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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.  

Serenity

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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.

Placement
Trust
Two Men – Two Trees
Happiness
Grace

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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.

Morning breakfast the other day
Hunting on the ground this morning
Lift-off
A closer look

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Swirling

Today in my meditation, I saw and felt the day turn to light as the earth turns on its axis and we move around the sun. Yesterday, I got my hair cut and asked my hairdresser why one side flips up and the other side curls under.  I learned that our hair spirals in a circle around our head, each of us with a swirl as individual as our fingerprint.

I’m swirling in movement today, anchored in the cord of impermanence, change.

Growth on the trunk of a tree
Contemplation on a Slant
Reflecting the turn to fall

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Adaptation

Sometimes life feels like a bunch of pick-up sticks.  Clasped together in our palm, we let go, either willingly or with a push from outside, and the sticks fall, so we’re given the opportunity to  put them back together again in a whole new form.  

I read about humans needing to adapt to increasing heating patterns on the planet. Impermanence.  Change, and how do we meet what comes?

Morning fog on the ridge
A gentle day in Half Moon Bay
Thank you, Rachel Carson, for the gift of pelicans
Hearts are everywhere

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Tennessee Valley

An early morning walk on a day of Oneness:

One Pussy Willow
One Pond on approach to the Beach
One wave sprout – solitude
One upside down stalk
One Duck
One Flock
One Door in Rock
One Turkey
One Deer
One Salamander
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The Present

It is a time of presence, of going within, and honoring light and dark. I revel in fluidity moving in and out like ocean and atmospheric waves.

If you are depressed you are living in the past, if you are anxious you are living in the future, if you are at peace you are living in the present.

– Lao Tzu

Meeting what comes
All Ways New

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Counterbalancing the News

Feeling a bit on edge this morning, I went to Rodeo Beach to balance where water meets rock and sand.

Anxiety’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you very far.   Jodi Picoult

The Lagoon
Resting!
Surfers and Pelicans
Forms
Rocks looking like shark fins
Twins
Educational facilities at Fort Cronkhite



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Freedom

It’s worth reading all of Heather Cox Richardson today but tears come as I read the conclusion.

President Biden spoke yesterday when world leaders and more than two dozen U.S. veterans of D-Day gathered to commemorate D-Day. They met above Omaha Beach at the Normandy American Cemetery, where the remains of 9,388 Americans, many of whom were killed on D-Day, are buried. 

Biden: “Let us be the generation that when history is written about our time—in 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years from now—it will be said: When the moment came, we met the moment. We stood strong. Our alliances were made stronger. And we saved democracy in our time as well.”

During the ceremony, the past and the present came together. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky shook the hand of a U.S. veteran in a wheelchair. When the man tried to kiss Zelensky’s hand, the Ukraine president instead stooped and hugged him. “You’re the savior of the people,” the man said. Zelensky answered, “You saved Europe.” The exchange continued: “You’re my hero.” “No, you are our hero.” 

As the crowd cheered, the old man turned to look at the younger one and said, “I pray for you.”

Prayer

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Embraced

I read these words of Richard Rohr and feel the long neck of immersion and experience, the fluidity, strength, and agility of birds on land and in flight.  His words are ballast, support, inspiration, and guide.  

Going to the deepest level of communication,  

Where back and forth has never stopped.   

Where I am not the initiator but the transmission wire itself.

— Richard Rohr  

What divides?
Reflected
Connected