If I called every day, every hour before I finally arrive, would she ever remember? What perversity in me wonders this; what dense desire to control, to impose my will upon her, does this question expose?

"When will you be here?" she asks for the third time in our two-minute conversation.

"When you see me," I say, and then hear my frustration fully exposed in her silence before I correct myself again and quickly say, "Valentine's Day, Mother. You'll see me on Valentine's Day. Tuesday."

The apparent irony in my own practice of mindfulness, of working at being more fully present, in contrast with my mother's mindless presence as she's stricken with the disease of the Living Dead, doesn't make me smile. Instead, I intend to find some simple ways to bring light and space into her home while I'm visiting there----clearing away clutter, opening windows, bringing in flowers, sitting with her and listening, trying not to get hooked into her bitterness or my own impatience. I must remind myself of my intentions over and over again because I know the darkness of the reality of being there can be dense enough to blind me, heavy enough to feel like drowning.

Maybe I'll be able to tell myself "It's just another story; let it go" when I hear her distorted tales and my own versions clamoring to "correct" hers. I can take a walk when I'm no longer able to bear the feeling of being trapped in that house. I can remind myself that this could be the last time I see my mother alive.

Travel altar (with thanks to Zen Dot Studio)

In use. . . 

Walking the Land

I've discovered another place I feel safe to walk alone with Kipper: the Lake Earl Wildlife Conservation area, a five-minute drive from our house, where there are sand dunes, lakes, the ocean, and mountains on the skyline----not to mention plenty of birds (great blue herons, standing like self-important Baptist preachers in their pulpits; all manner of ducks; eagles----of those I've seen) and river otters (though I did not spot any myself).

This is also an ideal place to collect the little reeds from which a Brigid's cross can be made, as I've done---in honor of Imbolc/Candlemas.

Brigid's Cross (on top of the Tide Log, essential information for walking on beaches here, since signs warn "Never turn your back on the ocean!" because "sneaker waves" have pulled too many from their feet and to their deaths)

Lake Earl Wildlife Conservation area

And it is this walking (and sitting, and lying on) the land that is helping me to finally begin to feel more at home here. . . .

Reality

Lately I've been struggling, focused on what's wrong in my life and how I feel, but today, I awakened to this sky and felt it all spread widely like those gold and salmon clouds into a glorious sense of what's REAL, of what's hopeful, of what's possible, and despite my sensitivity to living in this small economically troubled town and of the sad history of this land (taken from the Tolowa and Yurok natives for its gold and timber), it's also quite beautiful, and I can appreciate that, too----regardless.

View this morning from our front porch

My best friend, Kipper, at Pebble Beach

The view from Pebble Beach (with a Coast Guard helicopter circling)

Marker at Pebble Beach

Paradox of Perspective

When I am off-center, wallowing in self pity, feeling bad about my life for all the reasons I think are justified (the Alzheimer's afflicted Mother, the family and old friends so far away, the husband who hates his corporate job), I look at others' immensely positive and uplifting blogs, filled with creative projects and mindful meditations about life, and I picture a scene that's become cliche----the crazed character jerking the fully-laden tablecloth from the table or making a huge swipe with an arm across a desk filled with books, pens, inks, brushes, and paper, sending them all crashing to the floor, leaving a space, a blank space.

That space will be filled. Keeping it open takes as much energy as filling it.

But I also know that the carefully constructed images and words posted here on the Interweb (as my friend likes to call it) are just that. . . . Picture Toto grasping that curtain with his teeth and pulling it away from the frenzied, jerking movements of the "Wizard."

So I must remember that I'm not alone in my struggles. Even though others' lives appear perfect in this neatly formatted place online, beyond the edges of this snapshot, REAL LIFE happens, and it ain't always pretty.

Cropped photo of mountain cloud, taken from I-5 in Oregon with traffic whizzing by

"Building the Inner Sensorium"

I was happy to have the company of my husband on the two and a half hour drive to Ashland, Oregon, yesterday to hear Jean Houston speak, a woman whose works I've not read in depth (only in online skimming or listening to short recordings) yet who piques my curiosity as someone many consider to be a "great" woman, a genius, and world traveler (who's lived and worked with Margaret Mead and many other folk, famous in their fields, including presidents and their wives). I wanted to see what it felt like to be in her presence. Besides being a benefit for a local counseling center, the drive and the views getting there are always more than worthwhile.  

Dr. Houston (who lives part of the year in Ashland, part in NYC) had just returned from speaking at the United Nations, and everyone in the audience (including Jon and I) seemed glued to her every word. Some of what she said I'd heard before (as she has a message she's trying to spread, consciousness to raise), but even so, she's a wonderful storyteller, using her melodious voice and skills at mimicry to mesmerize us. 

I don't seem to be able to get enough of storytelling, and she reminded us all of the importance of doing this (and whatever arts we participate in) face-to-face, not only to visualize our various projects (as we dream them) but also to "embody" them through all our senses in order to give them greater potential.  

A flooded Smith River

Same spot (see prior post), flooded and a different color now. . . 

Ashland Springs Hotel

Facing Fear and Finding Balance

The Smith River yesterday, from Hwy. 199

Okay. Because my absence from posting here was purposeful (as opposed to oblivious---and I've had those kinds of absences, too), my return reminds me of childhood fears of unworthiness and of facing the fact that no one is focused on the energies and rhythms of your own life as much as yourself (and rightfully so).

I am prone to becoming overwhelmed, which is easy to have happen, especially since I've been reinventing my life since having retired when I turned 55 at the end of 2008 and moving almost 2500 miles away from all family and friends. When the slate's been cleared like that, you can drown in the depth of possibility (the number of books and blogs to read, movies to watch, projects to complete, places to travel, healing to happen. . . ).

But if I can manage to be patient enough to allow the water to clear a bit around me (no mean feat for me), the reasons for continuing a practice (such as maintaining a blog) can begin to pop up around me and I find them, well, lifesaving, even.

My tendency is to set up extremes from which to find a balance between. One extreme might be losing oneself in the endlessly interesting realm of taking in information and inspiration from others online, living one's life as if projected into The Next Blog Entry, The Next Photograph to Share, THE NEXT, oblivious to what is happening NOW.

The other extreme might be living as a hermit, not focused on sharing my life but on living it.

But those are the extremes. The balance is a joyful overflow of sharing, of the beauty of writing that is tasting life twice (Anais Nin), and the clarity that can come from learning what I think by seeing what I say (E.M. Forster). And while I'm spouting some of my favorite quotes, I may as well end on a Beatles summary: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love . . . you make." Balance.

Taking In, Giving Out

The image of a spiral----and how our energetic lives so similarly lie along such lines----presented itself to me this morning as I stared at our fire after checking the e-mail I'd received since yesterday afternoon, signing onto FB to quickly scan the posts, and then looking into my favorite blogs, albeit briefly: a silent hello and hug to heart-felt friends who share themselves so freely and beautifully, yet acknowledging to myself that I could spend all my time and energy taking in what others are giving and have no time left to do what I need to do!

Which brings me to this: I am thinking that I will not be writing here for the foreseeable future, and instead will be using actual pen and page, a common resolution of mine for the past 40 years (good grief!), but which feels different now because I have the time and the will and a plan to carry it out.

It's mold-breaking time again, as I'm on the outer ring of the spiral these days, feeling free, open, and spacious (as opposed to tightly wound and wondering what's next at the dark center), ready to take the next step.

I thank those of you who have checked in on me from time to time here for caring, for reading, for commenting. You have been a warm encouraging hand for me. May I be so for you.

Driving anywhere from here is an adventure, with astounding views of nature and surprise visits from our hoofed neighbors. Yet it is my own little yard I'm appreciating now with its December nasturtiums in bloom, sunshine I can pick after the frost and bring in to a windowsill to enjoy.

How good it is to focus on feeling fine (instead of my usual intense efforts at trying to improve myself, which today I am experiencing as quite tiresome, even nagging).

May you find joy in contentment, too.

Inspiration isn't only about breathing in. . .

I met this remarkable woman at a John Fox poetry workshop I attended early this month. She's only been writing poetry for a year or so, yet look how it's set her afire (and the soprano and violinist who add their voices to the mix) as she reads from her various journals, her wonderful raw energy and love and light spilling out for others to drink in as they will. Inspiration from Abu Dhabi to San Francisco and back again! It's days like this, having received the link to this video this morning, that I love technology. Thank you, Bahareh!

Open-Ended Pondering

On this traditional day of thanksgiving, I woke to a sky and earth washed clean by recent storms, and my own body felt a similar clarity after some personal shifts in the weather. I am grateful.

And I wondered about a statement a healer used while working on me over a year ago: "You don't have to believe this for it to work, you know," she said as she held a pendulum before me and moved her hands gently, beautifully around me (before I closed my eyes to avoid being caught up in sight and my questioning mind that was eager to jump in and name it all hocus pocus), finally touching my back in a place that hasn't hurt since.

How could she know the immense effect this would have on me? How can any of us know how we affect others, sometimes simply by our mere presence?

So this morning, I noticed myself counting up all the variations of the word "healing" that have appeared in my life over the past three years, and the list continues to grow quite long, but the terms that stick with me today are those that bear the concept of one's "inner healer" (Holotropic Breathwork) and "higher power" (everything spiritual)----the idea that we are little chips off the Old Block and have exactly what we need right now; we are enough----and more than enough----if only we could accept that and become who we already are.

Wondering why some of us find these questions enticing even amid the continually dangling disbelief of others doesn't dissuade (Oh, my: say that fast five times!). Somehow it simply ups the ante and makes the risks more appealing. What are the risks? On many days, I am finding them to be a continual tugging anxiety that grows with the progress of the day, an anxiety that some might label in need of an antidepressant----i.e., the quick fix of unconsciousness or distraction our culture seems to value most----but I am discovering that my stubborn nature, the one that has always questioned "authority" (including the overarching one of culture) is enjoying tinkering with alternative responses to these feelings.

What are feelings, after all? A therapist once said that "thoughts lead to feelings," which is true, but sometimes feelings are not attached to anything we can recognize. Sometimes, it appears, feelings are more appropriately named "energy" and these energies can be swirling around us and coming from places near and far----in time and place. It is these sorts of feelings that I am curious about. Are they messengers of some sort? Prompts to get us moving in a certain direction? That seems to be the operative definition I've been using. . . and I do love exploring Mystery.

Elk dawdling in the lagoon 20 minutes from home

I'm easily overstimulated, and the Internet in its various manifestations (whether exploring infinitely creative blogs, ordering yet more books that promise to make me a much better person, Googling anything curious that comes to mind, or watching too many documentaries and other films) can quickly send me over the edge, it appears. I trudge over the sand dunes, heart beating wildly, mirages beckoning me on, and I'm still in my pajamas.

All these possibilities, yet it's raining out, and there's a fire in the fireplace, and my dear sweet dog on my lap prevents me from wanting to move.

I'll take a cue from Mauser the cat instead.

Needing to laugh, I felt a memory float belly-up like those 8-ball messages we played with as children----a memory from my daughter's childhood of one of my favorite Sesame Street vignettes, and then of one of my favorite poems by British writer Craig Raine. Hope you enjoy both!



A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
--Craig Raine, 1979

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings--

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on the ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the properites of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside --
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet, they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night, when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves --
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Compost

I remember a college teacher's definition of tragedy: the death of a beautiful woman (which, when I refreshed my memory through that scholarly tome Wikipedia, turns out to have been E.A. Poe's definition), and have often pondered (oh, why not use Poe-language?!) its truth. One thing I do believe: few of us have much sympathy or patience with dying and death----or even darkness. Just scrolling down my own sparse little entries here reminds me of how much I try to focus on the positive (though I'm not always successful).

Yet sandwiched between everything beautiful is the stink of decay, without which that beauty would not have the strength to bloom. Who wants to smell it at this stage? Few if any hands go up. After all, that person who agreed to take a whiff? She has nothing to say about it. It simply IS. . . No consolation but in sharing company in the stink.

As a fifty-something (knocking on the next decade's door in a couple of years, if you must know), I protest being pidgeon-holed because of my age, yet that glance in the mirror tells me I am (at least on looks) properly placed. It's funny how I will look at photos of people who have their age typed neatly beside them, and I compare----Oh, my! He looks like he's in his 80's, or She looks so much younger (it's the hair dye and that "Life Lift," likely)! I could work harder at cheating the judgments and gain, perhaps, ten years, but it wouldn't negate the reality.

And it's REALITY I have the hardest time with: the reality that my mother has Alzheimer's and lives over two thousand miles away, that my daughter and granddaughter are comparably distant. And I? Though I live in paradise I am often miserable because my mind is with my loved ones, whether they want me or not, and mostly they do not. (Here, my long-gone grandmother's voice resounds: "Oh, Chris, of course they want you," and I say, "No; they do not, and they have even said so.")

And so I sit in meditation for a time each day, reminding my body that the mind's stories are only a part of life (and that these stories we tell ourselves are not real), though we once lived a version of them and are now living in the moving stream of time, but even though this gains me some semblance of equanimity in my daily life, I will still break down sobbing, deeply saddened by these disconnects and overwhelmed by my own upstream-striving that seems to change very little.

Synchronicity. . . Again

In one of Stan Grof's books, I was reminded that just because you follow a string of synchronicities doesn't necessarily mean that you'll end up in Nirvana. However, I have found that following my intuition about what I will choose to do next makes for an interesting path.

At a workshop I attended this past weekend near San Francisco, we worked from a booklet of poems that John Fox had collected and copied for us, and in the few days since, I have come upon a couple of those poems again. One, here ("the road is made by walking"), and another, there (the Martha Graham quote about our individuality, our uniqueness).

How do these work together, and how do I personally make sense of this?

They are, in part, "answers" to questions that I've carried with me as long as I remember (and their asking has different phrasing, for example): Is there a path I'm supposed to be on? How do I know it's the "right" one? Do others know HOW TO LIVE and am I somehow missing the point? Does my individual voice really matter? "If a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear?"

And somehow, through this rich and complex medium that allows me to peek in on the tender, shared shards of others' lives, I experience a moment of LIGHT, in which all the once-confused and tangled lines suddenly converge and illuminate. No competition. No comparisons. No need even to understand it all.

Meeting in person one of these lights after the workshop ended became another convergence, as did another instance of meeting a playwright, David A. Moss (on a different retreat at the same location). I am driving the almost-eight-hour road back south next weekend to see the play, CRACKED CLOWN, and staying with a fellow Southerner (now grateful Californian) I met at the retreat.

Perhaps as a whole this post is simply a mish-mash of details that make no sense to anyone but me. If so, I apologize. (This post could actually be book length from all the synchronicities of the past few years.) But somehow I am energized by it all. And if nothing more, this will be a jumping-off point as a reminder to explore the ideas in more detail later.

So, if you want to open up your life, try telling the Universe (or God or Goddess or Divine Spirit or. . . ) you're willing to be an "empty vessel."

Only a week ago, Kipper and I were walking this beach almost every day, stopping to gather the light-filled jewels of agates, but all that has suddenly changed. What was a relatively peaceful bowl of ocean is off-kilter and sloshing over seastacks more regularly now as we move into the wet season, and those warm, dry pebbles we agate-hunters lolled against? They're now wet and chilled, scattered and rearranged, scooped out to sea by the persistent fingers of higher tides.

Yes. Change is the only constant.

Tractors!

Sue's post today led me here, there, and yonder----as is typical when one begins reading from this electronic thing----rather like the mental machinations of a person who's consumed too much caffeine, I think, as I sip from my cup of coffee and contemplate my need for meditation (some might say "medication"), for smoothing the sheets of my mind and tucking in the corners snuggly so nothing too crazy can crawl between with me.

I careened to Kate's blog and was blown away by her writing and photos, and then back again to, well, photos of TRACTORS on Sue's blog, which blasted me back into reminiscing. . .

I learned to drive on a tractor over forty years ago. My dad and grandfather (my mother's dad) both owned a succession of tractors over their lifetimes, and I enjoyed driving each of them, earning money as a pre-teen and teenager by mowing their Louisiana lawns (about five acres around my parent's house, and close to the same around my grandparents' and my aunt and uncle's at $5 each place), singing to my heart's content while simultaneously working on basting and browning my skin in the great oven of Louisiana summer heat. At around three hours per yard, I didn't calculate the hourly rate, only that I'd earned enough to buy three albums from my favorite record store in Baton Rouge.

Music, literature, and nature sustained me then. . . and now, though I can add to this the delights of surprise I feel in connecting with real people (mostly women these days, though) via this machine on my lap.

Agate-Hunting

Another truism: look at small rocks, and you'll find small ones; open your gaze a little to the larger ones, and voila!

Yet no matter how carefully I look for the rocks that I feel have the swirls of the Milky Way or the fine-lined layers of Earth stamped upon them in miniature, the person who comes behind me will find an agate just sitting there, as I----when I tire and stand to leave----never fail to find a beautiful stone right where I'd been (rather than in the distance I was looking).

Ahhh. . . the lessons we must continue to learn, again and again (though in different ways). I love object lessons----which are metaphorical----things I can learn through movement, through experience, through doing. Somehow they hold in my body more readily than that which I merely read (though I love reading, too).

I've been gathering a handful of strawberries every few days for the last couple of months from the one row that produced berries; unfortunately, the other didn't get quite enough sun. How strange (and glorious) it is to have fresh strawberries in late September!

Late-September Blooms

These sweet peas, picked from remnants still growing in my garden here in late September, are in memory of my dear maternal grandmother, who's no longer with us, and my own mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's. My grandmother and mother loved all things pink, and I was always a purple-lover, though as I get older my fondness for pink grows, too; after all, I am a grandmother myself.

In picking these flowers, sniffing deeply their fragrance, I am struck by the contrast of what are more typically spring flowers still blooming during this autumnal equinox, equating this scene with my own renewed feelings of hope as this wheel of year turns toward darker times.

Words and Experience

"In the West, discussion and debate are very important, especially in the context of education. This is another area where the West differs from the indigenous world. Indigenous people would prefer to preserve in its naked form the material encountered in one's experience. Experience, to indigenous people, looks like a different kind of discourse that parallels, but does not intersect, the verbal. The more intense an experience, the more likely indigenous people are to leave it in the language in which it came rather than to discuss and dissect it with words. It is almost as if discussing diminishes what is being discussed. Villagers feel that words conquer experience, dislodging experience from its rightful place of power. So unless powerful experiences and ideas are addressed poetically, or with proverbs, people don't want to take the risk of losing in a fog of words what they have struggled so hard to acquire."

--The Healing Wisdom of Africa, Malidoma Some

This is one of my favorite photos of me with my granddaughter, taken almost five years ago at our home in Louisiana. As I recall, we were out in the late afternoon hoping to see some deer on the levee, and I was enjoying hugging close the lovely sweetness of my daughter's daughter.

I've always avoided cameras and generally do not enjoy seeing myself in a photo----for many reasons. Primarily, though, I don't like the feeling of being pinned down by a photo, which in part is a feeling of being judged.

At my dentist's office yesterday, her looking at my tiny braid and saying to me, "My, your hair is so thin!" had a similar effect on me, causing me to squirm a bit and then to automatically denigrate my poor hair even further (as if I'd somehow done something wrong). When I closed the subject with a sincere statement of not really caring much and then opening my mouth for her to begin her work, I considered what else bothers me about such statements. The implication is that I do not meet some standard of "perfect hair," one promoted by corporate media in order to sell products that purport to give one such hair. This sort of standard promotes conformity, not acceptance and love of our uniqueness, which is what I choose to align myself with.

Recognizing our commonalities while appreciating our uniqueness requires continual balancing.

The Wind

In a journal I kept at 20, I copied a poem by May Swenson, one I still love:

Hearing the Wind at Night

I heard the wind coming,
transferred from tree to tree.
I heard the leaves
swish, wishing to be free

to come with the wind, yet wanting to stay
with the boughs like sleeves.
The wind was a green ghost.
Possessed of tearing breath

the body of each tree
whined, a whipping post,
then straightened and resumed
its vegetable oath.

I heard the wind going
and it went wild.
Somewhere the forest threw itself
into tantrum like a child.

I heard the trees tossing
in punishment or grief,
then sighing and soughing,
soothing themselves to sleep.

Lines from this poem frequently come to me, especially in windy weather, and sure enough, all my plans for today came to naught because Kipper and I were almost blown off the top of the long flight of stairs down to the beach and instead turned back home. . . where I made a couple of butterflies to send to the Houston Holocaust Museum via Canada (thanks to Christine, who recommended I look at HeartSongs, where I saw the project's logo), another example of the seemingly simple yet immensely complex web of associations (through The Web, of course) through which we connect to each other.

And to further illustrate this synchronicity of connectivity, today began with my realizing that writing as relationship----whether in learning more about oneself or in relating with and to others----feels so true that I don't feel compelled to argue with myself about it. . . not now, anyway. (Yes, I realize that "writing as an aspect of relationship" is a truism, but even the obvious sometimes doesn't feel true unless one can personally relate.)

People here complain about the fog, about the wind, and about being cold----year 'round. Even though we live in a natural paradise, we still feel the need to complain about. . . something, anything.

I'm remembering how I've missed the sun lately and so am taking full, everyday advantage of our (all-too-brief, I know) bout of sunny, warm (it got up to 70 at the ocean yesterday!) weather, basking on the balmy sand and pebbles at the beach, listening to waves crashing, seagulls squawking, and sea lions barking in the distance while hanging out with my constant companion, Kipper-the-dog. On this third day in a row of doing essentially the same thing, I think I will add a picnic lunch and a journal to the scene (and try harder not to temporarily lose my keys today) and allow us even more time to BE.

Clouds on Earth

"What do you call those white things in the sky?"
"Clouds."
"And when they are on Earth?"
"Fog."
"There was fog today."
"Si."
This Peruvian spoke much better English than I did Spanish.

On a foggy evening by the ocean this evening, after walking and running a bit with my short-legged companion, I stopped to sit in the relatively warm rocks to run my hands over and through them comfortingly, seeking the light of agates that may be found on our own Pebble Beach. I've been an agate hound since finding my first one as a teenager walking Louisiana river beaches. Those I've found here are much less "impressive" though no less fun to find.

Jon took this photo of one of our Louisiana agates on a bed of the newer-finds of California.

Overwhelmed

I recognize the reaction well----wanting to shut down, pull the covers over my head, disappear into dreams: I'm overwhelmed by too many choices, not too few. Though I am curious about what's going on in others' lives, as I scroll down the Facebook page to see what they have posted I feel almost as if I'm being swallowed by all the show-and-tell, and my throat constricts. Rather than causing me to want to share of myself, I want to hide. . . Why? Because I see these people----not as they picture themselves in the shared photos or in the descriptions of their activities----but as I am here, staring at the computer screen, distracted from what is real, missing relationship, suddenly feeling lonely.

I think I'll take my neighbor some flowers!

Feather Obsession

This blue jay rendition was sewn while we were on an adventure today, exploring a rocky mountain road in the Siskiyou Wilderness area near Patrick's Creek, stopping for a picnic at High Dome, breathing deeply the clear sunny air before our drive home.

One more feather (at least) to be embroidered----a golden one, of course.

More Feathers on My Mind. . .

Magic Feather Project

One link leads to another and another (thanks, Peggy!) . . . and I was inspired by Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth to embroider a feather to send. I used some batiked fine-wale corduroy (scraps from a hat I made), though of the feathers I've seen that others have made, mine's my least favorite. It illustrates a common trait of mine: trying to be different (or contrary, as my parents used to say) to see what happens.

Dead Flowers

I love flowers----all aspects of them----in the wild, grown for cutting. . . but deciding when to finally dump a vase of flowers seems so difficult for me. In part, it's because I find beauty even in their decomposition, their letting go of color, their shriveling petals----patterns of dropped ones forming colorfully textured shadows.

Those in the photograph are being staged for release to the compost pile (moving them away from where they were originally placed seems important; otherwise, as time passes, they become objects of art in themselves, important statements about ephemeral life [instead of the more obvious comment on my lackadaisical housekeeping]). These have made it to the preliminary phase, where I look at them again, drink in their more muted colors with my eyes, and finally take them outside.

How to Live?

If I had to settle on one question that's been the most persistent in my life thus far, I think wondering how to live my life----and also wanting to find out how others live theirs----has formed the common thread that's stitched me from my past to now. I'm curious about how different people spend their days, how they create meaning in their lives, yet I'm also aware that what I see and how they feel may be entirely different. That is, a photograph depicting "a day in the life" may look colorful and fascinating, but just beyond the outlines of the image may exist a hellish chaos.

For example, the movie with Clive Owen, TRUST, that I watched last night, depicts with some skill the complexity of our current culture's focus on sexualizing everything and then having to witness its effects on the innocent ones, the pre-adolescents and younger children who are tethered to their iPods (given by well-meaning [in this movie, affluent] parents who think they'll help protect their children), texting and receiving illicit photos from Internet stalkers while having dinner with their parents. The parents were oblivious to their daughter's plight, unable to prevent what we movie-watchers could see coming a mile away. A therapist later wisely reminds the father that we can't protect our children from everything but only be there to help pick them up after they've fallen (though if you watch this film, there's a moment that the father's lifestyle and job come into stark contrast with his apparent shock at what happened to his daughter, and we can only wonder what he will do to better align his ideals with his lifestyle).

Also, I must remind myself all-too-often (I'd have thought I'd have learned this, for good, by now) that no one's life is always in tune. Yet I keep looking for that perfect key that sounds most true, that sends its harmonies through my days and causes me to feel the rightness of the moment I am living now, in the present.

Of course, this kind of striving for an ideal can be a cause of depression (because we often fall short), yet having ideals seems to be essential to those of us who not only try to be fully present yet also are intent upon creating an even better tomorrow. It's a zig-zagged flight. . .

What I Was Really Thinking. . .

When I began the post yesterday----after a several-month hiatus----I was filled with a swirl of ideas to write about but settled instead on the simplicity of the title, on my need to move energy around (by making changes to the appearance of this blog, by going outside, by clearing away what had become extraneous, by opening doors).

And then this morning, when our tiny newspaper didn't show up in its usual place, after sitting quietly, staring at the fire and its uncanny anthropomorphic nibbling at the wood, I grabbed my laptop and began a little cleaning up and exploring of old bookmarked pages. In the process, I found an acquaintance's blog in which she writes of her own efforts (and seeming failure) at finding "community," and of wondering what the point of her writing a blog might be if nobody reads it. That entry was dated over a year ago, and there I was, reading it, and becoming inspired by someone whose thoughts I recognized a kinship with.

And so, these occasional words and images that we send out in cyberspace, just as our energy pulses outward, do "matter."

Consider what that phrase means: "Does writing a blog matter?" That is, does writing produce a significant substance? Of course it does, though it cannot be quantified nor set in a specific time or space, and so use of the term "matter" is wonderfully oxymoronic.

Airing Out

Having moved three years ago from the Deep South, I anticipated loving the coolness of the climate here, where the ocean keeps us----year 'round----at an average 60 degrees. In the old house we live in, we refuse to use the central heater (for various reasons, including environmental, economic, and aesthetic) and instead use a wood heater to provide a source of warmth inside. But how could I have ever believed that on August 1st, I'd build a fire to warm myself in front of?

And so, whenever the sun's out (as opposed to hiding behind our frequent low-lying clouds----also known as fog), we go outside to bask, even if it requires wearing several layers of clothing because of chilly winds.

But I must admit, I have of late found myself nostalgic for heat.

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

--Joseph Campbell

Ruminating lately on why it's so difficult to communicate to others that which is most important to ourselves, I understand that in part it's because one's perception of experience is so idiosyncratic. This is yet another paradox of our existence because we are all quite alike, in spite of our diversity, and we are all connected, in spite of our egocentric arguments to the contrary. But these statements, too, must be experienced before one can accept them as true; otherwise they sound like so much "fluff," or, as someone sarcastically said, like "all blue skies and bunnies hopping." (Sarcasm is my least favorite mode of communication; my experience of it is as a cutting off, a silencing of the other, rather like a slap in the face. Thus, between individuals, it isn't communication at all but its antithesis, though sarcasm can have its place with a broad audience.)

It may seem strange, but my own experience of the best communication that's occurred in my life was one of the most painful times, too. I won't go into too much detail here, but it occurred in a mental hospital, where those who deemed themselves "unfit for society" had retreated (or been put in retreat). Yet the communication there was the most unpretentious, the most open and nonjudgmental of any I'd ever experienced. People spoke of their feelings in spite of their societal conditioning to be hesitant and fearful of doing so. Of course, this openness was expected there (just as it's usually expected that we hide our true feelings) because such openness was touted as being an important part of healing, something we were all eager to do.

And so, my own ideas about what I relish most in the society of others continue to include open communication, acceptance of diversity of experience and ability to relate that experience, and acknowledgement that (and encouragement for) the fact that we all are on experiential healing journeys (as in "becoming whole") of one sort or another.

Communication can be so difficult, especially across many miles. What to say? When to remain silent? Trying to be uplifting can be interpreted as Pollyanna-ish, yet remaining mute seems uncaring. And regardless of its plusses, electronic communication is colder than the handwritten word with its lack of expediency.

Figuring out how to remain close to friends and relatives who live so far away is one of the greatest challenges of living here, and Facebook just doesn't seem to do it for me. . . Our furry friends manage well enough, but I'm feeling soaked, through and through.

Dark Blooms

Sideways rain and the screeching of branches against our windows, trees throwing themselves "into tantrum like a child" (as poet May Swenson says) are predominant these days, so when there's a break in the clouds and sun manages to burn through, I run outside to praise and feel gratitude for any flowers blooming, to dig a bit in the dirt, pulling out the wild onions (which my neighbor calls ramps) and encouraging my strawberries and little lettuces. A few of the violets I planted a couple of years ago are blooming, but I only took one in----as a kind of commemoration of the days many years ago in Louisiana when I'd pick thousands of wild violets (and doing so without fear of hurting them since their reproduction isn't tied to their blooms) to line my windowsills and cheer myself.

Though I no longer have the profusion of windowsill blooms, I do feel internally as if I'm blossoming, no longer focused on how I might (or might not) appear to those around me and instead feeling my way along to what I want to do next, which is leading me to Peru in May and June, another adventure I stepped into from a line of synchronicities, one important practical one being an unexpected windfall tax refund, just in time. It's true that synchronicities are not necessarily proof-positive of a favorable outcome (all flowers and no thorns), but in my experience they provide for a more meaningful journey, unfolding into Mystery.

Ships Sinking

Crescent City, where I live a little over a block from the tsunami zone (an arbitrary safety demarcation line based on the 1964 tsunami that destroyed the town) was (too) much in the news lately----mostly because the town is usually the first to receive the wrath of any resulting tsunamis from earthquakes in this half of the world.

But the status of our town is not what I wish to write about; it's how the world feels to me now very much like the images from our local harbor relay: we humans are experiencing our little boats sinking, being swallowed by forces much greater than our frail bodies can stand.

My heart grieves for Japan as they suffer, and we sense how close they are to us here as we wait to see the fate of their nuclear power plants. Just as Crescent City feels the ocean's wrath first, I'm told she will also feel the winds of fallout first if such a disaster were to occur in Japan.

Yes. We are all connected.

Drawn to Green

Sometimes I feel as if I'm itching on the inside, about to burst my seams with a kind of inexplicable energy that----if I'm lucky----pushes me outside. Today a brief burst of warm sunshine has blessed us between storms, cold and rainy here on the coast, snowy a half hour inland.

I'm grateful for the spinning rainbows in my kitchen, the iridescent rusty-orange throats of the Allen's hummingbirds feeding just outside my window, but in this restless mood, Kipper (the dog) and I took a brief walk on Crescent Beach at low tide as the wind blew my hat's brim back. We didn't last long in that cold wind, but in our walk back to the car, I spotted just the plants I'd been needing since having learned about the Irish St. Brigid in my research about Imbolc and looking up directions on "how to make a St. Brigid's cross." This was a month ago, and the green cross has been on my mind to make ever since.

Thank you little reeds and UTube. I admire the calm good humor of the lady (and her filming companion) in this video:

Basic Goodness

In preparing to attend a workshop on "Healing Bodies, Healing Fear" in Chartres, France, this past June, I was asked to bring a photograph of myself as a child, and this happened to be one I could put my hands on (my mother has others, but they're with her in Louisiana). What I like about this photograph is my open and direct stare. It reminds me of all the times I've been chastised in my life for staring, and of how much I've always liked to try to see----not just look----into things. It isn't so much an attempt to categorize or think about what I'm seeing as much as it is to actually be, in some sense, what I'm seeing. Also, the set of my mouth, slightly open, shows that I am rather absorbed in the moment, watching expectantly.

In the actual workshop, we used these photographs of ourselves as innocents in part to remind ourselves of what it is to love oneself. After all, who can look at a child (or an infant of any species), and not feel that sense of protective love. (Of course, that's why little ones are so cute since they really need this sort of protection to survive.)

For those of us who are healing from a long-time separation from our own sense of "basic goodness"----whether it's from having been raised with the religious concept of "original sin" or from other familial, societal, and cultural abuses----I recommend looking at a photograph of one's child-self and remembering that innocent "wide, wide open stare," that Joni Mitchell has sung about.

Wow.

Comparisons

Lost in comparisons, lost in the crowds, I have hidden, feeling diminished, or, conversely, quite powerfully invisible; after all, when one is not noticed, one gains a certain confidence and freedom. At times it can be equally freeing to allow yourself to hide in the crowds until a great wind comes. You can see how long it's possible to hang on and gain that perspective. Or, you can learn the slow drift of the soggy puddles.

Comfort Food

Though I noted (somewhere in my online skimming) that snow is on the ground in all states but one today, it's the fluffy white-stuff of meringue that's appealing to me now. I'd just as soon eat it all raw, but a pan usually ends up in the oven because I like to defer gratification, too.

Raw meringue (and isn't meringue a lovely word in itself, worthy of being consumed like the delicacy it describes?) is smooth and fills one's mouth rather foam-like, reminiscent of marshmallow cream, but not as sweet or sticky. In fact, the meringue recipe I use calls for 2/3rds cup sugar, but I use only 1/8 cup, so I don't feel so bad about eating it all, and it's plenty sweet enough.

Once baked, the little puffs sound rather chalk-like if you gather a few in your hands and shake them, but they are not for writing. . . Instead, place one between your teeth and enjoy the lovely sensation of their disappearance, rather like cotton candy's act, yet somehow more satisfying because the ingredients are more wholesome and you've made them yourself.

Music Calls to Me

Routine

We humans like routines, even when we think we don't.

I have fought routine my entire life, seeing it in my OCD-now-Alzheimer's-afflicted mother's life as chains around the neck.

We are ever seeking comfort, grounding, the metal teeth that fit perfectly in the grooves that turn our days. Some days we are happy with the inspiration, the beauty, the cat curled in the lap before a fire, snowflakes falling outside as we tap away at our story lines.

And some days we awaken and want to fall back asleep.

But our routines can call to us from the warm comfort of sleep: I enjoy this early-morning sitting before the fire with our animal-family, sipping my coffee, reading e-mail and our little 5-day-daily paper, wondering what I will learn or do as I pursue my current interests. . . learning the Tarot, meditating, painting, knitting, playing with all kinds of art (key word for me: "playing"), reading, writing, visiting with friends here, perhaps.

I have also learned how to use the infernal Facebook without its driving me insane, zipping through it once or twice a day (or less often if I'm not at home), much as I zip through most of our newspaper----rather like chatting internally with friends and acquaintances. On occasion, I learn something useful or even inspiring, and I am able to lightly touch upon some folk I love who live too far away. This is good routine, I suppose, yet I've never liked or been good at chatting.

But routines are meant to be broken.

Peaceful Day, Lovely Song

Sunshine!

Now that the wheel of the year is on its upward turn, opening to longer days and more light, I felt especially joyous about this rainbow's end that set down across the street from us during this rainy season here in northernmost California, when any break in the clouds (even without a rainbow) is cause for celebration.

Having gone out a couple of days ago in blustery conditions to buy new strawberry plants, I was delighted to awaken yesterday to clear skies and the urge to get the berries in the ground. Clearing away the two garden rows, trying to focus on what I was doing rather than my tendency to hurry and "get the job done," I found myself thinking about how important it is to cultivate the garden one HAS----and what that means to me.

As a younger woman, I rebelled against the idea, thinking it meant I was "settling" for the ordinary or conforming, somehow. Yet as I dug in the rich dark soil, trying to avoid chopping any earthworms in two, smoothing the surface to ensure I'd pulled away all the spindly weeds, and then digging spots to set each shiny-leaved strawberry plant, I felt the lovely security of home and was able to delight in it----in spite of my knowledge that many folk are desiring and deserving of home and do not have this pleasure, or that I, too, know that such pleasures are elusive, or even that I (quite recently) felt that I could not live here any longer after we lost our dog Fritz to some sort of poisoning.

We never identified what killed Fritz (and almost took his brother Kipper), and so our yard took on a larger-than-life, dangerous element, filled with "what ifs" and growing in my mind to be emblematic of the trouble that our entire Mother Earth is in.

Though Jon enclosed a smaller, safer segment of yard for Kipper and he's been fine in the months since his brother died, I told my husband I had to move to the country; I could no longer live here (where he delights in being able to walk to work) if I had to fear our own dog's being poisoned. However, taking some tours around the area with a real estate agent who also "bought high" around the same time we did a couple of years ago, I know that we can't really afford to sell our house and move right now (presuming someone would be on hand to buy it), good information that helped me cool my heels, and further served to remind me of the importance of being with where we are, with what we have, and making the best of it.

After all, when is anyone ever really "safe," whether at home or not? And safety isn't my goal anyway. . . . Only by taking risks, opening one's heart, and living fully is there any meaning to life. Yes, I know it's obvious, but look how easily it's forgotten, and how often we seem to need to remind ourselves of this.

Security

Having lost one of my dear animal companions recently----and almost losing both dogs----set my world on edge for a while. Add to that my increasingly regular practice of meditation while reading as much as I can about Buddhism, and one can deduce a little how I feel these days----rather as if my skin has been peeled back and a constant wind is blowing.

I exaggerate. . . a little.

What continues to bubble up are many truisms I used to take for granted as being, well, true, sayings like "Better safe than sorry," that seem now designed to imprison a person by fear, though not in any concerted way, just as a typical human tendency to seek safety, and through this continual seeking after the safe, finding that our hearts are closing more and more and that we begin to hide in the comfort of our homes, and that we begin to forget how to love. Sound like the typical American?

Another statement, that "Pain is not a punishment and pleasure is not a reward," continues to roll around in my mind but the meaning is as slippery as ever. On the one hand, it seems obvious and perfectly contradictory to how we are conditioned to believe life works. Even though many of us have argued vehemently against the idea that "pain is a punishment" (i.e., that homeless person deserves his fate because he did something bad), it's not quite as easy to argue that "pleasure is not a reward." We tend to want to believe that one.

But the most beneficial basic belief I am attempting each day to internalize is a belief in my (and all beings') basic goodness. My Southern Baptist upbringing almost beat that out of me, though some part of me always denied those precepts about exclusivity---that we are somehow "born into sin" and must make a conscious choice---One Choice---in order to be "saved."

And these are the sorts of thoughts that rush in after I've sat and meditated and labeled what pops up at that time as merely thoughts, those ephemeral visions we tend to stitch our worlds from rather than experience the real, live, world of this very moment, the one that Mauser, the cat in the photo above, does. . .