Because I’m too old to be an astronaut viewing our fragile, diverse planet from space, I left the fog to drive up to the top of Mt. Tam, and circle through landscapes.
Above the Fog
Sunshine
I walked Tennessee Valley today along with many others who were drawn outside to celebrate the day. It was so warm I felt like a cormorant drying my wings as I walked with arms outspread. Butterflies called by the sun swarmed around me like a cocoon. Water streamed down the hills to join the ocean as one.
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Fire and Snow
It’s the Chinese Lunar New Year, Year of the Fire Horse. The last two nights I’ve made a fire in the fireplace and lit candles, as I absorb the energy of this new year. The snake has molted and is ready to gallop with energy, clarity, and courage. 1966 was the last Fire Horse Year, and that was a powerful one too.
My grandson is at Tahoe with his family and a very perky puppy. It’s been snowing and is beautiful. I look at the photos and feel what it’s like to play with this new texture, to immerse as in water, to form flakes to come together as snowmen and snowwomen, and toss snowballs with glee. I remember my childhood, and all the years and give thanks for how water is liquid, solid, and gas, able to change like perception.
Respite
This morning at Stinson Beach.
Morning
This morning, I sat by the window andI watched the day come to light. Already I see and feel a change, an internal harmonizing with the tilt of the earth’s access which brings this change where I live. The light is young, new, and tender, as it reaches into our own internal and receptive light.
I’m reading One Hand Clapping: Unraveling the Mystery of the Human Mind by neuroscientist Nikolay Kukushkin. It allows me to appreciate even more the evolution and adaptation that lead to the creation of lungs, sight, perception, connection.
I contemplate this poem by Zen Master Issa:
This world of dew
Is a world of dew
And yet, and yet …
And I welcome and meet what’s continually new., the changing of the Light.
Gratitude
This is a celebratory week. I focus gratefully on what Thanksgiving means to me. It’s a time of reflection, a time to gather and share, a time for family and friends. It’s also a time to celebrate and honor courage, and so today I focus on Senator Mark Kelly and his sense of duty and commitment.
Senator Kelly issued the following statement in response to Pete Hegseth’s tweet:
When I was 22 years old, I commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy and swore an oath to the Constitution. I upheld that oath through flight school, multiple deployments on the USS Midway, 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm, test pilot school, four space shuttle flights at NASA, and every day since I retired – which I did after my wife Gabby was shot in the head while serving her constituents.
In combat, I had a missile blow up next to my jet and flew through anti-aircraft fire to drop bombs on enemy targets. At NASA, I launched on a rocket, commanded the space shuttle, and was part of the recovery mission that brought home the bodies of my astronaut classmates who died on Columbia. I did all of this in service to this country that I love and has given me so much.
Secretary Hegseth’s tweet is the first I heard of this. I also saw the President’s posts saying I should be arrested, hanged, and put to death.
“If this is meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work. I’ve given too much to this country to be silenced by bullies who care more about their own power than protecting the Constitution.”
So Many Roads
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?
Shadow and Light
From the book The Architect Says:
Each material has its own shadow. The shadow of stone is not the same as that of a brittle autumn leaf. The shadow penetrates the material and radiates its message.
Sverre Fehn: (1924-2009)
I’ll never look at my shadow the same way again.
Light is not something vague, diffused, which is taken for granted because it is always there. The sun does not rise every day in vain.
Alberto Campo Baeza: (1946 – )
I’m grateful the earth turns giving us both night and day and the transitions between.
Tree Pruning
Trees need space for light and air to move through just as we do.
I admire the men who climb up into trees and cut branches by hand.
Miracles
Today I read Wislawa Szymborska’s poem “Miracle Fair”.
The poem begins with:
The commonplace miracle:
that so many common miracles take place.
And she begins a list, a way for each of us to view, expand, and embrace what comes to us as we meander through night and day.
A miracle that’s lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it’s got more than four.
A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.
An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.
~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
I balance that with the Israel attack on a Gaza hospital killing 20, including journalists and medics. One needs fingers and toes to count the number of dead. One needs a see-saw to balance joy and sorrow, gratitude and grief, as we center in the heart that holds it all.
My son sends me photos of his friend, a red-shouldered hawk, he sees on his morning walks.
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