This weekend, we watched the movie Finding Nemo with my almost four year old grandson. Having seen it as an adult, I didn’t expect it to be so traumatic for a child that age. First, Nemo is lost and the father is frantic. Then Nemo is captured by a diver attempting to save a life, but to grandson it was torture to see Nemo trapped in a bowl.
After the movie we went online to look at all the sea creatures in the movie, and to explain the story a little more clearly. What’s with me now is how our planet is like a fish bowl. We share an aquarium that circulates water and air, and right now the disturbances, for us all, are huge.
Thinking of Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things”, I went to the marsh to “rest with the grace of the world” and be free.
Great White Egret watching the tide flow in Avocets looking for an early lunch Outside the Bay Model in SausalitoOn the wall at my doctor’s office created by Dr. ZandNestled in the trunk of a redwood tree – downtown Mill Valley
My youngest son is 46 years old today. It’s a warm, sunny day with so much twittering it sounds like spring, but the Monarch butterflies are flying about which means fall.
Perhaps a day of celebrating birth unites all the years, brings the seasonstogether like a womb holding and preparing for emergence of a new coherence and birth.
I read recently that when two sand dunes approach, come together, and part, they leave behind a tiny sand dune. I’ve never observed this for myself but I immerse in the image of connection, separation, and birth.
The windows are open, unusual for here, and in the night I heard all the critters that come out to explore and feed in the dark. I forget how active the night is, and perhaps that’s another entry into appreciation of where life leads me now as I age and mature.What am I coming to see that I didn’t notice or acknowledge before? What fills and guides me now?
I just finished reading Returning Light: Thirty Years on the Island of Skellig Michael by Robert L. Harris.
The book is a poetic meditation on his 30 years as a caregiver and guide on the Irish island of Skellig Michael. He’s there from May to October, observing and living with thousands of birds, especially puffins, and the memories of the monks who a thousand years ago built on this rock a place to isolate and meditate. It’s a place for the waves of light to unite loneliness and belonging.
Harris writes: Emptiness. And light changing, and changing, the vision of ourselves.
Light! Change! Vision!
Who likes it?
I do!
Iris in early morning lightIris as the sun risesCircling
My husband and I traveled a great deal in Asia back in the day. Now, my son is traveling in Kuwait and Oman. He’s there on business as were we. I now know camels don’t spit, are friendly and sweet, and certainly they are beautiful animals adapted to their environment. Chris slept alone under the stars. What a gift!
Beauty and GraceIf only we were as adaptable as camels – the water bottle seems out of place. Ramiat Al WahibahMuscatMutrah FortFrom Mutrah FortMuscat
Feeling the shift in light, I put out pumpkins and change candles to yellow and orange. I breathe more deeply, receive the fresh stirrings in the airactivating and energizing the moments remaining to me. I read that people my age are happy because they recognize the gift of each breath, the air moving in and out.
Yesterday I walked to and from Tennessee Valley Beach. Photos speak in the mist.
Rock outcrops view the seaThe Pacific beckonsA dam holds the creek to make a pondA face in the rockLow tide reveals wreckage from the steamship Tennessee landed here in 1853Daisies, poison oak, and horsetails twine the agesThe mist pours in Bridging the autumn dry creek The path beckonsFulfilledMiwok Stables
I’ve been with my grandson who is three, almost four. It’s pure delight to enter into an imagination where we are moles, lions, jaguars and bears as we protect and feed our baby animals, which are an assortment of all the stuffed creatures he’s been given over the years. I feel myself as fluid when I become another animal, feel what it is to use my mouth and claws to hunt and defend. I see grandson exhibit patience as he waits to pounce on prey, and twists and turns in all sorts of ways, and I do too.
We become the gentle rabbit hiding in the grass, and the curious monkey who peers through a handle-hold in his bed which is lifted so we climb up and down a ladder as we move from the floor to the safety of our blanket and pillow-filled den.
It’s an immersive world being with him as he interprets differently than I so I’m constantly adjusting interpretation and explanation . The blind hanging vertically becomes a carwash for the matchbox cars.
I sit here now looking out on blue sky with a soft touch of fog. How many animals am I today? How do I meet the floor on all fours?What is it to sit in a chair as a bear and type?
I’m reminded of a book by Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age. It’s about racism, and the joy of being with a three year old. I recommend it as a way to live even more aware.
When I was driving him around town, I took a wrong turn and we stumbled upon a library. When I saw the sign, I slammed on the brakes and parked, and grandson was as excited as I. Books – another way to expand. He chose one about a woman born the same year as I, 1949, and her journey to becoming an astronaut after seeing Sputnik fly overhead in 1957. Dreams fulfill.
Outside the library, blueberries growA frog invites entry to a world of booksWho could not respond?And there’s always a stick to be found and floated even on days when jammies are the uniform of the day.A Haven
My son is 49 today, a magic number, seven times seven, an entry number as he gathers all together before a half century comes to pass. I pause in contemplation. 49 years: Birthbranching connection in waves of immersion and growth.
Rising, rooted, to branch
We are all connected. To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. To the rest of the universe, atomically.
– Neil DeGrasse Tyson
ReflectingCurvingHoldingTurningFloweringWeaving the years in waves
August is folding wings and September is on approach. My family has four birthdays as we move through September and October, so, for me, it is a time of birth.
The sun rises later these days but with such clarity, I simmer like a leaf in awareness of release.
Two quotes guide my day today.
Robin Wall Kimmerer:
Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them an intention and compassion – until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a “who” but an “it,” we make that maple an object. We put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying “it” makes a living land into natural resources. If maple is an “it,” we can take up the chainsaw.
The living presence of a tree
Rabindranath Tagore:
Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water, sings the pebbles into perfection.
And birds stay with their hurt and dying matesFlower Light
I’ve been in Inverness. Yesterday I was at Abbott’s Lagoon with a low tide, so birds were abundant and otters were resting in their reeds.
At a friend’s homeTiger Lily in her garden realmView from Tiger Lily’s home in InvernessGathering at Abbott’s LagoonOn the way there and backGreat Blue Heron surveys opportunity for lunchJuly , 2022 – Great Blue Heron and OtterJuly, 2022 – mother and her two baby ottersJuly, 2022 – Mother and Baby – high tide
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