1.6.17 And then, we muscle up FB video

It was a little tiny low down day of going nowhere and rest resting the way it is sometimes for many of us, when we are too wobbly or too weak or too vulnerable to anything sudden happening , or too filled with riled up can-you-even-imagine-it pain, each with our own, on those wound up stirred up low down wiped out too much lousy days. 

So I rest rested and the world went on without me.

Because these things happen. We know they do. 

And as they approach, it's like we're watching a big dark storm cloud .
And suddenly everything looks dark and less possible . 

And it all seems to snowball or domino, they start to gather up crapola from the past . 

And you sit there saying 'Oh, I know this one. It's ok. Keep clear. The big dark cloud is gonna pass by. Hang on. Stop thinking. Let it go.'

You sit back, not actually believing what you tell yourself right now, for a minute. 

Because sometimes we have wisdom we can't quite really connect up with at the moment,but that's ok, we can just keep flying blind, holding the wisdom in our hand while we do. 

And because it feels so lousy at the moment and so impossible and the present loudness of impossibility of course begins to converge on old asleep lousinesses, and you watch, alarmed, as they start to wake up.

You settle them back down quickly, trying to believe that the pervasive dark cloud is going to pass. Holding the wisdom quietly, with some faith, in your hands.

But,what the heck, you deep breathe and let it come and watch it as you feel it,and let it go ,and try to nap ,and get bored and upset that you're not well, and that these things happen.We,each one of us,has our own concerns we grapple with, struggling to maintain perspective of some kind.

But sometimes we can keep on, making the efforts whether we are all in or not. We make the efforts, because it's more manageable to swim than to sink. Sinking is miserable and sucks and is the essence of suffering.

So we muscle up and make our efforts, and ever so slowly, the light begins to arrive ,and the big dark cloud is blown to another place, not bearing down any longer on you.

And you still are not well,and still have to let go of nice stuff, and all the being included you'd hoped for, but this is simply the way of it and no one is exempt.

Not bears or trees or ants or you.

And then, through the front window, just before bedtime, you turn to discover that finally that beautiful blazing winter sun has managed to come out.

https://www.facebook.com/gwen.mcclellan/videos/10208622718548907/

1.6.16 Unlocking ourselves FB video

I was reminded today of how, when we are feeling disappointed, not functioning the way we would like, it can quietly become so difficult to delight in the things that, in actuality, we love and enjoy. 

It can be so difficult not to become locked into a close-up view of that which we are upset with. Until, slowly, you would think the entire world turns that way.

Only it doesn't. Not really. It's just us, humans, who get thrown by something tough, and maybe tossed beneath that bus. 

Flopping about there, in the ditch, without knowing it.

We think ' Why does this seem so miserable?' We wonder 'Where did all the things I take pleasure in go?'
As we scramble, face down, in our own shadow, our own private undertow, that quickly pulls us beneath the wave, til we know not which way is up. 

But sometimes as we grow older and wiser, while we're scrambling around in the dark scrumbly gravel, we realize that it's only a ditch. That we've fallen. That we need to get up.

Which seems impossible until we put our feet upon the dirt and hands by them,to stabilize, and we brush the dust out of our eyes,and simply decide to get up. No matter how we feel. To now get somewhere better.

And even if our body isn't working so well, we can decide what we are capable of doing . 

We can choose to go journeying around our small life, reminding ourselves what the things are that delight, that mean something, from which we derive inspiration and pleasure.

And then, we watch, newly awoken, as our great expectations,no longer true, fade into the real of this moment. 

Those hopes and dreams for something more, of another time, show up,and we sadly embrace them ,and watch as they fade, as the sun shines, and then the day sets once again.

https://www.facebook.com/gwen.mcclellan/videos/10208636665657576/

1.3.17 The early beauty

Down by the farmers fields unfolded 
the intricate beauty of an early January day

1.3.17 Cold and rainy FB video

Some of my favorite days are cold and rainy and wintry. Don't ask me why. 
I don't know if it's genetics, being a MacLean McClellan and a whole bunch other stuff from wet dark cold places. 
Or growing up in New England in a pine forest. 
Or because it's just too meaninglessly easy peasy to love a warm breezy day, but tough work to stick around and discover the incandescent magnificence of a dark winter rain. By the time winter rolls around, I'm exhausted from all the brilliant green and wonderful expanding of the species and colors everywhere and all that bright hot blinding sunlight.
I do know I have always had an abiding affection for these sorts of 
quiet calm dark cold days.

https://www.facebook.com/GwenMcClellanWordsandPictures/videos/1184450601591722/

1.2.16 There it is

I don't understand how being the 
beneficiary of great kindness can be so painful. 
But there it is.

1.2.17 Inestimable beauty

Oh nature, and earth. Skies and light. 
Your inestimable beauty, never twice the same.

1.1.17 And there remains

 We are all formed and formulated in such unique ways, with nothing perfect,and often the imperfections instigating our most grievous or remarkable instincts.

Myself, there are some pathways that are smooth as butter, great and dear friends, untouched and unharmed, where I can venture out and it's smooth sailing down that dirt road or with the little photo phone or the enamored inculcated wording or any number of things. 

But what i know to be true, is the many venues and forests and pathways are not sanctioned, are left alone and stuck, unexpressed and tied off in some long dark hallway. Unheard, unfelt, unsung.

So that, now and again, those unallowed-for-now places tire of their banishment. And when this happens, I go round collecting such a manner of beautiful interesting creations others have done, that somehow in some way resonate with my own caged stuff.

The funny thing is, if we have a stuck area and we are subverting without allowing that which is part of us to come out, then the perusal of loveliness does not work and,no matter it's worth, does not help.

It serves simply as a temporary distraction from the fact that some parts of us are operational ,and some are banished.

And there remains an ache where the other expression would be.

12.31.16 Blessings to you

Off to bed early. 
Blessings upon your New Year.

12.31.16 Let us now rise up

Here we are , hoping and praying for, and working toward, and learning toward a New Year of personal love and honoring, of professional patience and wisdom and courage to act sharp as a knife. 

To our persistent efforts on behalf of Equal Rights for all, no matter the cultural amnesia or dumbing down or apathy, toward harm and hatred and discrimination and violence. 
To persisting in the insistence upon Social and Economic Justice for all.

To the consciousness of all white people being raised for and by our selves, and of our fellow white brethren, no matter their antipathy or resistance. 

To our own garnering of gentle and measured compassion toward our selves, in all things. Let us now rise up , standing upon the noble powerful shoulders of all others across this earth, who have culled hatred and reinforced freedom and justice.

Let us now rise up and do wise bright assertive things this new year.

12.31.16 Wintertime

and the land is beautiful