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
“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”
Photos from where I live.
Siesta for DucksComing CloserAn array of painted rocks in the parkOne large painted rock in the grassA neighbor puts out chalk to inspire creative design in their drivewayA collection Four-leafed CloverIt’s Spring!
My son and his wife are in Paris celebrating her 50th birthday. Today they were in Giverny strolling through Claude Monet’s home, and water and flower gardens.
ExuberanceEnchantmentBeautyReflectionDelicacy
I was in San Rafael by the wildlife ponds.
Marsh GrassesTwo Snowy EgretsOne Great White Egret in Contemplation
Today I felt drawn to return to the place where, yesterday, I saw the Great Blue Heron. I felt she was the one I bonded with last February when I stayed on a houseboat in Sausalito. I met a woman who also feels bonded to this bird, and said yes, the bird is here at low tide, and in the place I met her last year at high tide. The woman said, “I love her”, and I said , “As do I”. I share more photos oflife in the bay.
I startled her at first and she flew to a new spotMaybe she wanted to give me a better view because she flew to the dock, landed, and pranced along to a more visible place.Walking along the dockPause for a PoseAnother PauseA closer look as she turns from one dock to anotherAnd she continues alongChecking out a place to dropA perfect place to fish for lunchGolden Slippers now comes strolling along the dock And finds a spot to enter the water to feed – Another way to fly
Monday the power was out for many in the Bay area, so because we have a generator grandchild arrived in his Halloween skeleton pajamas. No problem. We went to Old Mill Park where he found a tree into which we both could climb, a tree with two rooms so we could separate our tasks into cooking and a tool shop. At one point the tree became a pirate ship, and the wind came up so we needed to “batten down the hatches”.
I sit with it now, climbing in and out of the opening in the tree , especially when the land below became the ocean into which we each went scuba diving to commune with squid.
After I’m with my grandchild living in the land and sea of his imagination, when he leaves, I miss him, and feel slightly dizzy as though my world is set to organize and his is in response to what he sees and creates.
I’ve been to Old Mill Park innumerable times, and never realized the possibilities in this tree. Maybe I never even discerned it as separate from the multitude of tall trees.When I go back by myself, will this tree still open itself to possibility? Will I feel silly climbing up into a tree to view the world from its open enclosure?Will I feel silly swimming in the sea grandchild saw below it?
We were there to view the rushing creek, exuberant with the rain.And yet, for him, in those moments, the invitation was from the tree.
Thich Nhat Hanh:
The feeling that any task is a nuisance will soon disappear if it is done in mindfulness.
ImmersionContemplationStirring the potA finer touch The HistoryThe creek and mill The view of the creek when looking out through the treeExquisite what guides, lifts, and expands our paths
More than 2000 years ago, the great Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu said: “The True Man breathes with his heels; the mass of men breathe with their throats.”
Walking brings breath to and through our soles, toes, arch, and heels; it brings us down to the ground.
Yesterday at Tennessee Valley beach, I was entranced with stone, with what surrounds, holds, guides.
At one point I walked on chert, and felt the ridges as though I was walking on the tail of a dragon. No wonder we love fairytales and I think now of the book by Kenneth Grahame, The Reluctant Dragon, about a dragon who preferred writing poetry to fighting.
Ilse Middendorf said: “Perceiving our breath as it comes and goes we discover an opening into our unconscious life, and bring about a conscious expansion into the whole of ourselves.” The whole of ourselves, and I feel the breath move in a wave, connected like a Mobius Strip.
Walking on what I imagine it would be like to walk on the strength and challenge of a dragon’s tail.One rock left on the beach, held in bedrock below like a candle flame in wax.A face carved in stoneGatherings in size and shapeAn outcrop speaksHolding force
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