We’re in Menlo Park in charge of our grandson and Mirabel, his best friend, a perky one year old Keeshond. I take my grandson to school in the morning, first grade, and we’re early each day so he can play. Being with children, children so loved and hugged as they’re dropped off, one feels hope for this world we share.
Rumi: Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
Going through photos from the summer of 2019, I came to a visit to Land’s End, and then to the labyrinth above Rodeo Beach.
Last night we enjoyed a wonderful gathering with friends old and new at Filoli Gardens for their evening event. Tonight I read from Brian Doyle, How the Light Gets In and Other Epiphanies. He ends the essay “Poem for My Friend Shoshana:, with this:
Friends are the clans we belong to by
accident
Of place and space and grace. What a gift, such a
seeming
Chance: could such a pleasure really be just
happenstance?
I’m intrigued with the variety of experiences at Filoli Gardens. After lounging in the redwoods, I entered a trail magically filled with birdhouses.
Yesterday I explored the lower part of Filoli Gardens, intrigued by the many sculptures along the trail. Then I met Rose Wonders, a Thomas Danbo Troll. Thomas is a Danish sculpture artist who builds giant trolls from recycled materials.
I finished reading Mink River by Brian Doyle, a book I love. Needing a little more of his voice, I came to a book of his poems How the Light Gets In: And Other Headlong Epiphanies. Here’s one, a soft note for the night.
What is the best poem you ever wrote in your
whole life?
I ask a friend of mine, aged six, and she thinks
about this
For a whole minute, looking down in the grass for
words,
And she says, The time I tried to make a coat for a
mouse
From spider-webs. My sister and brothers helped
me find
The webs. It takes a lot of webs to make a jacket
for mice.
We apologized to the spiders. This was in October.
Mama
Said we could borrow webs as long as we were
respectful.
That’s the best poem I ever wrote, and I didn’t do
it alone.
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!
Yesterday I drove out to Abbott’s Lagoon in Point Reyes. It was early, sunny, and warm. I was alone. I’ll show pictures of my walk, and then, in the next post zero in on more photos of a Great Blue Heron and Great White Egret grooming with a view. I also saw across the lagoon what I knew must be otters since they hang out there, and slide down the dunes, and also groom. This was a huge lump that stayed still, and was gone when I returned. I came home and zoomed in on the lump. Otters huddle together in what’s called a “romp”. For sure, two otters, but I think there’s also two babies. It’s that time of year. Quite a day. I’ll try to give a taste with photos.
Tonight I sat outside with the light of the almost full Strawberry moon. Creatures scurried around in the ivy below the deck.
I thought of the words of Hafiz:
What does light talk about?
I asked a plant that once,
It said, “I am not sure,
but it makes me
Grow”.
That brought me to the words of Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek:
I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force: you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff.
And then I came to the words of Nelson Mandela:
It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.
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