Today, a misty, slightly rainy day, I ended up above Muir Woods. I took the Ocean View Trail to the Canopy Trail down to Redwood Creek. After a visit to the cafe, I traveled up the Fern Trail back to the top. I offer photos of my journey.
In one tricky spot, I met three young people enjoying a snack. As I debated how to traverse the roots, one of the men offered two hands to help me down. I was reminded of years ago when on a hot day I’d walked from Pantoll down to Stinson Beach where, fully clothed, I walked straight into the Pacific Ocean and swam. When I emerged, a young boy stood there offering me a towel. Helpers abound.
Fog swirls across from the Mountain Home InnThe upper creek is dry in SeptemberFantasy frolics in the MistDwellings along the Stream One red rockBending to pass and rise up the Fern Trail.
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 inescapableearth.
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.
I was at Rodeo Beach today. The fog was in and the beach was covered with Vellella vellella, a result of the recent full moon tides.
I hadn’t realized each apparent individual is a hydroid colony, composed of tiny, anemone-like creatures. Related to jellyfish, they are carnivorous, and catch their prey, mainly plankton, with tentacles dangling in the water.
Velella with its sailVelella with a feather GatheringA horse sculptureLooking through the rocks at low tideI see father, mother, and childAutumn is on approach when the pink naked ladies come out in display.
Today, I’m again overwhelmed with a president who, on an ever-changing whim, goes against the constitution to levy tariffs that affect each one of us and everyone in the world, and that is just one thing he does daily. Therefore, I opened Stay Inspired, Shelter in Place, 2020. It’s an expensive book but 100% of the profits are donated to NO KID HUNGRY.
This book is the inspiration of Lisa Dolby Chadwick, who is the founder of the Dolby Chadwick Gallery. You can order the book through the gallery. It’s a collection of poetry and art. Open to any page and find beauty and comfort, perhaps even laughter.
In Dean Young’s poem “Whale Watch”, I smile and recognize these words:
… I have seen books with pink slips
marking vital passages
but this i do not recommend
as it makes the book appear foolish
like a dog in a sweater.
Here’s the last line of Rilke’s poem “Sunset” translated by Robert Bly.
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
Again, I recommend Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem, “So Much Happiness”which can be found at poets.org.
Ken Wilber:
Great art suspends the reverted eye, the lamented past, the anticipated future: we enter with it into the timeless present; we are with God today, perfect in our manner and mode, open the riches and glories of a realm that time forgot, but that great art reminds us of: not by its content, but what what it does in us: suspends the desire to be elsewhere. And thus it undoes the agitated grasping in the heart of the suffering self, and releases us – maybe for a second, maybe for a minute, maybe for all eternity – releases us from the coil of ourselves.
This book is great art and releases us from the coil of ourselves.
Look through the trunks of treesOpen Fairy DoorsGreet the morning with a swim in Angel Lake
Researchers have found that land plants evolved on Earth about 700 million years ago and land fungi evolved about 1,300 million years ago. Fungi connect with mycelium; they network.
In reading Robert MacFarlane’s book Is a River Alive?, I learn about Giuliana Furci who is known for her advocacy and research into the fungal kingdom. Her relationship is such that she can be in a car in a dark forest and sense a certain type of mushroom.
She says about hopping out of a car to discover a colony of Avatar-blue mushrooms, “I didn’t see the mushrooms, exactly. I heard them. If you know how to listen, fungi just … tell you where they are. I’ll get this feeling that there’s a fungus around. I feel, no, I know, that there’s something – no, somebody – who wants to see me. You get a call-out from them.”
“The fuzz in the matrix. That’s still the best way I can describe it. I can say very definitely that it’s a communication – a two-way interaction. The fungi know I’m there, as well as the reverse. Fungi have a different vibration to plants and animals. The colours move differently, I find. And fungi has a … shine that’s different to the shine of plants. It’s more … opague. And they have a very different energy than plants – much more of a watery or liquid feel.”
And now we organize a fluid energy to protest against dictatorship and cruelty. We connect and infiltrate to destroy their plans.
As Henry David Thoreau wrote: “This is the only way, we say, but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre.”
We are radii, connecting through the environmental webs that nourish and sustain us all.
Mushrooms on the Oakwood Trail in JanuaryUmbrellas for LeprechaunsTransformation Climbs
A friend recommended the movie The Penguin Lessons. I love it. I was then inspired to read the book The Penguin Lessons by Tom Mitchell that inspired the movie. There are similarities, yes, a wonderful penguin, who changes people’s lives, but there is much more in the book, so I recommend both with maybe the book second, though who knows. Notice what draws you.
Meanwhile, enjoy this poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
Spring Awakening
One day you wake up able to name the weight you’ve been carrying.
Realizing it’s not part of your body or your being, not essential in any way to journeying or joy, you set it down gently, without fanfare in the long soft grass at the side of the road and walk on
Surprised to find yourself smiling in the warm sun for no particular reason.
Today at low tide Rodeo Beach was covered with Velella velella, also known as by-the-wind sailors. Though they resemble jellyfish, they are related to sea anemones and corals. With a two-inch-high triangular sail, they are carried by the wind, not the currents.
Velella Jellyfish and VelellaJewelsTwinsTouchingComposite
One Pussy WillowOne Pond on approach to the BeachOne wave sprout – solitudeOne upside down stalkOne DuckOne FlockOne Door in RockOne TurkeyOne DeerOne Salamander
An arrangement of camellias and fruitFresh scentsA place to sit, rest, and reflect Forget-me-notsYou Rock among the treesAnd rootsAnd circle, centered and dance
Cathy's Blog! 