Yesterday I was enjoying taking pictures of egrets when a man showed me a most wonderful Great Blue Heron standing statuesque behind some fronds. Such a gift!
The Marsh
Present
Ducks float around my boat. I’m the center of a carousel, a stillpoint, a pole.
I’m with these words of Pablo Neruda:
Does the earth chirp like a cricket in the symphony of the skies?
Which leads me to wonder what sound stirs the water as the feet of the ducks paddle around.
In Charles Genoud’s book, The Body as Presence, he writes;
Munindra, a 20th-century Indian teacher from Bengal, taught that if a meditator is sitting and he knows that he is sitting, then he is meditating.
Sitting, we know we are sitting. Then, standing, walking, lying down, we know the bars that hold the notes, the tune of our heart, harmonizing the parts.
Navigation
I’m going between two places, a floating home, and a more permanent home. I’ve been struggling with navigating doing laundry and such at night in the permanent home since that requires going through a kitchen that is being remodeled as it is completely emptied and torn apart. Wires burst and hang sadly forth from open walls. It seems 1950’s wiring is not up to code. Who knew?
I feel like a spelunker when I put on my headlamp to navigate through the kitchen in the dark to the garage and the washer and dryer. Why am I not doing it during the day? Because it’s filled with men who know what they’re doing and I don’t. I stay away on a magical float, a houseboat complete with birds surrounding it in its up and down float.
Rippling
In Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche’s book, The Joy of Living, Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, he writes of visiting the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower. He’s amazed at the beauty, creativity, connectivity, and vision that brought these buildings to rise. Then he is shocked to see the view blocked by barbed-wire fencing and patrolled by guards. He learns these are precautions to prevent suicides. What could lead to such despair?
His teachings are on opening the heart to Joy through appreciation and gratitude.
Today my abode is surrounded with ducks and coots. Their niche is high tide. They dive down leaving rippling circles and then pop up again. I’m reminded to go deeply within to renew and feed, and then pop up to air and share. There’s so many birds popping up and diving down, I can’t stop smiling. It’s hysterical. I’m surrounded with joy, as my head and heart bob up and down with their rhythm, and companionship.
High Tide
I’m in/on a houseboat, a little one, dwarfed perhaps by the big guys, but as the owner says that means I’m right by the water, literally. It’s lapping at the deck. It’s mesmerizing. I wish I could capture the movement, and the changes from low tide last night to high this morning. Such a gift!
Low Tide
Yesterday before my dentist appointment I walked along the bay outside his office and absorbed the gifts.
Imagination
We spent yesterday with our three year old grandson. What a treat and what a great deal of stimulation for us all.
What I see is how set in tracks we older folks can sometimes be. When he announced a little car he was steering around needed people in the seats, I was going to go downstairs to bring up some people from another set, but he simply reached around and placed two bristle blocks, one red, one yellow in the 12 inch red Ferrari. People placed.
A Beatrix Potter stuffed rabbit, twice the size of the car, was also able to drive the car around. No problem.
Today I sit stretching my mind like a clothesline, hanging thoughts to air.
By the Water
Again, today I recognized how blessed I am to have the offices of my medical people by the water. I arrived early this morning for my appointment and walking along stopped and first looked out and then looked up to see a Black Crowned Night Heron above my head. Gifts abound.
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.
Integration
The rain continues, an accompaniment one has come to expect, and yet, it paused for the 49’er game yesterday which helped the 49’er team to win. The sun is predicted to appear on Tuesday.
I listen to the tapping now, a reminder to step within to balance movement and pause, silence and sound.
I’m with these words of Ajahn Brahm from Stepping Towards Enlightenment:
Attend closely with sharp mindfulness when one thought ends and before another begins—there! That is silent awareness! It may be only momentary at first, but as you recognize that fleeting silence, you become accustomed to it; the silence lasts longer.
