Change! – Cathy's Blog!

Posted on August 7, 2024 by Cathy Edgett

Exultation

What a thrill it is to see two people who smile with their whole being rather than scowl, lie, and hate.

Wow!

And yet we must continue to stay involved, and not become complacent. I’ll be writing postcards today and each of us can find our way to continue to promote the changes that the Biden administration has begun that will continue with Harris and Walz.

I love this from Heather Cox Richardson today.

Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month.

Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawn mower.”

Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.”

Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”

“Hello, Madame President.” In my lifetime. Yes!!

The Larkspur ferry bringing friends my way!!

Posted on July 21, 2024 by Cathy Edgett

President Biden

I just read that President Biden has decided to end his reelection campaign. Clearly, it’s the right decision, and yet tears come. Watching this battle as we did with Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Dianne Feinstein is tough, especially observing it all as an elder.

If we elders are paying attention, we know our minds don’t function as well as they once did. We comfort ourselves that we’ve gained wisdom. Hopefully, we’re less judgemental, less quick to jump to conclusions, though a temper can still stop us in our tracks.

Anyway, I’m grateful for the decision. Because we’re living longer, and productively so, we still need to look at the truth that people do age. We age at different rates, and there’s always potential ahead for each of us, but maybe in the political system, as is in business, we can phase out those, especially on the Supreme Court, who’ve been invincible, and honor upper as well as younger age requirements for office.

Clearly this is a painful decision for our president, and he is a kind and wise man, and it’s the right thing to do, for his legacy and the country.

And now, let’s see what comes as whoever runs is running against a man who is also too old to be president.

Posted on December 2, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Trees: Monitors of Change

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.

Even in December, fuchsias bloom in a neighbor’s yard

I see two tummy buttons in the trunk of this saved tree.

Posted on January 20, 2023 by Cathy Edgett

Year of the Rabbit

The Chinese Lunar New Year begins on Sunday. It’s the Year of the Rabbit, the Water Rabbit.

This has been the Year of the Tiger symbolized by action and impulse so we’re moving into a year of self-reflection and tranquility. The rabbit is a symbol of peace, and is considered the luckiest of the 12 zodiac animals as it represents peace and longevity. May it be so!

The New Moon brings king tides to our area so we watch the numbers and plan when and where to walk and drive. The bay overflows and then mud is exposed, in and out, two high tides and two low alternating through day and night.

We, too, as Walt Whitman wrote contain multitudes. It’s time to embrace all with opening and closing a heart-clasp of change.

Pema Chodron in Where is Buddha?

When we look into our own hearts and begin to discover what is confused and what is brilliant, what is bitter and what is sweet, it isn’t just ourselves that we’re discovering. We’re discovering the universe.

Posted on September 28, 2022September 28, 2022 by Cathy Edgett

Vision

As I’ve shared, in preparing my eyes for cataract surgery, I’ve moved from 60 years of wearing contact lenses to wearing glasses so my eyes can return to their natural, and not a controlled state.

I’m realizing the gift of this as I sometimes view myself, as perhaps many of us do, as “fixed”, forgetting the movement and change we always are. The earth is not standing still, and neither are we.

In this change, I have more awareness of my eyes and my way of seeing. I understand the visual cortex is in the back of my head, by the occiput. Those with myopia as I have may focus more upward there, elongate, and so now I allow changes in my eyes, in my way of seeing, feeling, and being.

We also balance in that area, so as I change my ability to see and perceive, my interaction with depth perception, I, at times, feel disoriented, unbalanced, even discombobulated. Who am I with all these changes?

This is an exploration, and as I say a gift. I feel a return to when I went through chemotherapy, not as exhausting, painful, or demanding, but certainly it is awareness, observation, feeling the space within open and close, the bones in my head open and close, the connections all through me of oneness in this world we share.

I trust in the experience of each unfolding moment.

Lin Jensen, “Molting”:

Awakening arises in times of vulnerability and awkwardness between, before, and after where prior identities are canceled and anything is possible and nothing certain.

Alan Watts:

In Zen, mountains are mountains at first but then everything must fall apart before mountains can be mountains again.