This morning I was out in the dark with the stars and the moon. Brightness in the dark – Lanterns in the heart.
Upon needing to move from one home to another, Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend:
I am out with lanterns looking for myself.
This time of year, autumn, fall, reminds us to look for lanterns, even if it’s the orange of a pumpkin carved to better see the light within.
And as we toast, then eat the pumpkin seeds, we enter more deeply into the night light of meditation.Each moment seeds the web that connects.
Ram Dass:
Meditation offers an opportunity to have a different experience of consciousness, not as a separate individual but as part of an interconnected web of life.
In the GardenWind ChimesBats clear the belfry that’s time
Yesterday we spent time with our grandson at CuriOdyssey, an entertaining and educational place for children and adults at Coyote Point Drive in San Mateo. I tried to catch photos of sleek and curious river otters but they were too fast for me. My immersion in time is slowso I went for a focused child, turtles, and bobcats.
The outside grounds next to the bay are entertaining too.Building skills in actionPlaying with colors and shapesPlaces and ways to interact and changeLooking through a giant kaleidoscope at GrandpaTilt one way and the other – how does sand fall like snowDucks and turtles share a nicheBalancing sun and shadeOne bobcat watches another who caught and munched a bird who regretfully swept through the net right before the 11:00 feeding time. The bird catcher and eaterThe two male bobcats rest together
A friend, Ben Parker passed away easily this week, his sense of humor and incredible intellect still intact. He was 102. His last words were “the dewdrop slips into the shiny sea.”
“The dewdrop slips into the shining sea.”
Comforted by that, I open Yehuda Amichai’s poetry book Open, Closed, Open. to the ending of a poem in a section on The Language of Love and Tea with Roasted Almonds.
And there’s all that talk about Till death do us part,
Even death will not part us, it will bind us
somewhere in the universe
in a new encounter that has no end.
Soft and hard, curved and flat, life and deathThe fountain rocksLadybug Touch
This morning as I meditate, I feel spring in my heart, the opening scent of flowers, the invitation to unreel the layers of the bud, build a nest, fill it with eggs of creativity, and birth what’s here.
Yesterday, Steve and I decided he needed an x-ray of his arm, swollen and bruised from a fall and so we rushed out of the house even before I could grab a Kindle or book. I waited outside of the medical office and meditated and took photos of flowers lining sidewalks and streets. I realized I was near a library but it closed as I walked up, so I sat on a bench and sat, and felt, and thought of porches with rocking chairs and benches, and how enclosed life can be with ATM’s and self-checking, and everything delivered and left right at the door.
Because I watched and enjoyed The Wizard of Oz with my grandson this week, I came home and watched Pollyanna. Okay these movies are fantasies, very colorful fantasies, escapism, and yet, what is it when so much has left technicolor for a darker view of life? Another shooting – oh, my!
How do we balance what we view, and how we involve and evolve with immersion in the flowers blooming everywhere, except perhaps Tahoe which continues to stay white with snow. Yesterday I appreciated the gift of sitting outside with nothing to do and nowhere to be. Steve is fine, just swollen and bruised, and I feel the opening call of spring even as I more firmly root.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from intelligences other than our own. Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve.
Outside my window – oak and redwood twine Outside the medical centerAlong the parking lotEnchant
As a child, we made baskets for this day and filled them with candy and flowers, and hung them on our neighbors’ doors. This morning I read that baby swans were just born at the Las Gallinas ponds, so out I head for a May Day celebratory treat.
I’m excited to see a swan.And then a mother on her nest with four babies. A duck watches nearby.Active babiesA family of Canadian GeeseAn egret – Golden SlippersBabies exploringThe wind comes up and dad returns. Mom covers the babies.A Black Crowned Night Heron rests close by
After rain in the night, I rise to go to Sausalito and immerse in the sounds of the bay. I meet some people who’ve come down from Tahoe. After a winter of white, they want to see green.We have green, blue, purple, and pink.
Walking down to Swede’s BeachLooking up the steps anchored in greenView of Angel Island from the beach View of San Francisco from the waterfrontAngel IslandAnother look at Angel IslandIn a pocket park Nearby flowersThe majesty of the Golden Gate BridgeLupine blooms on the hills
Yesterday we went to Felton to ride the Roaring Camp and Big Trees steam train. We went last year, and our three year old grandchild was excited to go again, as were we. What a thrill to go high, high, high into the redwoods and back down to stroll among the trees in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.
Music before the train ride in the camp townFascination with steamGoing up on the train At the top of Bear MountainMajesty on a path, sacred steps in the parkOne of us is a bobcat hiding unseen, somewhat Bobcat still resting and hiding in his lairEmergenceRooted Guides rise high
Yesterday I was with family, both four-legged and two, at Muir Beach and on the coastal trail between Muir Beach and Tennessee Valley. Some of us walked further than others, and we all indulged in these words of Vincent Van Gogh.
Don’t just look at the spring, touch it, taste it. Get it inside you.
Native Ceanothus in bloom Iris offers a symphonic noteHawk looks for lunchAn absorbing stroll along the path Immersion loves a bridgeLooking south toward San Francisco to view the tucked Mooncow BayCalifornia Poppies Cows once grazed hereNow people walk their dogsNative grasses flourishFrom the overlook
I wake and think I can’t see until I put my contacts in or put glasses on but I actually can see. The cataract and lens replacement surgery worked, and I’m slowly coming to believe it. It’s clear when I drive. I see road signs and lines that were blurs before. The world is edged with invitations I missed.
Sitting on the couch at home, I realized there is a gap in one tree and I can see through to the ridge, and yet I’m still in a somewhat state of disbelief as it’s become so clear how we create our world and focus.
I’m reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Lyndon Johnson and The American Dream. It’s a fascinating look at all he accomplished and how influenced he was by his environment, parents and grandparents. We all are, of course, whether it’s to absorb, or push against, but he did what he did because of it, and then came to an inability to adapt. This issue of response is often with me. How do I respond to what comes now and now and now?
My iris plant isn’t yet blooming but I resonate to this poem and how when the flowers emerge I’ll see little vases holding flowers perhaps infinitum like fractals. I’m opening to see life the same way as patterns of curiosity open, close, and merge, like night and day.
This poem is from Billy Collin’s poetry book “Musical Tables”.
On Saturday I was with my three year old grandson and the falling leaves from a Japanese Maple tree. We stood under the tree as though it was snowing beautiful red leaves upon us, and then he lay down in the leaves and made a Leaf Angel.
As more leaves fell, I raked them into a huge pile and wrapped them all around him so just his head was out in the air. The leaves became his racecar and then it was as though he entered a peaceful place, a study in bliss, as did I.
Each of us is being sprinkled right now in the memories of this closing year as we integrate and transform, as we are integrated and transformed with what is present and past.
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