My teacher of Sensory Awareness would say “A moment is a moment.” This morning I woke up to those words. There’s something about going through old photos that makes that so clear. All those moments.
I spent time yesterday in the garden after seeing photos of each reincarnation. It’s filled in beautifully, a gift.
I came across this photo from a neighbor’s garden, a paradise of flowers and birds. May we each have access to the garden within and this garden we share, and may we cultivate what matters to us now, and now, and now.
ConnectingFour years ago, this sign was up at Abbott’s Lagoon to warn of protecting the otter pups. I saw the mother and pups swimming at the time, and this photo affirms what I saw on Tuesday across the lagoon on the dunes was a bunch, a romp, a family. Four years agoMother and babies – July 19, 2022Mother and two babies swimming back to their nest.
I was thrilled when I saw a Great Blue Heron at Abbott’s Lagoon. Then I saw the Great White Egret next to it. I approached closer and closer, and still they were quietly enjoying the view, and then, at times, busy grooming. Even birds, get ready for the day. They weren’t bothered as I circled round them, entranced with their ability to cleanse, appreciate, and savor what we all share, the gift of life!
What a Day!Sharing the View!Time to GroomAnd stand in Awe!Maybe a little more – a bend of the head – Spaced just rightA little closer to make clear what we share.
I was in Redwood City yesterday and spent time in Red Morton Park where my grandson was attending a half-day Circus Camp. I walked around amidst an array of summer camps: soccer, skateboarding, woodworking, baseball. The grounds are beautiful and there’s a new senior center. Rainbow Bridge playground is inspirational for all ages. I even slid down a slide.
One plaque by a tree!AnotherInside a playhouse at Rainbow Bridge PlaygroundClimbing UpComing down!
My grandson just got home from Stanford pediatrics. It’s been quite a weekend but he’s been diagnosed and is on the mend. We live in a country where every person deserves excellent health care, especially children. Health care brings us all together in the deepest connection, gratitude, and trust. To see health care taken away from so many when this country has the money breaks my heart. Perhaps my grandson would be alive without the care he was given this weekend, but I can’t say that for sure. He was given test after test, and doctors discussed and discussed. What a gift this was, and is, for him, and his family and friends. Every child and every person deserves this. We have the resources. Let’s use them to save and enrich the lives with whom we share this time on the planet, this time, a gift, connecting and enlivening us all now, and now, and now.
In May, 2022, I read about Dawn Prince-Hughes who 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 when 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 writes: 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.
Bathing in the FountainHummingbird feedsFountain dances with itself
I was in my local grocery store, Good Earth, excited to see the beginning of summer season cherries when I turned and fell into the eyes of a little boy in his stroller. His dad was checking out lettuce but his son and I shared a smile wide enough to embrace us both. I felt the arrow and target connect as one.
I walked around him, and he turned with me and again it was such a connection, an expansion of openness and oneness. It was communion that continues even now, hours later. There is such beauty in this world we share, such trust, and we do what we do for the children, for all children, and that’s why the gentle protests continue, nourishing what we believe in, bringing forth what we know is true.
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
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