Today I’m reading about the heart in the womb, its formation and beginning to beat between four and five weeks.

I honor the music of the beating of heart, my heart, connecting the cells in my body, bathing and nourishing the cells in a rhythm of growth and possibility.  I feel my roots in pelvis and feet, grounded on this planet we share.  I’m touched by the tiniest branches into which blood reaches, invites, and cleanses.

I’ve been in the South Bay checking out areas, climates, houses, and now I’m home.  It’s been raining and the smell of wood smoke fills the air.  It’s like when we moved here 44 years ago.  I feel nourished in my cells by moisture, gratitude, and growth.

At times, I feel overwhelmed with possibilities, and in this moment, I feel peace.  My heart has been beating and supporting me for many years.  I trust it knows what I need and what draws me forward as I meet what comes and comes.

Jiddu Kristhamurti: 

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

Anne Frank wrote during the Holocaust “Whoever is happy will make others happy.”

And so water sinks into soil.  

I wake and all is silent. I read Mary Oliver’s poem “When Death Comes” and then these words of Thomas Merton:

Let me seek then, the gift of silence and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into a prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer.

Emily Dickinson now comes to body and mind.  

To live is so startling that it leaves little time for anything else.

Guidance arrives and settles – lands, flows, flies.

When we were in Monterey recently, I was enchanted with the aquarium. I’d never seen anchovies circling in the Kelp Forest before. Now, I read that they’re not always there. These will be eaten by bigger fish within two weeks.

That morning, I’d been enchanted with this sculpture. After seeing the anchovies, I knew what it represented.

We were in Monterey this weekend with the rhythm of the tides. Here are anemones at low tide Saturday morning.

The July full moon is called the Buck Moon because antlers of male deer are in full growth mode.  I woke in the night and the room was bright with moonlight.  Look up tonight and savor reflecting within as growth comes.

The moon symbolizes enlightenment to Buddhists, and you may have noticed the brightness of this full moon.  It was a bright light both in the evening and in the morning.

Yesterday was the Day of Vesak, a day to celebrate Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and death.  Since I was at the ocean last week, I’ve continued to feel the waves in the oceans in me, the continents, the always moving change and flow.

Mark Twain wrote: 

 I am an old man, and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

I’m with that this morning, laughing with the twitter-tweeting of birds.  I’m eating my first cherries of the season, and yes, my life is a bowl full of cherries as I offer the pits to the yard wondering if one or two will choose to sink into the ground and rise as a tree.

One of my Mother’s Day gifts was a bottle of perfume from Powell’s bookstore called “Eau de bookstore”. 

I’ve missed being in bookstores.  Browsing them is one of my favorite things to do and with the pandemic, that was out, so there the books were shut up inside, and I, on the outside looking in.  

Of course my house is filled with books but there’s something about a bookstore, the arrangement, exploration, discovery, and excitement that I’ve missed.

Before I opened the bottle, we discussed what the smell would be. Would it be musty or filled with light? I sprayed the scent, and yum. The smell was pure delight.

The blurb says: “The riveting scent of books, with subtle hints of wood and violet, come together in Powell’s by Powell’s. Wherever you are, experience the comfort and nostalgia of Portland’s most iconic bookstore.  You won’t be able to put it down.”

It’s true. I inhale and exhale the enchanting smell of wisdom and connection shared over the years!!