouth.

I’ve also seen it translated as pouring light into a cup, but I’m entranced this morning as I sip from a spoon, thinking back over poems I love.

I’m also with these words. 

The birds have vanished into the sky,

And now the last cloud has drained away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

Until only the mountain remains.

– Li Po

When I first heard Charlotte Selver, my teacher of Sensory Awareness,  talk about unfolding, I didn’t know what she meant.  

Now, 26 years later, I begin to get a hint.  At the time, I thought of it as origami in reverse, would see myself as a swan unfolding outward to how I was “before”, the blank slate so to say.

Over time, I’ve folded into roles, roles I love, daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and with intention, perhaps a bit of sage, and now, as sage I unfold page by page, and revel in what’s here now.

My feet are on the floor, receiving, and my hands move through the air, each finger a probe, a ribbon, a waving trust playing with the light. I embody the realms meandering like rivers through my blood and bones, and one day I’ll reach the sea.