I spent the day with my 18 month old grandson, and then drove over to the ocean to Half Moon Bay for the night. What a gift. The sound of the ocean – the waves – all drops and rolls in trust and ease.
How appropriate are these words by Lynn Ungar for me today..
And you–what of your rushed and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—papers, plans, appointments, everything—leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields to be lovely. Be back when I’m through with blooming.”
A friend who’s been busy and productive, incredibly giving and productive, says she’s finding herself needing to rest. How wonderful, I respond. Perhaps because I was raised to stop and savor, rest and appreciation come easily for me. I’m trying to better bring that reservation of renewal into more visibility so today I find myself resting on a ball moving this way and that.
I read that a container ship, the Ever Given is stuck blocking the Suez Canal, an essential travel link. There’s something funny to me in the tragedy. Perhaps it’s the name as though first the pandemic, and now, this, says there’s a place to stop and recalibrate this world we share.
Ebi and Ginger have come to my son and his wife from a racetrack in Florida. They are rescue greyhounds,, rescued through the love, work, and care of volunteers. They’ve lived in separate crates, and now, though there are beds throughout the house, they share a bed, a home, and intertwined legs, and it’s only been a few weeks.
I have some idea that I’ll share as I did in the last blog post and then move on. When my daughter-in-love Frieda called to console, I quickly moved the conversation back to her, and she just as quickly took it back to me. She’s clever, that girl/woman, a female embodiment of love and compassion, a wisdom gong, as is my other daughter-in-love, Jan.
I rejoice in the grace of wisdom gongs in my life.
Sometimes I find it hard to receive and yet here you are, all of you, so many beautiful messages and offers of support and I feel myself broken apart, as though if I let the bedrock go, the mountain that rises from that bedrock will break it into little pieces and the pain will be less. Is there less pain, or more, when a mountain lets go and little rocks fall and flow, perhaps gathering with avalanche strength and force?
And now I learn that Notre Dame, Our Lady, has burned.
I pause, caught on, and in, the elements today, broken apart – earth, air fire, water.
Yesterday I was above the waves as I sat on the ground at Pierce Point. I watched, mesmerized, as the waves below seemed to be moving slowly and methodically, their white tops clearly defined. Sitting above, I saw an orchestrated rhythm. If I’d been on the beach below, the waves might have seemed random, and violent perhaps, as they blew apart with a crash.
Sitting above, my whole being slowed to the pace of viewing from a distance, a distance stretching time to a curve, a healing to embrace.
And now, today I am earth, crumbling, and fire, passion, perhaps at first, as I had to mobilize to align, and now today, ashes as the structure of my being sinks to change. I woke this morning feeling my face malleable as if it was curious to found and birth new form. I could view it as death to the old but transformation has a more inviting bite and taste.
I’ve recently learned that some people choose to have ashes from those they love mixed into the ink of a tattoo. I don’t need to do that. My being is opened and opening to receive the ashes of my brother, the essence, as I integrate a wider being of knowing, reception, and trust. Though painful, I rejoice in new form. I am a leaf unleashed.
I was away from my home four days this week, and never looked outside on the fifth, and yesterday, I saw that my Maple trees had released themselves into full leaf, now weighted with morning rain.
Cathy's Blog! 