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: