1.14.15 For L.C. I Go To My Sister's House

I go to my sister’s house
for her smile, her dried flowers; for her
lovingcare all about her cottage

I find at my sister’s house the wisdom
that her paintings deserve fine frames
that her beloved vases and dishes and
tender things deserve places of honor
that her days deserve the beauty of
colors and things coming to life
in the midst of freezing winter
For she brings all to life, and love
and all about her is growing and healing

I go to my sister’s house and she offers
warm tea in sweet old teacups; velveteen
perches and sunlit walls, where the
crimson of the Cyclamen blossoms remain
week after week after week, as the
Amaryllis comes forth again and again and the
Azalea branch smiles its delight at a
mid winter’s moment to
green and blossom and shine

I go to my sister’s house to learn how
those of us not loved in essential ways slowly
become those of us who love and nurture ourselves; who
heed the call and strength of the wise woman

1.13.15 Quite Whiney Ways

Sometimes I get this newsflash… as if seeing myself from a far older self. Shaking my head, looking on fondly, saying “Look, honey. Yeah, it is all true, all the stuff you struggle with and grieve about and wish were different and then struggle again to accept. But thing is, you are using up time with your understandable, but actually quite whiney ways. 

Here is what I want to you realize. 

Wake UP. Deal with it. Everyone has their path, their circumstances, and the consequence of their choices. Yeah. Alright already. Sure, most of us become surprised. Disappointed. Brought up short. YES. Deal with it. It happens. 

And you have this choice, see? To either hunker down and say “Ok ok. My deal is living in this place, or this really not ok job, or this health disability or this trauma or this no children or this persistent pain or this no family or this no partner or this no sex or this no one-wants-my-creations or these bills or so so many other things. 

Or perennially wake up and go to bed once again being consumed by dissatisfaction, bitterness, or resentment. We all get to choose what to do with what we get handed.

And the answer to each and every one of these pinings or whines or cries, is Yes. It’s true. That’s part of what’s happening. 

Now sit up. Dry your eyes. Look around you. Get moving. And decide, with the time you have left here, what you are going to do. That matters. To you.

1.12.15 The sun rose higher as the 19 degrees hovered

We had a bit of time, a tiny bit of energy, so after dropping the benefactor off at work, we found our way to a lesser known conservation path, that most likely would be deserted of canines and humanoids on this fine January morning. We ambled out, began a nice wander over the bridge; through the woods.

There were tracks of coyote, seeking sustenance in brush piles that held the promise of torpid chipmunks mistakenly not digging down deep enough before falling into their winter's sleep. Fox tracks, slim and efficient, making their own way to drink at the waters, and then search out the minute sounds of mouse and mole and vole, for a dinner last night, or perhaps breakfast, just this morning. 

There were avid woodpeckers , their rat-a-tat-tat sounds ringing through the forest. While the snow cover muted our footsteps, the movements of others, and yet the lack of leaves enabling other noises to travel great distances. Chickadees complained in tart voices at our presence, as we wandered along the elevated trail, the morning sunlight glistening upon the rippling stream that appeared, disappeared beneath snow,and then reappeared once again.

Dante raced and leaped and drank and waded and lugged up huge old branches from beneath snow and ice; and then ran past me with the huge things in his jaws, thwacking my calves in his haste, as his delight shone. 

The sun rose higher as the 19 degrees hovered about both of us, clad in layers upon layers, he happily panting , me huffing, as I leaned upon a tree and had a small rest in the beautiful clean fresh glen.

Too soon, I knew we were done, or I was, so the pup was grabbed and our walk turned about. Layers of sunlight flickered through the tall Fir, here and then gone. Bright lights clustered along the brook, like veritable fairies, dancing, single lights so clear you cold count them. 

And I? Well I was beautifully emptied of what is not, or what has been, instead filled somehow with what was in that moment, and nothing more. As I bundled the bouncy canine kid back into the car, and we slowly made our way home.

 

1.13.15 There Are Some Things That Bear No Words

There are some things that bear no words; 
only press into you the smells and sounds 
and sparkling green of winter's water, 
venturing far within you, becoming a part of you.

1.14.15 This Is What We Do

1.13.15 "Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it."

"Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. It is all we ever have, so we might as well work with it rather than struggling against it. We might as well make it our friend and teacher, rather than our enemy." 
                                   Pema Chodron

1.12.15 Winter Musings: Relishing What We Can, and Holding Dear To That Which We Have No More

Last winter Dante and I walked around Amethyst Brook often, remarkable place of great beauty;
he then not having come into his German Shepherd genetically-predisposed fear-aggression
that makes going to dog walk places impossible now. 

And I was stronger then, somehow, than I am a year later. 

So I am doing what must needs be done, by us all 

in the midst of doing what we can to improve our lot 

and the lot of ones we love: 

learning radical acceptance. 

That yes, this is happening ; 

and yes, with all the blessed support we give and receive, 

we can manage to learn to live and breathe with that which we would not have chosen. 

So we find the way to relish what we can, and hold dear that which we have no more.