I’m struck by the flowers blooming along the path into the library. The rise seems so effortless. I’m with these words of Bruce Lee from his book, Be Water, My Friend.
Who is there that can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will become clear of itself. Who is there that can secure a state of absolute repose? But keep calm and let time go on, and the state of repose will gradually arrest.
In reading The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng, I come across and reflect on this exchange on free will.
“I said, “There must be free will to choose. Do you know the poem about the two roads, and the one not taken?”
“Yes. That has always amused me, because who created the two roads in the first place?”
It was a question I had never considered.”
Of course, that opens up questions on creation that may go beyond our thoughts on free will, but I’m with the roads that tangle and untangle before us. What guides us in our choices? How do we meet what comes?
Today with the release of the oddly named “daylight savings time”, we return to nature’s time as leaves fall and we walk through their crunch to understand we, too, fall apart, rest, root, and in connection, rise again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson: The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
The change in light allows us to notice and in and with subtlety to refine and define the layers we share.
Madeleine L’Engle: “The child at play, the painter at his easel, Serkin playing the Appassionata are in kairos. The saint in prayer, friends around the dinner table, the mother reaching out her arms for her newborn baby are in kairos.”
I read the political news and contrast it with the beauty around me.
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?
We need our independent bookstores. This Pablo Neruda quote used to hang outside City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.
Tyranny cuts off the singer’s head
But the voice from the bottom of the well
Returns to the secret springs of the earth
And rises out of nowhere through the mouths of the people.
We spent the night in Inverness in West Marin. Watching the tides and changing light, my brain tunes into vibration and movement, soft tones.
I’m reading Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice by David S. Tatel. Thumbs up!
Yesterday I went to Muir Woods to bathe in sound, light, beauty, trust. Oddly when I was going through my photos to post this I got a fraud alert on my PayPal account. Balance is the key as we’re shown by creek, creatures, trees.
This morning as I meditated I looked out on the redwood tree that rises and grounds our yard. She is my teacher, my guide. The wind waves her branches as breath moves through me. Sunlight filters through.
Yesterday I was with friends at The Lumberyard in Mill Valley. Until recently it was a lumberyard. Mill Valley had a mill. Much of the wood came from the neighborhood town of Corte Madera which means cut wood.
One massive tree is still preserved at The Lumberyard which now hosts a restaurant, a bakery, and assorted gift shops. I’m with impermanence and the beauty in change.
The shifting light this time of year makes sacredness so clear.
Many of us cut down trees and bring them into our homes to then recycle and transform. Again, so precious is this life we’re given for a time, a time to breathe and connect as we deal with what for some is horrific, and allows us to see that with time we move toward change.
In his 1994 novel “The Crossing,” Cormac McCarthy creates a character who says that “the wicked know that if the ill they do be of sufficient horror men will not speak against it.” In fact, “men have just enough stomach for small evils and only these will they oppose.”
We are seeing the wicked begin to be held to accountability. May that continue to be so.
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