I walked Tennessee Valley today along with many others who were drawn outside to celebrate the day. It was so warm I felt like a cormorant drying my wings as I walked with arms outspread. Butterflies called by the sun swarmed around me like a cocoon. Water streamed down the hills to join the ocean as one.
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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.
This morning, my surroundings are stirred by bird song. I’m lifted on movement and sound, stirred.
The name, May, allows me to unfold in a request. May I open, trust, thrust.
The name comes from the Roman goddess Maia, a nurturer and earth goddess. She is the goddess of growing plants.
The word also comes from the Latin word majores, “elders” because elders were celebrated during this month. It makes sense as our wisdom grows, softens, and blossoms in spring and falls in fall.
I’m with movement today, movement within and around me, and I continue to be stirred as I read and absorb these words of Takuan Soho from “The Right Mind and the Confused Mind”.
If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.
I often think of self-care from the outside so washing skin and hair, brushing teeth, and today I do those things but I also consider self-care from the inside out – see the buds of my hair follicles – the layers of skin – the tissues – the blood flowing – heart beating – lungs pumping – what a marvel I am this day, the first day of March as we march along toward spring.
Ursula K. Le Guin said that “science describes accurately from outside, poetry describes accurately from inside, [and] both celebrate what they describe.”
I’m with both today, inside and out, massaging the tissues with poetry and allowing the touch of sunlight to stream deeply within, planting lanterns for fairies and leprechauns.
Years ago an iris plant spontaneously appeared in my yard. Yesterday I checked for a flower. Nothing there, and then, today, this.
White irises symbolize purity. The iris symbolizes wisdom, trust, hope, and valor. In Greek mythology, iris was the goddess of the rainbow, and she carried messages from heaven to earth on the arc of the rainbow.
Lately I’m dividing large tasks into steps, small steps. The garden teaches the same, as day by day there is change.
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