A friend gave me the book The Poet and the Silk Girl inscribed with the author Satsuki Ina’s dedication, Okage Sama De which means I am here because of those around me. The literal translation is: I am here because of the shade you provided me. I’m with that today, the day before the shortest day of the year, tomorrow, Sunday, at 7:03 AM PST.
I think of two quotes by Pablo Casals.
We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.
The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.
And each day, a new birth, a miracle.
The original model of a Little Free Library. Books shared with All!
Today I read what E.B. White wrote for The New Yorker after watching Neil Armstrong take his first step on the moon on July 21, 1069.
E.B. White:
The moon, it turns out, is a great place for men. One-sixth gravity must be a lot of fun, and when Armstrong and Aldrin went into their bouncy little dance, like two happy children, it was a moment not only of triumph but of gaiety. The moon, on the other hand, is a poor place for flags. Ours looked stiff and awkward, trying to float on the breeze that does not blow. (There must be a lesson here somewhere.) It is traditional, of course, for explorers to plant the flag, but it struck us, as we watched with awe and admiration and pride, that our two fellows were universal men, not national men, and should have been equipped accordingly. Like every great river and every great sea, the moon belongs to none and belongs to all. It still holds the key to madness, still controls the tides that lap on shores everywhere, still guards the lovers who kiss in every land under no banner but the sky. What a pity that in our moment of triumph we did not forswear the familiar Iwo Jima scene and plant instead a device acceptable to all: a limp white handkerchief, perhaps, symbol of the common cold, which, like the moon, affects us all, unites us all.
CommunityPerceptionTrusting what InvitesStepping with Love
Researchers have found that land plants evolved on Earth about 700 million years ago and land fungi evolved about 1,300 million years ago. Fungi connect with mycelium; they network.
In reading Robert MacFarlane’s book Is a River Alive?, I learn about Giuliana Furci who is known for her advocacy and research into the fungal kingdom. Her relationship is such that she can be in a car in a dark forest and sense a certain type of mushroom.
She says about hopping out of a car to discover a colony of Avatar-blue mushrooms, “I didn’t see the mushrooms, exactly. I heard them. If you know how to listen, fungi just … tell you where they are. I’ll get this feeling that there’s a fungus around. I feel, no, I know, that there’s something – no, somebody – who wants to see me. You get a call-out from them.”
“The fuzz in the matrix. That’s still the best way I can describe it. I can say very definitely that it’s a communication – a two-way interaction. The fungi know I’m there, as well as the reverse. Fungi have a different vibration to plants and animals. The colours move differently, I find. And fungi has a … shine that’s different to the shine of plants. It’s more … opague. And they have a very different energy than plants – much more of a watery or liquid feel.”
And now we organize a fluid energy to protest against dictatorship and cruelty. We connect and infiltrate to destroy their plans.
As Henry David Thoreau wrote: “This is the only way, we say, but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.”
We are radii, connecting through the environmental webs that nourish and sustain us all.
Mushrooms on the Oakwood Trail in JanuaryUmbrellas for LeprechaunsTransformation Climbs
It’s worth reading all of Heather Cox Richardson today but tears come as I read the conclusion.
President Biden spoke yesterday when world leaders and more than two dozen U.S. veterans of D-Day gathered to commemorate D-Day. They met above Omaha Beach at the Normandy American Cemetery, where the remains of 9,388 Americans, many of whom were killed on D-Day, are buried.
Biden: “Let us be the generation that when history is written about our time—in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now—it will be said: When the moment came, we met the moment. We stood strong. Our alliances were made stronger. And we saved democracy in our time as well.”
During the ceremony, the past and the present came together. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky shook the hand of a U.S. veteran in a wheelchair. When the man tried to kiss Zelensky’s hand, the Ukraine president instead stooped and hugged him. “You’re the savior of the people,” the man said. Zelensky answered, “You saved Europe.” The exchange continued: “You’re my hero.” “No, you are our hero.”
As the crowd cheered, the old man turned to look at the younger one and said, “I pray for you.”
Today I felt drawn to return to the place where, yesterday, I saw the Great Blue Heron. I felt she was the one I bonded with last February when I stayed on a houseboat in Sausalito. I met a woman who also feels bonded to this bird, and said yes, the bird is here at low tide, and in the place I met her last year at high tide. The woman said, “I love her”, and I said , “As do I”. I share more photos oflife in the bay.
I startled her at first and she flew to a new spotMaybe she wanted to give me a better view because she flew to the dock, landed, and pranced along to a more visible place.Walking along the dockPause for a PoseAnother PauseA closer look as she turns from one dock to anotherAnd she continues alongChecking out a place to dropA perfect place to fish for lunchGolden Slippers now comes strolling along the dock And finds a spot to enter the water to feed – Another way to fly
Birds are tweeting in the early morning light as I reflect on these words from Joanna Macyin “Positive Disintegration”.
We can place the self between our ears and have it looking out from our eyes, or we can widen it to include the air we breathe, or at other moments we can cast its boundaries farther to include the oxygen-giving trees and plankton, our external lungs, and beyond them the web of life in which they are sustained.
View from Cavallo PointRisingA sparkling jewelCrossing the BayTransitBreathing in and out
In going through my journals, I come across these words and this experience by Dawn Prince-Hughes. She has Aspergers. In wanting to understand human communication, she began sitting outside the window of the enclosure for the silverback gorillas at the Seattle zoo. One day she arrived upset. Congo, a silverback male gorilla noticed and rushed to the window. He motioned to her to put her head on his shoulder. They touched through the glass and felt the glass as fluid.
She says: I probably stayed with him like that, with my head on his shoulder, for 30 minutes or so. I think it was probably the first time I was genuinely comforted by another person. Congo really set the standard for what social interactions should be like between me and another human being. You just can’t worry about looking like a fool. You can’t worry about getting hurt. You can’t worry about whether you’re right or not. It just boils down to wanting to be connected at all costs, at all risks. I no longer wanted to allow the permeability of my spirit to seek smaller and smaller shelters. It requires a completely open heart. I felt like I found a way to go home through the glass.
Cathy's Blog! 