4.25.15 So much emerges, in these cold wind-driven days, fresh and tender and new.

4.25.15 Now its all different, as our lives meander down their own individuated paths

There is something so reassuring about being in connection with others, and hearing what it's like to be in their lives. Much like dance or a stunning book or music or stories of others lives, all of this weaves a congruence, between who we are deep inside, and who we are in the world. And transports us from our small island of looking out our eyes and our small life, into the world and lives of others.

I remember beginning to parent, and realizing the comfort in hearing what everyone else was going through. Knowing you wouldn't toss that kid out the window, but wanting to. Knowing that your kid might not sleep, but at least they didn't bite, or level whole rooms each day. It became a learned commonality that shifted the personal perspective to a larger sense of whole.

Now it's all different, and the surprises continue for us all, as our lives meander down their own individuated paths.

What health issues ramp up. The fear of loneliness, and then the growth of inner resources that enable each of us to learn how to navigate connection, and well. What we let go of with such ease, all of a sudden. What becomes important. What bounty we find ourselves filled with, from all things experienced. What our children actually think of us, when they suddenly show their cards. The profusion of quiet pleasure with long closeness. The solace of knowing the land we live upon. The neighborhood. The surprising solidity of our confidence, that grows and grows, as we find ourselves able to withstand more than we imagined we could. The startling necessity to find and keep hold of our grit, when those younger than us find discomfort in our growing ease. 

Each of us, with lives, and surprises. Differing circumstance. Some tragedies and some wonders. Disappointments, shocks, profound grace, and new strength that solidifies each day. 

And somehow managing to share with others the view from where we stand.

4.25.15 All things below

Shiva Louisa woke early today; 

so we went out into the cold April morning, 

and had a leisurely walkabout; 

as the sun crested the range, 

and spilled down upon all things below.

4.24.15 I had a hard time believing my eyes, what with the sky show going on overhead.

4.25.15 The real deal. Lessons.

When the shit hits the fan in your life, everything that was avoided ,or politely stepped around, ramps up. 
Like a wheel, spinning faster and faster, so that the alignment problems accelerate. 
Like so many many lessons, showing up on your doorstep and whamming at your front door, 
at a time when you would imagine everyone would hold on to their weird crap, and just cool out and focus on what's most important. 

But no, that's wishful thinking. 

The real deal is that everyone's weak link stuff pops up and makes all sorts of noise. Messes.

Lessons, I keep telling myself,
while I set boundaries and limits
and build the rich stuff of life. Lessons.

4.25.15 He comes running over

A new neighbor I visit each day. 

For years I saw their person live there, but now she has moved. 

Comes by to take care of this beautiful old male. 

I try not to fret about his hooves.

 A beautiful place to grow old, despite being alone now. 

So I go say hi each day, and he comes running over.

4.24.15 Racing about, careless

     Here, it is the land of many things, including some good hard pockets of conservatism. Nice to live in a land where we all get to choose; where we each get to vote and make our choices known.
     Course, this is also the land of young men with HUGE pickups, the bigger and more fitted out, why, the better. Careening down blocked off flooded roads ; and from the looks of it this morning, racing off the road last night and deep into the spring pond's mud.
      I remind myself that I was a 19, renting some small Barrio cottage in Albuquerque, with a giant yellow four-wheel-drive truck, back in the day when you had to take a running start just to get up into the monster. I had myself two Willy's Jeeps over the years, too, a delight in rain or snow or that itchiness that can overtake you and yearn for some unorthodox rides in the late afternoon.
      As I head back home after sitting with the sunrise, one enormous yellow creature billowing dark smoke ,and thundering the type of racketing muffler my own firstborn attached to slinky low fast cars, barrels past me on a hill, a curve, and off up the mountain. 
     Yeah, I remember. Racing about, careless, driven, taking no heed. Somehow, when we end up older and still here, we are taken aback with wonder. That we are one of the ones who somehow made it through.

4.24.15 Seems wrong, doesn't it? Until you realize that it's simply how life develops

      This spring we have Cowbirds at the birdfeeding table.

      While I sit quietly in the mornings, on the sofa by the big front window, and watch all the avian families still come feed as they find mates and grow small soft living eggs within their soft bellies, I watch these birds who can so easily be demonized.

      Cowbirds have normal bird lives with the exception of the way in which they lay their eggs in various neighborhood nests of others. They're just wired that way. Their eggs are cared for by others, unsuspecting or no, and when they hatch, they are genetically designed to push the other eggs or baby birds out of that nest, and be fed and grow big and strong, often bigger than the adoptive parents, while the Cowbird parents go off and do who knows what.

      Seems wrong, doesn't it? Until you realize that it's simply how life develops and grows.

      Somehow, whenever I see their beautiful black feathers with the rich brown hood, I slowly move from distaste....to imagining being them. Being born all kinds of things, right? A slug or a flea or an Eagle or a …Cowbird. 

      That song my kids sang when young shows up in my mind: "All God's children got a place in the choir. Some sing low; some sing high. Some sing outside on the telephone wire. And some just clap their hands, paws, and anything they got, now."

4.24.15 Nonetheless, there is the day that breaks wide open, the hours we are given come and then go

Up at 6, the sky outside my windows singing with pinks and blues and Magritte cloud formations. In my car, I run down the mountain to peer across the fields to the river, and stand there, greeting the brand new day.

You know, in San Miguel D'Allende, Mexico, and Martha's Vineyard, and a whole lot of other places I've lived, the populace will gather to bid goodnight to the sunset and greet the morning.      

             Here, people sit out, but there is no fusion of that sort.

             Often, as I go to stand by a brook or river or the sanctuary, I imagine what all the people in their houses alongside mine, and down the road, the towns, the state and country and earth, are doing, as the ceremonial moment approaches and then blazes,

with astounding color, or a more quiet sort of departure, and then leaves, the day does, and we are left with the night and the coming to a close of the day of our own life, in this way.

Sometimes, from my bed when I wake, or from the living room at dusk, I catch sight of the goings-on, and say to myself "Oh my, look at THAT", and then race out to stand in the back yard, listening to the Peepers far down in the outwaters, or watch the adolescent Crows, en masse, making their way back to the roost, or watch the Sparrow families emerge from their birdhouses, stretch, and peer at the early morning.

 Or perhaps young children or aching knees or dinner dishes consume people. Who knows. My own dearest one, here, does not hear the call. Possibly we all hear different things in life, the way hearing capacity differentiates between dogs and bats and birds and humans. Each caught out assuming that what they hear is all there is, which is never ever true.

Nonetheless, there is the day that breaks wide open, the hours we are given come and then go, and the day then passes into the night, with wild winds and song, or as quiet as a mouse