Posted on June 21, 2021June 21, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Gratitude and Grace

Sunday morning, we rose early to a moist wrap of fog and flotilla after flotilla of pelicans flying by our deck by the bay. We counted fifty pelicans in some of the groups, and there were also individuals, couples, and smaller gatherings of flight.

We didn’t know if it was a wider circle than we saw coming from the sunrise and heading west so we were seeing the same ones more than once, or whether each one was unique to us, but I was reminded of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring where she pointed out that DDT was destroying our wildlife. Rachel’s book saved the pelicans, osprey, and other creatures and birds, and now we watched groups of as many as fifty birds swoop by, some high and some low just skimming the water. It was as exhilarating as a fireworks display, and quieter though we did hear the swoosh of wings.

One seal bobbed in front of our deck, also entranced.

It’s a different rhythm in Sausalito than West Marin and yet again there’s the rhythm, motion, and comfort of the waves and changing tides. We took this week to reflect back on over fifty years of knowing each other and what that means. We honored how we each contain both young and old. As Steve’s doctor reminds him, we’re not in the “young sapling stage of life”, and yet, there is a resilience, a reception as of the waves reaching and changing the shore.

It’s been a beautiful week as the planet shifts now in its reception of light. I feel refreshed and invigorated, calm and motivated, both young and old, as my individual wave connects with other waves and this whole planet we share.

A friend proposes we give ourselves time with photos and texts of and about Black people, note what comes up and how we feel. How do we embody the experience of another? How do we cultivate presence in ourselves while we take in and empathize with the experience of another? How do we reap kindness and root?

The fog is in this Monday morning where I live, and I’m grateful for the wrap as I give my heart space to open and feel a little more of the gift of each breath and the gratitude that nourishes each life as we pause to open and receive. I believe I need to give myself time for reception and absorption, and so I do.

These are complex times as we navigate opening to lives other than our own. May we be kind.

Saturday morning sunrise over San Francisco Bay

And then I stopped taking photos, and seeped in simplicity absorbing what’s written and taking place in and on my inner and outer walls. Gratitude and grace – two pillars anchoring unity and diversity in ourselves as shown in rocks.

Peace!

Posted on May 23, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Transformation

Today I learned from Writer’s Almanac that it’s World Turtle Day and we’re meant to dress either in green or as a turtle. I’m in blue today so I am choosing to be the water that supports turtles and life. Watching the ocean this week allowed me to feel even more fully how we are the ocean and the wave, and how each wave is precious especially as it curves and curls to bow and meet the ground.

Thich Nhat Hanh: Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat.

To celebration of change.

Posted on May 9, 2021May 28, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Mother’s Day

I wake and stay in bed listening to a symphony of bird song, twitterings and tweets, caws, and turkey gobbling that percolates through all my cells. It’s morning in May and we celebrate the mothering that connects us all.

This quote from an unknown source comes my way today.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try doing it the way mom told you to in the beginning.”

Perhaps there’s a way to balance that, or perhaps not, but today I remember all the women in my life, related and not, who’ve enriched, guided, brightened, opened, and paved my way. I’m grateful for celebration and honoring, a day to be with the birthing that continues to transform and unfold.

Yesterday I emailed a friend and the email returned with what augments all her emails.

I offer it here.

Five Vows From Joanna Macy and the Work that Reconnects:

I vow to myself and to each of you:

To commit myself daily to the healing of our world and the welfare of all beings.
To live on Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products, and energy I consume.
To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, the ancestors, the future generations, and my brothers and sisters of all species.
To support others in our work for the world and ask for help when I need it.
To pursue a daily practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart, and supports me in observing these vows.”

I sink into the truths of this mothered by the roots, branches, leaves, and fruits of trees.

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Focus

There’s so much going on these days and so many places to put our attention that sometimes I pause and sit in the middle, center myself in quiet and all that’s swirling and whirling in and around me. There’s nothing to do or even be.

I receive these words of Jane Hirshfield:

We cannot let our ideas blind us to our unknowing.

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Movement in May

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.

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Patience

I’ve come to a place of pause and trust, at least in this moment. May this continue as a knowing, honoring, and acknowledgment of the words of Rainer Maria Rilke.

“The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.”

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Cathy Edgett

Change

It’s one step but Derek Chauvin’s conviction of murder for killing George Floyd sends a ribbon of fresh air through us all. The world held its breath waiting to hear that murder would be punished, and now with the sentencing, it will.

Yesterday I went to Lake Lagunitas with a friend. It was the first time in over a year I was in a car with someone other than my husband, but we’re both a month out from two vaccinations and felt it was safe.

We went to the lake because there’s a bench there for my friend’s sister who passed away in an accident years ago. It’s a peaceful place, and we hoped to see a river otter or two, and possibly a beaver or two. We walked ¾ of the way around the lake and then sat waiting for what we might see, and then, right there – the magic of a little head and body as an aquatic friend swam by and into the reeds.